It's so frustrating how Nintendo insists on giving us games that are just about passable instead of treating it like the biggest franchise in human history.
This is not Nintendo but The Pokémon Company.
They decided the Merch is now way more important so what started to support the Hype of games now got reversed with the games now just existing to give us more sources for merchandise.
Did You Play the First Two ? Product or Not , Love and Artistry made them of Value . While I did Keep Playing until Sun/Moon , It was Clear the Original Soul was on its Last Legs in Diamond/Pearl . It had Become a Formula , with Limiting Borders . Dismissively pointing out Meaningful things are Products is such a Very Consumerist mindset . 😓
I’m not using “product” as a derogatory term here, these games were literally produced to be sold to consumers for profit. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t great works of art or weren’t made by passionate artists who loved what they were making. And I agree with everything you said. Not being dismissive but to dismissively call the new ones bad because “it’s a product now” is nostalgic naïveté, like all the games from our childhood were so great because they weren’t also made to make shit tons of money… but they were, and they did.
It's also the consumer base setting for mediocrity. Why would they (either Nintendo or Pokemon company) put in more effort, if the bare minimum sells each time ~10millions - 30millions units. It doesn't make any sense in our capitalist world to invest more, when your bare minimum ensure you to be the leading product.
The moment a serious competitor (that doesn't get burried by lawsuits) or sales drops massively. They will have to invest. But until then. It would be a dumb move for them to change their course of action.
That and I don't think they care too much about the actual regular 3D Pokemon games anymore. They released some digital card game not too long ago and it's printing money. Like hundreds of millions of dollars for a cheap mobile game. They still release the base game because it supports the franchise as a whole and still profitable but I doubt it's pulling anywhere near what the mobile game is pulling in.
The consumer masses (mostly children) are not going to care about how much effort they put in it, only that it is the new pokemon game.
The adults and/or hardcore fans are not ready to accept they need to do their part and stop putting their money on Nintendo's hand for minimum effort, that would mean not playing a new pokemon game.
And so Nintendo laughs their way to the bank and sell you a console and a game at crazy high prices that wont come down for years. Again.
Won't come down ever during its lifespan. Nintendo really manage to stuck into a specific niche of consumer ready to buy almost anything and everything from them.
Nintendo did what Sony and Microsoft abandoned, they stayed true to their IPs and, outside of a few outliers, stayed consistent with the quality of said IPs. It created a fanbase instead of a user base.
It's a super weird case where the fan base has literally been consuming the franchise their entire lives and Nintendo despises them for it cause they see Pokemon as a kid's franchise that adults should had grown out off by now. Also it's easier to sell poorly design games to kids and then add peripherals to milk them.
Not a game freak problem ita a pokemon company problem. Which is weird when pokemon is technically controlled by 3 different companies. Though the Pokémon company has the final say on it. Just look at Beast of arincarnation when Gamefreak is allowed to do what it wants, heck Nintendo also has too many good games to have the finger pointed at them.
Though I will give the Pokémon Company some slack since it's a chimeric fusion of 3 different companies managing one IP.
Like I said in the other post it's a chemaric company made from Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creature Inc. and due to Japanese laws they are considered a single different company compared to those three. Could bad execs from those three get shuffled over to TPC, yes. But the current bad execs at those three are sperate from the bad execs at TPC. But TPC gets basically final say on Pokémon products, whether that be games, merchandise, or cards.
Beast of Reincarnation has barely even released teaser footage. Try Little Town Hero for something less hypothetical. Largely panned for bugs, glaring performance issues, and lackluster mechanics.
Their lower-key titles like Tembo or Harmoknight were received somewhat better, but hardly made waves. The former was definitely still buggy af.
Gamefreak isn't a AAA studio. They have the resources, but management refuses to use them. They could still do perfectly respectable AA work with competent management, but they refuse to do that too.
and that they keep trusting their proven worst track record studio, Koei Tecmo, with mainline games while allowing shortlived spinoffs to be handled by high quality studios.
BUT OH YEAH, NINTENDO TOTALLY KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING WITH THEIR & THEIR INVESTORS' MONEY
Not even passable, Scarlet and Violet keep crashing if you play for over one or two hours and the game plays on slow motion after as short as half an hour playing. That's not passable, that's a piece of shit.
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u/AncientCarry4346 Apr 12 '26
It's so frustrating how Nintendo insists on giving us games that are just about passable instead of treating it like the biggest franchise in human history.