Really basic, but Mario Kart DS specifically. The gameplay does not do it for me, but the way it sounds coming out of the DS’s Speakers sounds amazing. Though, Mario Kart 64 & Wii are probably really close for me out of sheer nostalgia.
It’s really tough to pin it down to just one thing… to me, it’s a perfect storm. This is anecdotal, of course. But companies made several bad decisions in a row. They seemed to think growth during COVID was normal and would continue annually. Some companies bought a bunch of other companies thinking this would be a new big push in gaming. Embracer group comes to mind.
Other companies decided to divert their very talented developers away from the types of games they were so good at developing, and towards what the business wanted to chase as far as revenue opportunities. Gatcha riddled live service games. Ubisoft, WB, Sony, EA, Microsoft, practically everyone chased this trend. Some put everything into it. Others dipped their toes. Some pulled back before it cost them hundreds of millions. Some spent hundreds of millions and got nothing to show for it. Some companies lost a lot of talent when the really good developers left to go work on stuff they care about. Others had no choice but to cut the business down to the bone because of all the money and time they wasted chasing a trend.
The government also started raising interest rates, which makes it more expensive to borrow money. So a lot of companies aren’t willing to spend the kinda money they used to, not without a guaranteed return. So now you will see more consolidation and less risk in the types of games being made by AAA studios.
So yea. I think there’s several factors, all could have been planned for with actual solid management, but that’s not the kind of management running these companies right now.
If you’d like to understand an industry usually a good place to look is independent industry journalists. People that can maintain integrity when it’s financially advantageous to be deceptive are rare so most are just going to repeat what they heard someone else say or what they were paid to say or what they think will get views, but there are a few who will get into the actual history and lore of the industry, not just the slime bags trying to ruin it.
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