There’s also a timelessness built into the design of most Nintendo games, especially the ones where the main mechanic is “jump.” Stuff that might seem dated in, say, a first-person shooter from just a couple of years ago isn’t a factor in most Nintendo games, and especially in Mario games. The amount of content that comparatively few people played on the Wii U that Nintendo can fall back on in case it has a slow software quarter or two has given the Switch a more robust library than it would have had otherwise.
I don’t just mean that the doomed console’s demise made room for its successor in the marketplace. Every time Nintendo re-releases an old game on its current console, it’s a reminder that the Wii U died so that the Switch could live.
