[speak_plainly]

At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfully obvious in a few years.

[wincy]

My kids begged for me to buy Tomodachi Life and Pokemon Pokopia and they’ve been absolute smash hits in the house. Pokemon got me hooked for a month or two until I mostly beat it, and the kids play Tomodachi Life every day and have funny little stories to tell. So many modern games just aren’t fun, it doesn’t matter what the graphics look like if the game is boring.

[thih9]

Sandboxes. Minecraft was one. Now it’s getting called a platform, at least in the submitted article. That’s good for engagement and monetization I guess, but sounds way less fun.

[Cthulhu_]

Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, MMOs, Second Life, there's heaps of sandbox games where people can just hang out and do their own thing. It's the metaverse that Facebook / zucc just completely misunderstood.

They could've just bought any one of these titles and they'd have a better metaverse than whatever it was they pumped billions into.

[philistine]

Pokopia and Tomodatchi only look like sandboxes at first glance. They are far more directed. They're not a perfect square with you in the middle. They're a star shape with you in the middle.

[dieselgate]

I genuinely don't understand the relevance of the square vs. star map layout - does that matter or is there an analogy I don't understand?

[philistine]

It’s not literally the map of the game: it’s about what the player can do.

A square means total freedom. A star means freedom to choose guarded experiences with internal choices.

[piltdownman]

To some extent - but you can't get away with Hollywood Accounting Practices in the same way.

Also one must consider the likes of Hideo Kojima who can sell ~7 million copies of a new IP that is effectively a cinematic Walking Simulator as an Auteur acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also shipped over 5.4 million copies as a AA, in what is also arguably an interactive cinematic on-rails RPG.

[theragra]

Nah, expedition has enough of a game in it. Parry mechanic is pretty addictive, and gameplay is kinda fun. Exploration, too, is strictly gaming aspect, not cinematic.

God of war is plainly movie on rails compared to E33

[dsfnajlsdfnafn]

> acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system.

Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system.

Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead.

Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with Kojima's Spotify 'favourites' list as the soundtrack that so happens to have one interactive element or two thrown in there for good measure.

It's pretty telling that all he's done after splitting away from Konami and surrounding himself with his own sycophantic group of developers is Death Stranding. Kojima is the direct result and pretty much the face of a lot that is wrong with the games industry right now.

[falcor84]

> Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins

I strongly disagree. I'd say that Death Stranding has an incredible open world "sandbox", rivaling the ones of GTA. I can spend dozens of hours there without worrying about the campaign - it's not a Hollywood movie.

[swat535]

I'm not sure if you've played these games but that's not at all what they are like. They have great gaming mechanics, combat and complex world setups.

Perhaps you are mistaking them with Ubisoft's open world games? or describing another installment of Life is Strange?

[derrikcurran]

> Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins.

I can't even entertain this notion, never mind agree with it. Death Stranding and its sequel are among the best games I've ever played, and I've played several hundred, maybe thousands of games spanning every decade and genre.

[remarkEon]

I could not disagree harder with this sentiment. DS and DS2 are beautiful games with deep, meaty narratives that are satisfying and rewarding, which is why players spend hours walking around digital wastelands delivering mail. Only Kojima could make “post-apocalyptic UPS guy, the video game” and have it work.

[bigstrat2003]

> Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead.

And for Western devs, we have Rockstar doing that. RDR2 is a wonderful movie, but a pretty poor game. Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.

[simoncion]

> RDR2 is a wonderful movie...

It's a decent movie, yeah.

> ... but a pretty poor game.

I disagree.

> Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.

I strongly disagree.

You didn't like what RDR2 was doing, and that's fine. I had a blast with it, but I'm the kind of psycho that loves games whose big thing is traversing gorgeous terrain. Similarly, there are games that people absolutely adore that I absolutely cannot see the point of.

[mynameajeff]

Agreed, I was shocked to see a second person saying that RDR2 is movie not a game and the gameplays the weakest part, which was confusing to me as someone who spent a LOT more time enjoying the game than touching the main story and cinematics, and know people personally in the same boat, but then I realized I was about to just reply to the same guy with the same take under another post about gaming and not a super common reoccuring opinion haha

[zeratax]

death stranding made just moving through the game world engaging and challenging. and on top of that it has very satisfying combat mechanics and async multiplayer gameplay elements. yeah the game has long cinematic cutscenes, but i do not see how that detracts from the actual gameplay

[simoncion]

> ...on top of that it has very satisfying combat mechanics...

Man, the sequel made the combat totally trivial. I'm at the sequel's "Episode 10", and I've the opinion that DS2 took nearly everything that anyone ever complained about in Death Stranding and made it effectively optional. I don't like the decision, but I'm still enjoying the game.

> yeah the game has long cinematic cutscenes...

It really wouldn't be a Kojima game without them!

[zeratax]

i absolutely agree! my biggest issue is probably that they didnt expand at all on the walking mechanics and gave you vehicles so quickly while also make the terrain so much easier to drive on, that i almost never walked! in my walking simulator!!

that said especially the ending is such a unique experience i cant say i didnt have a great time anyways

[simoncion]

I got to the end of the story. I can see how some folks would really, really dislike that ending, but I enjoyed it.

In regards to vehicles: there was exactly one location that I couldn't drive the truck to... but I pretty quickly got the upgrade to the truck that let me drive it there. :/

In DS1, I regretted building the roads because of how they mostly eliminated the need to walk around. Going into DS2, I'd assumed that refusing to build the roads would have made me spend way more time on foot, but, nope! Should they ever make a third, I do hope that they put the walking back into the game.

[999900000999]

A walking simulator that has you fighting between multiple dimensions and is one of the best looking games of its generation.

[manytimesaway]

Things are not that black and white.

Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans.

Same thing goes for Star Fox, a remake of a remake of a remake, with poor visual and dialogue choices.

And meanwhile, the same silent push for digital-only, forced upgrades and the like...

[saghm]

> Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans.

I'm not convinced that Metroid at least really is a great data point for "Nintendo is ruining things in-house". From Wikipedia[1]:

> Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 with a teaser trailer during the Nintendo Direct presentation at E3 2017, and announced that Retro Studios, who developed the previous main Prime games, would not be involved.[15][16] In February 2018, Eurogamer reported that Prime 4 was being developed by Bandai Namco Studios in Japan and Singapore.

> In January 2019, the Nintendo EPD manager Shinya Takahashi announced that development had restarted under Retro with Tanabe remaining as producer. Takahashi said the previous studio had not met Nintendo's standards and that the decision to restart was not taken lightly.[21] Shortly after, Nintendo reevaluated Prime 4 after noticing changing attitudes towards open-world games, but maintained the direction as the development was already taking longer than planned. The team ignored new developments in action and shooting games to prioritize the adventure elements.

There's a perspective where this is almost the exact opposite of the problem being discussed about Microsoft. They chose to let it get developed externally, suffered delays, and by the time they moved it back in-house, the ecosystem had moved from under them. They probably could have chosen to rethink everything and delay it further, but they also arguably could have avoided having to make that call by keeping it in-house and letting the studio who made the previous entries work on it from the start and landing it in time that the original vision still fit what people wanted.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_Prime_4:_Beyond#Develo...

[manytimesaway]

My point wasn't about Nintendo ruining things in-house rather than them following the exact same trends than Sony & Microsoft, only a few years late.

MP4 is what OP was talking about, an "interactive Hollywood" experience that betrays previous Metroids, adds discutable open-world design cues, and locks features behind $30 figures.

[ragequittah]

Metroid has always been a very (very) small series in the grand scheme of Nintendo. If they screw up the next Zelda or Mario they might be in trouble. But they also seem to have actual magicians work on those games.

[SllX]

Metroid is a secondary or tertiary IP, and the Metroid Prime subseries has always had more smoke online than its sale figures would ever suggest, with only the original on Gamecube selling north of 2 million, and it was a pack-in title.

[rawbot]

Metroid Prime wasn't a pack-in title. In fact, the bundles that did offer it bundled were short-lived.

[SllX]

That’s what a pack-in title is. I had one of those GameCubes, and I ended up trading in the packed-in Metroid Prime to EB Games for like $5 in store credit cuz I didn’t like the game.

[weberer]

Prime 4 was a fine game, except for the MacKenzie character who would never shut the hell up. It was like having a redditor in your ear for 10 hours. Absolutely insufferable. If they would have just removed him and worked on the desert hub world a bit more, it probably would have been 2025's game of the year.

[Apocryphon]

This isn't the first time Nintendo has outsourced a disappointing Metroid game, if Other M is any indication. Remains to be seen if this is part of a larger trend for that company.

[orloffm]

But Dread was wonderful, so if this outsourcing produced even one such a game, it was worth it after all.

[philistine]

Metroid has more duds than hits. Metroid Prime 4 is par for the course for the franchise.

[wincy]

I’ll concede that Metroid Prime 4 has been sitting on my shelf.

But Star Fox? Phenomenal. Such a fun game. Luckily I have the pro controller so I could map A to the back paddle or else my poor old tendons couldn’t handle the rapid fire shooting required at the high levels, but I’ve had an absolute BLAST playing the remake.

[butlike]

I'm curious about the Star Fox comment. Tell me if I got this wrong:

A remake (1) of a remake (2) of a remake (3)

(1) A remake (Switch 2 Starfox, a remake of StarFox 64)

(2) StarFox 64 (A remake of Super Nintendo's StarFox)

(3) ??? I don't know what the 3rd level of remake you mention is, but I'm curious!

[manytimesaway]

Star Fox (SNES), Star Fox 2 (SNES mini), Star Fox 64, Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Zero and Star Fox (Switch 2), while having minor gameplay differences, are all retellings of the same in-game story (the eponymous Lylat Wars).

[GoofGarage]

Moreover, Star Fox was kind of... programmed by teenagers. Miyamoto is credited as both the producer and designer, but both Cuthbert and Goddard were 18 or 19, and Wombell (artist and designer) was maybe in his mid-20s.

Star Fox's development is an incredibly wild story where British teenagers argued what the SNES could do with bespoke hardware, and they ended up being shipped out to produce it because Nintendo felt they couldn't ever do it themselves. It all started with Argonaut's demo of what would eventually be released in Japan as "X". Entirely software-based 3D, on the original Game Boy.

There's actually a very humble quote by Miyamoto where he learned that someone can't just get better as a function of age and experience, after he clearly realized that these teenagers could produce something no one else in Nintendo ever had a hope of. Perhaps it's why the franchise has done so little -- Nintendo's just not in a remotely similar headspace the Argonaut lads were.

-----

Fun videos on the subject:

"The Teenagers Who Taught Nintendo How to Make Star Fox" - People Make Games, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to4Ekb0kXiE

"The Making of Star Fox" - Strafefox, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDhNT2Qv-Mo

[philistine]

The previously unreleased Starfox 2 is not a retelling, it is a proper story sequel. That is the one game where you're wrong, every single other game is a remake, with Starfox Zero the most tenuous one, but still a reimagining. They've remade the same story five times.

[manytimesaway]

I mean, it's still Andross vs Star Fox with the exact same map, so a very lazy sequel.

[Dig1t]

Starfox 64 (N64) -> Starfox 64 (3DS) -> Starfox (Switch 2)

I assumed that's what OP meant, all of those are the exact same game with the same story and dialog, remade in 3 different game engines.

[butlike]

That makes sense to me, and fits in better than SNES > 64 starfox, which is more of a spiritual remake than an explicit one.

[WorldMaker]

Between 1 and 2 was the 3DS remake which added levels and cleaned up the story some. The Switch Starfox includes those parts, too, from what I've heard.

[philistine]

Nope. There are no new levels on 3DS.

[mghackerlady]

Star fox zero is in there somewhere

[cyberrock]

I can understand complaints about Metroid but Star Fox fans were probably expecting jack squat from the start of the year. Putting it in the last movie is a pretty strong indicator for more content.

A lot of Nintendo's remakes end up being training exercises for the real deal, such as Metroid 2 remake to Dread. Meanwhile, some of the laid off devs here might have never seen a properly produced title with zero crunch and anomalies. Not every title should be an auteur title, but we have too many auteurs and we want more auteurs.

[rawbot]

Metroid 2 Remake, for all its warts (many), is at least a full-on reimagined remake. Star Fox 64's latest remake, is mostly a carbon-copy of the original, which already had an "HD" remake on the 3DS.

[cush]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with remaking a 30 year old game if it’s done correctly, and Nintendo usually does it right.

[speak_plainly]

What I mean by "interactive Hollywood" is a game with a $200M+ budget that relies entirely on high-fidelity graphics and cinematic stories to differentiate itself, while offering almost zero new gameplay innovation.

Neither of your examples fit that description. Metroid Prime 4 wasn't chasing Hollywood cinematic design; it was a highly targeted attempt by producer Kensuke Tanabe to make a tight, isolated first-person exploration formula resonate (especially in Japan where it has consistently failed). Its goals are mechanical, not cinematic. Meanwhile, Star Fox is a classic arcade rail-shooter remake with modernized cutscenes, not a prestige movie-game. Early sales data shows it's actually working well, too, having just debuted at #1 on the physical charts in Japan and nearly doubling Star Fox Zero's launch week in the UK.

Ultimately, Nintendo operates like a Consumer Packaged Goods company. They treat their library of IPs like a diversified product portfolio rather than betting the farm on individual interactive movies. They use massive, high-margin, mechanics-first games like Tomodachi Life and Pokopia to generate enormous cash reserves. They then use those profits to subsidize legacy IPs like Metroid or Star Fox to keep core fans happy and feed their broader brand ecosystem. Because Nintendo spreads its risk across a wide spectrum of lower-budget games, they can easily absorb a minor product flop. Sony's interactive Hollywood model sinks $300M into a single basket, meaning one bad miss can completely wreck a studio.

[manytimesaway]

Ah, my bad. I agree with your analysis.

Although Nintendo is still following the path of "gaming enshittification" with lesser budgets; and I would argue that Star Fox mostly sells because there's barely anything to play on that 500$ thing...

[aranelsurion]

> Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat

Sony has been pretty successful with that though, and there was a time where they pushed many fan favourites in the cinematic genre. They aren’t arcadey games like Nintendo ones of course, but something like The Last of Us has its own value and audience. It sells too.

[johnnyanmac]

They have. Which makes this hard skew towards live service all the more baffling. Having your premier studio basically miss the generation trying to make a multiplayer version of one of these games then cancelling it really shows how much they overextended.

And it's not like it had to be Naughty Dog: They had some dozen titles published or in house being prepared (including one that sunk what could have been an amazing remaster/remake studio). And in the end they really had one come out as the dark horse, with one megaflop, and 2-3 stragglers that don't seem long for this world (one of which seems to be taken down the existing, safe life service Sony spent billions on).

Gen 9 will be a huge blemish carried by their very smart acquisitions of Insomniac and Housemarque, with some decent support coming from Santa Monica and Guerilla. But at what cost?

[bigyabai]

Sony's had to bet the house on those types of blockbuster, crowd-pleasing experiences. The PS5 has yet to crest the cinematic peaks of the PS4 (PT, Bloodborne, Uncharted, etc), so people are rightfully getting a little worried that this gamble won't pan out. The bestselling PS5 exclusive is currently Ghost of Yōtei, behind eight better-selling crossplatform titles.

Nintendo's exclusives outsell Sony's by a significant margin, and they're usually simpler games that are broadly accessible. They leaned the right lessons from the indie gaming boom, and didn't try to resist it by pumping billions into making the next Overwatch killer or whatever.

[KennyBlanken]

I played TLoU and while the story was interesting, the feeling of being steered, forcefully and constantly, was very frustrating.

"Press this button exactly when the game tells you" and "as soon as you cross this exact point, this exact enemy will appear" - that's year-2000-ish (or worse) gaming tech.

The final confrontation was essentially ruined because the designers apparently never thought you'd use a sniper rifle, so you can set off a deafening shot that kills an enemy and the other enemies don't even notice the shot because it apparently happened outside their detection range.

[flaunf221]

I'll personally take spirals, ups and downs of the whole industry over Nintendo selling yet another Mario, Zelda and Pokemon for 40 years straight.

[johnnyanmac]

I'm glad Nintendo does a bit of everything. Taking the time to try out new IPs, give older ones a chance to rise, and go truly off in the weeds with series no one else can really do (the Fit series and Labo being some of the biggest examples). It really feels like there's something for you there, no matter what kind of games you like (unless you only play the GTAs/CODs/Maddens of the industry). Even if you're not actually someone who games. My mom loves the Fit games.

[flaunf221]

Nintendo does family-friendly games. Which have their place.

However if for example movie industry had its crisis, and someone were to point out how Pixar is doing great, and latest Toy Story is a big hit (it is btw), I'd say "And what if I want to watch anything that is not a family-friendly movie?".

Could Nintendo ever make Baldur's Gate 3? Not in a million years. Doesn't fall into children-friendly bucket and so would completely run against Nintendo brand image.

[lucas_t_a]

Baldur's Gate 3 and other games would them just release on a nintendo console, i don't think nintendo would outright refuse to take a whole sect of kinds of titles, the companies making the console and setting the ecosystem do make a difference but you exaggerate a bit.

[bashmelek]

That is encouraging, but my stock portfolio paints a different picture. Nintendo is unfortunately doing terribly this year. I still believe in their core mission, even if some of their litigiousness and anti consumer practices have put me off

[johnnyanmac]

Basing an art form on your stock portfolio is a good half of everything wrong with the industry.

And it's not surprising Nintendo isn't doing well in this clown market. They are taking a hit because they resisted pressures from shareholders who wanted them to raise prices on its new system. Nintendo eventually gave in, but with a much smaller price increase and a delayed effect from announcement to implementation (~4 months forewarning). And on top of all that they are not hyping AI to the moon.

And I haven't even gotten to the overall economic climate of Japan yet. Nintendo's stock falls would happen regardless of if they followed the above.

These are good, pro-consumer moves. It shows that more companies need to think past next quarter and resist the whims of people who don't have your company's long term interests in mind. You're the expert here, not them.

[sunaookami]

Nintendo is also a Japanese company and japanese stocks aren't doing great due to their economy and the weak yen. Also, stock price does not correlate with good games or a healthy business.

[dec0dedab0de]

Nintendo is also much older than Sony and Microsoft. They don't really chase short term gains to appease shareholders.

[kanwisher]

Weak yen should be great for Nintendo, most of their costs are Japanese staff which are now cheaper. Maybe the local Japanese market is softer. More likely the trouble is the increasing memory pricing is eating their margins

[LunaSea]

Nintendo survives on a few banger licenses. Innovation left the house a long time ago.

[johnnyanmac]

I don't know how you can say that when some of their most recent well received games include Tomodachi life and Rhythm Heaven. Those aren't the kinds of games made from those maximizing bean counters.

[LunaSea]

Rhythm Heaven is a 18 year old and Tomodachi life is a 13 year old license.

[johnnyanmac]

Yes. And an environment like Microsoft wouldn't think a dormant, niche franchise like that would be able to achieve an overwhelming success after 2 generation.

But sure, if you want the last new IP, Nintendo has played it safe with Arms and focused more on bolstering dormant IP's on the switch. With Animal Crossing and Zelda in particular finding new winds. Splatoon was their last huge success as a new IP in 2015.

Labo came in 2018, but I have no idea how to evaluate the success of that.

[Gigachad]

Microsoft is sitting on a bunch of these they will probably never use. Wish we would get another Viva Piñata game.

[extraduder_ire]

17 years, if you include the Japan-only Tomodachi Collection for the DS.

[honeycrispy]

I find it really sad that the GameCube and N64 were where they were the most innovative and also happens to be where they floundered the most in sales.

[sunaookami]

Huh? They are trying a lot of things and when they want to establish a new franchise they are often successful, see e.g. Splatoon. Innovation also does not correlate with new IPs.

[dzonga]

Sony - having cinematic bloat makes sense for them. They've nailed the story driven games such as Last of Us.

however for Xbox they were not really good at story driven games, but good at Live Games such as Halo.

with Live Games - you iterate on game play, maps, skins - live events i.e community building without alienating people by dabbing in social justice.

End of day - these are all marketing problems & lack of capable leadership who knows their core audience.

[account42]

If the game industry managed to come even close to the top writing and cinematography from Hollywood then it would already be much better than it is now. Instead the part of Hollywood they are chasing seems to be the big budget wide appeal movies that will be forgotten in a decade.

[cgh]

Elden Ring sold 30 million copies. Even Bloodborne, a PS4 exclusive, sold over 9 million copies.

[zeratax]

sony's cinematic games sold well and are well regarded, but when was the last time they released any such game or even just a single player game? when they rerereleased the last of us?

[gunsle]

Yeah, I kind of loathe the cinematic direction Sony and others have taken. Their games aren't really innovative or fun but people lap them up for being B tier movies. It makes no sense to me. They don't bother making Bloodborne anymore, just more open world cinematic slop like Horizon.