Nintendo’s been getting some well-deserved flak for its release lineup in the last year and for what is currently looking like slim pickings for the rest of this year. 2020 saw the release of a handful of major titles, the most notable being Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was directly responsible for causing a massive influx of new Switch owners. But other than Paper Mario: The Origami King and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Nintendo’s other first-party releases last year included a number of ports of existing games, including Pikmin 3 Deluxe and Super Mario 3D All-Stars. One of their only other brand new titles, the digital-only Super Mario Bros. 35, was a short-lived game that only saw the light of day for five months as part of the Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary celebration.
The start of 2021 hasn’t been a strong showing of first-party Nintendo titles either, as the only releases have been Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (a combo of a port and new content) and New Pokémon Snap. Mario Golf: Super Rush is slated for a June release, while the port of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is coming in July and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are expected towards the end of the year, but Nintendo is relying heavily on third-party support to fill the glaring gaps in its release schedule.

While the answers to these questions aren’t clear, it’s possible they may be coming sometime soon. Late last week, Nintendo of Japan published a Q&A with President Shuntaro Furukawa on the company’s financial results briefing for the fiscal year ended March 2021. When asked what the current scale of active Switch users is, Furukawa addressed the question but also went on to make the following comment:
“Many new software titles will be released this fiscal year, starting in the first quarter, which we think will help continuously expand the range of consumers who play Nintendo Switch to include those who haven’t played Nintendo Switch in a while or are completely new users.”
“Many” is subjective and also doesn’t specify whether Furukawa is referring specifically to first-party titles, though it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume as much given the topic of discussion. We’re already in the middle part of May and E3 is coming up next month, so if Nintendo has any major announcements up its sleeve it’d make sense for them to happen during E3. But the company has a lot of ground it needs to cover to start giving players more confidence that it’s not merely riding the waves of previous successes and relying on ports of Wii U titles to fill the Switch library between third-party releases.
What announcements do you hope to hear from Nintendo at E3 2021 or sometime in the near future? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Nintendo of Japan