Topic: Thestreet.com - Vying for Wii Pie

[jasonditz]

Article from Thestreet.com

[Ceric]

hmmm...  I like how they throw having the largest market share out as a real side note for developing for a console.  I mean according to that article the real problem is that Nintendo makes good games.

[NWR_pap64]

I like how they completely ignored the fact that...
- Zelda and Excite truck were the ONLY first party games at launch. ET might be fun and all, but people have been waiting for Zelda TP for nearly 4 years! The hype and anticipation was at an all time high when the game was finally released. OF COURSE people were going to eat it up.

- Even if Zelda ended up being the best selling Wii title, it was followed closely by beloved third party games like Madden, Trauma center, Red Steel and Rayman. In fact, it was those impressive sales that prompted developers to make more games for the Wii.

- Nintendo hasn't released a new game since Wario ware. There's Wii play, yes, but overall the highlights come from the third party offerings.

- They fail to mention that many new third party games are being announced each day, sometimes rivaling Nintendo's own announcement.

This is why I don't tend to pay much attention to non gaming media trying to analyze gaming media. It's true that Nintendo's games sell better than third party ones, but its annoying that they believe that third party games automatically flop on a Nintendo system. That may have been the case with the N64 and GC, sure, but the Wii is a whole new beast.

[UltimatePartyBear]

From the article:

Quote
EA plans to offer its immensely popular game line Sims, dubbed MySims for the Wii and DS, and another called SimCity for the DS.

It breaks my heart that SimCity is considered by anyone to be a part of the Sims line.

Quote
The lower cost of game development for the Wii has also given smaller publishers an opportunity to make games for the platform, says Pidgeon.

Creating a game for Sony's PlayStation 2, for instance, could cost anywhere from $10 million to $15 million, and take 18 months to two years.

But with the Wii, the investments are lower -- there are fewer complexities -- enabling smaller companies, such as independent Japanese publisher Capcom, to create games for the platform.

Ho-ly crap.  You know, when I heard that small game companies would be able to publish Wii games, I was thinking along the lines of The Behemoth, not Capcom.  Apparently, the industry's in a much sadder state than I imagined.

Either that, or it's just the status quo of mind-numbingly stupid analysts.  

[Kairon]

Is this true???

Quote
But with the Wii, Nintendo has turned around its attitude toward third-party publishers, says Pidgeon. "Nintendo is working with developers better and giving their tools away for free, while Sony's tools are fairly expensive," he says.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Blue Plant]

Aren't they at or around $2,000?  I would assume that's practically free for a developer of most sizes.

[MarioAllStar]

One would think Nintendo would be bragging more about free development tools if they were actually free. I think Nintendo has the cheapest professional tools, which excludes Microsoft's XNA, but I am pretty sure they are not free.

[jasonditz]

Maybe it's something like you pay $2000 for a license to develop on the wii and they give you the kit "free with membership".