Geno (♥♪!?): Return of the Starsend Savior

[Fatmanonice]

Technically Hero and Banjo were 35 minutes apart

Well, releases in that case but the point still stands. We've had announcements and even releases with shorter time gaps if 8 was literally announced and released today. There's also that too: we haven't had a same day character announcement and release since Smash 4 and 2 of the 3 this year were 12 days, making the gap even longer.

 

[Firox]

You know how people will react if we get nothing this week? The raw, crystallized rage people will exhibit at no news that will shake heaven and hell itself!?

"Oh, looks like nothing else happened this week. OK, moving on."

"Well, there's always next week....and the one after....and the one after...and the one after..."

(Reveal happens three months from now)

"Called it!"

 

[MattX20]

As a reminder, there's a lot of maintenance going on today. At least from what I think I remember, big announcements usually happen a day or two after the maintenance, so don't be discouraged if we don't see anything today

 

[Vector Victor]

Also, another seemingly random event that happened in Japan this weekend:

https://mobile.twitter.com/DPPt_****post/status/1327651300360806403

View attachment 291985

View attachment 291986

Giant Palkia and Dialga balloons were installed in a Japanese mall and nobody knows why. Coincidentally, everyone's favorite French otter briefly came out of retirement this morning to say this:

Twitter

For those who can't read French (or can't find the translate button), he hard winks that another mainline Pokemon game will be announced and released within a year's time.

Jump the gun time: Diamond and Pearl are finally getting their remakes and one of the fighter pass characters is a gen IV Pokemon.

 

[Firox]

Jump the gun time: Diamond and Pearl are finally getting their remakes and one of the fighter pass characters is a gen IV Pokemon.

We already got a Gen 4 in Smash. We need Gens 2 or 3. I'm still rooting for Sceptile. He would also offer some much needed diversity with a Grass type instead of another Fire, Water or Electric type. Ivysaur needs a photosynthesis buddy.

 

[Deleted member]

This is a pretty old post at this point, but I've mentioned before that I tend to take weekends off from this madhouse (among others) but I just gotta say, this is the absolutely worst response to that particular post imaginable. Is it obnoxious when people suggest the Geno mii costume is coming back? Sure. Is it a safe or healthy mindset to take an entire, decently thought out list of possibilities and throw them in the trash and respond with something virtually unrelated? No. It's ****ing desperate looking.

I must be turning into an old man because I'm tired of the word "literally" getting thrown around in cases like this because what Sakurai literally said was " This was another fighter that I received a lot of requests for – mostly from overseas. That being said, King K. Rool and Ridley were pretty fervently requested too. And as I continue to grant these requests, I can only see a future where there’s even more of them!"

The quote comes from a translated Famitsu column and boy, do I hate translated Famitsu columns. The original text is always nowhere to be found so no one else can double check these translations. I don't doubt the ability of these translators to appropriately translate the words, but I do doubt their ability to appropriately translate the meaning of the written word in a language that depends heavily on context. Even in English, the statement is ambiguous and this is probably the intention - it is such a Sakurai play. Let's rework the sentence in a few ways. To start, the original sentence:

"That being said, King K. Rool and Ridley were pretty fervently requested too. And as I continue to grant these requests, I can only see a future where there's even more of [them]."

What is [them]? Is [them] K. Rool and Ridley?

"That being said, King K. Rool and Ridley were pretty fervently requested too. And as I continue to grant these requests, I can only see a future where there's even more King K. Rool and Ridley."

There can't possibly be more K. Rool and Ridley on the way, unless the Legacy XP takedown was so they can add Ridley 2. So then... is [them] "these requests"? Or maybe just "requests"?

"That being said, King K. Rool and Ridley were pretty fervently [requested] too. And as I continue to grant these [requests], I can only see a future where there's even more [requests]."

You can look on the bright side all you want. You can contort this man's words to be good for whatever character you can possibly think of, but you can't ignore that this sentence is deliberately vague to the point that it can be interpreted in two ways. Sakurai is a master at this, and I think his forked tongue is right up there next to his "everybody wins" mentality in terms of bad traits. I've pointed out before that the Sakurai in interviews and the Sakurai in presentations are different, and he does a good job being a character, but I think there's a very real Sakurai in his humor - He can be very sarcastic. Think about the way he described the request from Nintendo to add Minecraft Steve. Compare that to the way he says other things, his statement about Mai, his acknowledgement of how much Fire Emblem we have to endure... This statement is him lamenting the fact that the requests keep coming and he can't satisfy them all. This is probably especially taxing on a guy with such an "everybody wins" mentality, like I already mentioned. He deals with it through that sarcastic sense of humor. Banjo's in, now the requests will keep coming. These noisy fans will never ****ing shut up. The best thing to ever happen to him is to have no liberty of who gets into the game, at least he can sleep well at night knowing that he can blame Nintendo for these decisions.

No character is better as a *ing Mii costume (well, there are a few, but one of them is now a Villager echo). Only a troll says something like that. The post you quoted to reply with this nonsense? They didn't suggest he works better as a Mii costume, they suggested that the arguments point equally towards or maybe even lean in favor of a Mii costume. No one genuinely wants to see fan favorites get turned into lifeless ****ing mascot costumes to be worn by Great Value Mario, Samus, or Link, but it's a possibility we'll have to live with until something happens one way or another. This kind of faulty logic, this dodging of the truth and ignorance to the alternatives is the kind of infuriating horse * I've tried to call out in this community for a month and instead it looks like the opinions are getting more and more galvanized rather than people keeping an open mind to the possibilities. I know this year sucked but for God's sake, are we here to discuss the possibilities or are we actually becoming the echo chamber that the GameFAQs people want to paint us as?

Failure is very sadly an option and you can't stick your fingers in your ears and pretend not to see it. Either refute the claims with facts and evidence or shrug and say "yeah I guess it's possible".

Whether the whole thing is a misinterpretation or not, fan requests can still happen. Easily. That is why I’m looking at the bright side. Also, I don’t think I got my fingers in my ears. I’m pretty sure me and a lot of other people are aware and acknowledged at some point of the possibility of the Geno Mii costume coming back. I mentioned multiple times that another Square character could happen like Lara Croft. I don’t know what desperate or echo chamber you’re talking about.

 

[Bobthealligator]

Well, releases in that case but the point still stands. We've had announcements and even releases with shorter time gaps if 8 was literally announced and released today. There's also that too: we haven't had a same day character announcement and release since Smash 4 and 2 of the 3 this year were 12 days, making the gap even longer.

The first pass was 5 Characters (unless you count Plant) in just over a year. This is 6 in 2 years, even if you count Plant, that's a pretty drastic change in the rate of release. Having 2 characters a month announced a month apart just wouldn't make sense with the current timeline.
And stop using Chaos Theory as an argument, it doesn't even help your case.

 

[Paraspikey]

The first pass was 5 Characters (unless you count Plant) in just over a year. This is 6 in 2 years, even if you count Plant, that's a pretty drastic change in the rate of release. Having 2 characters a month announced a month apart just wouldn't make sense with the current timeline.
And stop using Chaos Theory as an argument, it doesn't even help your case.

The "December 2021" release wasn't seriously concrete, like they were going to go at a slower pace, it's a placeholder incase anything bad happened with development.

Even if we were meant to get 3 this year, 3 the next, that would still mean we're 1 fighter behind, and since they normally work on 3 fighters at a time, CP8 could easily be ready for a reveal and release.

They even say here that Min Min was infact, delayed.
So we're 1-2 fighters behind regardless.

 

[YsDisciple]

1. It's not just insiders being quiet but not talking about Nintendo, like, at all. Even covert insiders that I'm friends with have stopped doing things like openly speculating on stuff over fears of getting in trouble. It's a much different landscape. Even when things were "slow" this year, you still had most of the big names tossing around speculation and hints of stuff they knew about. This has already been going for a month and a half now.

Nintendo (Casual warning): "Ok guys, seriously, stop leaking stuff. If you all don't stop leaking we will be forced to cut down on the Ambassador program and start sending out some filings."
Nintendo (Serious warning): stares menacingly
picks up phone
begins to speak in Liam Neeson's voice
"Listen up dirtbag. Go ahead, leak what you know, but know this. It won't matter where you run off to, or where you hide you can be certain of one thing, we will find you, and when we do you'll know first hand things you'd wished you'd never have to know."
hangs phone

Goofing off aside, with this atmosphere of reinforced secrecy, it gives off more of a sense that there are big news coming up and by no means Nintendo wants any of it to get leaked (serious business). Lastly (for now), let us not underestimate Nintendo. It might seem to some that there's nothing else left beyond Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity's release this upcoming Friday but, there might be surprises in store.

 

[Dukefire]

Remember that the Pandemic threw a wrench in the development time for 2020. So, I won't be surprised if the next challenger was set back to 2021

 

[OnyanRings]

We already got a Gen 4 in Smash. We need Gens 2 or 3. I'm still rooting for Sceptile. He would also offer some much needed diversity with a Grass type instead of another Fire, Water or Electric type. Ivysaur needs a photosynthesis buddy.

I propose a Gardevoir/Gallade duo, both gen 3 and 4 are represented and everyone is happy (especially me).

 

[MattX20]

Let's wait and see first before we can conclude that FP8 is a 2021 release. We only just started this week after all

 

[Aerospherology]

I propose a Gardevoir/Gallade duo, both gen 3 and 4 are represented and everyone is happy (especially me).

Golurk/Castform duo

 

[Paraspikey]

Remember that the Pandemic threw a wrench in the development time for 2020. So, I won't be surprised if the next challenger was set back to 2021

That's why we got FP7 in October when we were meant to get it in June, but they weren't only working on Steve throughout those months.
Once again, they do 3 at a time, so CP8 could be done and ready for release.

 

[Dukefire]

Also, Age of Calamity is coming this Friday. So, there is something to keep your time occupied for a while

 

[Aerospherology]

Also, Age of Calamity is coming this Friday. So, there is something to keep your time occupied for a while

What if I'm not interested in The Legend of Zelda?

 

[Paraspikey]

Also, Age of Calamity is coming this Friday. So, there is something to keep your time occupied for a while

I'm planning on preordering it tomorrow, but that doesn't really have to do with news, we've gotten multiple waves of news on weeks with game releases.

 

[Dukefire]

What if I'm not interested in The Legend of Zelda?

well, something to keep the mind away from Smash Speculation during the dry spell

 

[Firox]

What if I'm not interested in The Legend of Zelda?

Nintendo: "GET INTERESTED IN ZELDA, YA CRETIN."

 

[Fatmanonice]

The first pass was 5 Characters (unless you count Plant) in just over a year. This is 6 in 2 years, even if you count Plant, that's a pretty drastic change in the rate of release. Having 2 characters a month announced a month apart just wouldn't make sense with the current timeline.
And stop using Chaos Theory as an argument, it doesn't even help your case.

6 in 2 years is still 3 a year even by the most conservative estimates. By your own admission, ideally 3 would be 2020 and 3 would be 2021. Season 2 officially began in late January when preorders opened. Preorders for the Fighter's Pass opened with Ultimate's release in December 2018. Plant, Joker, Hero, Banjo, AND Terry were all released 2019 and in roughly 11 months.

Chaos Theory is that there's essentially order to the universe but it's not always easy to observe and factors can change without warning (for example, like with weather). In other words, **** can be figured out but relevant factors aren't always in your face. Stuff can be observed and broken down and tested for significance like we're doing this week with a sprawling list of factors to test. That's literally science in a nutshell. That's speculation: making sense of chaos.

 

[Deleted member]

Whether the whole thing is a misinterpretation or not, fan requests can still happen. Easily. That is why I’m looking at the bright side. Also, I don’t think I got my fingers in my ears. I’m pretty sure me and a lot of other people are aware and acknowledged at some point of the possibility of the Geno Mii costume coming back. I mentioned multiple times that another Square character could happen like Lara Croft. I don’t know what desperate or echo chamber you’re talking about.

Fan requests can certainly happen, you're right. But, in the year and four months since Sakurai put those words into text in a magazine, we've gotten an additional four characters and not a one has been a fan request. After Banjo, the first fighters pass continued its trend of "characters you would never expect" with Terry and yet another ****ing Fire Emblem character and Fighters Pass 2 has yet to have any such marketing slogan to help us understand what it's doing. In the worst case scenario, Fighters Pass 2 is appealing to a younger, safer crowd rather than any true fan requests, and in the best, this pass is simply characters who didn't make the base game cut. The third character in this pass will either tell us where we're heading, or be a fan favorite akin to Banjo who will be one of a kind in a sea of strange picks.

All I want to point out is that nothing Sakurai has said has suggested anything or meant anything in the long term, this is bey design. I mentioned before that the opposite is actually the case, in that characters Sakurai has praised and said he wants, such as Geno, Mach Rider, or James Bond are entirely missing while characters that Sakurai has specifically spoken out against like Ridley and Villager are full on characters now. There's a statement by Sakurai from an Iwata Asks back in the Brawl era in which Sakurai says he doesn't like to play with people's expectations, and I think that has a lot to do with where we're at right now. He set expectations for Ridley or Villager low, and outdid those expectations. That doesn't mean that he's going to outdo expectations for every character, and in fact, it may be safer to say that when he mentions a character that never happened, he's implicitly saying they never will. His words aren't meant to give people hope because he'd prefer they don't hang on them - look at the fact that he doesn't feel like he can even talk about the video games he enjoys because it makes people (especially in the west) believe that he's got some Smash plans.

 

[ForsakenM]

Fan requests can certainly happen, you're right. But, in the year and four months since Sakurai put those words into text in a magazine, we've gotten an additional four characters and not a one has been a fan request. After Banjo, the first fighters pass continued its trend of "characters you would never expect" with Terry and yet another ****ing Fire Emblem character and Fighters Pass 2 has yet to have any such marketing slogan to help us understand what it's doing. In the worst case scenario, Fighters Pass 2 is appealing to a younger, safer crowd rather than any true fan requests, and in the best, this pass is simply characters who didn't make the base game cut. The third character in this pass will either tell us where we're heading, or be a fan favorite akin to Banjo who will be one of a kind in a sea of strange picks.

All I want to point out is that nothing Sakurai has said has suggested anything or meant anything in the long term, this is bey design. I mentioned before that the opposite is actually the case, in that characters Sakurai has praised and said he wants, such as Geno, Mach Rider, or James Bond are entirely missing while characters that Sakurai has specifically spoken out against like Ridley and Villager are full on characters now. There's a statement by Sakurai from an Iwata Asks back in the Brawl era in which Sakurai says he doesn't like to play with people's expectations, and I think that has a lot to do with where we're at right now. He set expectations for Ridley or Villager low, and outdid those expectations. That doesn't mean that he's going to outdo expectations for every character, and in fact, it may be safer to say that when he mentions a character that never happened, he's implicitly saying they never will. His words aren't meant to give people hope because he'd prefer they don't hang on them - look at the fact that he doesn't feel like he can even talk about the video games he enjoys because it makes people (especially in the west) believe that he's got some Smash plans.

Steve was heavily requested. Stop saying he's not a fan request just because Minecraft is the biggest **** on the planet. This is coming from someone who refuses to play Minecraft.

Please and thank you.

 

[Paraspikey]

Steve was heavily requested. Stop saying he's not a fan request just because Minecraft is the biggest **** on the planet. This is coming from someone who refuses to play Minecraft.

Please and thank you.

I think what he means is that he isn't another Banjo or Geno in terms of "requests", but Minecraft and Steve were highly requested either way.

 

[Deleted member]

Steve was heavily requested. Stop saying he's not a fan request just because Minecraft is the biggest **** on the planet. This is coming from someone who refuses to play Minecraft.

Please and thank you.

There are still requests yet to be fulfilled from before Minecraft even existed. It has no validity in my mind, and this comes from someone who has been playing Minecraft almost every day for the past month or so.

 

[MonkeyDLenny]

There are still requests yet to be fulfilled from before Minecraft even existed. It has no validity in my mind, and this comes from someone who has been playing Minecraft almost every day for the past month or so.

You know for someone who keeps insisting we look at objective fact instead of personal bias it seems odd to dismiss Minecraft as a request just because it's a more relatively recent one, and one I recall you hating

 

[Megadoomer]

There are still requests yet to be fulfilled from before Minecraft even existed. It has no validity in my mind, and this comes from someone who has been playing Minecraft almost every day for the past month or so.

People were requesting James Bond, a Goomba, and a Chocobo for Smash before Minecraft existed. Just because a request is old, it doesn't suddenly invalidate every single request that came after it.

 

[KCCHIEFS27]

I'm starting to be reborn lads. Needed a break to recover from banging my head against a wall waiting for a general direct to happen. I would imagine they'd be aiming to get a single general direct into this calendar year and the next 2-3 weeks would be the time for it if one is planned

 

[Deleted member]

You know for someone who keeps insisting we look at objective fact instead of personal bias it seems odd to dismiss Minecraft as a request just because it's a more relatively recent one, and one I recall you hating

If my feelings about Minecraft Steve invalidate every reasonable argument regarding speculation for Ultimate then I'm not sure why I should continue to discuss it.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I really hope something pans out these next three weeks. Reeeeeeeally don't want to spend probable Lockdown 2: Electric Boogaloo in these little daily arguments until mid January/February (god forbid).

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I just have severe doubts about Nintendo wanting or needed to do any kind of presentations before January. The Switch and its various games are selling well, a few noteworthy games have been announced for 2021 already, and they have a very significant spin-off coming out this week right before the holidays. Given the company's tendency to play their cards close to their chest in the past 8 months and that we have no guarantee of general directs even coming back at all, it seems most likely to me that outside maybe small Twitter announcements for DLC and potential surprises at the Game Awards that we're going to be dark on news until next year. There is a lot of sense in focusing their social media/marketing on continuing the momentum of currently popular titles (who knows how many more copies of Animal Crossing sell thanks to Christmas) and once they've maximized profits from that during December, go big the month after with reveals.

Just my take.

 

[Paraspikey]

The "Nintendo is doing well, no need to announce anything" logic fails almost every single time because that isn't how any company works, ever. A company doesn't just stop working or stop announcing things because that'll just ruin their momentum, and they'll fall behind, like what happened with Microsoft and the Xbox 360.
No company just says "Oh look, we're doing well, we dont need games!!"

 

[StarLight42]

The "Nintendo is doing well, no need to announce anything" logic fails almost every single time because that isn't how any company works, ever.

“Fails almost every single time”

you sure about that? Because I feel like this whole year has more or less been proof that it has been wildly successful.
Minimal effort, maximum Animal Crossing sales. That’s Nintendo for ya.

 

[Paraspikey]

“Fails almost every single time”

you sure about that? Because I feel like this whole year has more or less been proof that it has been wildly successful.
Minimal effort, maximum Animal Crossing sales. That’s Nintendo for ya.

Man... if only there was a pandemic that holted development on multiple projects for months and caused massive lockdowns which made a lot of developers struggle for months and still continue to struggle and due to that pandemic, it made Nintendo announcements very dry and they relied on 3rd parties to carry them in terms of announcements for a few months while they get everything prepared for a news blowout in September and October.

NoA employees directly got COVID in the offices... I'm pretty understanding that we went through the drought we did.

Companies like Nintendo don't just... stop working, that isn't how any company who wants to make money works.

 

[Deleted member]

news blowout in September and October.

I understand that compared to virtually nothing, Mario 35th, Monster Hunter, Steve Minecrafttale and Zelda Musou 2: Clam seems like a "news blowout" but it's really not. We're absolutely back to more of the same where they take one game and run with it for the whole month.

There is certainly a pandemic but that should not stop Nintendo from telling people what their plans are when it didn't stop Microsoft or Sony from telling people what their plans are, even if you can't provide a definitive date for it. With Nintendo it feels almost willful, and their increasingly iron defense over what they have in the works is somewhat worrisome.

It feels like you expect a business, whose primary purpose is to make money, to see that they're making money with little upfront expenditures and then decide "we need to spend more to make the same". Nintendo has found out that they can do nothing and make everything and that is how business works.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Its not strictly a matter of not needing to do reveals, its also that there might really be something valuable in keeping the marketing push and focus on the titles they have now with the knowledge they can likely reveal news on various 2021 games closer to release without much harm. Its entirely possible that given its a two month difference, they may have determined the cost/benefit favors keeping the spotlight/potential financial interest on what's out now rather than doing a news showcase.

I mean Sakuna is making crazy money in Japan right now; given those kind of sales (from a business standpoint) I couldn't really blame Nintendo for concluding they can ride the wave for a bit and go for reveals when there's no holiday season left to take advantage of.

Look I'd love to have a general direct in 2020 with a roadmap for 2021. But the last two years have told me that the company operates with a different mentality and different priorities than I do much of the time.

 

[StarLight42]

Man... if only there was a pandemic that holted development on multiple projects for months and caused massive lockdowns which made a lot of developers struggle for months and still continue to struggle and due to that pandemic, it made Nintendo announcements very dry and they relied on 3rd parties to carry them in terms of announcements for a few months while they get everything prepared for a news blowout in September and October.

NoA employees directly got COVID in the offices... I'm pretty understanding that we went through the drought we did.

Companies like Nintendo don't just... stop working, that isn't how any company who wants to make money works.

Every time I hear someone use "WE'RE IN A PANDEMIC!" to try and justify Nintendo's shoddy performance this year, I just wanna pic.twitter.com/9dYgFneUI6

— Monkey D. Lenny | Vtuber (@MonkeyDLenny) August 30, 2020

Thanks MonkeyDLenny

 

[Paraspikey]

I understand that compared to virtually nothing, Mario 35th, Monster Hunter, Steve Minecrafttale and Zelda Musou 2: Clam seems like a "news blowout" but it's really not. We're absolutely back to more of the same where they take one game and run with it for the whole month.

What type of expectations do you have? If all of these things were announced within a direct + Fighter 8 and some other games, people would be very pleased.

There is certainly a pandemic but that should not stop Nintendo from telling people what their plans are when it didn't stop Microsoft or Sony from telling people what their plans are, even if you can't provide a definitive date for it. With Nintendo it feels almost willful, and their increasingly iron defense over what they have in the works is somewhat worrisome.

Nintendo doesn't want to announce a projects with a release date and having to delay that multiple times, they've learnt from Prime 4 that they want to announce games when they know they're able to hit the release date, and COVID-19 has been things very uncertain, and therefore, it caused the delays as they weren't certain on if they were able to announce it yet or not, they didn't want to just announce a game and nothing else, and while we would of found it fine, they didn't.

It feels like you expect a business, whose primary purpose is to make money, to see that they're making money with little upfront expenditures and then decide "we need to spend more to make the same". Nintendo has found out that they can do nothing and make everything and that is how business works.

What... does this even mean? Nintendo has been hard at work on multiple projects, some unannounced.
Nintendo did not just stop working, they can not do that, that would legit cause even crazier delays then anything COVID can do, this is a very silly claim that can be debunked if you just understand business.
Even lowering your output can do harm, once again, lets look at Microsoft, they thought they could just sit down and when the generation with the 360 after Halo 3, but the PS3 had so much come out for it and it improved heavily then what it was at launch that the PS3 ended up winning that generation in terms of sales, and then Microsoft's next system was a absolute failure.

Every time I hear someone use "WE'RE IN A PANDEMIC!" to try and justify Nintendo's shoddy performance this year, I just wanna pic.twitter.com/9dYgFneUI6

— Monkey D. Lenny | Vtuber (@MonkeyDLenny) August 30, 2020

Thanks MonkeyDLenny

I'm not using the fact "We're in a pandemic" to excuse their lack of silence, they should of said to us directly "Hey, we're going through a lot of bull****, we're delaying a lot of stuff, we apologize".
That's on them and they should of made the drought the best it could be, but they didn't, and shouldn't really be excused.
But I'm saying what caused the drought is understandable and I'm really not that annoyed.

This year, while it was going to be big, wasn't going to be the next 2017 or even as good as 2019.
So let's take a already slow year + a heavy pandemic that caused multiple issues and that's how you have a year where they only had 3 mainline games in one year, and 2 of which came from the nicher side of Nintendo, being Paper Mario and Animal Crossing.

Nintendo was a hit a lot more harder then we all likely realize, more then some other companies like SEGA, and while they should of tried harder to make their output the best they could, once again, I'm really not that pissed off at them, and I do understand the massive drought they had, even though it was in their control to try harder with it.

 

[Paraspikey]

Nintendo's output has and should continue to heavily improve as time goes on, even though the pandemic is getting worse, they're learning more and more how to handle working within it.
I think we should treat Nintendo like a out-of-control kid now, be happy when they do good but don't be surprised if they do bad.
(Be happy when stuff is announced but don't be surprised if there is nothing)

 

[Deleted member]

What type of expectations do you have? If all of these things were announced within a direct + Fighter 8 and some other games, people would be very pleased.

Yes, we have been due that announcement since E3, but they spread it out over the entire year.

Nintendo doesn't want to announce a projects with a release date and having to delay that multiple times, they've learnt from Prime 4 that they want to announce games when they know they're able to hit the release date, and COVID-19 has been things very uncertain, and therefore, it caused the delays as they weren't certain on if they were able to announce it yet or not, they didn't want to just announce a game and nothing else, and while we would of found it fine, they didn't.

Metroid Prime 4 isn't even comparable. They had something of Metroid Prime 4 and willingly trashed all of it for some nebulous quality concern (which with Bamco is suspicious as all hell) and then handed it to Retro after the same team made the ****show that is Prime 3 and the studio is in absolute disarray. The entire chain of decisions feels like it was purposefully to make this game take forever to come out.

What... does this even mean? Nintendo has been hard at work on multiple projects, some unannounced.

Then announce them. There's no human on the planet who expects an announcement to abide by any projected release date in this environment, and they could very easily provide no release date. Sony did it. Microsoft did it. Where is Nintendo?

Nintendo did not just stop working, they can not do that, that would legit cause even crazier delays then anything COVID can do, this is a very silly claim that can be debunked if you just understand business.

You are virtually lampooning my argument here. I'm not saying Nintendo just sent everyone home and said "see you when this pandemic business dies down", I'm saying that they are aware that there is no need to advertise fervently. This ties into the previous quote, actually: If they have unannounced projects, they have no impetus to announce them because they have a fanbase waiting for their every word but they don't have to pay to advertise. They can advertise when it's a month away and suffer no losses because their rabid fanbase will eat anything given to them at this point. It is incredible business sense to make this move and to assume that they'll slowly ease back into big news every month or some kind of "blowout is the only failure to understand business that I see.

 

[StarLight42]

Well, Nintendo just pinned fat Korok guy as their first pin for the week, as expected. Well, Genovember was fun while it lasted. PACK IT UP BOYS