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...

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saghm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 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...

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manytimesaway 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	Apocryphon an hour ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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butlike 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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!

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manytimesaway 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		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

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WorldMaker 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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mghackerlady an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Star fox zero is in there somewhere

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wincy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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speak_plainly 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		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...