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[gelf]

I can say that for Nintendo's consoles, but not their portables. I absolutely buy Nintendo handhelds for third-party games, and don't buy them for Nintendo games. (The two first-party 3DS games I care about are Style Savvy and Rhythm Heaven, and otherwise, meh for the most part.)

And, I'm willing to bet that's the same for plenty of other people out there. So with a lot of signs pointing to the NX being a console/handheld hybrid, one thing to do the job of two things, it does matter a hell of a lot to me how the third-party support will be.

This is key to me. If NX is supposed to be a hybrid replacing the 3DS as well as the Wii U then it better at least attract the kind of third party support 3DS has. If it doesn't and the support is more like the Wii U then there is no way I'm going near it.

Every Nintendo system I've ever owned has largely been thanks to third party games.

 

[Bjoern the Smexy]

To be quite honest, since the Wii U had only the tiniest amount of 3rd party support I could probably live with the NX having just as much.
That said though I would obviously very happy if I had versions of games I can play on the go AND at home on the same system without having to buy two of them...

 

[NintendosBooger]

Western publishers actually want Nintendo platforms to succeed. They, too, would like to branch out and diversify their lineup of games that might not be compatible with Sony and Microsoft's historic audiences but might find a home on Nintendo's family-friendly systems. But Nintendo has to do their part first and create a fertile home for those third party games.

 

[Papacheeks]

For Japanese third parties, indies, & western publishers with family games (Lego Dimensions, Just Dance, Skylanders, etc.), certainly. But concerning western publishers, nope. Not only will this be below the Xbox One in terms of raw power (to what degree, we don't know right now), but current Nintendo audience either doesn't give a shit about games like Battlefield & GTA or already have systems that satisfy their needs concerning western AAA third party games.

Not having sports games is a big lost opportunity. And they could be making their own if they contracted or had studios for Europe/US to help make them.

Imagine Nintendo's own line of sports games that cater to both adults and kids. That's one avenue where they are leaving money on the table.

That's my issue is so far the condensed developers they have from 3DS working on NX are mostly Japanese, with Ubisoft and couple other kid third party developers sprinkled in.

They have done nothing to help curate a library that will speak to broader non-nintendo fan audience.

 

[Rolf NB]

If this was the case, Wii U wouldn't have flopped so hard. This idea that Nintendo systems can be sustained with Nintendo's first party efforts alone has been proven false. They need third party support. They threw some of the best software they've ever made at Wii U and no one batted an eyelid.

And this is exactly why the NX is designed as a single ~hybrid console+handheld platform. No more splitting resources between home console and handheld.

This goes for both internal and external. If it's one platform, you can't really make a handheld-only NX game. Anything 3rd parties do (and they will do something, as Japan still seems very active on handheld gaming) will bolster both sides of the equation.

 

[FLAguy954]

This is key to me. If NX is supposed to be a hybrid replacing the 3DS as well as the Wii U then it better at least attract the kind of third party support 3DS has. If it doesn't and the support is more like the Wii U then there is no way I'm going near it.

Every Nintendo system I've ever owned has largely been thanks to third party games.

I agree, word for word.

 

[Omegasquash]

Didn't they have a noted lack of support for developers with the WiiU early on? As in, Nintendo was pretty shit to work with?

 

[Kieli]

Didn't they have a noted lack of support for developers with the WiiU early on? As in, Nintendo was pretty shit to work with?

Nintendo is an extremely insular company and other triple-AAA devs were mostly left to fight for the scraps as far as sales go on the Wii and WiiU.

That really poisoned the well for any amicable relationship between Nintendo and 3rd parties.

 

[Theanine3D]

Didn't they have a noted lack of support for developers with the WiiU early on? As in, Nintendo was pretty shit to work with?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story

It's pretty damning. After reading that it makes you think it's a goddamn miracle the Wii U got any third party support at all at launch.

They've likely addressed most if not all of these problems by now, but it's pretty bad that they didn't do so long before launch..

 

[Kintaro]

The industry needs a Strong Nintendo. But that's the problem, Nintendo itself hasn't been strong in quite awhile. The Wii and DS days are long gone and Nintendo started to mess things up within the lifecycles of those systems too. So, here we are.

I think the NX is very important. Not just for Nintendo, but for the industry. They can't fuck this up.

 

[EVH]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story

It's pretty damning. After reading that it makes you think it's a goddamn miracle the Wii U got any third party support at all at launch.

They've likely addressed most if not all of these problems by now, but it's pretty bad that they didn't do so long before launch..

Thanks for posting this article, first time I read it and now it is obvious that Nintendo is just Japan and anyway doesn't really give too many fucks about third party and obviously networking. I really understand third parties now, I would hate to work with such a mess.

The part of the software support being sent to translation and so back is ridiculous.

 

[funkystudent]

Only having one platform will be great for the less popular Japanese stuff Nintendo has always had. And with Sony out of the portable picture they could pick up a few of those last Sony Handheld 3rd party exclusive franchises.


But I dont think the western 3rd parties are going to do much for them outside what they normally do. Ubi will be there with kiddy stuff. Activision will have something as a token show of support but not the big guns.


Also

"At some point in this conversation we were informed that it was no good referencing Live and PSN as nobody in [Nintendo's] development teams used those systems (!) so could we provide more detailed explanations for them?"

Hell of a quote from that Eurogamer thing.

 

[Sadist]

As of now, no one should expect any kind of massive change with regards to major western third party support.

So token support at best. As to be expected.

 

[Jubenhimer]

I remember caring about Nintendo's third party support. It was mostly centered around the N64, say 1996 to 2001, give or take a few years.

In the SNES era, many third parties dumped Nintendo because they wanted to get away from Nintendo's shit, and Nintendo didn't have 95% marketshare to lean on anymore. In the N64 era, Nintendo's shit got huge. As the GameCube started up, I fell for the lie that Nintendo had learned their lesson and they were trying to do better, but eventually you have to admit that Nintendo fucks things up for their own selfish ends, and it's ridiculous to blame third parties for not falling on their swords to keep up the illusion that Nintendo cares about you. Nintendo is not owed anyone's support, they have to earn it, but they've built a lifetime of doing the opposite.

The PSX was a damn fine console, and it deserved to become a third party darling and spank the N64. The PS2 was also a damn fine console. The GameCube was a halfhearted attempt, at best. The original XBox tried harder than GameCube-era Nintendo did. Wii had it's unique appeal

Spoiler

(fad)

, but the industry had moved on to HD. Nintendo's "not enough people have HD to make it worthwhile" rang false to anyone with an HDTV. The Wii U was a tacky gimmick that nobody wanted, not even Nintendo's first party studios, as justification for "we really learned our lesson this time" Nintendo to try and win the industry again on the back of another last-gen console.

And Nintendo fucks up because they can fuck up. They know that they're sitting on one of the finest videogame studios in the world. That means they can play it safe. It means they can win without trying, and trying is risky/less profitable. Nintendo vs The Entire Videogame Industry isn't a problem with The Entire Videogame Industry, it's squarely a problem with Nintendo.

Give up on the dream of a third party friendly Nintendo. No amount of willing it with your mind can make Nintendo make all the right moves to make that happen. Use history as an indication, it's not going to happen, even if Nintendo says it is. They've said that before, time and time again. Brace yourself for an NX that has even worse third party support than Wii U did (it can always get worse, and there were plenty of people who believed in Nintendo's Wii U third party strategy, and got burned). Rely on the things you know you can expect, which are Nintendo's first party games. Expect more exclusive partnerships which blur the line between a moneyhatted third party game and an outsourced first party game (Nintendo seems to want to gather enough exclusives to become an island unto themselves). Expect a style of games that caters to the market that eats up Nintendo's first party games and rejects third party games.

This sentiment that it's Nintendo Vs the world isn't as large as you make it seem. Now yes, Nintendo has had trouble with 3rd party support and in the N64 and GameCube era, a lot of it was their fault. But for the Wii, let's not pretend 3rd parties were blameless victims in this. While Nintendo did make some wrong moves (limited online and no HD were really the only flaws) Much of their 3rd party troubles came from publishers, and even a few not taking Nintendo's philosophies seriously. Ubisoft was especially guilty of this, using the Wii and the DS as shovelware fodder to prop up their PS360 development, rather than developing complimentary games in addition. They were still caught in the trap of spectical creep and many developers suffered because of it, and while there were developers who tried, there were just as many who didn't. This proved to be a problem for Nintendo, who wanted to broaden the audience of Video Games as an entertainment medium, yet publishers kept, and arguably still keep clinging to the same safe bet audience they sold to for years, with no long term strategy.

And it's not like Nintendo likes fucking up or, that they never learn from their mistakes. The problem though is 2 fold.

A. Nintendo's management style was sloppy and archaic, with Senior executives having too much veto power and creating an environment were different divisions couldn't agree on anything.

B. Whenever Nintendo tries try to fix their issues, it's usually in the form of a cheap Band-Aid solution that fails to address the real problem, because the Dinosaurs on the board didn't understand modern gaming culture. It's like a dentist drilling out decay in a cavity, but doesn't fill the hole afterwards.

 

[QaaQer]

But how will they implement rubbing?

Sony's new hh will be called PlayStation Rubber.

 

[Anticol]

First post, worst post?

He/she is right tho...

 

[Turrican3]

Nintendo is not owed anyone's support, they have to earn it, but they've built a lifetime of doing the opposite.

They make some of the most well-crafted games in the market, while the AAA western industry, keeps having this awful, standardized habit of releasing unstable code and call it a day.

If there's one company that deserves to be supported nowadays, that's Nintendo to me.
BUT that doesn't mean they don't do shitty things as well: account policies in place for example are hilarious and absolutely needs to change.

Wii had it's unique appeal

Spoiler

(fad)

, but the industry had moved on to HD. Nintendo's "not enough people have HD to make it worthwhile" rang false to anyone with an HDTV.

They had a point though: PS3 and X360 struggled to reach 1920x1080, hell some games had an actual rendering resolution inferior to 1280x720. And let's not even start talking about the number of companies that went bust due to the hugely rising costs of HD development (but maybe we should say AAA development, since HD per se is/was *not* the issue there I think).

Wii being SD of course was hardly the best companion to the then-rising market of HD sets, but PS3 and 360 weren't entirely suited, either. At least for the kind of games that the western industry costantly pushed (had they turned down the graphics a bit the'd likely have been able to push 1080p as a standard, unfortunately they deliberately chose not to)

And Nintendo fucks up because they can fuck up. They know that they're sitting on one of the finest videogame studios in the world. That means they can play it safe. It means they can win without trying, and trying is risky/less profitable.

Yeah, they really played it safe with stuff like the Wii and the DS. /s

Expect a style of games that caters to the market that eats up Nintendo's first party games and rejects third party games.

Oh, for god's sake.
Nintendo's audience does NOT reject third party games in a broad sense. They are, however, generally uninterested in most of the genres that are already extremely well served on Sony and Microsoft platforms. I used most because there are clearly exceptions like Minecraft or Splatoon.