They just released a gatcha-style pokemon TCG for mobile a month ago, and they’ve released a bunch of them previously based on most of their big IPs. They focus those on mobile instead of their consoles is the only difference.

Nintendo is just as bad as the “other big publishers” and your sentiments aren’t founded in reality. Their gacha practices, frivolous licensure of hardware, and constant patent trolling bring the games industry as a whole down as people like you paint them as a forerunner. I’ll try not to write a whole TED talk but no promises.

Someone mentioned just the Pokemon TCG, but almost every mobile game nintendo has released has had one of the worst dollar spend ratios out of the genre they chose. Fire emblem? Obscenely expensive. Pokemon go? LONG time gating unless you cheat or pay. Dragalia Lost brought in tens of millions annually - 1 in 200 chance from the average loot box for a dude. Don’t get me started on pokemon quest, one of the most “get mom and dad’s credit card” games ever devised. Literal loot boxes were only removed from mario kart tour late 2022.

Nintendo has a couple of exceptional quality teams but those teams would be that quality with or without the Nintendo brand attached to them. There is nothing special about the company or the manner it is run when you compare it to the other major gaming companies, right down to release quality being low for many games because of crunch and share-driven deadlines. Hell, some of their flagship franchises have been victim to it recently (Pokemon titles).

Nintendo puts their seal of approval on peripherals for their systems - have you ever bought a nintendo brand microSD for the switch? Grandma has paid 4x+ the price every year for a nintendo switch branded microSD that might not even come in a file format that works on the switch. All this, of course, to support the console with bar none the worst online connectivity that you must pay for, that cannot be improved by any means. Seriously, the ethernet dongle makes absolutely 0 difference in stability or quality if one player is using it, and it hardly improves things even when all connected players are using it. Insane waste of money.

Anyway Nintendo literally does do that. They are greedy (mobile game cost:return ratios), corner-cutting (trash licensed peripherals), and draconic in the way they patent vague game interactions and prosecute anyone for trying to innovate in “Their space” (see the recent patents locking everyone except nintendo out of the sleep game space). They lock access to their games away from the public, and what they HAVE done is re-release, at full price, decades old games for limited times (Mario collection).

There’s interviews confirming they have interest in NFT and Metaverse titles going back to 2022, it is a matter of time. TL;DR the corporation is not your friend and you are only considering a tiny fraction of what they do.

This is an incorrect way of looking at it. It’s not an all or nothing circumstance. Nintendo is simply the flip side of the same coin of publishers abusing consumers. The PC gaming world is filled with good publishers selling high quality games at full price with no abusive practices (heavy litigation or mtx). As well as indie developers who do sales and dlc but are ethical in their design. You just have to look away from the marketing behemoths who want to syphon your wallet dry.

Its not a neccesity for anyone, its just a cash grab. Nintendo doesnt do it because if they did, people would simply stop playing their games. Outside of the good reputation they somehow have, their game quality is fairly low. They do pioneer a lot of new ideas afaik, but they are far from doing them the best. BOTW and TOTK are their most impressive games, which arguably dont have a real competitor, but between Palworld, Genshin Impact, and Fenix Rising(which i think is also nintendo, oof) they arent particularly impressive.

My point is that nintendos reputation and good consumer side service, they can take risks that other companies cant, because they will sell regaurdless. Hence, if they reduce their consumer side service(loot boxes, microtransactions, paid dlcs, etc.) they dont really have anything to stand on.

Same boat as you but I’ve also got a shelf with thousands of dollars of switch games :S.

they go down… on devices that dont sell well. its why systems like the gamecube and wiiu had players choice or nintendo select prints. for example, DK Tropical Freeze was 50$ on the WiiU, 20$ as a Nintendo Selects. the launch price of the game on the Switch was 60$. They do it because they can get away with it because of the common sentiment that the WiiU had no games.

nintendo is generosity is inversely related to the devices sucess.