Avoiding Next Gen Game Droughts at Nintendo

Nintendo trying not to fall into the very trap Sony made with the ps5

God, I hope Nintendo doesn't fall into the same drought trap like how Sony and Microsoft did. Stylized graphics > Hyper-realistic graphics

I think they'll be just fine if they stick to their ideology of gameplay first, no putting too much resources into insane action setpeices, making a world as realistic as possible or cranking the graphics as high as they can go (which they have abundant proof most of their customers don't care about those things).

Still baffles me how we've gotten to the point where games are pushing to 300 million budgets. Granted the Spider-Man game used most of that unsecuring the rights to use Spider-Man and Miles Morales but it does set a precedent no matter how you look at it. The more expensive games get the more pressure there is to succeed and the less likely we will get smaller games made on more conservative budgets, at least that's how I thought for a little while but I think the industry will self-correct as time goes on. Nintendo seems to have had some foresight on this and they are sticking to their conservative history of budgeting there projects very well. I can only help the rest of the industry picks up on this as I don't want to see a massive crash.

Good point that a strong latter day lineup for Switch can impact the successor. I'd add that seamless backwards compatibility can mitigate this damage quite a bit. Marketing could suffer a bit from these not being "new games", but as long as they're on the shelves and easy to play on the new system the Switch 2 can probably get away with a less meaty lineup then 2017.

This was Satoru Iwata's prediction -- as consoles become more complex, development time and budget soar, leading to the 5+ year waiting that Sony and Microsoft fans face. What's worse, when the game doesn't sell like hotcakes, the studio gets shut down like Tango Gameworks. Meanwhile, the more graphically limited Switch is a haven for indie and AA games with Nintendo releasing a new first-party game practically every month!

After that last direct I’m not worried anymore about game droughts They had this much left in the switch tank I can’t imagine what they got for switch 2

Great video! A few things though... At 18:03, instead of discussing Luigi's Mansion 4 and Next Level Games, you repeat what you said about Sakurai and an Ultimate port (like you may have accidentally left in a different take). Also, and this is a nitpick, but regarding remakes and their original versions on Switch, I do want to point out that the original Link's Awakening was added to NSO a few years after the remake released!

Compared to the wiiu Nintendo managed to keep a good launch line up with the switch. I hope they can keep the same pace with their next console.

Nintendo will inevitably have less games, simply because they don't have as many eays wii U ports to plug holes like they have with the Switch. There's still some left but if the new console is backwards compatible... welp. There's more Gc ports to go through i guess.

I’m pretty sure Xenoblade 1 DE was a remaster rather than a remake. As for Smash, the next game likely started development early last year considering how Sakurai’s YouTube output slowed down that summer & he usually films his videos in batches months in advance. So 2026 would be more likely for release, maybe early 2027 if they need extra time. The only time they fully started from scratch was 64 -> Melee anyway. The next game also wouldn’t be an enhanced port, as Sakurai made it clear on his YouTube channel that he’s against doing that. He wants each Smash game he works on to be distinct, hence us getting Brawl over Melee HD during the Wii era. So a soft reboot is the most likely path forward.

I genuinely think they will have a very strong lineup for the "Switch 2" going from launch in the first half of 2025 to Holiday 2026. Based on giving studios a 3-5 year time for making a "big Nintendo Game" Many of the games released in the last few years and finishing up development now were made partially during the peak of the Pandemic which resulted in a large period of time where development slowed to a crawl and were delayed due to the change in working remote which likely caused a longer period of bug fixing and polishing as individual developers had less/slower communication and collaboration while remote. For instance, Tears of the Kingdom was likely originally planned for a Holiday 2021 release but the slow development and increase in bugs caused from the Pandemic and shift to remote working for over a year most likely necessitated an 18 month delay from it's original launch. Aonuma even said they pushed it back a whole year from spring 2022 just to squash bugs and polish the game, something that likely wouldn't be necessary if the Pandemic never happened. A game like Pokémon SV, which spent 1/2 to 2/3 of its development time under "Peak Pandemic" and was an absolute mess because of it. I bring this up, because many studios working on Switch 2 titles had those titles begin work after the Pandemic functionally became a thing of the past starting in early 2022. This will allow for a 3-5 year development time to be very reasonable and the follow-ups to many titles relased since 2020/2021 to find thier way to Switch 2 by Holiday 2026. Studios that released titles between the end of 2020 till early 2023 will likely have something for the Switch 2 before it's big second holiday.

This is why i don't want loads of open world games i just want semi open world because they take less time to develop I also don't want a 80 hour game loved breath of the wild but tears of the kingdom bored me. i already explored that world the underground didn't have a lot in it either

I wish they make the console more attractive to 3rd party devs. Sucks when all the cool games are everywhere except the Switch.

The Switch's launch year was an anomaly. Nintendo fills much of their yearly lineup with AA & smaller games & doesn't release a lot of AAA games anymore. However in 2017, they not only released 2 x AAA games but 2 x AAA games in their 2 biggest franchises in Zelda & Mario. Even though that's unlikely to happen again, there's at least a good chance we'll still get 2 x AAA games in the Switch 2 launch year, only this time it'll be new Mario + Metroid Prime 4 😁

I half kid when I say this but both wii Switch launched with a cross gen Zelda title and they are far and away their most successful systems to date. It's like their good luck charm. The next gen system won't have a 3d zelda game for a long time.

This is the #1 most important topic at least for Nintendo. This channel is just on another level man

What Nintendo does that the other two don't now is learn from their mistakes, they have not been afraid to change gears and address problems that come up. Including how they handled the Wii U's loss, they did'nt give up but instead rexamined what they were trying to do and convey it better with the Switch. The most important thing they've done with the Switch era is not try to chase the trends Sony and Microsoft currently are right now. And when those two rushed out their own new consoles during the pandemic they did'nt follow with theirs. Instead they remained paitent and relied on the Switch's sales to flow through it. And because they've done that now they get to take their time with the next console and make sure it does everything they want it too properly. And more importantly make sure game's are avaliable for it on launch, we've also been hearing they like to sit on projects until just the right time, meaning they have things 90-100% ready to go if their facing long development for a big game. And there's a good chance they still have things they made during this era that have'nt been released, that can now be moved to the Switch 2 to help fill out the library. Bottom line they've got a good game plan going and I don't see them slowing down on it.

Nintendo most likely has some filler titles for their weaker months or years of Switch 2. like some remakes, ports and a party game not named Mario Party. IMO I hope the years with fewer of their big titles in the Switch 2 era give us more of there smaller series in those months like Star Fox and the like.

12:03 Can’t forget f-zero 99, I poured more time into that than Mario wonder