It is with some small disappointment that I have to bury my initial reaction to this, because BOTW was garbage and I was fully prepared to go into great detail...and I don't have to. Oh well. Maybe next time. xD
Whilst I agree with most of what is in the article, unfortunately this isn't an approach I can ever see being adopted with the core series titles. The design philosophy is just completely different, and I would assume the level of creative freedom afforded by the dev teams is significantly less with Pokemon, which I think is a safe assumption given the state of SnS. Unfortunately, the merchandise for Pokemon - i.e. where the most money is - does not fall into lock-step with the games the way it used to, and it needs to move at a much faster pace than game development really allows to stay relevant...so of course the games have to be rushed to move with it, or they'll fall behind. Zelda doesn't have the same sort of constraints: it'll be ready when it's ready. Unfortunately video game developers only care about how much revenue they can generate, and whilst Nintendo can afford to take their time with Zelda titles, Game Freak almost certainly cannot. Which is bad. Very, very bad. It SHOULD change, but it won't.
Although I DO think that Game Freak could stand to outsource more of their work to improve the quality of their titles - there isn't as much room for improvement in the core titles as there should be, but there IS room there if Game Freak change the way they work. They definitely have the money to do this - largest media franchise in existence, not accepting any excuses here - and Masuda's
bullshit reasoning about preferring to work in smaller teams is in no way relevant to...well, anything. There is such a thing as "organisational skills" and if he can't manage it, then someone else needs to do it. It's not uncommon for larger developers to completely outsource parts of their games, and Game Freak, whether they want to admit it or not, are a AAA company. Pokemon is a AAA franchise. With the resources of a small indie developer. Thanks to one man who likes to keep things in-house.
TPC might be responsible for the games being rushed, but Masuda shares more than part of the blame for them being
bad. Smaller teams also mean that crunch is more likely to occur and that's not acceptable either - more than once we've heard about how burned out Game Freak employees are, and I doubt that is solely because of the reception to SnS. If they would properly utilise their resources, whilst I doubt it would fix everything, it would make the core series titles a little better. At the very least we could expect every Pokemon to be in the game, and for the games to have consistently higher-quality visuals. Really they have the resources to completely re-do animations as well, but that'd be unrealistic. It'd be easy to just blame TPC for the declining quality of Pokemon games, but Masuda shares a lot of the responsibility for this, and whilst I don't think the death threats made against him are in any way acceptable, I do think the anger directed at him is justified. As a developer he has a responsibility to make the best games he can, not strangle development because he doesn't like working with others.
The spinoffs, though? Well, those are made by different development teams. If quality is going to be found anywhere in the Pokemon franchise, it's going to be found in the spinoffs, which don't have to follow the merchandising train and are completely free to experiment with different gameplay styles, narratives, and visual styles. Literally anyone can do a better job than Game Freak at making Pokemon titles, because they're not shackled in the same way. If we're ever going to get another good Pokemon game, it'll come from an outside developer who are willing to spend the money, manpower, and time on it. But that'll never come from Game Freak again, especially not as long as Masuda is in charge...and yeah, I think it's possible we'll get good spinoffs again that aren't remakes of old good spinoffs. A new PMD title and a new Ranger title would be nice. I can't see us ever getting Colosseum/XD remasters because Genius Sorority aren't in the business of making games like that anymore and haven't been for a very long time, but that doesn't mean aother developer can't make a similar or better experience - Monolith Soft would be a perfect choice for that. Although Capcom and Bandai Namco have both worked on Nintendo-owned franchises in the past - hell, Bandai Namco is working on Pokemon Snap - so they would also be good choices.
