People keep trying because it's gonna happen sooner or later.

Not surprising considering that the 3DS came out 7 years ago.

I guess ashamed could be the right word but I dislike using words like this to describe corporate practices. This is ultimately a marketing decision to put Xbox out to the public the best possible way. Words like "ashamed" are too personal and something you'd only find on the school yard between fanboys. The company itself isn't ashamed. They're a rich conglomerate that don't feel emotions. They just make decisions to maximize profits. Some employees might feel ashamed, but this does not represent everyone working there.

Your answer is the most generic, non innovative answer someone could possibly come up with. Sure some companies like to play it safe, but a lot of others innovate to make the big bucks. If they went by your logic, they wouldn't be here today.

The game has so many moons at varying difficulty levels to accommodate 2 purposes:

1. Exploration. The most "open" Mario game yet. Giving you lots of freedom in exploration - a lot of people consider this aspect extremely fun.

2. Difficulty: A wide range of moons vary in difficulty, accommodating both novice players (e.g. moons just sitting out in the open) and experts.

Criticizing this is ultimately pointless. It's great to accommodate for different skill levels. It's a quick animation sequence for collecting a moon, and then you can move on. There's a good distribution of moons on both ends of the difficulty spectrum. For example, I would consider myself an experienced Mario player, and getting these easy-to-get moons is really no big deal.

A fair criticism is the end game being a slog for completionist. This is the side effect of having bad moon design (e.g the ones you buy). This is a fairly minor criticism in the grand scheme of things, knocking it down from a 100/100 down to a 97 or 98 (as it is on Open Critic or Metacritic). So it does have a fair meta score.

Combination of:

- Appealing and novel hardware (portability + docked, split joy cons multiplayer, etc.)

- Day one 10/10 exclusive (Zelda), generating great buzz

- Continued support with great 1st party exclusives, great indie support, and decent 3rd party support on a consistent basis (the "one game a month" thing).

- Great marketing (good ads, super bowl, the click sound, the logo, the name, etc.)

All 4 things played a crucial role in the success of the Switch.

Nintendo Direct is just a pre-recorded video (aired live) that Nintendo makes to announce games or to reveal more info on previously revealed games (or other Nintendo related announcement, like amiibo or online services). Sometimes they do ones that are focused on one game (e.g recently they did one all about Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and another on Animal Crossing Pocket Camp).

They're usually around 30-40 minutes long. They usually do a few of them a year. And Nintendo usually only announce that a Nintendo Direct is coming shortly before they release it (e.g a week beforehand). In this case, it's rumoured to come out, like, now-ish, and they haven't even announced it yet! (Nintendo of America on Twitter is currently trolling us with cryptic posts).

Here's an archive of old Nintendo Directs:
https://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct/archive/

They will usually play the live version on that website too.

So the next rumoured Direct should be a general one that announces or talks about a variety of games (e.g confirming release dates).

So as I mentioned before, a Nintendo Direct *may* be a play where they announce a price drop. Highly unlikely though.

The thing is, 2D Mario games sell well.

As a point of comparison between the 2D New series vs. 3D Mario games:

DS:
(3D) Mario 64: 11.06m
(2D) NSMB: 30.8m

3DS:
(3D) 3D Land: 11.4m
(2D) NSMB: 11.73m

Wii:
(3D) Galaxy: 12.75m
(3D) Galaxy2: 6.36m
(2D) NSMB: 30.11m

Wii U:
(3D) 3D World: 5.7m
(2D) NSMB: 5.73m

As you can see, all the 2D games have outsold the 3D games.

Nintendo would be fools not to release a 2D game on the Switch.

There's lots.

Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Splatoon 2, Golf Story, Mario+Rabbids, Mario Kart 8 DX, Snipper Clips, and a bunch of others.