Topic: Disappointed by the lack of new exclusives

Well, even now I get most stuff on Steam if it comes to there, I find enough to play on Switch, so I guess I can't really understand....

@chipia @BlueOcean It's kind of implied in this thread that ports don't require effort, and although I imagine they are less effort than creating something new, the recent GTA release shows ports can go badly wrong if you don't put the work in.

Plus, as it's been said many times, the WII U sold a fraction of the units that the Switch has sold, so these ports have reach an entirely new audience.

I honestly don't understand this sentiment at all. Don't we have at least one installment in almost every major Nintendo franchise?

I also think people still, shockingly, underestimate (ie: remain willfully ignorant) of the impact covid-19 has had on every industry across the face of this planet.

@MarioBrickLayer I understand what you mean and yes, they had to make the ports but they are not old games that they had to deal with. I've never criticised ports on any platform but the topic is about new games developed by Nintendo. It doesn't help that Nintendo's ports are overpriced unlike the rest of the ports in the industry but that's not the topic either. Nintendo have developed fewer games than ever before, that's what the OP says and he's right. I don't buy the pandemic and the ports excuses.

Nintendo have become business-focused with all these safe and soulless games and relying on overpriced ports and services. I wasn't a fan of Iwata but he was a gamer. Miyamoto is the most important person that Nintendo have ever had, in my opinion. He not only created new IPs that were fresh and interesting the second you saw them (like Pikmin for GameCube) but he had a key role in the development operations as you said and the new people working at Nintendo just don't get it right.

And this is different from usual how?

As opposed to the Wii era casual games or the time they put out three New Super Mario Bros games in a year.

Y'all don't know what your talking about, because you've provided no proof beyond "Switch has had issues getting brand new first party titles and relies on 3rd parties" as if that only reflects the Switch. I feel bad for the OP who I believe was genuinely just trying to express why the Switch wasn't for them but everyone else is just exposing their own ignorance. And its doubly frustrating because I do in fact have some issues in how Nintendo has handled releases on the Switch, but that's while also at least trying to have a basic understanding of why and of the most easy to understand trends in and outside of Nintendo. "HD console graphics + larger games = less games" shouldn't be so difficult to comprehend, for example. Like I'm begging people to do some basic research or even comparisons.

And yes they did rely on ports because of how much the Wii U failed. So did the GBA. So did Sega after the Dreamcast died. So did a lot of people this year for the upgrade to the next gen consoles.

Also quite frankly, I don't give a **** how many games Nintendo's main internal teams make. I at least see the argument for the amount of Nintendo games in general. But who could possibly care if too little a percentage came from their main internal devs? They brought in Retro Studios (who did not start as a Nintendo owned dev IIRC) to make a Metroid and they made my favorite game, Wayforward's bringing back Advance Wars, Namco helped make Smash Bros Ultimate. As long as the quality is there, doesn't remotely matter.

@kkslider5552000 I share the OP's disappointment. You dare to say that I don't have any idea what I'm talking about after what I posted? Look at the list I posted on the last page, sir. On top of that, you get offensive and call me ignorant, and take it personally like the typical average NL troll. I'm not even going to bother with you, you don't deserve anything with your deplorable attitude.

All I'm asking is for reasonable proof that Nintendo is lagging behind other comparable companies making games. You're right, in the broad sense of a lower amount of video games being made by major gaming companies, but that reflects nothing about the games being made nor how HD game development has effected game companies as a whole. You can't just bring up Switch games out of context to anything else in gaming and be done.

Honestly I'd prefer if you just wished Nintendo had spent an absolutely absurd amount of money to become the most productive gaming company in the world, by a notable distance. That's an odd wish, but I'd get it. Personally, looking at giant companies like Disney makes me terrified of companies that can put out constant content to that absurd a degree, but I get the appeal at least.

@kkslider5552000 I respect all points of view and I like healthy discussions like people on here can tell you but I don't discuss with anyone that insult and then edit their comments unless they apologise and don't do it again.

Dude just calm down for a second. My only edit was because the last paragraph was a thought I had as soon as I posted it. I genuinely just don't know what you want. What should Nintendo do, to be good, that is a reasonable request.

Yeah let’s calm down.

@Eel Tell him. I haven't insulted and edited.

I have a lot of thoughts. My main one, is I do genuinely think people should look a bit more into a lot of things about gaming. And this is ways that both make Nintendo look better or worse. I simultaneously think some of Nintendo's issues are, at worst, just another example of the difficulties of AAA HD game development while also thinking Nintendo can sometimes just be another greedy company, like all big companies are. A decreasing amount of games from these companies, is unfortunately, kind of just the norm. Companies, even ones you like, will not always give you what you want. Again for reasons that can be both reasonable and/or greedy.

But the main point is, a lot of this is not just Nintendo. And in some ways, I think we should be more mad at all gaming companies at this rate.

Also, its ok to be disappointed by the Switch. That should maybe be completely obvious but I dunno. I love the games but it has some issues.

@BlueOcean from my point of view, you seem to be overreacting.

Could you tell me what did @kkslider5552000 edit out?

@Eel Where exactly am I overreacting? If someone calls me ignorant and says that I don't have any idea what I'm saying, the least I can say is to tell him not do it. You should correct the person that is not behaving correctly instead of the person that is not willing to accept it. If you don't want to do it, fine, but don't tell the other person that is overreacting.

@BlueOcean That's where Nintendo has been mostly falling short with switch. It's not just the volume or the ports, or if it's first or second party. It's that what they do turn out is soulless. It feels focus tested for a market demographic, and formulaically manufactured to fit the bill of sale as efficiently lean as possible without spending an extra yen. XC, Luigi, dread are the exceptions. And botw, but that's an iwata era game partly ran my miyamoto at first, so that's not even example of their new content. A Nintendo game used to be a quirky gem that made up for lack of tech spectacle with endless charm and detail. But much of the current products, both internal and external, is the worst kind of "built to a specification" kind of game.

The same criticism can apply to Sony, but even their studios show more passion and personality than current Nintendo. Except insomniac with marvel. Spiderman is dull and empty like Nintendo's modern games. But that's Disney, not Sonys fault, which says a lot.

Lots of great exclusives or sumi exclusives on switch but few of them are Nintendo products, more than publishing, anyway.

@kkslider5552000 the nsmb games, the Pokemon games (sort of 1st party, they're partial owners of gf through tpc) acnh, the last Kirby, calamity warriors (either third party counts or it doesn't...)... It's all so vapid feeling.

I just started Calamity Warriors, I can't imagine I'll end up agreeing on that one. But the others, fair enough. Weird how the least praised Kirby platformer in recent years followed the most praised one. Those games deserve the critique they get.

Still not a lot of games, especially when they haven't made a new NSMB game in 8 years. But yeah, let's not make bland looking 2d platformers with no imagination and Pokemon was better with sprites. That's a pretty correct take.

@NEStalgia You reminded me that the Pokemon games and the Yoshi game for Switch are mediocre and that the outsourced spin-offs are not exactly a long-time Nintendo fan's priority. I agree with you, the new Nintendo games are soulless and dull. XC2, Luigi's Mansion 3 and Metroid Dread are the exceptions but, interestingly, they were developed "outside". It was a good decision to acquire Next Level and Monolith, of course, they are good developers. What have been doing Nintendo, though? Nearly nothing, which is more shocking considering, as the OP said, that there is only one platform to develop for, that the games that Nintendo make are cartoony like @perricn said (we can't compare the development of Splatoon 2 with Halo Infinite because they are both HD/UHD like some implied) and that Nintendo stopped development for Wii U long before the Switch launched. Nintendo was dead for over a year, with no games at all! Only Paper Mario was released in that time frame and it wasn't developed by them either and met with mixed reviews. How can people compare this to Nintendo's glorious past is difficult to understand. Switch would be a joke without the Wii U ports.

@chipia @BlueOcean so, I'm not sure I have a position on this as I didn't have a Wii U or a 3DS, so I'm happy with what's happening, but obviously want as many great games as we can get!!

This Nintendo life article on this subject shows that 2015 was the year when the most games were produced by Nintendo:-

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

This site lists all the games released each year by Nintendo:-

https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_games_by_ye...

It 2015 the games were:-

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival - Wii U
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer - Nintendo 3DS
Art Academy: Home Studio - Wii U eShop
BOXBOY! - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash - Nintendo 3DS
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. - Nintendo 3DS
Devil's Third - Wii U
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water - Wii U eShop
Flipnote Studio 3D - Nintendo 3DS eShop*
Fossil Fighters: Frontier - Nintendo 3DS
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse - Wii U
LBX: Little Battlers eXperience - Nintendo 3DS
Mario Party 10 - Wii U
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash - Wii U
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars - Wii U eShop / Nintendo 3DS eShop
Nintendo Badge Arcade - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Pokémon Picross - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Pokémon Rumble World - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Pokémon Shuffle - Nintendo 3DS eShop
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon - Nintendo 3DS
Puzzle & Dragons Z + Super Mario Bros. Edition - Nintendo 3DS
Splatoon - Wii U
Super Mario Maker - Wii U
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D - Nintendo 3DS
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes - Nintendo 3DS
Xenoblade Chronicles 3D - New Nintendo 3DS
Xenoblade Chronicles X - Wii U
Yo-kai Watch - Nintendo 3DS
Yoshi's Woolly World - Wii U

This is a list of 30 games, the nintendolife article says there were 31, so I don't know what is missing.

This list contains a few ports, minor spin off games and some which were published by Nintendo but not produced.

Is 2015 better or worse than this year in terms of quality? There are a lot of games from 2015 I haven't played.

2021:-

Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain - Nintendo Switch
Bravely Default II - Nintendo Switch
Game Builder Garage - Nintendo Switch
Mario Golf: Super Rush - Nintendo Switch
Mario Party Superstars - Nintendo Switch
Metroid: Dread - Nintendo Switch
Miitopia - Nintendo Switch
Monster Hunter Rise - Nintendo Switch
New Pokémon Snap - Nintendo Switch
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl - Nintendo Switch
Pokémon Unite - Nintendo Switch
Shin Megami Tensei V - Nintendo Switch
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - Nintendo Switch
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD - Nintendo Switch
WarioWare: Get it Together - Nintendo Switch

@BlueOcean We forgot Sushi Striker in the list! Seriously, though, it actually is a good (overpriced) game. I'd argue it's a better game than some of the other "big" games on the list. I say this as a genuine Knack fan, though...

One problem Nintendo has continues to be that they're massively understaffed for HD development and rely on contracting out most of their production so as not to have to increase their internal size. The impression I have is they have very little development capacity internally, and basically just have a room full of project managers that mostly coordinate and assemble external content. Sometimes that works out great (Most things Intelligent Systems, Alpha Dream (until Nintendo bankrupted them), Rare (until Nintendo almost bankrupted them), Mercury Steam, 50/50 Platinum, NLG (now internal though.))

One problem is our perception that we're judging them based on actual in-house products, while it seems like they've intentionally decided their solution for moving into HD production is to more or less stop developing much in house outside Zelda, Splatoon, XC, Mario (&Kart), and AC, and rely on contracting out for most things. Almost nothing comes from inside, maybe 5-6 games per generation, and everything comes from outside partners now. And the former internal talent like Sakaguchi spearheads the coordination with outside studios, where he used to lead the internal studio.

It's not a bad strategy as long as it works consistently. There's not necessarily a difference between a Nintendo game made by Nintendo or a Nintendo game made under contract and managed by Nintendo. We may be too harsh judging them by whether the exclusive is internal or external. But the consistency of the products isn't even, with a surprising number feeling like decidedly low budget filler, or intentionally minimized content games.

It's clear that Switch lacks a lot of "Nintendo" games. It has a handful of big games that are "produced" by Nintendo via 3rd party. As long as it's nintendo content (Fire Emblem, etc, which they own the brand), from a consumer perspective it's still really a Nintendo game, and should be judged accordingly. It's not like the game will be on PS. But many of those games end up mediocre. Especially anything with a Pokemon tie-in.

Switch definitely has some solid system-selling content. It's just that most of said content isn't actually from Nintendo at all...

And there's still the problem that Retro, one of their biggest most known internal studios hasn't actually shipped a game in almost 8 years and counting. The Zelda "B" team that does the handheld games hasn't shipped a game in almost 8 years (they've probably been on the remasters.) Their studios are either idle, caught in development hell, or constantly assigned to support one of the big 4 game teams and nothing else gets made, much like how Sony abused Japan Studio until it withered and died. With the number of remasters and ports they've been putting out, I'm guessing a lot of their internal studio development time has actually been spent working on the remasters themselves instead of new content. Smart business to monitize the old expenses, but it leaves Switch as WiiU Pro - a better machine to play the best Nintendo 8th gen games on, and the real Switch exclusives come mostly from other companies. Since most people never owned WiiU it makes Switch look great to everyone except the WiiU customers. Again, smart business, they don't care, we're not the market now. But what will they do next time when they can't just sell the prior generation's games as new to most of their market? They'll have to massively ramp up output to match what Switch looked like to people that never bought a WiiU. I don't think they have the capacity to come even close to that goal. Or are they intentionally holding back the product of their studios so they have them for Switch 2, since Switch 1 can live on WiiU's shadow to most of the market ?