Ah you're one of those "how do they keep getting away with making more Mario games?" people.
The secret is that they don't release mainline games very often. You don't get a new one every year. You get one every 3-4 (or Metroid 6-10) years.
And when you do get a new installment it's just as fun and joyful as the previous ones.
They do need to get their shit in gear with the online stuff though. And emulation. They could and probably should acquihire a few companies to deal with those. If they made their entire back-catalog available on an official emulator that works one this and the next generation console, they'd be set forever.
Though they've already got enough cash in the bank to run for 50 years even if they stopped all new sales.
no, i'm not. that's not what i'm talking about at all. what i'm talking about are poor features within their games, which are typically centered around the online and multiplayer aspects but also others as well. for example, the new animal crossing: new horizons is chock-full of these types of things. their games are indeed fun but they can also contain extremely frustrating elements. nintendo's fanbase is even more rabid than the likes of apple, and so frustrating elements get washed out, so to speak, in the community.
and as you point out, these games undergo long development cycles. it's generally unacceptable that they don't take care of these issues or add on more to their games.
I'm a huge Nintendo fan because, despite glaring problems, the kind that warrant a special Nintendo-specific eye-roll, their games and consoles also offer stuff others don't. The highs make the lows tolerable.
I absolutely hate so much about New Horizons, and most of it is 'typical' Nintendo. Bad online/multiplayer, endless repetitive dialogue gating core functionality, and weird hardware limitations (two people on one Switch? enjoy a single shared island!).
And yet here I am playing it about as much as I played Stardew Valley back when that was 'hot'.
Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?
i find the "people value things differently" a lazy way to dismiss objective issues people have with the products.
> Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?
in a way yes. i'm playing the game too btw. i'll stop soon because the stuff i feel they were lazy and/or stubborn on is starting to really wear on me. if they would have just applied even a modicum of effort to the multiplayer aspect and upgrades to the game, then animal crossing: new horizons would be an amazing game. instead, families are out buying entire new switch consoles just to be able to enjoy a game, among other things. so please tell me what other gaming company could get away with that? just the one-to-one relationship between island and console alone is enough to go insane, not to mention how confusing it is to understand before purchasing a switch and game in the first place. what other modern game do you know of that's like that, where a game instance / save file is forever tied to a single console? that's just one issue. i honestly do not know of a single company that could get away with it besides nintendo because (1) people have to come to expect inanity from them in these aspects and (2) since it's nintendo.
other companies, that people don't like, like activision, EA, ubisoft, etc., will get raked over the coals if they do something gamers don't like. of course, a lot of that is with microtransactions these days, which are horrible, but they will also get called out on other aspects. usually, those companies will at least attempt to address it because they're forced to. nintendo only addresses what they want, and they absolutely refuse to address online play in a sensible way. and their fanbase just roles with it and will downplay issues. they have online issues in every single game they release, and it nearly ruins the games. it's why i don't play splatoon, mario kart, or super smash online much or at all anymore. they make it way too difficult to do so, so much so that i stop playing the wonderful games.
It should have been a true open world, with real-time battles. Basically Breath of the Wild, but you can deploy Pokemon instead of different weapons.
