First off, I don't like the aesthetics of NMS because I'm not a fan of the over-colourful, cartoony look. I know that some people are, it's a personal thing. Funnily enough, unlike the examples mentioned above, I grew up on realistic astronomical illustrations, as well as more realistic sci-fi stuff, so that could also be why I prefer the more realistic design of Elite.
There's that, and there's also that the game is much more focused on planetary prospecting. Mine / find various materials to build stuff to mine more kinds of materials to build stuff to mine more... I have some hopes that the upcoming update will add some more to this, perhaps better building. But so far, I've never stuck long with the game.
Contrary to the original expectations, to me NMS has always seemed like a planetary survival FPS with the - rather shoddy - space sim parts bolted on top of that. I mean, no offense, but it would be serious to claim that NMS's space flight and combat rivals that of Elite's. It's a different kind of game that for some reason still gets lumped into the space sim genre, even though that's not its actual focus.
I love space games, ED included, but I had very high hopes for ED, but it seems to me (as said, just my opinion), some bigger deals came along and ED got put aside by the main force of the company. Probably not willingly by some in the company, but you go and do what the boss says and rightly so.
When it all started, it seemed like FDev were all.. and it felt like .. 'all' .. the company and staff were behind it and wanted it to be the best.
But bigger deals got ED side tracked and ended up with either a reduced work force on it, or lets say, a large number, but not focused in the right places.
Hm, all too true. Now that I think about it, it feels the same to me as well.
This also makes me wonder whether the reason why FD haven't announced what the "New Era" expansion of Elite will be is because we'll see them as no longer really trying, or certainly not as much as they used to in the earlier days. The Beyond of Elite Dangerous certainly seemed like the developers were focused elsewhere, with the exception of Chapter One I guess.
Then again, if the expansion won't be space legs and atmospheric flight
both, large groups of players will be disappointed. So if they aren't shooting to releasing those for the same expansion, that would be a good reason why they're staying silent.
In any case, since the NMS developers have only one game to work on, they certainly aren't going to be viewed as not doing as much with their game as they could. Of course, the risk with one-game studios is always that if that game goes under, the studio will most likely follow. It's a good thing that NMS had a publisher who could for the developers to continue after the disastrous launch, and back them financially to do so. (Although I confess I have absolutely no idea about Hello Games's finances, and whether they could have continued developing without Sony or not.)
Update: cool, I stand corrected on the one game aspect by Han Zulu below.