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The Nintendo Third Party Dilemma: How we got here and why
- Thread starter Amir0x
- Start date
Neuromancer
Member
In addition, Nintendo doesn't seem to promote their "partner's" games very well, something I think MS and Sony are very good at.
They've hired something like 1000 people over the past 3 years. Or at least I remember wsippel stating such, as he follows such things. He can chime in with actual data.
The DKC game made by Retro shows just as much love and attention to detail as the Uncharted games. Being a 2D sidescroller (which, btw, sold just as much or more than Uncharted) doesn't cheapen any piece of software, just because it isn't to your taste.
Being a third identical console won't necessarily guarantee anything. The reason Nintendo goes for differentiation (whether it works or not) is because a market disruption in some form is what they've always done, for better or worse.
I agree with that.
3rd parties and Nintendo will probably never work well together. Nintendo's philosophy is just not a very good fit for 3rd party partnerships.
After all, why is Nintendo making consoles? They are making consoles, so that they can sell their own games, without having to play by anyone else's rules. 3rd parties are an afterthought.
Compare that to Sony or Microsoft. Their consoles are focused on making it possible for 3rd parties to sell as much software as possible. The 1rs party output is more or less just a means to win an edge over the competition, so that they can become a place where 3rd parties sell more games.
After all, why is Nintendo making consoles? They are making consoles, so that they can sell their own games, without having to play by anyone else's rules. 3rd parties are an afterthought.
Compare that to Sony or Microsoft. Their consoles are focused on making it possible for 3rd parties to sell as much software as possible. The 1rs party output is more or less just a means to win an edge over the competition, so that they can become a place where 3rd parties sell more games.
While it might be nice in theory, the damage in confidence from the small number of people who bought the WiiU, and the small number of developers who have put money into funding WiiU projects would probably be significantly more damaging than any potential benefits.
In a thread about poor third party relations, that one decision would probably top the lot if they went that way.
MaverickHunterX
Member
Nice read, and yeah, a lot of true points.
One thing I'd recommend adding to your NES days info: what about how NOA purposely limited third parties to release only 5 titles a year. This is why Konami opened Ultra Games or how Acclaim created LJN and Arena games.
This was just America and Europe, right? If I'm correct, this is also why Namco (of America) told NOA to go fuck themselves, where most of their ports were published by Tengen. Ironically, the last NES games were Namco branded editions of Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man...
One thing I'd recommend adding to your NES days info: what about how NOA purposely limited third parties to release only 5 titles a year. This is why Konami opened Ultra Games or how Acclaim created LJN and Arena games.
This was just America and Europe, right? If I'm correct, this is also why Namco (of America) told NOA to go fuck themselves, where most of their ports were published by Tengen. Ironically, the last NES games were Namco branded editions of Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man...
Just got done reading it. Great OP.
This really shows the disconnect between industry perceptions of the first party and general consumer perceptions. Their PR over the years has tried to spin the focus a different way. That they are focused solely on delivering fun game content. But you then realize this pertains to their first party goals, and completely ignores third party devs, and the consumer who may be wanting third party products.
Nintendo has shot themselves in the foot a multitude of times, but somehow got things right with consumer perceptions last gen with the Wii(Tapping into the untapped casual market) and the DS.
They are undoubtedly still strong in the handheld domain. But I think the Wii U could be their last console. Unless they kill it off, it will be far too hard to support something that is lagging that far behind and pretty much sit out of the console limelight for another generation. Let alone have the infrastructure to eventually go toe to toe with the other big two.
They will probably end up going entirely handheld, or some hybrid solution, but like you explained their third party reputation is tarnished and they will be thriving on market share and muscle alone. Seeing how the mobile industry is going, they might not have a market share anywhere much longer to keep them afloat. A future with a third party Nintendo, or even a buyout of Nintendo would be interesting. I think there is a lot of ego in the company that is holding it back on a business front.
This really shows the disconnect between industry perceptions of the first party and general consumer perceptions. Their PR over the years has tried to spin the focus a different way. That they are focused solely on delivering fun game content. But you then realize this pertains to their first party goals, and completely ignores third party devs, and the consumer who may be wanting third party products.
Nintendo has shot themselves in the foot a multitude of times, but somehow got things right with consumer perceptions last gen with the Wii(Tapping into the untapped casual market) and the DS.
They are undoubtedly still strong in the handheld domain. But I think the Wii U could be their last console. Unless they kill it off, it will be far too hard to support something that is lagging that far behind and pretty much sit out of the console limelight for another generation. Let alone have the infrastructure to eventually go toe to toe with the other big two.
They will probably end up going entirely handheld, or some hybrid solution, but like you explained their third party reputation is tarnished and they will be thriving on market share and muscle alone. Seeing how the mobile industry is going, they might not have a market share anywhere much longer to keep them afloat. A future with a third party Nintendo, or even a buyout of Nintendo would be interesting. I think there is a lot of ego in the company that is holding it back on a business front.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
Up until the GC era I think you were mainly right although I don't agree that choosing cartridges had a major impact on 3rd party support (unless you are one of those people who believe that piracy had a huge impact on the PS1s success), they were desperate for an alternative to Nintendo so it was in their interests to lower/cancel support once it was clear that the PS1 was going to appeal to a wider audience than the N64 would be able to attract.
As for the GC era, I'm sure the additional cost of the smaller disc had an impact on 3rd party support, but that would need to be balanced against the GC having stronger anti-piracy measures( also few 3rd parties mentioned that as a reason why they weren't supporting the GC, it was usually because of the small install base which is understandable, given the huge PS2 sales & the lack of 1st party competition on the Xbox). It is interesting to note that there are a few multi-platform titles that performed better on the GC, which could be seen as a sign that some 3rd parties lost out not supporting the GC better.
The Wii is were the reasons/"excuses" start to wear thin(for long-term Nintendo customers), especially considering that it had a market that was significantly different to the market for the PS3/360(why would companies not want a new market to sell games to?), & that many 3rd parties had products that sold well(or at least better than the 3rd parties expected). Add that to the fact that the vast majority of 3rd party games(that Gaf would traditionally be interested in) were clearly low budget cash grabs & it is little surprise that the few quality ones stopped selling well. Also it could be argued that the lack of power was a good decision given how much money the PS3/360 cost Sony & MS.
The Wii U is a strange one, outside of Zombi U & (to a much lesser extent) Lego City none of the 3rd party titles are worth buying & given its awful sales I don't really see any effort being applied to future 3rd party titles(especially considering that the 1st party line up will look pretty strong within the next 6 months or so).
All in all I think you have a point, Nintendo make decisions that favour them & their style of game-making(which is understandable), but I think there is enough evidence to suggest that 3rd parties that have made a serious commitment to Nintendo platforms have made money, which to me suggests your end conclusion to be false(that Nintendo & only Nintendo are to blame for 3rd parties lack of sales on their platforms), a lack of effort from 3rd parties has been evident for years.
Of course this completely ignores the handhelds which for a huge chunk of the time we are talking about was Nintendo's core business, & western 3rd parties failed to make much of an impact on any of those either(except the ones that have supported the home consoles too, it's almost as if there is a pattern forming), but Japanese ones have give stellar support to.
As for the GC era, I'm sure the additional cost of the smaller disc had an impact on 3rd party support, but that would need to be balanced against the GC having stronger anti-piracy measures( also few 3rd parties mentioned that as a reason why they weren't supporting the GC, it was usually because of the small install base which is understandable, given the huge PS2 sales & the lack of 1st party competition on the Xbox). It is interesting to note that there are a few multi-platform titles that performed better on the GC, which could be seen as a sign that some 3rd parties lost out not supporting the GC better.
The Wii is were the reasons/"excuses" start to wear thin(for long-term Nintendo customers), especially considering that it had a market that was significantly different to the market for the PS3/360(why would companies not want a new market to sell games to?), & that many 3rd parties had products that sold well(or at least better than the 3rd parties expected). Add that to the fact that the vast majority of 3rd party games(that Gaf would traditionally be interested in) were clearly low budget cash grabs & it is little surprise that the few quality ones stopped selling well. Also it could be argued that the lack of power was a good decision given how much money the PS3/360 cost Sony & MS.
The Wii U is a strange one, outside of Zombi U & (to a much lesser extent) Lego City none of the 3rd party titles are worth buying & given its awful sales I don't really see any effort being applied to future 3rd party titles(especially considering that the 1st party line up will look pretty strong within the next 6 months or so).
All in all I think you have a point, Nintendo make decisions that favour them & their style of game-making(which is understandable), but I think there is enough evidence to suggest that 3rd parties that have made a serious commitment to Nintendo platforms have made money, which to me suggests your end conclusion to be false(that Nintendo & only Nintendo are to blame for 3rd parties lack of sales on their platforms), a lack of effort from 3rd parties has been evident for years.
Of course this completely ignores the handhelds which for a huge chunk of the time we are talking about was Nintendo's core business, & western 3rd parties failed to make much of an impact on any of those either(except the ones that have supported the home consoles too, it's almost as if there is a pattern forming), but Japanese ones have give stellar support to.
I agree.
What makes things worse for them right now is that they fell for their own marketing so completely that they failed to capitalized on what they created with the Wii. So on top of fighting an uphill battle with third parties they're struggling to justify their own expensive endeavor with the Gamepad. Overall they're in a undesirable situation and they hardly realized what they were getting into.
What makes things worse for them right now is that they fell for their own marketing so completely that they failed to capitalized on what they created with the Wii. So on top of fighting an uphill battle with third parties they're struggling to justify their own expensive endeavor with the Gamepad. Overall they're in a undesirable situation and they hardly realized what they were getting into.
Zombie James
Banned
I think what the poster meant by "Nintendo needs to find their Naughty Dog" is (correct me if I'm wrong) Nintendo needs to find a studio that pushes their hardware and makes it shine, gives people experiences they maybe never thought was possible on the platform, and helps push gaming forward. Donkey Kong might be a fine game that sold well, but it doesn't push anything.
HerbertFish
Member
Nintendo does a great job of that themselves. I really don't think anyone pushes as hardware as far as them sometimes. Stuff like WindWaker and Galaxy are testaments to that. It's just their hardware isn't noticeably powerful.
I don't think that's true. Aren't Dragon Quest 9 and Tales of Symphonia for example the best selling instalment in the west due to Nintendo's push?
trickyhero
Member
So the only time that Nintendo has been ok with third parties is during the SNES era? What would it take to go back to being competitive in that sense? I mostly game on the Wii right now, so I don't care much about graphics, but is the Wii U that much behind? It's capable of 1080p games, it shouldn't be that hard, Ubisoft is doing it with the next assassins creed and watch dogs. The online, in my eyes seems ok, it dosn't use friend codes anymore I heard. I don't own a Wii U, but it seems like the only thing that keeps third parties from releasing their games on it is lack of intrest.
Zombie James
Banned
Not sure if there was a commercial, but it was in print:
edit: Bigger picture, there's more text on the bottom.
^^ Damn you Zombie James!
Got a bunch of response posts being written up, but briefly:
Got a bunch of response posts being written up, but briefly:
I would think they're talking about games in the same genre/on the same platform as Nintendo games. Quality can be debated, but the sales of their game vs. sales of others in the same genre are pretty significant. Heck, a multiplayer FPS Metroid would probably sell more than an equivalent version of CoD on the Wii U right now, and that's kind of ridiculous, considering the somewhat low popularity of Metroid (especially compared to CoD).
I agree with the general points made in the OP, especially up to the GCN era. As far as whether other hardware manufacturers made mistakes like Nintendo, I would argue that Sony's PS3 choices/situations were about as bad for developers as the Wii U/GCN. The PS3 sold horribly out of the gate, had a much higher price, had a foreign architecture that was difficult to deal with (especially in the beginning), and it had Blu-Ray discs, which were a different proprietary format which had not yet won the HD war. Yet, developers kept trying with it because of their good relationship with Sony and because Sony had been the market leader for the past 2 generations. Some/all of these problems were fixed, but they might not have been if the third parties had not kept up their support when they weren't necessarily seeing rewards or sales.
Not sure if there was a commercial, but it was in print:
holy shit
advertising was srz bzns back then
They knew the age of their audience.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The trick to understanding Nintendo and technology / production values is pretty simple. They employ "whatever is sufficient" for the task at hand. That means they engineer hardware to do what they want to do and not a whit more (such as what 3rd parties may want). They budget every game, and apply production, to the exact degree they feel is required for that specific game to become fully polished and present a satisfying experience.
In the positive column, this means that Nintendo is usually efficient. They don't throw money at problems trying to make them go away. They seem to rarely waste years of work by rebooting an expensive failure before it even nears completion. They probably make a nice profit on nearly all software sold, because they don't believe "AAA" equals budget and cinematic production values. I suspect this also enables them to make *so many* games under one roof. Nintendo is also not biased towards "glamor" titles. They will put their finest staff on a tiny portable game, an expanded audience game, or an experiment, treating each with respect. This seems to pay off frequently, in terms of small niche classics or true surprise hits.
In the negative column, Nintendo's approach seems entirely out of step with the "core oriented" gaming industry. It also seems out of step with what a lot of contemporary adult core gamers value in games. As the industry has pushed for more and more "event" games, for blockbuster entertainment, so it has drawn an audience that is, to a large degree, here for the pretty pictures and the 5.1 digital audio. Third parties continue to lean on this audience for their big business. This makes Nintendo values incompatible with most major 3rd parties. And because Nintendo values inform their hardware design choices, their platforms have remained incompatible with most major 3rd parties.
In relation to the OP, Nintendo has generally brought the situation on themselves, beginning most crucially with their 90s 3rd party relations and the Nintendo 64. Personally, I think the secret is that the N64 so entirely threw Nintendo out of sync with where the industry was rapidly heading, they lost it all with that one decision. No matter what the did with the Gamecube, it was unlikely they could ever catch up to Sony and then Microsoft once that gorilla entered the ring. That was before the current scenario of nearly universal 3rd party ports - too many platform exclusives for Sony in the 6th generation doomed Nintendo no matter what.
Nintendo's primary challenge now, seems to me finding where their niche exists in the modern world.
Zombie James
Banned
I disagree. Nintendo needs to become more accommodating to the modem world, not jumping from bubble to bubble.
I don't think they want a niche, they want the whole thing.
Nintendo has said before that they see their main competition TV and films, and while the gaming industry is bigger than those, it hardly has the same mind share, people who game are 15-25 male, and Sony and MS proposition is to cater to them as much as possible, Nintendo looks the other way, they want everyone to play.
This has been said to death I'm sure, but I also think Nintendo needs to get more Western developers. I could be wrong but the only two that come to my mind are Retro Studios and Next Level Games. I'm not even sure exactly what NOA does, but to me it's kind of a joke compared to it's competition.
You haven't stated the precise reasons.
Some of the developers from the NES/SNES era are still around now but most of them aren't considering the turnover rate the industry had to go through from late 90s to mid-00s.
Speaking of late 90s this was the beginning of when PC developers decided to shift their businesses to consoles. They didn't have the baggage of being ruled by a tyrant like the NES/SNES devs so why did they pass on N64 and more importantly the NGC when the largest influx of PC devs occurred?
Also lets keep in mind that publishers can dictate platform distribution depending on the contract made with a dev and publishers are vastly more concerned about business considerations than devs.
That said, publishers when they had that power available still decided to not require devs to port to NGC when Nintendo became the most compatible with conventional console designs (its only flaw was movie playback which only consumers cared about). The only story we know of so far is EA who withheld sports titles during the NGC era because of Nintendo's business strategy being incompatible with their own and possibly they were also pissed off.
When the Wii blew up they attempted to encourage development of games for it but still floundered most of the time.
So to sum up your analysis hinges on devs being the primary deciders of what gets made on a console and that they historically have had the most of the same people employed for 2 decades. Both key points are flawed for the reasons I explained.
That said your detailed post explains why some devs would hold a grudge with Nintendo. It doesn't address people who didn't have to deal with them at their worst nor does it explain publisher's behavior who are less motivated by tech and art and more by the financials.
I'd say Ubisoft sound like they've been disappointed with their profit on Wii U, although I think that's something of a catch-22 situation; had more third parties been on board from the outset, it's reasonable to surmise that the launch Wii U would have been a more enticing prospect for the audience and would be doing better than it currently is.
I'd go a little further with a theory about their philosophy; I think Nintendo's intent with the Wii U was as follows:
Third parties have expressed a dislike for the power of the Wii and the requirement to come up with specialist controls to make use of the Wii's stand-out feature.
Therefore, we will increase the power of the system to something slightly above the levels third parties are currently comfortable with, and make a new stand-out feature that can be either used in a creative way or in a simple manner which requires little extra work and still offers a benefit to the consumer (Off-TV play)
Third parties have not been reliably successful over the last generation; many games have made losses, some quite significant.
We have made tons of money with the Wii.
If we can encourage third parties to embrace our philosophy, they could make money on the Wii U. It requires a critical mass of third parties for that to be effective.
Now, Nintendo certainly appear to have failed at that last point. Ubisoft seemed to be the only company to go all-in from the outset.
The question is, could it have worked? What would the positives and negatives of a critical mass of third parties willingly stepping away from the arms race have been?
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The thing I'm skeptical about is whether Nintendo has a place what seems like an overly focused contemporary western console market. I don't have a nostalgic attachment to Nintendo being "great again", as in making a console that has all the core gaming industry's titles on it in addition to theirs. That isn't my definition of great for the kind of company they are.
Let me say niche may be the wrong word, because it implies something small. Perhaps focus; as you say, they want everyone to play. In a sense, I wonder if "everyone" and the current console industry are entirely compatible. It's more like the game console audience, and then everybody else. Nintendo started to get "everybody else" with the Wii. Then the rise of smartphones and tablet mobile wares came in and stole the show.
If Nintendo still wants the mainstream, and not just bloody competition with core oriented game consoles, I'm wondering how / where they'll find the correct focus for that.
Errr, for example, PS2 and PS3 are a nightmare to develop for? Isn't that enough for some developers to bail out? They could have said: well, lets make games for Dreamcast and Gamecube only, let's make games for 360 and PC only. Did this happen? No. Yet it would be more credible than you saying Wii U's account system is alienating 3rd parties.
D'ultimate
Member
Why couldn't Nintendo have made the U with comparable PS4/XB1 power, online infrastructure, AND the Gamepad? At least it would have started on a level playing field with it's own differentiator.
Why do they choose the have their systems at a major disadvantages right from the jump? This is the fourth system in a row that it's like that and it doesn't make sense to me. How does it benefit them in any way?
Why do they choose the have their systems at a major disadvantages right from the jump? This is the fourth system in a row that it's like that and it doesn't make sense to me. How does it benefit them in any way?
How much more would that have cost?
Ami, your analysis on what happened during the early Wii era is deeply flawed. Publishers didn't stick with the PS3 because they knew they could go to a multiplatform ecosystem. Neither publishers nor platform holders wanted that at all. They had blind faith in Sony and thought that Sony would retain users because of the strength of the Playstation. The same assumption was made with the PSP and with the Vita in Japan: they buy it because it's Playstation. What they found was that there was precious little loyalty in the Playstation brand coming off of the PS2 era. Sony reacted quickly to consolidate their first parties and software brand (rather than hardware brand as it had been) on the console side (the reason why the Vita didn't instill brand loyalty, coincidentally) but that's another story.
The evidence is in the fact that most early ports from the PS3 to the Xbox360 and vice versa were late and haphazard. It's clearly something that they didn't plan on and used as a hasty fallback when betting on the sure-fire leader failed hard. On the other hand, Nintendo made the Wii very open and easy to develop for. Did this sway third parties? Not at all. They didn't care. They noted "investment in next-gen tools" and "artistic vision" but what it came down to was that they made the wrong choices. They were slow to react, and then reacted incorrectly. In 2006 and early 2007 when the Wii was hot out of the gate, they should have been working to get their tools to work on the Wii and start making the same games for the Wii as they were for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Even if the Wii turned out to "be a fad" like many were (incorrectly) predicting, planning for the contingency that it wasn't would have been a wise choice considering the strength of its launch.
This didn't happen. They decided to move only starting in 2008 when they realized that the Wii was not going to burn out quickly, and then instead of adapting the games they were making, they instead gave us test games (see Capcom), weird games (see Madworld), and conceptually broken games that anybody on this very forum could tell would fail (see Dead Space Extraction, EA Sports All-Play, and, well, just EA). Many of these games came from decision points where the correct decision COULD have been made but was not. For example, Capcom rejected the version of RE:UC that played like RE4 and instead made the atrocious Dead Rising port as their RE4-alike, and EA had a Wii version of the actual Dead Space 2 as well as other games eventually released for the HD twins in development at one point.
So don't put that solely at Nintendo's feet. They cooked the meal and set the table, but nobody bothered to show up.
The evidence is in the fact that most early ports from the PS3 to the Xbox360 and vice versa were late and haphazard. It's clearly something that they didn't plan on and used as a hasty fallback when betting on the sure-fire leader failed hard. On the other hand, Nintendo made the Wii very open and easy to develop for. Did this sway third parties? Not at all. They didn't care. They noted "investment in next-gen tools" and "artistic vision" but what it came down to was that they made the wrong choices. They were slow to react, and then reacted incorrectly. In 2006 and early 2007 when the Wii was hot out of the gate, they should have been working to get their tools to work on the Wii and start making the same games for the Wii as they were for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Even if the Wii turned out to "be a fad" like many were (incorrectly) predicting, planning for the contingency that it wasn't would have been a wise choice considering the strength of its launch.
This didn't happen. They decided to move only starting in 2008 when they realized that the Wii was not going to burn out quickly, and then instead of adapting the games they were making, they instead gave us test games (see Capcom), weird games (see Madworld), and conceptually broken games that anybody on this very forum could tell would fail (see Dead Space Extraction, EA Sports All-Play, and, well, just EA). Many of these games came from decision points where the correct decision COULD have been made but was not. For example, Capcom rejected the version of RE:UC that played like RE4 and instead made the atrocious Dead Rising port as their RE4-alike, and EA had a Wii version of the actual Dead Space 2 as well as other games eventually released for the HD twins in development at one point.
So don't put that solely at Nintendo's feet. They cooked the meal and set the table, but nobody bothered to show up.
FalsettoVibe
Member
Very interesting read.
They don't really need to make a straight up "normal" console. I think there's a room for a powerful system that comes bundled with both an inexpensive gimmick/innovation and a traditional controller. Boom, best of both worlds.
metalslimer
Member
I dont think anyone who wants to absolve nintendo if blame will change their mind but thanks for all the effort. People seem to believe that 3rd parties owe Nintendo something.
The did not even have shader support which meant all 3rd party engines couldn't be ported. How is this easy?
The did not even have shader support which meant all 3rd party engines couldn't be ported. How is this easy?
Cerebral Assassin
Member
There are already two companies making traditional consoles, there is no reason why the market needs a 3rd(especially if that market is shrinking as I believe the next generation will show), Nintendo just made a product that (unlike the Wii) doesn't change the way games can be played(it just makes certain things more convenient) which led to the lack of interest.
I don't think mini-DVD on the GameCube was a major hurdle (although there were games that suffered because of it), but I think it was more a case of Nintendo introducing tremendous failures, and then thinking it can get away with fixing them in a half-assed way.
Carts on the N64 were a tremendous failure (in terms of storage size). The whole world had moved to CD, after dabbling with it even in the previous generation.
The Dreamcast was pushing the limits of CD, with their custom 1GB discs. It was lacking, but people were okay with it. But what they really wanted was DVD.
PS2 had DVD! Yay! The future has arrived. The Xbox is bringing more DVD to the party! The Dreamcast is dead. Goodbye CD, DVD is here to stay.
Nintendo pulls out 1.5GB "mini DVD". They're paying for DVD, but they're paying slightly more than DVD for a custom format that has more in common with CD than it does with DVD. It's fucking shit! It's half-assed. Oh, but it's not nearly as fucking shit as the N64 carts? Remember those? Please remember those. Nintendo really wants you to remember those. Nintendo sure learned their lesson. But lets not get crazy with this "learning our lesson" thing. I mean, there is always a place for a storage format which is lacking.
It was the same with royalty rates. The fee which Nintendo charged third parties to make N64 games was huge compared to PSX and Saturn, thanks to carts. So when Nintendo moved to mini-DVD with the GameCube, they had the opportunity to drop their rates. And they did just that. But their rates were still higher than Sega/Sony/Microsoft. Half-assed again. Oh but hey, c'mon? Do you remember what we were charging you in the N64 era? Good times... good times...
Nintendo actually dropped their royalty rates to "competitive" after a year and a half of GameCube failure, and it was apparently still slightly lacking compared to rates Sony had been offering since the PSX! Let's not get crazy with this "learning our lesson" thing. I mean, there is always a place for one notoriously greedy pig in the group.
megaStryke
Banned
Yes, Nintendo brought most of these problems on itself, but you have to think back to the videogame industry climate back in the early 80s. The console market, which had only really taken off in the US, crashed and burned in part because of a massive influx of third-party games that Atari couldn't manage since the "third party" was an entirely new construct. Since third-party games weren't licensed, Atari earned no money from their sales, and since literally ANYONE could make a third-party Atari game, regardless of their expertise, the glut of games drove prices down to unhealthy levels.
Nintendo was doing everything in its power to avoid Atari's missteps, and when bringing the Famicom to the US, it had to make retailers and analysts see that consoles were still viable. All the policies that we now see as "abusive" in hindsight were necessary evils in order to properly manage product distribution and prevent the tidal wave of the pre-crash years. Beyond that, sure, Nintendo grew accustomed to its policies and did little to change them (there was no need, Nintendo was still the biggest game in town).
Trying to radically adapt to the new market was always going to be an uphill battle. And because the competition today are two multimedia companies many times larger than Nintendo, it's even more difficult to match what they're doing. Nintendo might be able to do more for the sake of third-parties, but we can't say for certain how much it can do or if it'll ever be enough to rival what Sony and Microsoft can employ.
Nintendo was doing everything in its power to avoid Atari's missteps, and when bringing the Famicom to the US, it had to make retailers and analysts see that consoles were still viable. All the policies that we now see as "abusive" in hindsight were necessary evils in order to properly manage product distribution and prevent the tidal wave of the pre-crash years. Beyond that, sure, Nintendo grew accustomed to its policies and did little to change them (there was no need, Nintendo was still the biggest game in town).
Trying to radically adapt to the new market was always going to be an uphill battle. And because the competition today are two multimedia companies many times larger than Nintendo, it's even more difficult to match what they're doing. Nintendo might be able to do more for the sake of third-parties, but we can't say for certain how much it can do or if it'll ever be enough to rival what Sony and Microsoft can employ.
InsaneZero
Member
Nintendo doesn't need to make a powerful console, it needs to make a console that will support the technologies and processes that developers will use. It needs to make a machine that people can easily develop for and port to. If this means that they need a powerful machine, then so be it. Nintendo doesn't need powerful hardware to get developers on board, it needs to get developers on board and might need powerful hardware to do so. Given Nintendo's current position, even if Nintendo makes the most powerful hardware available, if it's a complete hassle to develop for then people won't develop for it.
If I was in charge of Nintendo, I would definitely put ease of development as the utmost priority during the planning process of the their next hardware product. Ditch the exotic architectures, and look at what's the standard.
If I was in charge of Nintendo, I would definitely put ease of development as the utmost priority during the planning process of the their next hardware product. Ditch the exotic architectures, and look at what's the standard.
SolidSnakex
Member
I think this is something that fits well with the OT
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=555162
That's a quote from the founder of Avalanche (Just Cause developer). Why in the world is any developer struggling to reach Nintendo? No first party is having more difficulties with third parties than Nintendo, so you'd at least think that they'd be bending over backwards for developers. And yet you have this. A developer making AAA games that had difficulties contacting Nintendo until they hooked up with a publisher. Their third party relations team needs some serious help.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=555162
That's a quote from the founder of Avalanche (Just Cause developer). Why in the world is any developer struggling to reach Nintendo? No first party is having more difficulties with third parties than Nintendo, so you'd at least think that they'd be bending over backwards for developers. And yet you have this. A developer making AAA games that had difficulties contacting Nintendo until they hooked up with a publisher. Their third party relations team needs some serious help.
TL
R: Nintendo is just too different from what the big third parties have become over the last 15 or so years. They seem to have a totally different vision for what they want console games to be compared to, say, EA.
The OP is basically an elaboration of all the old arguments we've been through before, and I also think it misappropriates some of the later points.
It's pretty much accepted that this all started when PlayStation provided developers with an escape from Nintendo's draconian policies of the 80's and 90's. Where things get hazy is Nintendo's relationship with third parties between the late 90's and today. For that timeframe I've actually given up trying to blame one side or the other, and I've begun to think that Nintendo and most of the major western third parties are just too different from one another. They seem to want different things.
Starting around the Gamecube era, Nintendo actively tried to reverse the third party policies it was known for in the 8 and 16-bit days. I remember reading articles during the Gamecube era where developers stated Nintendo still had high minimum orders compared to Sony or Microsoft, but Nintendo had clearly tossed the strong-arm tactics of the 80's. Over the course of the Gamecube era, Nintendo more or less repaired their relationships with Japanese third parties, almost all of whom are still fairly willing to support Nintendo consoles where the market makes sense.
I think the OP might misunderstand what actually caused the Gamecube's problems. I think the mini-DVD issue is a bit overblown, as there weren't a huge number of console games during that era that had to be cut down for Gamecube. In my opinion the real problem was that the Gamecube had no "selling point" to developers. The PS2 had its massive install base, the Xbox had Live and the familiarity of its PC-like architecture to western studios, but the Gamecube didn't really have anything to make it stand apart. Before the Gamecube launched Nintendo went on about how easy the system was to develop for compared to N64, but that wasn't enough. Nintendo didn't anticipate the Xbox being equally accessible to developers. I think all the other factors like the discs and controller were ultimately minor. The Gamecube's real problem is that it offered developers nothing the other two consoles didn't already offer.
The Wii is I think where the truth really came to bare: The kind of console game market Nintendo wants is very different from what most of the dominant third parties want.
It's probably a schism that really started during the PS1 era. Sony and third parties were all about flashy, cinematic games that leveraged the advantages of the CD format. Nintendo's games on the other hand have remained heavily mechanic-driven and lean on presentation. I remember quotes from Miyamoto stating that he didn't like using huge amounts of voice acting for games because he thought it was a waste of disc space. The N64 was basically designed for that man's games, and Miyamoto has typically come off as someone who doesn't really care for the flashiness of modern gaming. When Nintendo and Silicon Knights split up, they officially said it was due to "ideological differences."
The other thing is that Nintendo has never really cared about making a platform specifically for the 16-35 male American gamer, which is where the PS1 started to take the industry. This means they didn't necessarily care about supporting games like shooters specifically. Guys like Iwata have repeatedly said they just want "fun games."
This basically continued throughout the Gamecube era and went into overdrive with the Wii. In hindsight, third parties were probably a bit foolish to bet as much as they did on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Just look at how many of them went under because of it. On the other hand, Nintendo was probably foolish to expect the likes of EA and Take Two to support the Wii's vision, since it differed so much from their own plans. Did Nintendo really think those guys were gonna abandon their whole way of business? Even if it might have been more economically sensible to do so?
Also, you have the western PC guard that recently invaded the console space, made up of guys like Epic, BioWare, Bethesda, Obsidian, and Irrational. These guys don't have a bad relationship with Nintendo because they don't have ANY relationship with Nintendo. Most of the aforementioned companies have never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware. They were all only making PC games during the time of Nintendo's console dominance. They occupy a world totally foreign to Nintendo.
On Nintendo's end, they, like Sony, were completely caught off-guard by the rise of the west this gen. They didn't anticipate the western PC guard coming in, and those guys sure as hell weren't compatible with what the Wii was trying to do.
And then there's online infrastructure. I don't think Nintendo has been unaware of the internet all this time, they just don't quite agree with how Sony and Microsoft are utilizing it. During the Gamecube era people at Nintendo (Iwata I think) stated that online gaming wasn't profitable enough, and that only a very small fraction of console gamers even used it back then (they were right).
Friend codes were there because Nintendo thought of online gaming as basically a secondary way to play with your existing friends. To this day Nintendo doesn't seem to completely agree with the system of paying a subscription to play with and meet new people completely online. Admittedly, friend codes were a fucking terrible way to do this. Shit, just look at how much Nintendo still emphasizes local multiplayer over online.
Anyway, to summarize, since the mid-90's you have:
-Sticking to smaller media formats to accommodate game mechanics over flashy media.
-Creating a console with a simpler control interface and weaker hardware in order to attract a whole new consumer base and encourage lower development costs.
-Emphasizing local multiplayer over online for philosophical reasons.
In my opinion what you have here is not incompetence on Nintendo's part, but an ideological war the company is waging against basically the entire rest of console gaming.
All the companies in the console retail space right now are all about bigger and better AAA games, and Nintendo seems to be vehemently AGAINST that kind of thing. They are also against targeting one specific demographic. They won't block those kinds of games on their platforms, but they aren't specifically trying to make a console where those games will sell either.
Just look at the third parties Nintendo is heavily supporting. They went and grabbed Monster Hunter, and they are deep in bed with Sega and Platinum. One of the biggest third party games Nintendo put front-and-center was Lego City Stories. They've been publishing western versions of Dragon Quest games themselves. Nintendo even offered to publish the Japanese version of Rayman Legends. Nintendo does try to put backing behind third party games, just only the ones it actually likes, which rarely, if ever, end up being a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.
Personally, I don't think Nintendo can ever fully repair their relations with the big western third parties currently running the show because of these differences. They just seem to want different things. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you want.
For Nintendo to become what the big third parties and a lot of gamers want them to be, they'd probably have to cease being the company that made so many of the games we love. On the other hand, the number of publishers willing to go along with Nintendo's way of doing things is shrinking.
In my opinion Nintendo has two options if they wanna get a lot of good third party support and still remain Nintendo:
1) Somehow get Japan fully behind the Wii U.
2) Gain the heavy favor of indies and hope they blossom on Wii U.
Japanese third parties are basically how the 3DS is kicking ass right now, and in my opinion indies are more similar to Nintendo ideologically than anyone else. Of course Nintendo's main problems are tearing Japan away from the 3DS long enough to notice the Wii U and competing with Sony's heavy push for indies.
R: Nintendo is just too different from what the big third parties have become over the last 15 or so years. They seem to have a totally different vision for what they want console games to be compared to, say, EA.The OP is basically an elaboration of all the old arguments we've been through before, and I also think it misappropriates some of the later points.
It's pretty much accepted that this all started when PlayStation provided developers with an escape from Nintendo's draconian policies of the 80's and 90's. Where things get hazy is Nintendo's relationship with third parties between the late 90's and today. For that timeframe I've actually given up trying to blame one side or the other, and I've begun to think that Nintendo and most of the major western third parties are just too different from one another. They seem to want different things.
Starting around the Gamecube era, Nintendo actively tried to reverse the third party policies it was known for in the 8 and 16-bit days. I remember reading articles during the Gamecube era where developers stated Nintendo still had high minimum orders compared to Sony or Microsoft, but Nintendo had clearly tossed the strong-arm tactics of the 80's. Over the course of the Gamecube era, Nintendo more or less repaired their relationships with Japanese third parties, almost all of whom are still fairly willing to support Nintendo consoles where the market makes sense.
I think the OP might misunderstand what actually caused the Gamecube's problems. I think the mini-DVD issue is a bit overblown, as there weren't a huge number of console games during that era that had to be cut down for Gamecube. In my opinion the real problem was that the Gamecube had no "selling point" to developers. The PS2 had its massive install base, the Xbox had Live and the familiarity of its PC-like architecture to western studios, but the Gamecube didn't really have anything to make it stand apart. Before the Gamecube launched Nintendo went on about how easy the system was to develop for compared to N64, but that wasn't enough. Nintendo didn't anticipate the Xbox being equally accessible to developers. I think all the other factors like the discs and controller were ultimately minor. The Gamecube's real problem is that it offered developers nothing the other two consoles didn't already offer.
The Wii is I think where the truth really came to bare: The kind of console game market Nintendo wants is very different from what most of the dominant third parties want.
It's probably a schism that really started during the PS1 era. Sony and third parties were all about flashy, cinematic games that leveraged the advantages of the CD format. Nintendo's games on the other hand have remained heavily mechanic-driven and lean on presentation. I remember quotes from Miyamoto stating that he didn't like using huge amounts of voice acting for games because he thought it was a waste of disc space. The N64 was basically designed for that man's games, and Miyamoto has typically come off as someone who doesn't really care for the flashiness of modern gaming. When Nintendo and Silicon Knights split up, they officially said it was due to "ideological differences."
The other thing is that Nintendo has never really cared about making a platform specifically for the 16-35 male American gamer, which is where the PS1 started to take the industry. This means they didn't necessarily care about supporting games like shooters specifically. Guys like Iwata have repeatedly said they just want "fun games."
This basically continued throughout the Gamecube era and went into overdrive with the Wii. In hindsight, third parties were probably a bit foolish to bet as much as they did on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Just look at how many of them went under because of it. On the other hand, Nintendo was probably foolish to expect the likes of EA and Take Two to support the Wii's vision, since it differed so much from their own plans. Did Nintendo really think those guys were gonna abandon their whole way of business? Even if it might have been more economically sensible to do so?
Also, you have the western PC guard that recently invaded the console space, made up of guys like Epic, BioWare, Bethesda, Obsidian, and Irrational. These guys don't have a bad relationship with Nintendo because they don't have ANY relationship with Nintendo. Most of the aforementioned companies have never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware. They were all only making PC games during the time of Nintendo's console dominance. They occupy a world totally foreign to Nintendo.
On Nintendo's end, they, like Sony, were completely caught off-guard by the rise of the west this gen. They didn't anticipate the western PC guard coming in, and those guys sure as hell weren't compatible with what the Wii was trying to do.
And then there's online infrastructure. I don't think Nintendo has been unaware of the internet all this time, they just don't quite agree with how Sony and Microsoft are utilizing it. During the Gamecube era people at Nintendo (Iwata I think) stated that online gaming wasn't profitable enough, and that only a very small fraction of console gamers even used it back then (they were right).
Friend codes were there because Nintendo thought of online gaming as basically a secondary way to play with your existing friends. To this day Nintendo doesn't seem to completely agree with the system of paying a subscription to play with and meet new people completely online. Admittedly, friend codes were a fucking terrible way to do this. Shit, just look at how much Nintendo still emphasizes local multiplayer over online.
Anyway, to summarize, since the mid-90's you have:
-Sticking to smaller media formats to accommodate game mechanics over flashy media.
-Creating a console with a simpler control interface and weaker hardware in order to attract a whole new consumer base and encourage lower development costs.
-Emphasizing local multiplayer over online for philosophical reasons.
In my opinion what you have here is not incompetence on Nintendo's part, but an ideological war the company is waging against basically the entire rest of console gaming.
All the companies in the console retail space right now are all about bigger and better AAA games, and Nintendo seems to be vehemently AGAINST that kind of thing. They are also against targeting one specific demographic. They won't block those kinds of games on their platforms, but they aren't specifically trying to make a console where those games will sell either.
Just look at the third parties Nintendo is heavily supporting. They went and grabbed Monster Hunter, and they are deep in bed with Sega and Platinum. One of the biggest third party games Nintendo put front-and-center was Lego City Stories. They've been publishing western versions of Dragon Quest games themselves. Nintendo even offered to publish the Japanese version of Rayman Legends. Nintendo does try to put backing behind third party games, just only the ones it actually likes, which rarely, if ever, end up being a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.
Personally, I don't think Nintendo can ever fully repair their relations with the big western third parties currently running the show because of these differences. They just seem to want different things. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you want.
For Nintendo to become what the big third parties and a lot of gamers want them to be, they'd probably have to cease being the company that made so many of the games we love. On the other hand, the number of publishers willing to go along with Nintendo's way of doing things is shrinking.
In my opinion Nintendo has two options if they wanna get a lot of good third party support and still remain Nintendo:
1) Somehow get Japan fully behind the Wii U.
2) Gain the heavy favor of indies and hope they blossom on Wii U.
Japanese third parties are basically how the 3DS is kicking ass right now, and in my opinion indies are more similar to Nintendo ideologically than anyone else. Of course Nintendo's main problems are tearing Japan away from the 3DS long enough to notice the Wii U and competing with Sony's heavy push for indies.
Mithos
Member
Easy as in, you have already programmed for our hardware for the last 5+ years (GameCube architecture), should be a walk in the park for you by now?
Not convinced about the explanation in the OP for the situation today. The way I see it is this: Third parties go where the market is, everything else just plays a minor role IMHO. And the market has shifted from the old kid friendly and kids only market to the teens and young males together with anything that appeals to them market we have today. Nintendo's main IPs though are and always will be associated with the family friendly image of old and are therefore in a situation in which they can't have a clear focus. Their answer to this is apparently being cost effective (evil tongues would say 'cheap') and traditional while trying to fish for those breakout success chances. Pokemon and Wii worked, 3DS not as much, Wii U didn't so far. They'll trudge along some longer.
Krappadizzle
Member
Hell of a post Amir0x. It seems people forgot some of Nintendo's history.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
This is my primary problem with the whole "Nintendo go back to the old days and be normal" campaign.
Whether anyone likes it or not, once upon a time Nintendo blinked and lost the pulse of the core gaming industry companies like Sony were pushing to build. Then Lex Luthor (Steve Ballmer) stole 40 remaining game industries and it was terrible.
Right now, I feel the primary question of where you fall boils down to this: do you think Nintendo would be better as a 3rd party supplying games to the "new regime". Or might they be better doing their own thing? There's an argument to be made for both, though it partially depends on an individual's taste in and desires for games.
metalslimer
Member
And people sore underestimate how much nintendo's god awful online setup on wii made 3rd parties dislike that plaform. And then we actually had delusional fans arguing that patches were bad because developers became lazy
This is a good description of what Nintendo is trying to do now.
To go further, since before Nintendo even made the NES, one of its philosophies has been "Lateral thinking with withered technology." They see it as being both innovative and efficient at the same time. It's always been their philosophy. The Wii just took that into overdrive.
Oh I'll agree that was bullshit. If the Wii had more internal storage and an actual patching system, I think those two things alone would've done a lot.
And WiiWare was a disaster. Nintendo should've seen the writing on the wall and recognized then that the indies had the cheap, innovative ideas they were looking for.
metalslimer
Member
You mean the console most developers didn't touch and the architecture that didnt work with the engines they msde to streamline developing games?
I would rather they innovate through their gameplay than useless addition like 3D and the gamepad. If the wiiu was cheap i wouldnt mind but nintendo wants to have their cake and eat it too.