Nintendo Switch Year in Review

So, Nintendo has sent out these emails about your “Nintendo Switch year in review”. For the past couple of years, the Switch has been my main place to game, so while this isn’t a complete look at my play history (plus it doesn’t have the final week of 2021 because that hasn’t happened yet) it’s the majority of it. And it casts into pretty sharp relief how much my gaming has dropped off this year.

On Switch in 2020, I played 84 games for a total of 637 hours.

In 2021, I played 46 games for 257 hours.

My most-played game in 2020 was Animal Crossing: New Horizons with a total of 270 hours. That’s more than I played all Switch games this year. But the difference isn’t just because it’s Animal Crossing - subtract those hours and 2020 still has 110 more hours than my overall total for 2021.

In 2021, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was still my second most-played Switch game, but with only 22 hours (most of which were right after the big final update). Third place was Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S with 21 hours - almost as many as Animal Crossing. Even my most-played game didn’t break triple digits - it was DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power with 54 hours.

(Y’all are sleeping on DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power, by the way. It was surreal seeing how little coverage this game got in any channels I see and it was a good reminder that gaming culture is not a monolith.)

I’ve mostly accepted and embraced that I game less these days, so I’ve started to cancel the various subscription services I have in that domain. I dropped PlayStation Plus months ago and now I’ve dropped Gamefly (which I’d had continuously for thirteen and a half years). Apple Arcade will probably be next to go and Nintendo Switch Online may not be far behind.