@kryssnova: From Doug Bowser himself if you actually read the article with the full interview:
Q: How did you get to a $70 price figure for the upcoming Zelda game?
A: "We look at what the game has to offer. I think fans will find this is an incredibly full, deeply immersive experience. The price point reflects the type of experience that fans can expect when it comes to playing this particular game. This isn’t a price point that we’ll necessarily have on all our titles. It’s actually a fairly common pricing model either here or in Europe or other parts of the world, where the pricing may vary depending on the game itself."
They are not pricing the games higher based on greed, but on what they feel the game is worth for how much content it has, how immersive it is, and how fun. Ergo, if the price is higher, you can expect the game to be bigger and better, and what he says effectively aims to convey that point without spoiling anything about the game.
Here you said... :
"I see so shareholders want ever growing profits which are not possible to maintain and achieve...
With the amount of ever increasing audience and therefore profits, games should be becoming cheaper..."
Just plain projection right there.
For point 1, of course shareholders, and the companies they support always want to make more money, that doesn't make them evil nor irrational. You'd do the same in their place.
Point 2, that's not even remotely how it works. Pricing has to work a certain way to turn a profit for everyone involved. From development to manufacturing. It just so happens that ToTK is a much bigger game, thus the price increase. Not inflation, not greed. A simply bigger game. If you need a reminder, just refer to the quote up there from the interview.
"The price point reflects the type of experience that fans can expect when it comes to playing this particular game."
Hopefully people will come to understand this once the game is released, just as Doug Bowser has said. While it is true there is a lot they've not shown about the game, for some that may be a good thing, as they go in "blind" for a truly 1st-run experience. New trailer(s) are bound to drop within the next 7 1/2 weeks, just you wait.
@PrpleTrtleBuBum:No. Halo not being on a Nintendo console being a problem doesn't mean that they wouldn't put Cloud, Sephiroth, or Snake. All three of those have appeared on Nintendo consoles, and have a long history. Gamecube for Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, for example.
Final Fantasy has a long history since NES days, all the way up to now. In fact, the very first Final Fantasy was an NES title. Halo is XBOX exclusive, no exceptions other than iOS, which is dismissable.
"if nintendo is so delusional to say ok add cloud he is a known nintendo game character they might as well delude themselves into thinking that master chief has appeared on the same game expo as mario so its a clear connection."
This paragraph above. Uh... what? Cloud originating from Playstation's FF7 but appearing in Smash doesn't make Nintendo delusional. What matters is the series or franchise itself having a gaming origin and Nintendo history.
Microsoft wishes to keep their Halo titles on Xbox & Windows PC only. They don't even make deals with Sony's Playstation for Halo, even though the PS4/PS5 would be capable of running their newer games. The Switch... certainly not, outside of a Xbox Cloud Gaming type of thing, which would be horrendous due to input lag & latency.
You want delusional? People asking for the impossible. Nintendo definitely isn't delusional and knows exactly what they're doing. There is literally nothing anyone could say to justify Master Chief having any chance of being in Smash. No matter how much people beg, it will never happen. It'd be like having a Mario or Zelda game on the Xbox, it is that level of exclusivity.
@asultana121x:The more it's down, the less people "learn" anything through it. That's good in my book. It's practically the primary source of misinformation and conspiracies these days. One of them, anyway...
@blaznwiipspman1: Halo has never been on a Nintendo console, so that is impossible. It's funny that people still ask for it, even knowing this fact.
Also those imaginary sales ratios you talk about are rubbish. It's maybe 40 ~ 50% compared to the rest of the planet. For this I'm going off what sales figures I could find on a quick search; ones from May earlier this year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101901/unit-sales-nintendo-switch-region/
@illegal_peanut: Ratchet & Clank games have only ever been on Playstation, with one single exception of an iOS game. Certain criteria must be met for a franchise character to appear in Smash. Being firstly from a game or representing some history in Nintendo (R.O.B.), or having had a game on a Nintendo console / handheld device like GBA, 3DS, etc.
Likewise to R & C, Halo has only appeared on Xbox and PC platforms, as well as Windows Phone or iOS. Goku is from the old Dragonball manga (started in 1984, through 1995), anime and the like, and has had many Dragonball-related games, but is not originally from a game, thus the criteria is not met. Dragonball, however, does have much history with games on Nintendo platforms, dating back to the GBA. Even given this fact, it is doubtful that he met Nintendo's inclusion criteria.
Krystal is already an assist trophy, but Ori might be possible. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition came to Switch in 2019, with its sequel following it just last year. Quite a possibility they could have chosen that, provided there was some good reason for it. Many character inclusions have been either for marketing purposes, or due to popularity whilst being part of a 1st or 3rd party game / franchise with some Nintendo history to it. Minecraft was obviously due to popularity. (Minecraft for Switch came out in June 2018, just months before Smash Ultimate did in December that year)
All that said, I honestly think Nintendo is going to surprise us with yet another thing no one would have guessed. Temper your expectations, and you'll be able to have fun with whomever it is.
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