Nintendo's president responds to concerns regarding publishers' wavering support for Wii U.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/34858
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata acknowledged concerns over Wii U third party support, and conveyed that Nintendo believes its upcoming first party titles and successful new third party releases are critical to building healthy third party lineup for Wii U.
During the Nintendo General Meeting of Shareholders question and answer session, a question was posed regarding Wii U's flagging momentum and third parties announcing games for competing consoles and not Wii U. While Iwata was quick to point out "other big publishers have made all of their main titles available for the platform", and decisions regarding Wii U support are made on an individual publisher basis, he agreed that "it is desirable that many developers support Wii U and release a lot of games for the platform as soon as possible."
Mr. Iwata explained that the company is taking a two-pronged approach to improve third party support "right away." The first is to begin "seamlessly" releasing first-party titles on a regular basis to demonstrate that there is a market on Wii U with money to be made, since third parties "tend to avoid investing in a platform with little presence." The second thing Iwata wants to see happen is successful third-party releases for Wii U. Iwata expressed his position that much of the lackluster performance of third party releases thus far have been due to the fact that they were previously released on other platforms; when high-profile multiplatform games are released on Wii U concurrently with the other versions, Iwata predicts that if Wii U versions perform much better in the marketplace than expected, publishers will take notice. "Even if these publishers did not have any concrete plans to develop Wii U software, they will swiftly change their minds when they see the successful examples from others."
As part of his response to the question, Iwata signaled that sweetheart deals with third parties are not in the cards. Iwata explained that "if we tried to do nothing but buying our way to create such a good condition for developers, our own business could collapse." While Iwata did not elaborate on what he meant by "buying our way", it strongly suggests that Nintendo will not begin actively subsidizing Wii U versions of multiplatform games or buying third party exclusives to prop up third party support.
BARTLET
Yeah, call that play on first down again, Coach 'cause I'm sure they're not ready for it this time.
You know, if you ask a professional athlete what the hardest thing is to do in sports, they'll all
say "hit a baseball." But a coach once told me that the hardest thing to do in sports is to walk
into your Super Bowl locker room at half-time and change the strategy that got you there 'cause
it's no longer working.
Iwata expressed his position that much of the lackluster performance of third party releases thus far have been due to the fact that they were previously released on other platforms; when high-profile multiplatform games are released on Wii U concurrently with the other versions, Iwata predicts that if Wii U versions perform much better in the marketplace than expected, publishers will take notice.
I have bought every single Nintendo console but am waiting for a reason to pick up the Wii U. For me, that reason is Pikmin 3. I feel as if I'm not alone, even if the game people are waiting for is different.
Right now I imagine that Nintendo's investors are cycling through a stack of files for potential replacements for Iwata. Hell, they might even be fitting him for a janitor's outfit to scrub the toilets at Nintendo HQ. There is no way that a company with any sense would intentionally cut itself off of all the revenue that would be generated from third party licensing fees. I foresee a investor tea table uprising in the works for Nintendo.
I really don't see any way for them to turn things around for the Wii U at this point, at least not without drastic changes. A few good first steps would be: fire Iwata, drop the price $50 and another $50 in November, and release all of the Wii VC games immediately. The VC could be a gold mine and enough reason to own the console if they knew what they were doing - add Dreamcast support, add Gamecube, hold weekly sales specials, etc
It's like Iwata thinks this is high school. "If I dress really cute in these first-party games, that cute third-party boy will stop ignoring me and be my Valentine."
That's one hell of a business plan.
One: All of the Wii VC games ARE on the Wii U. If you mean on the Wii U eShop, there isn't a "switch" to just release them. They have to be optimized to have higher resolution, Miiverse support, Wii U GamePad/Pro Controller support. Those cost money and require humans to do.
Two: The Wii U is off to a slow start and you think Iwata should be fired? Nevermind the fact that Wii had record success and the DS was the most successful system of all time (and the 3DS is doing great as well, and dominating in both Japan and North America). Calling for him to be fired because of one bad year is short sighted and foolish. It's like a sports team firing a coach that won them 3 straight championships just because they had one bad season.
Three: A $100 price drop within a year of release would be a desperation move and make it look like the system is dead and trying to clear it out. At MOST, they might do a $50 cut this holiday season, and that will be enough.
This whole issue of games showing up on every console but Nintendo's has been around for a long time. I complained about this on the Gamecube. Nintendo should have known that this was a problem over ten years ago yet the Wii was practically designed to encourage it. So has Nintendo been aware of this the whole time and just doesn't care because it hasn't really hit them hard enough financially or are they just really fucking stupid and can't come up with any way to fix it or only just noticed after all this time?
It's like Iwata thinks this is high school. "If I dress really cute in these first-party games, that cute third-party boy will stop ignoring me and be my Valentine."considering that in this day and age a game can sell 3 million copies and still be considered a failure it may not be that bad of an idea...
That's one hell of a business plan.
@ agent-x-Marty, I think you're getting turnover (or revenue) confused with profit (or net income.) Profit, of course, being total turnover minus total expenses in a given time frame.
Are you aware that Nintendo hasn't made themselves any money in the last 2 (financial) years? They saw a steep decline in revenue in fy 2010 as well. If Nintendo were raking it in, I think you could say that Nintendo is doing what's best for them despite what "core" gamers are complaining about on the web--but that's not at all the case.
I'd also like to add that the word profit has a specific meaning and takes into account ALL costs, explicit and implicit. It's hard to claim something will be profitable (or is profitable) without seeing the books and all projected costs and earnings as well as alternatives.
