I realize Nintendo doesn’t own Game Freak, but they’re a second party, dedicated developer. As you stated, Nintendo’s Target demographic is still children and probably always will be. But the general lack of innovation, or even modern day niceties you might say, within most core Nintendo franchises always bothers me. I’m fairly confident that Nintendo could gently encourage Game Freak to add voice acting … if they really cared, but that’s my point, I don’t think Nintendo cares enough to add modern features.
And yet their games are still competitively priced at $60. So you look at something like Elden Ring for $60 vs Arceus and it’s harder and harder to justify, for me personally. It would be one thing if Pokémon never set a standard for voice acting, like it was just something foreign to the overall franchise, but they’ve had plenty of movies and tv series that have built out a more robust, lively universe than we’ve ever seen in the games.
The whole “game freak is just a few generations behind” felt more justifiable 10 years ago … but frankly now they just feel lazy. And Nintendo keeps doing this weird roller coaster of success followed by devastating failure in each of their console generations, so it feels like releasing innovative, modern games wouldn’t be such a bad idea to avoid another Wii U 2.0 after the success of the Switch (hard to believe it’s almost 6 years old now … better screen or not). I’m not trying to pick a fight, as I know this is the Nintendo thread … I just want to see them do better so they can compete with what Sony and Microsoft have coming in the next few years.