Topic: Game Companies that Will Become Increasingly Dependant on the Nintendo

[Kytim89]

With the slight reveal of the Wii U's specifications people were both simultaneously surprised and worried. While the increase in such things as RAM memory over the Wii U's current competiton is a good thing, what will it be when compared to the PS4 and Xbox 720 when they hit the market? One factor that the Wii U might have in terms of leverage over its fututre competion is cheaper development costs. There is no doubt that developing games for the PS4 and 720 will be expensive, and with the budgets of game makes, both small and large, feeling a crunch at the money, would this create a scenarion inwhich development is primarily for the Wii U and is then ported upwards to its competition. Here is a list publishers and developers that might turn to the Wii U to save money:
 
THQ
Level 5
Vanillaware
N-Space
Silicon Knights
Next Level Games
Monster Games
Tecmo Koei
Namco
Xseed
Atlus
Square-Enix (to some extent)
 
 
 
 

[Evan_B]

While I think you have a point, the same could have been said about the development costs for the Wii, as well, and look at all the developers that jumped ship for the next best thing.

I don't think we'll be moving on from HD just yet and I don't expect any revolutions power-wise from the next-gen consoles, but I think that's a bit of a flawed argument.

[azeke]

THQ is turning their back on their legacy (Toy HeadQuarters) and stopped doing their licensed "kiddy" games. So if anything they grow distant from Nintendo.

Level 5 -- good point. They even have publishing agreements with Layton. And Inazuma Eleven is still big

N-Space -- these guys are just contractors, they will do what they're said by publisher, be it Activison or Square. Also they're pretty always big on nintendo handhelds mostly. They got themselves a niche of goto guys for big publisher to outsource handheld ports and doing okay for themselves i think. Nothing is really changed for them.
And again -- they're mostly handheld guys, so Wii U will do nothing for them.

Silicon Knights -- dead

Next Level Games, Monster Games -- nothing is really changed, they're already more or less second party.

Tecmo Koei -- they get closer with Nintendo with recent DoA, NG, Fatal Frame and Nobunaga releases, but actually mutual dependency and Nintendo needs them just as much.

Namco is going to slowly migrate their main profit source (all these countless anime licensed games) from PSP to 3DS. Smash Bros and Tekken with some occasional Tales of is probably all we we get.

Xseed and Atlus are super niche publishers. Their games are for dedicated audience who might have find no problem buying a console or handheld for just one game or super collector edition for 200$. They are very platform agnostic.

With 3DS dominating the japanese market for years to come and WiiU seemingly coming in force these holidays -- overall Nintendo grip on japanese third parties will be tightened. But this won't do much for western publishers who are waiting it out and are more inclined to jump on next xbox. But 3ds is a MUCH bigger factor here, so wiiu won't change much.

There are two western publishers who will be get more dependant on nintendo directly because of Wii U, though
1. Activision -- Skylanders are SUPER HOT and NFC on gamepad seems to be tailored for that kind of physical/videogame promotion. Wii was the leading platform for Skylanders (both in development phase and in sales) and that paid off in diamond spades. Also, BLOPS on Wii U launch will do some decent numbers (at least a million is a lock).
2. Ubisoft. They seem to found a new console to dump their ZZZ-games on -- they have like 10+ of their usual shovelware ready to launch. Just Dance, Rabbids, Assasin Creed should do fine. Rayman will do okay and will get ported to everything under the sun half a year later.

[Chozo Ghost]

I foresee the PS420 each having 8GB of RAM. The Wii U's paltry 1GB (or 2GB total) for games is going to run into some problems down the road. Multiplatform support will collapse after a few years.

[TJ Spyke]

I think there is almost no chance Xbox 3 and PlayStation 4 will have anywhere near 8GB, even 4GB would be a stretch. Even on PC's 8GB is usually overkill, and consoles need far less RAM.

[azeke]

I dare, i double dog dare Sony to release another high end 8 Gb Playstation 4.
It's gonna be glorious. The price, the crash, the tears...

[Adrock]

Yeah, 4GB is stretching it. They both could just have 2GB, but use faster RAM than Wii U and allocate it differently. Then again, who knows if Nintendo will always restrict that entire other 1GB for the OS? We don't know if they can "unlock" it later after firmware updates and whatnot.

[Luigi Dude]

I foresee the PS420 each having 8GB of RAM. The Wii U's paltry 1GB (or 2GB total) for games is going to run into some problems down the road. Multiplatform support will collapse after a few years.

Any console with 8GB of RAM would be well over $500 making it suicide.  This is why I really doubt Microsoft and Sony's new systems will be that much more powerful then the Wii U since their prices would have to be insane to do so.  If the cheapest version of the Wii U is $300 without a game, for the 720/PS4 to be the same gap in power that their was between the Wii and 360/PS3, it would require both systems to be at least $500 and still take a loss on the hardware. 

Yeah Nintendo likes to profit off their systems but when you go from the Wii which was $250 with a game, to $300 without a game, that shows they probably aren't profiting that much off the Wii U hardware.  Which shows making a system way more powerful then it will cost a lot more.  Microsoft and Sony would have to either release the systems for over $500 and loss billions because no one is buying them, or releasing them for a cheaper price and take an insane loss which would still cause them to loss billions anyway.

[Chozo Ghost]

I doubt it would cost $500 to go with that much RAM, especially if these consoles don't show up until 2014 and you consider how the prices of electronics are always going down.  Knowing Sony and Microsoft, they would probably sell their consoles at some level of loss (because that's what they've always done).

As far as outpowering the Wii U, I think that's a given. Not only because they are coming out 1-2 years later with 1-2 years more advanced technology, but also because power is the one and only thing that can possibly help them compete with the Wii U and its 1-2 year head start. You say releasing a powerful system is suicide, but I think not doing that is suicide. If the PS420 isn't significantly more powerful than the Wii U then they are going to be screwed. The Wii U will have so much of a head start by 2014 that no one is going to bother with the PS420 unless there is a significant increase in power.

[Kairon]

Let's not forget that the Wii U's price also accounts for the GamePad. Remove that cost, and consoles with ordinary controllers might have much more room to allocate to raw system power.

[Adrock]

I'm having a hard time believing that the GamePad accounts for half the price of the console, even if you include research and development and manufacturing into the equation. I think it's more likely that Nintendo wants people to think that the GamePad is far more advanced than it really is which is fine. I get it. I just won't get it for $172, or whatever Nintendo of America announces the price to be (my guess is $150). If Nintendo really intends for people to have more than 1 of them, they'll drop the price under $100, ideally $70-$80. I'm not sure that's a priority for them, especially with no games that currently support 2 GamePads.

[Tamazoid]

Realistically the Gamepad components are worth $50. All companies mark up their controllers ridiculously to make a profit because they know they are a necessity. Nintendo are probably making a healthy profit with the Wii U.

[Do_What]

Square Enix can be taken off that list. Especially with Eidos in tow. I think Level-5 will stay off in their own world as well.
Once the new consoles come out and studios see their power they WILL NOT be able to help themselves. They'll kill themselves trying to make games that work, then they'll settle down. They'll use bogus logic to determine that Nintendo is the only publisher than can sell on Nintendo platforms and figure they're better off betting the company on one massive xbox/playstation game than a massive Wii U game.

[Evan_B]

I foresee the PS420 each having 8GB of RAM. The Wii U's paltry 1GB (or 2GB total) for games is going to run into some problems down the road. Multiplatform support will collapse after a few years.

I... I don't know what to say. This just makes no sense.

[Louieturkey]

I foresee the PS420 each having 8GB of RAM. The Wii U's paltry 1GB (or 2GB total) for games is going to run into some problems down the road. Multiplatform support will collapse after a few years.

I... I don't know what to say. This just makes no sense.

What you say makes sense.

[lolmonade]

While I think you have a point, the same could have been said about the development costs for the Wii, as well, and look at all the developers that jumped ship for the next best thing.

I don't think we'll be moving on from HD just yet and I don't expect any revolutions power-wise from the next-gen consoles, but I think that's a bit of a flawed argument.

I have to second this notion.  My first thought when getting a Wii (and seeing how Rockstar ported Bully) was that "Well, if I don't have HD games for a while, maybe developers will make PS2 - Graphics games and I'll still have a quality 3rd party offering". 

While there were quality titles, there was an overflow of crap that came with it.  I assumed we'd get PS2 quality GTA, Final Fantasy, and MGS games due to what I assumed as a much lower financial barrier to entry.  History showed that instead they all went to develop for XBOX and use that to port it to the PS3. 

My hope is that the next Playstation and XBOX are not superior enough to make it impossible to port the games to the Wii U.  I can deal with having the inferior looking version of the game, but I'll be pretty disappointed if this ends up being just like the last console.

[NWR_insanolord]

I think things will at least be better than the Wii, if not completely up to par with the competition. The Wii U supports more standard technologies than the Wii, which required a lot of proprietary Nintendo techniques to get the most out of. I also think this generation pretty much has to be less of a jump in terms of power compared to the current one, because of the tech and because of the position Microsoft and Sony are in right now. The crap comes with the popularity, though. The PS2, as well as the highest selling system of basically every generation, are loaded with shovelware simply because they have the highest install base.