@nessisonett I’m long winded so sorry in advance. I am going to sidestep all the “lazy port” stuff because that is an emotional response and how you (and some other people feel about it, before someone chimes in) personally view it which has nothing to do with my comment or the product’s inherent value. You feel the way you feel about it.
To address the part of your comment that is more relevant it would seem you and I are talking at different angles here, which is fine but it means that we are having a Venn diagram conversation.
Physical print runs are limited by their very nature. So trying to invoke a “times have changed since the last anniversary” argument isn’t really speaking to what is going on. From now until we get a near unlimited energy source and replication system physical production will forever be limited. So that in and of itself is not why these products are going away in march.
This is an anniversary celebration or a limited time marketing plan depending on how angry one is at Nintendo when being asked. So by its very nature this product and all the rest in the 35th anniversary were never intended to last very long.
Which is why the digital delisting will happen and the physical merch will stop being sold (more likely produced, as I expect a staggered shipping draw down). Many of the physical goods will last past march because it’s not like people are buying 10 mugs or tshirts for the 35th so the stores that carry stock may try to clear it out all next year. The seemingly arbitrary date is due to the fiscal year end and budget. Even something that doesn’t cost a lot (housing the digital games on the eshop, the marketing rebrand of the eshop) still costs something and is on a marketing schedule (which ties to the marketing dept’s budget) and this needs to be accounted for and then justified to management and shareholders. There is a real world time cost in the balance with marketing and product revenue and those costs and profits have cut off points by way of the fiscal year.
Of course I am well aware that the consumer doesn’t care about that. If Nintendo left the games up and delisted later, someone would still cry foul. most consumers want easy, persistent, very cheap access to a product no matter what. That runs afoul of budgets and shareholders, so we get the current anger/unrealistic expectations loop that is normal in consumerism.
Either way beyond any other logistics, this is billed as a anniversary product; which implies that it is limited time anyway. So even if Nintendo had the option to pump out carts until the end of the Switch lifetime, no one should expect them to as it is a marketing campaign product that is on a timeline. Now if they did this with Mario Odyssey I would understand the complaints as there is no underlying marketing campaign (beyond the normal “buy this thing we sell” ) however that’s not the case. That said, I would not be shocked if they did a non 35th anniversary rebrand later based upon sales.
However the consumer has been given notice, ample stock, and if all else fails, the second hand market to procure this product. There is really no reason for the backlash other than the customer is always right mentality (they are not). So I still say I don’t understand why people are making such a big deal of this.
