It's been a long time since I've posted here! I come with a fresh opinion about the recent Nintendo conferences, I hope you enjoy it!
When Nintendo comes to mind I think of something like the Disney of video games, an entertainment company so big and experienced in making great works for all audiences that is a little difficult to see when it is really taking risks, I think Nintendo for some years has a serious disease that is diminishing many of its releases and especially their conferences, there are no surprises to highlight, game developments are very limited to justify the purchase at full price of a Switch and external developers do not seem to be too interested in the benefits that has the console of the Japanese giant, I think this has been clearer than ever in one of the most recent Nintendo Direct presentations, a conference where the projects that the company has in development are exposed, something like a space to give the first bites of hype to its fanbase but in recent years is much more a big Meh than a conference worthwhile, I can see another Mario Party, another version of Mario, a card game and some other interesting announcement that does not end up being too highlighting, What is going wrong with these Nintendo announcements?
My first hypothesis is the most common, the great wear that Nintendo has had battling with two big heavyweights in the industry such as Microsoft and Sony has cost them money that could have been used for smaller productions, but of course they had to have some super production to accompany the launch of Switch and it is not that this type of games are not lacking because they have announced that Bayonetta 3 is in development as well as Splatoon 3, but they don't look like games that would really make me buy one of these consoles, they don't look like the kind of games that would put Nintendo at the top and for quite some time now it shows, they are depending too much on what they can innovate in Mario or Zelda, the new Metroid that they are going to release maybe will mark a new cycle but so far Nintendo is going through one of its many problems, not having variety in terms of releases.
From the first Nintendo Direct announcements it seemed that Nintendo had left many of their most ambitious productions behind, but what they did do is bring back one of my favorite franchises! The new Kirby seems to be a re-imagining of the character I've been waiting for, a sort of Mario Oddyssey but with the pink ball as the central character, I was expecting a much more specific announcement with the inclusion of a new fighter in Smash but in the end they decided to give a talk about how "the team was working on it" and set another date to give this novelty.... I thought it was just another excuse to cover up the lack of coordination at Nintendo but there was still a lot left, the next big announcement was.... A Hyrule Warriors DLC with new story, why not, already at this point of the conference I was angry because Nintendo had sold us this event as something bigger than what it was, and in E3 they haven't been wet with the announcements either, we had to keep watching.
They announced a new game with a new IP but it seemed much more focused on the Japanese public being a card game where the strategy would have something to do (?), not even a trace of the new Metroid or Hollow Knight but oh there you have the compilation of the Gamecube games that being honest is not bad at all... If I didn't have to pay the price of a full game, yes it's true that most of these games have new features like online but come on Nintendo, you can't make me pay almost 60$ for a cheap remake of your games, you even look like EA in this aspect... Well, one news that did surprise me is that they have released the casting for the Mario movie and I think I will say without exaggeration that this was the best announcement of the whole live along with some gameplay of Bayonetta 3, in fact I am much more excited to see the Mario movie than any of the games that Nintendo has in the pipeline and that apart from being sad should be very worrying for their managers. Nintendo Switch has been a success from the first moment but if it is not backed up by games most likely all that success will go down the toilet, they still have time to fix it with the new Zelda but for me this has been a live show that has not been worth my time, I think it was much more productive to read about it in a post or a video on Youtube but here I am just watching half an hour of Nintendo pulling the classic without presenting too much, someday I will learn to let these conferences pass.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)