Why do Nintendo's new Switch IPs get called "failures"?

It's a trend I've noticed a lot with Nintendo's new concepts on Switch, whenever it doesn't do Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Smash Ultimate, or hell, Wii Sports numbers, it automatically is deemed a failure, even before official numbers and expectations come out. 1-2 Switch? Failure (sold 2.69 million), ARMS? Failure (Sold 2 million), Nintendo Labo? Failure (Sold over a million with sales increases last holiday, and just had a new kit released with decent sales)

The only exceptions to this rule are Snipperclips, which was eShop only in its original run, and Sushi Striker, a game that actually failed. 2 million is not a failure, at all. You may not like these games, but they have an audience, and are some of the Switch's best selling titles. Do people honestly think Nintendo expects everything to catch on like Splatoon or have the same audience as it? Or is it because these IP are reminiscent of the filthy Wii era, and thus, need to hold them to the impossible Wii Sports standard to justify their argument? Also if ARMS and Labo were such failures, why does Nintendo keep promoting them regularly?

Not sure if I'd qualify them as being failures, but I don't believe they're of the tier that are at all equatable to games such as BotW and Mario. Sales are not a valid metric in qualifying them in that regard either, they will not be remembered as well, and I think the answer as to why that is is fairly obvious: they are generally shallow experiences.

I never was ever interested in getting into Arms or the Nintendo Labo. This is heavily debatable, but I class IP's that don't do well in the west, usually end up doing well in Japan. That's just me though. I always felt as if the Labo was something that the Japanese audience would appreciate more over a Western audience. It's too gimmicky.

I could be totally wrong but, maybe in general..Nintendo as Japanese company, may take into consideration what the Japanese fan-base want exclusively. For example, the recently announced Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE coming to the Nintendo Switch. I don't see that doing well in the west personally. Not sure if it's a port from the Wii U or it's being released for the first time in the west.

Because anything that isn't Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon is considered a "failure" to known anti-Nintendo people or Nintendo themselves.

Seriously, sometimes Mario, Zelda and Pokemon existing is quite the bane.

Is it a failure?

I think selling 2 million is ok for a new IP.

Those games are failures because they suck.

It doesn’t matter how much a game sells if everyone agrees(who are not Nintendo fanboys) that the games suck.

The Nintendo fanboy is unable to rate games fairly, but when normal people see snipperclips, Labo and 1,2 switch, they see pure shovelware trash.

@ajstyles: Whether you like the games or not isn't the point. The point is, they do well enough both in sales and reception to be considered a success.

C'mon. LABO is a failure. No one should be defending that crap. All the worse when Nintendo kept pushing forward with it, only to watch the newest kits tank. That's as bad as defending the Playstation Classic.

Selling 1 million total kits as of February (probably at 2 million by now) isn't a failure. It's important to remember that it's a more niche product than other games, so it only needs to succeed with the audience it's intended for, which is kids who want to build stuff.

Nintendo overshipped the hell out of those kits though. They were having 30% and lower sell through. That's abysmal for Nintendo products. Especially since the Switch was on fire when it dropped. That magic didn't pass on to LABO though. It was a surprising breaking point for a lot of the fandom.

My guess is that Nintendo shipped an amount that would sell throughout a whole year, with all of the stock sold by the end of the year. They even said it met their expectations during the holiday season. Nintendo typically is upfront about the performance about projects of this scale. If something under performed, they normally come out and say it. In fact, most big companies do that, as since they're publicly traded, they need to be honest with shareholders about the commercial reception of a major project.

Perhaps you're not familiar the Microsoft way of reporting things to investors. Those people never take an L.

Saying that LABO performed to expectations is not the same as saying it's successful. Their expectations could have been super low for all we know.

I said most, not all. In any case, Nintendo's been saying Labo is being measured differently from their other games since before it even launched. It's not marketed as a major hardcore Switch release, rather a side venture to help expand the utility and appeal of the system. So long as it properly fills its niche, Nintendo considers it worth it.

Everything Nintendo does is trash so whatever. They should make games for PC where they could be properly played.

If Nintendo games are "trash", why are you desperately begging for PC ports?

because they don't and nobody says that?

Taking smaller indie like titles (yes I know they aren't) and comparing them to large established franchises isn't really a fair comparison.

@TheMisterManGuy: critics and money don’t mean anything in history bro if everyone agrees your product sucks.

Critics are threatened into giving Nintendo games high scores. Financial success? Sure they are. These “games” have about 1 month total of development time and costed Nintendo pennies to make and they sold a million. Kinda impossible to lose money.

But 1, 5, 10 years from now? NO ONE is going to be saying: “Damn, those snipperclips, arms and 1,2 switch games were freaking amazing and should have sold 20 million copies!”

@Planeforger: because all games should only be played on PC, regardless of quality. Consoles shouldn't exist since they only hold gaming back, they can't run games properly and are bad to the environment. So the only logical conclusion is to end console gaming and make everything available on PC.

Neither ARMS nor Labo performed better than in Japan than in the west proportionally.

And #FE is a port from Wii U that was released globally. You should really do at least a little research before making arguments, don't you think? Next you'll claim that Fire Emblem's popularity is mostly in Japan...

Critics are threatened to give Nintendo games High scores? If that was the case, 1-2 Switch would've had a 90+ on Metacritic.

The second paragraph shows how little you understand about game development. You can't make something on the level of ARMS or Labo in a month.

@techhog89: Okay. I think you misunderstood where I was coming from though. I was not making an argument. Just throwing my two cents in. That's why I said "I could be wrong" or "That's just me though." It's just my opinion as I think I made pretty clear. I'm not here to argue on this forum or bash games. Everyone is entitled to contribute in some way or the other.

For the record, I know nothing about Fire Emblem.

On SW failure = something I do not like.