Topic: WTF is Ninty Doing?!

[BlackGriffen]

IGN Article

Quote
[...]he [EA CEO Larry Probst] admitted that so far Nintendo has been the only company that hasn't showed its full hand in regard to next-generation technology.  "They're shaping up," Probst said when asked about development for the next round of console. "What I will tell you is that we've had more exposure to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 technology than to whatever Nintendo is planning. But once they're ready then we'll engage with them as well."

God, I hope that this is the result of an NDA and not actually indicative of what Ninty is doing. It was just this kind of thing that hurt the GCN launch (keeping the devs in the dark for too long, that is).  

BlackGriffen

[Ian Sane]

Well I imagine that Nintendo would get info out to some of their more loyal supporters first like Capcom, Sonic Team, Amusement Vision, Camelot, etc.  EA hasn't really done anything special for Nintendo this last gen (or EVER if you think about it) so I could understand Nintendo not giving them as much attention.  Let's face it, EA's first N5 game will be port of the PS3 version of Madden.  That's not exactly something that requires a really good working knowledge of the hardware.

Still I agree with you in that last time Nintendo waited WAY too long to get dev kits out to third parties which resulted in a huge game drought which in my opinion practically single-handedly sunk the Cube.  I hope they've learned from that and they did say in an interview a while back that they would make sure to get dev kits out to the major third parties with time to spare.  I assume EA is included in that group but then NCL in Japan may not consider EA to be a big deal.  Afterall it's not unlike Nintendo to make decisions based entirely on the Japanese market (purple colour).

I think we're okay for now though because it's really early.  The N5 won't come out for probably two years which still leaves plenty of time.  Plus it's not like EA has full on dev kits from Sony and MS yet.

[KDR_11k]

An NDA would result in "I can't talk about that yet".

I don't think you need to hand EA SDKs that early, they only need three weeks to port their old engine over and start to churn out three redundant titles a week.

[darknight06]

" Well I imagine that Nintendo would get info out to some of their more loyal supporters first like Capcom, Sonic Team, Amusement Vision"  

One problem here, Sonic Team and Amusement Vision along with the rest of Sega development houses won't be existing separately too much longer so that's already out of the equation.

[KDR_11k]

Then perhaps they've given them to Sega-Sammy? No point in arguing semantics.

[WallOfDoom]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
 I hope they've learned from that

I hoped they'd learned their third-party lesson from the nintendo 64, clearly they have not. Will they learn it with the N5? Maybe. I wouldn't rely on it though.

[ThePerm]

i can't wait till i become a Nintendo second part...ima let them know these sort of things. Secrecy is good, but it has hurt Nintendo. They take it to far.

[nemo_83]

EGM says MS is already shiping kits and Sony is aiming at an 06 release.  

[KDR_11k]

MS is shipping Macs, not the final dev kits.

[kennyb27]

Oh, the irony.

[ThePerm]

lol it is quite ironic

[manunited4eva22]

How is it ironic?  It's using the NT kernel, and besides, they do own a very large stake in Apple...