Kinda Funny Games presenter Imran Khan said on the Reset Era gaming forum that the Punch-Out series is effectively a dead franchise for Nintendo. Khan said that some time ago he spoke to someone who was involved in the last Punch-Out game from Next Level Games and asked them about the new game. The person he spoke to said that the character backlash that followed the release of the Wii version combined with overall sales of the series simply buried the games. However, he says that another studio could always work on the Punch-Out franchise in the future.
“Someone from, say, a studio near Punch-Out, was once drunk in a bar and asked about a new one.
The story they told me, and keep in mind this could just be one person's perspective and no one else's, was that there was significantly more backlash against the Wii game characters than they expected. And this team spent a lot of time convincing Nintendo not to lean into the bad stereotypes that would be called out this time around, so everyone just frowned and said it was over. Especially since that team's other games had much, much higher sales potential.”
“I guess it's less “We can't do without stereotypes, so let's not try!” and even more the problem of the World Warriors where they can't completely cut themselves off from the past without the people rebelling. Those and other games from the studio sell 14 million copies more, so why bother.”
