So TGS has come and gone and still no blow-out in terms of Nintendo Wii Third Party support. Nothing is coming easy, especially in this new generation when everything is turning topsy-turvy and the age-old dragon of E3 has been slain.
Still, that does nothing to assuage the fears of Nintendo fanbois that third-parties just aren't supporting the wildly successful market-leading Nintendo console. And with no major conferences left in the year, there's nothing left to wait for to confront the hard issue. There may be a few announcements between now and new year's, but it still doesn't change the fact that we're this far into the new generation and still have queasiness issues with broad-based Wii third-party support. It's been too long for this topic to not be eligible for debate.
So where's the third-party support? In truth, I find reasons to feel optimistic, and reasons to feel reserved.For example, even though TGS brought no huge blowouts,
Chris Kohler reported that:Quote
This year, even though the show was ostensibly anchored by hardware makers Sony and Microsoft, every third party was itching to show off their Wii titles. A typical situation was that of Capcom's booth. Although they'd been on the vanguard of Xbox 360 developers and had perhaps the best PlayStation 3 exclusive at last year's TGS with Devil May Cry 4, the vast majority of their booth this year was taken up with three major Wii exclusives: Umbrella Chronicles, Zack and Wiki, and We Love Golf.
The only "next-gen" game they had was that same PlayStation 3 title, Devil May Cry 4. Only now it's multi-platform.
Of course, We Love Golf was Capcom's major TGS new game announcement.
Some more circumstantial evidence comes from gamefront.de,
reported here through GoNintendo, which, translated through babelfish, gave us the following:
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The CESA published a list, on which is to be seen, how address themselves much per cent of the plays on the Tokyo Game show to the respective platform. In addition there is a comparison with the previous year data, which is indicated in parentheses.
Plattform / Anteil 2007 in Prozent / Anteil 2006 in Prozenz
NDS: 17,1 % (10,4 %)
Wii: 8,1 % (1,0 %)
PS2: 7,2 % (20,1 %)
360: 4,9 % (4,0 %)
PS3: 3,2 % (3,6 %)
PSP: 2,6 % (6,6 %)
GC: 0,2 % (0,4 %)
GBA: 0,0 % (0,4 %)
Most plays on the Tokyo Game show are therefore shown for Nintendo DS to see to few gibt's for Game the Boy Advance. More plays for Wii on the fair than for Xbox 360 and PS3 are to be found by the current consoles.
If you're wondering, the above numbers don't add up to 100% because
they don't include cell-phone games or PC titles, as reported by Destructoid(who corroborate gamefront.de's story):
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Of the 700 titles shown, we were surprised to hear that the largest percentage of floor titles will be mobile phone games, which account for over 30 percent of what attendees will see. PC software isn't far behind with 22 percent. As for the console titles, no one is surprised that the Nintendo DS has the most titles of any console, with over 17 percent on show, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 come in at less than 5 percent each.
Still, where was the hype? The blowout? Where was the steamroller flattening PS3 hype or XBox360 momentum?
We all know that Capcom's major event for TGS was We Love Golf. This likely isn't getting anyone's blood boiling right now considering Camelot is making this instead of a Golden Sun sequel, but there's actually a lot of potential simmering beneath the surface that just hasn't exploded yet. For example,
we know that Treasure has a Wii title in the works, they just haven't shown it. And shortly after TGS, we found out that GrassHopper was being tapped by Tecmo to work on the next Fatal Frame for the Wii once No More Heroes was done.
So actually,
TGS was very positive for Nintendo. But that still doesn't solve the general ill feelings Nintendo fans have about third parties. It's very easy to say that we know so much more about 2008 for the PS3 and XBox 360 than we do for the Wii: GTA IV, FFXIII, MGS4, Devil May Cry IV, Last Remnant, Soul Calibur 4, Tekken 6, etc. etc. etc. the list goes on. This preponderence of knowledge about third party futures on the Wii is partly due to a variety of issues, like real third-party slowness on Nintendo's system, the new trend of withholding game announcements until later whereas before you let it all out at E3 and other conferences months or years ahead of time... but also because a lot of these next-gen for the XBox 360 and PS3 projects have been in the works for 2-3 years already and have been delayed for forever.
The long development of these PS3 and XBox 360 projects actually suggests that many companies are simply caught in the "next-gen" resource-sucking black hole. With next-gen game after next-gen game getting delayed and rumors of difficulties with the Unreal 3 Engine (especially with the PS3 version and after the Silicon Knight's lawsuit), games that started development years ago are like bad mortgages these companies are locked into and just need to finish. And after that, many would probably feel locked into next-gen technologies and assets to switch systems of choice. In fact, we can see this "locked-into PS3 and XBox360 and PC" scenario with Call of Duty 4 already, where developers have simply taken the serialized franchise down a technological path that the Wii would find difficult to follow. Hopefully, the "next-generation" Mortal Kombat doesn't succumb to this condition as well.
This is why I personally look to less marquee titles for a gauge of natural third party developer movement. These developers are much more flexible, much more price-conscious, much more reliant on large userbases, and are actually a seedbed for a lot of new IPs and innovative, quirky games that are the real games that can act as filler between major releases. Sure, titles like
Kiki Kai World and
Oboro Muramasa Youtouden aren't anywhere near the blockbuster calibre of a Call of Duty 4, but not only are these niche titles just as important to the hardcore (i.e. us), but also indicators of third party movement in the smaller-midrange size.
For instance, I see Atlus as a major target for Nintendo to pursue. This is a company that has thrived on finding a niche in a large userbase, and delivering games specifically catered to that niche. A relationship between Atlus and the Wii would be immensely beneficial to both companies, primarily because Atlus may take on too much financial risk with pricey PS3/360 development, the Wii has the larger Japanese userbase for them to exploit (and a sizeable US one as well), and Atlus would become the "big fish" in the Wii's "little pond" of hardcore RPG developers (A strategy that Capcom has exploited successfully with Monster Hunter Portable on the PSP: lack of any significant competition). Nintendo would benefit because Atlus would be able to target a demographic that Nintendo cannot serve personally (just like Retro does for them) and because Atlus not only has quality and credibility, but as a publisher has a large stable of franchises and games that would go far to fill in any schedule holes and drive sales continually.
Incidentally, I place a lot of importance on Atlus' future moves. I see them as a major indicator of third party support for all the reasons stated above, and am hoping against hope that their premiere RPG series (Shin Megami Tensei) moves to the Wii instead of going to the PS3 as assumed.
Similar statements can be made about NiS, but another company I'm curious about watching is From Software, whom I haven't heard much about since the soon-forgotten Armored-Core 4. Supposedly they have Wii games in development... but without any announcements to confirm, who knows? This is actually a good example of the uncertainty sown by the new practice of withheld announcements: by conventional wisdom, TGS should've been a blow out of announcements, we'd have heard more about the previously mentioned Treasure Wii title, and whether companies like From Software were far along in their titles. But regardless of the changing nature of market announcements, this is also a company that's had relationships with Nintendo systems in the past (Lost Kingdoms) and may find it beneficial to move over to a popular system with more users and less competition.
But even western companies deserve attention. Again, with respect to third-party movement, we should be looking at whether smaller developers are treating the Wii as a "first choice" console like they did the PS2. This is why I view the recent
'Ology books coming to Wii and DS announcement with interest:
these are Nintendo console exclusives from smaller, background developers who, last gen, would've made it a PS2 only title. Codemasters, another western publisher, released the recent sleeper Overlord for the XBox360 and PC in July and has a diverse portfolio of games and genres they deal with. I'm starting to think that they share some similarities with Atlus in the size and scope of influence, and although their main efforts reside on next-gen systems, they are still a good example of the sorts of contributions companies that aren't named Namco or even Activision can provide.
Of course, you'd have to wade through the bad to find the good when it comes to the smaller sized developers and publishers, but this is a problem the PS2 experienced as well, so if anything it should be a positive indicator.
What this focus on smaller, less established game houses DOESN'T fix is franchise and blockbuster envy. No matter how much I like quirky and fun titles like Overlord, which some have compared to an action-oriented pikmin, it's no Halo 3. Heck, it isn't even a Mercenaries 2. There's a certain blockbuster je ne sais pas that one has to admit only the big studios tend to deliver, like a good Hollywood action movie, with all the requisite explosions, titillation, commercials, pop cultural penetrations, and, in most cases, quality "polish."
Personally, I'm not too bothered at my Wii not playing Soul Calibur IV or Gears of War 2. It's more the new ideas that I'm jealous of, the Little Big Planets and games like Overlord. Incidentally, the Wii has successfully been able to garner releases from XBLA hit Geometry Wars and multi-platform Puzzle Quest. But while new IPs are all fine and dandy, the sad reality is that Wii fans will have to accept that they're just not going to get certain games. There's no accounting for hype-envy: this Nintendo fan may stare longingly at Uncharted: Drake's Fortune or Mass Effect, but he's just gonna have to live with it.
Going back to the topic of the major large third party publishers, there are several reasons for the Wii's difficulty in dominating this category. Yes, Capcom showed off more Wii games than HD games at TGS, and yes, we're probably going to get ports galore from Namco bandai if it has anything to do with anime or gundam. Capcom may be giving Wii owners RE:UC and Zack & Wiki, but there's little question that they're firmly entrenched in HD land as well with RE 5 for the PS3 and XBox 360, and possibilities of a Lost Planet 2.
1. The first thing preventing Nintendo from advancing further in the third party upper echelons is that the XBox 360 is simply a viable, healthy market. It may not be broad, but it is deep, and Capcom's million-selling Dead Rising and Lost Planet releases both prove that it can be quite profitable. With the XBox 360's first mover advantage, it's built a user base that, even if it stopped selling now, would allow it to sell loads of third party games to die-hard fans all generation long. This is even stronger a reason in America, where most of the XBox 360's userbase is perfectly attuned to the console and the type of games that can come out on it: a perfectly mobilized, ravenous consumer core.
2. But the XBox 360 isn't big in Japan! Well,
the dwindling importance of the Japanese console traditional gamer market means that American user bases are important to Japanese companies. Again going back to Capcom, VGChartz.com estimates put it at 1.4 million copis shifted:
only 80,000 of which sold in Japan. And of course, there are
SquareEnix's latest sentiments, as reported by 1up:
Quote
It's no secret the videogames market in Japan is shrinking (both in sales and in games, where handhelds and cell phones reign supreme), while the market in the US and Europe continue to expand. That makes it no surprise to learn that Square Enix (according to the Financial Times) is seeking a partner in the US and Europe to help the company expand its portfolio internationally, with the goal being to have 50% of their overall revenue coming from outside of Japan in three years.
As time goes on, the XBox 360's softness in Japan will become less and less of an issue, and their strength at exploiting American gamers more and more of an advantage. And besides, cross platform XBox 360 and PS3 development would allow HD games to hit both sides of the pacific anyways. At least in this regard though, Nintendo should consider themselves lucky that they're generally outpacing Microsoft in both the US and Europe, so even though the XBox 360 is a viable western market, the Wii is one as well, and will eventually grow to be broader.
3. Finally, competition for third party support is more intense than ever with MS and Sony involved in a no holds barred slugging match for influence. There are simply some areas where, in addition to all the other challenges Nintendo faces, third parties will have already been heavily recruited by someone else. A perfect example of this is Konami, who's MGS4 is one of the last pillars of exclusive awesomeness propping the PS3 up. With GTA IV already gone multiplatform, Sony is probably executing an impassioned circling of the wagons. Even though Konami is supporting the Wii's Virtual console well and giving the Wii actual, decent quality new IPs (which, unfortunately, are overlooked by most consumers since Konami is barely marketting them), it's obvious where most of their premiere energy is being spent: the Playstation 3 exclusive MGS4, which will be followed by MGS: Online and probably further PS3 exclusives. It's unlikely that Konami will abandon major support of the PS3 if Sony really wants to keep them, and Sony's probably lost too much high profile support already to risk losing more.
Alternatively, SquareEnix is an example of a company that, due to this more intense competition, is likely to go everywhere at once and hedge its bets. Last year they commented that
they didn't want the PS3 to lose, and they didn't want it to win. Extrapolated to the other consoles, Squaresoft doesn't want any one console maker to become too dominant, and no matter how successful or dominant the Wii gets, they're definitely going to continue supporting both the PS3 and XBox 360 with large projects, like the upcoming XBox 360 and PS3 unreal 3-powered Last Remnant, and the recently unveiled XBox 360 exclusive Infinite Undiscovery.
Ultimately, this is again why it's important to look at the smaller developers and publishers for third party support. Not only are these lesser-celebrated companies the seedbed from which springs new concepts, IPs, and possibly even future first-class names like Insomniac Games (who got started with Spyro and have as their most recent game the PS3 launch title Resistance: FoM) or Level 5 (Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy, Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village; considered by some a SquareEnix in the making), but these companies aren't yet tied to next-gen systems by intense "gotta-catch-em-all" brand-name grabbing competition, or by being locked into high next-gen budgets, assets, and commitments.
And this shifted emphasis will be tested going forward into 2008. Not only will next year be the last chance for third parties to prove they are behind the Nintendo console, but
2008 will also see whether or not Nintendo's WiiWare initiative lives up to its promise. If what they've told us is to be believed, Nintendo will not restrict anything showing up on WiiWare as long as it's technically sound and has an ESRB rating below AO. All developers need is a $2000 Wii dev kit, $2500 to get an ESRB rating, and a finished Wii product to get onto Nintendo's Shop Channel. Nintendo will be hands-off and the way will be clear for small indie developers with shallow pockets and quirky ideas to get published.
Vicarious Vision's CEO Karthik Bala recently made statements expressing interest for the platform:
Quote
After mentioning how nearly impossible it is for a small, rookie development house to compete with the multimillion dollar budgets being used in retail games, he moved on to the potential for online publishing. After alluding to the difficulty of getting a game onto Xbox Live Arcade, due to Microsoft's vigorous approval process, he expressed his excitement in Nintendo's WiiWare service. As Nintendo stated with their original (and only) announcement of the service, he stated that it would launch early next year and emphasized how open Nintendo was being with development kits and what they were going to allow on the service. He seemed convinced that this was going to be a gateway for many independent developers operating on small budgets. Given that Nintendo has been incredibly quiet about this since the original announcement, it's interesting to hear the points restated by a third party.
Indeed, we know next to nothing about actual WiiWare development, but if it's everything it's being promised as, the Wii has a very real chance of attracting the largest collection of downloadable independent titles (even though many will be puzzle games initially), and attracting a lot of attention in this starting-developer sector. Again, it's obvious that none of these will make up for the loss of Resident Evil 5, but WiiWare is actually a fulfillment of a
dream that Satoru Iwata stated back at GDC 2006:
Quote
In our business too often people with a fresh idea don’t have a chance. I believe if Tetris were presented today here’s what the producer would be told: “more levels, better graphics, cinematics and you’ll need a movie license to sell that idea!”
The producer would go away dejected, and today Tetris might never be invented. We understand […] the future zeldas, marios and metroids will be bigger masterpieces. But this doesn’t have to be the only business model. We want to help you make new ones. We offer a combination of opportunities that can’t be matched. Our controllers .. it allows for game creation that isn’t just dependent on the size of the development budget. Our Virtual Console concept is the videogame version of Apple’s iTunes music store. Since I announced this virtual console, other people have been interested in digital downloads. But they will not be the same as us: for we will be truly disruptive. The digital download process will bring new games to the widest possible audience of new players.
Even with big-name third party support being a battlefield between all three console makers and one that Nintendo will have difficulty dominating,
it's this emphasis on the developers that you haven't heard of yet, or maybe haven't bothered to look away from MGS4 to notice yet, that is Nintendo's best chance for real continued broadbase support. And whether these developers are
a bunch of guys in Europe working out of the garage on a WiiWare puzzle game or
an established Australian developer hoping to get their big break because of a great Star Wars port job, they are the ones who are in the best position to benefit, and benefit from, the Wii, and they are the ones who have started to show some actual movement and dedication towards the platform, and from whom we should hope for a lot more.
In the IGN Wii-kly podcast for 10-01-07, at around the 14:14 mark, Matt Cassamassina stated that:
Quote
somebody was telling me that Nintendo got up to 500 submissions from developers and publishers.
Though some of those are sure to be titles from the big guys and titles that have been secretly in development for awhile now, the vast majority of those are almost certain to be titles from the little guys. Many are sure to be licensed, many are sure to be nothing to write home about. And perhaps many will be from developers eager to make a name for themselves with a brand new way of playing games, or medium-sized publishers who could benefit the most from releasing their titles outside of SquareSoft's, Capcom's, or EA's shadow.
In the end, there aren't easy answers, and there is no sweeping market dominance. Only a more complex major-third-party three-way tug of war, a generation of videogames that's breaking all the rules, an unprecedented dearth of new game announcements, and the as-of-yet-unclaimed blue ocean of smaller, less entrenched, less famous, more desperate and more hungry, independent developers and publishers.
Topic: Condition of Third Party Wii Support - Post TGS - (Read 10670 times)
