As successful as the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch has been (and it has been very successful), it came with plenty of impatience. Its compact day one game lineup, led by Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, left some potential buyers a bit underwhelmed. It was a notable step down from the PlayStation 5’s packed 2020 launch lineup, which brought us Astro’s Playroom, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Demon’s Souls, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure all at once. For the Switch 2, was one tentpole first-party game really enough to make a pricey system worth buying?

Not even two months later, the narrative is already shifting. Donkey Kong Bananza followed Mario Kart World’s opening jab with a strong right hook on July 17. The Game of the Year contender has reignited buzz around Nintendo, quickly wrenching the spotlight back from Death Stranding 2: On The Beach just as it felt like the Switch 2’s new console shine had faded. Did Nintendo narrowly avoid a strategic misfire? Should it have released both games on June 5? No, we’re just seeing a long-building strategy that was sharpened in the Switch era pay off. Nintendo is running its own monthly book club, and it’s working — for now.

Look at the Nintendo Switch’s release calendar from 2021 onward and you’ll start to notice a trend. Over the past few years, Nintendo has gotten closer and closer to releasing one first-party game each month. Sure, 2024 may have looked like a slow year for the publisher, but in reality, it dropped exactly 12 games, each carefully spaced a month apart (the only month not covered was April, as Endless Ocean: Luminous just missed the mark on May 2). Like clockwork, there was a new Nintendo game to play every few weeks, a feat made possible thanks to a few remakes and remasters filling in the gaps:

January 19: Another Code: Recollection

February 16: Mario vs. Donkey Kong

March 22: Princess Peach Showtime!

May 2: Endless Ocean: Luminous

May 23: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

June 27: Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD

July 18: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

August 29: Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club

September 26: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

October 17: Super Mario Party Jamboree

November 7: Mario & Luigi: Brothership

December 5: Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer

Image: Nintendo

I made a point to play nearly all of those games last year, even December’s Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer. It felt like I was in a book club. One new watercooler conversation starter was delivered to my console each month on a tight schedule. As soon as I finished The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree was waiting for me. Then I was on to Mario & Luigi: Brothership. The quality of those games varied wildly, but I began to see each as an assignment. Skipping one meant missing out on the monthly discussion with diehard Switch owners. The social element was as important as the actual games.

That strategy is now in full swing in the Nintendo Switch 2’s early days, and it’s set to continue. June’s game of the month was Mario Kart World and July’s was Donkey Kong Bananza, both of which did their part in sparking conversation. The August stage is clear for Drag X Drive (but Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Star-Crossed World will likely steal the microphone). While September is a mystery, Pokémon Legends: Z-A has October locked down. And with release dates for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, and Kirby Air Riders yet to be revealed — all of which currently have broad 2025 or “winter” release windows — it’s very likely that the Switch 2 will have a first-party moment each month this year.

Will all of those games be hits? No, but they’ll keep us talking.

It’s the kind of reaction that media publishers dream of. Even since going all-in on original content, Netflix has fought to deliver a stream of “appointment viewing” moments — good and bad — from Birdbox to Squid Game. It has created its fair share of them in that time, but the glut of content often makes it hard to know what’s worth watching. Disney+ hit the same snag when making an overly aggressive push into Marvel and Star Wars TV series that became a chore to keep up with. (Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige admitted as much during a recent press junket, according to The Hollywood Reporter.) The balancing act comes in remaining relevant with a consistent flow of new releases without leaving audiences with an always-expanding queue that’s impossible to chop down.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Nintendo’s “one at a time” approach is appealing because it’s manageable at a time when gaming is at its most overwhelming; it may not win the console war, or even partake that much in it, but it’s winning the attention war. Early adopters had enough time to not just play Mario Kart World, but digest it too. I spent June really digging into its free-roam mode and online Knockout Tour races, leading to more substantial conversations with friends about what worked and what didn’t. I had my fill of that by the time July 17 rolled around and I was ready to start that process with Donkey Kong Bananza. There was no pressure to rush through one to get to the other, but there would have been if I had a backlog to work through from my first day with a new console.