• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Do you think the “switch” to hd has hampered some of nintendo’s output?

7GFA6dV.jpg
 

BlackTron

Member
This did hamper their output, one of many pitfalls that made the Wii U an awkward stage of Nintendo's history, but they course corrected that shit hard and started cranking GREAT games out left and right because they were desperate.

With that, the story of HD slowing their output was over. Now, they're just hampered by success.
 

Boy bawang

Member
Ring Fit Adventure, Astral Chain and Arms all say hi....

Ring Fit isn't a traditional game, and I acknowledged in this thread that the Labo team was the only one to take chances.
Astral Chain may be funded by Nintendo, but it's not developed by them. Also, it doesn't exactly scream ambition, though the game is decent. Arms was released 4.5 years ago as a side project by the MK team; obviously with a much much lower budget.
If that's all the new IP you can show in 4.5 years, it's borderline pathetic for a console which is arguably the most successful piece of hardware of the decade.
 

Marvel14

Banned
Ring Fit isn't a traditional game, and I acknowledged in this thread that the Labo team was the only one to take chances.
Astral Chain may be funded by Nintendo, but it's not developed by them. Also, it doesn't exactly scream ambition, though the game is decent. Arms was released 4.5 years ago as a side project by the MK team; obviously with a much much lower budget.
If that's all the new IP you can show in 4.5 years, it's borderline pathetic for a console which is arguably the most successful piece of hardware of the decade.
Ring Fit is a full fledged innovative game and a new IP....isn't the point of new IPS to do new and different things? Isn't that at the heart of your criticism of Nintendo? So what RF is too different? 🙄

How much lower was Arms' budget? Do you know or are you just substituting your opinion of the game for a fictional financial judgement?

Astral Chain is a Switch exclusive and a new IP and your criticism is about a lack of new IPs. If Nintendo didn't care for new ones they wouldn't have commissioned other studios to produce them.

Also Define the parameters for "borderline pathetic". One new fully fledged IP per year several with some serious innovations as well as a fairly full slate of releases of existing IPs some of which are considered among the most innovative and best they've ever done may not be sufficient for you but hardly qualifies as "borderline pathetic".
 

anthony2690

Banned
I don't think Nintendo's switch to barely HD has effected their output, either my tastes have changed or the titles releasing just don't interest me as much.

I think the Nintendo system I have the fondest memories for is the GameCube though.

Wario world, Star fox adventures, Mario Kart double dash, gotcha force, lost kingdoms 1/2, Mario sunshine, Zelda: Wind Waker, F zero GX, Metroid Prime, Viewititul Joe, Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Symphonia, donkey konga, 1080 avalanche, Resident Evil 4, Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic Adventure 2 battle, I can just think of so many games I was fond off on the system (I know most of these are not made by Nintendo but still & I was happy to play some Dreamcast games again too)

Great times!
 
I think their new management since Iwata died just hasn’t been great. Like it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that they should’ve probably had Retro Studios working on Prime 4 from the beginning. Instead it’s been in development hell because they started having some unspecified Bamco devs making it, then they scrapped it and restarted with Retro anyways.

And yes I know Retro isn’t the same as during the GC/Wii era, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was still the dev team that made the most sense. And that’s just one example. They’ve announced a bunch of games like Metroid and Bayonetta 3 way too early and there’s been little no updates on.
 

Fbh

Member
To a degree yes.
But I think their massive success and the extremely long legs on their games are also a big reason.
When you've got great hardware sales and fill up half the top 20 best selling list on any given month with a bunch of your older games (some, like Mario Kart 8, as old as 7 years) you just don't have such a big incentive to constantly release new stuff.

I mean, in some ways, yes. Just look at GameFreak's Pokemon game on Switch. That game has no business looking like that and i feel this is in part with some of Nintendo's partners and Nintendo itself being not accustomed to HD development.

I think the bigger issue with Pokemon is that Nintendo/Gamefreak know the franchise is too big to fail.
From a business perspective why would they bother to increase the budget when they know they can give it Ps2 production values and it will still sell like 15+ million units
 

Woopah

Member
I think their new management since Iwata died just hasn’t been great. Like it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that they should’ve probably had Retro Studios working on Prime 4 from the beginning. Instead it’s been in development hell because they started having some unspecified Bamco devs making it, then they scrapped it and restarted with Retro anyways.

And yes I know Retro isn’t the same as during the GC/Wii era, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was still the dev team that made the most sense. And that’s just one example. They’ve announced a bunch of games like Metroid and Bayonetta 3 way too early and there’s been little no updates on.
You say a bunch but really it's just those two games. The majority of Nintendo's first party games are announced less than a year before release and the vast majority are announced less than 18 months before release.
 

yurinka

Member
Happened to every company in all platforms. Bigger, more detailed games for new generation of hardware requires more dev time. So unless they grow the studios to compensate it, these studios will release less games per generation.
 
Last edited:

Shut0wen

Member
In the first four years of the 3ds’s life cycle nintendo managed to release almost 80 first party retail games. Its likely that due to the less powerful Hardware they were able to take more shortcuts regarding visuals to release
More games per often.

While they have released quite a few first party retail switch games since 2017, its not close to the amount of 3ds software they were able to produce in the same amount of time (4 years). We saw companies like alpha dream go under, and you have to wonder if its because they were ill equipped to produce games in what we consider higher definition.

Even studios as storied as game freak are struggling to make pokemon games that really impress and take advantage of the more powerful hardware. Kirby releases used to occur much more frequently, but as it stands now, we havent had a new retail kirby game in four years. Even animal crossing took a long time to come over to an hd console.

Is it possible that many of nintendos first and second party developers were not prepared for the shift from the 3ds to switch? Of course some of them had experience making wii u games, but many others made games exclusively for the 3ds during the wii u’s life time.
No Nintendo are just being lazy because the switch is selling shit tons, Nintendo struggled with hd for the wii u but then managed to pump out alot more games on it then the switch, look at the amount of games that Nintendo made for the wii at the start there were afew a year then it became less and less and right now they seem to be putting wii u games on there which didnt sell to well, personally i think whenever Nintendo has something successful they go back to the drawing board by creating new prototypes for upcoming games plus a switch 2 has to imminent right about now, wouldnt be surprised if we get a new mario kart next year either
 

Shut0wen

Member
Wasn't Alpha Dream problem the rampant piracy of their games, making them no revenue as they didn't sell, like, at all?
Yes this is correct, apparently the game made less then 2k while the ds version sold millions, shame really as its an awesome game
 

NahaNago

Member
My original response was yes but like folks have mentioned hd like games started on the wii u. I honestly think now that they just got complacent. They pretty much dropped the 3ds so all of these teams for the wii u and the 3ds should have been making games for the switch. So I was expecting a ton of games each year but it has been kinda mediocre on the number of releases it feels like.

I was also going to mention covid but the switch released in like early 2017 so they have had plenty of time to make games for this console since 2016 and covid got announced around december of 2019.
 

Shut0wen

Member
The answer is obviously yes. There really isn't room for debate. As technology and visuals have progressed, as well as higher pixel counts, that will result in more work. That's not opinion, it's fact. Now, whether or not it has hampered output in a meaningful way is completely up for debate. You didn't give the numbers for the total count of games for the Switch, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but if the 3DS had 80 games in the same time that the Switch had 60 games, I wouldn't consider that to be a meaningful impact, especially since most (or all) of those 60 games are much better quality (at least visually) to the 3DS. Now, if they were at 20 games in the same timeframe I would feel like that is a meaningful impact. But even if I thought that, that's only my opinion. It's subjective. Someone else may have a different opinion entirely.
Wii u was hd though, nintendo knows how to make games for hd, the problem is they cant be fucked abd dont see the point in releasing anything new because the console still sells
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Wii u was hd though, nintendo knows how to make games for hd, the problem is they cant be fucked abd dont see the point in releasing anything new because the console still sells

The question by the OP was whether the move to HD hampered output. This wasn't referring to the Nintendo Switch specifically. I was merely stating that any title that is going to have HD visuals is going to result in longer development times compared to a title with non-HD visuals. It's not possible that it wouldn't impact game development time since it takes more work to get those enhanced visuals. But again, whether that impact is statistically relevant is up for debate.
 
Last edited:

Woopah

Member
No Nintendo are just being lazy because the switch is selling shit tons, Nintendo struggled with hd for the wii u but then managed to pump out alot more games on it then the switch, look at the amount of games that Nintendo made for the wii at the start there were afew a year then it became less and less and right now they seem to be putting wii u games on there which didnt sell to well, personally i think whenever Nintendo has something successful they go back to the drawing board by creating new prototypes for upcoming games plus a switch 2 has to imminent right about now, wouldnt be surprised if we get a new mario kart next year either

My original response was yes but like folks have mentioned hd like games started on the wii u. I honestly think now that they just got complacent. They pretty much dropped the 3ds so all of these teams for the wii u and the 3ds should have been making games for the switch. So I was expecting a ton of games each year but it has been kinda mediocre on the number of releases it feels like.

I was also going to mention covid but the switch released in like early 2017 so they have had plenty of time to make games for this console since 2016 and covid got announced around december of 2019.
How many (non-port) games should they be publishing a year do you think? And which major publisher do you think publishes a lot?

I get it if people have an issue with the lack of new AAA IP or aren't interested in certain franchises or genres. But the amount of games Nintendo publishes each year is a lot.
 

Codes 208

Member
Wasn't Alpha Dream problem the rampant piracy of their games, making them no revenue as they didn't sell, like, at all?
Part of it sure, but iirc the general lack of interest in their 3ds remakes also had to do with it. Superstar saga i can get behind because it was originally a GBA game, but what was the point of remaking bowsers inside story when that was already playable on the 3ds via BC?

Also dream team and paper jam kinda sucked. The series really lost steam after bowser’s inside story.
 

NahaNago

Member
How many (non-port) games should they be publishing a year do you think? And which major publisher do you think publishes a lot?

I get it if people have an issue with the lack of new AAA IP or aren't interested in certain franchises or genres. But the amount of games Nintendo publishes each year is a lot.
You using the word publish is kinda iffy since I'm more interested over the games they make themselves. The biggest issue with Nintendo games of late is that the majority of their games that they have released are barely AA or are ports. Last year I believe they only had animal crossing and a paper mario game as it's big new Nintendo game and so far the only brand new game this year is pokemon snap.

I would like around 4 big games from Nintendo each year along with the smaller stuff they usually release plus the third party exclusives they usually do. Sony has been aiming for around 3 to 4 big games a year plus some smaller third party exclusives.
 

Woopah

Member
You using the word publish is kinda iffy since I'm more interested over the games they make themselves. The biggest issue with Nintendo games of late is that the majority of their games that they have released are barely AA or are ports. Last year I believe they only had animal crossing and a paper mario game as it's big new Nintendo game and so far the only brand new game this year is pokemon snap.

I would like around 4 big games from Nintendo each year along with the smaller stuff they usually release plus the third party exclusives they usually do. Sony has been aiming for around 3 to 4 big games a year plus some smaller third party exclusives.
I use publish because ultimately Nintendo is a publisher and a huge chunk of their output has always come from studios they don't own. If we're judging Nintendo's output we should look at everything which they themselves count as first party.

2020 was a bad year for Nintendo no doubt about that. But 2021 is definitely better. For me there are three major new games:

New Pokémon Snap
Mario Golf Super Rush
Metroid Dread

Plus five smaller games

Bravely Default 2
Game Builder Garage
Warioware Get It Together
Big Brain Academy
DC Hero Supergirls

The main issue I have with the year is that there are four remakes:

Famicom Detective Club
Mario Party Superstar
Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
Advance Wars Reboot Camp

If one or two of those were new games the year would be noticeably better.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
How many games do you think they publish each year?

EDIT: And to bring it in line with my question below. How many do you think they should?

The reality is, it will never be enough. They just want reasons to cry about Nintendo. They could literally release a brand new AAA title, every single month and they will still cry about it not being every week.
 

Shut0wen

Member
How many (non-port) games should they be publishing a year do you think? And which major publisher do you think publishes a lot?

I get it if people have an issue with the lack of new AAA IP or aren't interested in certain franchises or genres. But the amount of games Nintendo publishes each year is a lot.
Tbh this year is probs the most they published, from this month to January they are publishing a game a month, its just the droubt from feb until july
 

Woopah

Member
Tbh this year is probs the most they published, from this month to January they are publishing a game a month, its just the droubt from feb until july
They do have a tendency to favour the 2nd half of the year, but even February to June 2021 they published 5 new games, 1 remake and three ports.

If we look at their number of Switch games published per year (and I'm not including any ports here) we get:

2017 - 8
2018 - 10
2019 - 12
2020 - 6
2021 - 11

So apart from when they got hit by the pandemic they've been fairly consistent.
 

NahaNago

Member
I use publish because ultimately Nintendo is a publisher and a huge chunk of their output has always come from studios they don't own. If we're judging Nintendo's output we should look at everything which they themselves count as first party.

2020 was a bad year for Nintendo no doubt about that. But 2021 is definitely better. For me there are three major new games:

New Pokémon Snap
Mario Golf Super Rush
Metroid Dread

Plus five smaller games

Bravely Default 2
Game Builder Garage
Warioware Get It Together
Big Brain Academy
DC Hero Supergirls

The main issue I have with the year is that there are four remakes:

Famicom Detective Club
Mario Party Superstar
Pokémon Diamond & Pearl
Advance Wars Reboot Camp

If one or two of those were new games the year would be noticeably better.
This list doesn't say that it has been a good year. Plus I wouldn't consider Metroid Dread a big game even if the hardcore crowd is hyping the game to be bigger than it is. It simply looks like a small indie game with a slightly larger budget.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I'd rather get fewer games where I'm interested in the majority instead of spitting games out every month dthats forgettable.

Never got my moneys worth from my ps4.

I'd do get pissed if they will release a console soon though, as I do agree that the library still deserves more games.
 
Top Bottom