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I don't think anyone was actually really arguing for exactly this.
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I would disagree. But that's not even my point. My point is I want something brand new from EPD Tokyo and the Zelda team.
Who said anything about cinematic?
Based on looking at both games, wr can probably make an educated guess. Mario Odyssey is made up of large, expansive worlds, highly detailed cutscenes dozens of interactive creatures to capture, and a team size of about 100 people. Splatoon 2 is primarily multiplayer focused, featuring much smaller arenas, little to no cutscenes, and had a core team size of roughly 40-50 people. This doesn't give us exact numbers, but we can look at this and say that Mario Odyssey had more money out behind it, especially with its Marketing, than Splatoon 2, which while still had a decent budget, wasn't on the level of Odyssey's
Not sure such a simple comparison can be made when Splatoon 2 got significantly more substantial post-release content than Odyssey.
And it still doesn't answer the second part of the question, whether it was closer to BotW's budget or to Splatoon 2's.
You're making a lot of assumptions here. Splatoon 2 has to keep an online system constantly going along with having people watching the game to find cheaters and to properly balance the game, had constant updates, was a GAAS for two years with weapons, gear, and events along with new stages, a meaty single-player DLC that can be compared to Xenoblade 2's Torna, and the game is still played in events across the world where the game needs to be kept with constant maintains for competitive play.
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Why do we enjoy it so much to ignore Splatoon's singleplayer as it if were basically trivial.
The numbers tally up if you toss in Octo Expansion and post launch content. But if you just compare the base games, then you can see a difference.
I'd like to say BotW, but it's still unclear. This part is difficult to answer.
Of course, when you add everything up over the years, Splatoon 2 does look expensive to maintain. But I was mainly covering the base game that was released at launch.
Another factor to consider is that we cannot fully rely on credits to paint the whole picture. As it was revealed recently, Bandai Namco was apparently responsible for half of the MK8's and Arms' visual assets, yet they're only credited under "Special Thanks". Both Odyssey and Splatoon 2 also have other companies in undisclosed roles credited. I don't think the situation is as clear cut as it's being treated itt.
Agreed, but also remember that outsourcing is also used as a cost-cutting measure as well, so that can factor into the budget.
Of course, but I guess my larger point is that this discussion is highly coloured by our own biases and how we perceive value. Which is precisely why I find this concern with budget to be misguided. I have no idea how expensive Ring Fit Adventure was but I know that it'll be among my favourite games of the year and this level of inventiveness is precisely the kind of stuff I want to see more from Nintendo.
They are big gambles because when these games began development, there was not a "General PS house style" as we know it today. They are big gambles because they are large teams making huge games for over half a decade with huge costs. It wasn't a given Horizon- a narrative driven open world game being made by a team that had only made linear corridor FPS games, would be a huge success. It wasn't a given that radically changing a beloved series like God of War, would be a success. It wasn't a given that Days Gone, a game that reviewed "poorly," would be a success.
That is not their version of "another Mario or Zelda," because the current Sony 1st part template was really only established last last gen with The Last of Us.
Why wouldn't you considered the game after it launch since it was always part of Splatoon's service. It wasn't something tacked on at the last minute. So Nintendo has to budget all those updates ahead of time, so the after-launch would be baked into the cake.
That's absolutely asking a lot for an unproven IP that's not a guaranteed 10 million seller like Mario and Zelda
I can see them splitting the teams like how the Animal Crossing team did Splatoon and the Mario Kart team did ARMS. Although, doing that means it probably won't be a blockbuster AAA game.
Overall, it's not always the best to gamble a bunch of money on a new, unproven idea that may not work or fall below expectations, just asked EA.
Because if we're comparing it to Mario Odyssey, we need to look at the base game they offered at launch, since Odyssey didn't really have DLC save for the VR update, Balloon World, and a few extra costumes. The Splatoon team had 2 more years to continue to develop content for the game, whereas Odyssey was pretty much one and done.
Nintendo is never going to make a new IP that costs them as much as a game like Mario Odyssey or Zelda BotW. Both of those are among their most famous and successful franchises.
It's not impossible though for an IP to get on their level should they prove themselves. I have little doubt that Splatoon 3 will have a much larger scope and budget next gen when they get around to it. Heck, LM3 and FE this year both saw huge budget increases for their franchises thanks to their success on 3DS.
It's not impossible though for an IP to get on their level should they prove themselves. I have little doubt that Splatoon 3 will have a much larger scope and budget next gen when they get around to it. Heck, LM3 and FE this year both saw huge budget increases for their franchises thanks to their success on 3DS.
Except with Splatoon, both games, the base game was purposely made to be light and build up over time. And that should tell you that Nintendo gave the Splatoon team more money overall than the Mario team despite them maybe getting more money up front. Especially when the Mario team could have made a meaty DLC pack, but didn't.
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And again, we don't know how much Odyssey cost. As far as we know, it cost less than Xenoblade Chronicles X, which had an AA budget despite its big open world and building a new engine for HD development along with taken about five years to make.
On the other hand, not sure where this assumption comes from that saying that a game like BotW has a bigger budget (which is quite obvious) is saying that Splatoon 2 was cheap.
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They're molding themselves after established open-world templates and deriving their respective spins on it (similar to what BotW did), fusing it with what they've established through Uncharted. But I don't wanna turn this into a deep dive into critiques of the PS software slate.
The claim was that both BotW and Odyssey were more expensive to a significant degree.
It was always public knowledge in the credits -the key staff is listed in the art section under Nintendo's lead artists. Nintendo didn't hide it at all. We've known and discussed this tidbit for years! Matter of fact, Nintendo always lists cooperation companies in the special thanks, alongside the individual names in the credits. They've always done this.
On the same token, though Nintendo never fully credits their larger middleware/tool/server teams which other companies do.
Yes but as I said, you're not going to get every single person involved in the project or for how long they were part of it. Not saying that credits are useless but they aren't the be-all and end-all.
They were some Bandai Namco people credited but they didn't mark them as different such as Manabu Okano. It's clear it's only lead people though. I do think it's a bit funny that somewhere along the way from We Ski, that team's art team went to help out on the Mario Kart.
If Paper Mario is going to get a new game, then they really need to take the series out of the hands of Kensuke Tanabe. Tanabe's a talented developer. But the problem lies in his personal relationship with Miyamoto, means he often blindly takes Miyamoto's advice. If a new Nintendo producer is to take over the series, then either Hitoshi Yamagami or Toyokazu Nonoka need to take the helm.
Why would a personal relationship with Miyamoto have anything to do with anything in this case, I wonder. -__-
When Tanabe was tranfered to SPD, he and Miyamoto still kept in touch with eachother. In fact, it was Miyamoto who asked if Tanabe knew a good studio to make a new Donkey Kong Country game, which is how Retro Studios ended up Making Donkey Kong Country Returns as Studio Head, Michael Kalbaugh used to play test the SNES trillogy durring his time at Nintendo of America. He also was the one to pass down the suggestion of whether Paper Mario needed a story for Sticker Star to Tanabe.
Ok, but why is that a reason for him to be removed from the next game? He doesn't seem to have had a problem with the story/cut-scenes in Luigi's Mansion 3 or WarioWare.
Miyamoto doesn't hate storytelling in games per-se. But he does insist it not be in games he thinks doesn't benefit from it. Which is a fine attitude, as you shouldn't force a story into a game if there isn't a need for one. However, the story was perhaps the best aspect of the first three games, so it showed that Miyamoto doesn't really understand why people like stories in Paper Mario games. Miyamoto managed to use his connections with Tanabe to pass that down, and Sticker Star and Color Splash suffered because of it.
Perhaps Tanabe shouldn't be removed, but Miyamoto definately needs to stay out of future entries.
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I think "connections with Tanabe" is putting it the wrong way lol.
It's more Miyamoto being the GM of EAD and the software pipeline going through him at the time I'd say.
At the time Nintendo's software production was split between EAD and SPD. Miyamoto led EAD, and Iwata (later Takahashi) led SPD. Some former EAD staff, including Tanabe, joined SPD when it was formed. So Miyamoto did have some connections to the divison. Which is again how Donkey Kong Country Returns came into existence.
I mean, Color Splash has a lot of story and dialogue. That's the last of its issues. It's more that they seemingly don't want to make a game like the first two but to keep experimenting.
If they want to make it more of an action-RPG like Super Paper Mario, fine, but it should still be an RPG. Super Paper Mario, despite its radically different gameplay, still at least played out like an RPG, with EXP, party members, and items. It just swapped out the Turn-based battles for a real time battle system. Sticker Star and Color Splash could barely even be called RPGs. The turn based battle system is completely superficial as there's nothing else that would constitute an RPG.
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Yup. This. And this has not been the case for many many years now. This leftover Miyamoto-ruins our games-baggage needs to be put to rest.
I think I've spoken in defense of Color Splash many times but I still think that it could have been a fairly good game if only they had made a more balanced combat system. Both Sticker Star and Color Splash tried too hard to push their gimmick (stickers and colour) to the point where it wasn't fun anymore but at least the latter had a fairly good coat of paint (pun intended).
Color Splash definitely improved a lot of stuff over Sticker Star. If the NPC variety had been more varied, I could have looked past the pointless battle system. If they can make battles feel more meaningful (either by returning exp/levels) and/or less cumbersome (no more scrolling through pages to pick a card to paint or whatever) it'd go a long way.
Random question I thought of; do you think Animal Crossing is going to be content complete at launch or are they going to dole out events, furniture and features over the first year or so via updates? This is AC's first time in HD and I can only imagine the delay is at least partially due to creating HD assets for the hundreds of animals, pieces of furniture, clothing and so on taking longer than they expected. I'd honestly be very surprised if they matched the volume of New Leaf at launch.
Random question I thought of; do you think Animal Crossing is going to be content complete at launch or are they going to dole out events, furniture and features over the first year or so via updates? This is AC's first time in HD and I can only imagine the delay is at least partially due to creating HD assets for the hundreds of animals, pieces of furniture, clothing and so on taking longer than they expected. I'd honestly be very surprised if they matched the volume of New Leaf at launch.
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So, how do people feel on the idea that the eventual Switch 2 will feature VR software pretty heavily? Not exclusively of course, but that it would be analogous to the 3D of the 3DS? I'm pretty sure that Nintendo has been putting a lot of R&D into VR over the years, and we've already seen the fruits of some of that, such as reasonably accurate body position tracking and gameplay integration with Ring Fit Adventure, and the fairly notable Labo VR push into big games like Zelda, Smash, and Mario. This all seems to indicate that they are getting some development experience and gathering general audience feedback to me, which is why I think there's a good chance that Switch 2 will slot into a headset like Labo VR and have some software designed for it at launch, either in the form of a big IP such as Mario or Splatoon, or a new IP. If it doesn't pan out, the system would still functionally be an improved Switch.
Yeah, that's why I think it would be a heavily promoted, but ultimately disposable feature, like 3D on the 3DS. The critical reception might not pan out, but if it does, that's a huge win.
Regarding New IP, what kind of games do you think Nintendo will release next year in that area? We already got puzzle games, a Fighter, a Wii-like Party game, a Contruction Toy, a Platinum title, and a Fitness RPG. What else do you think is next?
So what's the community consensus on our timeline for future Nintendo news dumps?
The Game Awards (approx. 2 announcements) on Dec 12th, and then ---hopefully--- a Jan/Feb Direct, with an Animal Crossing-centric Direct prior to its March 20th release?
The Game Awards (approx. 2 announcements) on Dec 12th, and then ---hopefully--- a Jan/Feb Direct, with an Animal Crossing-centric Direct prior to its March 20th release?
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This is pretty much the only guess worth making. _Something_ at the Keighley's because they always have something and then a Direct that is impossible to pin down to a month at this point.
I think Monolith Soft's fantasy game will be released in the next fiscal year. The company went through some significant expansions over the last few years, starting with this project. They also established a new studio a few months ago. I suspect the new studio is the primary home for the development team producing the game. I have a gut feeling the team behind this game is also responsible for all of the Zelda projects, including BotW and BotW2. It could explain why the job postings are exactly the same.
Every time I think I got them figured out, they go and drop something like Labo or Ring Fit Adventure. I mean, which sane person is supposed to keep up with this?
If Nintendo wants Yabuki's team to work on something big alongside Mario Kart, they will have them work on something with more mass appeal like a shooter or some action RPG but no idea how much MK Tour tied them down the last few years.
I still think Yabuki will be on ARMS 2. There's no reason Nintendo wouldn't let him continue with the series, especially if it makes some key improvements to the original.
In terms of new IP, well I want something from the Rhythm Heaven team for one. I also think that groups who primarily worked on External games in the past, like Yamagami's group, will start working on internal games in the future. Sushi Striker is sort-of an example as Nintendo developed the story and concept in-house.