i think you might have misunderstood my point, my point wasn't really about who is playing nice or who's to blame, just that in the situation that they're in it makes sense why they decided to go that route with having picross in the switch version's title and not have it be part of the kickstarter campaign.
as for the rest of your post, we all know the situation with the IP, and while it is a pretty unusual move from nintendo for whatever reason they have this relationship with jupiter where they've allowed them to freely use the picross trademark. beyond that tho, based on that recent interview it seemed clear to me that the relationship between nintendo and jupiter isn't really what it used to be. the fact that the jupiter CEO used that interview to publicly voice his grievance with them was pretty shocking, you don't usually see that in interviews with japanese devs. jupiter isn't some random dev nintendo has worked with here and there. they've had a very close relationship for more than 30 years, and actually had a hand in helping the studio's launch, and it's thanks to them that this tiny IP that started as a game boy game that wasn't really that successful is still relevant today and the name has become synonymous with that type of puzzle. it seemed fair for them to feel some kinda way about the fact that nintendo has stopped working with them, publishing their games, or lending their IP when up until the 3DS generation they were very open to that. i don't think nintendo owes them anything but as a fan of both jupiter and nintendo it's sad to know nintendo is icing them out in this way. i don't even think jupiter thinks they should get special treatment or should have their pick of nintendo IP to use in their picross games, but when in the previous gen they were allowed to freely use a ton of IP in the club nintendo games, and even going back to the SNES where they made 8 whole games based on 8 different IPs, it must be frustrating for them that they can't get anything greenlit. again, this is not some random dev pitching a game to them, this is one of nintendo's oldest third party partners. i know nintendo rejects pitches from their internal and external devs all the time but let's be real, these games aren't some high budget games where nintendo has to do a lot, this is basically just letting jupiter do all the work and make some pixel art drawings based on their games. to me the fact that we don't have the nintendo equivalent of sega picross on switch is pretty sad, that's all.
The first paragraph of my previous post was kind of a separate thought from the rest of the post, the latter of which was specifically about the “not playing nice with” thing. I’ve just seen that line of thought being posted multiple times in Picross threads here and it always reads to me as a Nintendo vs. Jupiter thing, with Nintendo being unfair or otherwise unfriendly to Jupiter or something (which is kind of what is implied when you say “not playing nice with”), though I don’t believe that’s the case at all. Maybe that’s not how you meant it, but I’ve seen other people adopt the belief that there’s bad blood between Nintendo and Jupiter now, too, so I’m just trying to be a voice opposing that and explaining that we have no good reason to believe that. Yes, I’ve read the interview, and yes, it seems Jupiter is somewhat frustrated that they can’t do more with Nintendo like they used to…but I’m sure there are reasons for that that have nothing to do with Nintendo and Jupiter’s relationship deteriorating. I mean, you could argue that their relationship may be becoming less than it used to be by the nature of them not working as closely with Nintendo anymore, but what I’m saying is that I don’t think there’s any good reason to believe that the reason for
that is due to anything specific to some Nintendo vs. Jupiter situation, but instead just a matter of Nintendo’s current overall business decisions that apply broadly. And, like, it’s not like this is even much of a
new thing, either—Nintendo hasn’t published an actual paid, non-promotional Picross game since Picross DS, after all. The Nintendo-published Picross games on 3DS (except Pokémon Picross, which is more The Pokémon Company’s doing than Nintendo’s) were all exclusively available as Club/My Nintendo Rewards, and Nintendo now no longer offers software as My Nintendo rewards for Nintendo Switch like they did for 3DS in the past, and since they were already exclusively releasing 2D Picross games that way, it’s no surprise that they’re not publishing any on Switch.
Of course, I understand that being disappointing or frustrating, both to Picross fans who would like to see more Nintendo-published Picross games (like myself!) and to Jupiter themselves, but my point is that I don’t believe there are any ill intentions from Nintendo towards Jupiter behind it, it’s just how Nintendo is operating now. They’re a lot tighter on their IP usage now than they were in the late 3DS/Wii U era and early Switch era, too, and that applies across the board, not just to Jupiter. So while, personally, I’d
love it if Nintendo would green light more Nintendo-published Picross games by Jupiter…ultimately I don’t think it’s that unusual or much of a big deal that it’s not happening anymore, and I certainly don’t believe that Nintendo is acting unfair or unfriendly towards Jupiter because of it. Is it sad? I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as “sad” myself—a bit disappointing, maybe—but I can understand that sentiment, sure. And regardless, voicing your own frustration with a situation like this is perfectly valid; I’ve voiced my own desire to see more Nintendo-published Picross games like that here, too, after all. So I don’t take issue with that at all, of course—just the idea that Nintendo isn’t “playing nice” with Jupiter, because I feel that’s an inaccurate or exaggerated description of the situation that could in turn make other people believe the same, so
that is all I’m really talking about here. Sorry if there’s been misunderstandings beyond that.
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