Topic: Theory about third party support

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

And the overwhelming result is they strategically niche themselves.  What a great way to ensure surviv- WAIT NO THAT'S NOT HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Mergers and takeovers, ahoy.  Find yer driftwood in the Blue Ocean, if you can.  Nintendo's plowing through in its LOVE BOAT to regrow the market.

[Deguello]

And the funny thing about that graph is that the 3rd parties in the blue are still profitable without better Wii support.

And they could be making a lot more money, right?  They should find a way to include Wii in their forecasts, or they can slowly die.

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.

There's actually a very compelling possibility that nobody asked Nintendo what they were doing.  IT's sort of like... they wrote them off... or something.  And remember when Nintendo debuted the Wii Remote a full year before the system came out?  The third parties more or less ignored them.  Once bitten and all that.

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.

Hmm... lemme see if I can tinker with this a bit.

I think there's a prevailing sentiment that the DS is the "market leader"....for a different market than that of the PSP.  It's like the PSP viewed as almost a "PS2-Lite" market by developers.  Since developers like Square-Enix and Konami (for instance) started off on the PS2, they naturally gravitate to the PSP because they feel like they know that market.

Imagine there's no demographics
it's easy if you try

[NWR_Lindy]

I think there's a prevailing sentiment that the DS is the "market leader"....for a different market than that of the PSP.  It's like the PSP viewed as almost a "PS2-Lite" market by developers.  Since developers like Square-Enix and Konami (for instance) started off on the PS2, they naturally gravitate to the PSP because they feel like they know that market.

Imagine there's no demographics
it's easy if you try

The difference here is that people actually buy PS3/360 games.  That makes them a viable alternative to Wii.  The PSP isn't nearly as attractive as the DS because the software sales aren't there.

[Deguello]

360 maybe.  The PS3 so far has sold less than the PSP.

Now you're right, they are somehow piling the 360 and the PS3 and the PC combined against Wii, and they've been running strategies as such.  And the results are in that chart up there.  Nintendo makes a lot, Everybody else less so.  I would say more than everybody combined but I'VE made more than everybody combined.  (It's a negative number.)

Even EA thinks that they screwed up by ignoring Wii.  Some companies are just goign to have to adapt.

[Adrock]

And they could be making a lot more money, right?  They should find a way to include Wii in their forecasts, or they can slowly die.

Yes, they should be supporting the Wii more, that makes sense, but wait, what? Slowly die... hahahahahahaha.... oh, you're not joking. I'm... wow, it's like you don't know how ridiculous what you just said was.

there's actually a very compelling possibility that nobody asked Nintendo what they were doing.  IT's sort of like... they wrote them off... or something.

3rd parties should approach Nintendo about Nintendo's own secret projects? That's some rock solid logic you have there, sir. If Nintendo is working on something that they clearly want to be successful, it's their responsibility to let 3rd parties know so that 3rd parties can get to work on it. The more developers working on software, the better the chances.

[Galford]

It's funny how many times we've had this conversation.

You have one group bitching and whining about lack of third party support while the other is pretending that Nintendo is not screwing over the market that supported them for years.

That fact of the matter the Wii sells great for Nintendo but not so much for anyone else.  Look at the on going threads at neogaf, third parties aren't selling so well in either America or Japan.  Part of that is the market Nintendo is catering too the other half is a lot of third parties are pooping out crap.

I think the biggest thing that "hardcore" gamers have against Nintendo is the fact that Nintendo could do a couple of things to cater to the hardcore market, but it absolutely refuses too.

[Mario]

This thread should be locked after Ians ridiculous avoiding maneuvers of logic, he almost crashed into my house.

[Spinnzilla]

Even EA thinks that they screwed up by ignoring Wii.  Some companies are just going to have to adapt.

yeah, EA even said they were developing a whooping 40 games at the moment for the wii(how many are good, who knows).  Some companies like, activision, are really striving for the wii by adding worthwhile DLC when even nintendo has failed to give us any.  Capcom, Sega and HVS are also giving good efforts too.  I think that 3rd parties are slow, espically to new formats, remember how it took the DS to get the good library it has currently?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"You have one group bitching and whining about lack of third party support while the other is pretending that Nintendo is not screwing over the market that supported them for years."

Where did this MYTH come about?  For years Nintendo was surviving on Pokemon, Mario Party, Mario Sports, GBA ports, DS casual grandma non-brain puppy cooking simulators, and a budget-priced non-serious non-fighting kid-dee multiplayer game called Super Smash Brothers Melee (which incidentally sabotaged other games' sales) -- not by the purchasing power of an audience that occasionally yearns for the "good ol' days" of Goldeneye (and somehow didn't buy Perfect Dark).

as wise man once said a few minutes ago

"wii needs more hardcore games like fire emblem and pikmin that don't sell because hardcore gamers want different games the instant they get what they last wanted where's mario first person shooter oh it's out i don't think i'll buy it where's kid icarus that'd be so good"

[Deguello]

3rd parties should approach Nintendo about Nintendo's own secret projects? That's some rock solid logic you have there, sir.

No, it's actually called SHOWING INTEREST. 

And aren't you kind of arguing against your own point here?  If Nintendo's projects are top secret, why tell a bunch of third parties who'll blab to their moneyhat masters and ruin any surprise Nintendo needs to get one up on their competitors?  That's some soft logic there.

No really.  If Say... Square enix knocked on Nintendo's door and asked them their plans for their next console and wanted to be in on it from the ground floor and, say promised Final Fantasy... I'm sure Nintendo would find some way to accomoate them.  But if they treat Nintendo the same way they treated them at the DS launch AND at the Wii launch, where Nintendo gave them half a year and a whole year lead time, and even gimped the launch of the DS, just for the benefit of the third parties so they wouldn't have low self-esteem having to compete against Nintendo's top-quality, high-selling, attention-grabbing titles, and the third parties wrote them off TWICE, why the hell should Nintendo ever deign to help one of these ungrateful companies again?

The only real third party support, and the BEST on the DS and Wii, is where companies take risks.  The DS was the "minigame gimmick lolbat handheld" until Square Enix took a risk and remade FFIII on it.  Now it's the RPG console this generation.  The Conduit is getting hype JUST FOR TRYING.  Seriously.  Will it make the Wii a competent shooter console?  Maybe, Maybe not.  But the respect and admiration comes from the risk being and, considering the Wii's userbase is still growing by leaps and bounds, could pay off greatly for them.

Nintendo cannot handhold these crybaby third parties anymore.  The DS is the #1 handheld in the world, and the Wii is the #1 console.  Period.  They can either adapt, or die.  Grow, or shrink.  The status quo will not be maintained.  They have to make the first move, because Nintendo is just fine with them killing themselves to get 9.0's from IGN and adequate ratings from snobby hardcore gamers.  It'll make them all the more desperate for the Wii's audience in the future.

And Galford, go back under the bridge.  Nobody cares who "abandoned" what "market" made Nintendo who they were today.  Just shut up and get out while you still have some dignity.

[NWR_Lindy]

Deg's right in the sense that it's up to these third-parties to save themselves.  I mean, NINTENDO is doing fine.  NINTENDO is servicing their userbase exactly how they want to, and making money hand over fist in the process.  If third-parties want to ignore that, it's their business.  I would say "bad business", but not being on Wii isn't necessarily a bad thing for every company.  Some companies just aren't interested in making Wii games and don't like the console, period.  And that's fine.

Now when comparing the DS to the Wii, the DS didn't have jack for games - first-party or otherwise - until what I call the Great Christmas Flood of 2005.  That's when you had Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Sonic Rush, Castlevania, and a bunch of other big games released for it.  That was a year after its release, and only later did we see other stuff like New Super Mario Bros. and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.  The Wii has been quite different...it seems that Nintendo has blown their wad in terms of big franchises in the console's first 18-24 months of existence.  Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Anijmal Crossing - they're all out there.  I'm not sure where the Wii goes from here, but you gotta think that, like the DS, since Nintendo has "seeded the field" with their first-party stuff, that more and more third-party developers are going to make their way over to Wii.  It's just going to take that one company taking a risk (like Square-Enix) and the flood gates will (hopefully) open.

What irritates me is that it seems that companies like Vicarious Visions are doing more daring things with the Wii platform than Nintendo itself.

[Ian Sane]

There's actually a very compelling possibility that nobody asked Nintendo what they were doing.  IT's sort of like... they wrote them off... or something.  And remember when Nintendo debuted the Wii Remote a full year before the system came out?  The third parties more or less ignored them.  Once bitten and all that.

Considering Nintendo is the company that intentionally withheld information about microcode for the N64 to give themselves an advantage over third parties I would tend to assume that they would be at fault.  This is the company that provided no assisstance whatsoever for the Gamecube network adapter because they had no plans in using it.  Nintendo has a history of keeping third parties in the dark (and treating them kind of like competition even though they get a cut for every game sold) so when Wii Motion Plus is sprung out of nowhere with every third party wondering where the hell it came from my natural instinct is to assume Nintendo was being their usual selves.  It's not hard to believe they're afraid some other game that uses it would steal Wii Sports Resort's thunder or something.

But then I never saw the DS launch as being intentionally accomodating for third parties.  I figured it was more Nintendo rushing things to beat the PSP to the market.

I think the "Nintendo is not being affected by the weak third party support" argument is short sighted.  Yeah it's working okay now but is it going to stay that way without some improvement?  I find the Wii to be a very overachieving console right now.  For longterm success it needs to have a more substancial lineup.  It should get the best game.  If the non-gamers are truly becoming interested in gaming, well, their tastes are going to improve dramatically.  And if if they're not becoming interested then the whole thing is a fad and Nintendo is screwed when the fad ends if the console doesn't have a more substancial library.  If the non-gamers lose interest right now Nintendo is completely f*cked.  If they're smart they'll think more longterm.

[Smash_Brother]

Nintendo didn't tell 3rd parties because one of them would leak it, I guarantee.

Remember how IGN got ahold of Wiiware details before Nintendo released them? That was probably some Wiiware dev trying to get in good with IGN by spilling some beans (someone who lacked the good common sense to respect NDAs).

Same thing would've happened with this: there are a shitton of licensed Wii devs. If Nintendo let that news out, someone could've leaked it and Nintendo NEVER would've known who.

[Adrock]

And aren't you kind of arguing against your own point here?  If Nintendo's projects are top secret, why tell a bunch of third parties who'll blab to their moneyhat masters and ruin any surprise Nintendo needs to get one up on their competitors?  That's some soft logic there.

They told 3rd parties about the Wii remote. Microsoft and Sony are still trying to figure their way around that one. Okay, let's be fair, Sony tried... then failed with Sixaxis.

Square Enix took a risk and remade FFIII on it

When did remaking a Final Fantasy game ever become considered a risk? It's called FINAL FANTASY. Square Enix is about at the point where they market empty boxes with "F1nuL Fun+4si" written in magic marker and people would buy it.

Anyway, I'm not debating that 3rd parties should be making more games on the Wii or that they should be taking more risks, which I guess involves making more games on the Wii. Rather, I'm advocating the idea that the sad state of 3rd party support on the Wii, which is the strongest its been since the SNES days but terrible in comparison to where it should be, is not entirely on the shoulders of 3rd parties.

Nintendo cannot handhold these crybaby third parties anymore.

When did this ever happen... like ever? Nintendo has always had a "take it or leave it" attitude when it came to 3rd parties. Intentionally gimping the DS launch? Now you're stretching.

Ultimately though, this argument is pointless. This thread shouldn't exist. There should be better 3rd party support on the Wii right now and 3rd parties should be ready to release kick-ass Motion Plus games next year when Nintendo launches the thing. Nintendo fans like to think that Nintendo never does anything wrong hence why so many are baffled when 3rd parties don't release games on the Wii... conveniently forgetting that Hiroshi Yamauchi f*cked over every Nintendo fan who enjoyed 3rd party games. Nintendo made great games on their own poorly constructed system while alienating anyone who didn't share their vision. 3rd parties looked elsewhere. The thing is: that was 12 years ago. At this point, they're both to blame. Nintendo has seemingly learned nothing from dropping from 1st to dead last and 3rd parties are being overly cautious.

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo fans like to think that Nintendo never does anything wrong hence why so many are baffled when 3rd parties don't release games on the Wii... conveniently forgetting that Hiroshi Yamauchi f*cked over every Nintendo fan who enjoyed 3rd party games. Nintendo made great games on their own poorly constructed system while alienating anyone who didn't share their vision. 3rd parties looked elsewhere. The thing is: that was 12 years ago. At this point, they're both to blame. Nintendo has seemingly learned nothing from dropping from 1st to dead last and 3rd parties are being overly cautious.

This is a good point.  Back before the Wii was revealed it was assumed that regaining third party support was a very important step if Nintendo was to ever regain the top spot.  The lack of third party support was contributing to low sales among other reasons.  Nintendo could never regain the top spot without decent third party support.  It was something they had to attract back.

Well this whole Wii thing was rather unprecedented.  Nintendo didn't win back the third parties to regain the top spot.  They didn't need to.  But that creates the problem that they therefore never learned their lession regarding third party support.  We assumed to regain the top spot they would have to swallow their pride, admit they were wrong and change their attitude regarding third parties.  But they didn't do that.  In fact I argue Nintendo learned absolutely nothing about why the Cube didn't do too well.  They're the same jerkface Nintendo they've always been.  No wonder third parties are cautious.

[Mario]

The joke is wearing a bit thin now.

[Galford]

Just for reference here is a link to the lastest media create thread on neogaf...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329444

Pay close attention to what is selling and not selling.  It should be painfully obvious why third parties are not flocking to the Wii.  Take a look at the ToS sequel.  I can guarentee you that Namco is paying attention to it's sales and will adjust their output accordingly in the future.

Deguello, how did I dishonor myself? 
Seriously I was just pointing out how thsre threads go. 
There are a lot of older Nintendo fans who feel Nintendo has abandoned them.
I used to get mad about it but now I don't care.  I've moved on to play other things.
If Nintendo doesn't want third party games or my money,  MS and Sony will happily take them.

[Djunknown]

Don't want to intentionally go off topic fan the flames but damn does that sting.

What says everyone else?

[Arbok]

Don't want to intentionally go off topic fan the flames but damn does that sting.

What says everyone else?

That it didn't sell on the PS2, and that Capcom was a fool to assume that the same word of mouth that did that would somehow change for the Wii port and therefore think they didn't need to advertise it?

[Spinnzilla]

Don't want to intentionally go off topic fan the flames but damn does that sting.

What says everyone else?

Well, Okami didn't really have any marketing muscle or hype behind it.  I was honestly gunna buy it for my birthday back in apirl but had completely forgotten about it's existence. I think another 3rd party game, ya know the Conduit, will probably sale very well because they're going about it smart.  Getting us excited while also taking their time and making sure their publisher will but money into its marketing. 

Look at a game like Red Steel, it was pretty meh, but it got pretty good sales off the hype alone. (you could also figure in that it was a launch title too)

[Flames_of_chaos]

280k is awesome for a game considering that the PS2 version bombed and made Capcom cry.

[KDR_11k]

Well, people whine about how they need more hardcore games and hardcore games fail to sell. Who should we blame for that? Nintendo for somehow... uh... what? With so many people demanding hardcore games on the Wii surely those games would sell because there's so much demand? Er, wait, where are the hardcore gamers when it comes to actually buying things? Are there really that few of them? Ooops.

(talking about tales) Can't blame the "casuals" at least, someone who's in that market often got there because they don't have the time to play huge, epic games in sessions of several hours. Since I see huge time requirements as a game flaw anyway I'd say they should've fixed their game to be more accessible. Of course with noone realizing that over the past few generations I don't expect them to learn now either.

[Mario]

KDR is spot on, hardcore games are there, but hardcore gamers aren't buying them. Hardcore lamers, that's why nobody takes anything you say seriously, because YOU don't.

I didn't and won't buy Okami because of it's pure laziness. No credits sequence and the boxart was enough. I don't want it stinking up my collection. PS2 version for me.

As for a sequel, the original team isn't even with Capcom anymore so it was never going to happen. They are making new things, and thank god for that, they are damn good at it.

[Bill Aurion]

Yep, I'd actually love to see the complete Wii game collection of everyone complaining about third party support, just for a few laughs...

(And everyone who doesn't have Okami yet SHOULD buy it, and not for the reason of buying a third party game but because it's an incredible game that is well-worth the 40-dollar-or-less price point...Who cares about credits?)

[Mario]

I do.