 Hey folks. So I wanted to talk about something that I think we all know, but maybe isn't talked about enough. And as we get into 2023, and I just did a video earlier this week where I talked about how, hey, based on sales figures and the way the charts are lining up and, you know, how Switch has been declining year over year for two straight years, that it kind of feels like we're heading into this moment where we should get some new upgraded hardware. Now, I didn't talk about game performance. Really, I didn't go into, hey, Bayonetta 3 might have some frame rate issues or, you know, this other Switch exclusive might have a problem here or there. You know, like Kirby in the Forgotten Land running at 15 frames per second in the background. But that's because if we're completely honest, what matters most are the games. And as long as we're getting amazing games, new hardware, no new hardware we're still going to play, whether or not there's a Switch Pro or Switch 2 by May 12th of next year doesn't really change the fact that I'm going to be playing Tears of the Kingdom and probably sinking hundreds of hours into that game. So that's kind of the big caveat here is that, obviously, what matters most are the games and what doesn't get talked about enough. And I think this has become more prevalent as we look at the lineup of the competition this year in PlayStation 5 and Xbox. Heck, even even through a valve steam deck in the mix is that when it comes to reasons to buy a system in terms of exclusives, Nintendo is so far ahead of everyone else that it makes all the debates about things like the Activision Blizzard acquisition and Bethesda acquisition kind of seem silly. I mean, just look at the things that we got this year that we that we already have and that we're still going to get, right? Yes, Pokemon, Scarlet and Violet still coming. So we know that, but we started the year with a major Pokemon game and Pokemon Legends Arceus like insane. We got maybe the best Kirby game of all time, exclusively Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Mario Strikers coming back, right? We got that as well. Nintendo Switch Sports. I know those might not be the most exciting titles of the year, but they're still exclusives, which give some people a reason to buy the system, Splatoon 3 massive game. Mario Plus Rabbids, Sparks of Hope. Again, another pretty massive game, Bayonetta 3. Again, another pretty massive game, at least in terms of quality experiences. And just looking at that, if you go look at the exclusive titles dropping on everyone else's platforms this year in 2022, there ain't much. The big calling card for PlayStation 5 as an example is God of War Ragnarok, which, yes, God of War Ragnarok hasn't come out yet, but it does look fantastic and it's probably going to be a game of the year contender, but that's really it. Xbox, there really wasn't anything, nothing noteworthy anyways. Now that's going to change. Obviously, you're going to have years where Sony has, you know, two, three, maybe even four big titles drop. You're going to have a year where, you know, with all these studios that Microsoft owns, that they're going to have a year that between, you know, obviously Xbox slash PC, since they release on both. That it's much, by the way, we got to stop holding this. It's Microsoft that all their games go to PC. It doesn't count as an exclusive. Are you kidding me? Microsoft Windows dominates the PC space. So can we just stop pretending that that doesn't matter? That being said, Microsoft is going to end up having a year where they've got four or five exclusives dropping, I'm sure. But the thing is, Nintendo seems to do this every single year. And they really were doing this every single year before. It was just split between two platforms, the Game Boy and Nintendo entertainment system and SNES, and then obviously Game Boy Advance and N64 and DS, GameCube, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, blah, blah. But now we're sitting here in the Switch era and we're getting all of these games on a single platform. And yeah, it's bearing out that Nintendo just releases a lot of exclusive content every single year. Not all of them are Game of the Year contenders, of course, but they are big titles, titles that perform very, very well. So it's interesting to me that I don't know if if it's something that we take for granted as Nintendo fans, because we're always, well, I'm not interested in this game. Hey, Fire Emblem Engage, a brand new massive Fire Emblem game is dropping in January, kicking off 2023 with a massive Fire Emblem game. And I don't even know that people are giving that Nintendo enough credit for that or, hey, yeah, we have a remake, a remaster of Kirby dropping in February, but then we don't even have to wait that long till Zelda. Like in the first six months of next year, we've got Zelda, a massive Zelda game and Fire Emblem. And who the heck knows what else might release in between? The I think we have reached a point where maybe even as Nintendo fans, we're not as appreciative of how good we really have it. Nintendo is not as big of a company as Microsoft. So they're not going to be making the acquisitions that they that that Microsoft makes. They're not going to be able to provide a Game Pass competitor the way that Microsoft does it anyways, because that involves having to sink and lose money. They're not as big as Sony even. Like they're just not. Sony has more money, more capital, they're a bigger company. Both of those companies obviously do more than video games. Nintendo starting to even expand in the movies and merchandise and Legos. But reality is they're bread and butter as games. And we've got a good. I don't know if we appreciate how good we have it. We often get in debates whether Nintendo needs new hardware or what do they need this or what's the next Mario game coming? Because hey, we haven't had a brand new Mario game since 2017. We haven't had a brand new Mario Kart since 2014. And this is all true. It's all true. But we've also gotten two new Splatoon games in that time, right? Two brand new Splatoon games, a brand new Animal Crossing took eight years, by the way, to get that new Animal Crossing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Oh, we haven't had a new Zelo. We did get a link. So we're getting remastered. We did get some Zelda spin-offs like Age of Calamity. So it's not like we weren't getting anything Zelda. Just like it's not like we're not getting anything Mario. We just had Sparks of Hope. Literally, it's called Mario plus Rabbids. Mario is the first part of the title. Still, still deals with Mario, does it not? Let alone the paper Mario drops and everything like, man, we have it so good. So I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate how good we really have it. This Switch generation in particular, now that everything's on one system, you can complain about the resolutions, the frame rates. You can complain that, you know, the franchises you care most about aren't just being shoved out the door like, oh, my gosh, we're not getting 17 brand new Zelda games. Oh, let's get angry because Metroid Prime remaster doesn't come out. Or Metroid Prime 4 had its development rebooted. So let's get mad. It's not here. Or, man, oh, man, oh, man, let's take it even longer for Tears of the Kingdom than it did rather a little while. What's wrong with you, Nintendo? Oh, forget that. The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess HD. Oh, people have been telling us this is coming forever. Let's get angry. Let's get upset. Let's yell at Jeff Grubb and everyone else who's been saying these games are coming, Nate, you are part of the problem. But what problem are we really talking about? The problem of too many games? Raise your hand. Put a hand emoji up and down in the comment section. If you have a back catalogue of Switch exclusives, you haven't even played yet. Haven't even beat, haven't even started, but you have them. They're on your system digitally. You own a physical copy. How many of you have a back catalog of Switch exclusives? I mean, we have them all across the spectrum. Cadence of Hyrule, Switch exclusive, right? Indies, we got exclusive indie games. Sports story is supposed to come at some point. We had golf story before. And when we say, oh, you're well, yeah, well, I care more about third party games. Well, what the hell are you doing on Switch in the first place? Nintendo has not been a haven for third party, triple A, multi-platform games in forever. And despite that, we still got some goods coming. We are less than two weeks away from Sonic Frontiers dropping on Switch. Is it going to be a good version of the game? I don't know. Is the game going to be any good? Again, I don't know. Haven't gone hands on with it. But it's a major third party game. It's going to be natively on the system. It's not cloud based. Heck, even cloud gaming that gets sort of some flack on Switch. I was actually a cloud version of a game that came out recently that sort of proved, hey, this can be done right. Resident Evil Village Cloud. I know you guys don't want to hear this, but Resident Evil Village Cloud version on Switch. Actually runs pretty well. It might be the best cloud game on Switch. It runs well. It looks fantastic. I don't know what they did. I don't know what server, internet, ISP, magic, Capcom pulled. But Resident Evil Village Cloud. Maybe it's because of the experience they had Resident Evil 7 out in Japan because they had a cloud version in Japan back in 2017. So maybe because they've already had experience with it on Switch, they were able to do it even better this time around. But Resident Evil Village Cloud that people gave a lot of flack in that last Nintendo Direct, you know what? It actually runs pretty well and you don't have to believe me. You don't even have to believe you. There's reviews of it out there now. And the reviews state actually is kind of a kind of impressive. Why can't why can't the Kingdom Hearts games run this way? Why can't all the cloud games run like this? What is Capcom doing that the others are not? So, I mean, even that give a little credit is making some advancements. Not that I see that as a future that I'm highly interested in. But the point is that we have it good. We have it better than most. We might not have Elden Ring and that sucks. We're not going to get the next, you know, Elder Scrolls game most likely. They'll keep that exclusive to Xbox and PC. And yeah, that sucks. We may or may not get called due to you in the future. I have no idea. And that sucks. But what we do get is more exclusive content year over year over year over year. Then basically any other system. Nintendo is living proof. Now that they have everything on one system, that they have so many games, whether it's partnered, self-developed, whatever, so many games, so many. We got Pick Before coming next year. So many games and IPs. That I think we take it for granted. I understand you might only like Mario, you might only like Pokemon, you might only like Zelda. So I understand that there are likes and dislikes and different things you're interested in. But as someone that's grown up with Nintendo and enjoys almost every game they put out, I even had fun with Nintendo Switch sports, believe it or not. I find myself pretty cheery almost all the time. Every time I grab my switch, there's something for me to play that's new this year that I haven't beat yet. There's something exciting going on. And right as I start getting excited about diving back into Splatoon 3 today, all of a sudden I remember we have Pokemon, Scarlet, Violet coming and Sonic Frontiers and Band of the Three just dropped today, too. Whoa. Beat Sparks of Hope, cool, but I didn't 100% of yet. So I'll eventually go back into that as well. Man, we got it good. So I want to take this moment to say thank you, Nintendo. And to see what you guys think about this, do you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Let me know down in the comments. I am Nathaniel Robeljans from Nintendo Prime. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.