Why is Nintendo only releasing old games?

In the latest Nintendo Direct, aired on the 14th of September, Nintendo announced a wide variety of games coming to the Switch over the coming months. While there were a handful of new games announced, there were also a lot of announcements of older games being re-released. See the Nintendo Direct here.

Nintendo Switch has already seen a lot of re-releases and remasters through its six-and-a-half-year-long life cycle. So why is it that Nintendo keeps on forcing these old titles down our throats? And why does it feel like old titles are coming out more frequently on the Switch?

The September Nintendo Direct

The following announcements from the September Direct are games older than five years, being re-released on the Switch:

• Mario vs. Donkey Kong – Originally released on Game Boy Advance 2004.
• Super Mario RPG – Originally released on SNES 1996.
• Another Code: Recollection – Two games originally released on Nintendo DS (2004) and Wii (2009).
• Tomb Raider I-III Remastered – The first game originally released on Sega Saturn in 1996.
• Luigis Mansion 2 HD – Originally released on Nintendo 3DS 2013.
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – Originally released on GameCube 2004.

In addition, Nintendo shadow-dropped the long-awaited F-Zero 99. A new online Battle Royal game based upon the original F-Zero released on SNES and Super Famicom in 1990.

Nintendo also announced a new Contra game called Contra: Operation Galuga. To some younger people, this title may not say much, but Contra was originally released as a coin-operated arcade game in 1987, and on NES and Famicom in 1988. Contra: Operation Galuga seems to try to preserve the original gameplay and art style.

So that leaves us with eight total announcements in one Direct that are based on nostalgia alone. If we would look back at all the other Directs this year, we probably would find even more titles being picked up again to the Switch. For example: Metroid Prime, Advance Wars, Baten Kaitos, and more.

Is Nintendo becoming a nostalgia-based company?

Nostalgia-marketing is a marketing strategy that is based upon, yeah you guessed it, nostalgia! By provoking positive memories of something associated with a product, the potential consumer creates an emotional connection to it. Obviously, the more positive emotional connection a potential customer has for a product, the more likely he/she is going to buy that product.

Nintendo is very well aware of this marketing strategy and probably also very aware of their own user base. By identifying what type of games makes their user base feel nostalgic, they can plan their games accordingly.

This marketing strategy is very powerful if executed in the right way and it is used by many companies, not just by Nintendo. It is also why companies re-release old titles years after their original release.

Nintendo does however have one major advantage to this strategy that many other game companies do not have: their own legacy. Nintendo has been around making video games for a very long time and therefore has a large variety of old games, ready to be picked up again and reimagined on new hardware.

Why is Nintendo re-releasing old games now?

Let’s face it, the Switch is getting old, and Nintendo knows it. At least they must be at this point. A large quantity of people in their development teams are probably knee-deep into the development of new, fresh-looking games, planned to release on their next-generation console (rumored Switch 2).

Releasing old titles and remasters at the end of a console life-cycle is, therefore, a clever way to keep the consumers busy with older content, while the bigger development teams can focus on new games for the next console in line. A win-win situation!

Keep in mind though, that this is purely speculative, and could be very wrong by all means. But if not, then that means the next-generation Switch is not so far gone.

So no, Nintendo is most likely not planning to become a nostalgia-based company. The reason why we see all these re-releases coming out now is probably the start of Nintendo’s plan to slowly phase out the Switch and redirect the focus to their next-generation console.

Funny enough, some people also think that Nintendo needs to release even more of their older games due to the popularity of emulating their games. Nintendo’s view on emulators has always been rigorous and unforgiving, and some may think that is a solid reason why they should release these games to their current generation consoles instead of dealing with difficult and time-consuming lawsuits.

However, we are not going to go into that territory right now since it is kind of a taboo subject. I guess I’ll go boot up some games on my Nintendo 64 instead.