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Dulfite on 05 February 2022
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RolStoppable said:
Dulfite said:

Using this logic, you should have never wanted a generation after the NES. Every generation jump has made development harder, take longer, and cost more money. Yet companies keep doing it because that's where the money is. Nintendo isn't pumping $100-200 million in each of their AAA first party games like Sony does, nor would they be even if Switch 2 is as powerful as a Series X. Just because you have a more powerful console doesn't mean you push it to the brink of overheating and exploding. I don't want Nintendo to do that either, but I want big leaps regardless, and you won't get that releasing games on the same power level for over a decade. Botw 2, Mario Odyssey 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, none of these games will impress as much as their predecessors because they will all feel so similiar looking. If these were Switch 2 games they would blow the living water out of their predecessors and wow us all.

PC gets upgrades all the time, PlayStation and Xbox get significant power boosts mid generation and massive leaps every generation. It isn't wrong for me to want at least a big leap every gen from Nintendo. The jump from PS4 to PS4 Pro was bigger than the jump from Wii U to Switch and that's just a mid gen upgrade, that's a sick joke. I'm not even asking for a Pro level device every mid gen, I'm just asking for a Wii to Wii U level jump every generation, especially if it's going to last 7+ years. If I had known Switch 1 was going to last this long prior to being replaced, then I'd rather Nintendo have made a Xbox One X level device and sold it for $600+ back in 2017. A $300 device from 2017 shouldn't be expected to have such a long life span, from this consumer's point of view.

I highlighted the logic in my previous post. There are quite a lot of people who agree that Xbox 360/PS3/Wii U level of hardware was the final step for gameplay improvements and even then it was limited first and foremost to the open world genre, because most other genres weren't benefiting anymore from leaps in processing power. A non-open world example where it still mattered is Dead Rising with its large amount of enemies on screen at once.

I can tell you that Breath of the Wild's success isn't grounded in its graphics, rather it's the open world nature and how the physics engine opens up many different ways to deal with enemies. Super Mario Odyssey wasn't loved for its graphics either, its appeal lies in wide levels with things to do at every corner. Xenoblade Chronicles 2's graphics were controversial at release, because the developers used some techniques that didn't pan out well. Or in other words, if you asked people why they like all these games, the point "graphics" would rarely be mentioned because most people either don't care, or they care and recognized the weaknesses right away at release. It's pretty tough to wow people with graphics when the people in question don't care to begin with and focus their analyses on the gameplay. People care way more about how games are played, how good the gameplay is and how many games there are on the console, that's why the Wii U flopped despite a generational leap in graphics.

You are free to want what you want, but you have to recognize that you belong to a tiny minority. Especially with that point of view you express in your final two sentences. On one hand you've repeatedly expressed that profits are the most important criterion for companies, but on the other hand you have these selfish wishes that would be bordering on financial suicide. That's when you drift off into irrationality.

Can one not have desires that knowingly have conflict with what one knows is the wisest path forward? Nintendo should do whatever is the most profitable path forward (not just for the present, but laying the groundwork for the future). If that means sticking with Switch 1 for the next 100 years, then so be it.

But as a consumer, I want to be wowed with each iteration of a new game, and generally speaking, Nintendo only does one game per generation from AAA sub-series (there are exceptions like Galaxy 2 or Majora's Mask). Going from Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask was not a wow moment. Going from MM's to Twilight Princess was not a wow moment. Going from Twilight Princess to WWHD and BOTW was a wow moment. Going from Botw 1 to Botw 2 is not going to be  a wow moment. It will be cool to see the world again, and narratively hopefully it is fascinating, but I won't have that same breathtaking experience I had with the first one because I've played on this engine before, seen what the grass looks like already, know what the water looks like, etc.

You can apply this to so many series. Super Metroid to Metroid Prime 1 was a stunning leap forward. Metroid Prime 2 and 3 were basically just MP1 but a little shinier. If I am in the minority, or the super minority, then it is what it is, but I like to be blown away by every new iteration of a game, not having to wait 2-3 iterations to get to the next leap forward. If they truly want to just stick with Switch 1 for 8 or 9 years, then I'd rather have F-Zero, Mother sequel, a new 2-d Mario game, a new 3d Donkey Kong game, an actual good attempt at a new Star Fox game, and new games for dozens of other abandoned series or sub-series than I would Botw 2 or Super Mario Odyssey 2. Sequels should come on new systems, that's what I expect from Nintendo. I don't want their games to be like Call of Duty where you get multiple games from the same sub-series on each generation. That may not make business sense, but it is what I wish.