This article is more of a drive-by-posting of sorts, but there’s always time for a spot of good news. To wit; it looks as if Nintendo confirmed the team behind Super Mario Odyssey is developing Donkey Kong Bananza.


Looks like the next Donkey Kong is going to be “feature length”, as it were

This much seemed fairly evidential to me, or at least extraordinarily likely; watching about three whole seconds of Nintendo’s last direct would lead one to believe as much. My write up involving it’s reveal dwelled more on the absurdist notion of the lore involved with the series, which was of entertaining but worrying concern to me at the time, but the content of said title was never in question as to looking suspect in any way, shape, or form to me. The game is prepped to launch later this month, which is a good thing for Nintendo, as leaving their…err, “eager” fans with only the mere scraps of a Mario Kart title for them to feast upon for more than a month straight has conjured up some undesirable feelings of emptiness, let’s say.


How well the average Switch 2 owner seems to be reacting to the online elements of the new Mario Kart

While I originally gave Nintendo the benefit of the doubt with my initial dubiousness writing about Mario Kart World, my potential fears seemed to be earned, as the launch title acting as the tent pole special to prop up an entirely new piece of hardware by itself has turned out to be an overzealous shim-sham on Nintendo’s part, and delusional in the most indulgent of ways imaginable. Between an online that has too many hiccups, from a lack of better infrastructure to performance issues, and a general sense of “not enough” in terms of what’s on offer and balance problems, MKW has left many players feeling broken down on the side of the road.

I take this moment to remind you for the sake of transparency that while I have not played the game myself, my suspicions of the title before launch being truly enough to throw down such a fat wad of cash delayed me in picking up the Switch 2 full stop and without hesitation. With that in mind, and through a regular investigation of curiosity entailing reading articles, watching streams, and being a wallflower in online discussions, it very much seems I made the right call in thinking MKW was just not the selling point the big N thought it would be to make the Switch 2 really rev peoples engines in the raunchiest and most wicked of ways possible for thirsty audiences.

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Nintendo should just break the emergency glass and bring out the big guns: quickly release Bowsette as a downloadable racer and win Gooners over in the process of saving face. It’s been known to work

Nintendo just took the low effort route and it’s costing them big time with lukewarm press. Releasing a run of the mill racing game just doesn’t cut it anymore in terms of getting people excited about your new hardware, even if they did great sales numbers…whoopee-fucking-doo, if you aren’t a bottom line investor, who gives a steaming pile of wet Yoshi shit how many units they pushed? They aren’t the talk of the town, and they certainly aren’t creating a cultural moment of undeniably powerful zeitgeist with the launch of the Switch 2. If you want to wow people and remind them why your name is synonymous with gaming, you release a massive overhaul in terms of design and polish to get the masses revved up, not just get the hardcore people onboard: they already were and always would be.

Releasing free mobile games, ala Mario Kart Tour, is a great way to expand your sphere of influence, and will have plenty of people severely enjoying your brand offerings with gusto in bite size format. The only downside is that you’ll end up competing with yourself, so the onus is on you to remind them why the console version is the better offering. If not, you’ve left consumers with a choice, but an easy one, where people can spend either a near $600 bucks to buy a game from a series that has a questionable reputation online, or download a title that is free for their phone. Which one do you think they are likely to go for?

And if your console offering is part of the litmus test involving a higher price point at $80, behind a console that costs almost $500, with a title with no real new bells and whistles to speak of, and even a lacking multiplayer option that should have been standard fare more then a decade ago when the last major game in your series launched, where do you think that leaves you?

Stalling at the starting line.

~Pashford