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Soundwave said:
Most companies can't actually. Especially Nintendo, people forget that they're not actually a very large company, for a video game company actually they're fairly small in staff and that is on purpose because it fosters the type of culture/control that Nintendo likes. But balancing late gen support with having great early gen support is always going to be hard for Nintendo. Even with Switch ... take away BOTW, Mario Kart 8, and Splatoon 2 in the first 8 months which is the result of cannibalizing basically a failed console (a situation you can't really rely on repeating nor would you really want to) ... the system probably would not even be able to launch until November 2017 in that case and the launch likely wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful. People think this stuff is easy but it's really not. In Nintendo's case they should always err on the side of caution FOR the console to come (not the aging console that is) after having been burned multiple times by early product cycle nightmares. I could understand if consumers had some kind of brand loyalty in the sense of sticking with a company like a friend during rough times, but really consumers don't give a shit. They're more like kids in junior high that will freeze out/alienate a kid that's no longer cool enough at the drop of a hat. I mean Nintendo gave fans everything they had with the DS, years of support, and what they had a few soft months with the 3DS and all of the sudden inside of a year their entire handheld gaming division is in big trouble and needing a giant ass bailout. You cannot count of loyalty for what you've done in the past, even if the "past" is as recent as 12 months ago. Even Sony's ass was not immune, during late 2006/early 2007 they were suddenly the black sheep of the industry after completely dominating it for like 11 straight years and had to basically prove themselves again from scratch, lol. No one cares what you did last generation the second the next product cycle starts, that's all you're judged on. You get no bounce, no favors, no coddling for past work. And you can't stay in the comfort zone of the previous generation forever either, there's no loyalty there either, people lose interest and go to the competition. Harsh business but that's how it goes. |
Nobody said it was easy, but it is possible. This idea that a console must end with two years of weak support for its predecessor to succeed is silly, especially in the case of the Wii where games cheap to make.
Last edited by curl-6 - on 10 August 2020
