This article has a talk page!This page details pre-release information and/or media for Nintendo Switch Sports.
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Nintendo Switch Sports went through significant changes during its development cycles, originally being far more different from the original Wii Sports games than the final product.
Timeline#
2017
- Development of a new entry in the Wii Sports series for Nintendo Switch starts at the request of Yoshiaki Koizumi.
2018-2019
- Development restarts as the dev team felt the game had pivoted too far from the source material.
February 9, 2022
- Nintendo Switch Sports is revealed in a Nintendo Direct.
February 18-20, 2022
- The Online Playtest demo is held.
April 29, 2022
- Nintendo Switch Sports is released.
Characters#
The final version of Nintendo Switch Sports features human characters named Sportsmates, but many concepts were considered before them.
- Early concepts included round-shaped characters lacking arms or legs, similar to Miis in Wii Sports.
- College students were also proposed with a theme of intercollegiate sports.
- The idea of the player controlling a robot from the inside was also proposed, but was cut due to it overcomplicating the sports. Another piece of concept art with the robot shows the special bowling lanes, notably featuring multiple types of lanes at once.
- Ultimately, the human designs used for the final game had arms and proper hands added to appear more natural at a higher resolution, and since the developers believed players would remember Miis having arms.
Spocco Square#
The main location of Nintendo Switch Sports, Spocco Square, also went through numerous changes during development.
- At one point, large olympic-style stadiums were used, but were cut as they were too intimidating for casual players.
- The final version of Spocco Square was conceptualized as a facility that "doesn't exist in real life, but would be nice if it did", in order to fit the game's target casual demographic. Concept art showing an early version of the volleyball court exists. Interestingly, in place of a Spocco Square logo, signs reading "Switch Sports" can be seen, indicating the original title of the game may have omitted "Nintendo".
Nintendo Direct 2.9.2022#
Builds of Nintendo Switch Sports showcased in the February 9, 2022 Nintendo Direct feature a few differences.
- The character doesn't jump when serving in volleyball, even when hitting the ball at its apex.
- Golf is in a much earlier state. The design of Classic Hole 5 is slightly different, featuring a dock with kayaks that was removed.
- The golf ball isn't on a tee.
- The camera angle is slightly different.
- The swinging animation was changed.
- The swinging sound effect uses a low quality version of the swing sound from Wii Sports, likely as a placeholder.
UK Overview Trailer#
The initial UK version of the overview trailer features an error where multiple clones of the same skin color are shown in the character editor which were likely used as placeholders prior to the green, blue, white and purple skin colors being added. This was fixed in the updated UK overview trailer for the basketball update.
Box art concepts#
Various concepts for the Nintendo Switch Sports box art were featured on Nintendo's Japanese employee recruitment site. Some of the concepts notably feature golf on the box, suggesting it was originally intended to release with the rest of the game.