Topic: Anyone Else Concerned with Nintendo's First Party Output Recently?

Technical specs are not the only thing that can justify a new entry There is so much of the gameplay that either feels outdated or could be improved. Tour showed us some things and it would be great to see its mechanics on a game that isn't a mobile freemium game (variant tracks, the return of special items, an actual shop instead of random unlocks at various coin intervals, frenzies). But even beyond that, there's even more they could do with a Switch developed Mario Kart game, like bringing back Double Dash mode, replacing gliding with actual flying, new kart types and kart gimmicks (seeing Sky High Sundae makes me think, why not hoverboards with grinding?), a track creator. I also never said it specifically had to be 9 either, they could pull a Legends Arceus and do a completely different style of Mario Kart that would provide a full retail Mario Kart release without cannibalizing 8D. I'm partial towards having an open world Forza Horizons/Diddy Kong Racing style Mario Kart, that would've been a much better way to tide people over to Mario Kart 9 next gen. Whatever the case, I could think of 2 or 3 games worth of mechanical improvements for Mario Kart, let alone just one, so skipping the opportunity to create an original Switch entry in favor of lazy ports of mobile tracks is a massive waste of potential. I'm not even sure it's more profitable either.

@skywake Eh, for me the only reason I wait for another Mario Kart is because I don't want to support the DLC. Sure, it's a "value" because you effectively get an entire new game's worth of courses, but the quality doesn't even match the rest of the game. It's mostly just ports of Tour's stuff instead of being reworked to look as nice as the base game's tracks. The clash in style just irks me a bit, so I'd rather just wait for the next entry.

@Bolt_Strike
There are a lot of potentially good ideas they could do with racing games in general. Flip the script on it. But I'm not sure how many of those ideas are "Mario Kart". Games like Forza Horizons with their open worlds work because going 150km/hr through a cactus is fun in its own right. With Mario Kart, take away the tightly controlled tracks with their specific themes and novelties, take away the items. Not really much fun there

And things like new track mechanics? In theory there's no reason why that couldn't just be track DLC. Ok sure, there may be a full game to be made out of something like flying or extreme sports mechanics. But if they were to do that it's at that point not really Mario Kart 9 anymore. It's like going back to 1080 Snowboarding, F-Zero, Wave Race, Diddy Kong Racing. Which I'd be totally in for... but it's not Mario Kart 9.

I'm fine with "Mario Kart 9" being track DLC. Because I have absolutely zero interest in paying full retail for what would likely just amount to track DLC

@VoidofLight
I get it, you've made this sort of argument a few times in this thread. You're really into the gut feeling about these things rather than what's actually being delivered. To be blunt, the Mario Kart 8 DLC is very solid. Despite what certain internet blowhards will try and push for clickbait

@skywake I mean, I'm going off what I'm seeing, and the visual style is pretty lazy in comparison to what the game launched with.

I mean as long as you have Mario Kart characters racing around and shooting items, how can it not feel like Mario Kart?

Most of what I mentioned had nothing to do with tracks, they were more item mechanics. A few of those things could potentially work as DLC (particularly the new gameplay modes I mentioned), but aside from that it's a complete overhaul of mechanics that would require a new game to implement.

Again, I don't see how these mechanics "aren't Mario Kart", I could see them fitting them to Mario Kart. As for why include them into Mario Kart over those games, it's because Mario Kart sells more than all of those IPs combined and they're not going to bring them back unless they have an idea that's so unique that it doesn't work. And it'd be pretty difficult to do that when Mario Kart is such a broad concept.

Yeah, I don't see this at all and I've seen very little praise for it. At best they like the sheer number of tracks and the Tour mechanics, but it's hard to argue the DLC is even "solid". It's blatantly a Tour copy/paste job with a heavily downgraded artstyle and little to no antigrav from the main game. It's a quantity over quality mobile port that doesn't feel like it belongs in MK8.

The new Mario Kart DLC tracks are every bit as fun and provide every bit as much entertainment value as the base game tracks. Just sayin.

Even if the quality isn't quite on par, they're still good looking tracks, especially in motion, and the fun derived while playing them? There's no discernable difference, really. People play 25 yr old games and have just as much fun as modern AAA releases, because the fun is only marginally determined by graphics, and it's usually only ever a negative impact if something looks super rough (like Rune Factory 5) vs just not having the same fidelity (MK8 Deluxe tracks).

$25 for 48 tracks, when the base game only offered 32 even after the original DLC courses are factored in, means you're essentially getting 1.5 expanded Mario Kart games for like, 1/3 the price. Do I wish they had full parity with base game tracks? Sure. But they don't look that different. They really don't. And I can most assuredly say, they're every bit as much fun.

Yeah its clear that they don't live up to Mario Kart 8's standards in terms of graphics (which are still fantastic 8 years later), but its really hard to complain when the value is so above what I'm used to.

To be completely honest, I feel like Mario Kart has rarely been that great at value in the grand scheme of video games? Like 64 and Double Dash always felt lacking to me compared to the competition in terms of content (and I personally don't feel made up for that in quality). Not as much with DS and Wii, but then 7 felt underwhelming and 8 abandoned real battle maps until a re-release (the real value of 8 was the free game). And considering how the actual main Mario Kart team is obviously busy with something else, and I'm not sure a new team would magically create compelling tracks and I'm dead certain it would've had half as many tracks even if they could create brand new from scratch courses for the game, I'll certainly take being given basic remasters of that Mario Kart mobile game I'll never play because I have standards and dignity.

Like on a basic level, its a remaster to hold people over until 9 (which I'd bet money is announced in 2024, the year after they're done with these), not really anything more than that.

@JaxonH I mean, while yes people play old games, at least those old games are stylistically consistent most of the time. This DLC isn't consistent at all with the style 8 is going for, and usually most DLC fit the art style of the game they were produced for. It just feels like Nintendo wanted to make a cheap buck off of already made courses, without having to do much work to update them to the standards that the base game set. The main reason I'm against buying the courses is that simply put, the DLC feels lazy. Even if the gameplay portion is great for those courses, I don't want to encourage Nintendo to continue doing this sort of thing.

Honestly I could care less about the graphics (k maybe a bit) because the price and how many tracks it as, the value just seems good to me.

@VoidofLight
The thing is, I don't think it's laziness.

Laziness would be selling us these courses, but for $20 every set of 8 courses. Ya know, doing less work but charging the full amount. And if that were the case, I'd be right there with you voting with my dollars.

But they're selling them for an insanely cheap price. The original base game in Mario Kart 8 had 24 courses, iirc. For a $60 game without proper battle mode. Whereas in the Course Packs, we're getting 48 courses for $25. Literally 2 Mario Kart games worth of courses for less than half the price of a single game. That's not laziness, that's generosity. They might look a little less good, but not that less good.

And that's the differentiating factor. It's one thing to charge the same amount but offer a product 80% as good. It's quite another to charge 25% the price and offer a product 80% as good. If anything I want to encourage that more. That's value- we're getting high quality, gorgeous courses for waaaaay less money than they traditionally charge. It's a much better bargain for the consumer. Just as much fun, for 75% less money.

If they took the time to make each and every one just as granularity detailed, they would be charging $90 for these courses. $15 for every set of 8, which is what the original DLC cost I believe (and if not it wasn't far off). Or, they would simply offer way less courses. Maybe we get 16 (4 new cups) for our money instead of 48 (12 new cups).

I mean, sure I'd like parity, but not that badly.

Besides which, I don't even think they look that out of place anyways. Only in side by side comparisons can you notice oh, ok, these rocks have less shadows on them or oh, ok, these bushes don't look quite as good. When you're in the game and playing them, it feels like that's just how they're supposed to look. Many of these courses have never received an HD version so they were remade ground up pretty much (lot of work!) and even the Tour courses look noticeably more detailed now.

@Maxz @Matt_Barber Thanks for the down to Earth context guys

Yes those games are obviously going to sell less than Nintendo's literal best selling ip's of all time, they're naturally more niche. But at the same time why does that matter? The games there are well received and may not sell nearly as well as Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, but if the reception is positive then thats all that should matter.

This goes beyond just personal preference, and I would argue saying that we don't need Mario or Zelda is your own personal preference because different people have different views on what a "good" lineup is.

Do you not see the irony of this statement?

Sales wise though, it's tough to argue that the lineup doesn't feel a bit lacking when some of the higher selling IPs have been absent for a while.

Again whats wrong with catering to their more niche ips? They can't always release a Mario and Zelda or Mario Kart (which currently has DLC).
Those are all still quality games you just mentioned not everything has to be a record breaking IP to cover the year.

Again you're just proving my point of you personally being dissatisfied with this year and the direct.
Obviously those games you mentioned are Nintendo's highest selling IPs, whats your point?
If you're concerned about system sellers then pokemon already has this year covered.

I stand by my statement that we don't need a Mario Kart 9 and the people complaining about the quality of the DLC are buying into clickbait from blowhards on YouTube mining drama for clicks. I hope that team is working on something that's not Mario Kart 9

There's a lot of negativity in this thread and I don't get why.
The Switch is on its way to become one of the most successful consoles of all time and never before has Nintendo made this many games for a console this late in its life cycle. The games keep on coming and there's no sign of things slowing down.

By the way, if you're wondering why so many Nintendo IPs seem to get abandoned, you should watch this vid made by Jon Cartwright. It's very insightful.

Agreed, I been saying for years how Mario Kart 9 wasn't happening looking at the sales of 8dx alone and it was smart of Nintendo to pump out dlc instead of making a whole new game that would probably be too similar to 8.

And as for my personal take I wouldn't care for Mario Kart 9, not much room left for creativity and considering the feature gravity racing was the most forgettable thing in the series then yeah I'm good on sequels for now.

to me it's pretty simple... first party game are ok, if this direct was underwhelming was only cause 3rd party software tho.

I'm not going to get into the whole MK debate again (I think that you have to just accept - there won't be a MK9 until the next console and - whether you like them or not - most people do think that the DLC is good value) but on the point of what Nintendo is releasing - it kind of makes a lot of sense.

The big system sellers - Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon and Smash are already out there. They haven't (and likely won't) stop being system sellers for the life of the console. Most people buying a Switch now won't buy more than a dozen games and the games they buy are the big name games that we already know.

It makes sense to feed the more niche fanbase of games like Xenoblade and Fire Emblem now whilst the install base is fat. The people who buy Fire Emblem and Xenoblade (and other similar games) buy loads of games. We are the whales, we dominate the dialogue in online forums and social media, so long as we're getting new games that satisfy us the dialogue around Switch remains fairly positive...

...and so long as the dialogue is fairly positive new buyers will buy in. But those new buyers will go straight to Mario Kart 8, Mario Odyssey, BoTW and Smash first before anything else (as they should because those are still the must have games).

At the heart of it all they key is that you get those system selling games that sell for the lifetime of the system out as soon as possible after launch. If Nintendo is holding things back to do that for the next generation that would be very very sensible.

Of course - in a broader sense I am also concerned about Nintendo's first party. I've said it before and I still think it's true - I think they lack numbers in house and high quality third party partnerships with large scale developers are likely to become increasingly difficult to foster/maintain.

For Nintendo, it matters because of profitability. For us, it matters because the fanbase as a whole is more likely to be satisfied with a high selling IP than a niche one. I mean look at how many people are complaining about "NO GAEMZ!" despite this year being packed with titles. Individual fans have different preferences, but when you aggregate them all together the higher selling IPs are going to matter more when it comes to fan reception. The dedicated fans of the niche IPs are going to be happy, but they're going to be drowned out by the "NO GAEMZ" complaints of the fans of the popular IPs.

They can't always release those big games but it feels time for those games and they're MIA. No one was complaining about not having 3D Mario or Mario Kart in 2019 or anything because Odyssey and 8D were too new then but now those games are much further in the past.

If that's the case then why come out with Splatoon 3 and TotK? Those are sequels to big system sellers and yet they saw fit to release a sequel (and in fact the decision to release Splatoon 3 now looks really sus considering how similar it feels to 2). Why are they so willing to release sequels to Splatoon 3 and BotW but not to MK8D or (so far) Odyssey? They're being very weird and inconsistent about it.

To be clear: one home console Mario Kart per generation is the norm. Same with one 3D Mario, one or two Zeldas, one Pikmin, one Smash, etc. We're already getting WAY more Pokemon games on Switch than anyone could have reasonably expected. Two Splatoons, even.

I'm really not seeing the lack of mainstream first-party blockbusters. They're just also catering to the larger niches in their fanbase, like Xenoblade fans, Fire Emblem fans, etc.

@skywake Well, having that mindset is kind of dismissive of people's opinions, but okay. I don't watch Nintendo youtubers most of the time, and outright despise them. The conclusion I came to is entirely based off the trailers which Nintendo posted for the DLC.