Topic: Official Sales Thread

[broodwars]

The point I'm trying to make is that 3rd parties frequently act like porting a game to Wii is either "impossible" and/or it wouldn't sell, yet they release many of these games for the PSP (Tekken 6 got a PSP port BTW, not that I'm asking for it) and the PSP sells jack in the west. And don't forget iPhone ports. Yeah, gamers love playing fighting games without buttons or a D-pad.

Maybe if Nintendo wasn't so notoriously laissez faire/apathetic about 3rd parties making games on their systems, 3rd parties might be inclined to give a **** about making great games on it.  Just a theory, of course.

[NWR_insanolord]

It's easy to understand why some people believe the entire industry's against Nintendo when, after being criticized for years for being too controlling of third parties and losing a lot of support because of it, now they're being criticized for being hands-off and letting them do what they want.

[BlackNMild2k1]

The thing is, even if you think a Wii version wouldn't sell, making a PSP version makes even less sense.
 
Outside of Japan, the PSP is DEAD. Regginated.
 
Software sales are abysmal, and hardware sales aren't too hot either.
 
The point I'm trying to make is that 3rd parties frequently act like porting a game to Wii is either "impossible" and/or it wouldn't sell, yet they release many of these games for the PSP (Tekken 6 got a PSP port BTW, not that I'm asking for it) and the PSP sells jack in the west. And don't forget iPhone ports. Yeah, gamers love playing fighting games without buttons or a D-pad.

Trust me, I know. I started a whole thread on that very point.
Here is a link to it just incase you missed it >LINK<

[broodwars]

It's easy to understand why some people believe the entire industry's against Nintendo when, after being criticized for years for being too controlling of third parties and losing a lot of support because of it, now they're being criticized for being hands-off and letting them do what they want.

There's a difference between allowing total creative freedom for 3rd parties on your console and giving off a public image that you really don't give a damn how they succeed, because you're making money hand-over-fist with your own titles and console sales.  Monster Hunter Tri is the only notable exception I can think of on Wii this generation.

[Chozo Ghost]

The point I'm trying to make is that 3rd parties frequently act like porting a game to Wii is either "impossible" and/or it wouldn't sell, yet they release many of these games for the PSP (Tekken 6 got a PSP port BTW, not that I'm asking for it) and the PSP sells jack in the west. And don't forget iPhone ports. Yeah, gamers love playing fighting games without buttons or a D-pad.

Maybe if Nintendo wasn't so notoriously laissez faire/apathetic about 3rd parties making games on their systems, 3rd parties might be inclined to give a **** about making great games on it.  Just a theory, of course.

You're theory is wrong in that it no longer applied. It applied during the Yamauchi years, but since Iwata took over Nintendo has made significant efforts to make their systems more developer friendly. Reggie himself asked Rockstar to start making M games on Nintendo hardware. That was how we were able to get Bully, GTA: CTWs, and others.  These games haven't sold as well as expected, but it isn't as though Nintendo isn't trying to turn things around.

[smallsharkbigbite]

You're theory is wrong in that it no longer applied. It applied during the Yamauchi years, but since Iwata took over Nintendo has made significant efforts to make their systems more developer friendly. Reggie himself asked Rockstar to start making M games on Nintendo hardware. That was how we were able to get Bully, GTA: CTWs, and others.  These games haven't sold as well as expected, but it isn't as though Nintendo isn't trying to turn things around.

Reggie typically says the right thing in public, I.E., love for this game or that game to be on the Wii.  There is no way he initiated any contact with Rockstar to get those games on the Wii.  Rockstar was testing the large Wii marketbase out to see if it could support larger scale mature games (GTA) and the trial failed. 
 
I'm not going to spend all day refuting this because it's been beat to a pulp and third party support isn't going to change for the Wii from here on out.  But here is what I grabbed in a search of Reggie and Take Two http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=193809 "And again, from our standpoint, if they build a bottoms-up game that takes advantage of what we do well, I'd love to see it on the platform."  I.E. do it our way, with our controls and we'll be happy.  Not exactly a third party endorsement.  A search for Reggie and third parties yields this, http://wii.ign.com/articles/932/932052p1.html.  I.E. we've done everything we can for third parties, it is all their fault they aren't suceeding. 
 
We can talk whether Nintendo needs to give resources or not to third parties (since they are making so much dough and all) but a true committment to third parties would require some resources whether it be helping them with development, marketing, a break on licensing, use of certain rights ect.  Nintendo does none of this, and PS/Xbox do.  That's why you see GTA 4 have timed exclusives.  It's not because Take Two decided they want the 360 to win the console war, it's because green backs were involved and GTA is a big enough licence that hardware developers pay for it to be on their system.  And Nintendo's response is well if they do it our way, we'll allow GTA to be on the Wii.  That's why the big games don't come.  Not that I care about GTA 4, but I like Resident Evil and a handful of other big games that the Wii missed.

[KDR_11k]

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

[Chozo Ghost]

If the market leader has to bribe developers to support its system then obviously something is very wrong with the industry.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Reggie on GTA & Take-Two (2006) - "I'll be spending some time later today with the folks over at Take-Two to see what type of support they can give our console."

Something doesn't add up, but we've had this conversation on here before somewhere.

[SalesBot]

Chart Track - Week 10, 2010

UK: Week 10, 2010 - Individual Formats (Units)
01 (__) PS3 Final Fantasy Xiii (Square Enix Europe)
02 (__) 360 Final Fantasy Xiii (Square Enix Europe)
03 (01) 360 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
04 (03) WII Just Dance (Ubisoft)
05 (02) PS3 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
06 (04) PS3 Heavy Rain (Sony Computer Ent.)
07 (06) WII Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo)
08 (08) WII Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo)
09 (10) WII New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
10 (11) 360 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
11 (14) PS3 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
12 (05) PC Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
13 (__) PC Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War Ii - Chaos (Thq)
14 (07) 360 Aliens Vs Predator (Sega)
15 (12) WII Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing (Sega)
16 (35) NDS Professor Layton And Pandora's Box (Nintendo)
17 (15) 360 Bioshock 2 (Take 2)
18 (13) 360 Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft)
19 (16) WII Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo)
20 (09) PS3 Aliens Vs Predator (Sega)
21 (17) NDS Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing (Sega)
22 (__) NDS Mario And Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Nintendo)
23 (__) PS3 Yakuza 3 (Sega)
24 (18) PS3 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Ent.)
25 (__) NDS Take A Break's Puzzle Master (Ubisoft)
26 (23) NDS New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)
27 (26) NDS The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo)
28 (22) 360 Fifa 10 (Electronic Arts)
29 (32) PS3 Grand Theft Auto Iv (Take 2)
30 (25) PC Football Manager 2010 (Sega)
31 (36) PS3 Bioshock 2 (Take 2)
32 (__) NDS Sonic Classic Collection (Sega)
33 (__) PSP Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Take 2)
34 (__) NDS Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo)
35 (31) NDS Mario Kart Ds (Nintendo)
36 (19) 360 Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing (Sega)
37 (28) PS3 Fifa 10 (Electronic Arts)
38 (20) PC Napoleon: Total War (Sega)
39 (37) 360 Lego Batman: The Videogame (Warner Bros. Interactive)
40 (27) PS3 Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing (Sega)

Netherlands: Week 10, 2010
01 (__) [PS3] Final Fantasy Xiii (Square Enix Europe)
02 (03) [PS3] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
03 (05) [360] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
04 (04) [PC] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
05 (__) [360] Final Fantasy Xiii (Square Enix Europe)
06 (02) [WII] New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
07 (07) [WII] Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo)
08 (01) [PS3] Heavy Rain (Sony Computer Ent.)
09 (06) [PS3] Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
10 (10) [PC] Assassin's Creed II (Ubisoft)

France: Week 9, 2010
01 (__) [PS3] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
02 (__) [360] Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts)
03 (02) [WII] Wii Fit Plus + Balance Board (Nintendo)
04 (01) [PS3] Heavy Rain (Sony Computer Ent.)
05 (03) [WII] New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Now that is interesting. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is selling best on Nintendo platforms - I'm guessing the prosperous Mario Kart crowd must have picked up on all the TV ads. I might get around to picking this up for Wii.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

IT GOT ADS?

[BlackNMild2k1]

They were releasing it on HD consoles.... of course it got ads

[BranDonk Kong]

I played the demo for 360...it sucks. It's pretty and all, but Mario Kart it is not, also the framerate is horrible.

[Chozo Ghost]

They were releasing it on HD consoles.... of course it got ads

Were the ADs also in HD to show off that bloo-rae goodness?

[D_Average]

I played the demo for 360...it sucks. It's pretty and all, but Mario Kart it is not, also the framerate is horrible.

Maybe you just weren't very good at it. I can see how that would ruin the experience.

[smallsharkbigbite]

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

But business is a two way street.  Having a game on a game on Nintendo gets Nintendo tons of money through licensing, free marketing for the Wii, further third party support when the game succeeds, etc.  I'm not saying Nintendo should have offered $500 million to get GTA exclusive.  What I am saying is had Nintendo gave $2-3 million in value, whether it be in developer tools or whatever, to ensure that GTA 4 would have came to the Wii, they would have recouped that in spades.  You can't honestly suggest that Nintendo should treat Take Two like a budget developer such as Majestco?  GTA has as much brand power as anything Nintendo produces sans maybe the new Wii whatever line of titles or Mario.
 
Big business like Walmart, IBM, etc. require sweethart deals to do business with them.  It's called capitalism, not charity and as long as the other systems are around to raise the value of a GTA, then Nintendo will have to pay or do without.  I was sad they did without until I got a PS3.  Now I don't care so much.

[smallsharkbigbite]

If the market leader has to bribe developers to support its system then obviously something is very wrong with the industry.

Nintendo's not really the market leader for many types of games.  The tools exist for easy conversion of PS3 to X360 to PC.  And in a way PS3/X360/PC have more gamers than the Wii.  To create a game for the Wii, you generally have to create the engine/game etc, and then you can only keep it on the Wii.  This takes alot of time and money minizing the impact of HD vs. SD. 
 
Also, the bases aren't the same.  About 50% of my co-workers own a Wii (single system owners) and they sure as heck could care less about GTA, RE5, L4D, whatever coming to the Wii.  They are perfectly happy with Wii Fit, Wii sports, Game Party, etc.  I'm not going to make some wild estimate of what percentage of Wii owners would be interested in GTA, RE5, L4D to come to the Wii.  But I know had GTA 4 been exclusive to the Wii, there is no way that it would have trumped the sales it has now.  Even if they somehow managed to make it better in every single way sans graphics which is impossible.

[broodwars]

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

When the PS1 and PS2 were the definitive market leaders, you still saw Sony making deals with 3rd parties to secure exclusives and maintain good relationships with developers.  Apparently, some people don't think that Nintendo needs to do the same now that it is the market leader and has created a platform that is dramatically behind the times technologically and (so far) toxic to many 3rd parties with only the PS2 and PSP compatible for multiplatform releases.  Interesting.

[mac<censored>]

But I know had GTA 4 been exclusive to the Wii, there is no way that it would have trumped the sales it has now.  Even if they somehow managed to make it better in every single way sans graphics which is impossible.

Well, no, you don't actually know that, you're making a guess.

[TJ Spyke]

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

When the PS1 and PS2 were the definitive market leaders, you still saw Sony making deals with 3rd parties to secure exclusives and maintain good relationships with developers.  Apparently, some people don't think that Nintendo needs to do the same now that it is the market leader and has created a platform that is dramatically behind the times technologically and (so far) toxic to many 3rd parties with only the PS2 and PSP compatible for multiplatform releases.  Interesting.

With the PS1, they HAD to bribe third parties in order to get them to even take a chance on the system. With the PS2, they were afraid of the Xbox and GameCube (since the PS2 was the weakest system in terms of tech). Nintendo shouldn't have to bribe third parties to release games, that just seems really dirty to me. It's a different matter if a publisher approaches a console make (like what Sega Sammy is doing; they have said they want to make Shenmue III but want funding from a console manufacturer, they are promising to make it exclusive to that maker's system in return).

Also, most Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games could easily be down-ported to the Wii by a competent developer.

[Guitar Smasher]

Bribing the 3rd parties is not going to fix the problem.  They'll just start expecting bribes before they start work on their next game.  The only benefit is that 3rd parties will get some experience working on Wii, possibly removing that roadblock from their next effort.  If the game sells, then that might entice them to further pursue the Wii, although there is no guarantee of this.

[broodwars]

Bribing the 3rd parties is not going to fix the problem.  They'll just start expecting bribes before they start work on their next game.  The only benefit is that 3rd parties will get some experience working on Wii, possibly removing that roadblock from their next effort.  If the game sells, then that might entice them to further pursue the Wii, although there is no guarantee of this.

The problem is that over the years Nintendo has created a reputation for itself of creating consoles that are hard to find an audience for, because "Nintendo gamers only buy Nintendo games."  Why should 3rd parties create great games for the Wii?  Sure, it's the market leader and there's a great amount of potential there, but the Blue Ocean crowd is a difficult audience to tap outside casual games so there's nearly as big a risk as developing for the expensive HD consoles.  Reading various gaming forums, it often seems like Nintendo loyalists look for whatever reason they can find to not buy a 3rd party game as well, so that market's hard to attract as well.  In any case, 3rd parties can be assured that whatever they do Nintendo doesn't have their back and really doesn't give a damn how well they do.  When they create the game and it inevitably fails to find an audience, up until the Move launches they can't use it for any other platform without dramatic coding changes to accommodate traditional controls.  Sometimes I wonder why 3rd parties even bother with the Wii.  Hopefully, with Nintendo starting to take a more active role in 3rd party development with Monster Hunter Tri and (on the DS) Dragon Quest IX we'll see an upward swing of support...but I highly doubt it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

When the PS1 and PS2 were the definitive market leaders, you still saw Sony making deals with 3rd parties to secure exclusives and maintain good relationships with developers.  Apparently, some people don't think that Nintendo needs to do the same now that it is the market leader and has created a platform that is dramatically behind the times technologically and (so far) toxic to many 3rd parties with only the PS2 and PSP compatible for multiplatform releases.  Interesting.

Sony had to do that because they had no consistent AAA production teams to support a system all on their own. That's how this whole money hatting thing got started in the first place.

Like a bunch of spoiled brats expecting a reward for every little remedial task that they complete, then are shocked when they get in the real world and have to actually do real work to earn any real money or get anywhere in life.

Sony and MS are trying to buy everyone's love by spoiling them, but all their doing is setting them up for disappointment should Sony or MS ever step out of this business.

[Guitar Smasher]

Bribing the 3rd parties is not going to fix the problem.  They'll just start expecting bribes before they start work on their next game.  The only benefit is that 3rd parties will get some experience working on Wii, possibly removing that roadblock from their next effort.  If the game sells, then that might entice them to further pursue the Wii, although there is no guarantee of this.

The problem is that over the years Nintendo has created a reputation for itself of creating consoles that are hard to find an audience for, because "Nintendo gamers only buy Nintendo games."  Why should 3rd parties create great games for the Wii?  Sure, it's the market leader and there's a great amount of potential there, but the Blue Ocean crowd is a difficult audience to tap outside casual games so there's nearly as big a risk as developing for the expensive HD consoles.  Reading various gaming forums, it often seems like Nintendo loyalists look for whatever reason they can find to not buy a 3rd party game as well, so that market's hard to attract as well.  In any case, 3rd parties can be assured that whatever they do Nintendo doesn't have their back and really doesn't give a damn how well they do.  When they create the game and it inevitably fails to find an audience, up until the Move launches they can't use it for any other platform without dramatic coding changes to accommodate traditional controls.  Sometimes I wonder why 3rd parties even bother with the Wii.  Hopefully, with Nintendo starting to take a more active role in 3rd party development with Monster Hunter Tri and (on the DS) Dragon Quest IX we'll see an upward swing of support...but I highly doubt it.

And bribing won't help with any of the points you bring up.  That was my original post.

Say Nintendo funds a 3rd party game. 

Scenario (1)  The game fails to find a market (like you said), Nintendo's out of change with nothing to show for it.

Scenario (2)  The game finds modest success.  Now the 3rd party's going to ask for more money to keep the franchise on Wii, or else they'll move it over to Move/Natal who'll be happy to accomodate them (because that's the game Sony/Microsoft are playing).

It would be much better for Nintendo to lend technical expertise, or to combine marketing efforts.  These would be actual investments, instead of renting a franchise.  This is sort of what you mention near the end, but it wasn't relevant to my original post.