It’s like people have completely forgotten the sheer volume of great games made before graphics like this would have been the best ever. Some of the all time classics use ASCII art for christs sake.
If this is your lead out, the biggest, baddest, most serious complaint you could come up with, must be a pretty solid game at worst.
If there is any type of authentication between the cartridge and console that gets bypassed, that would technically be a violation of the circumvention portion DMCA. They have used this exact tactic before and that kind of authentication has been used as long ago as the og NES.
Those are both Nintendo, not merely ‘Japanese’. However you may feel about Nintendo’s legal proclivities, they are a longtime major player in the industry and, despite the gimmicky nature of the last few consoles, produce a very consistent, high quality with a brand perception in the ballpark of Disney. Those two things make them the default choice for any content-conscious parents or grandparents buying for kids, which has historically been the bulk of the market.
//edit: I guess that is half the explanation- the other half is the now large population of gamers with very warm, nostalgic feelings for Nintendo IP after the massive impact it had on their youth.
Game is just outside the top 50 on steam and had a major content release at the end of June. This ‘game is dying’-because-it-didn’t-indefinitely-sustain-player-counts-in-the-top-10 meme is dumb as hell.
Honestly AAA studios don’t even exist anymore. Is there any gaming studio making multipe $60 games per year you can name where you would vouch for the quality of their games solely on the basis of who made it?
Maybe some first party console games(and even then only some series), but nothing for PC.