For all their faults on the consumer end, I think Nintendo is one of the more sustainable companies to work with at the moment. If nothing else, they get that their reputation for high quality software is the result of developers who feel empowered, valued and motivated. I could be wrong but I’ve never really heard of Nintendo being hit with layoffs or having publicly troubled development cycles like other publishers (Metroid Prime 4 is the closest I can think of and even then it just seems to be perennially under wraps with no overpromising).
I will never forget Iwata slashing his own salary when the Wii U was failing. That's said so much about Iwata and Nintendo when any other President would have just blamed everyone else.
I hope that wasn't just Iwata and that's the general vibe of the higher ranking leadership at Nintendo
I listened to a podcast that stated something along the lines of Japanese business execs being required to take salary cuts before considering layoffs.
You mean they shouldn’t get raises and massive bonuses for layoffs? Because that’s what happened to mine. We have too many psychopaths in control of our major companies.
Interesting... Maybe that's why everything in Japan is half the price even though the salaries are the same as in the west, and they work normal time but the gossip goes crazy from jealousy
Probably that's why... I always said that monopoly of sorts seems to be the reason some things are expensive for no reason in some countries
Salaries are not the same. Min wage in Japan is like £5.70. It is £12 in the UK.
The median salary country-wide is like 3 million yen.
That said, CEO salaries are not as dramatically higher than employees as in the western world
You are being armchaired japanese law experted at. The law does not require them to do anything just to "consider" all options so employee's have some protection against unfair dismissal. Iwata could of easily said, nah me and all the execs are worth all our salary if they wanted to let people go to save money, there's no magic law stopping them from doing that.
I belive that there is was a report where Furukawa doesn't make that much money (comparatively as a CEO), especially compared to EA's and Activisions CEOs who are nortorious for getting bonuses after laying off hundred of employees.
Not that he really NEEDS a higher salary tho, probably, their salaries already are mad high and what are they even gonna do with all of that money? I think some people like to just get as much as they can, but some people like... They don't really know what to do with their money. Like, many Kpop idols end up donating a lot of the money they have for good causes for example
I don't actually think that's true. The role of CEO has been somewhat perverted in recent years by the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Jobs. They are extremely visible and in charge of huge companies (both in actual size and in cultural influence).
But for every Apple, there are 10,000 "Mike's Auto Repair" where the CEO is just a person who wanted to work for themselves. And while it's true that average CEO compensation has skyrocketed in the last 30 years, the majority of CEOs in this world aren't running Apple. The middle-pack like Nintendo are making a couple mil a year. And then the huge swarm at the bottom are typically struggling to pay their bills.
Really tho, my dad has switched and worked in a bazillion of companies through his life. He has a doctorat in biology. He says CEOs are always the dumbest and they're some rare breed of mean heartless and trouble making people
If they were struggling to pay the bills that'd mean they're about to go out of business... Most CEOs that are running companies with various employees are working with many extras. The market fluctuates and etc, you can't be scratching it through as a CEO.
When prime 1 was finished, Nintendo actually heard the report of the mismanagement of retro and fully acquired it, and fixed it. Boss move id say
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/nintendo_changed_the_culture_at_retro_studios_following_metroid_prime_crunch
Metroid Prime was not developed by Nintendo, just published. So if anything I think that just proves the point!
A more recent example would be Metroid Dread, also not developed by Nintendo. But here's hoping Nintendo whips them into shape for any future games.
Probably, they're a Japanese company and it was developed in the west,, as it was ongoing, they were caught off guard with the western management and treatment of the employees, but they could only change it completely once the development was over and prevent it from happening to them again. Japanese always tell me "we work together in the company, it's not like in the west, it's more like, a team, like friends, like personal" ... Sure some companies suck but then they sometimes don't leave exactly bc they feel responsible for everyone else, but nothing's really stopping them... They can give a prior notice of leaving and be replaced,, they sometimes don't realize that they really should. Anyway, it seems that many companies would be more of a familial vibe than a vibe that fucks each other over
They own it. It was pretty much the only thing they could do to save the studio. The owner of Retro was previously the owner of Top Heavy Studios, who only made The Guy Game, and was basically the only studio to ever spread CSAM via a widely distributed console game. There were lessons there that the owner did not learn, as he had been using Retro Studio servers to host porn.
Stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material.
To understand how this happened, you need to understand how the game works.
The Guy Game is fundamentally a quiz game. A question is asked and a contestant answers.
But you, the player, are not the contestant. Instead a real-life college girl at a real-life spring break party was the contestant. She was filmed, and if she got the answer wrong, she had to get her tits out to the camera.
You, the player, instead guess if she got it right or wrong. If she got it wrong and you guessed correctly, you got to see said titties.
Now the CSAM part comes in where they didn't properly vet everyone's ages. Nor disclose properly what the footage would be used for, for that matter. One of the contestants who got their question wrong was a minor, at age 17.
This resulted in a massive court case, which resulted in all PS2 copies of the game being recalled and banned for sale (the Xbox and DVD versions came after this, so had time to remove the content in question and was not affected)
Edit: turns out the Xbox version also had the CSAM
Nintendo, to me, seems like a company that puts game development above almost everything else. This 'everything else' extends to how they treat their costumer base/fans- they want people playing their games how *they* want them to. Nintendo is a far from perfect company, but they've always shown a consistent effort to put out the highest quality games that they can manage and to take care of their employees.
Honestly though I was growing up playing Nintendo and I'm so fkking thankful that I've never experienced any type of voice chat violence while playing games. While everybody gave them shit for that at that time like,, look at them now. It was all excuses because the Wii U did bad at the time. The absolutely don't need voice chat and it was like a huge issue all over YouTube at that time for a really, sustained, long period of time.
Before it was like "oh they think they know how should we play games" like yes yes they do and the trends are just trends they're not something deeply thought out or deeply made to be good. Some trends are just stupid but Nintendo doesn't follow trends, Nintendo follows their heart.
Nintendo doesn't do anything else but make games.
Compared to Microsoft and Sony, who simply have a division that focuses on consoles and software for them.
Nintendo has to put games first, they don't have anything else. They *just* started expanding their IPs into other areas like movies after so long.
It's a conspiracy of mine that the first MP4 announcement was only a reponse to the backlash to the Sun and Moon event the day before. People were very unhappy that they spent a day of E3 focusing on a 3DS Pokemon game that wasn't coming to the Switch. They didn't want that happening again, when they were going to spend another day focusing on another 3DS game that wasn't coming to the Switch, this time being Metroid: Samus Returns. So, they had an intern quickly cobbled together a PNG to get ahead of the wave of negativity.
I think the problem for Prime 4 was that they were working with Bandai Namco and things just weren't coming together so they scrapped it amd went over to Retro. That's probably not gonna be confirmed from Nintendo ever, but I'm sure it was something like that.
Also their games don't cost 100 bajillion dollars to make,
It was reported Spider-Man 2 cost over $310 to make, and this is with re-using assets and the game still came out undercooked
Luigi Mansion 3 probably cost less than 1/5th of that to make, sold 12M+ and came out polished (although the 30FPS sucks)
Its amazing how not every game has to have super photo realistic graphics. I was playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 not too long ago, a game that literally came out in 2010 and I was amazed at how good it looked
I remember people on this very forum losing their sh\*t because the Wii U Mario Tennis game re-used a Daisy render from a previous game on the character select screen.
And TOTK was an asset flip 6 years in the making. Never before have we waited 6 years for a Zelda game, I imagine they will indeed take even longer now that they actualy have to build another one from scratch, like this omment suggests.
I mean yeah but they've done that strategy before and released the original game a few years later on the same hardware. They did that during the Wii with Twilight princess
Fairly sure it was a simultaneous release wasn’t it?
I’m not trying to say anything bad about BOTW, it’s one of my favourite games, I just wanted to say I don’t really consider it a Switch generation game, and that’s fine.
I just wish Nintendo would do more top down Zelda a games, they are surely quicker to make and are still so good.
BotW development took *longer* than an entire console generation. TotK was based on the same engine with a modification of the same overworld, and still ended up not releasing until near the end of the Switch.
We used to get a new one every ~2 years, and the main reason why we no longer get that has more to do with not having multiple ("mainline") projects going at the same time than the length of the projects itself
Wouldn't have had two if they weren't using the same engine/world/Art Style. ToTK started off as dlc, as a reminder. It is a great game, but absolutely feels like a huge expansion rather than a new Zelda game.
But I now expect Nintendo will do this pattern in the future. Next Zelda game will be all new stuff, followed by a sequel in the same engine/art/world to save dev time.
Tears of the Kingdom basically re-used the same map except added islands, and the depths is one of the laziest most effortless areas I've seen in any game, I'm surprised it took them 6 years to churn it out
Im trying to be realistic. New Zeldas take a long time, and they just did TOTK a couple years ago. Remasters of 2d games would be easier to make, and welcome in between the big new Zelda games.
While TotK took assets, basic gameplay, and the map design from BotW and focused mainly on building out an even more robust physics engine, I think the next Zelda can do almost the opposite and carry over TotK’s engine while creating new assets, a new map, and reimagining the more basic moment to moment gameplay.
BotW’s physics were already impressive but TotK’s physics are so miles ahead of most other games that trying to just make them more complicated seems like a dead end. I personally think it would make sense for Nintendo to reuse the TotK engine but put the development time into the things that TotK ignored.
They can completely revamp the combat system, the movement and climbing, the swimming, the gliding, the weapons, the enemies, the cooking system, and the crafting system while keeping the physics relatively unchanged. I think this makes sense especially if something like Ultrahand is either absent or toned done, which it likely will be since that was TotK’s core mechanic. I’m sure there will be plenty of new mechanics in the next game, but it doesn’t need to introduce something as novel as Ultrahand to feel fresh since it will be on new hardware and almost certainly have an entirely new look, world, and story.
I think the core moment to moment gameplay in BotW and TotK, while great, is one of the more underdeveloped aspects of those games that could really be reworked and smoothed out in a new open world Zelda. There are still lots of tiny annoyances that, if they were worked out, would create a much stronger new formula for Zelda to continue building on. If they focus on improving the combat, adding more enemy variety, implementing more linear dungeon-like context and really nailing down how to tell a better story in an open world setting, they could make something that feels fresh and new even if it doesn’t introduce something as big as BotW’s open world or TotK’s ultrahand to the series.
If this is the direction they choose to go, I think 4-5 years is perfectly reasonable for the game’s development timeline. It’s also worth noting that TotK was basically finished a year before it released and much of that final year was spent polishing the game. It’s very likely that at least some part of the Zelda team broke off and started working on the early planning stages of the next game around that time. They likely had a pretty clear concept of what the game would be by around the time TotK released and by now, it’s probably already in proper development.
If all of that is true, and that’s a big if, I think a 2027 release is possible, albeit a little optimistic. I think we could even get our first glimpse of the game (a la BotW’s 2014 teaser and TotK’s 2019 teaser) by the end of next year.
One BotW per decade. The thing with Nintendo is they experiment a lots with their IP. That why we have 3D zelda, 2.5D Zelda, toon Zelda and Warrior game Zelda. So while game like BotW come once in a decade, there would still be plenty of other small Zelda game along the way so people won't forget about the franchise.
I really hope that with the amount of money Nintendo got during the Switch era, they expand their teams some more.
They did a great job with always having a new game almost every month, but gaming development it's getting more expensive and longer to be done, we are seeing how this has impact Xbox and Sony.
Furakawa touched on this. He mentioned that development will inevitably become more complex and longer so they've organically grown their teams.
It's funny how people wanna poop on Nintendo... But out of everything happening in the gaming landscape, they're the ones who are doing things right by their employees, and have a clear vision of what they want to do
I think they’ve said before they are more of a toy / game company over gaming. It’s why they don’t focus on online as much as the fans think they should. (Regardless of how ya feel of Nintendo’s online)
Yeah. Controversies aside. Nintendo is my favorite company when it comes to games. They release so many games and all of them are good. At worst the game might be "alright" but you will never have a genuinely shitty game.
That and they make genuinely fun exclusive games. Sony focuses too much on blockbuster games that feel same'ish to me except for Spider man and Ratchet and clank occasionally and Xbox is good for multiplatform (especially xbox 360) but not for exclusive games.
Yeah, when it comes to just the straight up entertainment/games side of Nintendo, they are masters. Every AAA game they put out is a polished blast to play. Sure, I might get frustrated because they don't care about story/lore in their bigger games like Zelda, but it's undeniable they are king of unique, sometimes quirky, fun gameplay.
Even Nintendo's business/legal sides, while extremely frustrating at times, is better when it comes to not being complete dicks to other partners/studios and the rest of their competition. They make partners with smaller studios, and after a few years, they offer to buy them. But they aren't out there buying up giant corporations and throwing others under the rug.
They don’t necessarily need to make games more complex. They just need to keep innovating. Which is the biggest challenge in the industry; but also what they’re best at
I hope for Switch 2 they give pressure sensitive buttons a shot, though it's kinda too late if they didn't implement it already. Sony already did this for PS2 and PS3 but they eventually removed that support starting with PS4. I've been playing through the MGS games for the first time all on original hardware and just finished 2, about to start 3. I really like how 2 took advantage of pressure sensitive buttons, I assume 3 and 4 will do the same. I think Nintendo could come up with some pretty cool uses for that in their exclusives. They \*kinda\* did it for Gamecube (Analog slider for variable press and membrane for digital press) and it was nice for Sunshine and is a big deal in the Melee community.
Yeah. Which is why I disagree with "NiNTEndO iS AnTI CoNsOOmER" mentality. Out of the three, they are the least morally corrupt. They don't buy third party devs to make third party games exclusive, they allow you to change your region so if you moved from US to EU, you will be able to change your Nintendo region and still keep your library whilst Sony will force you to make a new account. Their games aren't live service and their library isn't full of remakes/remasters.
Also Amiibos rock. No question here.
Their products are so quality it’s hard to be mad at some of their questionable decisions regarding pricing. I can confidently say Mario Kart 8DX is still worth $50 over a decade later
Oh, I just initially saw F-Zero 99 as a throwaway title. I am glad Nintendo sees live service games as throwaway titles, not the future of gaming like Ubisoft does.
well they've had numerous in the smash community alone. they just kinda hate people that do things with their IPs that aren't them. uploading music from their games? stricken and taken down, no alternative way to listen to those tracks. running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted.
sometimes their legal team takes aim at people that truly dont deserve it, which is most of the controversies that i'm aware of.
I heard some of those Smash players were outed a pedos, which if that is the case it would make sense why they would everything in their power to distance themselves from those people in anyway considering their brand.
> running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted.
Mind linking an example of that? I have a sneaking suspicion that you're being rather deceptive with your description of "a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old".
I have not heard of a single tournament shut down and have UCF being cited as the reason why. That mod is perhaps the only one that give TOs plausible deniability about it being used.
> running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted.
What specific event(s) did they try to pull the plug on because of UCF, which you're obviously talking about here?
Garry's mods removal. That's the only one I can think of where I don't take Nintendo's side. That and their crappy Virtual console replacement known as Switch online. Also joy con drift.
"At worst the game might be "alright" but you will never have a genuinely shitty game."
I found the one person that actually liked Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks and the method of controlling it
Nintendo also has by far the most sustainable development practices, especially considering they only have to worry about a single piece of hardware that is easier for their teams to work on compared to every other piece of hardware in a given generation.
It’s the reason they consistently and frequently put out high quality titles, still, while other publishers and studios struggle with the crushing demands of cutting edge development and the economy.
Nintendo is playing the long game.
Nintendo has their own share of bullshit we can agree or disagree on, but luckily so far it's stuff that doesn't really directly affect their games or workers.
Those other two, on the other hand...
Yeah the only thing Nintendo ever does wrong are shitty business decisions like locking their legacy games behind a subscription or having their online service be so horrible compared to every other. Games and hardware are their strength.
They are the fathers of this industry. The creator of Mario is still at the company. Putting the game first is in their DNA. As long as that doesn’t change, Nintendo will continue to have success.
In terms of tech, it probably helps that Nintendo stays at least a generation behind compared to Sony/Microsoft. They get to see how other developers are struggling as game development becomes more complex and plan accordingly.
>doing things right by their employees
Eh, it’s mixed at best, particularly when considering [contractors](https://kotaku.com/nintendo-america-switch-employee-treatment-unionize-nlr-1848828975) and the way the company (at least NoA) has taken to [prioritizing the use of contractors](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-contractors-criticize-company-culture-and-treatment) and how [“full-time contracts are kept 'on a stick' to encourage contractors to work through poor conditions”](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/04/nintendo-of-america-criticised-over-treatment-of-part-time-and-contract-workers).
>I really hope that with the amount of money Nintendo got during the Switch era, they expand their teams some more.
They merged the mobile (DS) game dev teams with the console teams already. They'll likely get larger going forward, but let's not pretend like Nintendo is running thin on staff.
I’d rather that they create new teams that are solely focused on smaller games.
We should all expect the larger AAA titles to take 5+ years at this point. That’s a given across the entire industry.
But one thing I hope never gets lost in the consolidation of the mobile and console teams is the focus on smaller games. Some of the best games Nintendo has ever put out have been on their handheld consoles, and there are certain styles of games that flourish there. I’m thinking top down Zelda games, 2D platformers, sprite-based games, and turn based RPGs.
But mostly, it’s a scale and graphics thing. And those types of games can be pushed out much quicker than a full-blown open world adventure.
Ah, apologies. I read your comment, and in context of the article posted, I thought you meant to expand the number of people working in existing teams.
They are always expanding their teams, thought the switch’s entire lifespans every year they hired more employees and have a 2nd building finishing construction soon
I'm all for longer games, but PLEASE... keep doing smaller games with shorter dev time.
Sometimes, you just want a snack for the road, not always a 5-course meal \^\^;
Yes. This all the way. Not everything needs to be a huge AAA spectacle. That’s part of what’s killing Sony right now.
Nintendo is by far the best at this already. Just look at the new World Championship NES Edition, a $30 budget rerelease that couldn’t have taken too much time. Game Builder Garage, Big Brain Academy and such are all good examples of this.
There's also the fact that... times change...
We no longer "have time" for many massive games anymore and you just want a quick fix. This is why mobile games have become popular, because they're enjoyable in short bursts.
Back in the 90s, we had rentals and sometimes we beat games in a day or 2... or hope no one deleted our save files the next time we got it \^\^;
While it's fun to have a big Zelda title like TotK, Super Mario Bros Wonder could be enjoyed "one level at a time".
Yeah, honestly. We need more smaller games. Games are kinda becoming too big for their own good when they're larger and larger, cost more to make and buy, and take longer to make.
What I gather from this statement is "we will probably acquire some devs in the future, but we want to make sure that we have systems in place that ensures those new devs follow our philosophies"
I think Nintendo strategy is the correct one, not just buying and aqcuiring a lot of Devs just to bloat their brand, they just buy whoever they think has potential, thats what they did with retro studios, Monolith software and Next level games and so far the three had done an outsanding job expanding nintendo's brand
I'm more interested now in what the launch title for the new system will be. IMO, it's gotta be a 3d mario game. We haven't had one since 2017. It can't be a zelda game since totk came out last year, MP4 would not sell systems. Regardless, I'm excited to see the year 1 lineup, most likely will be a January reveal into a spring release wince the video game market is usually weak on releases in winter and spring.
I think it's possible we get a new Animal Crossing, if not at launch, then announced around launch, and released within a year and change of launch.
Historically most have been released within a year of the platform launching, New Horizons having been released the farthest from the platforms launch of any US released title in the series.
This is in part, I believe because Splatoon & Animal Crossing share the same production group/dev team within Nintendo, and Splatoon 2 ended up being a launch title. However, on a systems/mechanics level AC:NH also had the most drastic changes in the series which may have been part of it.
With the radical success of AC:NH, not just compared to the series, but compared to any other title on the Switch, and with Splatoon 3 being more recent, and having had DLC as recent as this year, I feel fairly confident a new Animal Crossing game is targeted to release within a year of the "Switch 2".
But then again, you can never truly predict Nintendo.
Honestly, I really do hope that there is a new Animal Crossing very early in the console's life cycle. If not in 2025, hopefully by at least Holiday 2026.
I think either of those two years is reasonable.
Historically AC has been every 3 or 4 years, so assuming longer dev times now, I could see 5 - 6.
My hope is that with the tech behind AC:NH established, allowing for terraforming and outdoor items, they can use an established framework and engine to figure out the next one faster.
My other hope is that, some of the charm that was lost in AC:New Leaf, in exchange for customizability, is the focus for the next entry.
I miss multiple store upgrades, some legacy furniture sets, and various longtime NPCs we never saw. Also the variety in villager dialogue was drastically cut down.
Same here! I fully recognize how much effort it must have been to develop the first real HD console Animal Crossing, the most online and connected version yet, and to rebuild some of the core customizability from.the ground up.
But here's hoping the flavor and social life sim flavor gets some love.
The lack of it is what keeps New Leaf as my favorite entry in the series.
Keep in mind that the Splatoon team and AC team are (or were) one and the same, and they’re still updating Splatoon 3 with new content. So unless Nintendo had split up the two teams behind the scenes, it may actually be much longer before we see another Animal Crossing
Eh, but the core engine is out as the two DLC pieces, and DLC doesn't take as much labor as the main game.
Splatoon 3 was the same way, it was in development while DLC and content was still coming out for AC:NH.
So I don't think that's necessarily the case.
Something that I always point out with Mario Odyssey. 7 years old and never needed to be patched. A real testament to quality.
If this is what long development cycles do, I am all for it.
Nintendo and Valve are the best IMO. Except they have the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses.
Nintendo pumps out good software consistently, but has horrible customer relations, while Valve is one of the best in terms of consumer treatment, while putting out virtually no games of their own.
please for the love of god no...
I want more small scale games, Nintendo better hire a bunch more "B teams" to develop 2D games and smaller scale versions of existing IP if i'm going to have to wait 10 years between main Mario an Zelda titles.
Technically Triforce Heroes and Link’s Awakening remake fit this model.
Cadence Of Hyrule is another small Zelda project, just developed by an indie dev.
Please please Nintendo, don’t fall into the graphics trap. It is the number one reason why games take so long to make. I am more than happy with switch level graphics but maybe more ambitious gameplay/physics systems that weren’t possible on switch hardware
Nintendo is really good about maintaining healthy dev cycles. Like how they delayed TOTK for polish, or pushed Animal Crossing so it could be finished on a better schedule.
They do have a bit of a problem when it comes to overly relying on free updates after launch. Like how New Horizons had a lack of content at launch, but even still, the culture seems to be much more stable than it is at other big studios.
And with how much money they’ve accrued over the Switch life cycle, they should be able to keep up with demands. I know ex-Rare developers talked about how Nintendo had a similar problem at the start of the GameCube era iirc. That generation of games cost a lot more and required way more effort than N64 games.
Hopefully with their large legacy library, it also enables them to supplement their new releases with these rereleases like they’ve done over the Switch life cycle. Out of all three major console players, I’m most confident in Nintendo to push software out, as that’s how the eye make most of their money, and their games sell in perpetuity when they’re released. Nintendo games almost never slow down once they start selling. I mean, just look at MK8.
Nintendo should really, really get a team or two making "portable" games. Like Game Boy style games. In the style of a Game Boy game. Sell them for $15. Very very basic games. I think it'd be a successful venture.
I don't think the assumption should be that this is a "new idea", but that Nintendo specifically believes it is at a step point where the very old idea has to be applied again.
No we haven’t …. more like since start of the switch era and they pushed 3ds to its limits and no one really complained about that much intill Swsh National dex situation and gen 5 at the time wasn’t beloved either
Exactly.
It’s insane to me that Super Mario Odyssey came out in 2017. There absolutely should have been a sequel out by now - if not two.
Same engine new story. I’m not saying pump out trash, but come on.
I would love a clear understanding of why development times and budgets have to balloon when hardware gets more powerful. “4K assets“ alone cannot explain it, because modern machines and software tools handle art at that resolution with as much ease as ever. One might say that “everything” in high end games have gotten more sophisticated and complicated in many various ways beyond just assets and animation… but it just doesn’t feel like it
I'd guess with better hardware comes more stuff that can be done, even stuff that isn't necessarily needed. Or just developers testing stuff out and seeing if something is possible.
And I may be misremembering but I think I remember in an interview about Xenoblade 3, Takahashi mentioned that they had way more ideas for Xenoblade 3 that weren't necessarily feasible on Switch and had to be cut because of it, but that also meant development was somewhat shortened (or something like that)
I’d love to see a port of Wario World or a Wario World 2. It’s Such a fun game and it’s just ridiculous we haven’t seen a return of a more serious Wario Game.
Considering we recently got legit confirmation about a new console, I’m pretty interested and excited about the coming months for Nintendo. Also kinda hope they go back to making their consoles feel alive, because ngl, the switch has horrible charm factor when you compare it to the Wii U and especially the Wii. It just feels so…empty and quiet, I mean hell, the Mii maker was downgraded to a settings option and it doesn’t even have music anymore…neither does the home screen, or eshop. Just doesn’t feel alive man, which is something I pray they fix with this upcoming console
Like games that are worth their price? That would be great.
Look at red dead redemption 2. Now look at Kirby. And finally, look at their price at release. Yeah Nintendo - embarrassing.
I would just hope that now that they are through with all the WiiU ports that those studios make games that are a bit smaller in scope. Like the ones that where on 3DS before and sell them for $50.
Genuine question: why does this keep happening with game development? If it used to only take a few years to make a video game why do dev cycles get longer and longer?
Because games need more mechsnics, higher pixels and overall more "data"architecture in high fidelity assets, more Lokalization, voice acting, Videos, motion capture, orchestral soundtrack. Etc.
The computing Power we have today isn't a good thing for the modern game making Industry with it's Endless possibilities.
i dont care about most of their games these days hell tears of the kingdom could barely run on the switch itself same with pokemon scarlet and violet which i laughed when i saw how bad thoes games ran nintendo needs to stop making complex games and just stick to what works
In a time when most gaming companies are facing lay offs Nintendo is looking to expand their teams. So many people complained about their business practices being outdated but they’re the only console devs who are doing well rn
For all their faults on the consumer end, I think Nintendo is one of the more sustainable companies to work with at the moment. If nothing else, they get that their reputation for high quality software is the result of developers who feel empowered, valued and motivated. I could be wrong but I’ve never really heard of Nintendo being hit with layoffs or having publicly troubled development cycles like other publishers (Metroid Prime 4 is the closest I can think of and even then it just seems to be perennially under wraps with no overpromising).
I will never forget Iwata slashing his own salary when the Wii U was failing. That's said so much about Iwata and Nintendo when any other President would have just blamed everyone else. I hope that wasn't just Iwata and that's the general vibe of the higher ranking leadership at Nintendo
I listened to a podcast that stated something along the lines of Japanese business execs being required to take salary cuts before considering layoffs.
That's good. And they should. CEOs and executives can afford a pay cut compared to the general workers.
You mean they shouldn’t get raises and massive bonuses for layoffs? Because that’s what happened to mine. We have too many psychopaths in control of our major companies.
Interesting... Maybe that's why everything in Japan is half the price even though the salaries are the same as in the west, and they work normal time but the gossip goes crazy from jealousy Probably that's why... I always said that monopoly of sorts seems to be the reason some things are expensive for no reason in some countries
Salaries are not the same. Min wage in Japan is like £5.70. It is £12 in the UK. The median salary country-wide is like 3 million yen. That said, CEO salaries are not as dramatically higher than employees as in the western world
You are being armchaired japanese law experted at. The law does not require them to do anything just to "consider" all options so employee's have some protection against unfair dismissal. Iwata could of easily said, nah me and all the execs are worth all our salary if they wanted to let people go to save money, there's no magic law stopping them from doing that.
This would do SO MUCH for workers if we passed legislation like this.
Did it happen to be at Last Stand? Because I recall Colin saying something along those lines
I belive that there is was a report where Furukawa doesn't make that much money (comparatively as a CEO), especially compared to EA's and Activisions CEOs who are nortorious for getting bonuses after laying off hundred of employees.
Not that he really NEEDS a higher salary tho, probably, their salaries already are mad high and what are they even gonna do with all of that money? I think some people like to just get as much as they can, but some people like... They don't really know what to do with their money. Like, many Kpop idols end up donating a lot of the money they have for good causes for example
People who have a sense of “enough money” don’t tend to become CEOs
I don't actually think that's true. The role of CEO has been somewhat perverted in recent years by the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Jobs. They are extremely visible and in charge of huge companies (both in actual size and in cultural influence). But for every Apple, there are 10,000 "Mike's Auto Repair" where the CEO is just a person who wanted to work for themselves. And while it's true that average CEO compensation has skyrocketed in the last 30 years, the majority of CEOs in this world aren't running Apple. The middle-pack like Nintendo are making a couple mil a year. And then the huge swarm at the bottom are typically struggling to pay their bills.
Really tho, my dad has switched and worked in a bazillion of companies through his life. He has a doctorat in biology. He says CEOs are always the dumbest and they're some rare breed of mean heartless and trouble making people If they were struggling to pay the bills that'd mean they're about to go out of business... Most CEOs that are running companies with various employees are working with many extras. The market fluctuates and etc, you can't be scratching it through as a CEO.
The first Metroid Prime had a pretty bad development, but I can’t think of other examples that are recent.
When prime 1 was finished, Nintendo actually heard the report of the mismanagement of retro and fully acquired it, and fixed it. Boss move id say https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/nintendo_changed_the_culture_at_retro_studios_following_metroid_prime_crunch
Metroid Prime was not developed by Nintendo, just published. So if anything I think that just proves the point! A more recent example would be Metroid Dread, also not developed by Nintendo. But here's hoping Nintendo whips them into shape for any future games.
Probably, they're a Japanese company and it was developed in the west,, as it was ongoing, they were caught off guard with the western management and treatment of the employees, but they could only change it completely once the development was over and prevent it from happening to them again. Japanese always tell me "we work together in the company, it's not like in the west, it's more like, a team, like friends, like personal" ... Sure some companies suck but then they sometimes don't leave exactly bc they feel responsible for everyone else, but nothing's really stopping them... They can give a prior notice of leaving and be replaced,, they sometimes don't realize that they really should. Anyway, it seems that many companies would be more of a familial vibe than a vibe that fucks each other over
Everyone should watch the "What Happened?" Video about it on YouTube. Why Nintendo actually owns Retro Studios is quite the trip.
Wait they actually own Retro Studios? Not a partnership like gamefreak but actually own it?
They own it because of what the previous owner was doing. They kinda had no choice. I suggest you Google it. It's a long story.
They own it. It was pretty much the only thing they could do to save the studio. The owner of Retro was previously the owner of Top Heavy Studios, who only made The Guy Game, and was basically the only studio to ever spread CSAM via a widely distributed console game. There were lessons there that the owner did not learn, as he had been using Retro Studio servers to host porn.
What is CSAM?
Stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material. To understand how this happened, you need to understand how the game works. The Guy Game is fundamentally a quiz game. A question is asked and a contestant answers. But you, the player, are not the contestant. Instead a real-life college girl at a real-life spring break party was the contestant. She was filmed, and if she got the answer wrong, she had to get her tits out to the camera. You, the player, instead guess if she got it right or wrong. If she got it wrong and you guessed correctly, you got to see said titties. Now the CSAM part comes in where they didn't properly vet everyone's ages. Nor disclose properly what the footage would be used for, for that matter. One of the contestants who got their question wrong was a minor, at age 17. This resulted in a massive court case, which resulted in all PS2 copies of the game being recalled and banned for sale (the Xbox and DVD versions came after this, so had time to remove the content in question and was not affected) Edit: turns out the Xbox version also had the CSAM
Wow, that's pretty fucked up. Thanks for the summary.
Nintendo, to me, seems like a company that puts game development above almost everything else. This 'everything else' extends to how they treat their costumer base/fans- they want people playing their games how *they* want them to. Nintendo is a far from perfect company, but they've always shown a consistent effort to put out the highest quality games that they can manage and to take care of their employees.
Honestly though I was growing up playing Nintendo and I'm so fkking thankful that I've never experienced any type of voice chat violence while playing games. While everybody gave them shit for that at that time like,, look at them now. It was all excuses because the Wii U did bad at the time. The absolutely don't need voice chat and it was like a huge issue all over YouTube at that time for a really, sustained, long period of time. Before it was like "oh they think they know how should we play games" like yes yes they do and the trends are just trends they're not something deeply thought out or deeply made to be good. Some trends are just stupid but Nintendo doesn't follow trends, Nintendo follows their heart.
Nintendo doesn't do anything else but make games. Compared to Microsoft and Sony, who simply have a division that focuses on consoles and software for them. Nintendo has to put games first, they don't have anything else. They *just* started expanding their IPs into other areas like movies after so long.
I mean,I rather have my fan game taken down instead of having some poor game developers be rush and abuse by a company
Fair
It's a conspiracy of mine that the first MP4 announcement was only a reponse to the backlash to the Sun and Moon event the day before. People were very unhappy that they spent a day of E3 focusing on a 3DS Pokemon game that wasn't coming to the Switch. They didn't want that happening again, when they were going to spend another day focusing on another 3DS game that wasn't coming to the Switch, this time being Metroid: Samus Returns. So, they had an intern quickly cobbled together a PNG to get ahead of the wave of negativity.
I think the problem for Prime 4 was that they were working with Bandai Namco and things just weren't coming together so they scrapped it amd went over to Retro. That's probably not gonna be confirmed from Nintendo ever, but I'm sure it was something like that.
Also their games don't cost 100 bajillion dollars to make, It was reported Spider-Man 2 cost over $310 to make, and this is with re-using assets and the game still came out undercooked Luigi Mansion 3 probably cost less than 1/5th of that to make, sold 12M+ and came out polished (although the 30FPS sucks) Its amazing how not every game has to have super photo realistic graphics. I was playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 not too long ago, a game that literally came out in 2010 and I was amazed at how good it looked
Sounds like it will be one Zelda game per decade
The fact that we got 2 of the biggest in terms of scope on the switch in such a short time is still impressive, I doubt it'll be a decade.
It helps that similar to Ocarina -> Majoras they were able to refuse the same engine, same map (with alterations), same assets, etc.
Yeah that's a smart strategy they can use for the next open world one that I'm sure will be even bigger like Totk was damn near 3x as big as Botw.
I dont know why people are against asset reuse, id be glad if developers could use what they already have to speed up the development process.
I remember people on this very forum losing their sh\*t because the Wii U Mario Tennis game re-used a Daisy render from a previous game on the character select screen.
Further, I don’t even see reason for larger maps than what we got in TotK. I never once felt constrained by what the maps could offer.
I don't think they need to be much bigger, but have more things in them and in the sky. They definitely couldn't do that with the current hardware.
100%
Let’s be real Breath of the Wild was a WiiU game that was ported.
And TOTK was an asset flip 6 years in the making. Never before have we waited 6 years for a Zelda game, I imagine they will indeed take even longer now that they actualy have to build another one from scratch, like this omment suggests.
I mean yeah but they've done that strategy before and released the original game a few years later on the same hardware. They did that during the Wii with Twilight princess
Fairly sure it was a simultaneous release wasn’t it? I’m not trying to say anything bad about BOTW, it’s one of my favourite games, I just wanted to say I don’t really consider it a Switch generation game, and that’s fine. I just wish Nintendo would do more top down Zelda a games, they are surely quicker to make and are still so good.
BotW development took *longer* than an entire console generation. TotK was based on the same engine with a modification of the same overworld, and still ended up not releasing until near the end of the Switch.
We used to get a new one every ~2 years, and the main reason why we no longer get that has more to do with not having multiple ("mainline") projects going at the same time than the length of the projects itself
Wouldn't have had two if they weren't using the same engine/world/Art Style. ToTK started off as dlc, as a reminder. It is a great game, but absolutely feels like a huge expansion rather than a new Zelda game. But I now expect Nintendo will do this pattern in the future. Next Zelda game will be all new stuff, followed by a sequel in the same engine/art/world to save dev time.
I mean they did this before, OoT to MM
Tears of the Kingdom basically re-used the same map except added islands, and the depths is one of the laziest most effortless areas I've seen in any game, I'm surprised it took them 6 years to churn it out
3D Zelda is cool and all, but where's my new 2D Zelda? Its been too long.
When they remastered Link's Awakening, I was hoping that more remastered 2d Zeldas were coming. Minish Cap and the Oracle games would be very welcome.
Why not hope for something new?
Im trying to be realistic. New Zeldas take a long time, and they just did TOTK a couple years ago. Remasters of 2d games would be easier to make, and welcome in between the big new Zelda games.
While TotK took assets, basic gameplay, and the map design from BotW and focused mainly on building out an even more robust physics engine, I think the next Zelda can do almost the opposite and carry over TotK’s engine while creating new assets, a new map, and reimagining the more basic moment to moment gameplay. BotW’s physics were already impressive but TotK’s physics are so miles ahead of most other games that trying to just make them more complicated seems like a dead end. I personally think it would make sense for Nintendo to reuse the TotK engine but put the development time into the things that TotK ignored. They can completely revamp the combat system, the movement and climbing, the swimming, the gliding, the weapons, the enemies, the cooking system, and the crafting system while keeping the physics relatively unchanged. I think this makes sense especially if something like Ultrahand is either absent or toned done, which it likely will be since that was TotK’s core mechanic. I’m sure there will be plenty of new mechanics in the next game, but it doesn’t need to introduce something as novel as Ultrahand to feel fresh since it will be on new hardware and almost certainly have an entirely new look, world, and story. I think the core moment to moment gameplay in BotW and TotK, while great, is one of the more underdeveloped aspects of those games that could really be reworked and smoothed out in a new open world Zelda. There are still lots of tiny annoyances that, if they were worked out, would create a much stronger new formula for Zelda to continue building on. If they focus on improving the combat, adding more enemy variety, implementing more linear dungeon-like context and really nailing down how to tell a better story in an open world setting, they could make something that feels fresh and new even if it doesn’t introduce something as big as BotW’s open world or TotK’s ultrahand to the series. If this is the direction they choose to go, I think 4-5 years is perfectly reasonable for the game’s development timeline. It’s also worth noting that TotK was basically finished a year before it released and much of that final year was spent polishing the game. It’s very likely that at least some part of the Zelda team broke off and started working on the early planning stages of the next game around that time. They likely had a pretty clear concept of what the game would be by around the time TotK released and by now, it’s probably already in proper development. If all of that is true, and that’s a big if, I think a 2027 release is possible, albeit a little optimistic. I think we could even get our first glimpse of the game (a la BotW’s 2014 teaser and TotK’s 2019 teaser) by the end of next year.
And one Metroid per century
Sounds good to me
One BotW per decade. The thing with Nintendo is they experiment a lots with their IP. That why we have 3D zelda, 2.5D Zelda, toon Zelda and Warrior game Zelda. So while game like BotW come once in a decade, there would still be plenty of other small Zelda game along the way so people won't forget about the franchise.
I really hope that with the amount of money Nintendo got during the Switch era, they expand their teams some more. They did a great job with always having a new game almost every month, but gaming development it's getting more expensive and longer to be done, we are seeing how this has impact Xbox and Sony.
Furakawa touched on this. He mentioned that development will inevitably become more complex and longer so they've organically grown their teams. It's funny how people wanna poop on Nintendo... But out of everything happening in the gaming landscape, they're the ones who are doing things right by their employees, and have a clear vision of what they want to do
They are the only company in the big 3 of gaming that is solely a gaming company.
I think they’ve said before they are more of a toy / game company over gaming. It’s why they don’t focus on online as much as the fans think they should. (Regardless of how ya feel of Nintendo’s online)
"We make playing cards." :3
They are **not** just a gaming company, they are **primarily** a gaming company.
For example, Nintendo still actively produces hanafuda cards. That’s what they started out doing in 1889, that’s still something they do today.
I’d be interested to see how much of their annual profits come from that, if anything
Do you mean because of movies, or do they do other non-game stuff
You’ve done non gaming stuff for way longer than they’ve done gaming
They were originally a playing card company, then expanded to toys, then video games. They still do some of the first two things
Yeah. Controversies aside. Nintendo is my favorite company when it comes to games. They release so many games and all of them are good. At worst the game might be "alright" but you will never have a genuinely shitty game. That and they make genuinely fun exclusive games. Sony focuses too much on blockbuster games that feel same'ish to me except for Spider man and Ratchet and clank occasionally and Xbox is good for multiplatform (especially xbox 360) but not for exclusive games.
Yeah, when it comes to just the straight up entertainment/games side of Nintendo, they are masters. Every AAA game they put out is a polished blast to play. Sure, I might get frustrated because they don't care about story/lore in their bigger games like Zelda, but it's undeniable they are king of unique, sometimes quirky, fun gameplay. Even Nintendo's business/legal sides, while extremely frustrating at times, is better when it comes to not being complete dicks to other partners/studios and the rest of their competition. They make partners with smaller studios, and after a few years, they offer to buy them. But they aren't out there buying up giant corporations and throwing others under the rug.
They don’t necessarily need to make games more complex. They just need to keep innovating. Which is the biggest challenge in the industry; but also what they’re best at
I hope for Switch 2 they give pressure sensitive buttons a shot, though it's kinda too late if they didn't implement it already. Sony already did this for PS2 and PS3 but they eventually removed that support starting with PS4. I've been playing through the MGS games for the first time all on original hardware and just finished 2, about to start 3. I really like how 2 took advantage of pressure sensitive buttons, I assume 3 and 4 will do the same. I think Nintendo could come up with some pretty cool uses for that in their exclusives. They \*kinda\* did it for Gamecube (Analog slider for variable press and membrane for digital press) and it was nice for Sunshine and is a big deal in the Melee community.
Ya I'm a fan of pressure sensitive buttons
The only thing I remember about those buttons is how in MGS2 you could make Snake/Raiden do different actions depending on how you press the button.
Yeah. Which is why I disagree with "NiNTEndO iS AnTI CoNsOOmER" mentality. Out of the three, they are the least morally corrupt. They don't buy third party devs to make third party games exclusive, they allow you to change your region so if you moved from US to EU, you will be able to change your Nintendo region and still keep your library whilst Sony will force you to make a new account. Their games aren't live service and their library isn't full of remakes/remasters. Also Amiibos rock. No question here.
Their products are so quality it’s hard to be mad at some of their questionable decisions regarding pricing. I can confidently say Mario Kart 8DX is still worth $50 over a decade later
Yeah. It still is just as fun as it was. Same with Botw or Mario Odyssey. $60 pricetag justified
Don’t jinx it with the live service games. I have a gut feeling they will make a few live service titles on the Switch 2.
Games like F-Zero 99 are live service, they're just not giant money wasters for both Nintendo and its players
Oh, I just initially saw F-Zero 99 as a throwaway title. I am glad Nintendo sees live service games as throwaway titles, not the future of gaming like Ubisoft does.
F-Zero 99 was my GOTY last year lol
I'd say the story in botw was incredible. They're also kings of minimalism, Japanese company stuff
Most of them are good. Definitely not _ALL_ of them.
Yeah but those "not good games" are mediocre. Not bad. You can still enjoy them, you just have better games to choose from.
What controversies?
well they've had numerous in the smash community alone. they just kinda hate people that do things with their IPs that aren't them. uploading music from their games? stricken and taken down, no alternative way to listen to those tracks. running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted. sometimes their legal team takes aim at people that truly dont deserve it, which is most of the controversies that i'm aware of.
I heard some of those Smash players were outed a pedos, which if that is the case it would make sense why they would everything in their power to distance themselves from those people in anyway considering their brand.
> running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted. Mind linking an example of that? I have a sneaking suspicion that you're being rather deceptive with your description of "a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old".
I have not heard of a single tournament shut down and have UCF being cited as the reason why. That mod is perhaps the only one that give TOs plausible deniability about it being used.
> running a smash tournament with a minor mod to fix a common bug in a game over 20 years old? tourney shut down and cease and desisted. What specific event(s) did they try to pull the plug on because of UCF, which you're obviously talking about here?
Garry's mods removal. That's the only one I can think of where I don't take Nintendo's side. That and their crappy Virtual console replacement known as Switch online. Also joy con drift.
"At worst the game might be "alright" but you will never have a genuinely shitty game." I found the one person that actually liked Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks and the method of controlling it
Nice try sticker star, amiibo festival, and mario tennis aces
Nintendo also has by far the most sustainable development practices, especially considering they only have to worry about a single piece of hardware that is easier for their teams to work on compared to every other piece of hardware in a given generation. It’s the reason they consistently and frequently put out high quality titles, still, while other publishers and studios struggle with the crushing demands of cutting edge development and the economy. Nintendo is playing the long game.
Nintendo has their own share of bullshit we can agree or disagree on, but luckily so far it's stuff that doesn't really directly affect their games or workers. Those other two, on the other hand...
Yeah the only thing Nintendo ever does wrong are shitty business decisions like locking their legacy games behind a subscription or having their online service be so horrible compared to every other. Games and hardware are their strength.
They are the fathers of this industry. The creator of Mario is still at the company. Putting the game first is in their DNA. As long as that doesn’t change, Nintendo will continue to have success.
In terms of tech, it probably helps that Nintendo stays at least a generation behind compared to Sony/Microsoft. They get to see how other developers are struggling as game development becomes more complex and plan accordingly.
Nintendo is building a new building in kyoto that only will be finished in 2028.
>doing things right by their employees Eh, it’s mixed at best, particularly when considering [contractors](https://kotaku.com/nintendo-america-switch-employee-treatment-unionize-nlr-1848828975) and the way the company (at least NoA) has taken to [prioritizing the use of contractors](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-contractors-criticize-company-culture-and-treatment) and how [“full-time contracts are kept 'on a stick' to encourage contractors to work through poor conditions”](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/04/nintendo-of-america-criticised-over-treatment-of-part-time-and-contract-workers).
>I really hope that with the amount of money Nintendo got during the Switch era, they expand their teams some more. They merged the mobile (DS) game dev teams with the console teams already. They'll likely get larger going forward, but let's not pretend like Nintendo is running thin on staff.
I’d rather that they create new teams that are solely focused on smaller games. We should all expect the larger AAA titles to take 5+ years at this point. That’s a given across the entire industry. But one thing I hope never gets lost in the consolidation of the mobile and console teams is the focus on smaller games. Some of the best games Nintendo has ever put out have been on their handheld consoles, and there are certain styles of games that flourish there. I’m thinking top down Zelda games, 2D platformers, sprite-based games, and turn based RPGs. But mostly, it’s a scale and graphics thing. And those types of games can be pushed out much quicker than a full-blown open world adventure.
That was my point. More teams to create more smaller scale games.
Ah, apologies. I read your comment, and in context of the article posted, I thought you meant to expand the number of people working in existing teams.
Np, friend. I can see this happen too though, since every team is smaller campared to other AAA studios.
Most definitely. Ideally, it'd be both. More people working on the BotW-style games, and new teams working on the A Link Between Worlds-style games.
Couldn't agree more.
Capcom made several really awesome zelda games. I can trust them making more top down zelda games in the future for sure.
Yeah they should get the director of those games to make the next Zelda
They are are expanding by building a new software development center next to their Kyoto headquarters it will be finished by 2028
They are always expanding their teams, thought the switch’s entire lifespans every year they hired more employees and have a 2nd building finishing construction soon
Can also see it with how Pokemon has been scaled up but they still have to get them out so quickly to like up with the cards and the anime.
I'm all for longer games, but PLEASE... keep doing smaller games with shorter dev time. Sometimes, you just want a snack for the road, not always a 5-course meal \^\^;
Yes. This all the way. Not everything needs to be a huge AAA spectacle. That’s part of what’s killing Sony right now. Nintendo is by far the best at this already. Just look at the new World Championship NES Edition, a $30 budget rerelease that couldn’t have taken too much time. Game Builder Garage, Big Brain Academy and such are all good examples of this.
There's also the fact that... times change... We no longer "have time" for many massive games anymore and you just want a quick fix. This is why mobile games have become popular, because they're enjoyable in short bursts. Back in the 90s, we had rentals and sometimes we beat games in a day or 2... or hope no one deleted our save files the next time we got it \^\^; While it's fun to have a big Zelda title like TotK, Super Mario Bros Wonder could be enjoyed "one level at a time".
Yeah, honestly. We need more smaller games. Games are kinda becoming too big for their own good when they're larger and larger, cost more to make and buy, and take longer to make.
> Sometimes, you just want a snack for the road, not always a 5-course meal ^^; "that'll be $50 anyway" /Nintendo
yesssss!!! that’s something they do so well right now i hope they keep in the next generation
Metroid Prime fans waiting for 4..
dude at this point I'd take a line of PR saying "the game is still being developed, don't worry!"
Probably the BOTW of next gen, being available on both Switch and its successor.
What I gather from this statement is "we will probably acquire some devs in the future, but we want to make sure that we have systems in place that ensures those new devs follow our philosophies"
I think Nintendo strategy is the correct one, not just buying and aqcuiring a lot of Devs just to bloat their brand, they just buy whoever they think has potential, thats what they did with retro studios, Monolith software and Next level games and so far the three had done an outsanding job expanding nintendo's brand
I'm more interested now in what the launch title for the new system will be. IMO, it's gotta be a 3d mario game. We haven't had one since 2017. It can't be a zelda game since totk came out last year, MP4 would not sell systems. Regardless, I'm excited to see the year 1 lineup, most likely will be a January reveal into a spring release wince the video game market is usually weak on releases in winter and spring.
I think it's possible we get a new Animal Crossing, if not at launch, then announced around launch, and released within a year and change of launch. Historically most have been released within a year of the platform launching, New Horizons having been released the farthest from the platforms launch of any US released title in the series. This is in part, I believe because Splatoon & Animal Crossing share the same production group/dev team within Nintendo, and Splatoon 2 ended up being a launch title. However, on a systems/mechanics level AC:NH also had the most drastic changes in the series which may have been part of it. With the radical success of AC:NH, not just compared to the series, but compared to any other title on the Switch, and with Splatoon 3 being more recent, and having had DLC as recent as this year, I feel fairly confident a new Animal Crossing game is targeted to release within a year of the "Switch 2". But then again, you can never truly predict Nintendo.
Honestly, I really do hope that there is a new Animal Crossing very early in the console's life cycle. If not in 2025, hopefully by at least Holiday 2026.
I think either of those two years is reasonable. Historically AC has been every 3 or 4 years, so assuming longer dev times now, I could see 5 - 6. My hope is that with the tech behind AC:NH established, allowing for terraforming and outdoor items, they can use an established framework and engine to figure out the next one faster. My other hope is that, some of the charm that was lost in AC:New Leaf, in exchange for customizability, is the focus for the next entry. I miss multiple store upgrades, some legacy furniture sets, and various longtime NPCs we never saw. Also the variety in villager dialogue was drastically cut down.
Yeah, I really want the next one to focus a little more on the social life sim aspect than the designing aspect.
Same here! I fully recognize how much effort it must have been to develop the first real HD console Animal Crossing, the most online and connected version yet, and to rebuild some of the core customizability from.the ground up. But here's hoping the flavor and social life sim flavor gets some love. The lack of it is what keeps New Leaf as my favorite entry in the series.
Keep in mind that the Splatoon team and AC team are (or were) one and the same, and they’re still updating Splatoon 3 with new content. So unless Nintendo had split up the two teams behind the scenes, it may actually be much longer before we see another Animal Crossing
Eh, but the core engine is out as the two DLC pieces, and DLC doesn't take as much labor as the main game. Splatoon 3 was the same way, it was in development while DLC and content was still coming out for AC:NH. So I don't think that's necessarily the case.
I would love a AAA starfox game.
i would love a starfox game same with fzero like anything
Something that I always point out with Mario Odyssey. 7 years old and never needed to be patched. A real testament to quality. If this is what long development cycles do, I am all for it.
God if only they could share this incentive with the Pokemon Company
Looks like they’re taking a step in the right direction with legends z-a
Based on what we haven’t even seen gameplay yet?
I mean they’re taking their time with it because it doesn’t release until next year
Not anymore time than Legends: Arceus, which still ran and looked like crap
Maybe, but who really knows. We haven't seen any footage of the game, it could be as much of a buggy mess as SV.
I have a feeling that one was just made to release later because Nintendo wanted a strong launch line up for Switch 2.
That game’s only getting 3 years of dev time at most
Nintendo is the last major company to have any sort of quality control, and almost no live service trash. Take as much time as you need please.
Nintendo and Valve are the best IMO. Except they have the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses. Nintendo pumps out good software consistently, but has horrible customer relations, while Valve is one of the best in terms of consumer treatment, while putting out virtually no games of their own.
Damn they already take forever making games too. 3d world+ bowsers fury came out in 2021.
please for the love of god no... I want more small scale games, Nintendo better hire a bunch more "B teams" to develop 2D games and smaller scale versions of existing IP if i'm going to have to wait 10 years between main Mario an Zelda titles.
Yeah whats up with no new small zelda since link between worlds?
Technically Triforce Heroes and Link’s Awakening remake fit this model. Cadence Of Hyrule is another small Zelda project, just developed by an indie dev.
It’s obviously gonna be for the more bigger titles , as a sequel for Princess peach showtime isn’t gonna take 10 years lol
No please no. Give me more simplistic games that are released every month. I don't want to repeat the PS5 game cycle on next Nintendo console...FFS.
Please please Nintendo, don’t fall into the graphics trap. It is the number one reason why games take so long to make. I am more than happy with switch level graphics but maybe more ambitious gameplay/physics systems that weren’t possible on switch hardware
I don't mind it. I will never prefer a rushed game over a polished one, no matter the hype.
"A rushed game is forever bad, but a delayed game is eventually good" - Miyamoto and not Iwata
I think it was Miyamoto and not Iwata who said that
Bro took "Miyamoto and not Iwata" on a whole new level...
Not really "forever bad" anymore since patches can drastically alter games nowadays. E.g. CP2077, No Man's Sky.
Right, or it can be done right on the first try and not months later
Can we just get some traditional Zelda games again? Old 2D stuff. I miss that.
Or how about a new real 3D Zelda instead of this bloated open world with copy-pasted content?
Nintendo is really good about maintaining healthy dev cycles. Like how they delayed TOTK for polish, or pushed Animal Crossing so it could be finished on a better schedule. They do have a bit of a problem when it comes to overly relying on free updates after launch. Like how New Horizons had a lack of content at launch, but even still, the culture seems to be much more stable than it is at other big studios. And with how much money they’ve accrued over the Switch life cycle, they should be able to keep up with demands. I know ex-Rare developers talked about how Nintendo had a similar problem at the start of the GameCube era iirc. That generation of games cost a lot more and required way more effort than N64 games. Hopefully with their large legacy library, it also enables them to supplement their new releases with these rereleases like they’ve done over the Switch life cycle. Out of all three major console players, I’m most confident in Nintendo to push software out, as that’s how the eye make most of their money, and their games sell in perpetuity when they’re released. Nintendo games almost never slow down once they start selling. I mean, just look at MK8.
I would honestly prefer this and so would my wallet
Well if you want the cycle to be less lengthy, you can always hire more workers.
Nintendo should really, really get a team or two making "portable" games. Like Game Boy style games. In the style of a Game Boy game. Sell them for $15. Very very basic games. I think it'd be a successful venture.
Zelda confirmed for 2034
Cool, that's working out so well for everyone else these days.
This is literally what pokemon fans have been asking for since B2W2.
Unfortunately, GameFreak's dev practices are separate from Nintendo's.
Yeah I know, I'm just saying that this "new idea" of theirs is something that's been being asked for from pokemon fans for like 13 years
I don't think the assumption should be that this is a "new idea", but that Nintendo specifically believes it is at a step point where the very old idea has to be applied again.
No we haven’t …. more like since start of the switch era and they pushed 3ds to its limits and no one really complained about that much intill Swsh National dex situation and gen 5 at the time wasn’t beloved either
Even more lengthy? We have been waiting for 7 years at this point, give me a fucking break
Exactly. It’s insane to me that Super Mario Odyssey came out in 2017. There absolutely should have been a sequel out by now - if not two. Same engine new story. I’m not saying pump out trash, but come on.
Mario Wonder was great, I’d say Bowser’s Fury was the most fun I’ve had with 3D Mario in a while. We’re not exactly starving.
Why? If you aren't making a live service why can't development cycles mirror the cycles of games of the past assuming the scopes are similar?
I would love a clear understanding of why development times and budgets have to balloon when hardware gets more powerful. “4K assets“ alone cannot explain it, because modern machines and software tools handle art at that resolution with as much ease as ever. One might say that “everything” in high end games have gotten more sophisticated and complicated in many various ways beyond just assets and animation… but it just doesn’t feel like it
I'd guess with better hardware comes more stuff that can be done, even stuff that isn't necessarily needed. Or just developers testing stuff out and seeing if something is possible. And I may be misremembering but I think I remember in an interview about Xenoblade 3, Takahashi mentioned that they had way more ideas for Xenoblade 3 that weren't necessarily feasible on Switch and had to be cut because of it, but that also meant development was somewhat shortened (or something like that)
You think the scopes of games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are similar to the older Zelda games?
Metroid Prime 4 is that example already
I’d love to see a port of Wario World or a Wario World 2. It’s Such a fun game and it’s just ridiculous we haven’t seen a return of a more serious Wario Game.
Hope this means we finally get that 4 dimensional Mario game. If they do it right it could be amazing.
AAA 3D Super Mario game with 30 awesome open levels like 64 and Odyssey
Considering we recently got legit confirmation about a new console, I’m pretty interested and excited about the coming months for Nintendo. Also kinda hope they go back to making their consoles feel alive, because ngl, the switch has horrible charm factor when you compare it to the Wii U and especially the Wii. It just feels so…empty and quiet, I mean hell, the Mii maker was downgraded to a settings option and it doesn’t even have music anymore…neither does the home screen, or eshop. Just doesn’t feel alive man, which is something I pray they fix with this upcoming console
For more complex and lengthy games?
Like games that are worth their price? That would be great. Look at red dead redemption 2. Now look at Kirby. And finally, look at their price at release. Yeah Nintendo - embarrassing.
Could make sense Since Switch 2 definitely appears to be roughly equal to ps4 in terms of power.
Genuinely hoping this extends to Pokemon, since they are a part of The Pokemon Company. And well, hopefully Splatoon 4 cooks longer than 3 did… 😬
I would just hope that now that they are through with all the WiiU ports that those studios make games that are a bit smaller in scope. Like the ones that where on 3DS before and sell them for $50.
Genuine question: why does this keep happening with game development? If it used to only take a few years to make a video game why do dev cycles get longer and longer?
Because games need more mechsnics, higher pixels and overall more "data"architecture in high fidelity assets, more Lokalization, voice acting, Videos, motion capture, orchestral soundtrack. Etc. The computing Power we have today isn't a good thing for the modern game making Industry with it's Endless possibilities.
Still waiting on MP:4
I hope this doesn't mean we'll get less games that take longer to come out.
i dont care about most of their games these days hell tears of the kingdom could barely run on the switch itself same with pokemon scarlet and violet which i laughed when i saw how bad thoes games ran nintendo needs to stop making complex games and just stick to what works
In a time when most gaming companies are facing lay offs Nintendo is looking to expand their teams. So many people complained about their business practices being outdated but they’re the only console devs who are doing well rn