Why is Donkey Kong so (relatively) neglected in comparison to the other big Nintendo franchises?

Why is Donkey Kong so (relatively) neglected in comparison to the other big Nintendo franchises? The ape basically kickstarted their career.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    He's not an anime character and DKC games actually take time, money, and passion to develop, all 3 things nintendo have lacked over the past 5-6 years

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I'm pretty sure they don't lack money.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        That leaves time and passion as the factors. Why do it when Retro can do it?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Retro is part of Nintendo, dummy.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            That changes nothing, it's not a Nintendo R&D studio making it. Retro developed those games, not the EPD.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Nintendo has to fund Retro to make these games.
              Nintendo only cares about their Japanese audience
              Their Japanese audience doesn't care for Donkey Kong
              Nintendo doesn't fund Retro to make a new Donkey Kong game

              How is this hard for you to grasp?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Remember when they funded Mario & Luigi and AlphaDream didn't go under?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                they don't own Alphadream you moron, they own Retro Studios
                what part of that is hard for you to understand? they fund Retro because they're part of Nintendo.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Nintendo only cares about their Japanese audience
                >Their Japanese audience doesn't care for Donkey Kong

                Complete bullshit

                https://sites.google.com/site/gamedatalibrary/game-search

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Nintendo only cares about their Japanese audience? Is Zelda popular in Japan?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                kek, wait until he finds out what Japs think of Metroid

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If they can budget over 5 years to copy paste BotW to a new cartridge, they have plenty of time

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            now i'm not sure but something tells me that's not what's happening with botw2

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They don't lack money, they lack the ambition to dump it into projects

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Japan has never been very good at making DKC styled games, and people tend to b***h when they stray too far from the established formula. Ergo, it's best to just hand it off to a Western studio like Retro. However, Retro is currently busy trying to make a new Metroid Prime (another franchise people like to b***h about not getting enough love) which means they don't have the manpower to currently work on a new DK game.

      And then you have salty manchilderen like this who don't understand how game development works, and just assumes mommy Nintendo poops out new games whenever they want and can allocate their resources however they wish.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Captain Falcon is an anime character and look where he is
      Why do you hate anime on an anime website by the way?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        He never said he hated anime.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yeah, why isn't Monolith working on the new Donkey Kong game? Fricking woke SJW censored bullshit, that's why!

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They'd rather make a Mario platformer than a Donkey Kong platformer if forced to make one. Most of these IPs only get attention when it's an outside studio doing them, like Kirby getting consistent releases because it's HAL Laboratory that makes the games. Or how it was Retro that made the two Donkey Kong platformers on Wii/Wii U to begin with.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The only reason why people care about DK to begin with (both in the 90's and 2010's) was because dirty gaijins have been handling the property. Nintendo themselves have no idea what to do with the character aside from Jungle Beat which was basically a fluke.

      Also this. They basically consider DK a branch of Mario rather than its own thing, and why make a DK game when you can make more Mario?

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    not popular in japan, next question

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yes it is you moronic homosexual. Tropical freeze sold over 500k in Japan

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Retaded troony. DKC outsold every Kirby game in Japan. It outsold games like Final Fantasy VI too

      • 2 years ago
        seethe more

        lol

        lmao even

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          seethe more troony

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't think it's actually that neglected. It just has the same problem as Mario Kart and Pikmin. Since the Wii U flopped so hard they rereleased those games instead of making new ones. From Nintendo's perspective we got a Mario Kart in 2017, a Donkey Kong in 2018 and a Pikmin in 2020. They're probably holding Mario Kart until the next console, Donkey Kong until next year and then Pikmin 4 in like 2024-2025.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Uwoooo sexy monkey

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Wouldn't surprise me if they subtly seethe that his aesthetic and games were taken over by westerners.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Remember when they said the only DK characters that matter were Donkey Kong and “the banana”

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I unironically want to see this guy come back. Either in sports spinoff or mainline MK.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I don't think it's pettiness about westerners per se, but pettiness is definitely a part of it. I remember BLOCKED saying he'd come back to VJ if Capcom would let him, but wouldn't touched Okami again as it had been 'tainted' or some shit by someone else making an entry.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Whenever DK gets new artwork it's heavily influenced by his original design, you can definitely tell that there's a bit of irritation over his Rareware redesign. He's also one of the very, very few Mario characters to get design alterations in recent years; he got a nosejob in DKCTF's switch port.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        or maybe they just think his OG design fits 2D better.
        Yoshi has a similar treatment, his old-school design is drawn in the artworks.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It's just Nakaue's preferred style and it looks unified, you schizo.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          is Luigi's Mansion part of mainline? Surprised to see official 2D art of it.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >In a bad position where it sort of has a dedicated developer, but everyone seems noncommittal to that role, as well as noncommittal to what kind of games DK should have. He is much safer in the role of mascot.
    >Because he's a mascot, Nintendo might think it's bad for branding when his games continue to exist in Mario's shadow. Unlike Kirby and Yoshi who are less titanic industry names and can freely have more platformers produced with less pressure on them to be seen as genre peaks.
    >It seems like a rare case of east and west respecting each other's boundaries with the franchise. Japs haven't made their own console DK game for a long time and may feel ill-suited even if EPD 8 could probably make a killer 3D platformer. Retro paid for playing things fast and loose, bungled their original IP's development, and then became way too busy with Prime 4 and possibly a Prime 1 remake.
    >Tropical Freeze itself was the quintessential example of a sequel. With the experience of the previous game they saw all of their ideas through to the fullest. It's extremely difficult to force yourself to make another game after that. Again this is just exacerbating the issue where no one is pressuring anyone to think up ideas for DK games.
    >If they do anything other than a big 2D or 3D mainline game at this point, they risk huge backlash due to how long people have had to wait. If people got some off the wall experimental game they would flip their shit

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Am I the only one thinking Donkey Kong is... quite average and has nothing interesting going for him. I mean, never in my entire life did I see someone go "FRICK YEAH DONKEY KONG!!"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Yes. I bet you are a Kirby Black

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      DK has a dedicated fanbase

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Alright, let's break this down so even morons can understand.
    >WAAAH WHY DOES XENO- GET SO MANY GAMES
    Xeno games are the passion projects of Monolith Soft, a studio purchased by Nintendo primarily to provide assistance in projects spearheaded by EAD. When they aren't working on fricking modeling grass or whatever for a new Zelda title, they're working on their own shit. Which is Xeno.
    >WAAAH WHY DOES FIRE EMBLEM GET SO MANY GAMES
    Fire Emblem is the primary thing Intelligent Systems makes. Intelligent Systems doesn't have the resources to do much, so they mostly just juggle FE, Wario Ware, and Paper Mario (which god forbid they put out another shitty Paper Mario title)
    >WAAAH WHY DOES KIRBY GET SO MANY GAMES
    Kirby belongs to HAL, and it's HAL's biggest cash cow and most successful franchise.
    >WAAAH WHY ISN'T DK
    Retro is the studio currently in charge of DK games, and they're busy failing to produce results on a new 3D Metroid title.
    >WAAAH WHY NO F-ZERO
    Nobody wants to work on it and nobody has offered to.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Don't forget GX fricking bombed despite how Ganker feels about it
      And it was followed by a GBA game and arcade game which also bombed, both handled by different teams

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Don't forget GX fricking bombed
        In what universe is 1.5 million copies a flop? That's about as much as most Fire Emblem, Pikmin, and Kirby games crank out.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >he still believes GX sold over a million
          lol

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            It did though? Nagoshi confirmed it. There was also an arcade version of GX, so obviously it made some decent change.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              are you implying the european version somehow sold 1 million, waaay above the NA and Japanese release?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yes.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      i think more people need to know that iwata shuffled a lot of internal teams some time ago, resulting in the wario land/metroid team and others turning into something else.
      hell, even the 3D Mario team got shuffled (aside from the producer and director), their first games were actually DK Jungle Beat. The only reason they got the OK on Mario Galaxy was because Miyamoto liked their prototype.
      So far since the shuffle incident, the internal teams have remained consistent, although with slower releases due to the HD era, it's why we see studios like MercurySteam come into play.
      hopefully the Internal studio expansion they got planned will smooth things out, and I hope to god they don't focus on making cutting-edge graphics for future hardwares.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Okay but its DONKEY KONG, not some third rate failure like F-Zero. He’s so famous there’s a saying in the modern English lexicon based on him, and he was able to successfully break out of the arcade game’s shadow too, unlike Pac-Man. You’d think people would be lining up to pitch their own ideas to work with the guy.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Okay but its DONKEY KONG
        That hardly matters. Japan has already proven that they don't really get what makes DK tick, so it's better to just outsource him to the west. Issue is that their western studio is busy making another game that people have been crying for.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I just find it weird how we haven’t really seen any other studios even pitch anything, even rejected ones

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            There are probably pitches that just never see the light of day, and Nintendo is notoriously protective of their ips ever since CD-i Zelda

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          They technically have three western studios.
          >Nintendo Software Technology(NST), inside NoA, most famous for the Mario Vs Donkey Kong series and the Bowser's Fury part of Super Mario 3D World's Switch port, as well as recent ports like Captain Toad
          >Retro
          and now
          >Next Level Games, who just put out Mario Strikers

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      If they have so many studios under them, why the frick does Nintendo only have like 10 games per generation

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >why the frick does Nintendo only have like 10 games per generation
        1. It takes a long time to make games
        2. Most studios are going to only put out maybe 3-4 games per generation at best
        3.Nintendo EPD alone has put out 9 games in the last 2 years (granted, a few in collaboration with other studios), with another on its way.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          there are 10 separate production groups under EPD.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Doesn't really change the fact that anon was wrong about "le 10 games per gen".

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Retro is the studio currently in charge of DK games, and they're busy failing to produce results on a new 3D Metroid title.
      False, as of 2018 at least. Retro did make the TF port on Switch, but now there is an official DK Team at Nintendo, which was explicitly referred to by Davide Soliani in an interview in which he said they had to approve everything for the DK Adventure dlc for Mario + Rabbids. This would mostly pertain to the designs for DK himself, Crankys autistic rabbit counterpart, and the weapons based on the 5 animal buddies from DKC1. Now, its concerning that this new team has done frick all beyond increasing the generic DK merch we see and sanctioning cameos for the Mario spin offs (which also covers the extra DK characters in Mario Kart Tour and will probably cover the Universal park and movieshit) but that's beyond the point.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Do we know if this is an actual team, or just a group of lawyers that Nintendo keeps around to make sure that nobody fricks up in representing their ips (i.e. prevent another CD-i Zelda)?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      No nintendo is 1 company where is eartbond 2?

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Lowest IQ posters in any thread on Ganker at the moment

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Kid Icarus bros...

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Kid Icarus
      Dead franchise revived by Sakurai's insatiable lust of little boys. Will probably never get a sequel because Sakurai was put on permanent Smash duty (despite no longer being a Nintendo employee) and he has long since sold his soul to be given the unnatural lifespan to continue working on it.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Game is full of b***hes like Palutena and Medusa
        >Instantly thinks of little boys instead
        These are the people who didn't like Uprising, huh?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Nah Uprising was cool.
          Just wish Sakurai did capstone Smash with yet another shota (a shota designed by Nomura, the only thing Sakurai is more sexually attracted to than shotas)

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Remember when people thought Bandai-Namco was remaking the game? Good times...

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Blame Retro/Nintendo for how they've handled DK after the DKC revival. It's shameful.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    they should turn it into a shitty JRPG so we could get 4 on one console

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Mario turbocharged their video game business. DK rode his coattails. Don't get it twisted.

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because retro studio is their go to studio for the games and they're busy trying to make prime 4

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The hardcore fans that made the original successful didn't really care for Miyamoto's half-assed follow ups.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      he's referring to jr/3, not DKC

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Bro that guy hated it when Nintendo started developing home consoles. He was triggered by Super Mario Bros being so radically different from Donkey Kong.

        Read the article.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          he's literally me

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      He means Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3, which yes nobody really remembers outside of the DK Jr. references that pop up in some Donkey Kong games like vine-climbing and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, or Klaptraps probably being based off of the Snapjaw things in DK Jr., meanwhile nobody remembers anything at all about DK3 and the last time we saw it was Stanley's trophy in Melee

      The closest we got to a continuation of that line of Donkey Kong was the "Super Donkey" prototype found in that Nintendo gigaleak, which we also know ended up being repurposed and totally converted into Yoshi's Island

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Mario and Rabbids crossed over because they are both vampiric franchises that stole and then split from their sources (DK and Rayman)

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      DK is literally in Mario+Rabbids

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Is it really vampiric when Mario was always the hero in it

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Mario was always the hero in it
        Mario was the villain of DK2 and wasn't in DK3

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I wonder if Stanley the Bugman will show up in the Mario and Donkey Kong movies.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Actually he was the villain in Donkey Kong Jr.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        This, Mario was starring in a bunch of stuff after DK came out, across Game & Watch titles and merchandise, culminating with Mario Bros and then the big one, Super Mario Bros. The frick did DK have?

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I was playing the original DKC last week and all I could of is how racist all of the characters would be received nowadays.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Tropical Freeze released in 2014
    >8 and a half years later, Retro has done fricking nothing besides releasing a Switch port

    i seethe every day. I fricking hate primegays, or rather the loud posers who have never played a single game in the trilogy but screeched about MP4 anyway

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I'm still salty about people review bombing Tropical Freeze for not being MP4 and I honestly think the backlash is why Retro is in shambles right now
      Metroidgays deserve their fate is what i would say but they still got Dread anyway so whatever

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Whatabout Kirby?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      see

      Alright, let's break this down so even morons can understand.
      >WAAAH WHY DOES XENO- GET SO MANY GAMES
      Xeno games are the passion projects of Monolith Soft, a studio purchased by Nintendo primarily to provide assistance in projects spearheaded by EAD. When they aren't working on fricking modeling grass or whatever for a new Zelda title, they're working on their own shit. Which is Xeno.
      >WAAAH WHY DOES FIRE EMBLEM GET SO MANY GAMES
      Fire Emblem is the primary thing Intelligent Systems makes. Intelligent Systems doesn't have the resources to do much, so they mostly just juggle FE, Wario Ware, and Paper Mario (which god forbid they put out another shitty Paper Mario title)
      >WAAAH WHY DOES KIRBY GET SO MANY GAMES
      Kirby belongs to HAL, and it's HAL's biggest cash cow and most successful franchise.
      >WAAAH WHY ISN'T DK
      Retro is the studio currently in charge of DK games, and they're busy failing to produce results on a new 3D Metroid title.
      >WAAAH WHY NO F-ZERO
      Nobody wants to work on it and nobody has offered to.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Rejoice, Ganker, Nintendo has heard the moronic blithering of the manchildren in this thread, and has decided to bless you by putting their studios on the games you really want to see!
    >Intelligent Systems is now being forced to work on an F-Zero title
    >Monolith is being forced to work on a Donkey Kong title
    >Gamefreak is being pulled from Pokemon for the moment to work on Pikmin
    >HAL will take over for them on the next Pokemon title
    I'm sure everyone will be happy with the new arrangement.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Monolith Donkey Kong
      if it means we get a DK RPG with all the Kongs together for a party system then I'm all for it

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You make it like its a bad thing but aside from Pikmin, I can't wait for their output

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      what about NLG

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >F-Zero with more nostalgic fanservice
      >Donkey Kong with more world-building and lore
      >Pokemon with actual soul and effort
      I mean..

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They can never top the original DKC trilogy so they don't even want to bother trying.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It's a dark point in their history. Funny how the only good Donkey Kong games aren't made by Nintendo, but Ikegami, Rare and Retro. the Rare and Retro games being kind of underwhelming. Nintendo made their empire on a lie and it sticks with them to this day.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      DK was designed by Miyamoto, Ikegami were the code monkeys.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Ironically, DK arcade is what is keeping the series alive, not Country

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