You broke my heart a little when you said Animal Crossing is still in early development. :(
Anyway I'm also happy because this might mean they're going big with AC and that they're not planning to release a New Leaf +. At least I hope so.
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Nintendo First-Party Thread
- Thread starter EAD Ninja
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You broke my heart a little when you said Animal Crossing is still in early development. :(
Anyway I'm also happy because this might mean they're going big with AC and that they're not planning to release a New Leaf +. At least I hope so.
I had a thought related Smash. I don't think we will get if for Switch in a long time, or if we do Sakurai won't be involved.
The main reason why the last 2 Smash games were developed was because Iwata begged Sakurai to make the games, even when he originally didn't want.
Now that Iwata is gone, I'm pretty sure that Sakurai won't work on future Smash games. Nobody will pressure him as much as Iwata did.
The main reason why the last 2 Smash games were developed was because Iwata begged Sakurai to make the games, even when he originally didn't want.
Now that Iwata is gone, I'm pretty sure that Sakurai won't work on future Smash games. Nobody will pressure him as much as Iwata did.
Tbh I would take New Leaf on switch while waiting, but yeah I wouldn't want New Leaf to be the switch animal crossing game.
I doubt it's been in development for two years. Probably three at least.
Here's the argument for Pokemon releasing in 2019:
- Game Freak gives each generation three years of development, with the pre-production/concept time included in that. New Pokemon generally take about 3 - 6 months to design.
- This point was reiterated by Masuda to Game Informer last summer when they asked when we could expect to see Pokemon on Switch.*
- Game Freak has split itself into an A team and a B team. The A team focuses on new generations (BW, XY, SM), the B team works on the rest (HGSS, B2W2, ORAS, USUM).
- DP (2006) -> BW (2010) -> XY (2013) -> SM (2016) -> ???
Because they're fairly candid in interviews and in blog posts, we know what Game Freak has been up to throughout the 3DS' lifespan. While I can't find the post any longer, Masuda once shared on his personal blog that XY began development in June 2010. We also know that SM was in a concept phase before the release of XY because they left the Strange Souvenir for us to find. Masuda passed the torch to Ohmori, and tasked him with directing the Hoenn remakes in 2012; Ohmori then went on to complete SM. Development of SM came down to the wire. They've also said USUM only had about a year of development time, presumably taking place from Summer '16 to '17.
Game Freak isn't very large compared to other companies working on franchises this size--deliberately, too, Masuda is against expanding too much*. For Gen VIII to be ready for release this year, they must've been working on it concurrently alongside SM and USUM. Just where did they find the time to split their team (and new lead director, Ohmori) over three projects, one of which was their first HD title, on a device with a significant leap in power? It's not impossible, of course, but it's easier to imagine that they stick to the schedule they've been following for the last decade. It takes time to plan out and design big RPG worlds with over a hundred unique Pokemon and character designs, with totally unique assets between each generation. For SM, they claimed they made a brand new engine distinct from the one made for XY, and I'm sure they would need to do it again for a game much bigger in scope.
There's also the fact that Pokemon isn't a normal franchise. The games, anime, competitive circuit, and movies all have to work in tandem with each other. In USUM, they added a brand new mythical Pokemon. Which means we can expect a new movie starring with the Pokemon, and a continuation of USUM's promotion to go alongside of it. Before they can formally announce a new title with new Pokemon, Zeraora has to be addressed.
Again, it's not impossible, but it'd be surprising if GF managed to pull this off.
*Don't have a time stamp for these, but they were mentioned by GI in their podcast episode about their trip to their HQ.
(Edit: some typos.)
- Game Freak gives each generation three years of development, with the pre-production/concept time included in that. New Pokemon generally take about 3 - 6 months to design.
- This point was reiterated by Masuda to Game Informer last summer when they asked when we could expect to see Pokemon on Switch.*
- Game Freak has split itself into an A team and a B team. The A team focuses on new generations (BW, XY, SM), the B team works on the rest (HGSS, B2W2, ORAS, USUM).
- DP (2006) -> BW (2010) -> XY (2013) -> SM (2016) -> ???
Because they're fairly candid in interviews and in blog posts, we know what Game Freak has been up to throughout the 3DS' lifespan. While I can't find the post any longer, Masuda once shared on his personal blog that XY began development in June 2010. We also know that SM was in a concept phase before the release of XY because they left the Strange Souvenir for us to find. Masuda passed the torch to Ohmori, and tasked him with directing the Hoenn remakes in 2012; Ohmori then went on to complete SM. Development of SM came down to the wire. They've also said USUM only had about a year of development time, presumably taking place from Summer '16 to '17.
Game Freak isn't very large compared to other companies working on franchises this size--deliberately, too, Masuda is against expanding too much*. For Gen VIII to be ready for release this year, they must've been working on it concurrently alongside SM and USUM. Just where did they find the time to split their team (and new lead director, Ohmori) over three projects, one of which was their first HD title, on a device with a significant leap in power? It's not impossible, of course, but it's easier to imagine that they stick to the schedule they've been following for the last decade. It takes time to plan out and design big RPG worlds with over a hundred unique Pokemon and character designs, with totally unique assets between each generation. For SM, they claimed they made a brand new engine distinct from the one made for XY, and I'm sure they would need to do it again for a game much bigger in scope.
There's also the fact that Pokemon isn't a normal franchise. The games, anime, competitive circuit, and movies all have to work in tandem with each other. In USUM, they added a brand new mythical Pokemon. Which means we can expect a new movie starring with the Pokemon, and a continuation of USUM's promotion to go alongside of it. Before they can formally announce a new title with new Pokemon, Zeraora has to be addressed.
Again, it's not impossible, but it'd be surprising if GF managed to pull this off.
*Don't have a time stamp for these, but they were mentioned by GI in their podcast episode about their trip to their HQ.
(Edit: some typos.)
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That was more Camelot than Nintendo to be honest. Dark Dawn was basically the same GBA game with none of the updates that were required for a JRPG at the time.
To me something happened at the end of the GBA era that has caused problems for them, whether it was the shift to 3D graphics, and perhaps lacking the resources to compensate, they haven't been the same developer since the Wii/DS era though. Strikes me as a case of Nintendo mismanagement though. With the success of the original games, there should have been a bigger push for another earlier in the DS's lifetime, rather than near the end of the life of the platform.
There's a chance they could use an external engine to help with Pokemon too. That + the HD pokemon models already existing would probably be handy for them.
Someone (Miyamoto? Koizumi?) mentioned that many of Nintendo's developers have been getting themselves familiar with engines like UE4. Yoshi is the first one we saw and I think we might see a couple other UE4 Nintendo games from E3 onward. Fire Emblem could be one candidate.
Someone (Miyamoto? Koizumi?) mentioned that many of Nintendo's developers have been getting themselves familiar with engines like UE4. Yoshi is the first one we saw and I think we might see a couple other UE4 Nintendo games from E3 onward. Fire Emblem could be one candidate.
Regarding Pokemon, The A team/B team thing was never really true, there's a lot of staff crossover between the games. Other than the director, most staff just get pulled to the next-releasing game until the team is fully set, which sometimes results in some people not working on a certain title.
Flipnote Studio 3D, Dragon Quest X, Tomodachi Life, Brain Age: Concentration Training, 3DS/Wii U download software July 2013, 3DS/Wii U download software November 2013 (I'm not counting the Louvre one as a proper direct lol). Unless over a month is "right after".
This was also the first mini direct that's happened in over 4 years. Both the style and frequency of directs has completely changed since then.
I also think that using region-specific directs as evidence of a pattern is kind of useless to be honest. And like I said in the first post, most of those mini directs were focusing on one game. This time we pretty much got the pre-E3 Switch lineup. If anything is coming soon (as in within the next month), it's a Fire Emblem-focused direct.
Flipnote Studio 3D, Dragon Quest X, Tomodachi Life, Brain Age: Concentration Training, 3DS/Wii U download software July 2013, 3DS/Wii U download software November 2013 (I'm not counting the Louvre one as a proper direct lol). Unless over a month is "right after".
This was also the first mini direct that's happened in over 4 years. Both the style and frequency of directs has completely changed since then.
I also think that using region-specific directs as evidence of a pattern is kind of useless to be honest. And like I said in the first post, most of those mini directs were focusing on one game. This time we pretty much got the pre-E3 Switch lineup. If anything is coming soon (as in within the next month), it's a Fire Emblem-focused direct.
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Well we know that Creatures is using UE4. It's certainly possible that Game Freak is doing the same.
that's not likely at all. Creatures and Game Freak dont share technology stacks, methinks. Creatures also has more console experience than Game Freak. with GF talking up their new toolset for SM, I cant see them moving off of it and onto UE4 for Gen 8 while SM/USUM were in development (assuming Gen 8 was in preproduction concurrently with Gen 7). it would defeat the purpose of even making a new engine.
possible, but not very likely
Of course you can interpret the information however you like. I can't really put much stock in this pattern myself. However, I expected another direct fairly soon even before I came across this information, and I still so.
As for your evidence, those are weaker spots, but I think the pattern holds.
Of course, Newton's Fourth Law of Thermodynamics always applies: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
I really don't see how AC is in super early development. The two spin-offs came out in 2015, so that gives them 2 years of dev time for mainline
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Why is Pokemon releasing this Fall such an urgent issue? The sales are healthy and the release catalog is healthy. Where is the code red that we are imposing a Pokemon game by 1.7 years into a hardware's life time? (They usually arrive 2-3 at earliest)
The models for the 3DS games are already HD. They're just compressed on to the 3DS screen resolution. This is also the cause of the games preformance issues. The models were eating up processing power. All Game Freak would have to do is source the HD assets into the Switch, tweak the engine, and viola, Pokemon 2018.
I wouldn't say Pokemon is mandated, Nintendo just needs a big game for this holiday, which they don't have yet
I feel like Nintendo doesn't have a game that can sell 3 or more million units announced for the Switch so far this year. Smash 4 Deluxe would but I don't think they're porting Smash 4.
So if they don't have Pokemon (which I doubt they will) then we're in the awkward position of wondering if they're going to have big games this year.
They have not announced their big guns yet. You'll notice that among Nintendo's announced games, not a single one is developped by their EPD teams.
When I think of system sellers, I see Mario, Zelda, Smash, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and Pokemon.
I feel like if Nintendo wants to keep up momentum, at least one of those franchises needs to hit this year.
Is a surprise Mario Kart 9 conceivable for the holiday?
I feel like if Nintendo wants to keep up momentum, at least one of those franchises needs to hit this year.
Is a surprise Mario Kart 9 conceivable for the holiday?
I'm not familiar with what they said about their engine back then, but I can't imagine they would be using an engine built for the 3DS regardless. That's a massive hardware change for them, so it would have to a rebuild if they decided to use their own.
Edit
Well assuming the game isn't just going to look like Sun/Moon in HD.
yea, that's an issue I've been thinking about for a while. making an engine for the 3DS first means you have to cut a lot of more modern features in order to run. it's not like making a 3DS version of a bigger engine a la MT Framework Mobile. it might be a while before we see a physically based Pokemon game
which they'll probably announce at E3. you cant make June come faster, no matter how doomed people say NIntendo is for not revealing shit now
Nintendo is gonna definitely want Smash on the Switch as soon as possible. I'm guessing they'll do a similar approach to Splatoon 2, so kind of a half-sequel, half-port situation where all they need to do is port the engine over and add some new stages and characters. That would probably mean an E3 2018 reveal, followed by a October-November release along with the online service. That's all still within the realm of possibility and could probably be done without Sakurai.
Anyway, let's predict:
-Two best selling games released for Switch in 2018
-Two best rated games released for Switch in 2018 made by Nintendo.
-Two best selling games released for Switch in 2018
-Two best rated games released for Switch in 2018 made by Nintendo.
- Unannounced Switch Game X
- Unannounced Switch Game Y
Unless it borrows assets and everything from 8 it's unlikely, considering the Mario Kart team released two games last year.
And there it is. E3 is isn't going to be good for the impatient ones. Splatoon must have really been taking up most of the Animal Crossing team.
Animal Crossing I would have pegged as a lock. But I'm surprised Emily believes it to be early on. I trust her but I'm a bit surprised to hear that since I figured Amiibo Festival, Plaza and even MK8 helped get a lot of work set up.
Mario Maker 2 might be possible. That team hasn't released a switch project and weren't involved in the 3DS port.
Smash should be doable if it's a built-on-SSB4-sequel. Remember they need a big game to launch the online program with. Hell they could even do a relaunch of the amiibo line or something to tie in with it.
So those are the big three I'd bet on. Even if they can't get Pokemon, 2-3 of those would be solid.
Mario Kart 9 is not happening until holiday 2019 at the earliest (spring 2020 more likely imo).
Do you know where she said that? I'm curious. ^^
Nevermind, found it. :p
I think it's going to be 2D Mario, it sells even more than Pokemon in some cases. NSMB and NSMBWii both sold over 30 million copies. An exciting new take on 2D Mario that Tezuka hinted will definitely help them reach that 20 million goal.
Yeah, one would hope that they started significant engine development/research as soon as the direction for the Switch was realized a few years ago, but who knows. Weird company. From a practical perspective it would make sense for GF and Creatures to be on the same path in using UE4, but as you mentioned it wouldn't be shocking if they were not.
A couple pages ago in this thread.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/nintendo-first-party-thread.1934/page-53#post-3252972
Edit - Whoa! Beaten.
Anyway, as a big online game, I still hope Nintendo will make a "Nintendo MOBA" for the Switch. Would be so much fun to play.
I sure hope they take some notes from Stardew Valley, without changing the formula too much obviously.
I sure hope they take some notes from Stardew Valley, without changing the formula too much obviously.
I think it's more that people just want it ASAP, and logically assume that Nintendo has some major titles for the 2018, since they
have a 20 million goal.
I'd wager MK9 definitely only just started development last year, with the ARMS content done, the team can now fully put their focus into that. MK8 was developed in 2 years, so 2019 isn't impossible.
Animal Crossing on the other hand, Splatoon 2 was definitely what the team wanted to do first, and Pocket Camp having development issues must have slowed them down even further.
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Two best selling...
- Pokemon
- Donkey Kong (I want to believe!!)
Two highest rated...
- Fire Emblem
- Pikmin 4
For sure, I just think scheduling + additional polish will be what determines where MK9 lands. I agree that it is probably already at least in the prep phase.
The year's only just begun but Nintendo already have plenty of potential games they can release in 2019. Let's say hypothetically 2 of Pokemon, Metroid Prime 4, and Bayonetta 3 release then. And then throw in something like an all-new 2D Mario, or a 2D Zelda. Things will add up really quickly. MK is such a juggernaut that it could carry a spring window by itself while giving it and everything else from the previous year plenty of breathing room.
I've been wishing for Game Freak to move to Unity ever since Tembo was revealed, but that got dashed. Unity can run on the OG 3DS, and Nintendo has the manpower to help them with that. since we're talking about HD development, I dont think Game Freak can stick with their old tools. I can see some parallels with Falcom here, and with that, I hope they do the same and adopt a third party engine. Game Freak will need all the help they can get to get an HD game running, and Creatures has 2 console games under their belt and now some modern engine experience. not leveraging that would be a mistake on Game Freak's part
After City Folk was released in 2008, it took Nintendo four years to release New Leaf (2012). And New Leaf didn't get released in the west until 2013.
Also back in October, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp -- which took over two years to develop -- and it was delayed several times due to development issues.
There is no code red yet.
But Nintendo is expecting to sell close to 20 million Switch consoles in fiscal 2018. That would bring the console's worldwide install base up to 37 million units.
Having health sales + healthy catalog is fine, but that doesn't mean you should be blinded by success and grow complacent.
They will need a big title in Holiday 2018 to keep momentum going.
Best Selling: Pokemon if it comes out, otherwise Donkey Kong
Best Rated: Fire Emblem
Was Pocket Camp developed by the core AC team? I would hope Nintendo wouldn't waste internal resources on their mobile games
Even if Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime 4 miss 2018, Nintendo can still hit 20m units sold during that fiscal year by introducing new IP, having titles like Smash Bros. for the holiday season, and maybe even a $50 price drop or a new SKU to boost sales. Based on the Mini-Direct, they are clearly looking to produce a title each month moving forward (sure, some may be ports) but the constant flow of new additions to the Switch library will keep hardware moving. Third-parties are looking to have a strong presence in 2018 on Switch, and the indie train keeps on rolling.
However, Nintendo needs to lead and the Wii U to Switch ports have a role to fill and they'll serve their purpose just fine. Nintendo is confident in 20m additional sales by the end of April 2019 for a reason, and we have to trust them to deliver the necessary software to make that happen. 2018 was always going to be an uphill battle to match 2017 in terms of quality - though we'll likely see more Nintendo published titles in 2018.
There is a lot of uncertainty in what Nintendo has planned in 2018, but it has my interest piqued and I'm excited to see what they have planned for the year.
However, Nintendo needs to lead and the Wii U to Switch ports have a role to fill and they'll serve their purpose just fine. Nintendo is confident in 20m additional sales by the end of April 2019 for a reason, and we have to trust them to deliver the necessary software to make that happen. 2018 was always going to be an uphill battle to match 2017 in terms of quality - though we'll likely see more Nintendo published titles in 2018.
There is a lot of uncertainty in what Nintendo has planned in 2018, but it has my interest piqued and I'm excited to see what they have planned for the year.
Best Selling: Animal Crossing and Super Mario Bros. 4
Highest rated: Fire Emblem and SMB4
5 straight no-shows at e3 is pretty much... unprecedented for a AAA games' studio?
I can't think of a AAA studio who has gone five e3s with no games announced.
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