PhoenixDark said:
NMH didn't sell "well" on the Wii in the US. Guitar Hero sold well on every platform. The Wii's third party situation is not much different from the Gamecube's; why do you think developers aren't "trying"? If that's not the excuse it's that "oh well after the huge Wii buzz at E3 2006 developers started really working on Wii games, you'll see!" So where are the games? Developers look at the 360 and see the dominant demographic buys nearly everything except eastern RPGs. Developers look at the PS3 and see low sells, but realize that by the end of the year the system's user base will be large enough to sustain healthy software sales numbers. What do developers see when they look at the Wii? The same first party games dominating each month, with more (Mario Kart, Wii Fit) on the way. Sure you named a couple third party games that sold well, but what else?
It's the same situation. Remember a couple years ago when GAF was full of "I can't wait for a Star Wars Wii game/omg point and click adventures/etc" threads were everywhere? Where are those games, two years later? It's an honest question
I dind't mean what you're saying. It's a fact that Third Parties aren't fullfilling the promises that many of us had when the Wiimote was announced. And it's a fact that the dominant system always get the showelware of the industry. And I agree that X360 is doing incredibly well in the US, with an incredible attach rateand great profitability on the software side. But what about the PS3, for now it's only a hope. Third Parties are hoping since PS3's launch that the system, sooner or later, would have became the leader, both in hardware and sotware. They expected in other words a new PS2. Facts say, that it remaines only an hope for now and that PS3 isn't at all, for now, the driving force of the industry, under every possible espect outside the Blu-Ray.
What I contest is not the profitability of the X360 (often +PS3). I contest the fact that Wii is only a system for Nintendo's games. Facts doesn't prove that, simply because not a single Big Third Party games has, until now, bombed. And guess why? Because there isn't a single high budget game from third Parties that came out on the system until now !
The games I cited are very significative, because they're not party-games. They are traditional games (GHIII a little bit less, but still a game) that sold well on the system. Then, it is obvious to suppose that traditional games can sell on Wii as good as they sell on PS3 and X360. It is illogic to not take it as good hypothesis.
You know, in other words, what I mean is that there is always another point of view to see the problem: you see it from the fact that only Nintendo's games are selling. Try to consider the possibility that this is also due to the fact that we haven't seen nothing big from Third Parties bombing on the system until now. How many PS3 games bombed in comparison to their PS2 predecessors? Mmmmmmm.
Let be honest: I understand why Third Parties aren't developing big AAA games for Wii. And I accept it. But I don't accept the explication: "only Nintendo's games sell on Nintendo's systems". Still unproved.
There are other valid reasons: Third Partes don't work with pleasure with Nintendo because of the past bad experiences with Yamauchi and it is a solid and still valuable motivation for most japanese Third Party developers. Second, western Third Partes are graphics fanatics and they don't work willingly with a non-HD console anymore. Why Factor 5 and Silicon Knights left Nintendo in your opinion? Third Partes are now making their sequels of their big franchises with High Definition graphics and not a single developer would be happy to see them again with last-gen engines. Most of all because now they're all sticking with HD and they have invested a lot of money and time to learn to to develop decently with relative difficult architecture. Third, the Wiimote. One of the big problems with the Wii is that it needs a lot of imagination and it requires to escape from traditional way to build a game. And this is not easy and most importantly, it requires time, and time means money. Fourth, you cannot port Wii's games on X360/PS3 and viceversa. So, you have to assign a specific team to the creation of a Wii's game and this is expensive. Fifth, as long as PS3+X360 installed base in the US will be bigger then Wii's installed base, it is more safe (and this is the key word) to develop in a standard way, on 2 systems, using a well proved formula that is the analog joystick. Humans beings fear changes, dind't you know?
These, for me, are arguments that have solid fundaments. The prejudgement: "only Nintendo's games sell on Nintendo's systems" is only a stupid excuse.
(wow, this posts required a lot of time. I hope that it is understandable)