If Nintendo had wanted to, they could have been doing DLCs and other content updates for it throughout the entirety of the Switch's lifespan and people would have lapped it up. If ever there was a Nintendo series that could be a GAAS and not be an abomination in the process, it's AC.
Wouldn't be surprised if they go with that with the next AC.
Nintendo doesn’t seem to be interested in heavily investing into GAAS games, especially for their flagship IPs. It would become harder for audiences to justify the premium pricing of Nintendo games if they became filled with DLC, and Nintendo would rather have their devs move onto other projects.
I think Nintendo knows they have a core audience who loves to play a lot of their games, and GAAS are time eaters. They're typically meant to get you in the door cheap or free and spend a lot of money. Nintendo is one of the only companies - maybe the ONLY company today - that can sell an insane amount of copies of their games at or near full price. I feel like FROM has been going this route more lately but they still discount their games more.
Splatoon being a live service kinda thing works well because it's one of their very few games that goes that route. Pokemon KIND OF skirts this too and they have stuff like Tetris 99 going on too.
Animal Crossing could really benefit from some kind of long term treatment though, because it's one of the only games that many people actually play consistently for weeks, months, even years.
Yeah, I know there's the "Nintendo is so out of touch" meme but I actually do think they silently pay a LOT of attention to the things their most hardcore fans want, like skipping Paper Mario 64 to remake the seemingly less in need of a remake TTYD instead doesn't make much sense until you realize that's the one their core audience seemed to hold as the gold standard. Investing as much as they seem to have into Metroid Prime 4 doesn't make any sense given the series past performance unless you accept that they are motivated at least somewhat by what their most core base is asking for.
114
u/engagingbear 1d ago
It's crazy how this game has only had 1 DLC. My wife isn't a traditional gamer and has sunk so many hours into animal crossing.