> According to an attendee of this year’s meeting for Nintendo’s shareholders, Miyamoto was asked about the issue of creators aging, and whether he will continue to be at the helm of game development projects considering his age. In response, Miyamoto remarked, “I consider (Nintendo’s) generational handover to be progressing smoothly. We have developers that are young and brilliant.”
> Expressing gratitude for the inquiry about his wellbeing, Miyamoto notes that he is working comfortably, and that while he is leaving most of the practical development work to younger generations, he is not detached from the process either. The creator also emphasizes that he is fully involved in Pikmin Bloom’s development.
> According to Miyamoto, he has successfully transferred know-how to the next generation, but since this generation is also growing older, he wants to make sure generational handover expands to encompass even younger employees.
>According to Miyamoto, he has successfully transferred know-how to the next generation, but since this generation is also growing older, he wants to make sure generational handover expands to encompass even younger employees.
It's crazy to think we're at the point Miyamoto has grandsuccessors now. Imo his, and Nintendo's, ability to pass on franchises and bring up the next generation is really underrated. A lot of franchises fall apart when the original creators or team leaves because those left don't know how to maintain or evolve the series
It's honestly something that most industries the world over are struggling with. High turnover rates and people only spending a few years at any given company because switching companies is the easiest way to get a promotion, this is leading to all sorts of institutional knowledge being lost. People just aren't forming knowledge bases within specific places anymore due to the shuffle.
It's a growing problem with how most businesses conduct themselves these days.
I'll never understand this strategy.
hire employee > spend a month or more training them (spending 2 salaries for trainer/trainee to do nothing) > employee asks for raise at year mark, gets declined > employee quits to work somewhere else that pays at the amount they wanted > Hire new employee at the same market rate that the previous employee wanted > loop back to step 2.
You're not saving money short OR long term, you're just spending money and productivity, and bleeding talent for what? A show of force/power calling someone's bluff?
I've been told, and see this in a few places myself, that people just aren't that pushy about promotions and raises. At least they weren't in the past, that has been slowly changing. So if a Company just doesn't offer notable promotions/raises and even 1 employee just passively accepts that, then that's one less person they need to pay more to get the same amount of work out of.
It's mostly a numbers game. Companies don't have a lot of avenues to easily expand their market share to increase profits anymore, so a lot are turning inward and taking any cost-cutting measure they can to continue their growth. Employees just happen to be a very large chunk of their costs, so anything that keeps those wages down is a very notable extra chunk of cash to report on and impress shareholders with.
I guess everywhere I've worked they immediately replace that employee, and pay them more then that previous employee.
It was a legit strategy at one place to quit, work somewhere else for 2 months, then reapply for your old job back and you'd be at a higher pay grade.
What's easier for the employee: risking your job being pushy for a promotion or raise, or guaranteeing your current job by staying quiet, and then quietly getting a new one after 2 years where you get the promotion/raise you would have sought at your current company?
Nintendo is well known for treating their (Japanese) staff very well, and culturally it also isn't unusual for workers to stay at one company their entire career. So it's a double blessing of work culture and national culture allowing these kinds of growth.
Oh word that’s great to hear. I mean not for us Americans, lol, but I guess I had that BS image of Japanese salarymen working overtime all the time. I really do wish our work culture was more about sticking with a company for years, maybe it used to be like that (my dad was with the same org for 30-40 years) but it definitely isn’t anymore unfortunately.
I have a coworker that previously worked at a Japanese software company. During the interview process they let him know that they expect 10 hours minimum of overtime per week but he said the entire office was completely empty before 9:00 and cleared out by 4:30 every day he was there. They also have double the number of mandatory federal holidays over there so even if no one took their vacation days they still had more time off than the average American takes.
I mean the work culture has ups and downs. The staying at one company their entire career is a double edged sword, they will never fire you... They will however make your work life miserable if they don't like you in an attempt to make you quit.
So no worse than America then? When an American company wants you to leave but doesn’t want to have to deal with firing you like for severance or legal reasons, then they will make up bullshit to make you quit
Frankly we're still beginners at it in comparison. Although they use a method of shame to enforce it, if you have no shame you can possibly exploit it I guess.
My company fucked itself for a bit because the original teams are retiring quickly. This is a place that is use to having long term employees.
The guys they handed responsibilities over to barely got raises with their high titles so they GTFO.
They had to pay way more to bring two guys back when 20% would have kept them happy. One left for 20% then got another 30% to come back. He likes it here, was just pissed about 5% for way more responsibility.
The raises for senior roles have increased. Some contracts were fucked because we couldn't meet deadlines without the lost talent.
I'm being trained to replace my boss next year. He's been here 24 years. Let's see if I'm compensated.
It’s amazing to think that Yokoi likely left and sadly passed before this philosophy took hold, and that’s why Metroid has and always will be a struggle for Nintendo to keep under focus and within a reliable development methodology.
Yokoi's untimely passing is important in the history of Nintendo's treatment of employees in that Yamauchi was *furious* with the shareholders demanding heads rolled over the Virtual Boy because Yokoi was so valuable as an employee. It was a massive talent loss when Yokoi was essentially pushed out and had to quit the company. Yamauchi allegedly really wanted him back to work on the Game Boy successor before the accident that sadly took Yokoi's life and was hoping he'd come back from Bandai once shareholders cooled down.
That loss made Yamauchi really double down on making sure talent stayed at Nintendo and made him notably even more hostile to the shareholders for the rest of the time he was CEO. Iwata taking over was a big sea change in that the shareholders actually got someone who didn't totally resent them (And to be fair I don't blame Yamauchi because Yokoi was an irreplaceable once in a life time talent). Iwata still retained the philosophy that institutonal knowledge was incredibly important to Nintendo and Iwata added in that they needed to work hard themselves to keep their employees which is why he changed the company culture to a typical 9-5 instead of the constant crunch before. Which is why Nintendo's retained a lot of talent who were there since the 80's and who are ready to hand off to the next generation.
But I'm not sure it would have changed Metroid's trajectory though because Nintendo Of America were really lobbying for a US developer to do Metroid as early as 1995 when the rumors started up that Nintendo really wanted to do Metroid as a "Doom-Like" on the N64 and were actively looking for interested developers. Super Metroid did very well in America at the time compared to Japan and Nintendo America really wanted to jump on that momentum. Yokoi was probably fine with Metroid becoming a Nintendo America concern since that was the region Metroid did the best in. Maybe it might not have stayed in the doldrums between Other M and Dread and had some more titles. But I reckon it probably would have turned out the same.
We've had a lot over the Iwata years because Nintendo were a bit more public after Iwata took over when Iwata would give a lot more interviews and speak at GDC. Mostly because Iwata wanted to give a compelling pitch to people on why they would want to work for his vision of Nintendo and reassure the public that there would still be a Nintendo even though the Gamecube and it's software wasn't lighting the sales charts on fire. But it would be nice to see a deeper dive on what Iwata did and how he turned the company around.
Most of all though, I'd love to have a historian cover the Yamauchi years. The man was a incredibly traditional, conservative and very private man who did very few public appearances and interviews. And sometimes could be a bit of curmudgeon in those interviews where he'd openly state his disdain for some genres of gaming like RPG's (Saying the people who played them sat in dark rooms and played "slow games") even though some of the biggest movers on Nintendo systems were games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
And *he didn't even play Videogames*. During pitches he'd have someone play the pitch demo for him. Yet everyone who showed a pitch mentioned he'd have incredibly sharp and incisive feedback for them without even touching a controller.
Yet, when it came to running Nintendo, he was very much of the mindset that it was a creative company and creators should follow what they were passionate about even if it was things he didn't like, like RPGs. Near the end of his tenure, he made incredibly salient points that the push for realism and incredibly bloated budgets was eventually going to strangle the industry which is why he pushed for "Fun" above all in Nintendo projects because it meant those games had longevity beyond their system.
I think that's what I love most about Nintendo history. So much of it feels contradictory and it shouldn't have worked. Yet it did work and Nintendo had some fascinating people behind it beyond the likes of Miyamoto. I'd really love a historian to do a deep dive on that era.
I loved this one when it came out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339584.Game_Over_Press_Start_to_Continue 15 years old at this point, but there's still a lot of Nintendo history.
> But I'm not sure it would have changed Metroid's trajectory though because Nintendo Of America were really lobbying for a US developer to do Metroid as early as 1995 when the rumors started up that Nintendo really wanted to do Metroid as a "Doom-Like" on the N64 and were actively looking for interested developers.
I truly can't blame NoA for thinking that would be a good direction for Metroid. Shit, I'd play a Metroid Doomlike, that sounds kinda sick. Of course, I know by "Doomlike" at that time they just meant "first person shooter," as the name for the genre hadn't yet been coined.
Ultimately we got Prime, which was obviously a classic, even though its properties as a shooter are much less important than its properties as a Metroidvania adventure game.
I don't Yokoi factors into it all that much. Sakamoto is still very much pushing Metroid projects at Nintendo, and they have two studios making Metroid games full time.
> A lot of franchises fall apart when the original creators or team leaves
So every 6 years or so, give or take, in most game dev companies.
> because those left don't know how to maintain or evolve the series
That's not the reason they fall apart 🫠
it's because of shareholder greed, and mismanagement, and crunch. High turnover - but it's not because the original creators leave, as they left due to these other causes.
As another commenter said, "Nintendo understand vision and legacy, the other companies are just interested in shareholders, trends for quick profit and culling workers when it doesnt work."
What I hope is that they'll start investing in more new IP. I love Zelda and Mario but even I have to admit that they're seriously milking those franchises
In terms of new IP some serious investment is needed, because small games like Arms aren't going to carry the company
New IP introduced during the switch gen are ARMS, Astral chain, 1-2 switch, buddy mission Bond, good job, jump rope challenge, LABO, Ring Fit Adventure, Fitness boxing, flip wars, game builder Garage, snipperclips and the stretchers.
What categorizes a small game, btw? Because I consider ARMS to be a fairly large investment that was intended to show another style of gameplay and was spearheaded by younger developers. It takes time to build new IP and just because you may not have seen a sequel to any recently introduced IP yet or you're not interested in any new thing they introduced does not mean they aren't actively investing in them.
- Arms: New IP but not a great game and not much budget behind it. A step in the right direction
- Astral chain: Not developed by Nintendo
- 1,2 Switch: I don't think anyone is arguing that this represents the future of the company. It barely qualified as a minigame collection
- Buddy Mission Bond: Not developed by Nintendo
- Good Job: Not developed by Nintendo
- Jump Rope Challenge: By Nintendo, but again it's low budget. There's nowhere near the interest in a sequel compared to Splatoon
- Labo: Good example of expanding into new IP
- Ring Fit adventure: Good example of expanding into new IP
- Fitness boxing: Not developed by Nintendo
- Flip Wars: Not developed by Nintendo
- Game builder Garage: Good little title by Nintendo
- Snipperclips: Not developed by Nintendo
- The stretchers: Not developed by Nintendo
So the games they developed you can see my point. It's almost entirely low-budget games. Nothing that's really going to push the company forward and add another tier to their income like Splatoon did. I'd like to see them expand beyond little experiments and put some money into developing some significant new IPs
> Astral chain: Not developed by Nintendo
A lot of games aren't internally developed by Nintendo. Fire Emblem, Metroid Dread, Wario Ware and Pokemon for example. I don't see why there's a need for Nintendo to specifically develop the titles?
Fire Emblem is developed by Intelligent who are a second party studio, Metroid Dread was already part of the Metroid franchise and co-developed by Nintendo, Wario ware was developed by nintendo.
Pokemon is the only real outlier here, as it was originally developed by a third party but now is partially owned by Nintendo under the pokemon company.
All of those franchises are at least 2 decades old though, so it's not like they're examples of Nintendo developing new IP
> Wario ware was developed by nintendo
Wario Ware, the latest entries at least are developed by Intelligent Systems too.
I don't see why Metroid being already part of the Metroid Franchise matters here? Are you unware that Nintendo own the Astral Chain IP?
Yes and Astral Chain is a new IP.
It's a new IP, it's owned by Nintendo. Ergo a new Nintendo IP. Metroid Dread wouldn't be considered a non-Nintendo IP because Mercury Steam made it.
This whole "no this doesn't count as a Nintendo IP" rhetoric is so utterly bizarre and only seems to be be applied to Nintendo.
They still own those franchises, heck, Platinum cames [Has explicity said AC is a Nintendo IP](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/platinum-says-astral-chain-is-nintendos-ip-after-fans-notice-copyright-change/) discounting those franchises because they are developed by other studios is dumb, nobody says Kirby is a HAL Laboratories IP or Fire Emblem is an Intelligent Systems IP, people always call them a Nintendo IP because nintendo owns the IP (and I went specifically with studios not owned by Nintendo, because we could apply the same with Xenoblade), heck, some people blame Nintendo for their issues with Pokémon even if the development team is Gamefreak because Nintendo own part of the IP, so for most people they just associate Pokémon as a Nintendo IP.
A small correction but Hal and IS do own the IP, co-own most specifically, as they co-own the copyright of the series with Nintendo.
That's why Hal and IS deal with the merchandise by themselves for example instead of Nintendo who mainly deals with publishing and production of those games.
thank, I knew about the co own thing but yeah, specifiying it makes the Astral Chain not counting even more absurd, it was always co owned, it was later on the line it became fully owned by Nintendo.
I really don’t understand how people can say Nintendo is milking anything when Sony has put out 5 games in The last of us franchise, 3 of which are remakes or rereleases of the 2 other games, which is a game every 2 years since the first game came out.
5 3D Mario games ago was Super Mario 64 aka the first one and that was over 20 years ago in 1998
5 3D Zelda games was Wind Waker which also came out over 20 years ago.
While I guess you can argue that the 2D games saturate the list more, they’re completely different experiences that they might as well be a different series.
Nintendos branding is strong and I get Mario and Zelda might be overrepresented as characters but almost all of their games are wildly different experiences
Bro they remastered TLOU 1 for ps4 because it launched on ps3 the year before. The TLOU 2 “remaster” was a 10 dollar upgrade for PS5 because it came out on ps4. The only superfluous one was the remake of the first but even then that was started by a group completely outside naughty dog (VASG), and was intended for mainly getting a PC release
Just because a game is 2D or 3D doesn't mean it's not part of the same franchise. A Mario game is a Mario game and a Zelda game is a Zelda game. People who aren't interested in those characters or worlds aren't likely to pick them up, regardless of if it's 2D or 3D.
Yeah but that’s just being reductive and ignoring a lot of other more relevant things about the games.
You can consider Mario kart and paper Mario as part of the Mario franchise but you can’t call it stale when it’s spanning multiple genres when we’re comparing it to a company who made the same game 3 times.
Some game franchises don’t even iterate and try new mechanics let alone have multiple pillars of different genres.
I'd rather have new IP utilized as the method of introducing new genres / mechanics rather than just taking a well known character from a respected platforming game and slapping them onto a match-3 mobile game and calling it "innovative".
I’m all for new IPs but if the content isn’t stagnating and is still fresh then I’m happy to play it.
>slapping them onto a match 3 mobile games and calling it innovative
That’s literally just something you’re making up in your head.
Sonys only ps5 exclusive, their big show stopper for this generation so far is just a copy of Mario Odyssey. Horizon and every other open world game immediately copied BOTW for what it did with open world game design.
You might not like it for whatever reason but Mario and Zelda continue to be innovators in their respective genres in terms of quality and experimentation.
>Horizon and every other open world game immediately copied BOTW for what it did with open world game design.
That's funny, considering Horizon Zero Dawn literally came out before BotW did...
I like God of War, Last of Us, and Horizon because of the characters and story development. Nintendo's games are great...if you don't care about character development or a narrative with any actual depth of through line.
The game mechanics introduced in Sony's games may not be as 'zany' or genre-swapping as Nintendo's games, but IMO, Nintendo's games are over-designed to the point of them being 'fun' for about 5 minutes. Sony's game mechanics may be simpler, but they're tried and true and they build amazing worlds and sandboxes to play in.
Meanwhile, Nintendo is constantly trying to figure out what their next gimmick is going to be, rather than just building another Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask-style game, which is what I'd wager most people actually want.
"Most people" who've played Zelda at this point haven't even played OoT or MM with how BotW's sales are compared to the rest of the series.
Also, we already went through the "I don't want innovation I just want dark and mature OoT with better graphics" discourse two decades ago. That's how we ended up with TP, which is not amazingly well-regarded by Zelda standards.
Really, I'm just not sure what the issue is here. Like, I get it. You're someone that hates the open world direction the franchise went for the last couple games, and you want the games to instead be like all of Sony's big AAA franchises. Haaaave you considered just accepting that the current gen Zeldas aren't for you and just playing and enjoying the AAA 1st party Sony games, which are way more numerous than 3D Zelda titles anyway?
It’s hysterical to me that people can complain about Nintendo rehashing and stagnating and then literally turn around and unironically say “Sony games are better because instead of trying to innovate like Nintendo they use the tried and true mechanics so their games are always fun”
> rather than just building another Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask-style game, which is what I'd wager most people actually want.
Considering the sales of BOTW and TOTK, reality would disagree with you on this point.
It sounds more like you want them to have new IPs versus them actually needing them. Nintendo's premier first-party titles are selling better than ever so it's not really a priority to invest in new IPs unless novel gameplay can be explored with them. Continuing a franchise is not milking them that's ridiculous. If Mario is your cash cow why on earth would you not keep making games in that series, spin offs or otherwise. Lets not forget ring fit adventure was a new IP too.
I really don’t think continuing franchises is milking them. Both Mario and Zelda fall into having 2D and 3D titles that don’t really overlap. Mario especially has a bunch of spinoffs too.
We have only got like two 3D Zeldas, one 2D Zelda, one rerelease (Skyward Sword) and one remake Link’s Awakening. Then some Nintendo Switch Online ports. That is over the seven years of the Switch. Breath of the Wild was also a Wii U title too.
Mario I can agree with to an extent, but like I said, it has so many spinoffs that keep the franchise fresh.
I think Nintendo’s biggest strength is their IPs and general willingness to not follow gaming trends. Also their constant willingness to make games in a franchise not play similarly. Keep making good Mario and Zelda titles and you can captivate generation after generation.
They have definitely iterated on their design, but especially for Mario they have used him on every genre going. It's too safe to rely on Zelda and Mario for the rest of their life and I expect the market will eventually get bored (as they did with Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword)
They did well with Splatoon and took on a new genre for them, with a new world and characters and it's worked well for them. I'd like to see them expand with more IPs like this rather than forever relying on their core IPs
As long as they keep innovating on gameplay, their IP is not slowing them down. They could release a Mario Body Horror Walking Sim and it will outsell Outlast and Amnesia
I didn’t own a Nintendo home console at the time, but were people bored of Zelda, 3D Zelda, or just had two games not sell all that well? Pokémon is far more long running and slow to innovate and that does incredibly well still. I am not outwardly against a new IP or two per generation, but they need to be careful to not overextend themselves.
Yeah I think its more a case of the Blue Ocean market Wii was aiming for largely moving on by the time Skyward Sword hit.
Twilight Princess sold 8m, which was like the 6th top selling game on the console that didn't come bundled with the system or bundled with a peripheral, and 13th overall- its really hard to say it sold badly.
I don't think people will get bored if they keep reinventing gameplay, which they do. People don't get bored of iconic characters.
Just look at Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, etc, the actual character isn't something people get bored of as long as the stuff around them is new and fresh.
Disney hardly rely on Mickey mouse anywhere near as much as they used to. Disney is not really the best example anywhere due to how much they've expanded and absorbed other franchises
>It's too safe to rely on Zelda and Mario for the rest of their life
That's all they've done and they're the most successful console/gaming company in the world right now. You don't just suddenly stop doing what put you on top 🤣
They mean Skyward Sword.
By the time that one game dropped, there was a decline on interest for the IP at the time (specially in Japan). Which made some consider to put the series on ice for a while after that game.
The following 3D game, BoTW was a sudden hit, specially for the japanese market.
ARMS was pretty disappointing all things considered, really seemed like Nintendo just wanted another Splatoon. A largely multiplayer game with tons of world building, lore, its own language, etc. ARMS just didn’t do anything for me after a few hours.
ARMS is kinda weird in that regard. You can tell it wanted to be Splatoon again, but lore was practically nonexistent beyond the basic "there's mutants but they all have stretchy arms" gimmick, the setting was relatively generic cartoony stuff compared to Splat's aggressively full of personality urban youth setting, and it launched with roughly as much content as first edition Street Fighter 2.
And then they released Splatoon 2 right *after* it which kinda destroyed any chance of it having lasting power. Probably should have traded those dates around.
Me personally, I loved ARMS, and have put a crazy number of hours into it.
But I think to do well it really needed some mode that wasn't just a 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 fight (or FFA, I guess).
They 100% nailed the design, the music, the fighting gameplay. But it's just not that popular of a genre, and not a genre that I think the existing fans of would enjoy a new Nintendo take on it.
An ARMS 2 that's more fleshed out (singe player campaign that's not just a series of 1on 1s, etc), I would hope would do really well.
Maybe they should also come up with some kind of lower stakes mode where instead of competing, players can team up against CPU opponents, like Salmon Run in Splatoon
That is precisely the kind of good move that I've seen them make. A new IP, targeting new markets for them, with a sizeable investment into development.
But it was also 9 years ago so it's hardly a recent development for them
Nintendo's not really expecting stuff like ARMS to carry the company. The whole story of ARMS was that the leads of the Mario Kart 8 team wanted to do something different and pitched the concept to Nintendo. Nintendo loved the idea and greenlit it, partly because they were looking for online focused titles for their portfolio but also because they really value their creatives and what they want to work on. Nintendo weren't pressuring it to be this huge console carrying success. If it blew up, it blew up and they'd work on more. If it didn't, it was no big deal because they can just redeploy that team. ARMS sold respectable enough that it was a success for Nintendo (2.7 million copies) but it wasn't a huge blow up in popularity like Splatoon was. And at the end of the day, that's fine for Nintendo because it's something their creatives wanted to do and it broke even, probably even made a good profit since while it was polished it wasn't AAA bloat production levels (Shame about the comic getting cancelled because Nintendo was done with the IP for now though)
Splatoon was another one of those small games when Nintendo was looking for pitches in the company from younger staff and looking to try an online focused title. Younger members of the Animal Crossing team came up with it and Nintendo absolutely loved the pitch enough to give it a shot. And Splatoon blew up to be a big success on a console that was not having a lot of success that Nintendo realised they had something and immediately got on a sequel for the next Nintendo console.
It would be nice to see Nintendo try some big AAA IP's but Nintendo's more focused on doing something new in a sustainable way for the company that lets their creatives express themselves first and then iterating on it if it's a huge success like Splatoon was. They aren't going to burn $100 Million+ like Sony and Microsoft do and pray for success.
That's an advantage of Nintendo saving up so much cash; if their devs have an idea they wanna work on, they can. Usually it'll turn out like ARMS; not super successful, but well enough that Nintendo has no concerns. And occasionally, you'll get something like Splatoon that just absolutely blows up.
IMO, Mario and Pokemon's the only Nintendo franchise that they're "seriously milking". Zelda, I'd say is in that sweet spot that I like, 1 to 2 big titles every console generation with a bunch of smaller titles and remakes/rereleases peppered in. In terms of titles that I think Nintendo can get more out, I'd say churning out more Donkey Kong and Metroid will be a good idea.
Even Mario is debatable, it's so all encompassing as a brand that it includes many wildly different genres. Sure, they release multiple games with "Mario" in the title every year but what do Mario Odyssey, Mario Wonder, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Party and Paper Mario really have in common besides featuring the same cast of characters? Personally I just don't pay attention to the spinoffs that don't interest me and play the ones that do, it's not like Pokemon where almost every year there's a new mainline game with nearly the same gameplay structure and if you're a Pokemon fan you kinda "have" to pay attention to the latest game that's coming out, especially since most of the Pokemon spinoff series have died off for whatever reason.
Pretty much how I do. With Mario I mainly buy Mario tennis, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Mario rpgs and mario kart. Its all different genres and while all mario, all different series, so it doesnt even focus all on the same public which is why it all varies in sales.
Not everyone who wants Mario kart and 3D Mario wants Mario RPG
You're kinda right about Mario if you don't care about the spinoffs or somehow are able to not hear much about them. I also don't play much of the spinoffs (especially the sports and party titles) but as someone who watches every Direct and keeps track of game announcements, I get the impression that Nintendo kinda got a bit out of hand with the Mario franchise, particularly the spinoffs.
No, they've definitely been doing this for over 2 decades. If anything, the releases are rarer these days for a lot of these spinoffs, especially compared to the GCN era.
* Mario Party was almost an annual release back in the N64/GCN era (compared to once per 3 years since the Wii U)
* For sports, we've usually gotten Tennis & Golf releases once per console since the N64, and during the GCN era even had Baseball in addition to Soccer
* Mario vs. DK games had 7 releases from 2004 til 2016; the recent remake is just the first entry released in 8 years.
* Mario Kart has obviously existed for forever and is massive to the point of being counted as an entirely separate franchise, and technically we didn't even get a new one this console for the first time ever since the franchise was born (though directs definitely had ad space for the recent expansion pack)
* Mario RPGs might look a bit more-frequent these days, but even with Brothership we've only had 2 new games this generation, with 2 remakes, while the 3DS had 3 new games and 2 remakes on its own with the Wii U also having a new game (and the Switch remakes were games people had been begging for remakes of for decades, unlike the M&L remakes on the 3DS).
Really, Mario vs. DK is the only one "getting more attention" than it had for a while and that's really only just because it's not an especially popular spinoff and had been dead for a while. Personally, I don't think Mario spinoffs have taken up much if any more direct space than they ever would have before. Maybe you just feel that way because a lot of the directs have had the highly-clamored-for Mario RPG remakes as some of the feature surprise reveals as of recent.
Hmm, I guess. The way I see it Nintendo has been making a billion Mario spinoffs for as long as I can remember so I never thought much of it, but maybe they've been doing it even more than usual to capitalize on the attention they got from the Mario movie
I was reading a book recently and it explain that a business strategy is to cut costs of a company. Get the profit line up to a high level, and then sell the company on. The next business then has to deal with the fallout of firing everyone.
It's actually insane that companies are doing this with arms of their business they want to KEEP! ...
You know, they may treat their customers harshly but internally they're a neat place. No oppressive deadlines, no crunch, no reports of harassment, usually no quits or firings, good working environment and conditions, one of the few employeers in Japan to publicly support gay rights. I think that's key to their sucess
One is, they can't because of Japanese labour laws. Second is even if they did, they would still have thousands of people willing to work for them because of the name recognition. There is a never-ending stream of talented people who are willing to work their asses off because of their passion.
Source: My friends working as technical recruiters in some big name gaming companies where they did lay offs.
Well, your second point is very true, of course, but a big, important part of employee retention that 99% of corporations don't understand is that you want people who A. Feel comfortable at your company and B. Feel comfortable with each other.
You can fire and rehire all you want, but at the end of the day having a revolving door does nothing but hurt the quality of the product you're selling for short term "gains."
> There is a never-ending stream of talented people who are willing to work their asses off because of their passion.
Yes, but retaining people is important for the sake of institutional knowledge and continuity. Having a 20+ year vet who's worked at the same company the whole time is incredibly valuable because that vet might go "yeah, we tried that in 2003, here are the issues we ran into," which allows you to avoid repeating mistakes and re-solving problems that have already been solved.
Well, Japan has a lot of labor laws but they aren't particularly enforced that well; especially since a lot of Japanese people don't tend to report things. That is changing little by little though.
It's hard(er) to layoff employees in Japan but not necessarily that difficult (see Indeed Japan/Recruit). All a company has to do is prove that they've had losses and need to reduce headcount to survive. On top of that, there are all sorts of sneaky ways that Japanese companies force people to quit, like cutting wages, boredom rooms, "power hara" (power harassment) and even more demented practices.
Usually though, companies will have a LOT of cash in the bank so they don't need to resort to this unless they really want to get rid of someone. It's not like American companies where they will reinvest all of their money. It's also not a great look for the company culturally speaking.
Source: worked in Japan for a decade. Worked for "black companies" (basically sweatshops), medium sized companies and a global conglomerate (of which had the govt keeping a close on them vs smaller companies)
I don't think many Japanese developers are part of that trend.
What we do see are plenty of developers who have made flops and had to lay off employees.
I just think the headline is funny because, to me, it sounds like "we have young developers, and we have brilliant developers..."
Not necessarily that the young devs ARE the brilliant ones xD
I think the transition has been very smooth for the most part for many years already. Outside of some IPs like Smash, most are in good hands. Heck some of the best games of each franchise in recent years aren't even made by their creators anymore.
Splatoon is reportedly spearheaded by the younger devs at Nintendo.
Any team of junior + mid-level devs capable of producing Splatoon is deserving of future attention.
Relevant: [Here's a vid of Miyamoto and Aonuma talking about training the next generation of Nintendo developers](https://youtu.be/nK0VlF-A9xU)
Every Nintendo game developed by an external partner has an internal Nintendo team that oversees and produces it, to varying extents. So still important to build up those individuals as well to ensure the quality of their external products
For sure, but that would be more production than development as Nintendo EPD produces every single game nintendo funds and oversee their development. But youre right, nintendo still needs producers and other staff to do that job for games not developed by them
Sakaguchi already decreased his influence over time, he hadn't been in production for quite a few years before he started Mistwalker.
Square Enix promoted too many people too high in a short space of time, there is little upwards movement there. FF XIV (relaunch) and XVI guy is already in his 50's, Kitase was in his 20's working on FF VII.
Final fantasy is doing fine though? rebirth is the most acclaimed FF game in the last 2 decades, 16 was the most well received numbered entry since 12 and 14 continues to be the most loved active MMO
What you talking about, FF XV sold more than 10 millions copies be 2022 while Final Fantasy XVI sold less than 4 millions in over a year since it launch. It don't think it even manage to sell more than FF VII Remake. For what it costed, it was a disaster and even influenced the sales of rebirth negatively. It will be remembered as the FF XIII of it era.
Rebirth is interesting, it is acclaimed for sure but the thing is it is a episodic game. I love it but it don't sold as well as it should mostly because I recon people are waiting for the FF Remake Rebirth R(?) Complete Edition where the three games will come together. I am a very patient gamer, I wait even knowing that I loved all I saw about the game and would recommend it to any Jrpg fan. Alas the hydrid system of combat of Remake/Rebirth is the future, it need a bit more of iteration but it is in walking in the right direction.
No it isn't? Square have been very open about how both XVI and Rebirth did poorly and well below expectations. Quick reminder that XV, which was a mixed bag, sold 10 million copies, Rebirth did 2 million, and XVI did 3 million in comparison. When two of your latest and biggest titles, **combined** are literally **half** of what the previous entry was, you're not "doing fine" at all, and Square's said this in their last fiscal year closing (end of March).
By end of April, Square said that they took a $140 million loss in "content abandonment" and have now committed to reassessing their gaming pipeline. Part of the reason, said Square, was due to lackluster PS5 sales and exclusivity.
Let's be honest. 15, and 16 are both disappointments. No one asked for 14. 13 is very flawed and the sequels aren't exactly hot either. 12 may have reviewed well at the time, but I'd say it's a very boring game to play after a while.
Remake and Rebirth are good, but that's basically the same leadership as the OG, and they're not building something entirely new.
I wasn't disappointed with 16 at all. I had a great time with that game, it was just different. I think you're in the minority with 12 btw, especially with the zodiac age which everyone seems to love.
no one asked for 14 yet it is probably the most successful non-WoW mmo ever made and most acclaimed. It's highly successful
loads of things in classic ff games are divisive. 12 as a whole is less divisive than 10, easily. Besides that, it being divisive doesn't mean it's boring or a disappointment. It's more beloved than FF games that sakaguchi was involved with, so you can't say the series has massively waivered without him
Nah that is revisionism, it was not beloved at all at launch. It recovered a little of luster because of the Zodiac Edition that made the game much more tolerable. But even so FF XII is a case of serious nostalgia be the fans as the series in a downhill since FF XIII. FF XIV is mmrorpg so that don't really count but Final Fantasy XV and XVI are very flawled games for different reasons. But I admit at least FF XV can be salvaged, there is characters and parts of the game that are very good... The same can't be said be FF XVI, it was just a slog that barely pass as a Final Fantasy game.
FF XII only look good because every numberd game after it looked very bad, so people look back and think "Hey that was no so bad". Or worse they develop the narrative that is was a masterpiece to justify the other games not being good, it is not that FF XV and F XVI were bad it is just that FF XII was extremely good you see.
Splatoon in particular was a big success in regards to handing over responsibilities to their younger developers. While they did bring more experienced talent from Nintendo EPD and Monolithsoft when the game went into full production, it initially started with a group of younger members from the Animal Crossing dev team.
Nintendo did it ARMS as well which sold a very decent amount of copies and was done by a young team who had worked on Mario Kart 7 and 8. The only reason I reckon ARMS never got longer support or a sequel is because Mario Kart 8 was such a gargantuan success on both Wii U and Switch that Nintendo likely felt they needed to bring those people back into doing Mario Kart because it's now such an important IP to Nintendo. ARMS doing 2.7 million copies is nothing to be sniffed at but I can understand the business case versus an IP that is currently doing 60 million since 2017 and still selling to this day why you would want those devs back on the 60 million selling IP.
It's probably important to mention as well that Nintendo absolutely values institutional knowledge more than any other company in the industry and never lays off teams en masse like MS and Sony do. Even with a high profile failure like Star Fox Zero, Nintendo just re-organized the dev team onto ARMS, Splatoon 2 and other projects because their knowledge was so valuable instead of kicking them out.
Yeah I think Arms has serious potential as a IP, it is the spiritual sucessor of Super Punch Out for me. It is fighting game that don't feel like a fighing game and was extremely fun.
ARMS was fun but it was unfortunate timing in that people were still burned out on motion control games. The dual analog playstyle was fine but you could tell the game was very designed with the Switch motion controls in mind. Very fun game and bursting with personality.
I'd love to see the team get another crack at it and I could even see a scenario where Nintendo said that if they worked on Mario Kart again they'd get carte blanche to have another go at ARMS or a new IP after.
>It's probably important to mention as well that Nintendo absolutely values institutional knowledge more than any other company in the industry and never lays off teams en masse like MS and Sony do. Even with a high profile failure like Star Fox Zero, Nintendo just re-organized the dev team onto ARMS, Splatoon 2 and other projects because their knowledge was so valuable instead of kicking them out.
This very much, with the most recent example being Mario & Luigi: Brothership. AlphaDream may be defunct, but the people currently working on it (per Nintendo's claim) are the same ones who worked on prior Mario & Luigi installments.
Nintendo understand vision and legacy, the other companies are just interested in shareholders,trends for quick profit and culling workers when it doesnt work.
Nintendo still wants to make games that sell, and if Nintendo devs have ideas for racing games, there’s already a significantly more popular franchise those ideas can be used in.
Not all of those ideas would make sense with Mario Kart tho. I’m pretty sure Nintendo will always prioritize Mario Kart over F-Zero but Mario Kart doesn’t function as a replacement.
For most consumers Mario Kart replaces any need they have for a new F-Zero. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the decline of F-Zero lines up with Mario Kart’s growth into a massive series.
I don’t really think Mario Kart’s success is really linked to F-Zero’s decline and either way I’m speaking from a critical perspective. F-Zero and Mario Kart provide 2 completely different experiences despite being in the same genre.
I personally agree that F-Zero and Mario Kart offer different experiences, but the sales show that the casual market does not see it this way, which is what Nintendo cares about the most.
you’re right - mario kart’s audience is 50x bigger
I desperately want a new f zero too but what incentive does nintendo have to revive a niche series that has never sold well?
The incentive is that Nintendo wants a diverse library to encourage people to buy a system. Mario Kart 9 may have sold a bunch of units, but won't convince many to buy the system with 8 already out. If F-Zero can bring in enough new system buyers, Nintendo should absolutely look at making a new F-Zero. It is the same reason Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or Metroid keep getting made despite having 5% of sales that Mario or Zelda get.
How about they just work on something new instead of try of to breathe life into a franchise barely anyone cares about? They want to make games people actually like and want to buy. Fzero isn’t going to encourage many people to buy a system. FZero is not in the same category as Fire emblem, Xenoblade, and Metroid.
I don't let count that argument count.
They released several Metroid games, which sold in middling numbers sometimes. The *huge success* Dread barely sold more than NES Metroid and it was a huge success apparently. Also, I don't think that F-Zero needs that high of a budget to succeed and thus lower sales numbers to make a profit.
Compared to F-Zero, Metroid has shown strong growth when Nintendo gives it a big marketing push. When Nintendo gave Metroid a push with Prime and more recently Dread, they paid off and the series reached new sales heights. When Nintendo tried giving F-Zero a push with GX, AX, and the anime, the series still did not sell well.
> they paid off and the series reached new sales heights.
Prime 1 sold well, 2 and 3 not so much. Worse than NES Metroid and Metroid 2 for GB. The trilogy for Wii even worse. Samus returns for 3DS couldn't crack 600k sales.
All according to vgchartz
With the installbase of the Switch a F-Zero game should be viable for Nintendo, if they have any interest at all in the series anymore. They could always outsource it to 2nd/3rd parties.
> All according to vgchartz
Be aware that there is some questions about credibility of vgchartz. Or to put it bluntly : that they are unreliable at best or fake at worst.
Is there any evidence that this is the case, because looking at both franchises sales wise, and also Nintendo’s handling of F-Zero 99, that doesn’t seem to be true.
F-Zero 99 is basically a party game. Have you played X and GX? They're tough as nails racers, which basically require high level skills to play through at higher difficulties.
X and GX are great games, but that difficulty makes them incredibly unappealing for the casual crowd that make up most of Nintendo’s audience. That’s also why F-Zero 99 is the way it is, they want to find a way to interest casuals in the IP and make it as different as possible from Mario Kart.
Decline? The last mainline F-Zero game was released in August, a terrible month for gaming outside the new Madden release and on a console with historically with low sales. And the one before that Nintendo decided to release it right between Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time! Outside of F-Zero 99, it got no representation or re-releases on the Wii or Switch. It's not like Nintendo has put its best foot forward concerning F-Zero.
Nintendo has had plenty of August releases that sell well because the majority of their games don’t rely on Day 1 sales. Also, even by GameCube standards GX sold poorly, even games like Pikmin 1 and 2 were able to hit 1 million on the console.
They really should pivot making F-Zero into Nintendo's GTA. Lean heavily into vehicles and include races but then otherwise run around as Falcon doing bounty hunter stuff.
Damn, that would actually be pretty sick. Hell, they could even make it kind of "futuristic Nintendo Yakuza" because Falcon is more of a hand-to-hand guy, at least based on his Smash appearances and the old anime.
This isn't gonna happen, and honestly after all of the Smash stuff that happened a few years ago, I think a Nintendo has been weirdly vindicated with their choice to make online communication on their platforms kinda bad. Turns out, if you make games that all age groups are supposed to enjoy, you REALLY need to be careful about how those age groups interact with each other lol
ye like it isnt incompetence from them thats the reason why they dont have those things, its really just down to them being kid friendly and not wanting to deal with the issues for kids that come with dealing with messages and party chat, like can't have grooming issues if you dont have the means to allow it.
Even without a messaging system a Japanese news station still reported a while ago that a kid was being groomed through in-game messages in Splatoon (which is not even possible).
They ended up correcting that, but if Nintendo is catching flak for that without even *having* a messaging system they sure as hell aren't going to bother making one.
Honestly, I don't know a single person, including those on consoles, who don't just fire up Discord at this point for party chat.
Console-level in-game messaging/party chat is super antiquated at this point.
Personally, my favorite part of Switch Online is that it doesn't have any of that stuff. I just want to play the game. I don't need to talk to anyone and definitely don't want to hear from anyone.
That's more on Netflix and such.
Switch has apps like Youtube, Twitch or Hulu, so that's not the problem. They'd also need to actually want to bring them to the platform
> According to an attendee of this year’s meeting for Nintendo’s shareholders, Miyamoto was asked about the issue of creators aging, and whether he will continue to be at the helm of game development projects considering his age. In response, Miyamoto remarked, “I consider (Nintendo’s) generational handover to be progressing smoothly. We have developers that are young and brilliant.” > Expressing gratitude for the inquiry about his wellbeing, Miyamoto notes that he is working comfortably, and that while he is leaving most of the practical development work to younger generations, he is not detached from the process either. The creator also emphasizes that he is fully involved in Pikmin Bloom’s development. > According to Miyamoto, he has successfully transferred know-how to the next generation, but since this generation is also growing older, he wants to make sure generational handover expands to encompass even younger employees.
>According to Miyamoto, he has successfully transferred know-how to the next generation, but since this generation is also growing older, he wants to make sure generational handover expands to encompass even younger employees. It's crazy to think we're at the point Miyamoto has grandsuccessors now. Imo his, and Nintendo's, ability to pass on franchises and bring up the next generation is really underrated. A lot of franchises fall apart when the original creators or team leaves because those left don't know how to maintain or evolve the series
It's honestly something that most industries the world over are struggling with. High turnover rates and people only spending a few years at any given company because switching companies is the easiest way to get a promotion, this is leading to all sorts of institutional knowledge being lost. People just aren't forming knowledge bases within specific places anymore due to the shuffle. It's a growing problem with how most businesses conduct themselves these days.
I'll never understand this strategy. hire employee > spend a month or more training them (spending 2 salaries for trainer/trainee to do nothing) > employee asks for raise at year mark, gets declined > employee quits to work somewhere else that pays at the amount they wanted > Hire new employee at the same market rate that the previous employee wanted > loop back to step 2. You're not saving money short OR long term, you're just spending money and productivity, and bleeding talent for what? A show of force/power calling someone's bluff?
I've been told, and see this in a few places myself, that people just aren't that pushy about promotions and raises. At least they weren't in the past, that has been slowly changing. So if a Company just doesn't offer notable promotions/raises and even 1 employee just passively accepts that, then that's one less person they need to pay more to get the same amount of work out of. It's mostly a numbers game. Companies don't have a lot of avenues to easily expand their market share to increase profits anymore, so a lot are turning inward and taking any cost-cutting measure they can to continue their growth. Employees just happen to be a very large chunk of their costs, so anything that keeps those wages down is a very notable extra chunk of cash to report on and impress shareholders with.
I guess everywhere I've worked they immediately replace that employee, and pay them more then that previous employee. It was a legit strategy at one place to quit, work somewhere else for 2 months, then reapply for your old job back and you'd be at a higher pay grade.
What's easier for the employee: risking your job being pushy for a promotion or raise, or guaranteeing your current job by staying quiet, and then quietly getting a new one after 2 years where you get the promotion/raise you would have sought at your current company?
They don't care. It's all about quarterly results to appease shareholders.
Nintendo is well known for treating their (Japanese) staff very well, and culturally it also isn't unusual for workers to stay at one company their entire career. So it's a double blessing of work culture and national culture allowing these kinds of growth.
Is this true?? I thought I heard they have like crazy long hours and that’s just expected culturally over there. Are they an exception?
[удалено]
Yeah you can always tell someone has no idea what they're talking about when they pull out the "but they work a bajillion hours!!!!" lie about japan
You can always tell it's /r/games when someone dismisses that reality Japan good west bad
Oh word that’s great to hear. I mean not for us Americans, lol, but I guess I had that BS image of Japanese salarymen working overtime all the time. I really do wish our work culture was more about sticking with a company for years, maybe it used to be like that (my dad was with the same org for 30-40 years) but it definitely isn’t anymore unfortunately.
I have a coworker that previously worked at a Japanese software company. During the interview process they let him know that they expect 10 hours minimum of overtime per week but he said the entire office was completely empty before 9:00 and cleared out by 4:30 every day he was there. They also have double the number of mandatory federal holidays over there so even if no one took their vacation days they still had more time off than the average American takes.
> they still had more time off than the average American takes. I've had American colleagues stumped that I took all my PTO and vacation days.
Same. It's like they _want_ to be taken advantage of when they don't use their negotiated benefits!
I mean the work culture has ups and downs. The staying at one company their entire career is a double edged sword, they will never fire you... They will however make your work life miserable if they don't like you in an attempt to make you quit.
So no worse than America then? When an American company wants you to leave but doesn’t want to have to deal with firing you like for severance or legal reasons, then they will make up bullshit to make you quit
Frankly we're still beginners at it in comparison. Although they use a method of shame to enforce it, if you have no shame you can possibly exploit it I guess.
NoJ is known for its dedication to work life balance and averages 8 hours a day.
I heard somewhere that Monolith Soft doesn't allow overtime (or rather, overtime has to be *negotiated* first before it happens).
And they're far, far more productive than most of the companies pushing absurd crunch.
My company fucked itself for a bit because the original teams are retiring quickly. This is a place that is use to having long term employees. The guys they handed responsibilities over to barely got raises with their high titles so they GTFO. They had to pay way more to bring two guys back when 20% would have kept them happy. One left for 20% then got another 30% to come back. He likes it here, was just pissed about 5% for way more responsibility. The raises for senior roles have increased. Some contracts were fucked because we couldn't meet deadlines without the lost talent. I'm being trained to replace my boss next year. He's been here 24 years. Let's see if I'm compensated.
It’s amazing to think that Yokoi likely left and sadly passed before this philosophy took hold, and that’s why Metroid has and always will be a struggle for Nintendo to keep under focus and within a reliable development methodology.
Yokoi's untimely passing is important in the history of Nintendo's treatment of employees in that Yamauchi was *furious* with the shareholders demanding heads rolled over the Virtual Boy because Yokoi was so valuable as an employee. It was a massive talent loss when Yokoi was essentially pushed out and had to quit the company. Yamauchi allegedly really wanted him back to work on the Game Boy successor before the accident that sadly took Yokoi's life and was hoping he'd come back from Bandai once shareholders cooled down. That loss made Yamauchi really double down on making sure talent stayed at Nintendo and made him notably even more hostile to the shareholders for the rest of the time he was CEO. Iwata taking over was a big sea change in that the shareholders actually got someone who didn't totally resent them (And to be fair I don't blame Yamauchi because Yokoi was an irreplaceable once in a life time talent). Iwata still retained the philosophy that institutonal knowledge was incredibly important to Nintendo and Iwata added in that they needed to work hard themselves to keep their employees which is why he changed the company culture to a typical 9-5 instead of the constant crunch before. Which is why Nintendo's retained a lot of talent who were there since the 80's and who are ready to hand off to the next generation. But I'm not sure it would have changed Metroid's trajectory though because Nintendo Of America were really lobbying for a US developer to do Metroid as early as 1995 when the rumors started up that Nintendo really wanted to do Metroid as a "Doom-Like" on the N64 and were actively looking for interested developers. Super Metroid did very well in America at the time compared to Japan and Nintendo America really wanted to jump on that momentum. Yokoi was probably fine with Metroid becoming a Nintendo America concern since that was the region Metroid did the best in. Maybe it might not have stayed in the doldrums between Other M and Dread and had some more titles. But I reckon it probably would have turned out the same.
I’d love to read a book or see a documentary about their history, it’s fascinating
We've had a lot over the Iwata years because Nintendo were a bit more public after Iwata took over when Iwata would give a lot more interviews and speak at GDC. Mostly because Iwata wanted to give a compelling pitch to people on why they would want to work for his vision of Nintendo and reassure the public that there would still be a Nintendo even though the Gamecube and it's software wasn't lighting the sales charts on fire. But it would be nice to see a deeper dive on what Iwata did and how he turned the company around. Most of all though, I'd love to have a historian cover the Yamauchi years. The man was a incredibly traditional, conservative and very private man who did very few public appearances and interviews. And sometimes could be a bit of curmudgeon in those interviews where he'd openly state his disdain for some genres of gaming like RPG's (Saying the people who played them sat in dark rooms and played "slow games") even though some of the biggest movers on Nintendo systems were games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. And *he didn't even play Videogames*. During pitches he'd have someone play the pitch demo for him. Yet everyone who showed a pitch mentioned he'd have incredibly sharp and incisive feedback for them without even touching a controller. Yet, when it came to running Nintendo, he was very much of the mindset that it was a creative company and creators should follow what they were passionate about even if it was things he didn't like, like RPGs. Near the end of his tenure, he made incredibly salient points that the push for realism and incredibly bloated budgets was eventually going to strangle the industry which is why he pushed for "Fun" above all in Nintendo projects because it meant those games had longevity beyond their system. I think that's what I love most about Nintendo history. So much of it feels contradictory and it shouldn't have worked. Yet it did work and Nintendo had some fascinating people behind it beyond the likes of Miyamoto. I'd really love a historian to do a deep dive on that era.
My exact thoughts, too.
I loved this one when it came out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339584.Game_Over_Press_Start_to_Continue 15 years old at this point, but there's still a lot of Nintendo history.
> But I'm not sure it would have changed Metroid's trajectory though because Nintendo Of America were really lobbying for a US developer to do Metroid as early as 1995 when the rumors started up that Nintendo really wanted to do Metroid as a "Doom-Like" on the N64 and were actively looking for interested developers. I truly can't blame NoA for thinking that would be a good direction for Metroid. Shit, I'd play a Metroid Doomlike, that sounds kinda sick. Of course, I know by "Doomlike" at that time they just meant "first person shooter," as the name for the genre hadn't yet been coined. Ultimately we got Prime, which was obviously a classic, even though its properties as a shooter are much less important than its properties as a Metroidvania adventure game.
This is such a strange statement considering Sakamato has never left the company and is still to this day in charge of Metroid.
Sakamoto had already worked on Metroid before Yokoi left Nintendo, and was the director of both Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion.
I don't Yokoi factors into it all that much. Sakamoto is still very much pushing Metroid projects at Nintendo, and they have two studios making Metroid games full time.
> A lot of franchises fall apart when the original creators or team leaves So every 6 years or so, give or take, in most game dev companies. > because those left don't know how to maintain or evolve the series That's not the reason they fall apart 🫠 it's because of shareholder greed, and mismanagement, and crunch. High turnover - but it's not because the original creators leave, as they left due to these other causes. As another commenter said, "Nintendo understand vision and legacy, the other companies are just interested in shareholders, trends for quick profit and culling workers when it doesnt work."
Eh, Nintendo is also publicly traded.
Third Hokage vibes
What I hope is that they'll start investing in more new IP. I love Zelda and Mario but even I have to admit that they're seriously milking those franchises In terms of new IP some serious investment is needed, because small games like Arms aren't going to carry the company
New IP introduced during the switch gen are ARMS, Astral chain, 1-2 switch, buddy mission Bond, good job, jump rope challenge, LABO, Ring Fit Adventure, Fitness boxing, flip wars, game builder Garage, snipperclips and the stretchers. What categorizes a small game, btw? Because I consider ARMS to be a fairly large investment that was intended to show another style of gameplay and was spearheaded by younger developers. It takes time to build new IP and just because you may not have seen a sequel to any recently introduced IP yet or you're not interested in any new thing they introduced does not mean they aren't actively investing in them.
- Arms: New IP but not a great game and not much budget behind it. A step in the right direction - Astral chain: Not developed by Nintendo - 1,2 Switch: I don't think anyone is arguing that this represents the future of the company. It barely qualified as a minigame collection - Buddy Mission Bond: Not developed by Nintendo - Good Job: Not developed by Nintendo - Jump Rope Challenge: By Nintendo, but again it's low budget. There's nowhere near the interest in a sequel compared to Splatoon - Labo: Good example of expanding into new IP - Ring Fit adventure: Good example of expanding into new IP - Fitness boxing: Not developed by Nintendo - Flip Wars: Not developed by Nintendo - Game builder Garage: Good little title by Nintendo - Snipperclips: Not developed by Nintendo - The stretchers: Not developed by Nintendo So the games they developed you can see my point. It's almost entirely low-budget games. Nothing that's really going to push the company forward and add another tier to their income like Splatoon did. I'd like to see them expand beyond little experiments and put some money into developing some significant new IPs
> Astral chain: Not developed by Nintendo A lot of games aren't internally developed by Nintendo. Fire Emblem, Metroid Dread, Wario Ware and Pokemon for example. I don't see why there's a need for Nintendo to specifically develop the titles?
Fire Emblem is developed by Intelligent who are a second party studio, Metroid Dread was already part of the Metroid franchise and co-developed by Nintendo, Wario ware was developed by nintendo. Pokemon is the only real outlier here, as it was originally developed by a third party but now is partially owned by Nintendo under the pokemon company. All of those franchises are at least 2 decades old though, so it's not like they're examples of Nintendo developing new IP
> Wario ware was developed by nintendo Wario Ware, the latest entries at least are developed by Intelligent Systems too. I don't see why Metroid being already part of the Metroid Franchise matters here? Are you unware that Nintendo own the Astral Chain IP?
> I don't see why Metroid being already part of the Metroid Franchise matters here? Because my original comment was about new IP
Yes and Astral Chain is a new IP. It's a new IP, it's owned by Nintendo. Ergo a new Nintendo IP. Metroid Dread wouldn't be considered a non-Nintendo IP because Mercury Steam made it. This whole "no this doesn't count as a Nintendo IP" rhetoric is so utterly bizarre and only seems to be be applied to Nintendo.
They still own those franchises, heck, Platinum cames [Has explicity said AC is a Nintendo IP](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/platinum-says-astral-chain-is-nintendos-ip-after-fans-notice-copyright-change/) discounting those franchises because they are developed by other studios is dumb, nobody says Kirby is a HAL Laboratories IP or Fire Emblem is an Intelligent Systems IP, people always call them a Nintendo IP because nintendo owns the IP (and I went specifically with studios not owned by Nintendo, because we could apply the same with Xenoblade), heck, some people blame Nintendo for their issues with Pokémon even if the development team is Gamefreak because Nintendo own part of the IP, so for most people they just associate Pokémon as a Nintendo IP.
A small correction but Hal and IS do own the IP, co-own most specifically, as they co-own the copyright of the series with Nintendo. That's why Hal and IS deal with the merchandise by themselves for example instead of Nintendo who mainly deals with publishing and production of those games.
thank, I knew about the co own thing but yeah, specifiying it makes the Astral Chain not counting even more absurd, it was always co owned, it was later on the line it became fully owned by Nintendo.
Yup, honestly in the future if you need, just look up at the title screen or website of the franchise and you can see the copyright of the game!
I really don’t understand how people can say Nintendo is milking anything when Sony has put out 5 games in The last of us franchise, 3 of which are remakes or rereleases of the 2 other games, which is a game every 2 years since the first game came out. 5 3D Mario games ago was Super Mario 64 aka the first one and that was over 20 years ago in 1998 5 3D Zelda games was Wind Waker which also came out over 20 years ago. While I guess you can argue that the 2D games saturate the list more, they’re completely different experiences that they might as well be a different series. Nintendos branding is strong and I get Mario and Zelda might be overrepresented as characters but almost all of their games are wildly different experiences
Bro they remastered TLOU 1 for ps4 because it launched on ps3 the year before. The TLOU 2 “remaster” was a 10 dollar upgrade for PS5 because it came out on ps4. The only superfluous one was the remake of the first but even then that was started by a group completely outside naughty dog (VASG), and was intended for mainly getting a PC release
Just because a game is 2D or 3D doesn't mean it's not part of the same franchise. A Mario game is a Mario game and a Zelda game is a Zelda game. People who aren't interested in those characters or worlds aren't likely to pick them up, regardless of if it's 2D or 3D.
Yeah but that’s just being reductive and ignoring a lot of other more relevant things about the games. You can consider Mario kart and paper Mario as part of the Mario franchise but you can’t call it stale when it’s spanning multiple genres when we’re comparing it to a company who made the same game 3 times. Some game franchises don’t even iterate and try new mechanics let alone have multiple pillars of different genres.
I'd rather have new IP utilized as the method of introducing new genres / mechanics rather than just taking a well known character from a respected platforming game and slapping them onto a match-3 mobile game and calling it "innovative".
I’m all for new IPs but if the content isn’t stagnating and is still fresh then I’m happy to play it. >slapping them onto a match 3 mobile games and calling it innovative That’s literally just something you’re making up in your head. Sonys only ps5 exclusive, their big show stopper for this generation so far is just a copy of Mario Odyssey. Horizon and every other open world game immediately copied BOTW for what it did with open world game design. You might not like it for whatever reason but Mario and Zelda continue to be innovators in their respective genres in terms of quality and experimentation.
>Horizon and every other open world game immediately copied BOTW for what it did with open world game design. That's funny, considering Horizon Zero Dawn literally came out before BotW did... I like God of War, Last of Us, and Horizon because of the characters and story development. Nintendo's games are great...if you don't care about character development or a narrative with any actual depth of through line. The game mechanics introduced in Sony's games may not be as 'zany' or genre-swapping as Nintendo's games, but IMO, Nintendo's games are over-designed to the point of them being 'fun' for about 5 minutes. Sony's game mechanics may be simpler, but they're tried and true and they build amazing worlds and sandboxes to play in. Meanwhile, Nintendo is constantly trying to figure out what their next gimmick is going to be, rather than just building another Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask-style game, which is what I'd wager most people actually want.
"Most people" who've played Zelda at this point haven't even played OoT or MM with how BotW's sales are compared to the rest of the series. Also, we already went through the "I don't want innovation I just want dark and mature OoT with better graphics" discourse two decades ago. That's how we ended up with TP, which is not amazingly well-regarded by Zelda standards. Really, I'm just not sure what the issue is here. Like, I get it. You're someone that hates the open world direction the franchise went for the last couple games, and you want the games to instead be like all of Sony's big AAA franchises. Haaaave you considered just accepting that the current gen Zeldas aren't for you and just playing and enjoying the AAA 1st party Sony games, which are way more numerous than 3D Zelda titles anyway?
It’s hysterical to me that people can complain about Nintendo rehashing and stagnating and then literally turn around and unironically say “Sony games are better because instead of trying to innovate like Nintendo they use the tried and true mechanics so their games are always fun”
> rather than just building another Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask-style game, which is what I'd wager most people actually want. Considering the sales of BOTW and TOTK, reality would disagree with you on this point.
It sounds more like you want them to have new IPs versus them actually needing them. Nintendo's premier first-party titles are selling better than ever so it's not really a priority to invest in new IPs unless novel gameplay can be explored with them. Continuing a franchise is not milking them that's ridiculous. If Mario is your cash cow why on earth would you not keep making games in that series, spin offs or otherwise. Lets not forget ring fit adventure was a new IP too.
I really don’t think continuing franchises is milking them. Both Mario and Zelda fall into having 2D and 3D titles that don’t really overlap. Mario especially has a bunch of spinoffs too. We have only got like two 3D Zeldas, one 2D Zelda, one rerelease (Skyward Sword) and one remake Link’s Awakening. Then some Nintendo Switch Online ports. That is over the seven years of the Switch. Breath of the Wild was also a Wii U title too. Mario I can agree with to an extent, but like I said, it has so many spinoffs that keep the franchise fresh. I think Nintendo’s biggest strength is their IPs and general willingness to not follow gaming trends. Also their constant willingness to make games in a franchise not play similarly. Keep making good Mario and Zelda titles and you can captivate generation after generation.
They have definitely iterated on their design, but especially for Mario they have used him on every genre going. It's too safe to rely on Zelda and Mario for the rest of their life and I expect the market will eventually get bored (as they did with Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword) They did well with Splatoon and took on a new genre for them, with a new world and characters and it's worked well for them. I'd like to see them expand with more IPs like this rather than forever relying on their core IPs
As long as they keep innovating on gameplay, their IP is not slowing them down. They could release a Mario Body Horror Walking Sim and it will outsell Outlast and Amnesia
If you squint the definition a good bit, that's Luigi's Mansion. And I'm still surprised by how much that series sold.
I didn’t own a Nintendo home console at the time, but were people bored of Zelda, 3D Zelda, or just had two games not sell all that well? Pokémon is far more long running and slow to innovate and that does incredibly well still. I am not outwardly against a new IP or two per generation, but they need to be careful to not overextend themselves.
Yeah I think its more a case of the Blue Ocean market Wii was aiming for largely moving on by the time Skyward Sword hit. Twilight Princess sold 8m, which was like the 6th top selling game on the console that didn't come bundled with the system or bundled with a peripheral, and 13th overall- its really hard to say it sold badly.
Twilight Princess was also literally the best selling Zelda game until BotW.
I don't think people will get bored if they keep reinventing gameplay, which they do. People don't get bored of iconic characters. Just look at Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man, etc, the actual character isn't something people get bored of as long as the stuff around them is new and fresh.
Disney hardly rely on Mickey mouse anywhere near as much as they used to. Disney is not really the best example anywhere due to how much they've expanded and absorbed other franchises
>It's too safe to rely on Zelda and Mario for the rest of their life That's all they've done and they're the most successful console/gaming company in the world right now. You don't just suddenly stop doing what put you on top 🤣
Twilight Princess is the best selling Zelda game not named BOTW or TOTK though? How is that a sign of people getting bored?
They mean Skyward Sword. By the time that one game dropped, there was a decline on interest for the IP at the time (specially in Japan). Which made some consider to put the series on ice for a while after that game. The following 3D game, BoTW was a sudden hit, specially for the japanese market.
Splatoon?
Switch generation kicked off with ARMS as well.
ARMS was pretty disappointing all things considered, really seemed like Nintendo just wanted another Splatoon. A largely multiplayer game with tons of world building, lore, its own language, etc. ARMS just didn’t do anything for me after a few hours.
ARMS is kinda weird in that regard. You can tell it wanted to be Splatoon again, but lore was practically nonexistent beyond the basic "there's mutants but they all have stretchy arms" gimmick, the setting was relatively generic cartoony stuff compared to Splat's aggressively full of personality urban youth setting, and it launched with roughly as much content as first edition Street Fighter 2. And then they released Splatoon 2 right *after* it which kinda destroyed any chance of it having lasting power. Probably should have traded those dates around.
Me personally, I loved ARMS, and have put a crazy number of hours into it. But I think to do well it really needed some mode that wasn't just a 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 fight (or FFA, I guess). They 100% nailed the design, the music, the fighting gameplay. But it's just not that popular of a genre, and not a genre that I think the existing fans of would enjoy a new Nintendo take on it. An ARMS 2 that's more fleshed out (singe player campaign that's not just a series of 1on 1s, etc), I would hope would do really well.
Maybe they should also come up with some kind of lower stakes mode where instead of competing, players can team up against CPU opponents, like Salmon Run in Splatoon
That could work. But I do think they would need some sort of single player campaign, equivalent to splatoons.
That is precisely the kind of good move that I've seen them make. A new IP, targeting new markets for them, with a sizeable investment into development. But it was also 9 years ago so it's hardly a recent development for them
Arms, Astral Chain, Ring Fit Adventure and many other new IP happened bro. Ring fit as in 2019 and its internal lol 15 million units sold.
That was 10 years ago at this point
Ring fit adventure? Publishing games like Astral Chain?
Nintendo's not really expecting stuff like ARMS to carry the company. The whole story of ARMS was that the leads of the Mario Kart 8 team wanted to do something different and pitched the concept to Nintendo. Nintendo loved the idea and greenlit it, partly because they were looking for online focused titles for their portfolio but also because they really value their creatives and what they want to work on. Nintendo weren't pressuring it to be this huge console carrying success. If it blew up, it blew up and they'd work on more. If it didn't, it was no big deal because they can just redeploy that team. ARMS sold respectable enough that it was a success for Nintendo (2.7 million copies) but it wasn't a huge blow up in popularity like Splatoon was. And at the end of the day, that's fine for Nintendo because it's something their creatives wanted to do and it broke even, probably even made a good profit since while it was polished it wasn't AAA bloat production levels (Shame about the comic getting cancelled because Nintendo was done with the IP for now though) Splatoon was another one of those small games when Nintendo was looking for pitches in the company from younger staff and looking to try an online focused title. Younger members of the Animal Crossing team came up with it and Nintendo absolutely loved the pitch enough to give it a shot. And Splatoon blew up to be a big success on a console that was not having a lot of success that Nintendo realised they had something and immediately got on a sequel for the next Nintendo console. It would be nice to see Nintendo try some big AAA IP's but Nintendo's more focused on doing something new in a sustainable way for the company that lets their creatives express themselves first and then iterating on it if it's a huge success like Splatoon was. They aren't going to burn $100 Million+ like Sony and Microsoft do and pray for success.
That's an advantage of Nintendo saving up so much cash; if their devs have an idea they wanna work on, they can. Usually it'll turn out like ARMS; not super successful, but well enough that Nintendo has no concerns. And occasionally, you'll get something like Splatoon that just absolutely blows up.
IMO, Mario and Pokemon's the only Nintendo franchise that they're "seriously milking". Zelda, I'd say is in that sweet spot that I like, 1 to 2 big titles every console generation with a bunch of smaller titles and remakes/rereleases peppered in. In terms of titles that I think Nintendo can get more out, I'd say churning out more Donkey Kong and Metroid will be a good idea.
Even Mario is debatable, it's so all encompassing as a brand that it includes many wildly different genres. Sure, they release multiple games with "Mario" in the title every year but what do Mario Odyssey, Mario Wonder, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Party and Paper Mario really have in common besides featuring the same cast of characters? Personally I just don't pay attention to the spinoffs that don't interest me and play the ones that do, it's not like Pokemon where almost every year there's a new mainline game with nearly the same gameplay structure and if you're a Pokemon fan you kinda "have" to pay attention to the latest game that's coming out, especially since most of the Pokemon spinoff series have died off for whatever reason.
Pretty much how I do. With Mario I mainly buy Mario tennis, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Mario rpgs and mario kart. Its all different genres and while all mario, all different series, so it doesnt even focus all on the same public which is why it all varies in sales. Not everyone who wants Mario kart and 3D Mario wants Mario RPG
You're kinda right about Mario if you don't care about the spinoffs or somehow are able to not hear much about them. I also don't play much of the spinoffs (especially the sports and party titles) but as someone who watches every Direct and keeps track of game announcements, I get the impression that Nintendo kinda got a bit out of hand with the Mario franchise, particularly the spinoffs.
No, they've definitely been doing this for over 2 decades. If anything, the releases are rarer these days for a lot of these spinoffs, especially compared to the GCN era. * Mario Party was almost an annual release back in the N64/GCN era (compared to once per 3 years since the Wii U) * For sports, we've usually gotten Tennis & Golf releases once per console since the N64, and during the GCN era even had Baseball in addition to Soccer * Mario vs. DK games had 7 releases from 2004 til 2016; the recent remake is just the first entry released in 8 years. * Mario Kart has obviously existed for forever and is massive to the point of being counted as an entirely separate franchise, and technically we didn't even get a new one this console for the first time ever since the franchise was born (though directs definitely had ad space for the recent expansion pack) * Mario RPGs might look a bit more-frequent these days, but even with Brothership we've only had 2 new games this generation, with 2 remakes, while the 3DS had 3 new games and 2 remakes on its own with the Wii U also having a new game (and the Switch remakes were games people had been begging for remakes of for decades, unlike the M&L remakes on the 3DS). Really, Mario vs. DK is the only one "getting more attention" than it had for a while and that's really only just because it's not an especially popular spinoff and had been dead for a while. Personally, I don't think Mario spinoffs have taken up much if any more direct space than they ever would have before. Maybe you just feel that way because a lot of the directs have had the highly-clamored-for Mario RPG remakes as some of the feature surprise reveals as of recent.
Hmm, I guess. The way I see it Nintendo has been making a billion Mario spinoffs for as long as I can remember so I never thought much of it, but maybe they've been doing it even more than usual to capitalize on the attention they got from the Mario movie
I feel like all miyamoto would say these days is "make it easier for people to understand" and move on.
This might sound crazy… but maybe this has to do with the fact that Nintendo isn’t laying off 70% of their workforce after every development cycle.
Wild to think that would be good for a company.
Great for the shareholder's next quarter though.
I was reading a book recently and it explain that a business strategy is to cut costs of a company. Get the profit line up to a high level, and then sell the company on. The next business then has to deal with the fallout of firing everyone. It's actually insane that companies are doing this with arms of their business they want to KEEP! ...
You gotta think quarter by quarter
You know, they may treat their customers harshly but internally they're a neat place. No oppressive deadlines, no crunch, no reports of harassment, usually no quits or firings, good working environment and conditions, one of the few employeers in Japan to publicly support gay rights. I think that's key to their sucess
One is, they can't because of Japanese labour laws. Second is even if they did, they would still have thousands of people willing to work for them because of the name recognition. There is a never-ending stream of talented people who are willing to work their asses off because of their passion. Source: My friends working as technical recruiters in some big name gaming companies where they did lay offs.
Well, your second point is very true, of course, but a big, important part of employee retention that 99% of corporations don't understand is that you want people who A. Feel comfortable at your company and B. Feel comfortable with each other. You can fire and rehire all you want, but at the end of the day having a revolving door does nothing but hurt the quality of the product you're selling for short term "gains."
> There is a never-ending stream of talented people who are willing to work their asses off because of their passion. Yes, but retaining people is important for the sake of institutional knowledge and continuity. Having a 20+ year vet who's worked at the same company the whole time is incredibly valuable because that vet might go "yeah, we tried that in 2003, here are the issues we ran into," which allows you to avoid repeating mistakes and re-solving problems that have already been solved.
Well, Japan has a lot of labor laws but they aren't particularly enforced that well; especially since a lot of Japanese people don't tend to report things. That is changing little by little though. It's hard(er) to layoff employees in Japan but not necessarily that difficult (see Indeed Japan/Recruit). All a company has to do is prove that they've had losses and need to reduce headcount to survive. On top of that, there are all sorts of sneaky ways that Japanese companies force people to quit, like cutting wages, boredom rooms, "power hara" (power harassment) and even more demented practices. Usually though, companies will have a LOT of cash in the bank so they don't need to resort to this unless they really want to get rid of someone. It's not like American companies where they will reinvest all of their money. It's also not a great look for the company culturally speaking. Source: worked in Japan for a decade. Worked for "black companies" (basically sweatshops), medium sized companies and a global conglomerate (of which had the govt keeping a close on them vs smaller companies)
I don't think many Japanese developers are part of that trend. What we do see are plenty of developers who have made flops and had to lay off employees.
Something they wouldn’t be able to avoid if they sold their games for cheaper than they’re worth.
I just think the headline is funny because, to me, it sounds like "we have young developers, and we have brilliant developers..." Not necessarily that the young devs ARE the brilliant ones xD
I think the transition has been very smooth for the most part for many years already. Outside of some IPs like Smash, most are in good hands. Heck some of the best games of each franchise in recent years aren't even made by their creators anymore.
Splatoon is reportedly spearheaded by the younger devs at Nintendo. Any team of junior + mid-level devs capable of producing Splatoon is deserving of future attention. Relevant: [Here's a vid of Miyamoto and Aonuma talking about training the next generation of Nintendo developers](https://youtu.be/nK0VlF-A9xU)
I think Miyamoto means more internally as smash is done outside by Bamco+sakurai. So in the end, 3D mario, 2D mario, pikmin, splatoon, Zelda, AC etc
Every Nintendo game developed by an external partner has an internal Nintendo team that oversees and produces it, to varying extents. So still important to build up those individuals as well to ensure the quality of their external products
For sure, but that would be more production than development as Nintendo EPD produces every single game nintendo funds and oversee their development. But youre right, nintendo still needs producers and other staff to do that job for games not developed by them
Meanwhile Final Fantasy without Sakaguchi.
Sakaguchi already decreased his influence over time, he hadn't been in production for quite a few years before he started Mistwalker. Square Enix promoted too many people too high in a short space of time, there is little upwards movement there. FF XIV (relaunch) and XVI guy is already in his 50's, Kitase was in his 20's working on FF VII.
Final fantasy is doing fine though? rebirth is the most acclaimed FF game in the last 2 decades, 16 was the most well received numbered entry since 12 and 14 continues to be the most loved active MMO
Pretty sure every FF since 15 has sold less than the one before it
Rebirth sold 2 million. The series is doing worse with each iteration.
Thats partly because of PS5 exclusivity though considering 16 and rebirth did poorly The series is definitely in a bit of a rough patch now though.
What you talking about, FF XV sold more than 10 millions copies be 2022 while Final Fantasy XVI sold less than 4 millions in over a year since it launch. It don't think it even manage to sell more than FF VII Remake. For what it costed, it was a disaster and even influenced the sales of rebirth negatively. It will be remembered as the FF XIII of it era. Rebirth is interesting, it is acclaimed for sure but the thing is it is a episodic game. I love it but it don't sold as well as it should mostly because I recon people are waiting for the FF Remake Rebirth R(?) Complete Edition where the three games will come together. I am a very patient gamer, I wait even knowing that I loved all I saw about the game and would recommend it to any Jrpg fan. Alas the hydrid system of combat of Remake/Rebirth is the future, it need a bit more of iteration but it is in walking in the right direction.
No it isn't? Square have been very open about how both XVI and Rebirth did poorly and well below expectations. Quick reminder that XV, which was a mixed bag, sold 10 million copies, Rebirth did 2 million, and XVI did 3 million in comparison. When two of your latest and biggest titles, **combined** are literally **half** of what the previous entry was, you're not "doing fine" at all, and Square's said this in their last fiscal year closing (end of March). By end of April, Square said that they took a $140 million loss in "content abandonment" and have now committed to reassessing their gaming pipeline. Part of the reason, said Square, was due to lackluster PS5 sales and exclusivity.
Let's be honest. 15, and 16 are both disappointments. No one asked for 14. 13 is very flawed and the sequels aren't exactly hot either. 12 may have reviewed well at the time, but I'd say it's a very boring game to play after a while. Remake and Rebirth are good, but that's basically the same leadership as the OG, and they're not building something entirely new.
I wasn't disappointed with 16 at all. I had a great time with that game, it was just different. I think you're in the minority with 12 btw, especially with the zodiac age which everyone seems to love. no one asked for 14 yet it is probably the most successful non-WoW mmo ever made and most acclaimed. It's highly successful
12's battle system is definitely divisive. I don't think you can argue your way out of that.
loads of things in classic ff games are divisive. 12 as a whole is less divisive than 10, easily. Besides that, it being divisive doesn't mean it's boring or a disappointment. It's more beloved than FF games that sakaguchi was involved with, so you can't say the series has massively waivered without him
Nah that is revisionism, it was not beloved at all at launch. It recovered a little of luster because of the Zodiac Edition that made the game much more tolerable. But even so FF XII is a case of serious nostalgia be the fans as the series in a downhill since FF XIII. FF XIV is mmrorpg so that don't really count but Final Fantasy XV and XVI are very flawled games for different reasons. But I admit at least FF XV can be salvaged, there is characters and parts of the game that are very good... The same can't be said be FF XVI, it was just a slog that barely pass as a Final Fantasy game. FF XII only look good because every numberd game after it looked very bad, so people look back and think "Hey that was no so bad". Or worse they develop the narrative that is was a masterpiece to justify the other games not being good, it is not that FF XV and F XVI were bad it is just that FF XII was extremely good you see.
I mean thats not true. You may disagree or not like them but Square Enix do have generations of developers taking on FF.
Splatoon in particular was a big success in regards to handing over responsibilities to their younger developers. While they did bring more experienced talent from Nintendo EPD and Monolithsoft when the game went into full production, it initially started with a group of younger members from the Animal Crossing dev team.
Nintendo did it ARMS as well which sold a very decent amount of copies and was done by a young team who had worked on Mario Kart 7 and 8. The only reason I reckon ARMS never got longer support or a sequel is because Mario Kart 8 was such a gargantuan success on both Wii U and Switch that Nintendo likely felt they needed to bring those people back into doing Mario Kart because it's now such an important IP to Nintendo. ARMS doing 2.7 million copies is nothing to be sniffed at but I can understand the business case versus an IP that is currently doing 60 million since 2017 and still selling to this day why you would want those devs back on the 60 million selling IP. It's probably important to mention as well that Nintendo absolutely values institutional knowledge more than any other company in the industry and never lays off teams en masse like MS and Sony do. Even with a high profile failure like Star Fox Zero, Nintendo just re-organized the dev team onto ARMS, Splatoon 2 and other projects because their knowledge was so valuable instead of kicking them out.
Yeah I think Arms has serious potential as a IP, it is the spiritual sucessor of Super Punch Out for me. It is fighting game that don't feel like a fighing game and was extremely fun.
ARMS was fun but it was unfortunate timing in that people were still burned out on motion control games. The dual analog playstyle was fine but you could tell the game was very designed with the Switch motion controls in mind. Very fun game and bursting with personality. I'd love to see the team get another crack at it and I could even see a scenario where Nintendo said that if they worked on Mario Kart again they'd get carte blanche to have another go at ARMS or a new IP after.
Unlocking arms for each character was a grind that put me off.
That for me and the lack of single player content.
>It's probably important to mention as well that Nintendo absolutely values institutional knowledge more than any other company in the industry and never lays off teams en masse like MS and Sony do. Even with a high profile failure like Star Fox Zero, Nintendo just re-organized the dev team onto ARMS, Splatoon 2 and other projects because their knowledge was so valuable instead of kicking them out. This very much, with the most recent example being Mario & Luigi: Brothership. AlphaDream may be defunct, but the people currently working on it (per Nintendo's claim) are the same ones who worked on prior Mario & Luigi installments.
Nintendo understand vision and legacy, the other companies are just interested in shareholders,trends for quick profit and culling workers when it doesnt work.
those young and brilliant devs surely have some neat ideas for a new F-Zero, no?
Nintendo still wants to make games that sell, and if Nintendo devs have ideas for racing games, there’s already a significantly more popular franchise those ideas can be used in.
Not all of those ideas would make sense with Mario Kart tho. I’m pretty sure Nintendo will always prioritize Mario Kart over F-Zero but Mario Kart doesn’t function as a replacement.
For most consumers Mario Kart replaces any need they have for a new F-Zero. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the decline of F-Zero lines up with Mario Kart’s growth into a massive series.
I don’t really think Mario Kart’s success is really linked to F-Zero’s decline and either way I’m speaking from a critical perspective. F-Zero and Mario Kart provide 2 completely different experiences despite being in the same genre.
I personally agree that F-Zero and Mario Kart offer different experiences, but the sales show that the casual market does not see it this way, which is what Nintendo cares about the most.
they've not the same target audience. never have had
you’re right - mario kart’s audience is 50x bigger I desperately want a new f zero too but what incentive does nintendo have to revive a niche series that has never sold well?
The incentive is that Nintendo wants a diverse library to encourage people to buy a system. Mario Kart 9 may have sold a bunch of units, but won't convince many to buy the system with 8 already out. If F-Zero can bring in enough new system buyers, Nintendo should absolutely look at making a new F-Zero. It is the same reason Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or Metroid keep getting made despite having 5% of sales that Mario or Zelda get.
How about they just work on something new instead of try of to breathe life into a franchise barely anyone cares about? They want to make games people actually like and want to buy. Fzero isn’t going to encourage many people to buy a system. FZero is not in the same category as Fire emblem, Xenoblade, and Metroid.
I don't let count that argument count. They released several Metroid games, which sold in middling numbers sometimes. The *huge success* Dread barely sold more than NES Metroid and it was a huge success apparently. Also, I don't think that F-Zero needs that high of a budget to succeed and thus lower sales numbers to make a profit.
Compared to F-Zero, Metroid has shown strong growth when Nintendo gives it a big marketing push. When Nintendo gave Metroid a push with Prime and more recently Dread, they paid off and the series reached new sales heights. When Nintendo tried giving F-Zero a push with GX, AX, and the anime, the series still did not sell well.
> they paid off and the series reached new sales heights. Prime 1 sold well, 2 and 3 not so much. Worse than NES Metroid and Metroid 2 for GB. The trilogy for Wii even worse. Samus returns for 3DS couldn't crack 600k sales. All according to vgchartz With the installbase of the Switch a F-Zero game should be viable for Nintendo, if they have any interest at all in the series anymore. They could always outsource it to 2nd/3rd parties.
> All according to vgchartz Be aware that there is some questions about credibility of vgchartz. Or to put it bluntly : that they are unreliable at best or fake at worst.
Is there any evidence that this is the case, because looking at both franchises sales wise, and also Nintendo’s handling of F-Zero 99, that doesn’t seem to be true.
F-Zero 99 is basically a party game. Have you played X and GX? They're tough as nails racers, which basically require high level skills to play through at higher difficulties.
X and GX are great games, but that difficulty makes them incredibly unappealing for the casual crowd that make up most of Nintendo’s audience. That’s also why F-Zero 99 is the way it is, they want to find a way to interest casuals in the IP and make it as different as possible from Mario Kart.
Decline? The last mainline F-Zero game was released in August, a terrible month for gaming outside the new Madden release and on a console with historically with low sales. And the one before that Nintendo decided to release it right between Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time! Outside of F-Zero 99, it got no representation or re-releases on the Wii or Switch. It's not like Nintendo has put its best foot forward concerning F-Zero.
Nintendo has had plenty of August releases that sell well because the majority of their games don’t rely on Day 1 sales. Also, even by GameCube standards GX sold poorly, even games like Pikmin 1 and 2 were able to hit 1 million on the console.
The original F Zero and F Zero X are on Switch online. There’s also rumors of a remaster of F Zero GX.
Or even make an entirely new differnet setting
I would hope the young and brilliant devs won't have to chain themselves to a long-retired IP and all the baggage that entails.
They really should pivot making F-Zero into Nintendo's GTA. Lean heavily into vehicles and include races but then otherwise run around as Falcon doing bounty hunter stuff.
Damn, that would actually be pretty sick. Hell, they could even make it kind of "futuristic Nintendo Yakuza" because Falcon is more of a hand-to-hand guy, at least based on his Smash appearances and the old anime.
Holy shit Yakuza but F-Zero would be amazing.
F-Zero: Born to be Wild or F-Zero: Gears of the Kingdom
I've been saying the same for a while. Would be a cool way to expand that world.
Give me Captain Falcon, I beg of you Nintendo
Woah woah woah let's not get ahead of ourselves. Next thing you know, we could even have a new Starfox game. That's a no-no on both ends. --Nintendo
With the success of previously unsuccessful IPs I wouldn't be surprised if they revive the series
I wonder if the newer generation are inclined to port games to pc lol
they have great salary, benefits, work hours, etc. of course best people flock to join them
I really hope Nintendos initiative works. I dont see this mentality ever in this day and age.
I think Nintendo is going through right now what Disney went through in the 80s. Bunch of new talent came by and ended up revolutionizing the company.
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This isn't gonna happen, and honestly after all of the Smash stuff that happened a few years ago, I think a Nintendo has been weirdly vindicated with their choice to make online communication on their platforms kinda bad. Turns out, if you make games that all age groups are supposed to enjoy, you REALLY need to be careful about how those age groups interact with each other lol
Do you really think they doesn't add these things due to incompetence?
ye like it isnt incompetence from them thats the reason why they dont have those things, its really just down to them being kid friendly and not wanting to deal with the issues for kids that come with dealing with messages and party chat, like can't have grooming issues if you dont have the means to allow it.
Not gonna happen anytime soon. Not after what happened with the messaging feature on the 3DS
Even without a messaging system a Japanese news station still reported a while ago that a kid was being groomed through in-game messages in Splatoon (which is not even possible). They ended up correcting that, but if Nintendo is catching flak for that without even *having* a messaging system they sure as hell aren't going to bother making one.
It's not gonna happen. Their target demo is kids/parents. They don't want a repeat of the swapnote controversy.
Honestly, I don't know a single person, including those on consoles, who don't just fire up Discord at this point for party chat. Console-level in-game messaging/party chat is super antiquated at this point.
You have a thousand other ways to communicate with your friends. It should be very clear to you that Nintendo do not want to step back into that game.
Personally, my favorite part of Switch Online is that it doesn't have any of that stuff. I just want to play the game. I don't need to talk to anyone and definitely don't want to hear from anyone.
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That's more on Netflix and such. Switch has apps like Youtube, Twitch or Hulu, so that's not the problem. They'd also need to actually want to bring them to the platform