Nintendo Drought

a well-known annoyance to hardcore gamers, when a video game console experiences a long period of no good games being released, named after nintendo’s habit of long “dry periods”, after a series of releases for, example, the holiday season.
i’m waiting for those new mario and metroid games, but it’s going to be a few months before the nintendo drought clears up. looks like i’ll have to deal with cr-ppy 3rd-party games ’till then…
a problem that has been occurring on nintendo consoles since the gamecube. simply put, nintendo throws out a string of ideas and games in order to please everyone, then hits a road block partway through year two of a cycle and takes a break in order to develop new games.

last time it happened, no one cared, as nintendo was the underdog. this time, however, people are whining because nintendo is at the top of its game. regardless, the whining is absurd, as the drought usually ends with nintendo releasing fresh games.

this time, also, the drought forced third-party developers to stop relying on nintendo as a crutch and forced them to release some very good games during the fourth quarter of last year and the first of this year.
“nintendo has abandoned us!”

“what’s your problem? it’s just a nintendo drought. they’ll be back with new games soon!”

“yeah! you didn’t complain in 2003, why start now? you scared that nintendo has two audiences to deal with now? you’re so ungrateful! why don’t you just go back to shouting profanity at girls over xbox live and leave real gamers to appreciate what nintendo is able to offer us!”