You’d think that the appearance of Skyrim in the trailer for Nintendo’s next gaming machine today would confirm that, oh, perhaps, Skyrim is coming to Nintendo’s next gaming machine. Not necessarily.
The great open-world role-playing game Skyrim is not confirmed for the Switch.
Maybe it’s coming. Maybe not.
A rep for Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Skyrim, told Games Industry today that “[w]hile we are not confirming any specific titles at this time, we are pleased to announce our partnership with Nintendo and support of the Switch.”
This leads to one of two possibilities:
- Skyrim is coming to the Switch, which is why it was featured in a 30-second chunk of a 240-second trailer. But this is the gaming industry in which game creators will not announce a game, regardless of leaks or appearances in trailers, until they are damn well ready to announce it. You saw nothing. You assumed too much. You should feel bad.
- Skyrim is not coming to the Switch, and the trailer was performing an egregious … bait and switch.
Would a Nintendo trailer really lie or over-promise like that?
It seems unlikely, but here’s some context:
In 2005, Nintendo first showed off the Wii, then code-named the Revolution. The trailer didn’t show any games but implied the existence of a bunch by showing people using the Wii Remote to swing swords, fish and even make Mario jump. All of the concepts in the video eventually showed up in Wii games, except for one involving a dentist’s drill.
In 2011, Nintendo showed off its then-upcoming Wii U console. Nintendo wanted people to know that the Wii U, unlike the Wii, would be getting a batch of games for hardcore gamers. You know, games with guns and blood and such.
Really, that’s what you’re about to see here, despite the groovy, abstract thumbnail image:
In the video, top men from EA, Ubisoft, Activision and other game studios rave about the Wii U. Included among them is BioShock lead designer Ken Levine, who doesn’t promise any games, so don’t go blaming him for subsequently never making a game for Wii U.
The reel shows footage of several third-party games, including Ninja Gaiden 3 and Darksiders II, which came out for Wii U. It also shows Ghost Recon Online, Aliens Colonial Marines and Metro Last Light, all of which never came out for Wii U. Footage for some of the games in the trailer wasn’t even from the Wii U. It was from PC, Xbox 360 or PS3 versions of the games.
As far as Skyrim goes, it’s really unlikely that Nintendo and Bethesda would tease a game so prominently that isn’t really slated for the system.
The two companies seem excited to be working with each other. The only thing the Nintendo of America Twitter account even retweeted today was this:
Bethesda has been huge on PC, Xbox One and PS4, but nowhere on Nintendo this past generation. It hasn’t published any games on the Wii U, which means Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 have all been absent from Nintendo systems. Nintendo and Bethesda now working together is an important development, especially if Bethesda bring its beloved RPGs that can allow them to be played on the go. Battery life willing, a portable Skyrim on Switch would be cool.
It’s not just Bethesda that isn’t clarifying what it is doing on the Switch. Representatives from announced Switch partners Capcom, Take Two, Activision and Warner Bros. all told Kotaku today that they aren’t confirming any game details yet. We’re still waiting on word from EA, Square, Sega and Atlus, but expect the same. A Ubisoft blog post reiterated the old news that Just Dance 2017 is coming to Switch but made no new announcements about other games.
On the day of the Switch’s reveal, game publishers just aren’t saying which games they’re bringing out. For now, you’ll just have to make educated guesses about what the Switch will actually play when it’s out in March.
Comments
11 responses to “Nintendo Switch Partners Are So Secretive That They Won’t Even Confirm The Game In The Console’s Official Trailer”
And if Skyrim is coming out, is it going to support mods?
With how Class-Action-Lawsuit happy gamers are becoming nowdays, I wonder what the likelihood of them suing either Nintendo or the game company for showing off a game that then never turns up on the system.
“I only bought an NX for Skyrim because it was in the reveal trailer, but then it never came out! False Advertising!”
At the start of this week nobody would have ever thought Nintendo and Bethesda would ever collaborate.
The Skyrim portions of the reveal are downright odd, no question. It’s confusing the more times you watch it.
I’ll be damned if I am going to buy a re-heated remaster of an old game of which I already own the best version of already on PC, just to convince not only Pete Hines but the rest of the big-wigs at other publishers I’m going to be a good little consumer and buy all the third party games on a Nintendo Switch.
The Switch is Nintendo’s world, literally. The ‘partners’ as they are termed here will have to learn to live within it.
Traditionally PC-suited games and software houses having to follow the market trend and develop console versions of their most beloved franchises, so they are able to actually make money, is nothing new. Nintendo’s job was to help facilitate the job of developing from the ground up, not just the art of porting, and I think the consensus is that is going to happen?
I wouldn’t buy it either, but given the popularity of both Skyrim and hand held consoles, it’s not the worst port to see coming (or not) to the Switch.
Hasn’t stopped EB:
https://www.ebgames.com.au/nintendo-nx-217625-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Working-Title-Placeholder-Price-Nintendo-Switch
Yeah, but EB are parasitic. I’m surprised they don’t have placeholders for “Playstation 5” and “Xbox ‘Whatever The Hell They Are Calling The Next One’”. Deposit of a $1000 and it’s yours, my friend! Oh, by the way, are you interested in our Game Play Guarantee, or perhaps placing a pre-order for Sleeping Dogs 2? I mean, I know the development studio recently closed down, but you never know when the guys will feel like getting back together to make the sequel they always dreamed of doing! And you know when they do, you’ll be the first in line to receive a copy! *urgh*
Ummm … https://www.ebgames.com.au/xbox-one-217307-Xbox-Project-Scorpio-Placeholder-Price-Xbox-One
We, your Honor, find the defendant guilty as charged. Case closed.
That was both brilliant and saddening.
Also EB Games listed the basketball game (Which kinda looks a bit like NBA 2k17) as “Basketball”:
https://ebgames.com.au/nintendo-nx-217627-Basketball-Working-Title-Placeholder-Price-Nintendo-Switch
So I wouldn’t take anything they list seriously at all…
I’m going with number 2.
Nintendo have a loyal fan base who will buy it because it’s Nintendo. That doesn’t expand your market though. This maybe done to generate hype from outside their revenue stream.
Or option 3. Nintendo had nothing to do with it and the marketing company the used just needed a “cool” looking game to be on the screen.
I’m staggered about the positive reaction for the Switch.
Once again Nintendo has shown off a new console with an original gimmick (that is likely to be more of a hindrance than an enhancer of gameplay) for a console that is too large to be the best portable / handheld console and not powerful enough to keep up with the next generation of MS and Sony consoles.
And the same problem with the Wii U is exemplified in the very reveal of the new console – we’ve been shown a game that’s a port of a game that appeared on the X360 / PS3 generation of consoles, the 18th iteration of a basketball game, two Wii U games, a Zelda game we’ve known about for almost a year, and a new Mario game.
Why didn’t they show a game that shows off gameplay only possible with this type of semi-portable console? A new Metroid game? Perhaps capitalise on the staggering new Pokemon Go phenomenon to draw in new console gamers?
All I’m seeing is a new Nintendo console, a new gimmick, and no sign that the problems with Nintendo’s current catalogue drought is going to improved.