Nintendo Nintendo's Consistency

Personally speaking, I've always followed the wise words "Delayed games are good eventually and rushed games are bad forever". I've always been a patient person when it comes to games and their release dates, so Nintendo's performance is perfectly fine for me.

Yes, they have done some experimental games and systems in the past, but nothing is always perfect. Sometimes we get coal from them instead of gems, and that's fine. You can't please everyone. In my opinion however, Nintendo has been doing a lot of good compared to other game companies recently, and I can respect them for going about developing fun games at their own pace.

 

In my eyes, Nintendo have always been pioneers. Sometimes their ideas and games work, and sometimes they don't. But I will always trust them to come up with new and exciting ideas, even if they don't always work.

 

IMO, Nintendo's games are pretty good. They've been trying their best to please the fanbase, and they're definitely known for being very experimental. They've made some questionable decisions sometimes, as I've heard, but even then things like Hey! Pikmin and Sticker Star aren't actually that bad, and are still pretty polished games even though they leave the regular formula of the series. They're definitely very experimental, and sometimes the fans don't like that, but I can appreciate their ideas. Nintendo really tries to make every game they put out as interesting as possible, whether or not the fans like it.
Right now? I'd say they're doing pretty great. Banjo&Kazooie, LM3, BOTW2... they're definitely hyping everyone up!

 

As far as Nintendo goes I think it is ok for them to be inconsistent and I would argue that is one of the things that make them a great company because they are not sticking with what everyone knows works. Otherwise we will end up with stagnation and/or clones of the same game COD, MADDEN. Innovation is one of the things that keep me watching Nintendo as a company and excited for anything new coming along. Granted there has been some failures: 'Hey you Pikachu' (I own this game it is terrible) but they have learned from them.

 

I don't even know if I'd call Nintendo inconsistent these days.
Their games in terms of gameplay always seems to be up there these days, especially on their big IPs on the Switch. As others said Nintendo has always been one for innovation and doing things differently which is nice, but especially compared to the Wii/Wii U transition days, Nintendo seems very keen on delivering quality most of all which is nice, especially in the current "day 1 patch"-era.
The only thing I could complain about Nintendo over the last like 3-4 years, is that some IPs kinda felt forgotten, like F-Zero.
But hey, if Metroid can make a comeback, there's hope for F-Zero, right?

 

Oh boy, here we go. Strap yourselves in, because things are going to get real messy...

I suppose I'll lead off with the short version so people can skip the rant if they want. The problem with Nintendo is that they treat video games like toys - as they were originally a company that produced toys, after all - and the two industries operate very differently, meaning a lot of their practices that would be fine for an old-style toymaker are absolutely awful for the video game industry. It's only been recently that they've started to come out of their bubble and realise that the market is completely different, but in other elements they are still woefully behind...like, stuck in the 90s behind. I honestly think that Nintendo's ability to be so in sync with fan expectations and desires is due more to habit than it is actively engaging with its fanbase - they haven't changed at all since their rise to popularity. Not even slightly. Nintendo don't really acknowledge that times have changed unless there is PHENOMENAL backlash to their decisions, and as the majority of their fans have grown up playing their games and are happy with more of the same (because of course nostalgia is a major driving factor in the game industry) most of them are pleased, because that is exactly what Nintendo delivers: their core IPs have barely changed. This isn't too surprising, as they are a Japanese company run mostly by an old guard of businessmen who are very set in their ways and generally resistant to any kind of change unless things start going dramatically wrong.

OK, now for the long version of that:

With some things, it is clearly all about the money, and it is downright scummy. Nintendo delight in deliberately understocking their products in order to artificially inflate demand - you only have to look at amiibo and the NES/SNES mini to see this, and the Wii if you want to go a little further back. It was practically impossible to get them during their initial release, and many amiibo are still ridiculously hard to find at a decent price. Their special editions of games are a complete fiasco, too. Amiibo are little better than glorified physical DLC, and whilst Nintendo have dialled back on this a bit with the Switch, it still concerns me that moving forward there are going to be more games like Samus Returns, which locked an entire difficulty mode behind an amiibo that sold out in seconds and is now ridiculously difficult to find.

But this is a classic toymaker mindset: they want their things to be as desirable as possible, and that takes precedence over accessibility. This is actually the same kind of manipulative thinking that goes into single-purchase cosmetic items in Western titles - it divides people into haves and have-nots, and makes the product more desirable for the latter. The end result is that there is a mass rush to purchase anything new that is released, so they're guaranteed to get through their initial shipment...and if they take their time, the second one too, as it becomes more desirable in the interim. That may sound like a conspiracy, but it is basic psychology and is widely exploited by any business that offers limited time items. It's not as blatant and obnoxious as these reviled AAA titles, but it's still there. But Nintendo have a reputation for high quality, which allows them to get away with these things.

As for their inconsistency with fan expectations and wants, especially with regards to their classic games library...god, I have no idea what they could be thinking with this. It makes absolutely no logical sense, from ANY perspective, to sit on such a potentially lucrative goldmine of classic games. Yes, the Virtual Console was horrendously flawed in its design in many ways, but one of those ways was in how titles were painfully drip fed over the years with some of the mostly highly desired titles - Pokémon Snap springs to mind here, as it was released with the Wii U's dying breath - deliberately held back...which is EXACTLY what Nintendo are doing right now with their woefully awful online service for the Switch, so the excuse of "they're just waiting a while so they can get it right" flies out the window. I am baffled as to how they think their service is acceptable the way it is; even the low cost doesn't justify the poor quality of the service, with its lack of features, lack of value, and painful lack of quality titles, being stuck as it is with NES titles at present...and for the last year. They seem to have this mindset that they need to start over from scratch with their eShop with every new device that they make, and it boggles the mind when you consider how good Nintendo have been in the past with backwards compatibility.

I suppose it IS their first online service, but I've seen this argument used in defence of the Epic Game Store's lack of features when compared to Steam - Nintendo Switch Online is the first real subscription-based service Nintendo have had, whereas Microsoft and Sony have been doing it for years, blah blah blah. But here's the thing: these services don't exist in a bubble. There is absolutely no reason as to why Nintendo cannot learn from XboxLive and Playstation Plus and provide a service for the Switch that can directly compete - because they ARE in competition with Sony and Microsoft, whether they care to admit it or not; they're in the same industry, competing for consumer time and resources - with those. Nintendo Switch Online is a disgrace, and it doesn't need to be, yet Nintendo are absolutely deaf to this.

...and you can't have it both ways. I get this desire to focus on new things, to always push forward and not devote time and resources to rehashing old content where it could better be used to develop new content, and to not drown these new games out by releasing old ones en masse. I really do understand that, and it makes perfect sense. But there is a blatant double standard in this, as the Switch is stuffed full of ports, remasters, and remakes from other companies, and even Nintendo themselves do this. They could, and should, hire other people to properly develop a storefront and bring these classic titles to the Switch if they are not prepared to do it themselves. This is basic practice and common sense, and they do it with their mainline video games all the time.

This is doubly insulting when you consider their hardline stance on piracy and copyright. It's bordering on anti-consumer, and it's a blatant spit in the face to fans - so what, we're just supposed to forget, go without, or pay disgusting amounts of money for original copies - that Nintendo IN NO WAY BENEFIT FROM - of classic titles? That's disgusting. I understand protecting your IP and copyright, but not making that available and attempting to eliminate all avenues to access it is disgraceful. There is a complete lack of care here.

The Switch itself is woefully lacking in features as well, and whilst I understand the desire to focus on games, there is again no reason why they cannot hire other people to do these things for them. The advantage to not having things like themes on the Switch is that it doesn't clog up the UI, but there is no excuse whatsoever for them to not provide support for platforms like Netflix and Discord and so on when plenty of people have said they would be willing to work with Nintendo to bring it about...and then there is their ridiculously convoluted and downright STUPID smartphone voice chat. You can't even brush that off as being aimed more at a Japanese audience. It's like something out of the 90s, with link cables and multiple devices and so on.

You can write all this off as Nintendo being Nintendo, or having a grander scheme in mind as they have in the past, but honestly I would explain most of it as incompetence or ignorance. They are either completely unaware of the market at large and their fanbase - which I find very difficult to believe - and just don't care because they know they have a reputation they can sit on and rely on to make profit, or they're incapable of making these changes themselves...and I find that more believable, honestly. Lack of ability seems a more likely explanation than lack of knowledge, and lack of caring is a difficult thing to quantify, because Nintendo has shown plenty of times that it does care about both fans and employees. Their stance on refusing to allow crunch to get games out on time is admirable, and their reputation for quality games is mostly well-deserved...even if their hardware has taken a hit with the Joycon problems they only acknowledge when facing a lawsuit.

Expecting Nintendo to be like Sony and Microsoft is unreasonable, but at the same time, Sony is a Japanese corporation that has adapted to modern times (although Sony has its own problems) and there is no reason whatsoever that Nintendo cannot do the same. They will always do things their own way, but that shouldn't come at the expense of consumer freedom or satisfaction - they exist to make money and they don't owe us anything, but part of making money is pleasing your consumers, and they should want to do that in the best way possible, especially with the reputation they have. Yes, you can't please everyone, and nor should you be at the beck and call of your customers. But that doesn't excuse a lot of their old guard thinking and downright disgusting business practices that have no place in the games industry. Tradition is a double-edged sword when you are completely resistant to change, and Nintendo are at least ten to fifteen years behind their competitors when it comes to this.

I realise a lot of this post probably sounds entitled, and I can acknowledge that Nintendo do not owe me or anyone else anything...which is perhaps why they don't rush to correct things unless their share prices start dropping. That said, when it comes to classic games I think they DO owe us the ability to play these titles officially if they are going to take such a hardline stance on piracy, at the very least, and I also think that they have some blatant double standards that mean when push comes to shove, a lot of their PR excuses for not doing certain things falls woefully flat, which is why people get so frustrated with them sometimes.

 

Outside of the sueing fan projects into oblivion just for existing.

I think they are doing quite ALRIGHT for themselves (sarcasm haha).

But seriously though I think the biggest reason for this is the switch and it's library of games which will kill the series X and ps5 this generation if something isn't done fast on sony or microsofts end which they have completely failed to do.