Mario & Luigi Developer AlphaDream Recruiting Graphic Designers For Switch And Smartphone Projects

That never happened before: A game developer is hiring people to develop a game.

Hopefully they take their time and finally make a M&L game that's universally praised again.

@AlternateButtons

Just check the last TGS... Almost no smartphone games compare to the previous one...
This is just a bubble ! There is no future anymore in that sector...

The only reality is that Nintendo wanna make lazy and simple games to maximize profits with low investments...

They did it with Mario Run and some others already, using all the assets already created and add a "no gameplay touch" to it.

Sad, because Nintendo was the total opposite back then.

Easy money bacame what Nintendo loves the most :

1- Port all the games that they can on the new system "easy money".

2- Price of a lowSPECS system + accessories WAY ABOVE the price they normally cost, "easy money".

3- Make mobile games which are basically the reverse of their philosophy, "easy money".

4- Make the fans PAY for the online service that was always FREE, "esay money".

5- Put 32GB memory on a system of 2017 BUT make the people buy themselves a separate card, "easy money".

6- Make games not full anymore but with DLCs and season pass when it was never the case before, "easy money".

It's like we start to see a turn of 180°...

A new and original Mario & Luigi game would be awesome, but they’re already working on the remake, so we probably won’t see it until 2020 or later. The part about smartphones and PlayStation 4 worries me a tad bit... AlphaDream have always limited themselves to Nintendo consoles, so maybe they’re thinking about making a new franchise? I hope they won’t make a new F2P game...

Fair enough, it's time that they stop porting Mario and Luigi games while giving them unreasonably long names

Sounds like another port, this time from 3ds to Switch, with a bit of added content. But nothing new for the 3ds, that has to say more.

@Cobalt Just giving my humble take on your points:

1. As much as you might not like them, ports are good both from a business point of view and for the new gamers. You might own a Wii U and all those games, but there are literally millions of people who didn't and that is a potential market that no company in its right mind would ignore. The more ports the better, both for Nintendo and for all those who skipped the Wii U.

2. It is low spec if you compare it with home consoles, but it has the currently best GPU that a consumer oriented mobile device could have. You might find the Joy-Cons expensive but there is no denying that those controllers pack a lot of technology inside them. That you think they are cheap, doesn't mean they are actually cheap.
I grant you that the dock is way to expensive for what it does though.

3. I agree with you here, mobile games are an attempt to grab a piece of the huge mobile market. As players that prefer gaming on a dedicated console we might not agree, but yet again, it makes all the sense in the world from a business point of view. And Nintendo is a business first and foremost, they're here to make money not to please us.

4. The online service was always free because it has never been an important part of their business model. Things are different now and increasing service and infrastructure cost more money that what they had before. Paying for a service is normal, getting it for free is the exception.

5. 32GBs is small but it strikes a balance between usable storage and price. Putting 128GB (or even just 64GB) would have make the price of the Switch skyrocket. I don't know if you are aware of the shortage problem with NAND flash memory that the whole tech world has been through. NAND flash is crazy expensive and big companies like Apple buy in bulk leaving smaller companies to fight for the remains. I say it again at it current price nobody can expect big storage on the Switch.

6. They are making full games. DLC is an EXTRA, you don't need, nobody is forcing you to buy it.
Are you telling me, that Splatoon 2 is not complete game because they didn't give you the Octo expansion for free, or the same with Breath of the Wild?
Saying that a game is not complete because because it has DLC is utter nonsense.

Just my two cents. Different people, different opinions.

@maruse

1. Ports are not a bad thing WHEN THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY CHOICE for customers...

2. The GPU is not the best at all and the "technology" inside the joycons cost almost nothing when you are Nintendo and you buy those elements by MILLION ! I add to that the ultra cheap plastic and buttons. You talk like a PR who repeat what he has to...

3. Sure Nintendo is here to make money. Yesterday, today and tomorrow... The only point that you don't get is that Nintendo MADE MONEY by making AWESOME IPs back then, today is by another way (sadly).

4. Online wasn't an important part of their business plan ?
I remember how Reggie, Iwata and some other big names at Nintendo were explaining HOW BETTER IT IS TO PLAY ON NINTENDO PLATFORMS BECAUSE ONLINE IS FREE !
It was a part of their business plan, the only difference is that they have change the way of seeing it...(EASY MONEY), this is the truth !

5. You just try to tell me that it will be a DISASTER for Nintendo to include a 128GB sdcard in the Switch package ? I swear you talk like a PR...

6. The nonsense is to have unpolished games just to not miss the Christmas period. XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 2 is the perfect example.
Atrocious technical issues for a game of that caliber, handheld performances just unacceptable and what you call an EXTRA, I call it a MISSING PART of the entire game.
Back then, THE EXTRAS like you call'em were a reward for the players when they ended their games.

Is it difficult to just see what is happening... ?

Nintendo has changed its strategy BECAUSE they cannot do what they did before which is : BEING THE LEADER in the gaming industry ! So they have to take the money where it is, in the wallet of they players...

NES : huge librairy of best games for the time.
SNES : huge librairy of best games for the time.
N64 : Started to be less obvious but still, Mario64, Ocarina, Goldeneye, Majora's, Conkers, Perfect Dark etc...
NGC : Started to be a little different with more multiplats but still great games from Nintendo (Metroid primes, Melee, Paper Mario 1000's, FZero GX etc...)
Wii : Something totally unusual because more than half of the Wii owners weren't gamers but still awesome games (Galaxy 1 and 2, Xenoblade, Prime3, DK Returns etc...)
WiiU : An awesome misunderstood piece of hardware. Xeno X, MK8, Zelda BOTW, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, Yoshi's WW, SSMB, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Mario Maker, Splatoon etc...

SWITCH : inferior ports of multiplats, IOS/Android games, WiiU ports which are 75% of the great games on the system and ???

Nintendo has clearly changed towards its customers... :/

@Cobalt
Did France just get knocked out of the World Cup or something? Chill out dude.

@Cobalt I’m not trying to make you change your opinion, I just gave you mine, but I don’t talk like a PR I just see things for what they are not for what I want them to be.

But it’s OK, to each their own. There are only a couple of things I can’t leave like that.

First you say that the Tegra wasn’t the best (or at least a high class Mobile GPU) at the time the Switch was being developed. Then, tell me, what was better? And don’t tell me the Tegra 2 because that wasn’t a GPU meant for consumers, it was made for AI in airplanes and automobiles. The Switch GPU was the best fit for the machine.

You say that the Joy-Cons are very cheap to make, do you have any insider info that we haven’t? Because you seem to know better than anyone else.

And then, you want Nintendo to include a 128GB memory card for free? That’d be awesome, right? But you can’t be serious. You know little about business if you are.

I need some Mario & Luigi goodness on my Switch, and I wouldn’t mind it on my phone either!

@MH4 you'll probably get it both places, it'll just be a while.

A Mario and Luigi game along the lines of Steven Universe: Attack the Light would be a winner.

@maruse

The Switch is just a Nvidia Shield downclocked and "rebodied".

When you say the Switch is based on the X1, you forget to say A UNDERCLOCKED X1 to 768 MHz !
Do you know that it represents a loss of 25% ?

Those 25% loss is when the Switch is DOCKED !
When undocked, the loss is about the 25% loss when docked + a LOSS OF 40% EXTRA ! The Switch drop to 387 MHz then...

So, please stop with your PR talk by saying it's an X1 blablabla !
You know, there is what is written on the GPGPU and what it can do ! 2 different stuffs here...

For the joycons, "The MEMS accelerometer they use costs $1.88 each when buying 500 at a time. Presumably the other chips are about that much as well. There are a lot of connectors on the PCB, but in bulk they, the case and the battery should be fairly inexpensive."

I don't know the real spendings that Nintendo have to have DUHHH, but I think a joycon may cost around 20 bucks at the end.

The dock might be around 5 bucks to produce, sort of...

About the sdcard, I'm not joking at all ! Is it the fault of the customers IF the cartridge system that Nintendo has chosen is not efficient and force some games to be PARTIALLY on the cartridge and PARTIALLY on download ?

It's always the gamers fault, isn't it ? Erfff....

@Cobalt I’m perfectly aware that the GPU in the Switch is underclocked.

Do you have some kind of problem or something? Is there a reason for that aggressive way of writing I’m unaware of? You seem to be one of those guys who think that they hold the Universal Truth and their opinion is the only one worth having.

Whatever, I’m done playing cat and mouse for no reason. Enjoy your day.

If you're arguing about the SD card as a Nintendo cash-grab, the Switch works with most existing SD cards. It's not a proprietary format that only they sell (see Vita)

@maruse

Wow, I'm sorry if you felt attacked or something, it wasn't on purpose... When you write stuffs you don't get the tone of it that's why I think.

I even put smileys to show a kind of "cool mindset" when I was writting my answer...

Again, I'm sorry if you were upset about me, it wasn't my purpose at all !

PS : I don't think that I hold any Universal Truth, just defend my points. So, I apology then...

@Cobalt

1. Yep I agree there is a fair few ports, but at least they upgraded them when they ported them. It also makes sense when they put years into development on a game and hardly anyone played them due to Wii u sales being terrible. It isn't like they have put off launching brand new games to make ports. They're just fillers!

2- I personally don't think it was overpriced in comparison to the average tablet at the moment. Even now your average tablet with 4gb ram, and a decent GPU and GPU is well over £200. You have to think how long it took them to develop it. They have to make it back somehow? And why should they sell it cheaper if they know it will sell at that price? They have market analysts for that very reason.

3 I don't see how it is the reverse of their philosophy? I don't particularly like all of their mobile games but at least they're not all copies of other games. They still feel like a Nintendo product and they aren't pay to win. They are also making them a lot of money which yes is easy money but why is that a bad thing?

4 Yeah sure they could keep it free, you are right. But if it means an improvement I personally would rather pay (particularly as it's miles cheaper than PSN or gold who have been charging for WAY longer). If it means they will actually have more funds to dedicate to improving online services then that's fine. If they waste the money and don't improve online over last gen then yeah I'll be annoyed.

5. Again this is unfortunately what happens when it is a tablet based system. No other company throw in free SD cards either.

6 What games haven't been full? As far as I know all dlc so far in first party Nintendo games was developed after release.

Its just my point of view, not trying to shoot you down I am just wondering why you think that way?

@Cobalt the cost estimate for the switch was / is $257. A profit for sure but nothing crazy and surely more than a PS4, etc. they didn’t go cheap on it, but did go in a different direction, better or worse.

As for the down clocked processor, most mobile processors throttle, that isn’t an option for a console, so it makes sense. Obviously would have been great to have the more efficient x2 (while being used for cars, etc there is no reason it would not have worked here, it is the successor to the x2 that is specialized for ai, etc) or just a shrunken version of the current x1 to increase battery life or require less down clocking, but that probably presented a lot more challenges.

@Cobalt No need to apologize. I guess I was too quick to judge. My sincere apologies.
No hard feelings!!!!

@Cobalt @maruse, I think you both make some valid points.

As someone who picked up a Switch on launch day, and uses it predominantly in handheld mode, I can attest to the fact that the build quality is indeed unacceptable. I’ve always really looked after it and kept it in a case, but the finish of the plastic on the rear of the tablet and the front of the grey JoyCon has deteriorated badly.

I’m also disappointed about the quality of some third-party ports, but can we realistically expect more from what at the end of the day is a handheld system?

As to the tone, Cobalt did come across as a little rude, but clearly it was unintentional. I think if English isn’t ones first language, this can happen. I find it really nice when two clearly intelligent people have a well intentioned debate. Respect to you both.

@IronMan30 I can wait! 😃

@The_Pixel_King

You're right I'm a FFF !
A Freakin' Froggy Frenchy, nobody's perfect I guess !

I'm really sorry for my bad english but I do with what I have. :/
I'd like to express clearly my thoughts but it's not that easy when you're not native speaker.

So, again, I beg your pardon for the tiny knowledge that I have in English...

@The_Pixel_King Not being an English native means that sometimes what we write might not come as we intended...

I obviously misinterpreted @Cobalt tone, and I'm truly sorry for that, but I'm glad everything ended up being a misunderstanding between us.

I really love meaningful, constructive discussions and I accept and respect every one's opinions. We are all different and, obviously, we agree and disagree in multitude ways.

Anyway, it ended up being an interesting conversation.

It's midnight in Japan, and I get up at 6 a.m. so I'm leaving it here and going to bed.

In Europe and America it's still Sunday, so enjoy your day!

@maruse he says same things over and over. You are correct on all your points.

And I would add some of us love Nintendo’s mobile offerings so far.

You don’t want a deep complicated game on your phone. Or at least I don’t.

And the switch is one of my fave consoles of all time

@starman292 the port thing especially with Wii u is a bit of a myth... Xbox one and PS4 have as many HD versions and remasters of old games/more. With less added and most people are double dipping on essentially the same game - whilst on switch for many it’s the first chance they get to play and more is added.

People seem to make a big deal of it but all three current consoles do it loads and Nintendo are doing it in the most forgivable way. Imho

@Cobalt Haha! Maybe we’ll meet in the World Cup final my friend? England vs France would be fantastic!

@MH4 lol, I can't! Jokes aside, I can also live with Alpha Dream games on Switch and the wait is okay with me. Smartphones aren't as big a deal for me, but I can't fault anyone for wanting more games anywhere, tbh.

@maruse Respect, man. It takes real courage to apologise – particularly what with the anonymity afforded by the Internet – but you and @Cobalt have acted with utter humility. Whether Japan or France, we could do with a lot more of that in the world. Peace to you both! <3

@Cobalt Games are becoming more and more expensive to make, yet they remain the same price at $60. It's either we pay for online, and we get DLC/Season Passes, which I personally like, OR every game goes up to like $80 due to inflation and increased development costs.

@Stocksy I have no problems whatsoever with the Wii U ports either. In fact, I’ve double-dipped on every single one so far and I’m positively aching for Super Mario 3D World (which I prefer to Odyssey) on Switch, but you can’t argue that 2018 is even close to living up to 2017 for Switch.

Being nothing short of wholly underwhelming, E3 summed it up perfectly. Even the previous Nindies Direct paled in comparison to what Nintendo was producing last year. I’m just really hoping that they don’t take take the systems early runaway success for granted.

@The_Pixel_King

I have written here some days ago my predictions.

I said : France VS Belgium and England VS Croatia, which was correct

I also said : France VS England for the Final, even if I have a personal tenderness for Belgium but you know they play against France sooo...

Hope my final prediction will follow my previous one because a final FRANCE VS ENGLAND might be a wonderful show if not the best possible... Wait and see...

PS : and guess what ? We share the same opinion on Odyssey Vs 3D World... Odyssey can't compete 3D World in term of fun, level design and difficulty( Goshhh, the last last last stage of 3D World, I succeed after 50 tryouts at least )

PEACE

@vincentgoodwin Some SD cards actually say "For Nintendo Switch' on the packaging and/or the card itself. Do you think Nintendo makes money from those?

I plugged in my Wii U the other night again to play some Wii Virtual Console, Final Fantasy 2 (SNES) to be exact. The Wii U is such a nice machine. It has 2 Virtual Consoles, plays Wii and Wii U games and has multimedia apps. The Wii U eShop is much better too. It also won't fall apart at the seams like the Switch seems to be. After seeing the specs of the Switch above, I wonder if the Wii U is actually more powerful. Probably not but the Switch seems pretty weak.

@Crono1973

The Switch is more powerful than the Wii U but not with a huge difference.

And yeah, you're totally right about the Wii U compare to the Switch, I mean I think the same as you...

@Totaldude911 If they could get away with charging $80 they would have done it. They can't.

As for DLC and all that nonsense. People can buy it if they want, I don't.

Between Fire Emblem Heroes making Male Seasonal Characters almost non-existent this year in favor of more and more ‘waifus’ when 2017 had mostly gender-balanced banners and Nintendo putting loot boxes in Pocket Camp on top of all the other layers of monetization; I’m losing faith that Nintendo will do right in the f2p sector and feel they should leave it to things like Fortnite and Warframe. I’ve always held Nintendo in very high regard but they’ve made it very clear they’re ready to get down and dirty like the rest of them and shift the content and payment model of their mobile games as they go. Just stick to full games. Hopefully FE Three Houses and AC Switch will be free of this rubbish.

@Totaldude911 they remain the same price because the market is exponentially bigger than it ever was before. Most games are budgeted so that they will be more than profitable regardless of additional content (see EA’s business statements around Battlefront 2).

This comment section made me forget i was on a Mario & Luigi article lol.

Anyway, i hope this is true, hopefully it's a new game and not a remake

I liked the first three titles but Dream Team had way too many tutorials and Paper Jam felt too generic and uninspired. Hopefully a Switch version will reignite quality into the series.

@Crono1973 If I had to guess, it's probably for quality control.

Nintendo, being Nintendo, does not want its name on a crappy product. As such, they probably test the products to ensure that they work as advertised on their system.

At the end of the day, however, they probably make no money off of it - it's not a Nintendo product, but a Sandisk one. Once the store takes its cut, whatever cash is left probably goes to Sandisk.

This is probably what happens with third party games as well - Nintendo tests and endorses them, but they never see the money you pay.

Again, just a guess.

Calling it now: Mario and Luigi is coming to a home console (NS).

And ya know what? It's about time.

M&L in HD sounds awesome!

Alpha Dream is a small studio that has yet to make an HD game. Of course they need to start hiring in order to make the next Mario & Luigi game on the Switch.

Gamefreak posted similar job listings last year. They wanted animators and artists experienced in Wii U/PS Vita development.

I look forward to the Mario & Luigi rpg series being on the Switch.

Ever since M&L left pixel graphics,it began to lose its charm.(at least to me).

Although I really enjoyed M&L Dream Team and their most recent M&L game.

I hope it can recapture the appeal it once had...

Didn't know Mario & Luigi was being ported to Switch, nice!

@Cobalt I agree with you on the DLC thing, Nintendo games handle DLC okay, but games like Dragonball Xenoverse 2 have a lot of DLC, that is crazy expensive, especially when after paying for a 60$ game.

Mario & Luigi HD for Switch, would be a cool thing to look at though.

Switch? Yay! PS4? Not bad. Smartphones? vomits

@AlternateButtons @Heavyarms55
Smartphones are HD devices. Alpha Dream needs people with experience in developing games on HD hardware in order to transition from 3DS development to Switch development. Not unless you want 240p games on the Switch...

Alpha Dream isn't literally looking to develop mobile games. Ya'll need to cool it with the "Ewww mobile is garbage and too cashual" shtick.

whatever they are working on (or could be working) is nice to know that's it possibly coming to switch. smashphone though? meh.

New m&l! Crosses fingers. One of my favorite series now that paper Mario isn't an rpg.

@Cobalt switch is high spec for a portable device. For a sub $1000 device it's simply extreme.

And controllers aren't expensive. Joy cons have 2 batteries, two transmitters, two fcc ids. But don't cost as much as 2 controllers. Pro is $10 more than xb1 controllers which come with no battery and no gyro. Sony drives a bargain in controllers..... Then again, i hate theirs most of all

Phone games are impossible to make money in though. Otoh it keeps the investors from flipping the table. I think of it as hush money. Investors think it makes money so every gaming company from Nintendo to ea to Bethesda is forced to do mobile games to satiate investors. Nobody believes fallout 88 will be smartphone only. But everybody thinks Mario 8 will be

@Peterjr1 Ahh, I hadn't heard this before! Thanks for the correction

@Totaldude911 season passes to get the whole game is just another way of saying games cost $100.

@Fandabidozi

They have to be something wrong with this person. No person can have this little going on in their life. Honestly I wish that everyone here here would simultaneously put this clown on ignore so that they wouldn't have anyone to talk to and they'd just (hopefully) leave the board. They never really have nothing to say and i most of it ios the same garbage over and over and over again. She/he really needs to go out and get a life, girlfriend, boyfriend or what the hell ever.

@westman98 Alpha Dream isn't a bunch of rank amateurs. Developing in HD is no big industry secret.

And sorry, but phone games are trash. The lowest quality games on the market since the days of Tiger Electronics.

@Heavyarms55
Alpha Dreams aren't amateurs, but they are a small studio that have been relegated to developing Mario & Luigi games on handhelds for the last several years (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - Dream Team was a great game). They have yet to make an HD game and are quite far behind the rest of the industry in that regard.

Given that mobile gaming is the biggest segment of the gaming industry, of course Alpha Dream will want to widen their hiring portfolio to include developers who may have also worked on mobile games in the past. Your opinions on the mobile gaming are irrelevant.

Wonder what they are working on for the Switch!

@MarioFan02 At the end of the day, however, they probably make no money off of it - it's not a Nintendo product, but a Sandisk one.
Pretty sure Nintendo makes a cut on licensed products.

@westman98 Ah, so only your opinions are relevant? You're one of those. I see.

@Heavyarms55
My opinion on mobile gaming is also irrelevant

What isn't irrelevant is the fact that Alpha Dream needs graphic designers experienced in HD game development in order to begin making Switch games. Mobile games are HD (as are Switch/PS4 games), so it would be beneficial to hire those who are experienced in HD game development in general, without ruling out those who have previously worked on mobile games simply because of some "mobile is trash" mantra.

Maybe they can hit the infamous 900p and make everyone happy.

@NEStalgia Exactly. Ganes cost more to make. Well, the thing is game developers are basically required to contain the entire game in the initial 60$ purchase or risk being crucified in game media. DLC is usually extra content that we wouldn't have gotten at all without DLC. Most of the time it's stuff that expands on the story more than originally or tells a different one altogether, like Dying Light. So, I enjoy DLC because it's mostly extra content to our favorite games, and not at all required. Also, if you consider inflation, we're actually kind of getting a bargain having most games be $60.

I hope these new developers know how to make a tutorial, the first step is to ask "do you want to skip the tutorial yes/no". The next step is to add in a "Slow/Medium/Fast/Instant" text option.
The last step is to never make a tutorial like in "dream team bros" ever again.

@Peterjr1
Personally the fact that Fire Emblem seems to concentrate on more "waifus" rather than actual concrete characters is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I can't take it seriously sometimes.

@Cobalt Sounds like a PS4 would be a better choice for you.

@itslukec

I already own a PS4 and a lot of other systems...

@Cobalt,

I agree! And now with the Pokemon guy it will get even worse. Milking a few franchises to death with yearly releases and all...its gonna happen!

@Henmii

I'm scared you're right about that... :/

@Cobalt,

To make things even worse: That guy (namely the new Nintendo president) said mobile revenue didn't amount to much, but eventually he wants to turn it in their main source of income...exactly what I as a gamer don't want to hear!

I liked the older M&L games, but I gave up on Dream Team halfway through. It wasn’t fun. Loved Bowser’s Inside Story, but I would recommend the DS version because I prefer the graphics of that to the the 3DS style graphics of their 3 M&L games. Still, I’d prefer a Paper Mario game on Switch instead.

Finally, a console Mario & Luigi experience with Wario & Waluigi. You heard it here first.

@Crono1973 That's what I'm trying to say. If DLC weren't a thing, the only other choice they'd have would be to sell the game for much more, but nobody would buy it if it were. So, they make up for it by giving us (hopefully) the full game for $60, and if you loved the game and really trust the developers, you can give them another sum of money to get more of the game you loved. Though if you don't care to cough up, you should be able to still experience the game in its original form. Tons of devs have tried selling part of the main story as DLC, and they are almost always called out on it.

@Totaldude911 Tons of devs have tried selling part of the main story as DLC, and they are almost always called out on it.

DLC is one of those 'cross this line' and later 'now cross this line' things. What was once unacceptable will always become acceptable with time or atleast tolerated. Take micro transactions in full priced games as an example, that's commonplace now. It started with F2P but some lines crossed later....

@Cobalt Ummm, XC2 is a case of where the DLC is worth the purchase. The game itself is complete, and has been getting some QoL updates over several months, most of which are free and improves the experience by a lot. And the DLC gives you essentially another game fully worth $30! You could have picked any other game to crap on, but you pick the one that makes absolutely no sense to crap on. The only thing that sucks for players is a way of better grinding out blade trust (optional), and 1 exclusive blade, among 40-50 blades. For Zelda BotW? Yeah, stuff like the walking tracker, which was already in the game just not unlocked, is dumb to be locked behind DLC. But for XC2 your reasonings are completely unjustified.

Also, the dev team for XC2 was a small team of less than 50. And I got over 90 hours during my first playthrough to the end and have spent 360+ hours alone without the promised DLC expansion story.

Aditionally, atrocious technical issues? What? I’ve had very few glitches in all of my time playing that mostly weren’t an issue. One crash in 360+ hours, some small model clipping during battles that doesn’t affect anything, chain attack ends prematurely once or twice over the thousands of times I have done it. Yes, being locked to 720p on handheld is meh and the areas not loading up textures immediately after a quick fast travel can break your immersion, but I wouldn’t call those atrocious technical issues.
The only thing I can think of are the bugs that they have patched out completely by now, again a team of 50 or less.

Also @maruse

It would be ok for Nintendo to charge online if they had dedicated servers, but that’s the thing. Most of their online services, to my knowledge, are Peer to Peer, which is completely unacceptable in any form for an online paid service. This mean that my friend, who can play online with me fine otherwise if there is a dedicated server, won’t be able to play with me because of his internet. Playing games on Steam like Terraria or Payday 2 are fine, but P2P games like Minecraft? The game starts to mess up and cause him to move back in place every couple of steps. If I can’t play with my friend because of Nintendo charging for a bs online service, then no it’s not worth it. And there is no infrastructure with P2P. If there was middleware/ a dedicated server, the only problem would be the user connecting to that server.

Also Nintendo is still very hesitant themselves to make games fully accessible to the internet and justify a purchase of their service. Why is Kirby Star Allies not online when it could be otherwise and prove to be a good use of the service? WHY is the new Mario Party game limiting online to a handful of minigames? People have been asking for fully online Mario Party since Mario Party 8, more than 10 years ago. They’ve had the ability to do so for a long time ago, and just now they implement it in a trivial way?

Additionally, if FortNite can give players voice chat on the Switch, why didn’t Nintendo do this in the first place? Do they expect me to use Discord or Skype instead of a feature they built into their console? This is ridiculous and should at the very least be changed once their online services come up.
Lastly, don’t care about the NES games since it seems they are local multiplayer only and I have most of them.

@Crono1973 I see your point, but I feel like it's the opposite now. It used to be okay for devs to do that but now it's frowned upon.

@FlameRunnerFast

The game XC2 was rushed ! It's insane to defend what MonolithSoft did under the impulsion of Nintendo... because it's not their way of doing... It's even the opposite.

Small team or big team that's not the point, the point is that they released a game in a terrible state just to sell during Christmas.

So basically, they knew the game was broken but who cares ? All the fans are gonna buy... :/

Now, excusing'em because they have patched A LOT, I'm sorry but in a development you have a big period which is called : DEBBUGING !
It's a really important part of the full process when making games.
They litterally skipped it... That's a shame for a company that made its reputation on POLISHED GAMES.

Another stuff, you say that it's "meh" that the game is 720p locked in handheld mode... THAT'S NOT TRUE... the game goes to 552p, 368p, 342p... That's the worse you'll find on Switch... Unacceptable !

The framerate is not stable at all, there are memory issues related to several parts of the map, they had to remake the map system, they had to rework the texture gestion, they had to re-optimise the core because of the crashes etc...etc...

The game was totally not ready at all ! And to conclude, the fact that the Tegra X1(already shrinked in performence when docked) has to be downclocked by even 40% more in handheld mode, that just ruin the game in term of quality...

So, I could talk about the fact that the speed of the game is low as hell (there is a reason for that...) and several other things but yeah, Xenoblade Chronicle 2 is a HUGE disappointment for me !

Xeno Wii and Xeno X were respectively my favorite Wii and WiiU games of all time, Xenoblade 2 my biggest disappointment !

I really want a new Mario and Luigi someday on Switch. But if that will happen...

@Totaldude911 Frowned upon doesn't stop it and many people frown upon stuff and then buy it anyway.

@Crono1973 Maybe it doesn't stop it but developers lose trust. I think that most DLC is a necessary evil anyway, considering the high cost of developing games now. As games get prettier and more ambitious, taking a risk becomes less financially viable. I much prefer a one-time $20 addition to lootboxes.