We hear a lot about Nintendo’s lack of first party Switch games this year. But is it any different and worse than the console’s previous years? Well, not really. At least not much.
We indeed hear more about remakes than original new titles this year, but we need to address the reality of Switch’s life coming to an end. Most likely at the beginning of 2025. Yet we still got Princess Peach: Showtime! last March, which is a great addition to the console’s roster. Hopefully, it won’t be the last new first party title for the Nintendo Switch.
Let’s look at the numbers. In short. This year’s first quarter is very similar to previous years. Here’s how it looked in previous years:
| Year | First party game releases | Games released before may |
| 2017 | 11 | 3 |
| 2018 | 16 | 6 |
| 2019 | 14 | 3 |
| 2020 | 9 | 3 |
| 2021 | 15 | 5 |
| 2022 | 10 | 3 |
| 2023 | 13 | 5 |
| 2024 | – | 3 |
We clearly see that the numbers this year are very similar to previous ones. With that in mind, I hope to see plenty more of Switch releases by the end of this year.
2024 Games and announcements so far
This year’s first party releases were kicked off with Mario vs. Donkey Kong, which was a lovely remake of a Game Boy Advance classic game. The game got good reviews and was a nice addition to the Nintendo Switch. Nothing earth shattering.
Lately, we got Princess Peach: Showtime! A new original release, which gave us a new adventure starring The Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. This game was a nice surprise. Before it, we only got one game where Peach was the main character, which was Super Princess Peach released on the Nintendo DS.
Next in line are another two remakes, which will be Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While these titles are in fact remakes and not new games, they both are beloved classics and I’m looking forward to playing both of them. Especially since I haven’t played this Paper Mario originally on the Game Cube.
Only remakes
I heard many people concerned with the lack of original new games coming to the Switch this year, but let’s not forget the year is not over yet. I’m confident we will see a few more exciting first party releases by the end of it.
I’m also sure many games we will see in the future are already developed for the next Nintendo console. Most likely we will at least get the announcement of this new system by the end of this year, so let’s enjoy what we have left for the Nintendo Switch and hope for some more cool games for this and the next console.
