How Long Nintendo Holds Back Finished Games
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- Опубліковано 1 гру 2024
- yeh
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New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is the funniest example possible. That game was rated in October 2017, didn't come out until January 2019. In fact, it was so done, that in the credits, it still had Tatsumi Kimishima as the executive producer instead of Furukawa, a stark contrast to some 2018 games like Smash Ultimate and (I think) Let's Go where those had Furukawa as the executive producer. Therefore, it went gold more than six months before release.
I never noticed that this is hilarious
Pokemon, let's go, was confirmed to have started development when Pokemon go was released.
Feels like NSMBUD was the back-up title in case Smash slipped out of the holiday window.
@@nintendoforecast or they realize they didnt have a mario game after odyssey
Hey Jon! Everyone here!
Glad you did this video as ive told people this before and they don't believe me even though its obvious sometimes like i reckon metroid prime remastered was finished about 6 months before release and weve had rumours for years the a Mario odyssey 2 is practically finished but being held back for something? Obviously switch 2 at this point if it exists which speaking of im curious how many games devs have that they just couldn't quite get running on switch 1 that will be quickly ported to switch 2? Off the top of my head i can see a lot of capcoms last gen games getting ports like resident evil and monster hunter
Jon the Woz
This is a mark of a very healthy business. They fine tuned the art of managing dozens of developers, each with games of varying scales, planned years in advance that they never ran out of releases. This is also probably due to decades of having separate home and console divisions, now that those are consolidated, they probably ended up with way more resources than any other company would have.
And there all mediocre
@afxquest6167 they're* and its subjective.
Also I'm sorry that you find them mediocre it must suck to not enjoy something that others do.
@ the only good games that are worth 60$ is Zelda,Luigis mansion and 3D Mario the rest are overpriced phone games
@@afxquest6167Ah yes, Xenoblade Chronicles 1 2 and 3, action RPGs with great visuals, in-depth combat systems, extensive stories and expansive worlds, with zero micro-transactions, the common example of a cheap mobile game.
@@afxquest6167ah yes luigis mansion 2 hd, the pinnacle of what id spend 60$ on
Look, this may be a hot take, but I think it's great they sit on games like that. It's just good management!
It allows proper time for polishing without death marches.
And it helps players both "always have something to play" and "never have too much to play"
It sucks not being able to talk about them for portifolio reasons, but thats commom in the whole industry.
I think it's a terrific practice and part of the secret to "nintendo polish" (the other part being proper scoping)
I completely agree! Though in most cases, once a game is done, the team will move on to another project rreally quickly and not really polish it for years and years.
@MelonSpeedruns it depends on the game most likely.
For big games the team can remain to work on polish and potential DLC
For other games, the team may be downsized for polish as most of the team moves on.
Or it goes as you said. Game is done, everyone moves on.
But to have that extra time without the stress for a close release date DEFINITELY helps in all cases IMO.
Completely uninitiated in business here, what’s scoping?
@@joshuajames5707scoping is basically how big or how many features your game will have. A good game lead should be able to properly predict how many features a team can fit into a game in X amount of time and budget. A common pit fall of many game studios is over-scoping (meaning trying to add too many features) leading to delays, crunch, and unpolished games. Examples of Over-scoping are games like Star Citizen, Cyberpunk, and Fallout 76
Edit: another term you might hear that means the same thing is "feature creep". A reason Nintendo is usually pretty good with keeping in scope is that they always pitch games based exclusively on features, meaning they'll go into a project already knowing what will be the main gameplay mechanics and if they are possible. They also focus on a few major features and heavily develop them. Recent examples would be the sheikah ruins and physics system of Botw or Cappy Transformations in Mario Odyssey
@@joshuajames5707if you're interested in game development or just find it interesting I would highly reccomend going to DoubleFine's youtube channel and watching their 20+ hour documentary on the making of psychonauts 2 called "psychodyssey". It is probably the best documentary ever made and is the video game equivalent of the behind the scenes films of The lord of the rings
Checked the website out for Metroid Prime Remastered - the game was rated on July 27th, 2021 but released in February 2023
Quick, we must find the rating for Prime 2 Remaster
@@Zerolink30 well since there are no games coming out in December 2024, and we only have donkey kong in January, we can assume Metroid will come back in February, or Kid Icarus, or Odyssey 2
@@JeskidoYT there is no way in hell we are getting a new 3D mario for the current Switch, give up
@@SylampExactly. They’re going to give the fans that Windwaker remaster they’ve been begging for, just so the Nintendo influencers have that to talk about rather than the Switch 2 while we wait for another year. As for Switch 2 launch titles : New Mariokart, 3D Donkey Kong, Ocarina of time Remake. Metroid prime 4 native version. Breath of the wild/Tears of the Kingdom native version (at higher resolution and 60fps) as for 3rd party games : probably Hollow Knight Silksong. I’m convinced that game has been ready for a long time but will be timed exclusive or release alongside switch 2. And I wouldn’t be suprised to see Final fantasy 7 remake. Alongside maybe street fighter 6 or tekken 8.
Remastered and remade games without any new content like Metroid Prime Remaster, Another Code, Advance Wars and Luigis Mansion can get their rating far in advance.
Nintendo actually said TotK was completed a year ago before release. Wild stuff.
Content complete, yes. But they still did a ton of polishing after that.
I don't remember reading that anywhere... source?
@@mastropieros it was one of those developer interviews, but I can’t link it here without UA-cam flagging me for spam.
@Neoxon619 Watch the Nintendo delay of totk. It's in the official channel.
@@Neoxon619 UA-cam flagging everything is so annoying lol.
I think this also just shows how efficient Nintendo is as a developer with their close partners, the fact that they can have these games ready for years, and can continue to keep dropping games afterwards with such a steady stream of great games
"Concord (nothing)"
ouch...
Maybe the real Concord was the friends we made along the way.
This is the comment was looking for. They tried the same approach and failed 😂
Concord? More like Concordia! M&L for the win
I mean, the game only lasted two weeks. That's way more of an ouch than anything we could say
Plot twist MP4 has been finished for years
Probably
There were people talking about how it's basically done like a year ago
Imagine seeing a random tweet in the middle of the night:
Nintendo of America:
"Hello, Furukawa here. We finished development on Metroid Prime 4: Beyond ... three years ago! I've been playing it over and over unlike you, losers. Unfortunately currently we have no release date because I don't give a damn. However, please stay tuned for new announcements and go cry into your anime waifu pillows while you eat chips in bed. Goodbye!"
Prob been cooking a Switch 2 patch or release or whatever
@@adam145 LMAO
This video in a way ties into another video Jon made about most Nintendo games not needing an update/patch past its 1.0 release
One time Nintendo did announce that their game went Gold was with TotK. Aonuma mentioned it at the start of his gameplay demo in late March 2023.
The long gap for FE Engage specifically kinda makes sense when you think about Three Hopes' release. Since Three Hopes ties in with Three Houses, they didn't want to disrupt that synergy by announcing a shiny new FE game between them. Three Hopes released in June 2022, and Engage was announced at the very next Direct (Sept 2022).
ToTK was done before that.
Aonuma said that the game was nearly finished when they delayed it in March 2022, but they decided to give it more time to polish. That's different than "going gold," which means that it's ready for release.
@@jullicent So it was ready to release but they decided to give it extra time for polish? That's what Nintendo always do, bud. Mario Odyssey was done an year before the release date and they took that time to polish it till the release of the Switch. You think of going gold as an universal "it is done" state. It is not, it is just the version that is going to be printed on discs.
Yeah I’m still bitter about no Three Hopes DLC 😭
Anyway, quick reminder that Fire Emblem Engage is actually pretty great.
Great video btw
Amazing combat for sure. Story is eh, but still enjoyable and adorable with cute characters.
Yeah it’s crazy how much they pushed it back bc of Three Hopes, and then scrapped the Hopes DLC probably bc Engage was right around the corner 😪
engage was done years before release. they love saving games for the right moment. This is probably a reason why leaks happen often
If you look back at their history Nintendo pretty much had the same problem Sony and Microsoft are having now, they'd go for very long stretches without games releasing and clearly someone at the company took notice and are doing their hardest to fix it.
@@Cloud-dt6xb It really helps nintendo for the longest time had seperate divisions for console and handheld games but with the switch and the end of the 3ds they were basically able to combine those teams and now they have a ton more to work with.
@@Cloud-dt6xbthis was a problem for the wii u because they had a lot of trouble with developing hd games for the first time
@@gobbagoo Exactly so it makes sense that they'd want to avoid that.
That was an exception since they pushed it back so as to not interfere with the release of Three Hopes
I think this is also why Nintendo games do not need large day 1 patches.
Other developers rush games out of the door, whereas Nintendo make sure the game is polished and playable on the day of release.
Indeed. I'd much rather companies release a finished game than pushing something unfinished out of the door. Before patches and the like I remember Shigeru Miyamoto saying something like - a bad, unfinished game is bad forever, but a good game is good forever. Something along those lines. Meaning, though, that you take your time to finish a game, that it plays well etc and people will remember it as a good game. You release a bad game, one that is unfinished, has compromises because it's rushed out, and it will stay that way, forever to be "bad". Of course companies rely far too much on the internet now - it's an excuse to rush unfinished games out because they can "finish" it in patch.
Watching this as a fire emblem fan is so funny. I remember the times when the community started growing crazy from a lack of news, and knowing the game may have been fully completed back then... Imagining that there might even be a fully complete unannounced game NOW??? I don't know whether that prospect is exciting or tragic- a little bit of both, I think.
To be clear I think this is a good practice to ensure a consistent flow of games. It's just that as a fan I'm greedy and want more NOW lol
As a fellow Fire Emblem fan. It could be that they are sitting on a completed game. Especially since Codename Iron18 is missing. Three Houses is Iron17 and Engage is Iron19. (Note that only mainline games use Iron codenames and the missing Iron13 codename was likely used for the scrapped second Wii game).
I love Fire Emblem and will be so excited whenever the next game does get announced. But, at this point, I'm kind of hoping that the next game will be on the next console, so I'm good with continuing to wait
Hoping that FE4 remake is real and they're just waiting until we're far enough away from Engage to announce it
@@athorem we're more likely to get a remaster of Awakening or Fates than an FE4 remake.
I think the reason they waited so long to release Engage is just because they wanted to announce and sell Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes first. Engage came out 6 months after Three Hopes, they didn't want to release them right next to each other.
I think the same thing applies to TTYD remake and Mario and Luigi Brothershop, they didn't want to release multiple Mario RPGs at the same time.
"Brothershop" ha ha.
We've kinda been in Mario RPG overload lately.
So you're saying there's a chance that a new Eternal Darkness with HD Rumble support has been lying in the vault for five years. Got it
Eternal Darkness was crazy good. Very unique, and has decent replayability. It's one of these experiences I will never forget. Like, for instance, I could have enjoyed RE4 more at the time, but when I think back, ED was so much more unique. No other game offered this kind of experience, not even close.
Nintendo is looking for partners to release HD remasters of a bunch of games for the Switch in 2025, since a lot of people will not make the jump to the next gen right away. So yeah, you can dream about it being part of the list.
Well they finished starfox 2 and never released until the snes mini because the N64 was already a thing so maybe
@@FalcoLombardi-zt8ov I'm still kicking myself for trading in that game. I played through it three times to get the full ending (can't even remember much now!) and thought that that was it for the game for me, and traded it in. Now I'd love to play it again.
@@roberthaynes8830 I think I finished ED at least 7-9 times or something, and discovered everything that was possible. I too can't play it now. I sold my Gamecube and all the games many years ago. I would love to replay it now if it releases somehow. And some people said here, there could be a chance.
People theorized that FE1 was translated because FE Engage wasn’t done in time for the anniversary, so I guess that isn’t true
Other teams releasing unfinished games while Nintendo got it licked well enough to have them done for years ahead of time? That actually explains a lot
One of the reasons that most AAA games nowadays take so much time and money to make is because most AAA franchises have a realistic art style, the franchises are designed to be harder to make.
Nintendo's franchises on the other hand almost all have either a cartoony art style or an anime which is much easier to make, that allows nintendo to make a lot more games in a lot less time, and the budgets are also much smaller, so spin-offs and smaller games are much less risky
The scope of most Nintendo games is also much smaller. Outside of Mario, Zelda and Metroid the games don't take 50 hours to beat.
@derrickduplessy215 That's true, most AAA game developers nowadays try to make games way too long without actually making the content in those hours fun instead of making a short game where at least most of the game is great.
I just played Sonic x shadow generations, the Shadow part of the game is only 5 hours long but those 5 hours are amazing.
With the exception of RPG because of course those games are long, make those as long as the story needs
@@derrickduplessy215 well, Fire Emblem and Xenoblade are definitely longer than all 3 of those. The scale of Xenoblade is insane in general, but even moreso when you consider the relatively short development time, less powerful hardware, and smaller development team size compared to other consoles’ AAA titles. They’re also the reason so many other AAA Nintendo games can run the way they do. Monolith Soft is full of technical wizards
God I love engage, it really did feel like the most polished game ever. I expect the genealogy remake or 3H style sequel next but I would kill for another Fates-Engage style game.
In the case of Another Code, Advance Wars and Luigis Mansion, these games were remakes or remasterds so they didn't have any new content to work on. Therefore they could get the rating way earlier in development.
Nintendo is like a Mastered Super Saiyan Goku, they trade raw graphical power for efficient development.
Playstation is like Ultra Super Saiyan Trunks, they focus too much on raw power at the cost of having too few games.
And I guess Microsoft is like Cell who basically justs absorb other people to themselves.
This might not be the case with Switch 2 due to increased development costs. However there will be Switch 1 games released between Switch 2 games.
Morocrosoft
Comment of the year.
While Nintendo does obviously sit on games for a while, thus why they can announce a game and release it in four months, Fire Emblem Engage is definitely a weird case because of the pandemic. The game was developed alongside Three Houses, and was intended to be released for the series' anniversary. I think when the pandemic ended up causing chaos to the release schedule, they held onto Engage for an extra long time so they could release it in a period where they anticipated there would be a lul due to delayed development of other games. I'm also convinced they did a lot of extra polishing just because they could, because Engage looks insanely sharp.
I think Nintendo decided that Three Hopes getting as much sales and word of mouth as possible was more important than Engage releasing within the big anniversary year. And it worked bc it’s one of the best selling Warriors games other than the Zelda ones
There are 2 completed metroid remasters, 1 fire emblem game and a kirby game waiting for the optimal release, I have 0 doubts about it. That's why they always release less than 6 months from when they are announced.
Nintendo Music App also reminded me how good Wii Sports Bowling is
I think the weirdest choice was them swapping release dates for Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 so Xenoblade would come out earlier instead.
My guess is that it was because they thought splatoon could be advertised as a "holiday game", which Xenoblade unfortunately is not
@@aidenquinn19975 What I think happened is they had planned Xenoblade to come out at it's original date, but they realized that they probably needed a bit more time to polish up Splatoon 3. So they figured "well Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is already done, so why not?"
And that's how we got the result
I think it’s just that Xenoblade was much further along in the polishing phase
Let's not forget Detective Pikachu Returns, which was announced in 2019 and then released in 2023 for the Switch
They have had wind waker and twilight princess switch ports done since 2017 but every time someone asks for it they delay it by one day
I’d be interested to do this comparison for Wind Waker/Twilight Princess HD, Metroid Prime 2 and 3, and Fire Emblem 4 remake if/when they eventually come out
I’m gonna call this now. It’s only a matter of time before John goes to work at Nintendo.
Honestly I really hope he doesn’t. For years I’ve found that Jon is the one of the only “game journalists” that consistently puts out top-quality, well-articulated stuff without injecting an annoying amount of his own personality into it. That would be a big loss if he went to work at Nintendo (but I hope his career flourishes)
I remember talks about how Wind Waker and Twlight Princess has been sat on for quite a while. With Switch 2 imminent release, maybe theu decided to launch those games on Switch and of course playable on Switch 2. No way Nintendo abandons that high console ownership until at least 2027. That is if WW and TP is ready
I'm convinced Nintendo has an emergency warehouse of Wind Waker HD for switch in case they badly need money
Fascinating video. Just theorising but most of these games with long delays are ones with a lot of text to translate so I wonder if Nintendo are stricter about allowing time for tests in different languages (especially as Japanese characters may take up less space than other languages). Also, Intelligent Systems does have a recent pattern of releasing a game every financial year which could potentially give an upper limit to how long they would want Nintendo to wait (assuming there are tax and cash flow benefits for a smaller organisation like IS to smoothing out their release schedule, though I'm sure they're remunerated well up front irrespective).
I feel like that could go either way. The scripts may generally be smaller in character count, but non-Latin characters take more space in data so similar length text files could be larger in file size in Japanese than English, or they could not. Both languages have their own places where they tend to be wordy and descriptive, and places where they don't. I may have translated a few things, but I haven't compared like this so I don't really know. It honestly could differ depending on the project and the team. I've noticed some instances were text in Japanese heavily shortened in English and vice versa, but I have no data. Either way, these are just musings lol
Jon's video ideas are always great! Really informative
"Nintendo sit on games"
gosh what a kink
I’m still waiting on Fire Emblem 4 remake after being told a year ago it was finished.
To think that game exists and is technically possible to play *now*...
God I just remembered how far in advance Mario vs. Donkey Kong was rumored to be finished
I’m pretty sure it was leaked at the same time Engage was, but we just didn’t get screenshots for FE4
“Concord (nothing?)”
Jon, you sassy minx
Concord had unlucky timing, and then Concordia hit. I feel bad for the devs though hopefully they'll get new jobs.
@ genuinely curious what bad timing impacted Concord’s success
@Hundo_Mo Astro bot being released and acclaimed, taking away sales of Concord being released, Mario and Luigi Brothership trailer, it's a dying trend, it was made in 8 years due to trouble..
mother 3, been sitting on it for 20 years
I prefer held back finished games that are kept a secret and ready for release, over waiting 5-6 years for industry plant standard stuff by Sony.
Engage being my favorite Fire Emblem game, I'm glad it was polished upon release.
All these companies are scrambling to chase whatever big industry trends there are, when Nintendo figured it out loooong ago: make good games that people want to play! It’s genuinely that simple.
Nintendo’s such a weird/unique company. They don’t operate on debt like everyone else. They hold on to products for months/years. They don’t seem to have layoffs even when an entire platform bombs. They put out stuff nobody asked for or needed, like Alarmo. They appear super conservative on the surface, but take more risks than anyone else. They spend more on legal fees fighting emulation and piracy than they lose to it. 🤷♂️
I’m guessing Pokémon games don’t get the same luxury
I heard a rumor Wind Waker and Twilight princess ports have been done for years.
Yeah, that's the rumour. It'd be nice if it were true and that there are actual plans to release them.
Yeah. You would think it wouldn’t be that much work to do for Wii U games. They could polish up Twilight Princess a bit more though. The artstyle isn’t doing it any favors other than the oversaturated bloom lighting lol
This new habit they have is why I'm not worried about the launch of Switch 2, clearly they have things in the pipeline that we just don't know about yet and just want to wait for the right time to drop it. And what better time for that then for the launch of a new console, Nintendo's clearly learned from their history here and are trying really hard not to repeat it.
Hell, there’s a good chance that Xenoblade 3 went gold before 2023 and were sitting on it until Nintendo decided to push it out earlier bc Splatoon 3 got delayed
Great video.
As other content creators peddle rumours, John always comes up with interesting things to talk about!!
Advanced Wars 1+2 still hasn't come out in Japan... (I have a feeling it'll never get released over here.)
I'm curious about Xenoblade 2 now. It was promised that everything in the Switch showcase in 2017 would release that year, and XC2 just made it in December. It was also a bit less polished than what's standard for Nintendo.
EDIT: Looked it up, seems to have been rated in late September '17. Much closer to the release pattern of Sony's games, which pretty much confirms that it was just barely finished in time.
Imagine a dev waiting up to 2 years for their release bonus 💀💀💀
Nintendo are special. They have been restructuring internally since the Wii U days, they had dev teams for portable and home consoles and now they all focus on one single console, they have also established strong relations with third party studios to bolster their first party releases, and the second parties act as in-house games so that's even more Nintendo studios.... And they honestly handled Covid pretty well from a company standpoint. Now, the big Nintendo dev teams have been preparing for a big Switch 2 launch or so they say, I agree because it makes sense, incredible times are coming...
I do feel like Engage was supposed to be released on the 25th Anniversary, but when Covid happened when it started shutting down Video Game Studios to keep everyone safe for Pandemic and then Remote Work began to start up. I do think it’s possible that Engage was going to be released on December, but I do think it’s most likely they had to postpone due to the Covid Outbreak and they probably make some more polishes on the textures and other stuff remotely since the DLC were nearly out on January 2023.
Journalist should be called as Jonalist as just showed everyone how its supposed to be done researching a topic!
Someone could find out they're pregnant at the time some Nintendo games are rated and have the baby pop out before that same game is released
Even though it got delayed, TOTK was basically done by March 2022
I love the topics and videos from this channel! Thank you Jon and team!
Just to clarify for those unaware, ratings boards don't actually play games to rate them; publishers send footage and anything else required for the boards to determine what to rate them and what warnings to include on the packaging.
Lessons learned from the WiiU, where they said game development was slowed because they were coming to grips with working in HD. They said they want to release a Zelda game every year, so they're definitely sitting on the Wind Waker & Twilight Princess remasters.
Also remember that every first party Nintendo game, published and developed, releases without any bugs. We expect bugs at launch from every other company because they don't put the required time into bug fixing.
That not-so-gritty Ice Climber sequel Jon predicted to be gritty in 2019 seemed to have been hinted at by Nintendo since Smash Ultimate, with the most obvious hint being Nintendo's official illustration for the Smash Ultimate Spirit Board Event "Kings and Queens of the Sky. #TwoCondors #IceClimber2
"Concord (nothing?)" LMAOOO
Huh. If Advance Wars and Engage were finished around the same time it's possible that Engage was also internally delayed becuase of Ukraine. They're both about war even though Engage is obviously more high fantasy than Advance War's modern warfare style.
It used to be a normal practice for big publishers who had a lots of releases and wanted to stagger them. Now that so called AAA can barely push out 3-4 releases a year they can't afford to delay already thin output.
I know for a fact SEGA sat on Bayonetta 1 for entire year -- game was fully completed in 2008 -- because game guide writer had the full game a year before japanese release.
Eh, not really. If that were true we wouldn't have crunch culture as we know it. Many games needed to be released as fast as possible to recoup money and especially to hit the coveted holiday and last minute March Q4 slots. You'd also see companies like Sega and Capcom dropping multiple games the same month just because they were done.
Now, in the 90s, it was very common for completed games to not be released because the price to make the cartridge outweighed the potential sales (Earthbound 0, Star Fox 2, 40 Winks 64, etc)
You should probably update the outro to include Bluesky. But yeah, I feel like the Switch 2 is being positioned for 2025 so Nintendo can have a bunch of finished games in the chamber to release at a steady clip.
And then there's Star Fox 2, the alpha
Hopefully it means they have a lot of content lined up for the next system. They will want to try and keep a strong monthly cadence at least for the first year to give it the best start possible
I believe Nintendo said in an interview around E3 2017 that Mario Odyssey had been ready for a while but was launching in October.
I disagree with the theory that a rated game means it's "done" and that the raters have played it. How do we know their process? I've read the publisher must submit the most objectionable parts of the game, it's not like the rating system companies have to dig up every line of existing content in a game right?
Nintendo operates like Hollywood which is interesting
I wondered what it looks like comparing before and after animal crossing new horizons. I have the theory that after the success of AC Nintendo decided to sit on finished games for a while, considering the amount of rumored games that ended up being released. Having sold in weeks what Nintendo expected it to sell in years, I'm sure Nintendo had no reason to release some games until later
It likely has to do with the extreme software droughts on the Wii U. They lost a lot of 3rd party support and had split resources between Wii U and 3DS, which meant both audiences were getting under-served. You can see the Switch's monthly strategy before AC as well, as 2017, 2018, and 2019 are all very similarly scheduled.
Now, I do think Nintendo benefits more than Sony and Microsoft due to the long sales tail on their biggest games. It doesn't really matter if one of their monthly games doesn't sell 1m copies, because Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash, etc will sell more than enough to make up for it.
@SuperFirstSecond Yes, though I was referring to Nintendo sitting on games for a while, not the one game a month strategy. I'm sure the monthly game strategy came as a result of the Wii U problems. My guess is that Nintendo realized they can't depend on third parties to sell consoles, as pretty much by early 2014 there was no 3rd party support for the Wii U. So having games released constantly, be it developed or published by them counters that. But having sold so many units of AC in such a short time should have had some effect on their strategy. By 2020 we already had rumors of WWHD and TPHD, the same for Metroid Prime/Trilogy. After all, selling twice the amount of units you expected to sell overall in a matter of months, surely had to made them think twice if they needed to release certain more popular games that year. Similar to the release of the Twilight film several years back, when it was such s success that Warner Bros. decided to delay the release of a Harry Potter film. So it would be interesting to know how long Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime Remastered and some other games were internally delayed after completion. There were some comments from Kamiya (Platinum) when asked about the release of Bayonetta 3 that could have been interpreted as the game being ready for a while, but awaiting release by Nintendo.
Part of what helps Nintendo be able to do this is having such a large catalogue of well established IP both large and small, and robust IP that can be big budget titles and small budget spin offs like mario, couple that with having good relations with multiple developers who they let develop some of their games its easy to see how they do this. Sony can't do this since their catalogue of IPs is smaller, something they recently came out and lamented not building up more in their early years, they usually just pay 3rd parties to keep games exclusive to them, but now those third parties are looking to release on as many platforms as possible. I think this is why we're seeing this race to buy out companies between sony and microsft as they desperately try to fill their gaps.
That’s impressive for Nintendo!
Xenoblade 3 case is crazy and rare. So many games are released unfinished, and many times get delayed while Xenoblade releases the game before its original date.
Yeah it's even an anomaly in it's own franchise. Xenoblade 2 was notoriously not finished and likely rushed to an early release date by Nintendo. It was lacking quite a few features that they had to add on later via updates.
Of course it was still plenty playable and still had a lot more content than most other rushed games.
Reminds me of the time Nintendo swapped the release dates of Splatoon 3 and Xenoblace Chronicles 3. Shows that XC3 was already finished months before it should released
The USK are lucky bastards, and a consistently sealed lip bunch too.
I think it is smart to sit on their games like that.i don't think this will change much after the switch 2 releases since it will be backwards compatible.I think a lot of the games will still just be switch games at that point so the amount of development won't change drastically.
And most other publishers do the opposite by releasing games way too early
Hopefully their shareholders don't find out...
That’s probably why many of their 1st party games release bug free practically speaking 🙃 I think that would be impossible for a company like Sony
Imagine how many Switch 2 games they’re sitting on
Not that many. Switch 2 games are way more expensive and more demanding to produce. Which means that right now not even the launch titles are complete.
Imagine how many switch 1 games they've sat on that they decided to turn into switch 2 games. That launch is going to be insane I guarantee it.
@@Cloud-dt6xb that’s a good point!
@Cloud-dt6xb unfortunately that's not going to happen. These games will release as Switch 1 exclusive games the same way the 3DS was still getting new games in 2017-2019. Nintendo won't abandon Switch 1 the moment Switch 2 is out. Switch 2's first two years will be dry due to higher development costs and Switch 2 games being more demanding.
@@lol-ih1tl Says random youtuber who does'nt actually work at Nintendo. Even though they do plan to release Switch exclusive games do you seriously think they won't save say a new Star Fox Game just as an example for the Switch 2. They know how much people are wanting that so why not use that to help build excitement for the next system. My point is that with it so close it is not unreasonable to think that any Switch games that maybe close to completion or their waiting for the right time to drop won't be turned into Switch 2 ones. Especially if it helps keep their momentum going with the next system which would absolutely be a big priority for them.
always love it when Jon is on
It’s really nice that Nintendo has soo many unannounced games they’re sitting on every year
Next year looks small rn but in a couple months it’s gonna be massive especially with switch 2 lol
00:12 in December of 2024 is fitness boxing 3: your personal trainer, also you forgot super hero girls: teen power in 2021 june 4th. and you also forgot F-zero in 2023 september.
Low-industry game dev perspective here, but hearing their criteria for how early a game can be submitted, generally being "content complete" usually isn't a game as "Golden" given the amount of time at the back-end of development devoted to bug-fixing and polish. The story beats may have had a script and animations, but may have lacked voice acting or the final versions of said animations. Menus could still be placeholder, game balance may need adjustments, so on so forth. Lyrical music is probably done and a part of that build, and of course the printed materials must be present, but overall "Content complete" and "Golden" are very much separate things in game development. I don't think the video is *technically* correct to say these are Finished Games, but it's still a very great chronology of knowing when these games have hit that milestone and up to how much time these games spent just getting polished. Would love to see a double-dip on the subject sometime just to get more game-build-milestone sleuthing from Jon.
Edit: Jon addresses this towards the end of the video and I should have watched all the way through first. That said, I'm positive they hadn't moved onto other projects at those points given the shocking amount of time in game-dev spent in the polish-builds relative to how much time is spent in content-creation-builds. They may have still been on these projects until as early as 2 months before their official release, Golden builds usually being finished 6 weeks up to 3 months before the full release date.
How long I hold back playing Nintendo games: 10+ years. I first played Metroid Prime 11 years after its release, and I have yet to play Breath of the Wild.
They're doing it right now with Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD for Switch 👀
The amount of time they wait before releasing might explain why Nintendo's games are overall more bug-free and polished. They have more time to clean them up.
Emphasis on "overall", of course.
Isn’t it common knowledge that prime 2 and 3 have been waiting in the wings for the past few years
Jon, can you say PEGI 12? When you said PEGI in the video, I thought it was the same voice :)
They learned from the Wii U era. It was rough waiting for stuff to come out on Wii U. Still love the Wii U tho!
i wishWayforward had used the delay in Advance Wars to polish the game a tad more & made the animations faster
0:15 what is Buddy Mission Bind?
Buddy cop visual novel with involvement from the One Punch Man and Eyeshield 21 artist
@ published by Nintendo?
fe engage is such a great game too
fe 3 houses, then hopes then engage were what got me into FE
nintendo built different amd since sony copies everything nintendo does they should copy their release schedule too
Engage is my favorite recent FE game, but I respect 3H too.
And that requires Sony to have multiple Team Asobi's around, but Sony only cares about pushing big numbers because everything they do nowadays is just industry plant standards. PS1/PS2 era Sony took more risks.
"FE Engage is such a great game."
Don't make me laugh, please. I played it all the way through and I hated it. It was so bad that it made me not want to look at the FE series for a really long time.
@zacharylandrum4789 thats fine mate, no game is for everyone. for me i like character interactions and character focused media. thats why i enjoyed that aspect of the game a lot
@@zacharylandrum4789 Cool story. Engage wasn't for you then, but that doesn't change the fact that folks can enjoy a game you don't like.
@@GalaxiaSword They are doing what I wish I could be. Aside from the gameplay that is still as fun as ever (minus the Emblem mechanic), FE Engage is such a disappointing return to form for the FE series. I just pray that the next game's story doesn't feel like such an afterthought.
EarthBound Beginnings took about 25 years to finally come out despite being completed.
It's all marketing
you want to give developers time to make the game, polish It and then you have a meeting when would be best to release It
-holidays
-anniversaries
-other game releases
If they wanted to they could release 20 games tomorrow but that would be too many, they want to give us echoes of wisdom, mario party and then wait for people to enjoy those before releasing another small batch of games
It is pretty funny how ms and sony struggle to release games for this gen, meanwhile Nintendo sometimes doesn't feel like releasing some already made for quite a wihle.
Interesting. Well, there's Zelda Breath and Tears. Apparently, there's Zelda Ganons Farts which has been ready to go for eighteen months.
We in Germany love our USK stamp....not.
Look at this timing. I just finished last week's gvg cast and there's more QUALITY content for me
Let's all remember that Nintendo have an remake of Fire Emblem 4 ready for quite some time now, about an year.
Talk about massive copium, that FE4 remake is not gonna happen.
@@zacharylandrum4789 Read what I wrote again.