Despite presenting itself as a family-friendly company,Nintendohas a lot of problems. Sure, it is capable of serving up some of the most creative and quality-driven experiences the gaming industry has ever seen, and it generally has a higher bar for quality than most developers. However, beyond many of its exceptional releases, Nintendo employs a lot of negative business practices that not only hurt the consumer but could have a detrimental effect on the company’s consoles as well.
FromNintendo’s poor handling of the Switch 2to its rather overzealous approach to taking down fan projects or really anything remotely connected to its IP, it is clear Nintendo’s issues are nuanced and varied. However, while those are certainly disappointing,one of Nintendo’s worst business practices actually relates to its releases, at least its contemporary ones. As much as many of Nintendo’s recent slate of games have been truly amazing, there have been far too many that haven’t been great, and that’s thanks to Nintendo’s newfound approach to development.
BOTW To TOTK, Link’s Awakening To Echoes Of Wisdom
Recently,it has felt like a lot of Nintendo’s first-party titles are like an ouroboros of ideas consuming itself, circling back to the same tired ideas and formulas over and over again. Take, for example, theZeldafranchise, which, on the Switch alone, saw two open-world games with the exact same world and only slight variations on mechanics, as well as two old-school titles with the same art style and general gameplay mechanics. We’ve also had three practically identicalMario Partytitles, twoSplatoongames, fourXenoblade Chroniclesgames, twoBayonettagames, and many more sequels.
Of course, in many cases, these are sequels, and it is fair, in some cases, for those to be iterative rather than innovative. However, in a lot of cases,it feels like almost all of Nintendo’s first-party offerings are iterative sequels that lack the joy that made their predecessor so special.TOTKlacksBOTW’smagicthanks, in large part, to its iterative nature and reuse of its game world. EvenEchoes of Wisdom, which is, by all accounts, a very good game, loses some of its luster thanks to it bearing a striking resemblance toLink’s Awakening.
It isn’t that Nintendo needs to reinvent the wheel with every game it releases, but rather that, unlike its competitors that are focusing on new IP all the time, it sticks far too close to its familiar IP in the hopes that they’re all still bankable properties.
TheSwitchMario Partygamesare all fun, but they largely feel like extensions of one another. I don’t think it would be that unfair to callSuperstarsandJamboreemerely DLC forSuper Mario Party, as all they do is add new boards and slightly tweak the core mechanics. Again, it isn’t that Nintendo needs to reinvent the wheel with every game it releases, but rather that, unlike its competitors that are focusing on new IP all the time,it sticks far too close to its familiar IP in the hopes that they’re all still bankable properties.
Nintendo Is Too Reliant On Remasters & Remakes
They Dominate Nintendo’s Slate Of New Games
Of course, Nintendo is also infamous for itslove of remakes and remasters. The aforementionedLink’s AwakeningandMario Party Superstarsare remakes of older games. We also gotNew Pokémon Snapthat more or less remade the originalPokémon Snap, as well asremakes ofSuper Mario RPG,Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door,Mario vs Donkey Kong, andAdvance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp.
There were re-releases of numerous Wii U games likeMario Kart 8 Deluxe,Bayonetta 2,Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze,Super Mario Maker, and so many more, as well as a smattering of remasters likeXenoblade Chronicles,Xenoblade Chronicles X,Pikmin 3, andSkyward Sword. This isn’t to say that Nintendo hasn’t released a handful of genuinely great and original games. It dropped perhaps thegreatest RPG ever madewithXenoblade Chronicles 3, and even released a few truly original games likeAstral Chain.
However, that being said, the long list of Nintendo remakes and remasters on the Switch isn’t there just to hit the word count. It is to show the ridiculously obscene number of older titles Nintendo has relied upon in order to bolster its first-party offering.It rode on the coattails of games likeBreath of the WildandXenoblade Chronicles 3, hiding behind the goodwill generated from them as it re-released three oldMariogames everyone has already played as alimited-time bundle for $60. That has to stop.
The Switch 2 Needs More Original Games
Fresh Ideas Will Help Sell The Switch 2
Simply put,Nintendo cannot keep getting away with this terrible practice on the Nintendo Switch 2. To be absolutely clear, the problem isn’t Nintendo overly relying on its popular IP and releasing constant sequels, although that contributes to it. Rather, it’s Nintendo’s inability to focus on original projects, whether they be within existing IP or otherwise. What Nintendo needs on the Switch 2 is a strong library of original games that we could never see coming.
Fortunately, we’ve already seen evidence of this with one of the Switch 2’s launch titles.Donkey Kong Bananzalooks genuinely breathtaking and has all theoriginality ofBOTW, which is exciting.It’s a completely new premise for a character that hasn’t had his own game in quite some time, which is extremely refreshing.Mario Kart Worldlacks the same appeal, but at least it tried something new with its overly familiar formula. We also have the upcomingMetroid Prime 4: Beyond, which, again, while a sequel, is at least a new entry in a long-dormant franchise.
One solution to Nintendo’s originality problem is to give theSwitch 2 more mature games, as, currently, it is lacking more adult-oriented IP. While the likes ofXenoblade Chroniclesand, to a lesser extent,Fire Emblem, have sufficed, Nintendo could do with more to help soften the blow whenever it inevitably releases a slew of remakes and remasters again. I know Nintendo is capable of making original games. It did on the Switch, and it has many times before that. I just want to see more ofNintendo’soriginal side, and less of its dependence on nostalgia to generate revenue.
