This week: Gaming is an expensive hobby. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=14804 Last week Steven Rodriguez, Nintendo World Report's director, wrote an editorial titled "
Price Break: The Future of Game Prices." His basic premise was that publishers need to lower the price of the games they release on the Wii, or they will always lose out to whatever Nintendo releases. Nintendo titles are acceptable at a price of $50 because they are known quality titles, and provide great value for the cost.
Give it a read and then answer this question: Would you be willing to pay $50 for a third-party title you knew was as good a value as one of Nintendo's AAA titles or would you rather there be a variety of titles third parties put out, and perhaps be willing to take risks with, at a more budget price?
Go, tell us your answer!
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Last week we asked what Nintendo should do to help developers produce better products for Nintendo consoles. Some spirited replies followed. Congrats to couchmonkey for winning another pile of E for All schwag.
KDR_11k wrote: I'm really not sure. I was about to suggest giving advice on game design and implementation (basically consulting) but no one would let Nintendo (a competitor) see the design before it's in a late stage of development, so they could prevent rip-offs. Beyond that it would get way too involved (stuff like helping with the actual grunt work) and Nintendo would not be able to provide enough of it so every company that asks for it can get it. Some would get left in the cold, and alienated from the system.
So offer consulting, although I don't expect anyone to take them up on that offer. Also they need to develop a good set of tools for game development so games don't fail because of bad motion recognition just because the developers couldn't write good controls. MS had great success with their toolkits.
Kairon wrote: It's not Nintendo's fault that third-parties are STILL failing to deliver on the Wii platform, nor is it their place to help, but they can still do more. I propose the following, Nintendo-fanboi-developed ideas for Nintendo to aggressively, but responsibly, continue to help third-parties achieve success on the Wii platform:
- Create an "advertising credit" against royalty payments, or give straight up royalty discounts or deferred payments, for upcoming value-priced exclusive third-party games. This option should do little to affect Nintendo's bottom line since only a small portion of their revenue comes from third-party royalties anyways, exchanging that middling amount for increased Wii-centric advertising from other sources.
- Mention third party titles more often during Executive talks with the press. Talk is cheap, so do a lot of it. Important high-profile third-party games, as well as first-party ones, should be preserved in the public zeitgeist by inclusion in Nintendo representative descriptions of upcoming games. For example, after Christmas the key games that Nintendo executives should be chatting up are not just Wii Fit and Smash Bros., but third party titles delayed into that quarter like No More Heroes.
- Continue with their WiiWare program and work to seed as many development houses and publishers, as well as indie game houses and game SCHOOLS, with development resources. Get developers attached to Nintendo platforms.
- Encourage the development of Wii game engines and middleware. Licensed engines may not be every developer's cup of tea, but they help reduce risk for developers bringing out products and can therefore help ease the decision AND reality of developing on the Wii. We may not get Unreal Engine 3-point-Wii, but a Factor 5 created Wii engine would be appealing. Future engines could enable cross Wii-PSP-PS2 development, as well as cross-platform Wii-XBox360-PS3 development (with the Wii being the "down-ported mode"). They key benefit of this line of thinking is reducing risk for third parties trying to develop Wii games.
Bartman3010 wrote: It seems some of the bigger third party people have already began putting out some top quality titles. I can recall Capcom getting big success for a port of Resident Evil 4 and they already came out with Zack and Wiki, even though they don't seem to want to actively advertise the best Wii game that’s not Super Mario Galaxy.
So what about games like Dewy's Adventure? It's a title that seems to not know which audience to hit. The characters are too cutesy for the older crowd, [the game is] too hard for the younger crowd (At least late in the game). Konami obviously wants to bring some good titles to the Wii, although their big projects seem to be elsewhere, such as Metal Gear Solid 4.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are the games that just parent very good. It doesn't hurt to make a, you know, good game. I recently bought the Simpsons' Game on the Wii, and got pretty aggravated with all of the features cut from the PS2 and Wii builds (Springfield over world, several mini games, etc). It makes me want to get rid of my Wii copy in favor of the 360 version, which is where all the good effort went toward. Surprise! Cheating and lying to the consumer is not a very good way to attract Wii owners. The reasons for what was cut from the Wii version are outright inexcusable. I assume that part of it is that the Wii version is building off of the Playstation 2 version, which has to feature stripped down areas and other touches that would otherwise work on the Wii. Which is another big problem for Wii games, they're built off of Playstation 2 or Playstation Portable versions of games without enhancing aspects of the game properly.
Why is it so hard for developers to bother put down the good effort? It pretty much has to do with sales, but when all you give is watered down ports or even ports of games from a weaker system that are otherwise expanded on next gen systems, nobody is going to care. Thats why the PSP has been struggling for quite some time, its a Playstation 2 thats a $100 more expensive. When I want to play PS2 games, I buy a PS2. Not a PSP.
I say Nintendo does nothing, if developers cannot make their own Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, then they get back exactly what they put out; crap.
KashogiStogi wrote: Nintendo has been doing great thus far and is about to do a HELL of a lot better come this time next year. If some third parties, don't see the potential for making scrooge like moneys, then so be it. No other market leader in history had to beg third parties to develop for their system, why should Nintendo have too?
Dryden wrote: Nintendo should be at the forefront creating development tools, kits, and engines for their platform. If third parties are having trouble with the Wii Remote interface, then Nintendo should be stepping up and delivering answers for those problems.
While I don't like shovelware at all, I can't fault the companies that make it for trying to squeeze a few bucks out of a busy market. If it's a bad game, fine, it's a bad game. But the one thing that should be universally good across all games for the Wii is game controls. The Wii has the most intuitive and natural controller since Pong. If a developer can't make that work, it makes the hardware look bad, not the software.
The Gameboy Advance and PS2 suffered from a glut of awful games, but unlike the Wii, those games never harmed the sales or reputation of the hardware they appeared on. The Wii is legitimately suffering from games that make poor use of the controls. For casual gamers - or, to put it better, gamers who can't tell good games from bad, this is a huge problem. These people will pick up games that they think they will enjoy - and be disappointed that, from their perspective, the hardware limitations of the weak Wii controls ruined what could have been a good game. The opposite is true, the game itself is broken, but that market can't make that distinction as well as we can.
Anyway, back to the question: how involved should Nintendo get in helping third parties on Wii titles? Help tighten the controls, then back away. Make the Wii work well - not the game.
couchmonkey wrote: I think in the long-term it would be in Nintendo's interests to encourage third party success. Whether that's by creating tools, sharing code, or giving out design guidance, who knows, but some help is probably a good idea to make sure Wii gets better third party games in the future. In the short term I wouldn't blame Nintendo for saying, "screw 'em!" because the Wii is outselling all comers and Nintendo is having a banner year financially.
I'm also of the opinion that third party support is improving naturally as they catch on to the fact that Wii is not a fad. Nights, Zak and Wiki, Guitar Hero III, Manhunt 2, Soul Calibur Legends, RE Umbrella Chronicles, Raving Rabbids 2, DDR Hottest Party, and the two or three obligatory WWII games: not a bad lineup at all.
jpc168 wrote: I think that Nintendo does, in fact, need to advertise more and get the word out for great games that fall under the radar. Nintendo even lets some of their own titles slip at times. A great example of that is Battalion Wars 2. There was very little advertising for the game and I think that mainstream consumers know very little about the title. Nintendo missed a great opportunity to spread the word on this game. There are also many other amazing games that Nintendo needs to support and advertise such as Zack and Wiki. I remember back when some flagship third party titles were synonymous with the name Nintendo, including games like Final Fantasy and hardcore titles like Ghosts and Goblins. Sony does a good job with linking several key titles to its systems such as Metal Gear and GTA (when they used to be exclusive). Nintendo needs to generate more hype around some of its lesser known games that could potentially become huge hits instead of simply focusing on its own flagship titles that have Mario as a playable character. With all the money they are making now, and the potential for even more from these software sales, Nintendo needs to allocate more money to advertising these lesser known games.
BigJim wrote: Moneyhatting seems fine as an option, as long as there's a tangible investment for their platform. Paying a dev to have a simultaneous multi-platform launch isn't all that compelling, but if they can get it out a few months in advance of other platforms, that could work. Subsidize marketing expenses, actively promote them, etc.
3rd parties say they can't sell software on Nintendo hardware. Nintendo says they're not getting good software. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The question is, is any of this what Nintendo would really want in the first place? The math probably dictates that they're where they want to be... being the primary software developer (by far) and more or less being passively available if others want to hop on board the train if they wish (or rather, we could call it being "less than aggressive").
It doesn't help us at all as consumers, but Nintendo's historically been pretty adamant about the bottom line first and foremost.
thatguy wrote: There's not an easy solution for Nintendo to increase the quality of the average third party game, that's pretty obvious.
The quality of the average game in general can increase, so long as Nintendo is willing to allow third parties to use their licenses and ideas. It's a mixed bag, though. If Nintendo sells gameplay and concepts (by sells, I mean license), then Nintendo loses their utility of these ideas for some time. However, third parties will have profitable material to work with, and Nintendo will have assured higher quality games on their systems. By nature of how Nintendo tends to work, games under this concept will likely be first or second party, developed out of the Nintendo house, but published by Nintendo themselves.
To show an example, take a look at Pac-Man Vs. It meets most of the criteria I've mentioned. Nintendo had an idea, gave it to Namco, and one of last generation's greatest multiplayer games was created. This is different, though, because Namco published the game themselves. But look! Namco followed up with Soul Calibur II, Soul Calibur Legends, and an exclusive Next-Gen Namco remix. I'm sure I'm missing others, but basically, Nintendo worked with a company, gave them something great, and that company then worked with Nintendo to deliver above average content to the platform.
Of course, as the Wii increases in sales, more people will desire to produce content on the Wii, and the issue of attracting games will become a non-issue. The issue transforms to raise quality of games. What can Nintendo do to move that average up? The same thing I've mentioned above, only more so.
Nintendo should create groups based entirely on concepts. I'm not advising that any of their current development teams split or be refocused, but I am suggesting that they do create a new team or two to generate great gameplay ideas. Then Nintendo can license out theses ideas to other development studios, and as part of the licensing agreements, they can be more involved in quality and direction than has been previously possible.
Also on the Nintendo World Report Forums:
- Nintendo Console Discussion: Check Mii Out Channel
- Super Smash Brothers Discussion: Clones
- TalkBack: November Brings More Mario to VC
- General Chat: Who loves their job?
- Funhouse: Nicola Tesla
Topic: NWR Hot Topic: November 13, 2007 (Read 2617 times)
