> That they are still so popular is a credit to how divorced from reality multi national corporate mega giants can be and still succeed.

Well, that and the size of the market itself.

> Their games and online offerings, for the most part, frankly suck compared to their competitors.

Their online offerings, sure, I guess. But their games are good, even on their consoles that don't sell well. Nintendo made a lot of money by doing nothing more difficult than porting really good games on Wii U onto the Switch.

They make money on remakes of decades-old games with minor graphical and quality of life tweaks because the games are good.

Not everything likes all of their games, and that's fine, but many do.

Most of the mario and zelda ports yes.

> They are consistently 10+ years behind the times in terms of multiplayer and online.

Nintendo has never and probably will never try and seriously compete in the multiplayer arena - they've got some casual multiplayer stuff but they're not trying to out compete Call of Duty, Halo or Starcraft.

I do agree that they do milk those main properties for all their worth, but they're pretty careful about releasing bombs - Mario Odyssey was a pretty notable and dramatic fail for them but, again, the fact that their games suck to you doesn't matter. I'm a big fan of EU4 and as such Nintendo doesn't want my business - they cater to young and casual audiences building easy to access for the family games rather than historical simulators or Dark Souls.

Since when is Mario Odyssey a failure? From wikipedia:

In the United States and Europe, it became Nintendo's fastest-selling Super Mario game ever, with 1.1 million copies sold in the US within five days.[120][121] According to the NPD Group, the game was the best-selling video game of October 2017,[122] and was listed by Amazon as the online retailer's highest-selling game of the year.[123]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Odyssey#Sales

Yeah, Odyssey was a great success. Great sales. Great consumer and critic reviews.

I suspect it just got overshadowed by Zelda Breath of the Wild, which really stole the show for the Switch launch year.

Edit: Trying to think which Mario game was NOT considered a success? Maybe Mario Sunshine? That goes back to the Gamecube, and looking at it now... that ALSO had good reviews. I don't think there's been a dud in the mainline Mario franchise... ever?

Yup. Zelda BOTW couldn't be better and along with Odyssey was a perfect way to launch the Switch. Nintendo's success isn't a mystery. Great properties and great games.

I feel there was a lot that BOTW could have improved. mostly the puzzles were boring and repetive, the world started to feel empty, they could have made more creatures, and could have had more story elements

> I don't think there's been a dud in the mainline Mario franchise... ever?

People really love to hate on SMB2 (NES).

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention to sales numbers, but I can't really recall ever hearing anyone refer to Odyssey as anything other than a success.

I would actually say they DOMINATE in a specific multi player arena. That is playing with people right next to you.

There is still a lot of desire for games you can play with people at a party, or play with your children and spouse all together on the same screen. Every other videogame maker has abandoned that niche.

>They are consistently 10+ years behind the times in terms of multiplayer and online. That they are still so popular is a credit to how divorced from reality multi national corporate mega giants can be and still succeed

have you considered that you might be the one divorced from reality and the average consumer does not care about this?

I think you only need to look at things like which games make the most money and which games are most viewed on twitch / youtube etc. Undoubtedly there is still a great market for single player and couch co op games. Nintendo is king here because their copyright moat lets them make the same 4 games every 3 years and we all buy them.

I mean... I don't play a lot of online stuff, but the switch games I've played are pretty terrible. Matchmaking for Tetris 99 takes forever (Mario 99 was slow too). Trying to play Splatoon 2 online with a friend works great if one friend was already playing, then the other friend can queue up to be in their group for the next round. But if two people want to start at the same time, good luck. Especially if one or both are younger children and don't have the patience or perserverance to hit the right buttons every time.

I'm pretty sure forming a group and then finding a match was possible 10+ years ago.

Of course, that doesn't mean the average consumer cares. I'm not even sure I care that much (I'd pay for the online service and play more Tetris 99 if matchmaking was faster though... I don't like sitting around waiting to play, so I do other things instead)

in my experience the tetris matchmaking takes like 30 seconds to start a new match. doesnt feel any noticeably slower than the time between COD matches or something on xbox

their first party titles are pretty bad. Splatoon is anti-fun -- I play 99% of the games I play with my wife and the inability for us to queue up and play on the same team pushed us away from Splatoon 2 which we otherwise loved. The co-op mode was fun, but since it is nintendo, not available every day. Just to reiterate -- the only multiplayer mode where you could guarantee you get to play with your friends was PvE and only enabled some days. Most if not all of their games are like this. Look at the pathetic online community for their greatest and most comprehensive super smash game. That is a dropped ball, there isn't really a second way about it.

> Just to reiterate -- the only multiplayer mode where you could guarantee you get to play with your friends was PvE and only enabled some days.

For the online mode of Salmon Run, yes.

It's been a few years since I touched Splatoon but from what I recall, if you go to the arcade, you can set up a local co-op Salmon Run session anytime. It is/was not well-advertised.

splatoon 2 was so, so sad. just really obviously bad decisions that made playing with friends impossible. Maybe to avoid smurfs / stompers? But at the cost of precluding anyone that likes playing with their friends.

This seems like overstated personal opinion. Market data, the consumer and the critic all disagree.

The Switch platform has been a stellar success and isn't stopping any time soon. As a business, Nintendo is thriving.

Nintendo franchises stay pretty fresh relative to other franchises. Is your issue with the concept of franchises in general? Every platform/ecosystem has them.

For Nintendo, the first party platform and franchises have always been the central focus. They remain a hit, decade after decade. So, it's not clear what your beef really is.

"They are alive purely on the strength of the 5% of good games they put out by rehashing the same 3 franchises over and over and over and over."

Completely agree with you here and just want to emphasize that the 5% of the IPs they rehash over and over produce legendary games. Many of these games push the boundaries of gaming in every way possible.

They're taking advantage of the still sizeable population of people who enjoy offline, single-player games. Because they still do that quite well.

I would argue that their hit rate is a lot lower than it has been. Sure, the zelda and mario / mario kart rehashes sell like hotcackes. But their secondary franchises are stagnating hard.