ed talks about the industry; its too long to postHere are some quotes.
"Nintendo's saying that they're going to have a revolution the next time around. Nobody knows—and I've talked to everybody in the game business—whether they really do have a revolution or not. In a way, I think that's smarter thinking than chasing what the competitors are doing. If could really introduce something that is very different and original, then at least you have a chance. If you just chase, you're always number two by definition."
"I'm not a doom-and-gloom guy. There's a lot of people that are nervous about the economics of the business, and how we can have 200-person teams working on games for the same amount of revenue that we had a few years ago—although that's not really true [because] business has been growing. I think there's going to be less titles fighting for more money, so that's a very positive thing. It's just that the titles are going to cost more to make.
Pessimists think that [fewer] titles at a higher budget mean that the title won't be as interesting or creative or innovative. What I would say is that people who try [thinking] that approach will fail because the reason that gamers buy games is because they're creative, original and interesting. The people who make those types of games will be successful, and the people who don't won't be. That's why I'm optimistic about it. I think the market will sort itself out. People who do interesting [and] good work will attract an audience just like always."
"For Western publishers, nobody asks for my advice on that because they all feel the same way, which is … fully supporting Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. They don't really know what's going to happen in the war between the two, and they don't really care. They like fact that there are two warring platforms, and that has some benefits to them in their negotiations with each of the individual platforms. So they're going to support both and see what happens.
Nintendo … I think everybody is kind of confused by right now. Publishers don't know what to think about Nintendo—whether this Revolution thing is even going to happen, whether it's going to be cool or not, or whether Nintendo's just going to stop making consoles in the living room and just become a software publisher. Right now there doesn't seem to be a lot of information from Nintendo telling people what to do, so everybody's very, very wait-and-see on the Nintendo platform—including me.
Japanese publishers are very different by publisher, so it's hard to put them all in one bucket. I think Konami is the most aggressively Western of the publishers. Many of the other Japanese publishers behave pretty similarly [and] they have similar attitudes. Many of the other publishers want something to be true that's not true, basically. They want there to be a real difference between the two platforms, so they want the audience to be different and then they like to design special games for each platform that speaks to that unique audience. But it's not true. When you go out and look at the audience who buys PS2 versus Xbox—or who will buy PS3 versus Xbox 360—it's competition for the same people.
Like I said, the Japanese publishers are in a very tricky position because their home market is shrinking. They know they have to go overseas [and] they have some difficulty adapting their content. (I'm just speaking really broadly, so that doesn't apply to everybody and every situation). They know [that] they have to make their content be more acceptable in the West, but the vast majority of income still comes from Japan. And in Japan, it's a one-console market: PlayStation. You'd say, "Why don't they just go and do the thing that every other publisher does, which is support both and see what happens?" It just seems so obvious. The reason is [that] they risk ticking off Sony in Japan where Sony really controls the market. They have a difficult balancing act that they have to do. They just have to placate both sides."
"In the case of Sony and Microsoft, I think that I would say the same thing. It's pretty clear that the battle is not going to be so much about hardware, because the hardware is pretty similar between the two. The battle is about software, whether that's something like [Xbox] Live or games. That's where I would invest my money. But you see somewhat the opposite behavior. They've actually shrunk the first-party group somewhat since I left [Microsoft], and I believe at Sony there's actually pressure on the number of titles that they're producing as their first-party [software]. To me, if there are exclusive titles that are readily available, that could be one of the big drivers to why someone's going to buy one. So I would encourage both of them to spend more making first-party exclusive games.
In the case of Nintendo, I think they really get that. Their titles define their hardware. The Nintendo DS is outselling the PSP—which is a vastly superior piece of hardware—because of a first-party software title called Nintendogs, which is very original and creative. You see stuff like that [and] it'll drive everything that the business is about. I don't think Nintendo's advice needs to be in that area.
I think Nintendo really needs to be clear with both consumers and publishers about what the Revolution is—whether it's real or not—and they need to get that information out. Otherwise, there's just not going to be an opportunity for them. The stuff about, "We don't want to introduce these ideas because we're afraid people might steal them;" the PS3 and Xbox 360 are set—they can't go back and redesign that hardware. I don't even believe that argument. So either they don't have any revolutionary ideas, or for some reason they're just being really coy about it. I think they're doing a lot of damage to themselves right now by being coy about it.
I think Nintendo's always underestimated the importance of having full support from all the third parties. They were keeping the third parties down [and] Sony freed them. And yeah, they [the third parties] put out a lot of crappy stuff. That's why Nintendo was keeping them down. They were afraid that they were going to put out a lot of crappy stuff—which is what they did—but it didn't destroy the business."
Well they're crappy stuff hasn't killed it yet, but I believe it has slowed growth. Hopefully things will sort themselves out like he said. That would mean though that Nintendo would kill with the REV. It could happen, but I have always been a realist. The face of the industry is big guns and bigger boobs. It has become self absorbed. The greatest threat to the game industry is the game industry. What is going to happen is gamers are going to start making their own games. The independent developer will rise as the process becomes more direct and user friendly similar to how it only takes one person with a camera to make a movie. Someone will come along, some new idea will explode. Like when Doom came out, but ten times as big and far easier to customize.
I see Nintendo with the ability to steal the flag while MS and Sony go at each others' throats over a single market of sports gamers; what will MS and Sony do if EA comes out with their own console. Nintendo is the only company that can have a console without EA games. Sega couldn't even do it with the Dreamcast. MS and Sony would cave in. Nintendo has a brief opportunity to get a lot of Japanese publishers on board for the REV; they just need to come out with something that is awesome. MS is not going to be able to buy Japanese consumers, and Sony doesn't want Japanese developers giving MS exclusives. Game makers want to access alternative markets from the one Sony and MS are gunning for. Really it is more of a matter of Nintendo nolonger seeming like the tiku tiku tiku! company but rather the everyone company; while MS and Sony have become something new and grotesque, a carnal celebration of fake sex and pointless violence.
Edit:
cube.ign says developers do know
Topic: Back to the Future...Ed Fries talks about the industry, Nintendo, and REV (Read 4442 times)
