Reviewers have double standards, who'd have thought?

No company is like its past self, that's a redundant thing to say.

Retro still makes great games, so why wouldn't they be able to create more of them in the future? You're way too fixated about some arbitrary score on metacritic. Next time, actually play the game first and decide for yourself.

This is a unique perspective that I never really considered but you're absolutely right. PlayStation as a brand has legitimately grown up with its fan base. Crash appealed to me as a kid, jack and daxter appealed to me as a young teen, uncharted as a young adult and then we have the last of us. I'm 22 now. A 22 year old playing the last of us? I'm they're demographic. 

More than that though we can see the same pattern in quite a handful of their first party devs. They've grown up with us in content creation. Nintendo has remained stagnant in appeal in that they choose to use well established IPs with bright color palettes and simple designs which in my honest opinion, is targeted at the 8-12 year old me. Except back then we didn't have access to online gaming or the call of duties of today and herein lies a key factor - our youth, now, doesn't play the same games we did back then. They've jumped ahead. How many times can you jump into a game of team death match and hear little ass kids swearing they're mouths out? They've left behind Nintendo. Nintendo needs to adapt.

To those saying people left Retro after Prime and it's not the same; people left Naughty Dog as well, including after Uncharted. Studios hire new people and carry on; in fact, Retro has hired some ex-Naughty Dog devs in recent years, as well as ex-Vigil staff.

Retro may have lost some of their street cred after making a cartoon platformer for their HD debut, but they've proved themselves more than capable of still making great games.

God it's funny when the young'uns think Playstation invented "mature" gaming... XD

Far out I feel old haha...

Idk that's kinda like saying Pixar needs to stop making family-friendly animated films and start making more adult-oriented live action films. Their is a large market for the types of games Nintendo creates.

Well in a way they kind of did. You certainly didnt see Nintendo First Party studios making games like Mortal Kombat or Doom. Companies like Netherrealm and ID Software invented mature gaming. Sony expanded on it and to a great success I might add.

I'm not expecting an instant shift. Like I said, it's only a first step, but an important and symbolic one. In a perfect world Retro will release this game sometime next year. Then, the NX would launch whenever it does with another exclusive western IP right off the bat. Then maybe six months later, and another six months later they release another. Swap one of these with a rerelease of Retro's game for the astounding amount of people who obviously wouldn't have bought the Wii U version. (Not that I condone this, just that it would be smart from a business POV) Four original western IP over the course of maybe 3 years, three coming from commissioned studios.

With this, Nintendo keeps that initial first wave hardcore audience right off the bat, and they buy the obligatory first wave of 3rd party games that hit the console. Once the companies see that there's an audience, more support the system, meaning more of the mainstream western audience have reason to buy it. That's how the perception shifts. This just gets the ball rolling.

But Nintendo wasn't the entire industry, many others were doing it well before Playstation. There were games depicting sex and bloody murder on the Atari 2600 back in the 2nd gen. In the early 90s, Mortal Kombat and Doom were huge, as you rightly pointed out. Sony jumped onto a bandwagon that was already in motion.

We saw the ''huge''sales of mature third party games on wii...;)

Actually I'm claiming its the IP that people have outgrown, not the company itself. I do still see Nintendo being able to turn things around. It just isn't happening yet.

What's more, your mortal kombat reference is irrelevant considering the games are NOT released on ninteo hardware but come to other consoles. 

@Curl-6: mature themes have been around since self awareness. I'd be a fool to pretend Sony invented mature games (seriously how did you come to that conclusion from my post?) I'm merely suggesting that PS1 released when I was very young and impressionable. Since that time, the IPs that have come to the platform have matured parallel to my tastes as well. I wasn't a youngin that instantly dived into GTA. 

@Zorg1000: I see your scenario as this - Disney is the brand. Pixar is a Dev team, Marvel is a Dev team, Disney animation, LucasArts etc. Saying Pixar needs to branch out from what they do is akin to saying infinity ward should branch out in what they do. Really we should be looking at the platform though, not the Dev team. Disney has multiple teams that deliver on a wide range of content aimed at a plethora of age groups. Nintendo has all these Dev teams but they don't explore new genres without making them, in my opinion childish.

I love smash, I love Mario kart, interested in the new LoZ and xenoblade looks sweet. Metroid is the only other title I find myself interested in though and a lot of that is just more of the same; not enough for me to warrant a purchase. I feel like these opinions are echoed by others too.