Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@teo_o wait, where'd you get that from? I thought they switched development cause it wasn't going anywhere.

@GilbertXI Imran Khan, the ex senior editor of Game informer, took its sources in a series of tweets in 2019 explaining what he heard about the troubled development.
Apparently someone told him that retro proposed themselves with a demo that nintendo liked. Who knows, only time will tell.
(Years have passed, I'm wondering how much a new prime will have in common with the new dooms)

@teo_o ah I see, it's quite common for developers to compete with each other over a title within a company, I guess retro won, let's just see what the end result will be

@Anti-Matter Kinect was literally part of the reason Sony actually managed to narrowly beat out the Xbox 360 due to Microsoft taking the focus away from core gamers and towards families and casual gamers, which is exactly why PS3 was being edged out by the 360 earlier

It's also why Xbox One was initially more expensive than the PS4 despite being less powerful. They're definitely not attempting to appeal solely to casual players anymore. The money is in people who actually care about video games and don't just sporadically play them with their kids

Hell even Nintendo isn't that child oriented. They have franchises that appeal to all ages but the Switch is like the very antithesis of the Wii U in terms of target demographic and its library of games. The fact that Breath of the Wild LAUNCHED the system should be proof enough of that

@TheFrenchiestFry Nintendo's approach with the Switch was get the core audience in first and then branch out. Look how the Switch marketing has changed over the years, first off there was a lot of marketing towards adults and over time it has become more about families.

@Grumblevolcano I think that's going to continue.

I still expect that at some point we'll start to see Nintendo positioning the Switch (or more likely Switch Lite) more explicitly as a budget "gateway console" option pitched more at 6-14 year olds than it has been. That's something that should be supported by a "Nintendo selects" range - games like Yoshi's Crafted World, Kirby Star Allies and 1-2 Switch seem perfect for that.

The question is whether Nintendo can pull the trick of simultaneously releasing and marketing a "Switch Pro" to the early adopter enthusiast market without it actually being a completely new format (because it's hard to do that when you're pushing the message that "Switch is now the cheap console that you can buy for your kids"). It felt like they only had limited success doing that with the 3DS.

My gut instinct is that any "Switch Pro" is actually a soft launched "Switch 3.0" that loads games faster, has fewer frame rate hiccups and maybe uses some AI magic in the dock to present a cleaner image but isn't noticeably more powerful to the layman. I could see them starting that with a Monster Hunter special edition. It would make a lot of sense.

By Christmas 2021 all stock on the shelves would then be the "3.0" revision.

Do you guys think there’s a chance we will get Mother 3 this year as part of the game’s 15th anniversary? I’m holding onto some hope given Trials of Mana and original Fire Emblem got localized recently.

@Don I reckon we see an Earthbound remake using the Link's Awakening engine before Mother 3. (Honestly, it would look just like the original's tourist brochure!)

@GrailUK @Don This is Nintendo. So expect the anniversary to go by and nothing happen or at the most just dump the first 2 games on NSO. Definitely don’t see any remakes happening. Think Nintendo kinda doesn’t care about the franchise moving forward.

@FragRed Hey man, there are feelings here! 'This is Nintendo' is a pretty empty statement. It implies you know what they will do next hahah

I think the only anniversaries Nintendo will truly celebrate this year is Zelda 35th and Pokemon 25th though the latter being the usual Game Freak does their own thing rather than Nintendo specifically celebrating the anniversary.

@GrailUK Nintendo doesn’t even know what they’re gonna do next. They just pick a card at random and go “that’s it. That’s what we do next” haha

@FragRed That's a very downbeat way of saying they like to surprise us. I like being surprised. It's fun. Shame there seems to be more and more folk frustrated they can't predict them (to the point of thinking they make it up as they go along lol) Everyone chasing the American Dream - quick insta win on the stock exchange)

@GrailUK Bot totally sure it’s all about surprises. Think some of it is quite likely Nintendo just being backwards in some of their thinking - I’m not talking about the games they produce necessarily. I’m talking about Nintendo as a whole

@FragRed They certainly have a different outlook than most other companies. I do think it's unfair to call it 'backwards.' Probably more 'overly cautious' is more accurate?

@StuTwo Nintendo has mentioned wanting to follow the iPhone model. Maybe this could be like a Gen 9.5 or something. Basically like the New 3DS, but with more than a handful of exclusives. With the rest of the industry transitioning towards the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, third parties aren't going to want to support the base Switch anymore. So if Nintendo makes the Switch Pro more powerful, maybe third parties will just leave the base Switch in the dust and shift support to the Switch Pro. Nintendo is probably going to be a little more reluctant to completely leave the base model behind so most 1st party games will probably still support the Switch, but could have enhancements on the Switch Pro and would be the best way to play Nintendo's games for the next 3 or 4 years, allowing players the choice to skip if they don't want to shell out the money this quickly but still providing some incentive to upgrade.

I'd buy it, I always hated how mid gen upgrades like the GBA SP, DSi, and New 3DS do just enough better to feel like they could offer better games but then do little to nothing to actually deliver on this and just give you the same hardware with slightly better specs, it feels almost pointless to me. For me to really get on board with upgraded hardware I need to see how it improves the games, if you're just playing the same games as ever that doesn't really convince me the upgrade is worthwhile.

Its not that they don't care about the series, it's just done. That doesn't mean we can't get remakes or an official translation of mother 3, but I highly doubt it at this point, especially considering some of the controversy around the magypsies.

@teo_o
I hope I didn't come off as harsh in my initial post to you.
Anyways, that's pretty crazy that it only sold 6 million, but it also makes sense as there have only been 6 games (not including arcade versions). So, basically, that's 1 million sales on average per game. For Metroid, it would be 1.28 Million sales per game on average (14 games over 18 Million sales). I don't have interest in either series, but I hope that Metroid Prime 4 does well and that F-Zero does come back one day.
Also, you can edit your comments, in case you need to add something later. Just wanted to let you know, in case you didn't know that.
EDIT: So, since we're speaking about sales, do you think Metroid Prime 4 or a new F-Zero game will sell more? I believe you kind of answered this earlier, but I just wanted to know why you think what you said earlier. 🤔

@Grumblevolcano,

Not so sure the Switch was ever aimed at adults marketing wise, to me it always been about the wider audience or Blue Ocean as Reggie used to call it, all the marketing has been about bringing people together while playing games.

@SM3DASislit harsh? No way! Thanks for the heads-up!
It's crazy when you look at the sales right?
My point it's that, of course, i hope to see a comeback of fzero, and I do believe they don't lie when they say they don't have new ideas. The two issue are clearly linked: it's enough to have a series that sells good but not so good, then if you add the fact that they would basically make a GX HD...maybe for them it's not enough of a reason. And I do respect nintendo for this, despite being an impatient fanboy. Any other software house would milk the cow until it's literally dead.
Nintendo is clearly in the phase of the company where they want to solidify the popularity of their IPs. The fact that they opened up on a Movie idea for Mario and they made a theme park it's indicative. Not to mention they stated it.
I hope the reason they scrapped Bandai's Metroid, other than the messy development, was to make sure it came out with a fresh coat for the series comparable to what BOTW did.
Honestly I have no clue on what type of gameplay you would need to do that.
The Prime titles are single player sci-fi FPSs with intricate maps a la metroivania, of course. This is already a problem if you aim to make the next Metroid as big of a deal as BOTW. But seeing how the new team at retrostudios is shaping up i would say it's in excellent hands.
That been said, it's safe to say it would be crazy for an FPS like Metroid Prime 4 to make the sales numbers of BOTW, which is an open world adventure with a cozy ghibliesque graphic style, so who knows, if it happens to be a big deal, maybe 7 million copies (throwing numbers). The console will have a crazy installed base by the time Metroid comes out 🤷🏻‍♂️.
Fzero? Who knows...honestly I would do a Forza Horizon with fzero. But it doesn't have the appeal of real car models and it's not based on a popular movie/novel. Like GX producer Nagoshi said, nintendo has already got the easy family party racer, so fzero has to be something else.