The reason as to why remains unclear.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/28875
Nintendo has asked Icon Games to take down their WiiWare sales numbers, Icon's head of development Richard Hill-Whittall noted in an editorial for Gamasutra.
Previously, we reported that Icon Games had released their sales numbers, which included numbers for their WiiWare efforts. Since then, Nintendo demanded Icon Games erase those numbers from publication.
No reasons as to their reasoning were given, but Nintendo does not seem to allow the publishing of sales numbers even by the games' own publishers. The numbers had shown that sales of their WiiWare games were considerably smaller than those of other games on other systems (which include PlayStation Network). Hill-Whittall noted that while Nintendo is not the only party with this policy, they seem to be "by far the most draconian in enforcing it." He then explained why he thinks such a policy is harmful, particularly to indie studios.
Nintendo probably wants to censor it because it is embarrassing. Imagine you throw a party, and then your neighbor throws on at the same time. Let's say 5 people come to your party, but 20 people go to the neighbor's. Would you then want someone going around telling everyone how much your party sucked?
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At any rate, looking at all the numbers, the WiiWare numbers were not all that bad when compared to the others. ...
Imagine if Walmart, Amazon, etc. told Nintendo they couldn't release any sales figures on games sold at those stores.
I'm honestly surprised these guys bothered to comply with Nintendo's demand to remove the WiiWare sales data.
...QuoteImagine if Walmart, Amazon, etc. told Nintendo they couldn't release any sales figures on games sold at those stores.
Doesn't Walmart refuse to give out sales data to NPD? That's controlling information that isn't theirs to control. I'm not saying Nintendo's right, but it isn't entirely out of the ordinary.
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Still it's pretty much a moot point now, as the Wii is winding down. Already the 3DS's eShop has no sales threshold. How about Icon Games go over there?
3. He makes a good point about sales data being non-existent making things very hard for companies. How can a company make business decisions without knowing how games on the service are doing? You're going in basically blind.
Ian's history lesson.
...Everything you hear from developers suggests that Nintendo ALWAYS has the least accomodating third party policies of the big three. ...
Oh Ian, you haven't changed at all while I was gone. But just so you know it would be Nintendo's business if it explicitly states in their contract that they can't reveal sales data. Which is why we don't see too many sales numbers from WiiWare games, even the successful ones.
So why do developers work with them? The exact same reason that they work with all other closed platforms: money. Game development is a business, even for indies, and developing for Nintendo platforms can be profitable. If people are developing out of love then they should be developing for PC and releasing their efforts for free.
But Nintendo is clearly and unequivocally in business for themselves first and foremost.
They were the market leader this gen and everybody stayed away in droves. Think about that. Atari 2600, NES, SNES, PS1, PS2 - every single market leading console in the past generations had undoubtedly the strongest third party support and yet the Wii had the WORST. It's the only market leader in videogame history to have lousy third party support.
2. Wal-Mart isn't included in NPD but they also don't prohibit companies from releasing their own sales figures which include sales made at Wal-Mart.
- Is Nintendo's insistence that 3rd parties sell a certain amount of software before they can even be "given" the money they're owed anti-3rd party? In my opinion it is.
- Is Nintendo's gag order on WiiWare sales info anti-3rd party and draconian? Yes. I especially find it odd here because IIRC the World of Goo developers released their WiiWare sales info (at least a ballpark number) several years ago, and I don't remember Nintendo complaining about it then. Might they be allowing a flow of information when the numbers are good and benefit their PR, and cutting off the flow when it doesn't? It certainly seems so, but it's hardly surprising or unusual.
We couldn't show them any such numbers and their response was negative - in effect I was asking them to finance a business but providing them with none of the traditional market research data they expect.