Winter is, or was, a demo that n-Space created in six weeks with no more than 12 people working on it at its peak. Best known for their Nintendo-funded GameCube paranormal shooter Geist, n-Space had taken their experience and used it "take the [Survival Horror] genre back to basics" on Nintendo's newest home console.
According to Creative Director Ted Newman, Winter started with "the setup of a single character alone in extreme circumstances, struggling to stay alive and adding another layer of survival on top." The protagonist, Mia, would be trapped in a Midwestern town during a mysterious blizzard, and the mounting cold would be "as big an enemy as anything in the game." Initially this would mean finding ways to stay warm like "using the Wii controller to spark a fire and light some oily rags," but eventually the developers imagined that the environments would be "transformed by snow and ice" and that players would be forced "to climb through second story windows or walk on rooftops." N-Space even brainstormed ways to make the Wii Remote and Nunchuk "extensions of the player's hands." For example, a flickering flashlight would require players "to tap the Wii Remote against their hands until it starts working properly," or they could cautiously open doors slowly with the motion recognition technology "to peek inside first."
Unfortunately, the project has gone nowhere since 2007. Speaking with IGN, n-Space President Dan O'Leary said that Winter was pitched "tirelessly for months," and the early responses were "universally positive." But every time things got moving n-Space would hit a brick wall. "In almost every case we got hung up with the sales and marketing groups," explained O'Leary, "the idea of an 'adult' game on what they perceived to be a 'kids' console was simply too big a leap for them, regardless of the enthusiastic support of the PD department and the Wii's total domination in the marketplace."
Further elaborating on the difficulties of "pitching anything that isn't a kid's game for the Wii," O'Leary claimed that "publishers are missing a lot of opportunities on the Wii." Despite the excitement over the project, it seems that the factors working against Winter were related to publishers being afraid to leave their comfort zones. "They can't apply their standard approaches to this platform," explained O'Leary, adding that publishers "don't want to stick their necks out with a sales projection when they aren't able to cite comparable products." O'Leary said that publishers would dismiss the proven success of Wii horror games like Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, but argued that "you can only make [Resident Evil 4] if you have the courage to try [Resident Evil 1]."
Of course, the woes of bringing ambitious projects to Nintendo's market-leading platform are a topic of much discussion, but O'Leary's statements highlight something particular. His comments point to a tragic inequality between developers and publishers when it comes to the Wii.
In one part of the interview, O'Leary talked of the Wii's penchant for innovation and boasted that "n-Space understood this from day one." Just a paragraph earlier, O'Leary was lamenting that "publishers still say to us on a regular basis, 'we're still trying to figure out the Wii.'"
It's this frustrating dichotomy between developers who embrace the Wii's promise and publishers who shun its uniqueness that is holding Winter back, and keeping Wii gamers in the cold.
For more on the story behind Winter, check out IGN's full interview.
Publishers are going under BECAUSE they're not taking risks. **** those guys. Why doesn't Nintendo step up and get behind this n-Space effort. Geist wasn't perfect but it was still a solid game and Nintendo should support them again.
As much as we want to blame other publishers for this, I blame Nintendo really. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, publishers are both scared of and look up to Nintendo (as a publisher). They constantly have the stress of having to compete with Nintendo's first party offerings.
While it's easy for us to say that they should do that by thinking outside the box and doing something DIFFERENT from what Nintendo is doing... Most marketing people will take Nintendo's sales as a sign of the industry and look to emulate their products.
Nintendo needs to recognize this and start publishing some games with more mature themes if they want something to change on their platform. Honestly, why the hell AREN'T Nintendo picking winter up? They've worked witn N-Space before. Apparently their demo uses the Wii functionality well. There's no reason for them not to.
I just really don't understand this aspect of Nintendo. They are making money like crazy right now, receiving complaints from their hardcore fans over lack of first party published games, yet they won't throw any of these small publishers a bone.
Look how they ignored online gaming on the Cube despite protests and have a really lousy online model today which they never acknowledge the complaints of. Look at their reaction to the storage problem. It isn't a big concern to them. They don't care. They're making big money from rubes that don't complain about the storage issues.The storage issue has been something I've always wondered about. Why did the Wii get such a small storage unit from the get-go, compared to the massive storage the PS3 and 360 have? Simple, the Gamecube hardly fired up sales charts DESPITE the profit Nintendo made, and hell, Nintendo didn't even think the Wii was going to be the success it is now back then. Why bother with giving a big storage when people might not even buy the damn thing?
Instead of earning back number one by satisfying the gamers they had pissed off for ten years they just targetted a newer, larger, less critical group and got back number one that way. So while taking their fanbase for granted is still wrong I don't find it the least bit surprising.That's what you get with a fanbase, for anything: you can never please them no matter what. People will bitch about anything. While I do wish Nintendo would listen to some feedback from us (mostly just us...), the majority (not us. =D) acts like selfish brats 95% of the time.
Nintendo sucks at promoting "matoor" products, especially their own.The irony of it all.
3rd parties who do release matoor products, don't bother promoting them.
DOUBLE WHAMMY OF DUMB
I guess it's just the question of whether Nintendo should be judged as an independent publisher or as a platform driver.
As an independent publisher, I can understand if they don't want to pick something up that doesn't fit with their philosophy. But as a platform driver, it's DUMB for them to not want more variety on their systems.
So yeah. I definitely think publishers should think outside the box more and ignore Nintendo for the most part, but I just think Nintendo has the power to change the mindset themselves, so I wonder why they aren't.
Maybe Sin & Punishment and Punch Out will help, but in my opinion both of those scream teenager, not adult. I will thoroughly enjoy both though as an adult, I'm just talking perception here.
As much as we want to blame other publishers for this, I blame Nintendo really. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, publishers are both scared of and look up to Nintendo (as a publisher). They constantly have the stress of having to compete with Nintendo's first party offerings.
While it's easy for us to say that they should do that by thinking outside the box and doing something DIFFERENT from what Nintendo is doing... Most marketing people will take Nintendo's sales as a sign of the industry and look to emulate their products.
As much as we want to blame other publishers for this, I blame Nintendo really. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, publishers are both scared of and look up to Nintendo (as a publisher). They constantly have the stress of having to compete with Nintendo's first party offerings.
While it's easy for us to say that they should do that by thinking outside the box and doing something DIFFERENT from what Nintendo is doing... Most marketing people will take Nintendo's sales as a sign of the industry and look to emulate their products.
FATAL FRAME FOUR SAYS HI
I guess it's just the question of whether Nintendo should be judged as an independent publisher or as a platform driver.
As an independent publisher, I can understand if they don't want to pick something up that doesn't fit with their philosophy. But as a platform driver, it's DUMB for them to not want more variety on their systems.
So yeah. I definitely think publishers should think outside the box more and ignore Nintendo for the most part, but I just think Nintendo has the power to change the mindset themselves, so I wonder why they aren't.
Maybe Sin & Punishment and Punch Out will help, but in my opinion both of those scream teenager, not adult. I will thoroughly enjoy both though as an adult, I'm just talking perception here.
This is sad that Nintendo is really the only one we are reasonably expecting to fix these sorts of things. I agree that Nintendo has the power to change things... but that no one else can be expected to take some sort of initiative sorta makes the rest of the industry just look uninspiring.
The success of RE4, a port mind you, should be enough proof for any investor.
In almost every case we got hung up with the sales and marketing groups. They simply could not get behind a survival horror title on the Wii. In spite of great sales for Resident Evil 4 and the Umbrella Chronicles, these groups were unable to support the projections required to create a viable P&L for the title. ... New IP is always a tough sell. It's a bigger investment and a bigger risk. But the potential upside is also much greater for everyone involved. Whenever we would remind publishers of Resident Evil sales numbers on the Wii they'd wave it off, saying, "but that's Resident Evil."
That's my point. Instead of waving it off, they should have looked at it carefully and ask questions such as "Why was it such a success?"
That's my point. Instead of waving it off, they should have looked at it carefully and ask questions such as "Why was it such a success?"
Yes, I read the interview and I'm sure Stogi did as well. Shrugging off the sales of RE4 is one thing, but the sales of RE:UC, the spin-off game that played nothing like the main series, shouldn't be ignored as "well its Resident Evil" because the other spin-off in the series never sold too hot, so there has to be another reason it sold the way it did, on the platform it did, besides "its resident evil."
The success of RE4, a port mind you, should be enough proof for any investor.
i would bet most of the people who bought RE4 already had the GAMECUBE version, or knew of it, but decided to use purchase power as a way to vote for type of games.
doesn't that count for something ???
I think there can be other reasons why Nintendo isn't picking this up: If they did it would be considered a Nintendo game by third parties and sales would prove nothing, Nintendo is pretty much laying low so third parties could accumulate sales and establish a foothold to expand upon but no, they just sit back and waste the opportunity (maybe that's the reason Sega got The Conduit, Nintendo might have wanted to let others take stabs at high profile games like that). Also Nintendo might not want to pick up every random orphaned project, there's bound to be tons of devs shopping around and maybe Nintendo already grabbed what they consider better ones (they did after all take titles like Disaster, Sin & Punishment and Dynamic Slash, I'm not counting Punch Out because that's more like outsourcing). Maybe Nintendo doesn't want to become known as the garbage collector for devs.
Only a complete idiot would buy RE4 twice, and Umbrella Chronicles is a good game.
Or it could just be that Nintendo wasn't pleased with how Geist turned out and thus doesn't want to fund another project by N-Space.
Slightly off topic, but I realize that Winter's problem is not exclusive to the Wii.
Sean Malstrom once said that the problem with publishers is that they don't see consumers, they see demographics. They see what they are buying and instead of wondering WHY they are buying them they just rush to make games like that.
For example, they look at the XBOX 360 fanbase and see that Halo 3 and Gears of Wear sell incredibly well. They rush out to get these games made and create a flooded market.
This is why when developers pitch unconventional ideas publishers say "it doesn't have a chance" or "there's no demographic for it" because they are only interested in ideas that fit in with the demographics. And like its been said already in this thread, its a bad thing.
Its bad because none of the consoles and handhelds can't have unique and varied titles. The Wii gets stuck with would be party titles while the 360 and PS3 gets nothing but Halo wannabes.
So Winter's problem is something that can affect all gamers, all publishers and all developers, regardless of the console they support.
