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Wyrdness said:
Soundwave said:

Splatoon has 14 new stages and 9 old stages from the 1st game, so a huge chunk of its content is taken from the first game, otherwise there's probably no chance that game makes it out that early in the Switch product cycle. 

Nintendo's buyer base seems very finicky on launch windows for whatever reason. Like you would think maybe people would say "well, y'know we know we're not getting these Nintendo IP on other systems so we'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just buy the system now" ... but Nintendo seems to get no benefit of the doubt from its fanbase for whatever reason. 

They have to prove themselves again every time with a new system from day 1, which is pretty hard to do. 

Sony has had drought periods, honestly even the PS2 launch wasn't that great (especially the Japanese one), but their buyer base just seems to buy it no matter what. PS3 was the only rough stretch they had with a home console because the system was absurdly expensive for its time. PS5 barely has any exclusives worth owning and they pretty much instantly sell out anywhere but Japan it seems like. 

The 3rd party thing probably makes a big difference, Sony fans are happy if they get their yearly Madden, FIFA, Call of Duty, NBA2K ... those are the main IP, Nintendo doesn't get that kind of help from 3rd parties in terms of system seller content so they have to bring their big guns. 

If I was Nintendo at this point I'd just save new Zelda games for launch windows, Nintendo fans seem stubborn about buying a new system until you show them a new Zelda, then they just open up the wallet like it's no problem. 

Those were added later in updates on launch it just had new stages this why the balance in the game differs from the first as the maps forced certain styles of play which were heaving on flanking and short range, the production cycle is smaller because they reused assets and the engine.

Nintendo's problem was never launch titles it was fundamental issues that impacted product appeal such as droughts and product identity this is apparent when you look at their most successful platforms (NES, GB/C, SNES, GBA, DS, 3DS, Wii, Switch) they knew what they wanted to do with these platforms and how to go forward and kept the droughts away resulting in appealing products that people bought.

Some of that honestly I think is revisionist history to a degree though. 

GameCube for example was really, really well deigned as a hardware platform. Cheaper than the PS2 while simultaneously being more powerful and much easier to develop for, eliminating most of the problems the N64 hardware had. A lot of GCN games still look quite nice today even when emulated at an HD resolution ... F-Zero X, Wind Waker, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Fox Adventures, etc. 

The DS, Nintendo didn't really know what the heck they were doing with it for a long while, even the concept is a fluke, Yamauchi just wanted two screens for no real reason and then they had to figure out why they even needed the 2 screens, lol, even Iwata thought it was a dumb idea but they wanted to humor Yamauchi I guess and not embarrass him (this is also probably why Nintendo gave the 64DD the most token release possible ... Yamauchi really backed the 64DD idea even though it was clear it should just be canned). 

GameCube needed to launch in 2000, and the only way that could have been feasible would have been to take N64 projects and repurpose them for the GCN ... but that wouldn't necessarily have been a bad idea. Zelda: MM, Perfect Dark really could not run on the stock N64 anyway without the RAM Expansion Pak  that only a small minority proportion of the N64 userbase had anyway. Conker's Bad Fur Day also ran poorly on the N64, the game was too ambitious for that hardware. 

And Zelda: MM as a launch title for the GameCube would've calmed some of the controversy over Wind Waker later on being toon shaded, think people just wanted that Ocarina of Time sequel first and when Nintendo went in a dramatically different direction artistically, there was a lot of angry backlash and it didn't help the "Nintendo is kiddie" reputation that seemed hyper-magnified in the image conscious early-mid 2000s.