Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

In a weird way it actually wouldn't be too surprising if Nintendo did sell Retro Studios. I was kinda wondering recently whether this may happen and again, wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo sold them. The problem is, Nintendo isn't exactly big on internal development teams and as budgets and resources go up, the number of games they create will go down.

There are loads of dev studios in texas in different sizes.

But I do think Retro has problems, it was a very long time we heard about their new IP, but nothing seems to have come from it. I think they are either in dev hell or the new game has been scrapped.

@Therad It was rumoured to be 2 games - a ghost/horror game that was cancelled due to development problems and a Star Fox racer which has all but disappeared since the "leaks" earlier this year. Something is definitely seriously wrong.

@FragRed Or...we dont take leaks as fact and those two things maybe never existed period?

Whatever Retro is working on will come eventually. I mean we didn't know what Monolith Soft was working on for years then XCX showed up just at random, and then XC2 happened 2 years later.

Just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean the studio is dead.

I mean for God's sake we didn't hear about the Last Guardian for the best part of a freaking decade and no one was shouting that studio was dead.

Let them work on whatever it is they are ACTUALLY making.

Plus if Microsoft is going to buy a studio in Texas, dunno, Panic Button is there too.

2005: Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, it can all be fake so double check on it elsewhere.

2018: OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN THIS INCONSPICUOUS BIT OF NEWS THAT MAY POSSIBLY LEAD TO SOMETHING THAT I'M NOT SURE IS EVEN CORRELATED???

ftfy

@Therad Lel true. But I remember back in school during that time period where our teachers drummed in our heads that the Internet could lead to absolutely nothing.

@ReaderRagfish I mean with how most of reviews are now, I think your brother was ahead of the curve by a good decade or so...

@ReaderRagfish Never forget Sonic Unleashed (a fantastic game) getting lower scores than both Sonic 06 and Sonic Free Riders...

That was the moment when I realized that reviewers can be nonsense.

Wii U games vs. Switch ports of Wii U games is the perfect example of review nonsense, especially Tropical Freeze. While the Switch version of Wii U games are better, the Wii U version shouldn't have been so low in the first place.

@FaeKnight Uhm, wait, what?!?! What the heck happened?

@FragRed @Therad At this point I'm not certain how anyone can draw any conclusion other than that Retro is dead/doomed/slowly sinking. Too much talent left, too long since any notable titles, and almost not mention of the studio at all, ever. I haven't even been seeing them on credits for helping out with other games like we do for Monolith. It's been an entire console generation at this point and they have produced nothing of commercial value. That can't be good for their survival.

@DarthNocturnal At least Prime 3 didn't fall into the Radiant Dawn error. "Easy" = Normal, "Normal" = Hard, "Hard" = Lunatic with no weapon triangle and having to count enemy movement manually

@Knuckles-Fajita The Last Guardian was a different best. The game was forever delayed, but Japan Studio was highly active with several releases per year. Last Guardian was a victim of the studio being focused on Vita and PSVR efforts, PLUS some staple PS4 titles sprinkled in. Retro OTOH has done nothing that released since Tropical Freeze almost 5 years ago (plus some work on the Switch port of the same.) No studio goes dark for half a decade unless things are pretty bad. Well, I mean, other than Lionhead....and that didn't work out well either.

@ReaderRagfish But this game was like so totally 6 months ago, c'mon get with the times! Follow youtube trends, loser!

Prime 3's Hypermode was a pain in the ass though. Dark Samus and Aurora Unit 313 can be pretty dang tough.

It's not GameCube Prime 2's annoying Spider Guardian though.

@Grumblevolcano I thought the Wii u game was received well. It was the best platformer on the system, it’s actually my best platformer on the switch too

Also in regards to Monolith, we've known that they've been working on Xenoblade X since 2013. Remember the teaser trailer for X? That turned into Xenoblade X in 2014. So that's also a bad example.

I'm still optimistic for Retro to pull through, but Nintendo did have a history of selling off a studio after it outlived its usefulness like Rare did. It's been years since then though. And Retro was also in trouble during its first years before Metroid Prime 1 came out, so it's not like being in trouble automatically means the game will be bad.

Yeah I think we need to remember is that Retro Studios had NO GAMES released before Metroid Prime, and before that was approved was working on 4 separate things, all canned or modified into Prime.

And then Prime was made by a rather small team.

Whatever Retro is doing, it will be fine.

Truth be told I'd rather know nothing and have them speak when something relevant is afoot that we should know about, or near completion.

Otherwise we end up with SquareEnix.

Honestly people should be more mad that Nintendo has the Fatal Frame IP but refuses to really go all-out on it as their go-to horror game. Although I would avoid making games just to tick genre boxes off an arbitrary list if the game itself sucks.

@EvilLucario Not porting 5 would be a missed opportunity.

I'm not sure what Retro is up to, but I do feel that the longer it takes, the higher the expectations are. And after Metroid Prime and the DKC series, expectations are already quite high I think. Even if it's not a 2019 or 2020 game (though at that point I would start to question what they're up to), a small teaser wouldn't be out of place. I don't think Ninty is going to give up on them, yet. But from what we've heard, they're definitely the most expensive studio to keep up and running, so they have to release something at some point I'd presume.

@NEStalgia Monolith Soft is actually two different 'teams'. One based on Tokyo (the Xenoblade team), and one in Kyoto, that's the one that's always credited when you see their name in the credits; Their Kyoto team is more of a support team for the Nintendo games made at their Kyoto HQ. They also opened a second studio in Tokyo this year: https://nintendoeverything.com/monolith-soft-opens-new-studio...

I'm also pretty sure TLG was indefinitely delayed because the PS3 couldn't handle the AI.