Topic: The Wii U is Getting **** Upon When It Comes to Third Party Games

[Adrock]

I'd buy that reasoning if Resident Evil 6 was a survival horror game...

[Fatty The Hutt]

@fatty: I'm going to give you an applaud a day for as long as I can remember just because of ā€¯chinga tu madreā€¯

also are we allowed to post links to mr cox's twitter? I've love to mouth off via tweets. i barely use the thing, this night change that around.. lets just all tweet then that we're passing up the game or something, no death threats please.. we're better than that (I hope)

Much obliged. Glad you enjoyed. One day, I will return the favour.


Also, good idea with the Twitter. I might even sign up just to be able to tweet my ire (as if anyone cared).

[Kytim89]

I will put this topic to bed with this simple solution: Nintendo should take advantage of their war chest and create three software companies, one in Japan, and another in the North America and Europe, that exists for the sole purpose of translating the code of third party games for the Wii U. One reason why a lot of third parties refuse to support the Wii U is the amount of time it takes to translating the code to work on the Wii U. Nintendo sign deals like normal and part of the deal would be to give code to Nintendo to reconfigure to the Wii U. This would benefit third parties because they would not have to provide the financial clout to support the Wii U, but would still get a cut of the sles revenue when it is released. 

[alegoicoe]

That sounds terrific, but sh*t would go down the drain when the time to talk about profits comes.

[Adrock]

Porting and translating are not the costly or difficult parts. That's why 3rd parties often hand ports to any platform to smaller companies to handle the grunt work. All the risk is in publishing and marketing. If 3rd parties knew that they would get a million plus sales, they would commission ports like crazy. They don't know and they don't have faith in the audience at all. Is their skepticism justified? Depends on the game... depends on a lot of things really. Personally, I think it's often a cop out for new games. Porting a nearly 3 year old game like Lords of Shadow? Okay, I get that. Porting Lords of Shadow 2 alongside the other versions? No way! Porting Lords of Shadow (possibly as a bonus) and releasing it with Lords of Shadow 2 alongside the other versions? Definitely, no way!

Nintendo could front the cost of coding. They could, but they won't. It would be a nice gesture though it sidesteps the real issue. What would be more beneficial is cutting 3rd parties a deal on licensing fees and covering part of marketing and publishing costs while taking a smaller cut of revenue. They could, but they definitely would not. They shouldn't be expected to anyway. That's bad business (that doesn't guarantee anything in the future) and it sets a bad precedent as well.

It has to start somewhere. Wii U owners can't buy games that don't exist on the platform. 3rd parties are going to have to take the risk and not treat Wii U owners as 2nd class gamers with shoddy ports and callous efforts. Then, Wii U owners need to respond by supporting those games.

[alegoicoe]

Agreed, i highly doubt that nintendo would be willing to pay for a gamble, like you said is bad for business  plus, this porting thing sucks, i really don't want 2 or 3 year old games on the system, for example batman, i mean i am happy people got to play it, but really charging full price for a game that has been out for a year its plain stealing, i rather have third parties focusing here on out and bring  new games like the new devil may cry or metal gear, but i guess that's not happening either. Tricky spot nintendo is in with the Wii U, i guess at least until proven other wise is gamecube all over again, cause i am sure nintendo has some big surprises under their sleeves.

[Kytim89]

Agreed, i highly doubt that nintendo would be willing to pay for a gamble, like you said is bad for business  plus, this porting thing sucks, i really don't want 2 or 3 year old games on the system, for example batman, i mean i am happy people got to play it, but really charging full price for a game that has been out for a year its plain stealing, i rather have third parties focusing here on out and bring  new games like the new devil may cry or metal gear, but i guess that's not happening either. Tricky spot nintendo is in with the Wii U, i guess at least until proven other wise is gamecube all over again, cause i am sure nintendo has some big surprises under their sleeves.

I would be willing to pay for older games strictly on the eShop. For example, if I were to pay full price for Lords of Shadow 2 on the Wii U then I can get the original Lords of Shadow on the eShop for say twenty dollars? I do see the huge financial gamble of putting games on the Wii U. However, would it be safer for them to put the games exclusively on the Wii U's eShop? The people on the RFN podcast think that releasing only on the eShop entails better sales security.

Theoretically the only way to get Lords of Shadow on the Wii U would be through the eShop and if you want a physical copy then buy from the other consoles. 

You are talking to a guy that wants Doom 3 BFG on the Wii U and is willing to pay to get it on the Wii U.

[shingi_70]

Porting can be costly depending on the circumstances. That was a reason why there weren't a lot of ports to Wii. The games in the most case would have to be built from the ground up.

The Wii U currently is ant facing that so the lack of ports is alarming but once Unreal 4 hits it may become one.

[NWR_insanolord]

Putting it on the eShop exclusively removes a lot of the risks, but brings some new ones. Publishing costs go down to virtually nothing, and marketing doesn't have to be as extensive, but it does limit your sales to an extent.

I think with the way things are going down, with competitors' superior hardware launching <1 year after launch, Nintendo needed to be more aggressive than they've been in regard to third party support. Nintendo doesn't have the luxury of giving devs time to come along, and they may already be past the point of being able to secure real support.

[Kytim89]

Putting it on the eShop exclusively removes a lot of the risks, but brings some new ones. Publishing costs go down to virtually nothing, and marketing doesn't have to be as extensive, but it does limit your sales to an extent.

I think with the way things are going down, with competitors' superior hardware launching <1 year after launch, Nintendo needed to be more aggressive than they've been in regard to third party support. Nintendo doesn't have the luxury of giving devs time to come along, and they may already be past the point of being able to secure real support.

If support does not happen now then it never will happen.

[Ceric]

That's for the horror aspect. It's a lot scarier if you can't see what's going on.

Resident Evil 7: The Sounds of Horror.
Boasting the most realistic black screen action.  Its all in the sound alone.

[alegoicoe]

Putting it on the eShop exclusively removes a lot of the risks, but brings some new ones. Publishing costs go down to virtually nothing, and marketing doesn't have to be as extensive, but it does limit your sales to an extent.

I think with the way things are going down, with competitors' superior hardware launching <1 year after launch, Nintendo needed to be more aggressive than they've been in regard to third party support. Nintendo doesn't have the luxury of giving devs time to come along, and they may already be past the point of being able to secure real support.

If support does not happen now then it never will happen.

Lets hope nintendo knows what they are doing in respect towards future software for Wii U, cause the system as of today is lacking on all fronts when compared to the rival systems. True, the gamepad is a neat idea and one that at least for me works, but looks like third parties did not get on boat with the idea as well as nintendo thought they might have. I think there is still plenty of time for support to ramp up, but it will definitely have to be this year in order to avoid serious competition with the coming systems.

[shingi_70]

Is it bad that I doing think they can turn it around.

I hope to be proved wrong at E3 but we don't know anything about what's hitting fall because we assume most of it is slated for systems not released. However there are quite a few games that are known and haven't been announced for Wii U.

I think Nintendo needs to look at keeping its indie developers happy and invest more in them like Microsoft/Sony does. Do more than support the games on their service and look into publishing these games as well as acquiring the developers themselves. They should look at what Sony has done with thatgamecompany  or Microsoft has done with Signal Studios. They should also look into forming an incubation studio to work with smaller developers like Sony Santa Monica does and Microsoft Lift London will.

The biggest thing Sony could do is more stuff like the partnerships with Ubisoft and Platinum Games to get exclusive stuff for retail. No one gets mad when technically Gears of War, Alan Wake, and the last splinter cell have been exclusive to Xbox. Nintendo should get on the gt round with developing New IP with developers that's exclusive. Just a few would be


Get Tecmo working on the Next Fatal Frame game pronto, if I recall doesn't Nintendo co-own the franchise with tecmo.

I think EX troopers would have been a great exclusive game for Nintendo but that's not happening,

Look to the THQ sale and try and grab say Darksiders and Metro last light.

Get Mistwalker working on a new game alongside monolith Soft.

Try another go at a non Mario Kart racing game. Revisit the excite series or fzero

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo definitely can turn it around. I don't know that they will, but the possibility is certainly there. Really, just looking at what we can already deduce they have, with EAD Tokyo, Retro, Monolith and Smash Bros., that's a pretty formidable lineup. If you assume there are another couple things we don't know about, then all that's left is third party support.

As far as 3DS goes, Nintendo could not release any games for it for the next two years and still have sold ten times as many units as the Vitta.

[shingi_70]

I hope so because of looks like the Wii U is stuck in this weird post ion between the last gen console and the other next gen consoles. The Dreamcast had the same thing happen top of as well iirc.


But in Nintendo we trust.

[Ceric]

I hope so because of looks like the Wii U is stuck in this weird post ion between the last gen console and the other next gen consoles. The Dreamcast had the same thing happen top of as well iirc.


But in Nintendo we trust.

Though they did botch the Harmony Style Universal remote with the Wii U that could have easily been a system seller.

[shingi_70]

I'm surprised they didn't market it that more. Overall I think the marketing for the Wii U has been terrible and doesn't persuade me to get one.

[alegoicoe]

Marketing has been pretty bad so far, i mean who came up with the stupid catch phrase "What will U play next" what the f*uk, is like its being directed towards a 3 year old. Nintendo should start acquiring some talent pronto, THQ sale out is a great opportunity.

[Sarail]

Marketing has been pretty bad so far, i mean who came up with the stupid catch phrase "What will U play next" what the f*uk, is like its being directed towards a 3 year old. Nintendo should start acquiring some talent pronto, THQ sale out is a great opportunity.

How U Will Play Next.

Much different ideology there, man. I like the catchphrase. It's just...not being emphasised correctly to gain more appeal.

[shingi_70]

"How U will play next" is actually a pretty good marketing vcampagin when leading up to the launch of the device. They should have been using that Tagline since E3 2011 and do a viral like campaign and then follow up with a more serious campaign.

My problem is I hate everything about the current Wii U ads.

Are they using a different advertising agency than they did with the Wii.

[shingi_70]

So Splinter Cell Blacklist got pushed back to August. Means that a Wii U version should be in the works as well.

[Caterkiller]

They should really bring back the Japanese guys going home to home doing house calls again. Wii would like to play with U works just fine. Put the people in a real environment without all those seizure inducing lights and then you got another winner. Reminds of the original GameCube adds, they came off as trying to be cool with everything happening in a cube but its just a bit off putting I think.

[Fatty The Hutt]

They should really bring back the Japanese guys going home to home doing house calls again. Wii would like to play with U works just fine.

I read this and started off thinking "Hell Yeah!. That's a great idea."


Then I started to picture the ad.


A woman answers the door.
The two Japanese guys are there. One bows as he says part of the tagline, the other bows immediately after as he finishes the tagline.


Guy 1: We would like to play.
Guy 2: With you!


And I was immediately very creeped out.

[EasyCure]

pfft, nothing strange about two grown japanese men coming to your door wanting to play with you.. unless they're naked and/or have tentacles.

[Ian Sane]

One thing that really helped the Wii in terms of marketing is that it's whole big motion control gimmick sold itself.  Basically all they had to do was inform the consumer that the motion controller tennis game they've wanted their whole lives now actually existed.  Wii Sports was a dream game for a huge chunk of the population.

One problem I had with the Cube ads back in the day was that they kind of assumed you gave a **** about the Gamecube, which was a really dumb assumption since the N64 had poisoned the Nintendo brand for the last five years.  No one but the already converted was going to give a **** about the Cube unless Nintendo convinced them.  I think they should have pushed Rogue Leader more since it was pretty much the dream game for every kid that grew up with Star Wars.  Instead they pushed Luigi's Mansion - a game only Nintendo diehards would ever give a **** about.

You need that product that will sell itself if you just inform the public that it exists (I remember the first GBC ads were basically "hey it's a colour Game Boy").  I don't think Nintendo even has such a product since "hey, it's got a tablet" doesn't seem like something anyone has been waiting for.  If they don't have such a product they have to find a way in the marketting to make people think they've been waiting for a Wii U their whole lives.

But the Wii didn't sell because it was called "Wii" or was white or had those two Japanese guys in the ad.  The only way Nintendo could possibly have fucked up marketing it was if they didn't let the public know that it had motion control.