Wait, where'd you hear that? I hadn't heard anything about this.
GF is most likely not the one calling the shots when it comes to the general release date. Remember the whole Pokemon thing is easily a million-billion dollar franchise and games are just only a part (although a pretty critical one) of the whole chain - there's like a gazillion tons of stuff (merchandise, anime, Nintendo's own roaster of stuff etc) within this whole chain, which demands when the Pokemon games will be released. With the current atmosphere demanding quicker and shorter gaming cycles GF also suffered from this - could've released their game later but instead of they don't want to, they kinda couldn't bargain for one either. GF don't have nearly as much bargaining power as you'd expect.
And that GF is the company responsible for the million dollar franchise......and that's what they really are. The company only makes games for the same franchise without any other notable stuff outside of Pokemon, and until now other standalone projects turned out to be flops. If GF is a company having much more employees and have a few at least workable projects that sells well, they would've had more money to maintain their expenses as well (which unfortunately is not the case), allowing them to refine the game better without worrying about income. No game, less income, and a whole lotta pressure from Nintendo and other stakeholders of the Pokemon Company. (they could've hired a lot more people to help build their games, but what if those games doesn't sell either, and how do they keep up with their expenditure?...a vicious cycle all over again)
This is obviously not to say GF is not responsible for any of the mess caused by Sword/Shield since it's pretty obvious their incompetency is a major part of the cause, but we shouldn't be blaming absolutely everything on GF as if it's a dumpster of all faults - they have their own pile of dump they have to handle and take care of, and they just simply don't have a whole lot of power nor resources you'd expect due to how overly specialized their roster of games (aka only Pokemon main series) is.
That just doesn't make sense to me.
For one thing this completely ignores that GF partly owns The Pokemon Company. Sure, their specific responsibilities is only making the games. But, that said, THEY MAKE THE GAMES. Without the games there would have been nothing to build the franchise on top of and they're the ones who make the new Pokemon that merchandise is made out of. Go ahead and point out that game sales make up less then 10% of the Pokemon franchises profits, but don't forget without those game attracting players they won't have the other 90% of the sales. To say GF has no say in when the next games are to be released just doesn't make sense. Like, how would that discussion look like:
GF: Hey, glad we could meet up and talk about next year's plan.
TPC: Oh, we and Nintendo already talked about that.
GF: Oh, alright, well would you like to know how the new games are coming along? We just finished planning and heading into development.
TPC: And they'll be out by next year's deadline, right?
GF: What? What deadline? Wait, next year? We were hoping to maybe spend maybe two years on development.
TPC: As we said, we and Nintendo already planned everything without you. And yes, next year. We already have the new merchandise being made so we need the games out next year.
GF: But we don't think we can do everything within the year, we planned for two.
TPC: And we planned for one. Figure it out and get those games out there by this year so we can start selling the new merchandise.
See how that doesn't make sense? GF has to be the one saying they can make the games in one year because they're the ones making the game. That's a very important detail that you just shrugged off. GF are the ones who know how long development would take (and theoretically also plan for possible issues that may come up that may cause a "delay"). TPC going ahead and making plans without getting GF's input would be disastrous if the unfortunate happen and am unplanned delay does happen. TPC isn't innocent in this as they are the ones forcing GF to keep to their deadlines because of the merchandise while other Nintendo games are free to have delays to improve them, but GF has to be the one to approve the deadlines because their the game makers. The only other entity that could "impose" a deadline on GF would be Nintendo, but that sort of goes directly against Nintendo's policies to force such a strict deadline.
Also why are you bringing up GF's other game? They have nothing to do with their handling of the Pokemon franchise.
If GF is a company having much more employees and have a few at least workable projects that sells well, they would've had more money to maintain their expenses as well (which unfortunately is not the case)
... Are you saying GF are having financial problems? Where was that said? Because they said one reason for Dexit was due to budget costs? That doesn't mean they're having financial issues, that just means the budget they set for Sword & Shield might not have been enough so they're trying to be careful with costs. Once again, they're part owner of Pokemon Company. I don't think they're in any danger of running out of money. And if some reason they were, I'd imagine Nintendo would probably help out the makers of their most profitable franchise.
(they could've hired a lot more people to help build their games, but what if those games doesn't sell either, and how do they keep up with their expenditure?
... I'm not talking about their side game projects. I'm talking about a main series Pokemon title! You can't tell me they're afraid to hire more people to help make the main series Pokemon title look and play better because they're afraid it won't sell. Heck, despite all our complaining, I'm going to bet you Sword & Shield will probably end up one of if not the best selling Pokemon generation only because it's on a main Nintendo console instead of a handheld, the extra money from those additional sales alone would more then pay the salaries of dozens of extra programmers and animators they could be hiring to make the game better. BTW, from what I understand, their side game projects are all handled by small teams anyway, the only exception being the new Town (working title) game... WHICH looks to be having better animations then Sword & Shield so I guess, yes, they aren't afraid to put money and staff on a new title they aren't sure will be successful or not.
EDIT: BTW, the
newest JAPE is out! See the panelists opinions on Alcremie, Duraludon, and Rolycoly!