Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

That always seemed a bit sad to me. They made a series of fairly well received games, based on core Nintendo characters. Quite a few of them sold very well. Then their last 3 games just sold badly because people had already started to move away from the 3DS (which was a sales trend you saw in other 3DS games too, like Fire Emblem and Metroid)

I always thought Nintendo should've bailed them out, given those factors. It's not like they went bankrupt due to their own bad work (in which case there's a business justification for letting them disappear). They mostly went bankrupt because of the sheer bad luck of misjudging the exact timing of a console transition.

@Dezzy Yeah, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't want Mario & Luigi to exist any longer anyways. It goes against their company design policy these days.

@link3710

How so?

@Dezzy My feeling is Nintendo really aren't bothered with what happens to outside developers, even if they work exclusively/close with Nintendo. If a developer goes under or in the case of Rare, is bought by someone else, then Nintendo shrugs and moves on even if it means losing franchises. I'm not saying that's how Nintendo operates its just how it feels to me they operate. Its why they don't seem to care about purchasing developers to beef up their output.

@FragRed They did buy MonolithSoft in 2008 from BANDAI NAMCO, 1-UP Studio (Brownie Brown), and Retro Studios, so it's not like they haven't acquired other studios before. In the cases of Monolith and 1-UP, they assist with development of first-party Nintendo games; Monolith helped with Breath of the Wild's world design, and 1-UP, (Monolith too) recently helped develop Animal Crossing: New Horizons. They are integrated well, and of course develop their own titles to beef up their output, but I doubt they're neglected or necessarily hung out to dry.

Edit: After reading the last few posts on the Paper Mario / Mario & Luigi debacle, it's a real shame that AlphaDream went under. I loved their games, especially Dream Team and Paper Jam. Another shame is that Nintendo didn't buy them out, or at least try and carry over some of their work, because it was a well-designed series with some cool characters, enemies, and storylines.

@theJGG I know Nintendo have purchased the odd developer in the past, but if I am right in remembering, there was an interview (think it was Iwata) where they said it wasn't company policy to acquire developers and in order to be able to buy Monolith Soft, they had to go to the board and convince them the purchase would be beneficial for Nintendo. I know Phil Spencer probably has to do similar things when Microsoft bought all them studios but I get the feeling it's a lot easier for Microsoft and Sony to make these kinds of acquisitions as it's company policy to expand whenever possible hence why they have done so many whereas Nintendo hasn't.

Even then, Monolith Soft was the last video game developer purchase Nintendo made and that was about 15 yers ago. So although they have made purchases, it's still not anything recent.

@Euler Oh heck, I remember E3 2015 with Nintendo, which from my perspective was horrible. But then again, I also remember several Wii U games that came out that year were Splatoon, Mario Maker and Xenoblade Chronicles X and I enjoyed them all quite a lot, so 2015 and 2016, I don't remember being as bad.

@FragRed It's probably hardest for Nintendo to convince that studio purchases would be beneficial because unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has a gold mine of retro games. I'd guess the line of thinking would be something along the lines of "Why buy a studio to create extra new games when you can instead release more $60 ports/remasters and get guaranteed better sales?"

With Microsoft it's probably very easy, just point to the very common views of "Xbox has no games" and "Xbox only has Halo, Gears, Forza". Those views will probably stay until like 2022/2023.

With Sony it's probably a case of something like "[insert studio] is best known for their very well received Playstation exclusives so them being a part of Sony Interactive Entertainment will be very beneficial to guarantee the continuation of more high quality Playstation exclusives." (e.g. Insomniac before the purchase was best known for Spider-Man 2018)

@Grumblevolcano I do think you’re right. I also think that because prior to HD consoles, Nintendo could for the most part, put out a sizeable library without needing to lean on outside developers and I do wonder if they believe that to still be the case. So why buy up studios to create the games we can create ourselves? Also Nintendo are leaning really heavily on both Mario and Zelda, perhaps more than ever, and those are basically nearly all done in house with Monolith Soft helping to some extent.

@link3710 wow thanks for the recap, i ignored most of this info.
So it's safe to say Nintendo has not shrunk into only one console, but rather restructured its development. I'm sure most of the jobs lost in the studios closures have found their way into other studios. To tell you the truth i'm not disappointed in nintendo's rate at publishing first party titles, especially compared to the studios owned by microsoft and sony.
I am just expecting to play a breath of the wild caliber title once a year, when in reality these titles come once, maybe twice in a generation.

I want in January

Yeah well that was a pretty dumb rule from Miyamoto, who clearly just doesn't "get" RPGs as a genre (he thinks like platformers and adventure games that you can make a good RPG by just focusing on the gameplay.....which you can't)

And thats what I think they SHOULD do. They have plenty of franchises that aren't being used. They should make a few more deals like the one they've made with Koei Tecmo, or Grezzo, or Tantalus.
Just find a studio that has a good record with a particular genre and just approach them and say "If you make the next Golden Sun/Advance Wars/ Kid Icarus/Star Fox game, we'll give you 50% of the profit".

I know Nintendo are sensitive about that because care about keeping the high quality, but frankly plenty of their first party attempts at those series weren't so great anyway. So why not?

@teo_o Right, these are technically all external studios, so even though Nintendo itself hasn't been reducing it's development output, it's stopped contracting out to develop as many titles. Outside of Koei Tecmo, I don't think they've increased external development at all to make up for the studio closures.

@Grumblevolcano
Okay, that makes sense.
Sometimes though, the hype train gets out of hand with a stream announcement, and there ends up being more disappointment than there might be if was just shadow dropped.
There are some people though that have like 25 games in their backlog, and are wanting like 10 new games the next year. So, in the end, it ends up being different for everyone.

@MS7000 Yeah, and the actual data show Nintendo released more games on average during the Wii U and 3DS era compared to the Switch era (of which 2020 has been the worst year).

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/07/talking_point_is_ni...

@Euler Ha, I do remember that article. I think the worse thing is knowing that most of the output is ports. I wouldn't mind the slightly lower output if there were more new experiences. Hopefully 2021 will be a lot better.

I'm happy nsm3dw is being ported. It was my favourite Wii u game. But it really makes me sad that it means a proper sequel is now about three years away. It likely will take place after odyssey two, a new 2d mario game. If a new galaxy game is made that pushes it to four years away. That's an insane wait for people who previously played it on Wii u. Same as its been an annoying wait for a new mario kart.

@sixrings

I really wouldn't hold your breath for a sequel to 3D World. Chances are they're not planning one. If anything, the next game will be Odyssey 2, then they'll probably just come up with something new after that.

@Dezzy if 3dworld sells well, which all switch games do, then it will get a sequel

personally id prefer if the formula was given to DK and I could play a four player DK game with my family... Donkey Kong, Cranky Kong, Dixie Kong, Diddy Kong and Funky Kong as a cheat character.

@sixrings 3D World is already a sequel and 3D Mario has been in pairs so far except Odyssey:

• 64 -> Sunshine
• Galaxy -> Galaxy 2
• 3D Land -> 3D World
• Odyssey -> ?