Nintendo is running out of Switch Online games
Last year, we shook our magic 8-ball and put together a list of games that we wanted to see Nintendo add to the Nintendo 64 app for Nintendo Switch Online: Expansion Pack members and we even got some right.
But while that was a list of what we wanted, Nintendo have been coy with their release schedule, some of the promised games are out now and others have yet to release. Recently Nintendo cleared out their ‘to be added’ list for the Game Boy when they added both The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Pokémon Trading Card Game. That means we now only have a few Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 64 games marked as future releases, as a reminder, here are titles.
Game Boy Advance
- Golden Sun
- Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
- F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
Nintendo 64
- 1080 Snowboarding
- Excitebike 64
- Mario Party 3
Now it is entirely possible that Nintendo is holding some of those games for September, which is the anniversary of the Nintendo Switch Online service, in order to make sure people resub for another year, but who knows.
The bigger problem though is that Nintendo has slowed down its out put considerably. When the service first launched, it was just Nintendo Entertainment System and in the first 12 months, they added 48 games to that app. When Super Nintendo Entertainment System was added in 2019, within its first 12 months 32 games were added.
That means, that we averaged one new NES title a week and one every 1.5 weeks for the SNES, which are fairly decent rates. Since then though, the numbers do not look so good, in fact in the second year of the NES only 6 titles were added. Just to be clear, I am not counting any SP releases, just new additions to the service. So we go from roughly one game a week to one game every 2 months. The SNES didn’t fair much better, though they added more games, with 11 titles added in their second year, the cadence of releases just wasn’t what it was in year one.
From September 2020 until October 2021, when the Nintendo 64 and Mega Drive apps were added, Nintendo graced us with 21 titles across both NES and SNES, which is not a lot. When the N64 and MD were added, we got a massive injection of new games, assuming you upgraded to the new tier. On October 25th, the Nintendo 64 app got 9 titles and the Mega Drive app got 14, which considering the size of some of those games is a great value add.
Since the first wave of Nintendo 64 games, Nintendo have added 15, the first coming in December 2021, that means we have seen one game every 5 weeks, on average. The cadence is skewed a little though, as Nintendo missed a few months and in one instance, they released 2 games in one month, but as an average it was a decent release rate. For those Mega Drive fans, their were an additional 30 games in the same period added, which means we have an average release rate of 1 game every 2.5 weeks, or double that of the N64.
You might be wondering, what does all this mean? Well given the output that Nintendo has, things are not looking great for the service, as its mostly Nintendo developed or published titles, outside of the Sega Mega Drive app.
Let us look at it like this, the below list is the number of days since the service started delivering games on that platform, until the date of their last game. Which means that we have gotten a new game on average, every so many days.
NES
- First Date: September 19th, 2018
- Days active: 1720 – last game added June 5th, 2023
- New release: every 26 days
SNES
- First Date: September 5th, 2019
- Days active: 1287 – last game added March 15th, 2023
- New release: every 23 days
Nintendo 64
- First Date: October 25th, 2021
- Days active: 653 – last game added August 9th, 2023
- New release: every 27 days
Sega Mega Drive
- First Date: October 25th, 2021
- Days active: 610 – last game added June 27th, 2023
- New release: every 14 days
Game Boy
- First Date: February 8th, 2023
- Days active: 182 – last game added August 9th, 2023
- New release: every 11 days
Game Boy Advance
- First Date: February 8th, 2023
- Days active: 135 – last game added June 23rd, 2023
- New release: every 12 days
When you look at numbers like that, things look somewhat decent, the problem is that the release rate is slowing down, to almost molasses speed. For the NES, Nintendo were adding 3 or 4 games at a time, now its 1 every few months, the SNES was getting 3 games on average, but between July 2022 and now, we have had 1 game added and that was in March 2023.
Almost all the games we have gotten are those created by Nintendo or Sega and they are running out. Given the slowdown of the older systems, one could make the argument that it has reached its end point already. Now Nintendo could strike a deal with other companies to start releasing their games, maybe Square Enix will let Nintendo add the Final Fantasy games to the service, but that is unlikely.
Most companies these days are either selling their older games in collections, look at the Castlevania Collection series or the any number of Capcom collections and if they are not, then they are doing what Square Enix are doing and releasing them piecemeal on the eShop.
Given the slowdown and the lack of potential games, Nintendo need to address this issue. Now yes we are still waiting on games for both the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance apps, but those will only be of value to the players who want them.
Once those games are done, we are back in the darkness, waiting on Nintendo to randomly push out new titles whenever they get the desire to do so. The top selling games on each platform are either already added, or still to come and the ones that are not are either licenced like Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for Nintendo 64 or collections like Namco Museum for Game Boy Advance.
With September and the anniversary of Nintendo Switch Online quickly approaching, Nintendo could surprise us with more games, or even a new platform, but we will just have to wait and see. But what say you? Are you happy with the games output that Nintendo is offering its members?
