Okay,
so let's recapitulate some general complaints:
- Nintendo releases too many ports
- Nintendo doesn't release enough new games
- Nintendo should release at least one AAA game per year
First, we should recapitulate what even is AAA.
AAA means "best credit rating", so in the context of video games, it means most expensive productions. It points out the budget of the game. It has nothing to with the quality of the game. A bad game can be AAA. A niche game can be good.
A game can also be a heavy hitter, meaning a big success and very popular, without being AAA. Fortnite is such a game. Minecraft is another.
Let's compare Sonys's 2015 with Nintendo's 2020:
They had Bloodborne and Until Dawn. Bloodborne had a bigger budget than previous games of the Souls franchise, so I give it the benefit of the doubt and count it in as an AAA production. They had The Order, which is technical of high production, but it was a rush job and not exactly a good game. To be fair I'll still count it as AAA. All in all, Sony had 3 AAA games of varying quality, a remaster collection (Uncharted Collection), remasters (God of War 3 and Tearaway Unfolded), smaller titles(Helldivers and Fat Princess). There also was MLB: The Show(AA, new title), Gravity Rush Remastered, Beyond: Two Souls (port), Everybody's Gone to the Rapture(a new game, small), Fat Princess Adventures (a new game, small), Guns Up! (a new game, small) and Super Stardust Ultra (remaster, smaller title).
Nintendo had Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE (a remaster), Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX(a remake, A or below), Animal Crossing: New Horizons(a new title, not AAA, but a quality release. I'll count it as AA), Xenoblade Chronicles: Definite Edition(a remake), Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics(a new smaller title, below A), Paper Mario: The Origami King(new original title, AA), Super Mario 3D All-Stars (remaster collection), Pikmin 3 Deluxe(a remaster), Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (a new game, AA).
Sony got more total games (a total of 15 games vs. 9 by Nintendo), more remasters/ports/remakes (6 vs. 5), more smaller titles (5 vs. 2), and more new games as well (9 vs. 4).
Sony also got more AAA games, but as already mentioned before, a game doesn't need to be AAA to be a good quality release or to be successful. So let's move over to the quality of these games and compare them. For that, I'll bring out Metacritic. I don't use Metacritic to determine the quality of a game, because it is a shitty way to judge a game. I'll do it now, as it is an easy way to get a general consensus and I will not look for hours through the internet for that. This doesn't mean my opinion on any of those games is the same, so here we go:
Nintendo got an average score of 72,5. Sony got an average score of 58,82. Even when taking into consideration, that Sony released more games, this should tell you something. I'll still do it: Sony had a total of 8 games with an average score of 80 or above. Nintendo had 7.
This is the whole problem and the hypocritical nature of all of this. Remakes/Remasters and ports are fine when Sony does them, but woe if Nintendo does it. Smaller titles are fine when Sony does it, but woe if Nintendo does it. Funny enough the consensus tells us that Nintendo could still match Sony with quality releases, despite Sony releasing way more titles that year. And Sony had both better and worse years than 2015, just as Nintendo had worse and better years than 2020. That's very comparable in my opinion. Every company has droughts, every company has ups and downs. That's normal, especially in the entertainment industry.
With that being said, I do understand that the direct was disappointing to a lot of people (and mediocre and decent to others), but this is partly to blame on completely unrealistic and overblown expectations by a lot of people, and partly to blame on Nintendo’s poor policy of delivering information to the consumer. It wasn’t the greatest direct, but it also wasn’t a shit show. It was okay. Middling. If you had your expectations in check, there was a lot to like and in the end, it still gave me hope, that 2021 will be a much better year for Nintendo than 2020. There will be another big Nintendo Direct and one centered around Pokemon for example. I also expect a continuation of Mini Directs and shadow drops as they did with Paper Mario for example. It is foolish to judge their entire lineup of the year in February. There is definitely much more to come out and an intention to do more than what they did last year.
PS: If someone got hurt by my words, then I apologize. Sometimes I get too much into this and see everything as some sort of competition. I am sorry for that.