| RolStoppable said: Yes, Wii U hardware has been moving slowly because the system itself is a handicap for everything. But in a situation where the console doesn't drag down everything that is released on it, titles like Super Mario Maker, Star Fox and Fire Emblem wouldn't be hardware movers. A level editor just doesn't do it because people would rather play a game. Star Fox was a showcase for technology (FX chip and Rumble Pak) when it sold the best, and that reason doesn't exist anymore. Fire Emblem is an SRPG. But really, EAD 4 and 5 aren't that important at the moment. Other EAD teams had already time to start NX projects and Iwata has realized 1.5 years ago that it's time to think about the future. These teams can have games ready for late 2016 and through 2017. Nintendo isn't going to have four year development cycles across the entire company. Or do you think that there won't be any kind of new Nintendo hardware before holidays 2017? |
My thought was handheld in Holiday 2016 or spring 2017, then console for Holiday 2017.
I think I disagree about Mario Maker being a hardware mover on a stronger console, but we'll never know either way. And that's the problem, you are using the phrase "big games" to refer to games with high hardware pushing potential, with no way to know with certainty which games those are. So you get to be the one who defines what that means. When what a big game should be is a game that uses a large amount of the development resources available to a studio, especially in the context of studios being able to make multiple games simultaneously.
You initially claimed that most of Nintendo's internal teams would be able to have games ready for release in 2016 and 2017, but now you say EAD 4 and 5 aren't important. We already established that EAD 3 is working on Wii U (barring the possibility of a Zelda port to NX, which depends on how demanding development of one version of the game is). EAD 2 just shipped a Wii U game and has a 3DS game and a Wii U game releasing later this year, so I don't agree that they can have a new game ready to ship in under 2 years. Mario Kart 8 took 2.5 years to make, they spent another six months to a year after that making the DLC, and the series producer is tasked with overseeing the development of 5 mobile games by March 2017. So I think they're out until 2018. Nintendo's internal teams are tied up. It just doesn't add up to a 2016 launch to me.
I think next year we'll continue to see games made as quickly as possible with reused assets. The brunt of 2017 will be empty.
