Pokemon is it's own weird situation. It's not solely owned by Nintendo, but co-owned and managed with Game Freak and Creatures Inc by The Pokemon Company. It's not just a game but a media empire. They have to coordinate between the game, anime and TCG. It's not quite the same as Zelda or Mario where they have complete control and don't have to worry about messing with dozens of other product launches if the game needs a delay.

I wouldn't agree that their other franchises are stale right now either. Certainly not compared to Ubi's, Microsoft's, etc.

They do make amazing games though, for all the ones that they make. BOTW and TOTK are just so so special games to me (and I hope many others), and I have learnt by experience that almost no Nintendo game gets released half baked or lacking their best efforts.

In fairness, Pokémon is perhaps the worst case in game design difficulty. You have an audience insisting on 3D characters and animations for 400+ (or however many now) Pokémon, each necessitating ~6 animations for unique attacks, 5+ status effects, idling/reaction animations, and ideally some trainer interaction.

I understand why Nintendo has tried to use a lo-fi artstyle, make games with only subsets of the total bestiary, and generally limit development. Hell, I even understand why Palworld gave up on unique attack animations and just went with guns.