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curl-6 on 04 February 2016
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freebs2 said:
curl-6 said:

Actually, that's the whole reason Nintendo acquired Retro in the first place.

Their original purpose, back in the 6th gen, was to make more mature, Western-oriented games to complement Nintendo's more light-hearted offerings.

Lately, Nintendo have lost sight of this, hence Retro's games no longer bring the diversity to Nintendo's catalogue that they used to, and as a result, gamers just aren't as excited about Retro as they used to be.

I agree this was the case in the first place, but we're talking 2000. The market was different and so was Nintendo's overall strategy.

I think Retro, back in the Gamecube days, was praised by many because it represented Nintendo's flagship studio in terms of production values. Now that position can't work anymore beacuse Nintendo, as a whole, doesn't rely on high production values. Sony is the company that relies on high production values now.

In the actual situation a single adult/western oriented game every 3 years wouldn't change pretty much a thing. In terms of sales it would be condemned in the limbo, since all the audience for those games is on Ps/Xbox/PC. In terms of reception it would be overshadowed by multiplatform games with larger productions (since larger audiences justify larger investments).

In the end I believe the best solution for Nintendo is trying to tackle mainstream genres with a different original perspective that is not related to either western or eastern specific tastes. Splatoon is the perfect example. Also Pokken may be considered a different approach to classic fighting games. Even looking in the past, even games like Smash Bros, Mario Kart and Pokemon are different approaches to already existing genres.

So, while I agree Retro (as well as other studios) should bring diversity to Nintendo's catalogue, I think we should adjust our expectations for thier games. This doesn't mean we sholudn't expect great expertly crafted games, just not games that push tecnical or production boundaries like Metorid Prime did.

Retro don't need a Destiny/Grand Theft Auto 5 budget to make a conceptually and technically ambitious game though. 

I'm not saying they have to have 9-figure production values. A lot of today's AAA productions are quite wasteful with money anyhow, throwing away millions on licensed soundtracks, celebrity voice actors, and the like.

While production values certainly played a part in Prime's success, clever design did as well; using the scan visor in place of a traditional narrative, for example, was actually cheaper than having traditional cutscenes and voice acting, yet worked better for the kind of game Prime was.

Similarly, many indie games manage to be technically and/or conceptually ambitious without spending a fortune. Fast Racing Neo is one of the most graphically advanced games on Wii U, and that was made by 5 guys.