Nintendo Switch (Currently Plagued) - Here we shit post about the new Nintendo console, The Switch

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Vault Boy said:
It's been three years since Retro Studios took over, how much longer could they possibly need for that game?
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Ahem.
Former Employee, more than 1 year

Not the Great Place It Should Be​

Feb 10, 2021 - Game Developer

Pros
Be part of Nintendo Year end bonuses

Cons
Healthcare is just okay Base salary/raises could be better Outdated/frustrating technology Most devs have no voice Terrible leadership Benefits were middling to bad. The only free healthcare plan available is an incredibly high deductible plan where the company contributes about 50 a month for an employee. If you want a copay plan, you'll have to cover part of the cost yourself. Nintendo of America employees have much better benefits. It's really strange how a studio owned by one of the largest and most successful game companies in the world can't afford to fully cover healthcare for the people who are creating the products they profit from. Pay is okay but needs to be much better. Again, they're part of Nintendo.

There's not really an excuse to be paying people as low as they do especially for the Austin area. The year end bonuses were nice but they are not a guarantee every year. Company events are just okay. Mostly just having catered food brought into the break room. The volunteer team of employees for organizing these events works their butts off though (the CEO likes to take credit for their work). The only great benefit was being able to purchase Nintendo items at a discount through the company store. The games taking a long time isn't a factor of the studio aiming for the best quality. It's the ineptitude of management and lack of growth in the dev team. Most members of the team have been at retro for 10+ years. Many have not kept up with current game tech or pipelines. Many of the devs are still at Retro because they wouldn't be able to find a position anywhere else. While there is some talent here, this is not a place where the best in the industry stay long.

Management really has no business organizing team development. The schedule is hardly adhered to and the miscommunication is constant. Very outdated pipeline. The engine is old and frustrating to work with. It lacks basic functionality of current game engines. They don't take critique of the engine very well and there aren't enough devs building the engine to make it better or actually viable. They either need to use a 3rd party engine or hire enough people to build a proper one. They say they want to hear from new people who come in, and they will let you talk about how to improve things, but nothing changes. They say they'll change and then go right back to what they've been doing for years. Only leads or Japan devs really have any say in any direction and don't listen to ideas from devs under them. So don't expect much creative input in most things. Some leads are verbally abusive. They've yelled at employees and don't see any consequences. The role structure is also a mess. Many devs with the senior title mainly earned their titles just be being there a long time and being friends with the lead. Nepotism is rampant.

Japan can be a bottleneck in regards to decisions. Progress moves way slower than it should and often work is thrown out and redone (sometimes multiple times). There have been times where devs have had to work a full year on a single task. And sometimes, there will be a deadline that the team isn't ready for and then devs are asked to work over the weekend or during holidays. They don't do comp days so you will have to consider that time gone. No overtime pay here. Unless you're a lead, you won't have really any contact with the Japan-side. Meetings with Japan are very closed off, so most don't actually get to work with any of the Japan developers directly. They will likely claim that you get to work with Nintendo during interviews, but it really isn't true for most of the team. When they come to visit, only a select few would be invited to join them for dinner after work. Overall, it's not a great place despite being part of Nintendo.

Advice to Management
The entire studio needs to be audited from the top down and restructured. Pay devs what they're worth or you'll lose the good ones to better paying jobs. Studio name recognition and empty praise doesn't pay the bills.
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Stab You in the Back said:
I don't know how adults can enjoy Kirby games. Even at age 12, I was too old to be challenged by Kirby games.
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Not every game needs to fuck your wife and make you watch. The real problem is they're all way too samey. The most they usually do to try to freshen things up is "here's kirby but in a robot" or "heres kirby but theres 4 of him".

Chin of Campbell said:
Metroid isn't the kind of series that can support multiple releases at once (anymore, RIP the GC days) and it definitely doesn't need to be stealing its own sales.
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3DS had multiple Metroid games, although they were just a remake and spinoff.
 
SSj_Ness said:
The real problem is they're all way too samey. The most they usually do to try to freshen things up is "here's kirby but in a robot" or "heres kirby but theres 4 of him".
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Why not a Kirby Metroidvania? Literally the Great Cave Offensive but it's a full game. Maybe they've done something like this, I don't pay attention to new Kirby games because they all look like reskins of old Kirby games, but Great Cave Offensive was the most fun you could have in a Kirby game. Second most fun was all the other minigames.

For fucks sake nobody wants to play "Kirby is a ball of yarn" just give us great stage design and lots of enemy types to copy.

A thing I can never live down is that I actually rented and beat Kirby 64. Good heavens was that a piece of shit. At least it put them off doing a 3D Kirby for the rest of all time.
 
Mega Man 2 Intro - NES said:
Why not a Kirby Metroidvania? Literally the Great Cave Offensive but it's a full game. Maybe they've done something like this, I don't pay attention to new Kirby games because they all look like reskins of old Kirby games, but Great Cave Offensive was the most fun you could have in a Kirby game. Second most fun was all the other minigames.

For fucks sake nobody wants to play "Kirby is a ball of yarn" just give us great stage design and lots of enemy types to copy.

A thing I can never live down is that I actually rented and beat Kirby 64. Good heavens was that a piece of shit. At least it put them off doing a 3D Kirby for the rest of all time.
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That actually could work really well. All of his different powers are already there, just add some light RPG mechanics and they're good.

Kirby 64 is my favorite one, I liked testing the different power combinations. It seems like the most hated one though, maybe my taste in Kirby is shit.
 
How long has the sequel to botw been in the works that we Know of? 3-4 years? I thought they had that thing going now where they reveal a game only when it's close to done, but prime 4 and this show that they still got a lot to learn not to do this shit.

At least it's not like most big budget games from other devs, but how come it takes so long using the same assets and engine?
 
Raiken said:
How long has the sequel to botw been in the works that we Know of? 3-4 years? I thought they had that thing going now where they reveal a game only when it's close to done, but prime 4 and this show that they still got a lot to learn not to do this shit.

At least it's not like most big budget games from other devs, but how come it takes so long using the same assets and engine?
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I assume its a similar thing to majoras mask and ura zelda, it most likely changed a lot mid development
 
Marissa Moira’s sources have informed me that Punch-Out!! Switch and StarTropics 3 will be announced at E3 2022.
 
Pissmaster said:
Marissa Moira’s sources have informed me that Punch-Out!! Switch and StarTropics 3 will be announced at E3 2022.
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Yes quarter 4 releases for both

I took a screencap in my other post but people glazed over it.

I had another article that I think got linked here, but here's similar one

They've been planning on new hardware for awhile according to nvidia leaks
 
Mega Man 2 Intro - NES said:
Why not a Kirby Metroidvania? Literally the Great Cave Offensive but it's a full game. Maybe they've done something like this, I don't pay attention to new Kirby games because they all look like reskins of old Kirby games, but Great Cave Offensive was the most fun you could have in a Kirby game. Second most fun was all the other minigames.
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Kirby and the amazing mirror is the "Kirby metroid-vania" you're looking for. Even had local multiplayer so you and your friends could explore the massive mirror world map together or separately.

It's not even new. It's a GBA game for crying out loud.
Mega Man 2 Intro - NES said:
For fucks sake nobody wants to play "Kirby is a ball of yarn" just give us great stage design and lots of enemy types to copy.

A thing I can never live down is that I actually rented and beat Kirby 64. Good heavens was that a piece of shit. At least it put them off doing a 3D Kirby for the rest of all time.
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Did you forget about Kirby and the forgotten land already?
 
Nauseated Courgi said:
Kirby and the amazing mirror is the "Kirby metroid-vania" you're looking for.
It's not even new. It's a GBA game for crying out loud.
Did you forget about Kirby and the forgotten land already?
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I said that the games don't exist because I knew if they did someone would tell me about it. It was a trick I played on the internet and you were part of it. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
 
Pissmaster said:
Punch-Out!! Switch
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I would be pretty fucking thrilled if Punch-Out!! for the Wii got ported over. That game should be on everything.

Mega Man 2 Intro - NES said:
I said that the games don't exist because I knew if they did someone would tell me about it. It was a trick I played on the internet and you were part of it
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You are correct. He was part of it. And he should die for this. Take the knife, Mega. Take the knife and do God's work.
 
Stop said:
I’m currently enjoying Farming Simulator. Does that make me autistic, German, or both?
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Let's see... according to the chart...

chart.jpg
German.
 
Raiken said:
How long has the sequel to botw been in the works that we Know of? 3-4 years? I thought they had that thing going now where they reveal a game only when it's close to done, but prime 4 and this show that they still got a lot to learn not to do this shit.

At least it's not like most big budget games from other devs, but how come it takes so long using the same assets and engine?
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It was announced at E3 2019, and the expansion pass dropped December 2017. I'd have to assume mid 2018 it started active development. And that's being really generous considering they said it was basically greenlit based off ideas they already had ready for BOTW DLC so you'd think pre-production had to be fairly quick and that the expansion pass was finished a fair bit before it released.

It's basically going to have close to the same development time as Breath of the Wild had, so I'm really going to be expecting something decent since they had the engine and main map design out of the way for the whole production period.
 
MirrorNoir said:
With the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo made what was potentially their most suicidal but ballsy as fuck move ever.

The Gameboy/DS line of portable gaming systems has long been both a steady income earner for Nintendo, ESPECIALLY during the dark age from N64 onwar. It was also a huge triumph for Nintendo is that it reigned supreme even in he face of rivals like the Game Gear and PSP/Vita.

Rather than continuing with two gaming eco-systems, Nintendo rolled the dice and killed the 3DS in order to basically force EVERYONE to buy the Switch if they wanted to keep playing Nintendo games. The Switch's portability itself, was the "compromise"; a merger of a traditional console system with a portable mode that would placate people pissed the fuck off that the 3DS and the lineage of the Gameboy was irrevocably dead.

And while the Nintendo Switch DID succeed, the Switch Lite seems to be an explicit "give the baby their bottle" pacification move to those Gameboy/DS stans who were STILL bitter as fuck that their beloved system was murdered because Nintendo decided they no longer wanted fans divided between two systems.

"Shut up about the 3DS being killed off/discontinued! Here's a version of the Switch that's $100 cheaper that is explicitly constructed to be portable only! Hell, we even finally fixed the joystick drift issue solely for this model! Now shut up!"

And again, it could have blown up in Nintendo's face and STILL might backfire on Nintendo down the line, since they now no longer have the Gameboy to hide behind when future dark days come for the company after the Switch's lifecycle comes to an end. But it paid off and the Switch Lite helped it, since (as in my case) there are a LOT of Gameboy/3DS stans who were pissed the fuck off when Nintendo killed their portable gaming line and only was willing to switch to the Switch when the Lite version came out to fill the void.
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I recall even nintendo weren't sure of the switch after the WiiU fiasco and so killing tbe 3ds right away wasn't on their plans, they needed it in case the switch flopped.
Yet the switch proved not be a flop and everyone wanted in on that huge installbase.
 
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