Topic: Theory about third party support

[Smash_Brother]

I dislike how excellent "hardcore" games on the Wii are conveniently placed outside of the known universe for these discussions.

Ian, do you even own No More Heroes?

[IceCold]

He didn't own RE4 on the Cube, after years and years of whining about needing mature third party exclusives.

I think that about sums up Ian.

[Smash_Brother]

Wow...

[Khushrenada]

I like this thread. After a rousing game of mafia, I'm in the mood for more arguements. And for the sake of fun, I'm going to take Ian's side. Who wants me to start attacking their arguement first?

[Flames_of_chaos]

That's my argument.

[Khushrenada]

What kind of mat is that? If you're jumping to conclusions, shouldn't one of the options be "Ask Questions Later" or "Insult Somebody". That mat sucks. And that is a conclusion I jumped to along with "What the....?" and some other rather insulting stuff about the poster.

[Flames_of_chaos]

What kind of mat is that? If you're jumping to conclusions, shouldn't one of the options be "Ask Questions Later" or "Insult Somebody". That mat sucks. And that is a conclusion I jumped to along with "What the....?" and some other rather insulting stuff about the poster.

That's the jump to conclusions mat from the movie Office Space.

[Khushrenada]

Were you even arguing with me?

[Flames_of_chaos]

trying to point out the topic is pointless and frivolous, I already made my rebuttals on Ian's ideas on the 3rd post of this thread.

[Khushrenada]

Yeah and now I am playing the role of the defense lawyer for Ian and am willing to rebutt any arguements directed against him. I'm playing the Pro-Ian role.

[NWR_pap64]

He didn't own RE4 on the Cube, after years and years of whining about needing mature third party exclusives.

I think that about sums up Ian.

I think I can figure out his excuse...

RE 4 was part of the infamous Capcom 5, games that were going to be GC exclusives. Fans got excited because Capcom was providing the GC great games. But then Capcom announced that 3 of them would go multiplatform, RE 4 being one of them. Worst of all, the PS2 port was announced mere months before the GC release (if I am not mistaken).

Many fans took this as a sign that Capcom gave a sh*t about Nintendo, then they said f*ck it and decided to spite Capcom by NOT buying either version.

Years later, Capcom rectified this by releasing RE 4 Wii edition with content from the PS2 version along with rock solid Wii controls and a budget price.

The excuse this time? That its a cheap port created to make a quick buck.

This is why I said these type of arguments never end; people will come up with ideas, excuses and opinions that just make the thread go to hell, and makes everyone look retarded in the end.

[Urkel]

After all these years and all his rantings, I can't for the life of me even guess as to what sort of games appeal to Ian.

You can recommend No More Heroes and Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki till your blue in the face, he ain't gonna buy them.

[NWR_insanolord]

Third party support may still be coming. Some Nintendo person pointed out that good traditional game take a couple years to make. Let's say some third party realized the Wii was a success in the second half of last year and started development of a game then. It wouldn't be coming out until probably holiday season of next year, which would probably mean we haven't heard of it yet.

[Chozo Ghost]

Seriously Ian, get No More Heroes like everyone here is recommending you to. It's an excellent game, and it now comes at a lower price so you won't be disappointed with it. Plus by buying it you will help spur the development of more 3rd party games as well.

[KDR_11k]

I think one problem with those A level third party games is that they failed to sell. Realistically they aren't the kinds of games that sell on any system, too niche in their appeal.

[Chozo Ghost]

Third party support may still be coming. Some Nintendo person pointed out that good traditional game take a couple years to make. Let's say some third party realized the Wii was a success in the second half of last year and started development of a game then. It wouldn't be coming out until probably holiday season of next year, which would probably mean we haven't heard of it yet.

I've said the same thing before. You can't release a new video game (or at least a quality one anyway) overnight. As you said, it takes months or even years to get polished to a high degree of quality. Maybe the reason we are seeing all the crap games coming out now for the Wii is because these are the fastest things the 3rd parties could throw together on such short notice. So I would guess the quality stuff is lagging behind, because it has a longer gestation cycle.

Probably between Summer and the holiday season of 2009 is when we will finally see a real big explosion of quality Wii games. Until then, we may have to just continue to rely on Nintendo and the handful of other companies who were wise enough to give support to the Wii right from the beginning.

[Peachylala]

Oh good lord, the Capcom 5... never did I see so much back lash towards a third party compeny. While Capcom did somewhat screw us N-fans over, Capcom was basically getting screwed over with bad sales for games not on Nintendo systems.

On the subject of Capcom itself, and third parties in general, I'll go out on a limb and say to everyone that no third party, no matter the support, is completely bull-**** free. This also goes for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. There is always a dark story to tell, and this generation has seen alot of **** hitting the fan. Itagaki and Team Ninja splitting from Tecmo due to unpaid bonuses, American third parties banning game magazines from reviewing their games because of mediocure scores, and whatever insane news story these third parties can pull out of their asses.

[Sarail]

Ian isn't hardcore until he plays, beats, and annihilates Fire Emblem 10 on Wii. 

That was a great 90 hours of my life spent. 

[DAaaMan64]

Yes FE10 is quite yuum

[Ian Sane]

I've said the same thing before. You can't release a new video game (or at least a quality one anyway) overnight. As you said, it takes months or even years to get polished to a high degree of quality. Maybe the reason we are seeing all the crap games coming out now for the Wii is because these are the fastest things the 3rd parties could throw together on such short notice. So I would guess the quality stuff is lagging behind, because it has a longer gestation cycle.

People were making this argument last year.  How long should we wait before we realize we're waiting in vain?  Nintendo specifically tried to show off some third party games during their E3 conference and what they showed was some real lame ass stuff.  If there were all these really awesome third party games in development still don't you think Nintendo would rather have shown THOSE off instead?  Why wouldn't they want to put their best foot forward?  Nintendo is not so dumb that they would talk about E3 pleasing core gamers and emphasize third party support in their conference only to bomb big time on both items if they didn't have to.

I don't understand how my argument that third parties can't make the games they want to on the Wii is any less believable than

- they're all stupid
- it's a conspiracy against Nintendo

While incompetence is not uncommon with big companies it seems rather unlikely that 99% of console third parties are so dumb as to virtually ignore a market leading console for THIS long.  And the conspiracy argument is, you know, suggesting a conspiracy which is almost always pretty kooky stuff by definition.

Every console seems to have those interviews with developers that are just raving about the console they're working on.  They're probably full of it but they sound excited to be working on the hardware.  Even a relatively unsuccessful console like the Cube had it's share of devs praising it.  I don't see that enthusiasm for the Wii, despite it being the market leader.  That's what I picked up on from the mailbag - a lack of enthusiasm for developing for it.  There's no one who seems to be all "YAY!! I'm making Wii games!"

[KDR_11k]

Well, the games theay want are profitable games, they just don't know how to make those on the Wii (as they work mostly by copying), the other consoles use old formulas that you just have to clone to get some sales, on the Wii the formulas haven't been defined yet and they aren't willing to go exploring, even less with a big budget game (all they think they know how to make is shovelware...). Problem is to stay competitive with those clones on the other systems you need to make massive investments into the graphics without getting more revenue in return. I think what they're waiting for is someone to show them a successful game concept on the Wii so they can copy it.

[Flames_of_chaos]

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"I think what they're waiting for is someone to show them a successful game concept on the Wii so they can copy it."

That's an interesting idea.  Somehow the third parties aren't bringing over the "good games" -- good games that are simply good games regardless of the platform.  On top of that, they're not even cloning those "good games" in some form for the Wii (at least in the volumes seen on the other platforms).

On the opposite end, select game makers have been releasing games Ian might view as "half-efforts" that have achieved moderate or greater success despite not being triple-A mega-big-budget blockbusters, whether ports or original, including the likes of:  No More Heroes, RE4 Wii, RE Umbrella Chronicles, Okami, Boom Blox, and recently Tales of Rehash: Dawn of the Casuals -- these titles get some attention for simply helping to flesh-out the software library, yet other game makers haven't budged to help fill in the gaps.  Sure, Nintendo's perceivably traditional games have been leading the pack in sales, but third parties can't really make the excuse their mega-million blockbuster games can't compete since they have yet to even try -- if traditional "gamers like Ian" are only willing to purchase triple-A third-party games, then sales of the comparatively less successful "half-efforts" cannot reliably predict the performance of a would-be mega-budget-blockbuster and should not determine the release of such mega-budget-blockbusters. (arguably, it would be stupid to gage things that way, but that's the vibe I've gotten from third parties since launch)

Assuming the game makers aren't stupid, are they just SLOW?  Maybe they're still taking time to understand the sales dynamics of the audience (see: Boom Blox sales warming up over time, rather than tearing up the charts on release)?  Taking time to rethink their platform targeting strategy?  One can argue that waiting this long is BAD for the publisher, as they watch the world's cash ride Crystal Caravans into Nintendo's vaults.  It's a fact of life that percentages of the customers who gobble up the Mario Galaxies, Smash Brothers, and Karts will look at other games to supplement their game library; but one might not even get the impression third parties are getting their foot in the door to fulfill that purpose.

To be this slow, and without silly conspiracies, maybe they're stupid after all?  or just painfully, profit-bleedingly slow

[NWR_Lindy]

I think there's a prevailing sentiment that the Wii is the "market leader"....for a different market than that of the 360 and PS3.  It's like the 360 and PS3 are viewed as almost a "PC-Lite" market by developers.  Since developers like BioWare and Bethesda (for instance) started off on the PC, they naturally gravitate to the 360 and PS3 because they feel like they know that market.

Meanwhile, they don't know what the hell to make of the Wii and its market.  They can't predict what that market will like and what will sell to it, so they'd simply rather not take the risk.  PC/360/PS3 games may cost more to make, but I think to these developers there is actually LESS risk because they can easily predict how many copies they'll sell.

They can also create a game on PC and then port it across to two other platforms with minimal effort, whereas on the Wii they'd have to do everything - design, creation of art assets, coding - from the ground up, specifically for Wii.  And then they can't re-use that code for anything else aside from another Wii game.

[Adrock]

*points to graph*... Nah I'm not seeing how it sucks for Nintendo.  It sucks for third parties who wrote Nintendo off, invested in HD since 2005, wrote off the Wii, were surprised by Wii, were continually surprisied by Wii, were morbidly and stupidly still surprised by Wii, and Then Nintendo announces a new expansion peripheral that they don't have to use and they whine, have a cry about it, and continue to be surprised.

It sucks for Nintendo because they could be making even more money. They BOTH could be making more money hence why it sucks for everyone and why both sides need to make changes. For example, Nintendo needs to stop keeping 3rd parties out of the loop and acting like they don't need to know things (such as the launch of a potentially console changing peripheral) and 3rd parties need to stop acting like the Wii isn't dominating the market. The formula is working for Nintendo at the moment, but how long can Nintendo support their own console mostly by themselves and continue selling at the rate they are?

And the funny thing about that graph is that the 3rd parties in the blue are still profitable without better Wii support. So really, it's not necessarily about the Wii being market leader so much as it is just being a better, smarter publisher that puts out solid, quality games (just look at Ko-ass-Wii-support-nami). Sure, 3rd parties could be making more money by supporting the Wii, but again, it goes both ways. Everyone could be making loads more money off you and I and every other Nintendo fan who's dying for better 3rd party support. So yes, sucks for everyone. Nintendo. 3rd parties. And us, the Wii owners.