Nintendo is seeing an incredible amount of success with the Switch, which recently outsold the SNES with over fifty million units shipped around the world. The Switch still has a ways to go before it outsells the biggest Nintendo home console of all time - the Nintendo Wii.
The Wii sold over a hundred million units around the world and most of those sales can be attributed to Wii Sports. A lot of people scoffed at the WiiMote and its motion control gimmick when Nintendo first showed off the Wii, but Nintendo was the one laughing in the end when people lined up to buy the system around the world. Wii Sports introduced people who might never have played a video game to gaming, which is why so many people still play it, even though it's locked to a standard definition system. The question now is whether Nintendo will revive the Wii Sports franchise on the Switch and if the company will use the lessons picked up from the recent success of Ring-Fit Adventure?
Nintendo Drastically Underestimated The Demand For Ring-Fit Adventure
Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus are two of the best-selling video games of all time, which is especially impressive when you consider that they required the Balance Board peripheral. Nintendo seemingly abandoned the exergaming (yes, that's a thing) genre during the Wii U era, but decided to revive the idea with Ring-Fit Adventure on the Switch.
Like Wii Fit, Ring-Fit Adventure requires a peripheral to function, but it has been a surprise hit for the company. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa had to apologize in a shareholders meeting, as the company couldn't keep up with the demand for the game in East Asia. Ring-Fit Adventure has sold over two million copies to date.
If Nintendo can see a surge of interest with an expanded version of Wii Fit, then the time might have arrived for another classic game to be reborn on the Switch - Wii Sports.
Wii Sports Is The Best-Selling Nintendo Game Of All Time (Due To Being A Pack-In Game)
To say Wii Sports sold the Nintendo Wii is an understatement. In terms of sales, Wii Sports is the fourth best-selling video game of all time and is the best-selling Nintendo game on the list. There are some who dispute this number, as Wii Sports was a pack-in game, but there is no denying that most people bought a Wii just for that one game.
The Nintendo Switch doesn't have the motion control gimmick of the Wii that helped it to ship so many units, but there are still people around the world who love Wii Sports and still use their Wii because of it. There is a huge market for this game, so long as Nintendo doesn't repeat the mistakes of the Wii U era.
The Wii Sports Revival On Wii U Failed Because No One Had The System & It Was The Same Game
In 2013, Nintendo released Wii Sports Club for the Nintendo Wii U. It included HD remakes of the original Wii Sports game, but it also had online multiplayer. The problem with Wii Sports Club was that it required a Wii MotionPlus for each player, making it more expensive to play the game with a bunch of people. The biggest problem with Wii Sports Club is that the Nintendo Wii U didn't attract the same casual audience that bought the Wii in droves, so there wasn't the same demand. As such, Wii Sports Club didn't even crack the top fifteen best-selling Wii U games.
The Nintendo Switch is not the Wii U. The system has sold over fifty million units to date and it has captured the imagination of people around the world. The time is right for a new Wii Sports, so long as there are a few changes to the formula.
A New Wii Sports Should Update The Formula In The Same Way Ring-Fit Does For Wii Fit
A new Wii Sports that just brings the HD remasters of Wii Sports Club to the Switch with Joy-Con support wouldn't be enough to win back the old audience. A new Wii Sports game (or derivative) needs to expand upon the concept, either through a fun single-player mode (alongside the established local multiplayer modes), use of the Joy-Con's features (like 1-2 Switch did), and new games that weren't included in the other entries in the franchise. Wii Sports is fondly remembered by people all around the world (or not, as most people kept their Wii just to keep playing it) and Nintendo could tap into that audience once more with a revitalized version of the game for Switch.