Third Parties Are MIA
Back in October, Nintendo announced that a significant number of third-party partners had pledged support for the Switch. This is a move that is written in permanent ink somewhere in the Console Holder’s Playbook. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all do this every time they unveil a new console. The difference is that Microsoft and Sony tend to follow through on those partnerships, whereas Nintendo doesn’t.
As of this writing, there are 29 Switch games available. It’s a decent number for a console that’s only been on the market for a month, but the library is dominated by Nintendo titles, indie releases, and smaller games from big studios. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those types of games. In fact, they can each be excellent in their own way, and there’s no question that you’ll be seeing Breath of the Wild on just about every publication’s Game of the Year list in eight months or so. But can a games console thrive without third-party AAA support? If any system can, it’s one powered by great Nintendo software, but even Nintendo’s wildly talented internal studios will be stretched thin trying to keep up Switch popularity practically all by themselves over the remainder of 2017 and beyond.
They’ll have to do just that, though, because this month’s Lego City Undercover – a port of a four-year-old game – is the closest thing Switch will get to a blockbuster third-party release until The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim gets ported over to the console later this year, when that game will be approximately six years old. The Switch needs more support, it needs it now, and it needs it to not come in the form of years-old ports.
