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GoOnKid on 23 October 2018
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Mnementh said:
potato_hamster said:

Just dance is not a high production game. It might garner high sales but they release that sometimes on 6-7 different platforms every single year. It is designed to be cheap to port, it is designed to be very easy to update for a yearly release, and minimal effort is put into updating every single year. But I'm pretty sure Nintendo could make a Just Dance-style game and Just Dance would suddenly take a dramatic hit in sales on Nintendo platforms.

I don't think Nintendo breaks out of their way of making games that much at all. Publishers have done things like practically wholesale copied Pokemon (like Robopon) and not seen a fraction of the success. The Nintendo name itself garners the attention of people on Nintendo platforms, and they're far more likely to buy a game that was published by Nintendo than they were if it wasn't. Mario and Rabbids Kingdom battle is a prime example of that.  XCOM-style games have never sold well on Nintendo platforms (at least in recent history) , but if you take that game and add the Mario IP to it, it sells millions. It's hard for third parties to compete with that.

I don't think it is the name Nintendo alone. Yes, being a big publisher helps, be it EA, Sony or 2K. For exposure. Your game will be seen and noticed, while some indie game might fly under the radar. But to get a good rep needs work. Nintendo got that by constant high quality, good polish. See, even Nintendo has their low-key titles. Practically annual series like Kirby. They don't sell bad, but they never light the charts on fire. They are low effort games for Nintendo. But the big games have visibly effort poured into them. Even series with a clear gameplay scheme, you could say a formula. Mario Kart follows the formula, but Nintendo doesn't stop there and pours effort into it to make the courses unique. That makes them stand out against All-Star Fruit Racing, Hello Kitty Kruisers or Nickelodeon Kart Racers. All these games have actually the exact same formula as Mario Kart, and still you see the effort Nintendo poured into it. I see you think: and what is with Sonic Racing? Well, I had both Sonic Racing Transformed and Mario Kart 8 on WiiU, and guess which was more fun? Sonic Racing is not shovelware, but still the Nintendo product had more quality, more polish too it. If Nintendo drops their standards, they will sell worse.

Nintendo is not alone by the way. I feel Atlus has the same polish. They cover a niche with RPGs. But still in this niche they sell pretty well. Many claim Rockstar has constant high quality, and look at the sales in the result. CD Project Red is hailed for their quality, and sales are soaring. The difference is though, that Nintendo is bigger and can output more games.

For Ubisoft games I by now expect a fun game riddled with glitches. ZombiU had a game breaking bug on release. On Miiverse I showed funny pictures of glitches in Assassins Creed III, a game I bought years late and had at first a bunch of patches to install. In Skyrim I met the floating tree, the Mammoth falling from the sky, the hollow rock (only textures on one side), also years after initial release. The games are still fun, but the lack of polish impacts the experience.

That's why Nintendo sells better on Nintendo systems. On other systems gamer have no choice than to play the subpar games and are probably used to it. And notice how much praise the exceptions get, the Atlus games, the Rockstar games. People who are used to a lack of polish still notice if the polish is there.

Whoah, I saw all of that, too! I didn't even know these had names, actually. All of those left an ugly stain in my experience, sadly. Therefore,  can understand where you come from and I share your opinion.

You probably could have worded that second bolded one better but I get what you mean.