Kai_Mao said:
I don’t know. It’s just hard for me to believe it’s a bad year. There are a lot of games announced that I haven’t played before so maybe that factors in as it probably factors into your opinion of the vice versa. and you mentioned the issues of little games being expected for the first year. The first year was almost unprecedented. Not often do you see a console launch with what the Switch had: 2 all-timers in BoTW and Odyssey, new IPs in ARMS and Snipperclips, great sequels in Splatoon 2 and Xenoblade 2, a Deluxe port in MK8 that will eventually outsell its original version’s LT sales, Fire Emblem Warriors, and a plethora of indies and decent third party support (including Mario + Rabbids). So what else can Nintendo’s software teams come up with the match Zelda and 3D Mario? That alone is a tough act to follow. but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad year, especially when we’re only 3 months in (and the start of Nintendo’s fiscal year) and with Kirby just about to release. As for fire emblem and Pokémon not showing up, they’ll show up when Nintendo and their respective teams are ready to show them. I don’t think we should speculate too much on those projects as Nintendo nor any of those teams promised anything besides 2018 (or 2018 and beyond if you’re talking about Pokémon). No need to be cynical about it. |
I know that in terms of quantity, Switch is in a better place than 2017. But it's not quantity that actually sells HW, now or tomorrow.
And in that regard, the quality in 2018 has, so far, really dipped.
I know that 2017 is almost impossible to beat (new concept (unrepeatable), revised Zelda and Mario, Splatoon sequel and MK 8 (a port, but really loved by gamers), but what we are seeing is a result of Nintendo's planning, which was frontload the console in 2017 and have smaller franchises and one (Smash) or more (unconfirmed at this point) pick up the slack... towards the end of the year.
To me, that bad planning resulted in 2018, being a bad year in terms of great, system selling titles. It's really unbalanced.
I understand that Pokémon isn't ready to show, but Fire Emblem? The game was announced early last year and is releasing this year. I think it's fair to expect something concrete by now.
But that's not even the main point. My point is that, if you look objectively at it, the best way to create hype, is to leave the big surprises for last and not reveal them way before because after that you risk lowering the hype for your system.
GoOnKid said:
Reading your comments for the last weeks makes me think that no matter what happened, really no matter at all, you would always find a way to be unhappy with Nintendo / the Switch. Even when they released every game you wanted with Pokemon tomorrow and Metroid Prime 4 the day after, you probably said that they would face problems now since all the heavy hitters are released now and there's not much left anymore. Not meant in an offensive way but you are always concerned when you speak about the Switch. Even when it does fine. |
I get what you are saying. No worries.
But the thing is, my concerns, ever since the January reveal have been proven almost always right.
After the presentation i questioned why we weren't seeing more and bigger 3rd parties on stage/announcing games; i also wondered why Nintendo weren't revealing more of their 2018 plans. After the Wii U fiasco, i really felt that was a huge point they failed at during the reveal.
I was told to expect them later. Nintendo wasn't going to reveal their cards just like that.
So i waited for E3 and what i saw still wasn't good: why reveal non-2018 titles like MP4 and Pokémon and not more 2018 games?
Again, i was told to wait - 2017 wasn't over. So, i waited again.
2017 was over and no big game was announced for 2018 and the release schedule for the first half was bare.
The January Direct only brought us ports and Mario Tennis and with that, pretty much the full line-up for the first half.
This recent Direct didn't bring a system seller for the first half as i hoped. Smash was unexpectedly revealed, though.
To be honest, i find odd that they revealed Smash now. I would expect some other big title and Smash for E3.
So you see, i was right in being concerned for 2018, despite hearing some criticism on my "pessimism".
What we have right now is a single system seller for 2018. With that i'm not saying that more stuff can't be announced, to go along Smash as another system seller, but, i have my doubts. Specially when Nintendo's actions haven't really filled me with confidence that their 2018 planning was good.
I don't want to really write a whole lot about this - i could - but if 2018 turns out to be just about Smash, 2019 will have to rely heavily on it when that shouldn't be the case. We should be seeing a different Nintendo by now (streamlining SW production).
Yes, Switch is selling great right now, but if you look at sales of all 3 consoles for 2017, you'll see that Switch didn't make a dent on Sony and MS' consoles sales. So, what i think we should be seeing now is Nintendo doing more to really start stealing consumers from MS and Sony.
Sony might wait longer for a new generation, but MS won't wait and we know that when they want, they can succeed.
Sorry for the long text. That was to show that my concerns have reasons behind them.
