 I'm not really worried about the future of Nintendo, like some people are. People are worried, hey, if Nintendo rides out Switch for a couple of years and we don't get a next-gen successor until 2025, oh no, what are we gonna do? The games might run at some 1080p at some 30fps in 2023 and 2024. This is unacceptable. But let's actually think about reality for a moment. It's so unacceptable that Nintendo Switch was the number one selling platform in 2022. You don't gotta believe me. That's literally the sales figures. The Switch was so terrible that despite Scarlett and Violet having clearly inexcusable performance issues, it's the fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time. It's so unacceptable that Fire Emblem Engages on Pace to possibly become the best-selling Fire Emblem game of all time. It's so impossible. Then maybe people just don't care as much as you might think. You see, we have a direct coming up here in February. Highly likely. We've had some leaked stuff for pre-order data from the eShop now that's really pushing us towards the fact that we're gonna have a Nintendo Direct in February. Maybe even as soon as next week we'll see. That would be the earliest in February. I believe a direct will have ever happened. If it does happen next week, I still sort of lean towards the 15th. But you know what, either way, February seems like an obvious direct date. We gotta get information in advance towards one-plus-two-review camp. It's gonna be a shadow drop or they're gonna give us time to pre-order it. Pre-order, digital pre-orders in for Tears of the Kingdom. Gotta worry about that. We have Kirby coming up. We got Bayonetta, Pikmin 4, and who knows what else Nintendo has in the pipeline. Well, I just find myself entirely enthralled at this idea that no matter what Nintendo does, that they're in trouble. And I don't get it. Nintendo has been stated to be in trouble by so many fans, so many times, that it's almost becoming a joke. And not the funny ha ha kind. Now before we dive deeper into this, I want to remind you about the sponsor of today's channel, Ewin Racing. When it comes to buying a gaming office chair, don't just trust anyone. Trust Ewin Racing, who has a chair just the right size for you. Trust me, one size doesn't fit all. You can relate to this guy right there. That's why Ewin Racing offers five different size chairs, so you can get the exact fit to your height and weight. Don't settle for your local pick-up it's free, or Facebook Marketplace lightly used chairs. Well, thanks to Discount Code Nintendo Prime, you can take a chair from Ewin Racing that's over $200, and get it for just $183. Whoa! Is that still a bit steep for your wallet today? Well, thanks to Klarna and Afterpay, you can split your payment for your chair into four payments over four months, completely interest-free. No credit check required. That way, you can get your much needed chair today. So what are you waiting for? Get your chair to complete your gaming setup right now. Just be sure to use Code Nintendo Prime at checkout to get your 20% off. Link will be in the description or the additional text attached to this video. So what are we talking about here? It's hard to go anywhere online as a Nintendo fan and not see Nintendo and the Switch get laughed at. Whether you're seeing things like, oh, Nintendo's for kids, or I'll go to a local, you know, place with a bunch of video games, right? Like a Comic-Con or something. And when I mention I play Switch, you're like, oh, what do you play? Zelda? Play this? Sure, I do. I also play Fire Emblem. Also, yeah, I was playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and I loved Kirby last year. One of my favorite games to come on. Oh, man, you're playing that kitty console. Why aren't you on PlayStation 5? Why aren't you on Xbox Series X? I mean, I am, but I still play Switch more than all of them. You see, it's funny watching the hate coming for Nintendo. I remember when I was a kid and we were on the playground debating the Sega Genesis versus the Super Nintendo and then eventually the Dreamcast versus the N64 and Gamecube and all this stuff going on the PlayStation 2. And all these debates would rage and more and more and more, I kept hearing Nintendo is doomed. Nintendo is doomed is a cyclical statement that has really engulfed the video game industry for 25 years as people who have moved away from Nintendo or who have never played Nintendo, who think graphics are the be all end all or the final fantasies or the last of us or the halo infinites and everything in between. They think that these games are just such a bigger deal in comparison to Nintendo that Nintendo has to be doomed. How can Nintendo be so successful still in 2023 when all they do is use old technology and rely heavily on their own IP and they don't get all the big third party games? And what's interesting is Nintendo is like Apple in that they've created a sort of self sufficient ecosystem and the Switch is actually the proving grounds for it because the Switch is the first platform in Nintendo history where all of Nintendo's development efforts and even money investments are going into a single platform which means Nintendo is releasing more games than ever before for one platform, 131 exclusive games and counting. That's insane and no, Nintendo didn't internally develop all those games or even a majority of those games but that's besides the point. It's not about if they're developing them then internally it's all about where they are putting their money, what are they publishing, what third parties are they getting and in what way are those third parties coming on? Sure we might not have final fantasy but we had timed exclusivity for Octopath Traveler. We have exclusive game from Square Enix and Live Alive. Like this is one of these situations where Nintendo is so self sufficient they have actually proven that they don't need AAA multi-platform support. Kind of in the way that Apple doesn't need the customization and other features of Android to be popular because their own applications are so good that they don't need anybody else. This is what's happened to Nintendo and like Apple there is a bit of jealousy out there, a bit of misunderstanding of how can a platform like Switch, how can a company like Nintendo rely on Mario and Zelda and Pokemon and Pikmin and Advance Wars and obviously Animal Crossing and Mario Kart? How can a company be that self-reliant and exist? And it's really because of the fervor of their IP. Let's think about this for a moment. How many PlayStation theme parks exist? Xbox theme parks? Now here's just saying what about PC gaming? How about Steam Valve theme parks? Right, Nintendo just opened their second, they're about to open their third. Nintendo might not be exclusive with their merchandise and we've seen Halo and other LEGO sets and all this stuff, but what Nintendo is is very brand forward. They're Apple, they're Disney of the video game space. They create iconic franchises and you might go, they used to create iconic franchises, right? Mario, Zelda, Metroid, all these characters are ancient, even Pokemon, Ash, Ketchum, Pikachu, ancient characters. Splatoon originally came out in 2014. That's a new iconic franchise made just eight years ago. Animal Crossing cropped up on the GameCube. That wasn't some ancient IP. Look, Nintendo still makes brand new iconic characters and iconic IP just more slowly than they once did, right? When they were starting out, they had to create a bunch of new momentum. They had to create your Donkey Kong, your Zelda's, your Mario's, your Metroids. They had to do that coming out because they were just breaking into the industry. But now that they've been here and those IPs have maintained Metroid Dread, best-selling Metroid of all time, Mario Odyssey, the best-selling 3D Mario of all time, Breath of the Wild, the best-selling Zelda game of all time, Animal Crossing, New Horizons, the best-selling Animal Crossing of all times, Pokemon, Scotland Violet, the fastest selling Nintendo game ever, let alone Pokemon. Those IPs are as relevant as they've ever been, maybe more so in some cases. And on top of that, they continue to add new IPs here and there. They take shots in the dark. For every time that you see a shot at Splatoon, there's things like Codename Steam that ended up not taking off, right? So Nintendo takes shots with new IPs like ARMS that maybe, you know what, maybe we never see in ARMS again, which would be sad since ARMS actually ended up selling pretty well. The reality is that Nintendo is a self-sufficient company and that really bothers a lot of people. They don't want Nintendo to be self-sufficient. They want Nintendo to be a PS5. I mean, that's just to be real. A lot of people imagine the world where Nintendo games are third-party and are on other platforms, but Nintendo doesn't imagine that world. Nintendo focuses on the worlds they make for their hardware. So as much as we might rag on Nintendo and want them to improve, as much as we might rag on, oh, this Nintendo Direct sucked. It didn't have any. It was full of farming sims. Where was our big third-party stuff? None of that stuff is really the success story for Nintendo over the years. Sure, there's been like way back in the day where third-party games were pretty big on Nintendo, but unlike Sony, like Sony is so worried about multi-platform AAA third-party support, they are fighting against Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard. You think Nintendo's even sweating it, even if Phil Spencer didn't dedicate 10 years of Call of Duty to Switch, we haven't had any Call of Duty on Switch. Do you think Nintendo's sweating if Activision Blizzard games never appear on Nintendo systems again? It doesn't bother them. They don't view acquisitions like that as anti-competitive because they've proven that you don't need those companies to be successful as both platform holders and game makers. So look, we can all sit back and laugh and cheer at all this. We hear that Nintendo and the Switch and everything is doomed for the 10 million time as the sales continue to soar during arguably Nintendo's best generation of hardware ever made, at least in terms of sales. I just think that we forget, or at least the rest of the gaming world forgets, that while Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are competing against each other, and I guess not with Steam Deck, you can argue Valve's trying to compete as well. Nintendo is the only one of all those companies that they don't need nobody else, and they can make enough games yearly, yearly to not need them. Think about it like this, over 20 exclusive games dropped on Switch last year. Name one other platform that had that happen. Okay, you can just say PC in general, right? The PC has a bunch of indie games that come out exclusive all the damn time, right? So there you go, Touche, but Sony and Microsoft ain't touching it. Nintendo ain't need nobody else, because what they got going on is awesome, and that means whatever they have going on next, whatever platform it is, whatever hardware they put in it, even if that hardware ends up being another two, three years old technology, but Nintendo's going to do with it, it's going to be pretty awesome. Heck, I honestly think when Tears of the Kingdom comes out this year, a lot of people are going to be like, wait, Switch did what? How does this look like this on Switch? Did Switch get a hardware upgrade that we're not aware of? Did they unlock the clocks for this game? Did they start running the Tegra X1 at stocks to make Tears of the Kingdom look as good as it does? No, no, Nintendo's just developing new software development tricks to make their games look even better on lower power hardware, and Nintendo just knows best how to make games for their hardware. So take that for what you will, guys. Let me know your thoughts on this down in the comments below. Remember, Nintendo's doomed again in 2023 because Nintendo's always doomed. Catch you guys in the next video.