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Earlier I saw someone talking about Super Mario All Stars on SNES, and how it was a sort of meta representation of the way games on SNES were marketed. The same franchises everyone liked on NES, just new and improved. It got me thinking about the direction Nintendo has taken over the past 10 or 15 years, and to be honest, the same theory still applies.

The Switch is obviously a success as a console, but the situation with new IP still remains the same. The biggest recent Nintendo franchise is fucking Splatoon. Yes, it's a decent game, but compared to the vast collection of Nintendo franchises of the past, does it hold up when compared to giants like Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc? I don't think it does. New stuff is pretty scarce across the board, even when you look at releases on the Wii consoles and DS. Animal Crossing and Xenoblade are the only other two recentish ones I can think of that have any real potential to be future big sellers for Nintendo.

This is not the only issue with Nintendo franchises either. You expect to see a new Mario or Zelda game on a new console, but they basically ignore a lot of their other big games. As an example, how many Mario Kart games have been released since the GameCube? A fairly ridiculous amount. In contrast, there hasn't been an F-Zero release on console since the GameCube came out. The most recent F-Zero game came out in 2004 on Gameboy Advance. At this point, kids must play Smash and wonder why there is a character called Captain Falcon that isn't in any other Nintendo games. Star Fox is kind of similar, with over ten years in home console releases between Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Assault on GameCube, but by all accounts Star Fox Zero is pretty bad anyway.

Is Nintendo doing anything to combat this lack of new games? No. Their newest addition is Dragalia Lost, an ARPG released exclusively for mobile.
Earlier I saw someone talking about Super Mario All Stars on SNES, and how it was a sort of meta representation of the way games on SNES were marketed. The same franchises everyone liked on NES, just new and improved. It got me thinking about the direction Nintendo has taken over the past 10 or 15 years, and to be honest, the same theory still applies. The Switch is obviously a success as a console, but the situation with new IP still remains the same. The biggest recent Nintendo franchise is fucking Splatoon. Yes, it's a decent game, but compared to the vast collection of Nintendo franchises of the past, does it hold up when compared to giants like Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc? I don't think it does. New stuff is pretty scarce across the board, even when you look at releases on the Wii consoles and DS. Animal Crossing and Xenoblade are the only other two recentish ones I can think of that have any real potential to be future big sellers for Nintendo. This is not the only issue with Nintendo franchises either. You expect to see a new Mario or Zelda game on a new console, but they basically ignore a lot of their other big games. As an example, how many Mario Kart games have been released since the GameCube? A fairly ridiculous amount. In contrast, there hasn't been an F-Zero release on console since the GameCube came out. The most recent F-Zero game came out in 2004 on Gameboy Advance. At this point, kids must play Smash and wonder why there is a character called Captain Falcon that isn't in any other Nintendo games. Star Fox is kind of similar, with over ten years in home console releases between Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Assault on GameCube, but by all accounts Star Fox Zero is pretty bad anyway. Is Nintendo doing anything to combat this lack of new games? No. Their newest addition is Dragalia Lost, an ARPG released *exclusively for mobile*.

3 comments

[–] MirrorMan 2 points (+2|-0) Edited

The issue is Mario as a brand eats a lot of "new" games. They'll try a new genre entry but Mario brand it for extra name recognition. Mario and Rabbids kingdom battle is an example or Luigi's mansion. Hell even Captain Toad. At least Nintendo still makes games. Can't say the same about Valve for instance.

[–] PMYA [OP] 0 points (+0|-0)

I don't understand why they aren't looking at some of the games on PC and realising there is a huge market for certain types of games that they could be bringing under the Nintendo umbrella. Celeste, for example, got ported to Switch, but it is just one game in a very large pool of similar ones that are some of the most popular games on Steam.

The creators of Owlboy dubbed them "hi-bit", games like Shovel Knight, Bloodstained, Freedom Planet, Sonic Mania, Hyper Light Drifter etc. I don't get why Nintendo isn't looking at what's going on with those games and making some deals to get some third party exclusives on Switch. It seems like the easiest way to start building up some interesting new Nintendo series again.
[–] MirrorMan 0 points (+0|-0)

Celeste didn't get ported iirc, it launched on all systems simultaneously. But I could be remembering wrong. They ported over hollow knight and teased that before the switch even launched or very shortly after. Team Cherry just took their sweet time making those ports. Square stepped up with octopath traveler and a new SMT game is on the horizon.

The switch is becoming the platform all old games get ported to, like skyrim, doom, FF, and dark souls. The same goes for the genre games you are describing. Let them establish their success on PC then Nintendo swoops in and pays for a port and increased sales. That seems to be the model they are working with. Leveraging that the switch has a more niche market that would not already have the game on pc or use a pc to game.

But, there are a decent amount of new games too. Right now the only shitty console in the market is the Xbone. PS4, Switch, and of course PC all justify a purchase with their exclusives or capabilities.
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