I want it to take as long as possible so it won't be a rushed mess like NH. Honestly, I want them to take their time this time around. I'm sure it'll be on the next Nintendo console/handheld which I'll be suckered into buying to play it lol.
While I’m pretty sure Nintendo are buying into doing free update style games as a way of getting more games out quicker and avoiding another Wii U debacle, I’m also pretty sure that NH was designed with it in mind rather than it just being a case of “guys, we
need to get this out in the first few years of the Switch’s life so it can be an evergreen seller… screw it, it’s a free update game”.
(don’t get me wrong, I think Nintendo themselves want the game to be out in the first few years of a console’s lifespan because it
is generally an evergreen seller and having it out later in a console’s lifespan would cause it to perform worse than it could do… I just generally think “if this game was designed to get people who’ve only played Pocket Camp on board, it’s going to be structured a lot like a mobile game, and that includes updates” alongside stuff the devs said in interviews like “creating unity between players” and “wanting people to discover new things 2 or 3 years into play”)
It’s telling that the vast majority of games that use free updates are sports games, as they’re games that you’re going to keep playing on and off for a long while, rather than something more story-led and completion-orientated like Mario and Zelda… and it means there’s always something new happening with the game, which drives engagement and sales.
But they
do need to get better at doing them. I’ve seen some data mined stuff for Splatoon 3’s latest update and it’s fixing issues that probably shouldn’t have been there for 9 months, like Deep Cut having dialogue about individual stages.
Especially the Mario sports games, which seem to be developed by a very small team still. At least they’re not Square Enix, who will do this for
literally anything then shut the servers down for the game after a couple of years and make the game
completely unplayable… but it still needs to improve. Nintendo’s small games are great. Nintendo’s BIIIG games are great. But the games in the middle like these free update games? Still need work, tbh.
Hopefully this time around, given there’s nearly 2000 items of furniture already in existence and there’s hopefully
not going to be an ongoing viral pandemic affecting further development, and to the director of NL/NH
thoroughly getting the message that maybe making a game with less content to appeal to newcomers was probably a bad idea… we’re probably in for something more substantial next time around.
Yep, exactly why I was so butthurt with the game being the way it was. It was like they were sitting on their butt all those years doing nothing. Clearly though, they were busy with another project and this game definitely got put on the backburner.
The “core” AC staff (ie. the AC project leads/regulars that mainly work on everything AC-related) worked on Happy Home Designer, Amiibo Festival, Welcome Amiibo and supervising the development of Pocket Camp for about 5 of those 7 years, and gather other members of staff from the pool of devs at Nintendo who move between projects whenever needed (in addition to members of other related companies like ndCube, Monolith Soft, SRD or one of the external modelling companies who worked on the past few games)
