Since they're in the news atm, the Horizon games both launched at a bad time, right before BotW and Elden Ring. Launching in Februari and still losing all its hype to the much more highly anticipated games.

Another game that released too early is From Dust. Launching in 2011 on PS3 and 360 very much restricted the level size. The mechanics are awesome, held back by the small map size. It could have been an epic original strategy game like Populous the beginning, instead it felt more like a demo.



It was fun playing in the sandbox but quickly lost its appeal bouncing of the map bounderies all the time. Imagine it releasing today with multiplayer and large sprawling maps. 

But those weren't so much the wrong time as the wrong hardware.

While Gamecube being nothing more than a PS2 Clonebox is well documented:

“There was an era when Nintendo was going in the direction of doing the same things other companies did. The more we competed with new companies entering the market, the more we started acting similar to them. But is being number one in that competition the same as being number one with the general public? That’s the question we had. Entertainment is something that you have to look at the world with a very wide eye as you create it. I always thought that, but there were a few years where I was unable to get off other people’s trends. It was a dilemma in my mind.

I was endlessly fascinated with 3D worlds, but what with all the issues I had to tinker with in terms of rendering and processing speed, it got to the point where I didn’t know who was making the games any longer.

This is a job where you have a plan and you polish it endlessly while getting help from others. If Nintendo’s games fail to stand out as games that aren’t made that way proliferate, then it shows that the creation process is for nothing, which made me very sad. That was especially obvious during the GameCube era; Nintendo titles were hardly even discussed by the [non-gaming] general public back then.” – Shigeru Miyamoto

The Wii U shortcomings are still often written off as inconsequential and (for example) people find it peculiar why Mario Kart 8 failed to supplant Mario Kart Wii and 7, when Mario Kart 8DX did it easily... clue - it was the hardware, the game was a considerably different experience having the ability to get up to 12 players local with a WiFi connection (or 8 with Bluetooth). And I'm not sure Nintendo really commented on it the way they did with Gamecube. The main problem was not that Wii U was copying competitors this time... but there are a few reasons we've discussed in this forum in the past - everything from the clunky controller, to the fact that there was only one proper controller per console with the justification of "asymmetrical gameplay" not being a compelling answer to forcing it on people, to the very very slow loading which they improved to very slow, and then finally just slow after a console (Wii) that was lighting fast.

When you're talking about games on Gamecube and Wii U, you're talking about hardware that wasn't very desirable to play on. And Nintendo has learned the hard way that copying competition is not a path to victory. They became the most powerful brand in gaming history by doing two things antithetical to the Gamecube and Wii U: by being the trendsetters, and by using tried and true technology in new and novel ways → Gamecube wasn't a trendsetter, and Wii U while novel, felt more like a failed prototype glossed up and thrown on the market - Wii U was to Switch as the N-Gage was to iPhone... if Nokia made the iPhone.

Concerning Tears of the Kingdom, it's Direct had the worst timing ever in the UK, less than a week after the Queen died. Of course with a title that pretty much reflected how the UK was feeling due to the death of the Queen, Nintendo UK didn't broadcast the direct on their channel until 2 months later out of respect.

With Gamecube, it was not the hardware. That system was more powerful than the PS2, and in some ways, even more powerful than Xbox. It was gamer-attitudes at the time. People wanted mature titles like GTA, MGS... things like that. Nintendo games were viewed as kiddy and dismissed without even a single glance. It didn't matter how great the games were, the young players of that era simply weren't having it. If it was Nintendo, it was for your kid sister or brother. It was for dorky losers. And no amount of arguing could change that.

With Wii-U, it was still sort of like that, only less about the maturity of the titles and more just gamers not wanting to play them. It wasn't until Switch that suddenly, Nintendo was "cool" again; something we hadn't seen since perhaps the NES.

Speaking of the Wii, Zack & Wiki was a terrific little game for it, that released less than two weeks before Mario Galaxy, and predictably got completely overshadowed.

Stranglehold on PS3/360 was also a really fun action game, but released into a year so packed with amazing games that it just couldn't compete.

Lego The Hobbit still stings. My wife and I got to 100% in that game but it still feels unfinished. Never gonna get that sense of closure.

Still one of the better Lego games, though. And the local co-op is amazing on WiiU — since one player uses the GamePad and the other has the TV to themselves.

I know it is also related to which platform it came out on, but I think the timing of Xenoblade Chronicles X was really poor, 2015 on the Wii U, when the system was already dead. Would have worked out better, had it come earlier. Then waiting a full decade before bringing it to the Switch mere months before the Switch 2 release, and without much fanfare. Given the scope of that game, I think the potential for sales was much bigger.

Of course same goes for Panzer Dragoon Saga, only ever being released on the Saturn in the last year of its support. That game could have been a massive hit.

I think also Alien: Isolation could have done even better had it been released now. The survival horror genre has really exploded in popularity in the past 6-8 years

How it wasn't a Switch 2 exclusive or has a Switch 2 Edition is beyond me. 

Thinking about it some more, I think Starlink: Battle for Atlas may be a poster child for this; if it has released during the toys-to-life craze of 2011-2015 I could see it doing quite well, but releasing in 2018 as it did it was DOA.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr's Journey was also a case of being a game too late to the party, releasing exclusively on the 3DS nearly two years after the Switch came out, and ultimately contributed to Alphadream closing their doors.