Nintendo: It Would Be A "Disservice" To "Loyal Fans" To Release Animal Crossing In A Rushed State

Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Konami, Capcom, take notes!

You get the feeling Nintendo's trying to push a very certain someone to act similarly? Hmmmmm.

@PBandSmelly Game Freak too.

Its amazing that its an old thing we treasure and embrace, yet it wouldnt fail to refresh somebody in the world. Solid craftsmanship here.

Say what you will about certain things Nintendo slacks on - They have a quality stance on work-life balances and the games are always consistently solid..

@PBandSmelly don't forget Game Freak and the Pokémon Company. Although I'm a big fan, it saddens me to admit that Sword/Shield looks awful.

Nintendo is truly a company of heroes for delaying the game...

...or maybe they shouldn't have announced a 2019 release in the first place.

This PR spin to get people on their side after yet another AAA game delay is pathetic. The delay of AC ruined an otherwise great e3 Direct for me.

Now back to playing Wild World while I wait for the March 2020 release. Despite how upsetting this is to me I will of course be buying it day one because I love Animal Crossing and it will likely surpass BotW (their other delayed game) as my most played Switch title at over 500 hours.

Good. I'm glad Nintendo is doing this to make it a better functional game, rather than a buggy mess.

It's just 3 months. No biggie.

@victordamazio Game Freak ×10. I understand The Pokemon Company have an empire to run but they will run it into the ground one day if they keep to their schedule of releases

@Varnen
Each and every pokemon require a lot lot lot of work to program, model, and balance. With literally 700+ mons available, they have an excuse

@PBandSmelly Game freak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It disappointing but if it has to be...fine. I logged over 1,500 hours on New Leaf, so yeah, take the time you need, Nintendo. New Horizons has an awful lot to live up to.

HOWEVER releasing Mario Party in an unfinished state is cool, and we won't announce ANY free or paid DLC for it!

@PBandSmelly are you sure they do have an excuse? Pokémon is one of the best selling franchise in the world and they're still re-using gen 6 models. They improved the textures, lights, shadows, etc, but the raw models are already 6 years old, at least.
Not to mention the overworld, with low resolution textures everywhere. Did you see the trees? The ground texture?

With companies investing tons of money to produce high quality video games, I get very disappointed with Game Freak being so lazy with the money-maker franchise they have.

Edit: I almost forgot, but the battle screen is the same from Sun/Moon.

Regardless there’s plenty of other titles coming out this year, so everyone will have something to play. I’m confused as why you would WANT this game to be rushed just to come out this year with all the other announcements. Wouldn’t you want to space out the first party excitement?

It's prob just PR talk since Nintendo wants to spread and maximize their sales for their next financial year (Ref. March 2020 release).
The game is probably 99% finished. They have 7 years (since their last animal crossing on the 3ds).

@Hokanchu
"I logged over 1,500 hours on New Leaf"

Please don't overshadow my gaming time for AC new Leaf. 😅
Mine is also over 1500 hours gameplay.... On my Old 3DS XL. 😆

@Varnen they have all the first 810 models in 3D and they just needed to upgrade them to HD which shouldn’t take long at all.... the attacks look the same as the freaking DS era and they took out many fetuses! They have no excuse for anything!!!! They were just lazy and cheap!
They should have either hire more stuff, delay the game, stop working on Town for a little while to focus on Pokémon or ask Nintendo to provide them another studio (such as on of the Monolith soft studios) to help them with certain aspects of the game like the wild areas

Nothing they did is acceptable!

@JHDK I hear ya. It is PR spin. The reason why the work/life balance and we'll sell-no-wine-before-its-time spiel sounds so good is because corporate business doesn't work that way. You pick the date and deliver the product. If you have to hire more devs so that everyone gets to see their family, that's fine. I don't feel like a loyal fan when you delay the game, I feel like a fish that is already on the hook waiting while you bait the next hook for Pokemon fans and another hook for a BotW sequel that is so far away I'll probably be playing it on my Switch DS AR.

And PR dude, next time have an actual developer deliver the bad news. It would have given the whole announcement some credibility.

I know I'm not alone in feeling like Nintendo is using this to send a message to GameFreak. When Nintendo shows us something that already looks great and says they want to take a few extra months to make sure it's as good as it can be us fans not only understand that, but we also celebrate it. At the same time we have GameFreak telling us they have to cut content in order to release a game on time and we roast them alive and rip every excuse they are using to shreds. If the TV seasons are so important to match the games up with then just have a rerun season. When I was a kid I didn't care if it was a rerun or not, if Pokemon was on I was watching Pokemon. Hire some more people too so they actually have some manpower to make these games. There was a someone on Reddit who made a flying animation for Wingull in a day, I'd start with them. The small team of people they have making the games now won't last forever. They need to pass the series on to new people eventually so better to just get it over with and get some more people sooner rather than later.

Loyal fans can go fan themselves. That you guys aren't doing a disservice to your own visions (and the team's health and lives) is the biggest point here to learn from.

The simple, honest explanation is that Animal Crossing starts in the spring. Duh. Why is everyone acting like they've never played a dang AC game? All of the default experiences are springtime activities. They can't release it in autumn or winter. Who the heck wants to start with brown trees or snow? We build up to that. I don't understand why Nintendo is explaining the "delay" as such. It's so stupid.

@NImH Pocket Camp did

@NorseGamerTommy Pocket Camp doesn't count. At all.

@NImH this will be releasing in the autumn..........if you live beneath the equator 😋

Don't forget, THIS is ALSO why we LOVE Nintendo.

@Tantani what do you do for a living? Just curious, do you know anything about game development or 3D modeling? Legit question

It's sad that we have reached a point where we compliment the obvious.
Nevertheless well done to Nintendo and companies like Rockstar and CD Project.

@PBandSmelly
This idea that they have an excuse has been covered extensively and robustly on these comment pages. Game Freak do not have an excuse for their lack of insight, motivation, complacency. If you want to believe they do out of some blind loyality then fine but dont try and fool anyone else.

@NImH City Folk did.
so did New Leaf in Japan,

LOL at some of the comments.

@fafonio I work in IT in various different positions such as: Virtualization environment administrators, Hardware administrator, storage administrator, network administrator and a bit of code writing here and there

I am in contact with high lvl developers on a daily basis including some game developers so trust me, I know my stuff

And just watch the recent videos by the Japanese designers who create a 3D Pokémon model in 5 minutes+ it is the biggest gaming franchise to ever exist, this game will make 600 million to 1.2 billion dollars ( game itself, before the merchandise) and cost less than 50 million dollars to make (probably much less) to make, so put a god damm effort in it

And game freak never cared about balancing the game, that’s why we have tier lists made by fans so this is a straight up lie by GF

@harouhiko Rockstar has been criticized for its heavy crunch culture before though

@Abeedo Yes, you're right. I'm just speaking of quality 🙂

Nintendo seems to be great at this! They announced that they're working on another Zelda title too...we'll see that in 2022 probably. I'm glad they take their time to make the games great upon release, but it still shouldn't take as long as it usually does to make them. Hopefully, and it would be nice, they release something in the form of Animal Crossing license, as a download title...something, to keep the fans busy until then, since the game will probably be delayed a little next year too.

@Anti-Matter he should of taken note of this, when he released hey pikmin & Starfox zero.

@Tantani Delaying is not a solution. Don't forget that around Sword & Shield, trading cards are being made, just as an anime. I'm right with you, not to be misunderstood, I think GameFreak should give their games more development time aswell, instead of just copy and pasting their usual formula, with a few new gimmicks they probably won't use in future games (like mega evolutions for example).

Aside from delaying, Pokémon is the biggest cash cow in the gaming industry. With almost 'minimum' effort, it sells for millions, because people will buy it anyway.

I imagine that 2020 is looking a little thin currently and they need to keep the sales numbers steady so release at the end of March and sales trickle into 2020 numbers.
I mean what's 2020 got anyway? bayonetta 3?
No metroid, No Zelda 2, No retro studios game.

I don't play Animal Crossing. I did get a free 3ds download from Nintendo when it was released, and I did spend a few hours getting money to build a house. My daughter visited it and took my fruit for her game. She has been waiting since the Switch release for this version and thought it would be here at least for Christmas.

NL are helping Nintendo with their spin, maybe without knowing but they are.

Nintendo use this excuse when they want to delay a release. Starfox, Zelda to name just two. I still think its to coincide with a mini Switch Launch.

If it is the real reason for the delay then Nintendo are giving an early release date to make it look like more games are being launched in any one year then changing release dates.

A few months late, no big deal. At least it’s not another Metroid Prime 4. There’s other stuff to play in the mean time.

@Saego exactly, but this game is on a new system, with new and much stronger hardware and is sold for 60$ instead of 40$

I don’t say they must delay it, but they knew they will do this thing back on 2016, so if you can’t give us a complete game with your current team, there are many solutions for this, hire more developers, stop working on Town for a month or two (it is obviously a 2020 game by now so....) ask Nintendo for Monolith (probably the best open world game developers Nintendo have) to help them with the open word aspect....

So many option and yet they chose to just release a not complete game and call it a day....

Shame they didn't delay Mario Tennis. I know it has been patched since but I'd already sold my copy within a couple of months of getting the game. Single player was definitely lacking a lot (even some animations/sound effects).

Now if only they could be bothered to improve Mario Party. Although they might be waiting for Switch Mini so they have to add in Pro Controller support at same time.

@Tantani I'm a sr software engineer with quite a few years of experience and I don't agree with that.
I feel like a lot of people here are comparing what can be done as a freelance/small time to call gamefreak "lazy". It's not because you have all the resources of the world (which they don't) and many more people that a project will run X times as fast. General cohesion and consistency matters in a large team, and that can be time consuming.
It does not matter that it's the biggest franchise ever if they're not given the proper budget and proper deadline, Game Freak does not decide of that. Blame the right people.

We get it. It's broken. And from the inept trailer and treehouse demo, this game will be the equivalent of the tepid CITY FOLK.

@Deihnyx game freak own about 1/3 of the Pokémon IP, that’s mean they get profit from any merchandise being sold holdings the name Pokémon, Satoshi tagiri, GF CEO worth 6 billion dollars, the company itself worth billions, with publishing cost falling on Nintendo, and development cost fall on game freak, Nintendo and Creatures, and being pretty low as a whole (I don’t know the exact numbers but less than 50 million for sure, probably much less), resources aren’t the problem here, no matter how you look at it

So I am blaming the right people, if they wanted to bring more people to finish it in time, they could, but chose not to

GameFreak highly disagrees.

Yeah, as they did with Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash an Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival

@JHDK Well said. The game delayed was the worst news of E3. And it made the Breath of the Wild announcement meh. This is a game that has 8 years to be made. And don't give us the "they went to work on Splatoon". Only 10 left for Splatoon. Hundreds were working on this one day after New Leaf launch. Wretched. The game is broken. Bad demo and trailer too. The game has not advanced at all graphically since 3DS/Pocket camp.

@dazzleshell Mario tennis was great day one and just got better with the months. Love match play. Love the story mode. Love it.

@Tantani twice as many people != twice as fast.
Adding more and more people on a development team has diminishing returns. It's a basic concept of management (that bad managers tend to ignore)

@Deihnyx of course it doesn’t mean twice as fast, but they don’t need many more, just complete the god damm Pokédex and add mega and Z moves to the post game, it isn’t that much work when you have 90% of the assents ready for years now

And don’t lie to us or make excuses about it, Pokémon has a huge fan community, many of them are older people who gained knowledge in tech and development over the year, so trying to trick them isn’t a good idea

Only if all gaming companies think like this.

@Tantani If these fans are happy with a stagnant franchise it's good for them, but I'm personally choosing to see the glass half full. We skip some unimportant pokemon but we get actual new features. Open world, raids, all of that paving the way to a potential real MMO in the future, with more spin off such as Snap, Stadium integrated within the core game.
That to me as a fan of the first generation game is so much more important than getting a new gen every X year and the same copy pasted game.

It WAS a disservice to now have released a real Animal Crossing game during the Wii U era, instead giving us that rubbish Mario Party knock off

It's a shame Game Freak don't seem to have this mindset.

If only other companies were like this.

I'm looking at you, Game Freak!

@Tantani If you don't think that its a complete game, then just don't buy it.

I agree with you, although making such projects isn't as easy as you make it sound, but GameFreak won't change a thing. And we both know that.

Every year it's the same: people want Pokémon to innovate or change, they see gameplay and get mad/frustrated but when the game launches, most of the 'haters' still buy it. And I'm one of those actually.

Getting something when you expect it VS getting a better thing a bit later . . .

What’s better for consumer?
What’s better for Nintendo as a company?
What’s better for people making the game?

Seems like the second one all three times to me - unless having your expectations of release date fulfilled is more important than the experience of playing it?

BOTW - repeatedly delayed and eventually one of the best games of all time. The more hours you put into that or AC the more the improvement in the experience gives back to you.

@Saego it ain’t easy but it isn’t the hardest game you can make

And this game is innovative and give us amazing things that we wanted for decades, but they took many different features away

This video does a good job of showing a very simple time VS quality example (with Spider-Man drawing)

https://vimeo.com/226508728

@NImH
You do realise it’s not spring everywhere at the same time right?

@Deihnyx the thing is, every Pokémon is someone’s favorite, and cutting them out is annoying, especially when the franchise motto in the west is “gotta catch them all”

And they took out features and lied about the reason, a company shouldn’t do it

"But heavens, what shall we play as there are no games out for the Switch in the next 6 months"....

It's sad that Nintendo not forcing employees to crunch is an oddity rather than standard. When even market darlings like CDPR have notorious crunch and they still delay their game this is nothing short of incredible.

@Varnen You know that Pokemon is developed by Game Freak, right?

@Tantani Pokemon is developed by Game Freak, not Nintendo. They basically have no control over it.

Whether it is the truth or not, then meh. However, large first party games and the quarters they release in do have a significant impact to revenues and shares and the reason why most large publishers crunch or release sub par games is that missing shipping dates can cost a load in share prices and financial reporting.

So if the date has been missed and moved then we know it will be for a reason worthy of the share tumble.

I mean... I've been waiting six years for the successor to New Leaf. Why not another nine months? I want it to be perfect when it releases.

Take your time guys

I've got a huuuge backlog to finish atm anyway, and with all the other games coming out this year I'm sure I'll have enough to keep me busy until Animal Crossing

is anyone working right now that doesn't want to? Lol it's Friday

LOL, they have people praising them for a delayed game. Well played Nintendo.

@Quarth it’s magical. Now everyone’s suddenly a project manager and knows exactly how many staff are working at Nintendo and Game Freak.

Lol Nintendo aint delaying Pokemon. Even if we ignore the anime, merchandising, TCG etc, Nintendo needs a big holiday title, and while Luigi's Mansion 3 looks great, it ain't Pokemon in terms if sales and appeal.

If it was Wii U it would surely hurt. Nintendo Switch has so many great games already and it will continue to have the next few months. So when I read comments that Animal Crossing's delay hurt their E3 presentation I know that it is all just down to the usual internet whining.

@WiltonRoots nothing magical about it, the number of people working in GF is public knowledge, the fact that they are prioritizing Town over Pokémon right now is also public knowledge as they said it pretty recently, the ability to create a game with all mons is obvious as it been done 810 Pokémon on a 4 GB cartridge of the 3ds (a much weaker console, using the same models as SW/SH) so another 100 or so on the Switch is possible, and mega and Z moves are like adding

The fact that Pokémon games cost less that 50 million dollars to produced is also known and the fact that they are selling around 15 million copies is also known

Also, as I said, game freak partially own the IP and worth billions so they have 0 problems with resources, and they started working on it right after USM were finished, and planed to not include them all in gen 8 ever since the end of gen 6 so it is not like they wanted to but couldn’t

"disservice"

All the people defending Nintendo here must be all the people raving about how great Animal Crossing:amiibo Festival was.

OH wait, that was nobody. The S. S. Disservice has already sailed on AC fans. Fortunately for Nintendo they seem to have very short memories. 😝

@DavidMac i personally think SMP feels like a complete game, but youre not wrong that it leaves a lot to be desired. that game was just screaming to get DLC

People are wailing like a few months delay is going to stop them from buying the game anyway. Is instant gratification that important now? Will a few months delay make hearts and switches explode?

Sounds like lip service to me. I highly doubt the game would have felt as though it was released in a rushed state had they kept the original date.

This comment section is a disaster. How anyone can think New Horizons looks like a 3DS game is beyond me... (Note: That goes for Sword and Shield as well, though those games are in much rougher shape visually despite looking good.)

My own two cents? I wish the game hadn't been delayed, as I was heavily looking forward to playing it this year - but Nintendo's reasons are sound. The fact that delaying a game to ensure its quality and the quality of life of the staff who worked on it shouldn't be as rare as it is, and it's commendable. And the fact that New Horizons is innovating and iterating dramatically on the formula is exciting; it'll definitely make the jump from New Leaf be distinct and I'm looking forward to the gameplay loop being in constant flux as you try and build up your island, even if I have to share it with family.

@zool What spin? They delayed a game and told us why its delayed and it seems to be sound reason

@PikaPhantom The only thing that disappoints me is that I'll have to wait to play it with my Mom, who is ailing from several health issues. (She loves the series; I introduced it to her a few years back with New Leaf. She actually has triple the play time than me.)

I just hope she lives to see it. I worry a lot sometimes.

While I'm bummed the game is delayed, I agree with Nintendo that this was the best course of action. Too many times we've been burned by games that don't launch at their best and require months of patches to fix. Might as well wait to get the game right from the start and then just continue to add to it through updates (which I do hope ACNH receives)!

@UmbreonsPapa that is Spin, and you believe it, it has worked.

@Tantani OK fair enough, in gaming comment sections everyone knows, what about in the general public? The average Pokemon buyer knows nothing of cartridge size, textures, frame rate or even who made the game, to them it's "hey! New Pokemon game, the kids will love this!!!!"

I think it gets lost on people sometimes that people on gaming websites make up a tiny fraction of the customers who buy this. Much like when people get up in arms over Call of Duty and it sells a paltry 15-20 million.

I'm fine with it, because I don't know how I would've balanced both Animal Crossing AND Pokemon in 2019.

@Iacobus That's honestly really sad; if nothing else, hopefully she can get to experience New Horizons. Nintendo has been open to allowing a specifically ailing person the chance to play a game early in the past, though, as with Chris Taylor, a terminally ill cancer patient who got to play Smash Ultimate early shortly before he passed, so if things get especially rough, maybe that's a possibility? Hopefully things work out favorably, in any case.

I can only wish Gamefreak felt the same way about Pokémon Sword/Shield... :/

@Ryu_Niiyama I was going 2 read ur post but just assumed I wouldn't like it and didn't have time so I'm just going 2 rply that whatevs u said is wrong. We shouldn't have to w8 for anything ever.

Remember when Nintendo merged their handheld and console divisions with the intent for not having game delays, and fans rejoiced? Pepperidge Farm remembers!

@NEStalgia haha, you are having a silly day it seems! You know it's funny, people love to complain about "kids these days" but most of the folks throwing tantrums are adults.

@Ryu_Niiyama Silly day versus going slowly mad. It's really all a matter of perspective.

Toxic fandom goes both ways. People defending Game Freak out of naive assumptions and then acting like everyone should either gladly gobble up the Product or abstain entirely end up condescending loyal fans who are rightfully upset about it.

The first reason Masuda gave was "We knew for a while [that we would cut compatibility eventually]." Before anything else, Masuda just didn't want to do it anymore. Clearly, both Masuda and GF as a whole are growing extremely fatigued with Pokemon. Aonuma makes incredible Zelda games, and it didn't hurt his pride to outsource the overworld design to Monolith Soft.

This PR spin is nothing more than empty corporate speak unless Nintendo finally begins to exert some legitimate pressure on Game Freak. A post-launch patch adding the Pokemon in after the fact is all I ask for now, but Pokemon has suffered from serious mediocrity ever since XY. The fact that toxic fans assert that being a true fan means silently accepting whatever product the company provides you is pure corporatism gone amuck.

Im sure people would want a fully finished game than something that is half done and broken that will need patches upon patches to fix to become playable cough Fallout cough

On one hand I’m glad they’re not rushing out some half baked product. On the other hand I think come on! You’re Nintendo- the multi billion dollar international corporation that practically invented modern gaming, not some tiny upstart in some guy’s Basement. They have the resources and expertise and experience to ensure that production doesn’t go off the rails. Oh well, whatever. I just want this game and I’m happy it’s coming.

Pokemon fans get ticked off

@ literally everyone who are still complaining about the stupid Pokédex

It still makes sense that GF wants to cut the Pokédex. Everyone got mad when we didn’t gen 8 in 2017, and here we are in 2019 and we have gen 8. It seems dumb everyone gets mad because we aren’t getting gens 1-7, especially since this is still just the first (second) main series game on the switch, it’s open world, and we are apparently getting 200?? new Pokémon in glorious switch graphics.

I have a feeling the folks complaining about the delay would then complain that the game is unfinished and needs more content if it released this year. Not to mention complaints about spreading out their releases. We're still getting a ton of games this year, it'll be fine.

@ all the people who want SwSh Pokémon delayed
Remember after Let’s Go came out, the MOMENT lets go came out we were already like “Gen 8 switch 2019 or riot”?

Edit: not literally, of course. And ironically it’s only the ones who are complaining about the Pokédex cut

@Lord It's quite possible BOTW 2 releases in late 2020 (Kotaku's Jason Schreier thinks there's a decent chance) if they pull another Majora's Mask. They've had one and a half years since the last DLC already - they could've started some of the work even before then, and they have a solid foundation to use. It'll be three years by 2020, which is standard for a lot of games that aren't from-scratch Zeldas.

@Anti-Matter I can’t help but think about Star Fox Zero every time I see this image.

I don't believe a word of it. They're talking about a 6 or 7 month delay, so couldn't get their planning that wrong. The real disservice is the more likely 1 or 2 months needed pushes the game into almost a winter release. Not ideal for camping! So they want spring into summer for a better initial experience.

E3 overall was pretty good (all platforms). Switch has a lot of great looking games coming out soon (even if some are slightly delayed).

Everyone whines.

The internet is not doing much to subvert my expectations.

@Fandabidozi it'll be spring in the market that matters most to Nintendo.

Bowser cares!

Still think Nintendo have pushed this to 2020 so they will have a big hitter for the end of the financial year,plus Nintendo already have big titles for this year and the Christmas/holiday period is always very good for them anyway,their issue is usually keeping mopmentum going after the holiday period.

@Ryu_Niiyama It's truly bizarre behaviour. I don't know anyone in the real world who gets this worked up over something as trivial as games.

Why do we love a game? Because looking back on it...
Well, that's actually enough said. Looking forward to it is expectation and anticipation, looking back on a great experience, or even replaying it (or just playing it for a very long time), that's what makes a game good. Once the actual release has happened, the game is there for your enjoyment. If it's released in an incomplete state, it will hurt the game more than if it's delayed, simple.
Also, I couldn't really enjoy a game knowing that the team behind it was forced to work overtime or anything that would reduce their enjoyment of making it. If it's a product of loving artists, it shows. If it's a product of slaves rushing to remain ahead of the cracking whips, it also shows. Even if the latter didn't show, knowing it is enough to not want to support such practices.

I'm ok with the game being delayed, but with these extra months they can implement clouds saves, because losing 500H because I can't backup my save will be a disservice to loya fans too.

https://www.change.org/p/nintendo-ask-nintendo-to-allow-backup-game-saves-in-animal-crossing-new-horizons

I hope to God Nintendo gives us tons of unlockable Virtual Boy games in it that work with VR Mode.

I have been waiting 5 years for this game. I think I can wait a little longer, especially considering how many awesome games there already are available.

@PikaPhantom It's true, SWSH don't look like 3DS. Those games look more like GameCube games (except in the Wild Area, where it has the same texture quality as Zelda OoT in a bigger resolution).

@johnvboy Probably more a combination of both. Developers commented they would like a little bit more time and since Nintendo already had big titles for the holiday season and probably didn't have a big game for march...

@WoolooSweater Assumptions... Of course.
Also, maybe if GameFreak focused only on gen 8 instead of making two mediocre Pokemon games (USUM and LGPE) and making a new IP (Town) SWSH would look better?

@WoolooSweater They did make a lot of improvements now that they don't have all Pokemons on the game. Those high quality animations are an example of it.

@WiltonRoots They got the inside info NL needs!

@Quarth i think the best thing the likes of you and I can do is step back and watch the meltdown. There’s some seriously rattled people on this site right now...😂

@WiltonRoots Yeah, the comments to the latest soapbox feature about the upcoming Pokémon games are really entertaining to read. 🤣

@DavidMac At least that game is the right step in the right direction for that series IMO, so hopefully the next one will be even better! I have a feeling they will never add DLC in this series tbh.

Well, yes. I don't want a rushed game, and I don't want developers to be crunched. But who oversees and schedules games? How can it take 7 years to get a new main installment in a major Nintendo franchise like Animal Crossing. Nintendo still won't address why we've waited so long.

"We’re not going to rush a game out until it’s ready because we want to keep that quality bar high."

In this particular case, I'm pretty sure they also want the massive female audience, who will be buying a Switch for Sword/Shield, to have had a satisfying fill of that game, along with time to prepare themselves and their wallets for a new full-priced game.

@PBandSmelly

Exactly, but Nintendo are mostly in a league of their own with regards to the average quality of their output.

But kudos to them all the same. I guess they have the luxury of other quality titles for us to eat up while we wait.

@JLPick have you ever developed or been involved in the development of a game?

@PBandSmelly No is not, they can still use the models from the 3DS, and improved textures to HD. They can also, I don't know HIRE MORE PEOPLE!!! to work on textures and better quality, did you see the trailers? they look awful and lazy, if it was in the 3DS I'll be ok with it, but this is the SWITCH, a more powerful hardware, even the dumb LET's GO games look better. They can delay the game to fix it, but they don't want to miss out on the Christmas holiday, why do you think they new GEN games comes out almost close to December? Also, they have been working on it since 2016, that's 3 years, ZELDA took 4 years and that looks a million times better. Seriously, it's because people like you that defend their dumb excuses that companies like EA, Activision and now Game Freak! gets away with their laziness.

@WiltonRoots Oh yeah. But it helps me keep in check and remember that life is pretty great and even the bad stuff can be overcome, because after all I could be the person having a meltdown about a game. It does get really scary how bad the gaming echo chamber of doom is. I mostly work around non gamers currently and they are nowhere near as um...excitable. If I was a shrink though I'd love to study gaming and the behaviors of gamers, it is fascinating how much emphasis we put on a consumer product. (I have my tweaks too of course, you can sell me a paper bag with the wingcrest on it lolol)

Oooooor the game is already finished and they are just stalling, typical Nintendo-style. Like what they did with Yoshi, for example. Or Breath of the wild and Twilight princess, both delayed so they could release them on 2 systems. Nintendo is thinking: Pokemon and Mariomaker 2 get us through the holiday season with ease (mariomaker 2 is already out, but will also be a hit during the holiday season). Delay Animal crossing so we have also something to release in the first half of 2020.

@ICISAZEL What does any of that have to do with what I mentioned? Seems to be that you just wanted to offend someone and pick a fight, come on, it's COMMENTS. If you don't like my comment, don't reply with hate that has nothing to do with it, please.