That's just how Nintendo prices their games. They never discount them, but they also release more or less complete games. I'm not complaining, since I can just sell my Wii U copy and pick this up for $40.

I'm starting to believe they are delaying their games on purpose. They saw the huge popularity for Switch and just said "why not delay our Christmas games to 2021?". Covid has a minor input on this, everything in Japan is open since May

As consumers, everyone here have right to be upset.

I personally don't care much because I own a nice catalog to play for at least 6 months (plus older games that I want to play and didn't buy yet for another half year) but I completely understand frustration of folks who are following Switch games (or even Wii U games before that) since day 1 and has been barely feed this year

And before someone come to rant about how Nintendo is doing the best from business standpoint: Good for them. As a gamer my priority is my own satisfaction while buying and playing games, whatever commercial strategy Nintendo uses to maximize their profit isn't my concern and I don't get why folks are so eager to defend a company decision as if they were shareholders or something

I'm done, its literally late August and we still don't know shit about the holiday season. Nintendo has been so unprofessional this whole year and I'm done with it. They're a bunch of sociopaths who literally don't give a fuck about what fans think.

but whats if there is a direct next week

the plot

So you think a company that predominantly profits by selling software has consciously chosen not to release new software for a year, because it is currently selling lots of lower-profit-margin hardware? In other words, Nintendo is deliberately choosing to make less money as it heads in to what has always been its most profitable quarter?

I've always fully agreed that Nintendo is just as greed-driven as every other international corporation, but are we now also thinking they're even stupider than they are greedy? I just want to be sure we're all of the same page regarding Nintendo's sins. Because from where I'm standing, I see a modestly-sized software developer which frontloaded its console releases, and which (for reasons I confess to not understanding fully myself) has decided to not yet make the announcements it presumably had ready for its E3 presentation.

The latter may be a tad annoying from a personal perspective, but having long since mastered Object Permanence I am confident that my not knowing about a game's existence does not nullify that game's existence.

Switch software sales are now record-breaking, they don't need many new games, maybe one or two releases for Christmas and that's about it. Delaying games they will make people buy from an already very attractive catalog. 

Sure, people who bought Switch in 2017 and 2018 already bought everything they want and wants something new, but what about the over 25 million customers who bought Switch the last 12 months? They definitely are considering buying some older games

Move one or two AAA releases from Q4 2020 to Q1 or Q2 2021 won't really hurt long-therm software sales. Look at Animal Crosing, were its sales hurt from a 4 months delay? 

Nobody is saying the games don't exist, only saying they won't be released soon. I see no reason to just announce Pikmin 3 deluxe as a October 30th release if they have a big host of releases for Q4. It's clear they don't plan to release many games for this Christmas season, even if the new Nintendo Direct is true (which I believe it is) I'm sure it will be much more focused on 2021 releases than 2020 releases 

This is the problem. For all the whining in this thread, I bet none of them have even begin to scratch the surface in regards to all the gems sprawled throughout the Switch libabry. Once again, its this behavior of if its not Nintendo or a specific 3rd party games(not just general 3rd party contrary to what 2 gens this crap preached) then theres a drought. A "dark abyss".

Has anybody here considered that Nintendo is not in the hurry to announce any new titles because they are confident that Switch's large library will carry them to the holidays with ease and they do no expect Switch owners to flat out reject most library?  

We all love our Indies games. I own as many Indies on my Switch as I do full blown AAA games. So do a lot of other users in this thread. The problem is we want our Indie games, and our First Party Nintendo games. If all we cared about was 3rd party Indies, and  3rd party multiplat AAA games, then we wouldn't have bought a Switch. And remember that all that the users in this thread are asking for is one, big holiday Nintendo game that is not a port. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

Instead, we're likely to just get Pikmin 3 and 3D World Deluxe for the holiday season.

Oh well. Maybe 2021 will be a massive year to make up for it. Maybe we'll see Bayo 3, BotW2, Odyssey 2, Yokai Watch 4, Bravely Default 2, NMH3, SMTV, and Xenoblade 3?

If Nintendo is really looking out for number one though, a third-party's software only nets Nintendo a licensing fee (which can be pretty small if the game is a $10 indie game), while one of Nintendo's own releases nets it most-or-all of the purchase price. And I hope we can agree that the early purchasers of the system are likelier to be some of the more voracious content consumers (i.e. they're likelier to buy more games than people who hop on later): they probably want to buy more games than new owners, and there's no promise they'll have the money or interest to buy double the games come Spring.

If Nintendo chooses to largely skip this holiday season then, it's effectively surrendering who-knows-how-many hundreds of millions in lost profits. Sure, individual games might still do quite well if they're delayed -Animal Crossing is a great example!- but Nintendo as a whole has likely lost some money. A consumer might have the money to buy a game every two or three months, but unless these consumers have the discipline to skip the holiday season and spend the same money in the Spring instead they'll probably just plunk their money down elsewhere (maybe on a third-party title, or a rival, or even outside of gaming entirely).

Essentially, I don't think it's logical to believe that Nintendo will willingly cede its most profitable quarter. Its tentpole releases might fare alright, but it will still result in leaving a LOT of money on the table.

All of that said, I do confess to not understanding what Nintendo is thinking. Rol has suggested in this thread that announcements and releases can/have been condensed, so perhaps what we're seeing here is what current Nintendo leadership would actually prefer, but wasn't able to do in past years because of the pressure to go to E3? A long time ago, before E3 really took off, it reserved many of its announcements for Spaceworld, which were held as late as November (!!!) but later stabilized to the end of August.

I'm not really alarmed by Pikmin 3's announcement; it's a remake of a B-tier game, so announcing it now can feasibly be interpreted as being alright with giving the announcement some space to breathe. It would certainly be overlooked if it was announced alongside a new Zelda/Mario/other big release.

That said, if we get to the end of September without a holiday lineup getting announced, I'd be willing to concede that Nintendo has opted to vacate the rest of the year.