Topic: Is Nintendo resting on its laurels?

My intention was not to make such a big debate on the games of the switch. It's just that I had the feeling that a lot of small things could be done to make the switch even better and for some reason Nintendo has to be aware but choose to ignore at least part of it.

As a business major I just have a hard time understanding why they're just not more proactive now that they have a product people want. You're selling a bunch of switch why not make it so you sell even more. Yes Nintendo do their own thing and don't want to compare with the horsepower of the competition, but why not capitalize on the 36 months where the switch is the ''New Thing'' before the gap in horsepower between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft becomes even greater (assuming the next console drops in 2020), it will be a lot harder to move as many switch when these drops because let's face it they will be the hot shiny new thing.

I actually think Nintendo was smart so release mid cycle if they don't want to compete on horse power because they have a few months where the spotlight can be on them instead of divided among everybody. Like it or not but the switch will have to be positioned as a portable even more when these drops.

The one thing Nintendo has on their side is their franchise and originality so that's why I'm surprised they don't put more focus on it. After the first 6-7 months with a new Zelda, a new Mario and a re-release of Mario Kart they had a excellent pace, so I'm just surprised that there's a little more than a year between the release of their major games (Odyssey and Smash, or close to a year if you want Odyssey and Pokemon Let's Go). Yes there's been activity in between, but hardly any system seller, at least I'm not aware of anybody buying a switch for Kirby or Mario Tennis or Donkey Kong or Captain Toad, they will do well but they sell to people already converted and I doubt they will convert anybody or at least very few people.

So that's why I'm wondering if they're resting on their laurels, because there's little thing they could have done or said to fill the void (again not saying there's nothing just no system mover) in between system mover or at least keep the hype, like VC or give more info on the Online Service or talk about gamecube game re-release.

If anything maybe it would have made a better work to spread those release to be more even with one system mover at regular interval instead of all at the same time and instead release the ports or smaller game in between to keep a momentum, ports and smaller game may be enough to keep momentum for some time but is it really enough to keep momentum for a whole year?

@RunGMhx

Wow, I admire your honesty ! But be careful here because if you're not totally sold to the Switch, you have big chance to be considered as a monster !

Congrats to you dude !

That's not true.

@Yorumi

Goddd, I totally know how it feels Yorumi... I experienced exactly the same stuffs.

When you bring facts, "nooooo thhaatttsss nnoott trruueeee..." "you hate the Switchhhh..."

Sometimes I ask myself, is it a kindergarten here or what ?

I will say for me personally, even despite Nintendo making a ton of blunders with business decisions and games, they're still doing a much better job pushing me to buy one of their consoles compared to Microsoft and Sony actually pushing me to just upgrade my PC instead. And I did with a 1080ti that beats Xbox and PS4 extremely easily.

Granted, Sony does have damn good exclusives, but for the most part a lot of the better games on Xbox/PS4 are on PC too, which are just flat-out better versions if I'm going to be stuck to one place at a time. I can't get games that play or feel like Nintendo games easily on PC or PS4, so that's why I think Nintendo still has some real good appeal even if they make crummy decisions.

I'd argue there's very little difference.

On the other hand I play something like Mario Kart 8 and it feels like they were ticking boxes. Yeah it's fun, if more dlc was released today I'd buy it, but it's like "well it's MK, we need a few items, some mario characters, 16 tracks and that's it." Smash is similar here's the fighters here's the levels we're done. Yeah I'm buying it.

This example is kinda weak.

Why not use better ones like Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild:

I think most of the time we just outgrow the things we used to love.

Sometimes we never let go either...

Hmmm. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I loved my Amstrad, Amiga, Game Gear, PSP and what have you, but I'd say things are better now.

Is Nintendo resting on its laurels? I don't think so - it can't afford to. The 3DS has been a massive hit and kept the lights on, but Sony has eaten its lunch outside Japan. I'd actually argue that this is the hungriest, bravest Nintendo we've seen in a while. It's fighting hard to recapture a home console market while producing the first viable hybrid games console (I'm ignoring things like Apple TV and gaming laptops that plug into big screens); entering the mobile games market for the first time; going in a whole new direction with the gaming toys sector in the form of Labo.

In terms of games, it rewrote the formula of Zelda, risking the ire of long-term fans, to produce its most critically acclaimed game in decades; and similarly knocked out another game of the year contender in Super Mario Odyssey. And, while they may annoy aficionados, the Let's Go Pokémon games are doing something new with a sacrosanct IP.

Has this year's first-party slate been underwhelming? To me personally, yes, I'd say so. But I don't think Nintendo is just spinning its wheels. Hopefully, the off-key approach will bear further fruit down the line.

I don't think the problem is as widespread as you want to believe. The last game like this was Star Fox Zero and that was on the Wii U. I believe Nintendo gave up on those controls when they released the Switch. Heck, they released Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild, two smash hits that needed no "waggle" controls.

If I may ask the people who say that there aren't enough games on the switch how much free time do you actually have ? I am just curious, no harm intended, because from my perspective I have an insane backlog of games that I still have to play but I don't have the time. Also think from the perspective of a person who buys the switch today: so many many great games available. If you are complaining about 3rd party triple AAA games you really shouldn't have bought the switch and no I am not defending nintendo or trying to be mean. I am not one to defend corporations but they have a decent amount of games coming. My 2 cents

@vitelus The Switch has like.. 2 games. Where's my Metroid?!

@Yorumi

You said you're a programmer, that interest me !
Could you tell me more about it or you prefer to keep that for you ?
In or out of the gaming industry ?
What type of language . C++, Python, JavaScript... ?

@Yorumi

This is fantastic ! Thank you for the pretty massive reply. I couldn't expect better.
I wish you success and joy from the bottom of my heart.
I work alone on my project so I can't imagine how it is to work on a game with a team but if it's not too much to ask : how many people work on your project ?

Sometimes I ask myself if I'm not crazy to try to make my own game alone... Coding, graphic design, level design, sound design etc... My luck is to have a phenomenal wife who compose the music tracks of the game. ^^
So, again I wish you all the best and it's really sincere.

Somehow I doubt this counts since Breath of the Wild came out too

If we're THIS nitpicky, I should point out how Nintendo made gimmicky games since the NES

@Yorumi Well, I half-agree on the old games just having some sort of magic games these games tend to not have. For example, when I went back to play Xenogears after all the Xenoblade games, I still really enjoyed it despite the really dated gameplay revolving platforming, navigation, and player guidance with combat mechanics because the story and atmosphere was top notch. (Until Disc 2, but still) Golden Sun was also really enjoyable and charming to me, despite the very simple premise and storytelling.

However on the other hand, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. There were some games that were just riding trends and didn't really do anything new. Mega Man is a good example, after Mega Man 3 the series was sort of just spinning its wheels in a consistent level of quality. Mega Man X, Battle Network, and Star Force also all suffered from that pretty badly. It's like Mario after Galaxy 2 until Odyssey (even if I really love 3D World) when NSMB and 3D Land/World was just being spammed. I feel like when we just blank out a lot of the big meh games and really cloud our judgement in terms of what was real good and what was just ok/fine.

This isn't just applicable to games, music in particular is a big culprit in this. Go to any YouTube comments of an old song like Metallica or Foreigner or Europe, and you'll see a lot of people saying "man, they don't make music like this anymore, modern music is trash". And while I actually do lean somewhat into that category (I hate most songs on the radio personally), that doesn't mean there were only good songs back then too. It's just that all the meh songs faded into obscurity. I feel like the same thing applies to video games, especially as time marches on. All the great games are immortalized so when you play one of those games years from then, you'll know it's a good game due to the word of mouth already.

So yeah, those are my two cents.

@Yorumi you guys got it much later than we did though.

I personally thing expectations are higher now. Back then when we were kids we got what, what one or two games at birthday or Christmas? Now as adults we can buy whatever we want. Also thinking back to it, I wanted an N64 without knowing what games I wanted other than just getting the DK64 bundle. I don't remember actively thinking about Goldeneye, even though I played it at my uncles (parents wouldn't buy it for me, 90s parents).

I have 9 games for Switch (11 if you could Fatal Fury [got it because I liked it on SNES and mine is broken but now I have a SNES classic so it was a pointless buy] and Bayonetta 1). My year won't be up until October. My first year of owning a 64 I had maybe 4 or 5 games. I don't remember when I got what. But certainly not 9.

That's why you online game on PC, just pay the one-time $20 for Overwatch or just play some random F2P game like Warframe or Fortnite and don't pay for online :^]

Oh, and Discord/Teamspeak absolutely beats every other voice chat function on consoles.

@Yorumi

That's great to hear. So if understand well, your project is a 2D game but not a 2D pixel art game ?
You work with hand drawn graphics ? Or vector HD graphics ? Or something else ^^ ?

@Yorumi It's likely that it's a combination of what we're all saying. I do think and agree that back then, the industry trailblazers really wanted to push what was possible out of everything. We got instant classics like Mario, Sonic 1-3, Chrono Trigger, Resident Evil, Halo 1, Metroid Prime, and Final Fantasy IV, all of which really turned their heads on what we could expect from their respective genres. Innovation was expanding rapidly, which was pretty much the "Golden Age" of video games from the PS1/N64/Saturn to PS2/GameCube/Xbox, before "going downhill" with the PS3/Wii/360.

But then as I said before, there were also duds. Bubsy is a living (or dead) meme, there were a bunch of copycats that imitated popular genres (NES had platformers, SNES had fighters, etc), some series just stagnated like Mega Man, etc.

And indeed as a kid, money was tight so when you played a game, it was all you had. Gaming wasn't as popular, the cheap options (like mobile and F2P games) didn't exist yet, you were limited to like 5 games at a time (if you didn't have allowance... like me), and gaming was more EXPENSIVE too, especially N64 games. So you had to make each game REALLY count, and more often than not they were the best of the best you could get.

Edit: for Nintendo in specific, I don't have all the answers. Video games needing much more time and money to make, leading to greater risk? Nintendo just losing their touch? There can be multiple factors working against Nintendo, but if you ask me it's just that we're getting older and more experienced with games. The more you get familiar with a medium, the less it can surprise you and wow you, if you get what I mean, even for a relatively young medium like video games.