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Dulfite on 24 October 2021
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Zippy6 said:
Dulfite said:

You are comparing some outliers from Nintendo to the norm from the rest. The majority of Nintendo games, by far, come out within 9 months after initial announcement. SMT5 isn't a Nintendo game so that isn't Nintendo's control. MP4 literally restarted development under a different developer (and that sort of shift almost never happens with Nintendo). Bayo 3 is like SMT5, not Nintendo's control or fault it took so long.

I never suggested MS was any better than Sony. I just wish companies would do it Nintendo's way, which means most of what you announce from the beginning launches within 9 months. If it is so far out from having a 100% release date secured, then don't even bother announcing it to begin with until you are certain it will launch at that specific date. Then we wouldn't have this standard in the industry of AAA games getting delayed all the time. Nintendo isn't perfect, but they are far and away better at launching when promised then others are. You don't need more than that 9 months hype a game up to sell well.

I get your point that yes Nintendo do launch several games within 9 months of announcement, however think about what those games are. They are not major blockbuster titles with huge budgets and long development times. Titles like Smash Bros and BOTW are announced long in advance just like the other companies.

Games like Horizon and Breath of the Wild will never be announced that close to release. There are exceptions, Super Mario Odyssey, Miles Morales, Demon's Souls. But for games that take a long time to develop it's expected that the time between announcement and release is high for all companies.

So the only reason the announcement schedule seems different is that Nintendo continues to create titles of varying budget and time investment such as your Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Pokemon Snap, while sony invests almost entirely in games that take a lot of money and a long time to make.

I'm not disputing that Sony spends a lot more money on game development than Nintendo. I'm disputing why they (and many other companies, including third party ones that release on Nintendo devices) feel they have to market games years before they release. If they announced Spiderman 3 and released it in two months, it would still sell tens of millions of copies. Same thing with Final Fantasy 7. You don't need 2-5 years of marketing, especially if you anticipate delays. Announced it 9 months (or less) out. In the meantime, just tell people you are working on something. Then no one gets prematurely hyped up and disappointed by how long it takes.