That's not even accurate. No way in hell Sony has published almost 300 games in 3.5 years. I'm only talking about Sony published games. Not third parties or deals like they have with Activision, etc.
A minority of people do that. Assuming the game is good/great, people are fine with it. And people can overhype themselves for games that come early too. That is a moot point.
I think the majority do this. I see it so much here alone and here just a small percentage. Imagine if you take all other forums, sites, etc. into account.
As I said above, this implies games with short announcement to release windows can't fall into this either. They can.
On the other hand, something like Zelda took multiple years to come out and is apparently one of the greatest games ever made (I haven't played it).
There is no strict guideline one way or the other. It just depends on any particular game and what happens during development.
The first part I disagree with simply because a game like Fallout 4 is literally already done and what could possibly go wrong when the actual development is finished? There's nothing that can be screwed up in development if development is already finished.
Nintendo/Zelda equals free pass. It's a great game but NOT one of the greatest ever made. It's NOT even the best Zelda game. Have only played a few hours of it at my friend's house but in that time, I realize why everyone is praising it - it doesn't have what is the number one complaint in open world games nowadays and that's the world map being filled with a billion icons. Add icons on the world map for every shrine, etc. and the sense of "exploration" (which seems to be the only positive) is literally gone and becomes like any other open world game. Going from where you are to a point of interest to see what it is.
True but not knowing what will happen throughout development is why games shouldn't be shown early in my opinion. If a game is shown and released six months later, the game is basically finished so when you think about it, what could go wrong with development if the game is no longer being developed?
I think both parties should take blame. I don't doubt that MS tried to push some co-op/MP/GaaS type stuff that messed things up but, as you said, I'm sure Plat weren't exactly perfect in the partnership either.
Either way, we've had successful games be released that were announced years ago and failures that were announced years ago.
Microsoft probably tried to implement stuff into the game but when is the question. If it was already in the contract that Platinum signed then it's 100% on them for failing to deliver the game that Microsoft is literally paying for.
You're still trying to present it as a one way path but you're incorrect.
It may not be a one way path but a game that is shown three years early and barely halfway into development has a far greater chance of going through "development hell" compared to a game that is shown and released six months later simply because the development in that game is obviously finished. Can't go through development hell if the development is finished and moved on to QA/testing and even if problems occur in this phase, nowadays it all gets fixed via patches. LOL.
The internet is going to internet regardless.
True. Can't argue this.
All of this is entirely subjective and does nothing to counter the point I made.
If games announced early are supposed to be so bad, it does not make any sense whatsoever for Zelda to have an attach rate that large.
It's not that games being announced early turn out bad, it's that the earlier you show a game, the more negativity your game will most likely have due to the long space between shown and released.
Zelda has that attach rate not because the game is a classic but because there's nothing else on the console at that time worth playing and buying. And im sure a lot of people bought two copies with one being a sealed collector's edition. If anything, this has more to do with hype, when the console launched, the fact that Zelda is the only game worth playing and that everyone is trying to get Nintendo to be awesome again despite those same people bashing them a few years ago with Wii U. If Mario released instead of Zelda, the results would be exactly the same.
