A lot is associated with the name Nintendo: Today the Switch, NES, Zelda, of course Mario, still F-Zero and much more. To say that this company has had some impact on how we view video games would be the understatement of the year. But Nintendo didn’t appear out of nowhere, suddenly with the NES in hand and Mario on the screen. No, her gaming and her sports career began in a much more analogue way. So here are the 5 best Nintendo sports products and games that have now led to the excellent Switch Sports.
Switch Sport will be available on 4/29/2022, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
1968: Dynamic Soccer
In 1968, Japan came third at the Olympic Games in Mexico, which was an important success for the nation, which was not very fond of soccer at the time, and a reason for Nintendo to release a table soccer of its own kind. At first glance, Dynamic Soccer is reminiscent of games like Tipp Kick, but it works in a much more complex way, even if it is still completely analog. The playing field consists of a series of hollows in the ground in which the players stand. These do not move and are more of an obstacle than active participants. Instead, there are two airholes in each well, connected by a complex system of tubing under the pitch with a hand pump at each end. This blows the ball in the right direction and keeps bouncing, hopefully into the opponent’s goal. So that this is not a gamble, the hand pump can only be inserted in one of the ten holes behind the goal. That means you have to quickly switch to the right hole where the ball is, otherwise you’ll blow into space.
Dynamic Soccer is now a rare collector’s item that only a few die-hard Nintendo fans with halfway deep pockets will play. But those who did called it Dynamic Soccer, fast, surprisingly tactical and fun. If you enjoy such history or collect old board games, then stick to the auctions on Yahoo Japan.
1983: Baseball
About half a year after the launch of the Famicom in Japan in July 83, the first sports game for a Nintendo console was released in December. With the simple name of baseball, you knew what you were up to and the sport made perfect sense. In Japan, baseball is a popular sport, from stadiums down to the rooftop tees for everyone. It was clear how important such a sports title would be for the new console, and SEGA had recently released SG-1000 Champion Baseball for its Master System precursor. In order to keep up properly, none other than Shigeru Miyamoto personally took care of the project.
The result was what you’d expect from a very early title for an ’80s console: it was baseball at its most basic. But that should also have been part of the success, because the approximately 5 million buyers found a very accessible game that was especially fun for two and that was everything you could hope for from a sports game in ’83. Baseball is an integral part of the Nintendo “legacy” and has been released on dozens of consoles. Today it’s part of the Switch Online Retro Archives, and most curiously it may have been on the Gamecube where it was a bonus game in Animal Crossing.
1999: Mario Golf
The N64 was at the height of its power in 1999. Mario 64 showed the world how 3D hopping works, the ’98 Ocarina of Time is still considered by many to be the best Zelda par excellence, and in 1999 Mario showed that golf can be anything but a boring old man’s sport. Haruki Kodera previously worked on SEGA’s Shining Force titles through the ’90s before delivering Hot Shot Golf in 1998. This already offered some of the aspects that should make Mario Golf so fun: instead of paying attention to accurate grass length and wind physics, the emphasis was on easy accessibility, multiplayer fun and dozens of characters, each with their own characteristics. That could almost be the description for Mario Golf.
With a mixture of its own characters and of course Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and co., Mario Golf eliminated everything that could get in the way of the fun of throwing a ball further than others. Speed golf, ring shot, mini golf, everything was there. Boo ghosts blew the ball off the track, the colorful landscape had its own quirks, but everything was instantly accessible for the whole family and is still fun today. You can test it out by taking out the large online subscription for the Switch, because Mario Golf can be found there in the N64 library. Or you look at the current Mario Golf: Super Rush on the switch. Or play golf in Switch Sports later this year when it becomes part of the Sports games as a free update.
2006: Wii Sports
Not since the first Mario Bros. came as a bundled game with a console has Nintendo had such a killer app as Wii Sports. Funnily enough, it wasn’t included with the Wii in Japan, but that shouldn’t have mattered as much as possible. Then Japanese Wii buyers hit it, because everyone wanted to play Wii Sports in December 2006. Kids, parents, retirees, sometimes even pets, everyone grabbed a Wii Mote and swung it to baseball, golf, or tennis. How popular was Wii Sports? How about “Conan O’Brien plays tennis against Serena Williams Wii Sports on his show”-popular. Not much more was possible then.
Today’s Wii Motes were almost clumsy when it came to precision compared to, say, the much more sophisticated Switch Joy-Cons, but since the game design didn’t rely on absolute precision, that didn’t matter. With almost 90 million units, Wii Sports is one of the most successful games ever. For once, the “Of course, it’s up to the console” argument doesn’t count either. This was even a problem for Nintendo, because many Wii buyers didn’t care that Zelda, Mario and many other great games were still available. They only wanted Wii Sports and often it was their only game. It’s fair to say that Wii Sports redefined what fun motion multiplayer could look like in the living room and for years – sometimes still today – the game brought joy and movement to countless homes.
2007 / 2008: Wii Fit
With Wii Sports, Nintendo had shown that real exercise and video game fun can be combined wonderfully and Wii Fit should take that to the next level. Hiroshi Matsunaga, the creator of Ring Fit Adventure on the Switch, focused on yoga and general fitness rather than what you’d expect from a video game with the Wii Fit and his Balance Board. Instead of fast, hectic races, you should consistently work on balance poses and improve your general fitness. This worked wonderfully, as various studies have shown.
While fitness fanatics were less fortunate that Wii Fit didn’t get them as energetic as their normal Iron Man workout did, couch potatoes such as an 86-year-old girl with age-related balance problems rejoiced. Therapy and balance board sessions helped her move more freely again. The Finnish Army also saw the benefit of playfully encouraging its soldiers to exercise a little more during their free time and placed almost 400 Wii Fits in the barracks, which seems to have been quite well received. And for Nintendo, Wii Fit was another major sports win in its history, selling over 23 million.
2019: Ring Fit Adventure
The right game at the right time, Ring Fit Adventure is one such case. When it was released in October 2019, the world was still the way it was, a cool motion-based Nintendo game was kindly acknowledged and the world kept turning. In the midst of a unique pandemic in which many people were suddenly forced to stay a little fitter at home because the gyms were closed and they sometimes couldn’t even go jogging in the streets. Ring Fit came at just the right time and was at times one of the most sought-after games of all time.
Ring Fit itself takes a slightly different approach than the very serious Balance Board: In a kind of role-playing game, you have to defeat an evil body-builder dragon. Don’t ask, just do it, and this doing involves a handrim into which a Joy-Con is strapped. The second goes into a strap on your leg, giving the game a pretty good idea of what you’re doing in front of the TV. The focus is clearly on the exercises and movements, the RPG part is kept rather simple. Never mind, the fun is there, and more than 15 million living room athletes have tackled the steroid-addicted dragon so far.
2022: Switch Sports
So if you’ve been keeping in shape with Ring Fit or its older Wii counterparts for the past few years, it’ll pay off in no time. The next round of Nintendo sports history starts with Switch Sports and it starts on April 29th, 2022. Bowl, hit tennis and shuttlecocks, compete in kick-ball games and virtually knock out the Chanbara sticks!
