i have a lot of complaints about nintendo, but nintendo's only console to be well ahead of their competitors' offerings in terms of hardware was one of their worst competing consoles, in terms of sales. and that's the gamecube. so it hasn't made and doesn't make commercial sense for them to heavily invest in the underlying hardware.
ever since the gamecube, and maybe before then, nintendo has been on a divergent path from the likes of other console makers. they do not seek to compete in hardware power.
nintendo's true problems lie in online and cloud services, like account management and online multiplayer, and just pure laziness in game development and implementation. they get away with it somehow.
Ah you're one of those "how do they keep getting away with making more Mario games?" people.
The secret is that they don't release mainline games very often. You don't get a new one every year. You get one every 3-4 (or Metroid 6-10) years.
And when you do get a new installment it's just as fun and joyful as the previous ones.
They do need to get their shit in gear with the online stuff though. And emulation. They could and probably should acquihire a few companies to deal with those. If they made their entire back-catalog available on an official emulator that works one this and the next generation console, they'd be set forever.
Though they've already got enough cash in the bank to run for 50 years even if they stopped all new sales.
Purchased "virtual console" games should work on every future console of theirs, without a re-purchase, tied to some kind of Nintendo account. That's what's kept me from spending money on those. Did buy both Classic consoles, though, which are some of the best value on all of gaming. Damn they're good.
When was the last Metroid game that is "just as fun and joyful as the previous ones"? Metroid has had a tough 20 years or so. Last I checked Nintendo released a poorer version of a remake some fan released a year earlier.
I genuinely enjoyed Other M. I've always preferred the third-person platformer style for the franchise (Super Metroid is still the best installment in the series) and I thought Other M was faithful to this heritage while adding some more modern twists.
Zero Mission ruined things that made Metroid excellent. It's just not obvious on the first playthrough. Unlike previous Metroid games, you can't really do Zero Mission out of order. There's a path you have to follow and if you go elsewhere the road is blocked by Chozo statues, that weren't present in the original game.
While I agree it's a core element of Metroid, and I completely understand how it would bother many fans, but for me this is one of the less-essential aspects of Metroid. But it's possible that much of my initial enjoyment was because I had played Metroid Fusion before that, which is much worse as a Metroid (while still fun as a game).
It could also be because I got 'hooked' on Metroid because of Metroid Prime, and IIRC that one also was a bit more linear by virtue of the hint system.
Yes, Metroid III (SNES) was the last game in the series that let you go off track. I've played through it many times and never took the exact same route. Everytime it's a new experience. It's unfortunate that the games that came later copied pretty much everything from Metroid III except for this.
> Ah you're one of those "how do they keep getting away with making more Mario games?" people.
no, i'm not. that's not what i'm talking about at all. what i'm talking about are poor features within their games, which are typically centered around the online and multiplayer aspects but also others as well. for example, the new animal crossing: new horizons is chock-full of these types of things. their games are indeed fun but they can also contain extremely frustrating elements. nintendo's fanbase is even more rabid than the likes of apple, and so frustrating elements get washed out, so to speak, in the community.
and as you point out, these games undergo long development cycles. it's generally unacceptable that they don't take care of these issues or add on more to their games.
It's easy to dismiss fandom as just for the sake of it. I've heard it about Apple and Nintendo and in both cases it just seems like a lazy way to dismiss other people valuing things differently. Mostly, anyways.
I'm a huge Nintendo fan because, despite glaring problems, the kind that warrant a special Nintendo-specific eye-roll, their games and consoles also offer stuff others don't. The highs make the lows tolerable.
I absolutely hate so much about New Horizons, and most of it is 'typical' Nintendo. Bad online/multiplayer, endless repetitive dialogue gating core functionality, and weird hardware limitations (two people on one Switch? enjoy a single shared island!).
And yet here I am playing it about as much as I played Stardew Valley back when that was 'hot'.
Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?
> It's easy to dismiss fandom as just for the sake of it. I've heard it about Apple and Nintendo and in both cases it just seems like a lazy way to dismiss other people valuing things differently. Mostly, anyways.
i find the "people value things differently" a lazy way to dismiss objective issues people have with the products.
> Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?
in a way yes. i'm playing the game too btw. i'll stop soon because the stuff i feel they were lazy and/or stubborn on is starting to really wear on me. if they would have just applied even a modicum of effort to the multiplayer aspect and upgrades to the game, then animal crossing: new horizons would be an amazing game. instead, families are out buying entire new switch consoles just to be able to enjoy a game, among other things. so please tell me what other gaming company could get away with that? just the one-to-one relationship between island and console alone is enough to go insane, not to mention how confusing it is to understand before purchasing a switch and game in the first place. what other modern game do you know of that's like that, where a game instance / save file is forever tied to a single console? that's just one issue. i honestly do not know of a single company that could get away with it besides nintendo because (1) people have to come to expect inanity from them in these aspects and (2) since it's nintendo.
other companies, that people don't like, like activision, EA, ubisoft, etc., will get raked over the coals if they do something gamers don't like. of course, a lot of that is with microtransactions these days, which are horrible, but they will also get called out on other aspects. usually, those companies will at least attempt to address it because they're forced to. nintendo only addresses what they want, and they absolutely refuse to address online play in a sensible way. and their fanbase just roles with it and will downplay issues. they have online issues in every single game they release, and it nearly ruins the games. it's why i don't play splatoon, mario kart, or super smash online much or at all anymore. they make it way too difficult to do so, so much so that i stop playing the wonderful games.
I also hate a lot about the new Animal Crossing, yet it's outrageously addictive and fun. I love the game, flaws and all. Just makes me wish they'd let a switch have one island per player FFS.
Do not conflate Pokémon with Nintendo. The situation is way more complex. Game Freak, the actual developers of Pokémon, are a laughably small team for what is the biggest franchise in the world, and they refuse to get bigger or change the formula. Pokémon is the epitome of Japanese conservatism.
Nintendo's game development is the exact opposite of lazy. They spend insane amounts of attention and manpower on the fine details. That's exactly how they keep succeeding despite lower power, poor cloud services, etc.
> They spend insane amounts of attention and manpower on the fine details.
no, they do not. they do on a very focused subset of what they feel the details should be, but they do not broadly apply this attention to fine detail across the entirety of a game. there are always very harsh transitions from "wow, look at this detail" to "what, how did this even make it into the game?" that really stand out.
there is something with every game beyond being considered a feature request that can only be attributed to either laziness or stubbornness or both.
ever since the gamecube, and maybe before then, nintendo has been on a divergent path from the likes of other console makers. they do not seek to compete in hardware power.
nintendo's true problems lie in online and cloud services, like account management and online multiplayer, and just pure laziness in game development and implementation. they get away with it somehow.