A resurgent Nintendo still has questions to answer at E3

[Administrator]

As a longtime console war correspondent, one of my maxims is "never rule out Nintendo". Another is "it only takes one game". Looking at the strong launch of Nintendo Switch, I feel both vindicated and embarrassed. Vindicated, because Switch is Nintendo's fastest-selling console ever in both the US and Europe, shipping almost three million consoles in a month, and proving that Nintendo's innovative third-way approach to video game hardware design can still work wonders when it turns up something that customers understand and want.
Its success was also inextricably linked to that of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an undisputed modern classic which I think must be the most critically acclaimed game of my professional lifetime. Through some statistical quirk, its Switch version had an attach rate of over 100% after one month. And they said the era of the killer app was over.
So why embarrassed? Because I should probably have paid more heed to my own maxims when I made my overly pessimistic analysis of the console's chances at the start of the year. Come launch, I was more sanguine but still cautious, worried that the hardware issues and basic firmware pointed to Nintendo rushing Switch to market before it was really ready - even if I was ready to concede that it had nailed its home-console-on-the-move concept. Now, with consoles in constant demand, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe selling well and buzz building around the first proper first-party Switch exclusive, Arms, I feel sheepish about my over-caution, although I couldn't be more delighted to be wrong.
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