Opinion: We’re officially in the void between Nintendo consoles

If you’re like me and watched The Game Awards, aside from the nominated games, you’ll notice a distinct lack of games for the Nintendo Switch. There was a non-zero amount of games for the Nintendo Switch for sure (you can count them on one hand), but a few of the games that were announced surely would be shoe-ins for something Nintendo, right?

A new Monster Hunter? A freaking new Mana game? They are two of Japan’s favourites and have not been announced for best-selling consoles there. A whole bunch of indies are all “coming to PC,” but there is no Switch? This isn’t port begging or complaining; these games might never come to any Nintendo platform.

But there’s a good reason for all this: we’re entering the void between Switch consoles and whatever is next.

You’re thinking, though, Nintendo’s got six months of games to come, and new Switch games are still being announced daily – the system’s not dead yet. No, it’s not dead, but the road has been paved. We were all surprised when Super Mario Bros. Wonder was announced. We all thought Nintendo were done with the Switch at that point. Then we got Princess Peach: Showtime, Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, Another Code Recollection – even Luigi’s Mansion 2 (which is seven months away).

The Switch is winding down. It’s just being masked very well until you get to something like The Game Awards.

Nintendo will announce a new console eventually; until then, we have plenty to play. Game developers and publishers, though, if they even know about the console or have access to one, can’t say a word about it – I’m sure several game developers today would have loved to have said their game is coming to a Nintendo system. Eventually, they’ll be allowed to share that. But for now, we get to sit in a leg cast in our room, watching the other kids in the pool enjoying their announcements.

Did this even need to be an article? Who knows, but don’t expect much else to be announced for the Switch in the medium term, and we’ll have to wait for whatever Nintendo does next to see what, if anything, we get out of the current batch of games in development on the successor.

There’s still plenty to enjoy in the meantime.