Rate the Nintendo Direct E3 2021

[Bofferbrauer2]

Cerebralbore101 said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

You're comparing apples to oranges here concerning Majora's mask and BotW2.

1. Back in the day, developing a new AAA game took 2-3 years, concept to release. Nowadays it's twice as long.
2. BotW had several DLC being developed first, not in parallel to the successor, which cuts the development cycle significantly. Right now there has been 2.5 years of development on BotW 2 at best. BotW2 after all only came to be after the developers had too many ideas to put into DLC and it got decided to make a successor instead.
3. Majora's Mask was already fully conceptualized when OoT came out, meaning they could immediately start developing everything. But while they had too many ideas for DLC, filling up an entire game is another matter, especially a game world of the size of BotW. That takes a lot of time to get the ideas fully developed.
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 and MM were basically just mods from their predecessors, so they could be done quickly. Depending on what BotW 2 will offer, that might not be the case (though chances are it will be).
5. Development got slowed down considerably due to Covid. I'm certain about the equivalent of a couple months to  half a year of development has been lost due to the pandemic.

1. That's true for PS4 and XB1 games, but Switch is a lot less powerful than those two systems, so the graphical demands should lessen the workload considerably.

2. Wait so development on BotW2 didn't start until May of 2018? Didn't the last batch of BotW DLC come out winter 2017? Are you telling me they did nothing for six months?

3. What's your source for the claim that Majora's Mask was already fully planned out by the time OoT launched?

4. Yeah, I agree with this point completely. As far as I'm concerned BotW2 had better be revolutionary after all the time waiting for it. I would have preferred a quick and dirty mod like Galaxy 2 or MM though.

5. It's kind of strange how Sony really never slowed down due to Covid. GoT, and TLoU2 both ended the PS4's life cycle. Then Demon's Souls, Returnal, and Ratchet kept the games coming. Also keep in mind that Horizon 2 is due out this year when Horizon 1 also launched in 2017. Sure, two of those games are 2nd party, but for a launch year lineup two in house games is great. I agree that Covid slowed Nintendo down, but I bet that's a result of them failing to adapt. The same way that Nintendo has poor online, Nintendo couldn't manage work from home effectively.

I'm sure we could argue back and forth on this all day, but I'll wait to respond further until Nintendo's E3 has been shown. No sense in having a BotW2 debate if Nintendo suddenly drops a 2021 release date or mindblowing gameplay footage on us.

1. It's also true for the Switch. The resolution of the textures may not be the same and the post-processing of them neither, but it takes about the same amount of time to create models and textures for AAA games on PC, PS5, XS or Switch. Hence why you can port games from those consoles to the Switch, though with a serious visual hit.

2. I miscalculated, it's 3.5 years, my bad. I was still in 2020 as I erased that year from my mind, damn covid.

3. An article in a videogame journal back in those days. If I still have it, I will take a picture and post it later.

5. Most of Sony's studios are in the US... and we know how much the publishers and studio execs there care(d) about their employees. Contrast this to studios in Japan, which shut down much harder than the US ever did, and you know why one slowed down and the other didn't.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 08 June 2021