Discussion What are you thoughts on Ninendo's long reveal to release cycles like Bayonetta 3, TOTK and Prime 4?

[lemonfresh]

So in the past generation we had a few games that had pretty long reveal to release Bayonetta 3 revealed in 2017 and released in 2022 took 5 years. TOTK revealed 2019 released 2023 took 4 years and Prime 4 revealed 2017 and most likely releasing in 2024 taking 7 years. Also Pikmin 4 whcih I think was annouced in the wii u days. Do you like these long cycles to build up hype or do you think they are way to long and the games should be revealed more sooner when they are closer to release? Personally im on two minds I like knowing that prime 4 was at least coming out as well as the zelda totk but the wait for these games does make me also anxious about seeing them already and for them to release. What do you guys think?

 

[ngpdrew]

It is one of my least favorite things about the industry. There's no point announcing something like Metroid Prime 4 without even a little bit of footage. Sure, it's neat to know it exists, but who even cares if all it has is a name? It tells us nothing of the quality. Why bother?

Also, I don't think Pikmin 4 should count. The game we got this year is so far removed from the game that was (allegedly) near completion that it may as well be an entirely separate game. It is basically the same as Metroid Dread, which has the name of an abandoned project and pretty much nothing else.

 

[GPKs3]

Aside from Covid and Prime 4’s developmental reboot, waiting always sucks, but TotK turned out to be phenomenal and I’m hoping for the same result with Prime 4. Haven’t played Bayonetta 3, so I can’t comment. Sometimes the wait is well worth it, even if your patience is put through the ringer.

 

[Aurc]

I'm not sure I'd lump Prime 4 in with the other two, considering it's a unique case in which they unexpectedly had to restart development. If they hadn't, and things had gone smoothly instead, we'd have seen a far more reasonable reveal > release window.

 

[Phendrift]

We’d have prime 4 if not for the reboot. And I’m fine with a mixture. Close to release for some neat surprises, but some big guns announced years out so there’s always something to look forward to.

 

[GamerJM]

I liked what they did with TotK. Prime 4 was too early and probably would have just been best in the longrun for them to have never played the card of a logo reveal. Bayo 3's mostly screamed troubled development, I don't think they intended that one to be that long. Obviously that's true of the other two but Prime 4 would have been too early with too little to show even if it did come out in like 2020 or 2021 or whatever, unless they could show a proper trailer by 2018. I also like how long they teased us about TotK for even if it was unintended, it was something to always look forward to seeing a little bit of.

In general I prefer longer to shorter though, but they shouldn't have to make trailers or have a logo reveal every time they make an announcement. The end game I want is full transparency on what developers are working on at a given moment instead of us having to play a guessing game of what x team is doing atm.

 

[Bayonutter]

I absolutely loved it! They were transparent (you had a hunch development was just beginning), they were honest (we got logos/nothing), and they were incredibly exciting. All of these early announcements filled my dark soul with light.

 

[Pokemaniac]

They don't seem to be doing it super intentionally most of the time. Prime 4 was a calculated risk to take the edge off of Samus Returns being a remake for the 3DS, and TotK seems like it got hit bad by COVID.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

I'm fine with "reveal the game well in advance, reassure every now and then it still exists, and re-reveal the game before the release", aka the Bayonetta 3 and (likely) Prime 4 approach. And technically Pikmin 4.

On the other hand, with Zelda they had these trailers showing more or less nothing to the average user. As strange as it sounds, I would have preferred having nothing between the game's announcement and the final 2-3 trailers.

 

[balgajo]

For Zelda I love tbh. Loved the time where they also shared some tidbits pre reveal, like the Skyward Sword artwork and potentially Wind Waker 2. But Zelda is the only franchise I care a lot about the pre release stuff.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

Those have been rare exceptions from Nintendo this gen. And i hope they stay thay way. Id rather we have more games released when theyre at least a year away from completion.

 

[Hocot8]

Doesn't faze me but that's probably cause Nintendo releases enough games to make the wait less painful tbh.

 

[OctoSplattack]

I'm ultimately a bigger fan of short <1 year reveal-to-release marketing cycles: stuff like Metroid Dread going from officially announced to being in my hands in just four months was absolutely amazing, and I loved the constant bombardment of trailers and information in such a short timeframe. But longer reveal cycles can also be nice, both for the sake of the studio wanting to get hiring calls out, and for having something to look forward to in the long-term. It can be frustrating, sure, but there's ultimately so much entertainment out there between books, movies, television, and other video games that while waiting for the one cool thing, there's because five other cool things to engage with right that second. I can wait, and having an extended roadmap of what to expect for my console is good.

As for the specific games mentioned in the OP, I'm not really into Bayonetta, but the wait for TOTK didn't bother me at all, probably because I was the only person not convinced it was aiming for a 2021 release (even with COVID, the target was 2022, you can't convince me otherwise -- you don't do a "now in development" trailer for something releasing in less than two years). And given the development reboot, this is the first year where I'm even expecting to hear anything about Prime 4, so no complaints there either.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Mostly I don't like it but I honestly think they may have just cancelled MP4 if they hadn't announced it and felt obligated to deliver it to fans. So in that case I'm glad they did.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

I absolutely hate it. Prime 4 was probably the game I was most excited for when I bought a Switch (though certainly not the reason I bought it) and it's not even out yet. When 2017 ended I was pretty eh on most of the games then Bayonetta 3 was announced and I was excited. By the time it came out, I didn't even care.

I can't really even say Nintendo got better about it because I don't think Tears of the Kingdom was ever releasing earlier than 2022 even accounting COVID, so that was another needlessly early announcement. I just wish they wouldn't do it, even for big games and niche games just do a marketing time of a year before release, two years at most.

 

[Dark Cloud]

Bayonetta 3 is the only one that did this imo

 

[Catsylvania]

I’d strongly prefer not to hear about a game until close enough to release that the publisher knows it won’t get delayed.

I wouldn’t say I hate when that doesn’t happen though. More like an eye roll then I move on with my life. Once a game gets delayed once, I put it out of my mind. Let me know when it’s actually released. If y’all can’t be bothered to respect people’s time with the first announcement, I’ll just expect it to get delayed again until it’s literally available for purchase.

 

[Thunder84]

Hate is a strong word, but no, I don’t like it at all. Show the game when it’s ready and you’re confident in a date. Elongated hype cycles are never as fun as short and quick ones.

 

[LordByron28]

While delays and restarted development can be frustrating; I don’t inherently mind for some major projects such as Zelda, Metroid and Smash. This is also ignoring the dozens of games they announce 6-9 months prior to release, so I don’t think it’s fair to paint a pattern with Nintendo that seem to be anomalies.

 

[EggmaniMN]

It's fine because they cover the whole spectrum with other games that get released like 2 months later and the standard 6 months out.

 

[MondoMega]

It's a tough call since none of these three examples were intentionally announced as far out as they ended up being in the first place; we know of development issues and delays for all three titles:

• TotK had a publicly announced delay from 2022 to 2023, and definitely would've seen an earlier internal delay from COVID alongside every other upcoming project. While the initial teaser was likely intended to be relatively early anyway (so they could begin openly hiring for the game; similar strategy seen for Splatoon 3 in 2021) they definitely weren't targetting 2022 from the offset; 2021 at the latest I imagine.
• Bayo 3's development turmoil doesn't seem to be much of a well-kept secret; with Hashimoto's depature from Platinum and signs of a shift in direction mid-production (supposedly scaling back from a more open design). This was again a relatively early teaser (to appease questioning fans alongside the announcement of the ports, probably), but like the other two i'm certain the wait was not intended to be this long.
• The original incarnation of Prime 4 was seemingly announced early in production too (to preemptively quell most complaints about Samus Returns being on 3DS; same as the early Fire Emblem and Pokemon confirmations that year), but everybody knows all the details with the reboot and developer shift so I don't need to elaborate much further.

TotK and Bayo 3 turned out great and i'm sure Prime 4 will too; it doesn't bother me personally because Nintendo publish plenty of other games in the meantime (Zelda and Metroid have seen multiple releases bridging the gap, and Platinum put out multiple titles before Bayo 3 too), but this outcome is clearly not something they desire or intend for.

 

[xghost777]

I think we need some more poll options here as there is a huge gap between love and hate haha. I mentioned in another thread, having a healthy mix of long term and more immediate prospect games is great. Covid did disrupt all of these games to large extents so I can’t really hold it against any of them except perhaps Prime 4 which I wish wasn’t so early in development a reboot could enter the picture. A few big games announced 2-3 years out mixed with a bunch of closer to release games is ideal to me.

 

[Giancarlo]

So in the past generation we had a few games that had pretty long reveal to release Bayonetta 3 revealed in 2017 and released in 2022 took 5 years. TOTK revealed 2019 released 2023 took 4 years and Prime 4 revealed 2017 and most likely releasing in 2024 taking 7 years. Also Pikmin 4 whcih I think was annouced in the wii u days. Do you like these long cycles to build up hype or do you think they are way to long and the games should be revealed more sooner when they are closer to release? Personally im on two minds I like knowing that prime 4 was at least coming out as well as the zelda totk but the wait for these games does make me also anxious about seeing them already and for them to release. What do you guys think?

anouncing games so early is not good for everyone(i give anxiety), next time anounce this such games 6 months one year for it release, i actually prefer games have shorter marketing period, this long marketing/hype cycles are not ideal,

 

[Ripfeld89]

Yeah this poll needs something in between other than "don't care". If certain series have real long release cycles then fans will tend to get disgruntled and hopeless thinking it's "dead" after too many years of it never being mentioned, it's nice to know what we have to look forward to on the horizon. However I'd say announcing a game that's about two years away should be the absolute max, otherwise it feels kinda pointless, like people start to question if the project ever had any progress or was real at all. A big company like Nintendo with tons of projects of varying scales has the privilege of doing the "it's out very soon/now!" thing fairly often, but that takes a ton of pieces of fall into place.

Zelda went overboard with its secrecy, but after playing it I can see why, if they had given us small periodic updates of what the game has to offer over the course of all that time it would've raised the (still quite valid) critique that the game is just BotW again with some stuff added.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Sucks but eh.

I get that there's a multitude of reasons for early announcements/reveals and obviously games get delayed so I don't lose any sleep over it. Ideally there shouldn't be more than one year between announcement and release.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Bayonetta 3's announcement was weird as the game still seemed in pre-production when it was announced.

I don't think anyone was going to go out and buy a Switch because Bayo 3 was announced?

So why announce it so early? Weird.

 

[Cara]

A new Metroid Prime and a new Bayonetta are not a given, so it makes sense, but personally i don't really care if the games get announced late or early.

 

[Yazmat]

I think it's pretty funny that the MP4 was announced before the B3 and TotK.

 

[winstein]

At least games that were announced years before their prime are a minority, because a shorter reveal-to-release window is a much preferable approach given the speed at which information are conveyed through the internet.

It's a bit unfortunate that certain games took very long, but I suppose we'll live, hopefully long enough for them to release, anyway.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Mirev]

1/2 games announced years before are needed to me imho

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Games that have to be announced with CG or no gameplay in general, are games that are announced too early.

 

[Serif]

It made sense early on to gain confidence in the platform. For TotK I believe it was also for recruitment.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this, if the game is just initially revealed with a slight teaser. The .jpg of Prime 4 was a hype promise, but it's not making me itch with anticipation everyday since I've seen nothing fo the game. Neither did BotW2's initial teaser. If I know a game is a long ways away, I will simply shelve it in the back of my mind until the marketing cycle really kicks in, only emerging when there's the slightest update (like me every time a patent was revealed). Even for Elder Scrolls which I love, I forgot about Elder Scroll VI's existence until they just announced the pre-production update.

I think it would have been worse if we had gone through these six years without any hint of Prime 4. We would have just gotten Samus Returns at E3 2017 and been anxious about the state of 3D Metroid. They were really transparent with the dev updates which is the best one could hope for in a scenario like this.

 

[Deleted member 540]

I don't believe for one second that all the people getting angsty over TOTK wouldn't have been similarly angsty if there was nothing but silence until September 2022. Especially for Zelda when it would be assumed something was in the works.

"Show us more! You suck, Nintendo!" would have been "Show us something! You suck, Nintendo!"

 

[TreIII]

Honestly, it doesn't bother me as much as it used to. Go ahead, announce away, even if I won't see it for years.

As much as waiting sucks, getting to have an idea of what's being made and what team(s) and director(s) are being attached to a project is a normal thing about films being made. So, all I'd ask why can't we have a similar thing for games (besides the obvious reasons)?

It's probably the main reason I've come to like leak culture, because it's usually the only avenue that gives us an "in".

 

[Yavga]

After a certain age years seem to fly by, so the 2 years waiting time in the 90's are the equivalent of the 4 years from this time.

...And it's still taking too damn long

 

[Yamanoi]

Bayonetta 3 is better than every Metroid game outside Super Metroid so I'm ok with it and Bayonetta Origins was a surprise that ended up being one of Nintendo's best games of 2023. All good. It isn't like I have nothing to play on Switch. I'm not one of those "first party is all I play" people.

 

[meatbag]

In general I'd like shorter reveal-to-release cycles, but frankly I simply just forget about games until they're near release. Too much stuff to do, heck, there's too many games to play, anyway.

 

[Onosume]

My preference is to announce when it's in a state where you can actually show something of the game. We've had a big trend of hype logo reveals which just set fans up for disappointment. I think studios are learning from this now and the windows are starting to get shorter. But yeah, no more Metroid Prime 4 style reveals please.

 

[Peleo]

Personally, I hate Nintendo's incredibly short announcement ro release cycles. I like having things to look forward to.

Nintendo, bar delays, operates on a 3 month to 1 year basis. I wish it was 6 months to 1.5 years.

 

[Vookatos]

It sucks, how do you even say "Yes, I love learning about the game for the first time in 2017 before wondering for half a decade if it was canceled"? Even if you learn about your dream game earlier, it's likely a symbol of developement hell which means the product will usually be weird. It's rarely a sign of growing ambitions like it seems to be with Silksong.

It was cool when, say, Origami King was announced and the trailer was like "you can play this in 3 months!"

I think around 6 months for bigger titles is great, like Mario Odyssey. Lead in with initial trailer, explain more with second one and then do a deep dive. In fact, it was probably Nintendo's best-marketed game, but that's more due to the fact that they had 2 big things to blow the internet up with: real humans and capture mechanic.

 

[Aostia82]

I'm ok with it, if

It's not this way for EVERY game, and Nintendo surprised us with actually the shortest announcment-to-release cycle of the entire industry (some shadowdrop on the eShop like Prime Remaster, but even very few weeks for a retail release like Mario All Star 3D, or anyway few months-away big guns like Wonder)

It happens alongside some other project announced for the same brand, for a nearer release window: for example I think that announcing Metroid Prime 4 alongside Metroid: Samus Returns has been great and we all know that without the Bandai-Namco debacle the development cycle wound't have been SO long)

So, I'm ok with Bayonetta 3 announced alongside the Bayo1+2 collection, or Prime 4 with Samus return
I think that even Tears of the kingdom was announced in a Direct that hosted Link's Awakenening?

 

[lexony]

As much as I hated the wait, I think it is better when they talk more about what they are doing. For Zelda it was about to tell the people why they should be kept invested in the Switch as a platform - "There is still coming something big, and possibly there will be other big games coming" - and for Bayonetta and Metroid it is more about keeping the discussion around those series alive.

Also let's not forget that the reboot of the development for Metroid and Covid in general play(ed) a certain role for the long wait. I'm sure they initially aimed a 2021 release for Zelda for example.

 

[Irene]

On a personal level, I’m fine with it. I’d rather have a teaser 2 years after BotW to tide me over rather than 5 years of radio silence.

 

[YolkFolk]

Sony sold a ton of PS4’s from announcing FFVII Remake and Shenmue 3 so I can see why it happens.

With the 3 games mentioned, I don’t think the intention was for them to ever take so long to come out. B3 and MP3 sounded like they got rebooted and TotK was likely impacted by Covid.

In general, I do prefer a shorter time scale from announcement to release though. Unless they’re desperate then I’d prefer games weren’t announced as soon as they started development. For a huge game like Zelda I think 18-24 months max is a reasonable timeframe from announcement to release but for most other stuff I like a 12 month window at most.

 

[Coco98bisFR]

I hate it. I don't mind them to announce some big game in advance like Zelda, Xenoblade, etc. But 3 years should be the maximum amount of time between the first announcement and the official release. They should take into account the fact that the game could be delayed, just like BoTW, ToTK were (BoTW was stille released less than 3 years before his announcement but ToTK is another thing, I guess covid had a huge impact on its development).

 

[Bonejack]

Not a fan of those long timeframes. I like the opposite they've been doing for a few games.
But i'm willing to not give Nintendo the full fault for the three examples listed, at least.

ToTK had the Covid pandemic fuck over things. Don't get me wrong, they still announced it too early even if there wouldn't have been the pandemic, but yeah, that definitely put prolly a good 6 to 12 months on top.

Bayo 3 is (imo) mainly on P*. What fault i give Nintendo is that they let P* do their own for too long.

And Prime 4 is partially on (if the rumors / suggestions are correct) Bamco delivering shit.

Still, i hope Nintendo learned their lesson and try to avoid a too long timeframe between announcement and release, if it's possible on their end.

 

[Rampo360]

I'm not sure I'd lump Prime 4 in with the other two, considering it's a unique case in which they unexpectedly had to restart development. If they hadn't, and things had gone smoothly instead, we'd have seen a far more reasonable reveal > release window.

It was probably early on development regardless of the restart but I'm ok in special cases to be announced early. It was nice knowing they cared to do another Prime.

 

[Gartooth]

Worse than long reveal --> release cycles are the long multi-year marketing cycles Nintendo gave some games.

Bayonetta 3 and Prime 4 went dark for years so this isn't an issue I have with them. TotK was agony. The E3 2019 teaser was great. The final month or so with the Aonuma demo + launch trailer + media impressions was also great. Everything in between which covered several years of like small drip feeds was complete fluff. I think the only substantial things we learned in that time was sky islands, the game's title, and the release date.

 

[Cubs017]

I like it when games are announced and released within a year or so. Like...you show off your game Summer 2023? Hopefully it's out by Christmas 2024.

I generally prefer the Nintendo way of doing things.

I will say, though, that it can make some sense for bigger franchises. Like, if Nintendo had announced a new Mario three years ago - no shit. They're always working on Mario. That wouldn't bug me all that much because we know it's happening anyway. Same for things like TOTK.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Don't care for it, but I also don't think it's an intentional choice. They sure didn't think those games were going to take so many years to finish, or get totally rebooted in the case of MP4. Definitely not as bad as something like Elder Scrolls VI where they announced it before even really starting.

It's also more understandable they'd be willing to talk about far-off things in the days before Switch took over the world, and they had to be stretching farther to convince people that notable stuff was on the way.