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[royalan]

I think it comes down to East vs West. Before you cry Sony, all of their first party develoment teams are in the west other than SCE Japan Studio. Which gives you fun, gameplay based, and 'diffrent' acording to american taste games. The diffrence between Sony and Nintendo is that Sony is almost all western first party develoment, and so it creates games that people expect for "AAA" games, like Resistance, Uncharted, God of War, ect. Nintendo dosn't focus on western develoment at all. It's only major western developer is Retro Studios, which they control with an iron fist, since they have deemed their attempts at their own games as futile. This makes a precadent of quirky japanese games that arn't considered "AAA" in the west and so western publishers see no market to reach on that system.

tl;dr: Nintendo dosn't have western first party developers, and so only Japanese/not "AAA" games are made.

I feel like this is only partially true.

Yeah, Sony has more western studios than Nintendo, so the situations aren't the same. However, I think it can be said that Sony during the PS1, PS2 and early PS3 gens still relied heavily on SCEJ and the support of Japanese devs. Their western studios gained prominence gradually as western games became more dominant.

Sony had the infrastructure in place to respond to the industry shift. Nintendo, for the most part, doesn't. Whether you consider this a good or bad thing depends on where you stand with Nintendo's current performance, I guess.

 

[trickyhero]

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that Nintendo is somehow preventing small/indies developers when these past couple of months it's the one thing Nintendo seems to do right. Self-publishing, free Unity licences, HTML5 development platforms, developers set their own pricing/sale etc. Also, F2P is already available on the Wii U eshop (Tank Tank Tank).

At this point I think it's just perception. In someways Nintendo is ahead of the game in the networking scheme. The Miiverse communities, integration in games, and of course it being free. Also, there is a guy that made more money on the eshop than on ios and android, and is an indie developer. Here's the link: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509260
I personaly think Nintendo is doing alright with the indie releases, the Wii U is definitly powerful enough for 90% of indie games I'v seen.

 

[hackdog]

My two cents is that a great many people in the industry don't respect a lot of the content Nintendo makes. It's considered cute, but "merely toys" compared to the amazing cinematic future where, well, I guess, all respectable games are movies. "Pure" games have become devalued in the west by the technologically oriented core gaming entertainment business, except perhaps as a low investment, high return F2P framework. Possibly because pure games don't forward the effort to capture parts of the pie shared by other entertainment mediums such as motion pictures and television.

I would agree to a certain extent but I just feel that if you want a console with a broad range of games Nintendo would be my last choice. Look at what they showed at E3. Donkey Kong Country, another Mario, another Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Pikmin were the highlights. You could argue that all were aimed at 9 year olds.

Sony and Microsoft highlighted games like Titanfall, Killzone, Driveclub, Forza, Knack, Two Brothers, Transistor, D4, Ryse and TLoU. I think most of those are exclusives. It's like Nintendo are pigeonholing themselves. There's a place for Nintendo but there should also be a place for non-Nintendo type games on a Nintendo platform. To a large extent there isn't because of how Nintendo operate but that shouldn't stop Nintendo from stretching themselves outside of what they've been doing since 1985.

 

[Opiate]

I would agree to a certain extent but I just feel that if you want a console with a broad range of games Nintendo would be my last choice. Look at what they showed at E3. Donkey Kong Country, another Mario, another Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Pikmin were the highlights. You could argue that all were aimed at 9 year olds.

Sony and Microsoft highlighted games like Titanfall, Killzone, Driveclub, Forza, Knack, Two Brothers, Transistor, D4, Ryse and TLoU. I think most of those are exclusives. It's like they are getting pigeonholing themselves. There's a place for Nintendo but there should also be a place for non-Nintendo type games on a Nintendo platform. To a large extent there isn't because of how Nintendo operate but that shouldn't stop Nintendo from stretching themselves outside of what they've been doing since 1985.

I feel the exact opposite: Sony and Microsoft's appeal has been much more narrow, but I'd suspect that this narrow focus happens to be people like you.

Nintendo's recent success certainly includes young boys, no question. But it also includes young girls playing Nintendogs, the elderly playing Wii Sports and Brain Age, and rather famously includes soccer moms with Wii Fit. These weren't just small successes like, say, Buzz! for Sony, but games which sold more copies than any game Microsoft or Sony has ever released. Huge, huge hits with those demographics.

I think Sony and Microsoft offer lots of options for 16-35 year old males. I think this is a common perception problem that is not specific to games: people are aware of all the subcategories and genres of things they like, but everything they don't like are lumped in to a single category of "things I don't care about." In this case, that category of "things we don't like" even has a name -- casual games -- which actually represents a pretty wide variety of game types and a fairly broad group of demographics, all of whom happen to be not you.

 

[Night_Trekker]

I think this argument holds more validity for the big players like EA and Take 2, but is much less valid for small guys who don't have guys in suits calling the shots. I think small developers are hurt a lot more by the financial concerns TKM is talking about -- EA has no trouble covering up front costs, but small guys making their first game absolutely could.

Agreed, that's a good point.

I've pointed out several times in this thread that iOS, like Nintendo's platforms, has gone largely ignored by the big western publishers. So why is it that iOS has managed to get a large group of publishers on their platform? Because they basically grew their own third parties; companies like Gameloft and Rovio were built and grown on mobile platforms, and have become huge publishers in their own right. The reason we don't see a Rovio or a Gameloft taking root in Nintendo's ecosystems is because they've made it extremely hard for these little guys to break in. This is a completely separate problem than what we see with the big publishers, whose dispute with Nintendo is largely philosophical/demographic rather than economic. If Nintendo's platforms appealed strongly to the Madden/Call of Duty/Grand Theft Auto demogarphic, I can guarantee that Nintendo's relatively poor business terms would be a small bump in the road for those guys.

Yeah, and Nintendo doesn't want to compete head-to-head for that same crowd anymore. In that sense, at least for certain types of games, it's really Nintendo's "fault" for alienating the third parties through their own design philosophies.

I wonder if any dedicated console or handheld can ever compete with something like iOS. The problem is barriers to entry for developers, and there are always going to be bigger barriers on a closed hardware system. (I mean, iOS is a closed system too, on closed hardware, but it's all a hell of a lot less... er, closed than a Nintendo platform.)

Ease of entry is of course a huge part of what has helped iOS flourish as a gaming distribution platform. I agree that if Nintendo wants to compete for that slice of the pie, they need to make it as easy and as cheap as possible for small devs to get their games up for sale. We'll have to see if Nintendo can truly get a solid grip on digitally distributed games this generation... they're doing better than last generation, but that's not saying much.

 

[Cheerilee]

I'm not disagreeing with you- nintendo COULD have engineered a system that could have competed with the PS360 with motion controls if they were willing to sell product at a loss to compete.

unfortunately, their adherence to making a profit on hardware meant that nintendo was not willing to do that, and felt that leaving the core audience entirely to Sony and Microsoft was a better option than competing directly and taking a risk.

I don't have source links, but I remember reading that before designing the Wii, Nintendo ballparked out what their ideal HD system would cost, and they concluded that it would be around $400. They figured that they would need to lose at least $100 per-console to compete at that kind of cost, which was completely unacceptable, so they stopped looking in that direction and considered other options.

Then they decided on a barebones Wiimote-delivery system, based on the GameCube, which at-the-time was profitable at $100. The Wii was built to a $100 target, but it was pushed over budget by the addition of Nintendo's laughable online strategy (which demanded that WiFi and 512MB of internal memory be added to the mix) and by a GameCube-compatible slot loading drive. Slot loading drives normally can't handle mini-DVD, but Iwata said "Damn the cost, I already had my heart set on both slot loading and GameCube compatibility. Just make it happen."

Since the Wii had gone over it's $100 target, Iwata was hesitant to put a price on the system, because he was considering selling it at a loss. Then Sony announced their $599 US Dollars, and while we were all laughing, Iwata laughed and said "$249."

Basically, Nintendo wouldn't have needed to sell their HD system at a loss in order to compete with PS3/360 (but hindsight is 20/20, and nobody could have predicted Sony's PS3 blunder), and Iwata considered selling the Wii at a loss. And the Wii U is being sold at a loss.

 

[Nightstick11]

I think third-party publishers (not developers) essentially have a very bleak, defeatist attitude at the prospect of going toe-to-toe with Nintendo games. Saw this attitude pop up in the N64 era when Nintendo games were doing monster numbers while third-parties not so much; as Amirox pointed out, charging $33 per cartridge left some burned, while Sony offered greener pastures.

The Wii probably only added to this defeatist attitude. Look at some of the sales figures for that generation; two Wii games sold more than the entire Halo series. As such, Nintendo is, for lack of a better word, "scary" if a third-party wanted to hope for a big-selling franchise on a Nintendo console. The only way for them to post monster saled is to stay out of the genres that are Nintendo's bread-and-butter, in contrast to Microsoft's anemic first-party portfolio or Sony's, which post solid but not ridiculous numbers.

 

[LoftyTheMetroid]

I'm afraid I don't have the time or energy to give the sort of response this topic deserves, but I thought I'd just throw out that, in addition to RedSwirl's fantastic post, Tathanen also made an excellent topic that helps put a lot of these issues into perspective.

 

[Coffee Dog]

I think third-party publishers (not developers) essentially have a very bleak, defeatist attitude at the prospect of going toe-to-toe with Nintendo games. Saw this attitude pop up in the N64 era when Nintendo games were doing monster numbers while third-parties not so much; as Amirox pointed out, charging $33 per cartridge left some burned, while Sony offered greener pastures.

The Wii probably only added to this defeatist attitude. Look at some of the sales figures for that generation; two Wii games sold more than the entire Halo series. As such, Nintendo is, for lack of a better word, "scary" if a third-party wanted to hope for a big-selling franchise on a Nintendo console. The only way for them to post monster saled is to stay out of the genres that are Nintendo's bread-and-butter, in contrast to Microsoft's anemic first-party portfolio or Sony's, which post solid but not ridiculous numbers.

But then you run into situations like the 3DS launch, where Nintendo purposefully holds back games so they don't compete with 3rd parties, and the 3rd parties drop the ball entirely.

There are many reasons to not make nintendo games, but "we can't compete with Nintendo titles" isn't one of them.

 

[Eteric Rice]

I think third-party publishers (not developers) essentially have a very bleak, defeatist attitude at the prospect of going toe-to-toe with Nintendo games. Saw this attitude pop up in the N64 era when Nintendo games were doing monster numbers while third-parties not so much; as Amirox pointed out, charging $33 per cartridge left some burned, while Sony offered greener pastures.

The Wii probably only added to this defeatist attitude. Look at some of the sales figures for that generation; two Wii games sold more than the entire Halo series. As such, Nintendo is, for lack of a better word, "scary" if a third-party wanted to hope for a big-selling franchise on a Nintendo console. The only way for them to post monster saled is to stay out of the genres that are Nintendo's bread-and-butter, in contrast to Microsoft's anemic first-party portfolio or Sony's, which post solid but not ridiculous numbers.

I dunno. At the same time, not making games in different genres may be more damaging. What would draw any FPS players to the Wii U if it doesn't have a reason for FPS gamers to buy one?

And I mean more than something like Metroid. A online shooter built specifically to attract the FPS audience.

And it would have to be fucking amazing to turn any heads considering what Nintendo would be competing with.

If I were Nintendo at this point, I'd make a Nintendo MOBA equivalent of Smash Bros and try to get something going in that category.

 

[EDarkness]

I dunno. At the same time, not making games in different genres may be more damaging. What would draw any FPS players to the Wii U if it doesn't have a reason for FPS gamers to buy one?

And I mean more than something like Metroid. A online shooter built specifically to attract the FPS audience.

IR. I would be all over all FPS games on the Wii U if they had IR support. It's something you can't get on any other system and that would be a good thing to try. They tried a bit with Black Ops 2, but the IR controls were so damn broken in the beginning and their stance that more people played using dual analog (which I suppose was true considering Nintendo didn't pack in remote with the Wii U). Of course, Black Ops 2 had other problems as it STILL doesn't have new maps and things. Considering that there are still a ton of folks playing Wii FPS games, seems like it would be in their best interest to bring those guys over.

Just a thought.

 

[Burai]

I feel the exact opposite: Sony and Microsoft's appeal has been much more narrow, but I'd suspect that this narrow focus happens to be people like you.

Nintendo's recent success certainly includes young boys, no question. But it also includes young girls playing Nintendogs, the elderly playing Wii Sports and Brain Age, and rather famously includes soccer moms with Wii Fit. These weren't just small successes like, say, Buzz! for Sony, but games which sold more copies than any game Microsoft or Sony has ever released. Huge, huge hits with those demographics.

I think Sony and Microsoft offer lots of options for 16-35 year old males. I think this is a common perception problem that is not specific to games: people are aware of all the subcategories and genres of things they like, but everything they don't like are lumped in to a single category of "things I don't care about." In this case, that category of "things we don't like" even has a name -- casual games -- which actually represents a pretty wide variety of game types and a fairly broad group of demographics, all of whom happen to be not you.

The problem with Nintendo's success with those games is that they were a one-time only deal. They scratched an itch that the casual market had and now they've moved on or, in the case of remote-heavy games, been cast aside by Nintendo themselves.

There's a very good reason why Sony and Microsoft target 16-35 males: They keep coming back for more. They might not buy as many games, but they will guarantee that you still have a business in ten years time. Buzz may not have been a massive Wii Sports-esque hit, but Sony didn't build their business around Buzz for 8 years. It was a low budget quiz game that made them money and there's no harm in it having played out.

In the meantime, Nintendo's elderly are gone, their soccer moms are gone and their young girls are gone. All they have left are the faithful fans and they certainly won't be buying 30million copies of New Super Mario Bros. U.

 

[Opiate]

The problem with Nintendo's success with those games is that they were a one-time only deal. They scratched an itch that the casual market had and now they've moved on or, in the case of remote-heavy games, been cast aside by Nintendo themselves.

There's a very good reason why Sony and Microsoft target 16-35 males: They keep coming back for more. They might not buy as many games, but they will guarantee that you still have a business in ten years time. Buzz may not have been a massive Wii Sports-esque hit, but Sony didn't build their business around Buzz for 8 years. It was a low budget quiz game that made them money and there's no harm in it having played out.

All the more pity for Sony, as Nintendo has profoundly out-earned Sony in gaming over the last decade in large part because Nintendo took these casual markets seriously.

In the meantime, Nintendo's elderly are gone, their soccer moms are gone and their young girls are gone. All they have left are the faithful fans and they certainly won't be buying 30million copies of New Super Mario Bros. U.

Sure, that's completely possible. If the suggestion is that Nintendo shouldn't have gone after those casual markets because they now may have lost them, I will strongly disagree with your assessment. Nintendo's problem wasn't going after the soccer moms; their problem will be that they didn't keep them.

New market segments are typically highly profitable but also highly competitive. Consider the early days of "hardcore" gaming; we had huge turnover with companies like Atari, Collecovision, NEC/TurboGrafx, and others entering and collapsing in a fairly short time span. Does that mean it was a bad idea for Atari to try and capture that new market? Of course not. Their mistake was losing the market. Not that surprising, as new markets are rife with trial and error.

So if Nintendo loses / has lot most of the market they gained with the Wii, that's a huge screw up by Nintendo if so. But if your suggestion is that 16-35 males are the trusty market you can always count on to be by your side, I'd argue that while largely true, this reliability comes at the cost of being almost entirely unprofitable as a market segment at this point.If the 16-35 year old male market was both reliable and profitable, you'd see companies falling over themselves to enter the market. The combination of reliable, predictable and profitable is one that many companies would be clamoring for. Instead, we see the opposite; major "hardcore" focused companies like EA, SquareEnixEidos, THQ and Take 2 downsizing and merging, with almost all the growth in gaming occurring outside that trusty, reliable 16-35 male demographic.

 

[JordanN]

I don't have source links, but I remember reading that before designing the Wii, Nintendo ballparked out what their ideal HD system would cost, and they concluded that it would be around $400. They figured that they would need to lose at least $100 per-console to compete at that kind of cost, which was completely unacceptable, so they stopped looking in that direction and considered other options.

Ah yes, it was the Miyamoto "mom" interview.

Ultimately, it came down to whether power should be a key element of the console or not. We didn't think it was possible to build a powerful machine for less than 50,000 yen ($450). Not only would it use a lot of electricity, it would need a fan, which meant it would be noisy. Moms would rise up against it. Plus, it would take too long to boot up, like a PC, which isn't an ideal toy.

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/m...ke-having-only-ferocious-dinosaurs.203213288/

 

[weevles]

Disagree. In fact, i the the majority of the market is perfectly happy with their wii and have no need to upgrade.The tie ratio for wii was good, so lets not pretend like the wii was a wii sport machine because it wasnt.

Disagree. If this alleged majority was perfectly happy with their Wii, they'd still be buying software for it and there would still be a lot of third party support for it, but they don't and there isn't.

 

[EDarkness]

Disagree. If this alleged majority was perfectly happy with their Wii, they'd still be buying software for it and there would still be a lot of third party support for it, but they don't and there isn't.

That's not true. Wii software is still being made and sold. Just look at the Just Dance scene. Wii folks eating that up. Lots of people still playing Wii CoD games as well as Goldeneye. At least as of a couple of weeks ago.

The 3rd party situation with the Wii was pretty bad, but only in what they were producing. Who the hell thought kiddie Madden was good? EA and the gang bailed out since their main babies were always the 360 and PS3. However, the Wii is still getting FIFA and the like. Can't say the same for the Wii U.

 

[Buddha Beam]

The Wii probably only added to this defeatist attitude. Look at some of the sales figures for that generation; two Wii games sold more than the entire Halo series. As such, Nintendo is, for lack of a better word, "scary" if a third-party wanted to hope for a big-selling franchise on a Nintendo console. The only way for them to post monster sales is to stay out of the genres that are Nintendo's bread-and-butter, in contrast to Microsoft's anemic first-party portfolio or Sony's, which post solid but not ridiculous numbers.

I don't understand why you would think that. This is the exact opposite way the industry reacts to any other big hit.
When Halo hit it big, sci-fi shooters became huge because everyone saw how much money Halo was making.
We had an endless glut of World War II shooters early last generation because of Call of Duty. When COD4 hit, WWII shooters died and modern warfare shooters flourished in their place.
Open world games exploded when Grand Theft Auto blew up.
Hell, we actually did see a metric shit-ton of "casual" games modeled after Wii Sports too, although they were all largely garbage pump 'n' dump releases (which arguably helped kill, rather than cultivate, the casual Wii audience).

If I were running EA or Take 2 or whatever, and I saw Mario Galaxy sell 8 million copies, my reaction wouldn't be "Oh shit, we're doomed! Stay away from them!"
It would be, "How do I get a piece of that action?" Because if I could sell to even just 1/10th of those Mario Galaxy buyers, I'd have at least a modest hit on my hands.
You just don't see them doing that though. They just run away from it. It's incredibly stupid.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Another problem Nintendo have is all there big new IPs don't look like they can be carry across gens.
I see people saying look Nintendo have big new IPs like Nintendo Dogs , Wii Fit , Wii sports etc etc but those IPs look to be 1 hit IPs .
Nintendo Dogs is perfect eg of this it sold 23. 94 million the sequel Nintendogs + Cats sold 3.28 million (info from wiki)
Which is problem for Nintendo with they way how the market is going .

 

[mclem]

If you think that PC devs are filled with newbies who never dealt with Nintendo, then you're not going to be convinced of my point. But there are literally endless examples where this is not the case.

For what it's worth: When I was at Rebellion, I wasn't aware of anyone working with me who'd expressed dissatisfaction at working with Nintendo in the past. There was a little grumpiness about their certification rules in the (then) present, but there was similar grumpiness about Microsoft's and Sony's.

That may have been more Rebellion's thing, though. They did like to get new enthusiastic folks out of university and work them hard. I was one!

 

[mclem]

with handhelds getting comparable power to last gen consoles, the sucessor of the 3DS could be the only system they make in the future and at that point they won't be able to support 2 systems at the same time anymore (this gen already proved they can't support 2 like in the GBA/GC days or the Wii/DS days).

To be fair, arguably neither can Sony, a company with rather more resources. I'm pretty sure convergence of some nature is inevitable.

 

[Harlock]

Third party games are not the main problem now. Nintendo itself lost much of your criativity. And making HD games turn things even worst, because Nintendo is not get used to HD graphics. And this is very very bad because when Nintendo go multi console your games will not be relevant to playstation and xbox players like in the past.

 

[mclem]

I was really puzzled by this and had to look it up and got this article. http://www.1up.com/features/what-the-hell-is-asymmetric-gameplay

I'm assuming that's what you were referring to?

I don't really agree with this definition of asymmetrical gameplay. What I'm talking about is essentially play by mail checkers. You do a move, and x number of days later I provide my move. Asymmetrical games are pretty common on mobile platforms. Letterpress for the iPhone is a really great one.

Hey, someone's made the mistake in the opposite direction!

That's asynchronous.

(Lots of on here people used "Asynchronous" when they meant "Asymmetric" when the Wii U first emerged)

I've worked in the games industry for over 6 years and I know a bunch of folks from a bunch of different companies that have worked on a variety of projects on every platform (some even with Nintendo) and I'd like to chime in with what I believe is the core issue why many 3rd parties are not terribly interested in working on Nintendo platforms.

Amirox's OP is a good read and he does a fantastic job of summarizing what were the core issues that prevented 3rd parties from working with Nintendo in the past. At the moment however, a huge part of the gaming industry is made up of 20 somethings that obviously only have fond memories of the NES days, and so we must wonder, what's preventing them from hooking up with their favourite company with which they hold so many fond nostalgic memories?

It's simply this:

Nintendo is not producing products that enable game developers to develop the games that they want to create.

We forget that game developers are made up of individual people, and that these individuals have their own passions, interests and life goals. These individuals have their pet projects that they dream about working on. We have to expect that they will push to realize those dreams. The problem for Nintendo is that when I talk to my friends about their passion projects it utterly clashes with what Nintendo is doing on the market right now.

Can I turn this on its head?

Game developers do not want to create games for the market Nintendo caters to.

That's in the *face* of - last generation - that market being a much safer development prospect (lower cost of development) and roughly comparable to the alternative in terms of size.

So they're making an ideological choice rather than a sound business one; that's fair enough, of course. But what sacrifices have they made in the name of pursuing that ideology?

 

[Sadist]

Funny, I'd say Nintendo's biggest strength is the fact they have games that can be played by all consumers. Even by the oh so loved 18-35 male demographic. Look at NeoGAF. There are like three threads a day about Nintendo and every single one contain posts about them offering their games on different platforms. Those aren't nine year old kids.

Another problem with third parties as stated by Buddah Beam above me, is they absolutely refuse to make other types of games. This might be a "personal problem" I have with the industry since a few years, but their obsession with catering to the 18-35 male demographic is becoming even more creepier by the day. It's just these cinematic, bombastic types of games that get greenlighted every day. "This will sell, we're sure of it. People will want to play this". Suggesting creating games more akin to Nintendo's style will only get you howls of laughter. "Why would we do that? We'll lose out anyway."

When companies do try something else, you'll see lazy and moreover badly developed games like EA Street Play for Wii, a lot of the casual line from Ubisoft and many others. When those flop out of the gate they get prissy; "but we did everything we could! We researched what people like on Nintendo hardware and went with it. The market just ignored us! Nintendo systems only sell Nintendo software. Stupid cpmpany/drooling fanbase."

Well, this might sound weird, but what about Sega? Of all the third parties out there, Sega is the one with the best ideas regarding software on Nintendo systems. I know right? I'm not talking about Bayo 2, but eversince debuting on Gamecube Sonic has been a very consistant seller on their hardware be it handhelds or consoles. It doesn't sell as well as Mario Galaxy, but games like Sonic & the Secret Rings, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colours sell millions. Even spin-offs like Sonic All Star Racing perform quite well. When Sega announced Sonic Lost World on Wii U, that might have been the best move from a third party on the system yet. Sega knows about the strengths of Nintendo and have been very smart about using Sonic on their systems. Bam! Success.

They also had Super Monkey Ball, but they fudged that up sadly.

So mascott platformers are the answer? No, not really. But Sonic is the type of character and genre that consumers with Nintendo consoles really like. That's why I'm baffled that Capcom never tried to bring back (with a modest budget) a bigger Mega Man adventure or even return with Ghost 'n Goblins. Bandai-Namco has Klonoa for instance. And even Konami never bothered with a more traditional Castlevania title. Those are just a few examples, but I always believed that those kind of titles could really shine on Nintendo systems.

 

[mclem]

(Didn't get to bed.) I would say the networking concern is by far the more important one for indie/small developers.

Look at where indies and small companies have succeeded the most over the last few years: Browser gaming, PCs, iOS, Android. These are in most cases 100% exclusively digital products and archaic networking systems like Nintendo's are going to be a massive problem.

Actually, one thing I'm curious about, given Gunman Clive would usually get waved around now: Did Beril feel he had to actively *pursue* Nintendo to get the game on the service, or was it a fairly simple experience?

I'm wondering if - these days - it's more of a perception issue rather than the actual state of reality,

 

[moolamb]

Sorry I haven't kept up with recent discussion, but I enjoyed the OP, thanks Amirox. It's well argued that Nintendo engineered their own 3rd party problem. But I always feel like people are jumping to over-simplified narratives when summarising Nintendo's history and pointing to its problems today.

In this case, are they where they are now because of killing third party support or in spite of it? If they had allowed free rein and not had as tight a control over profits as they had in the early stages, would they have had the power to remain in business until today?

It feels like people keep forgetting that Nintendo is the only one of the big three consoles that does nothing else but video games. They are where they are today because of their brutal and seemingly selfish business decisions, for better or worse.

Still, it's interesting to see how they drained away third party developers at every era, and almost no surprise why they feel burned now.

 

[wildfire]

Right here you're proving you are not saying what i said, so I don't know what you're going on about.

If you think that PC devs are filled with newbies who never dealt with Nintendo, then you're not going to be convinced of my point. But there are literally endless examples where this is not the case.

The development environment is an incestuous community where employees on both the low and high levels are constantly shuttling between companies. That includes PC devs. So even if a developer IN NAME never dealt with Nintendo, there are almost certainly employees within that company who has. And if you think they don't have an influence on decisions being made, that's of course absurd.

I didn't know not dealing with Nintendo during the NES/SNES years is synonymous with "Never dealt with Nintendo."

Stop revising what people clearly stated to fit your narrative.

As for your elaboration on the point. I and others have already stated old timers exist. Personally speaking I've been saying they don't constitute the majority of the rank and file devs. You could and would be better off arguing management is filled with devs from the NES/SNES era who had to deal with Nintendo at their worse. If the majority of management staff had grown up interacting with Nintendo during N64 and onwards era then I'm implying this level of enmity you are saying they have is overblown.

 

[Raitaro]

Can I turn this on its head?

Game developers do not want to create games for the market Nintendo caters to.

While probably true, statements such as these do make me think that I'm the only 30 something that still likes to play both gritty realistic stuff AND Nintendo's colorful output.

I would have thought and hoped that the Nintendo's games would grow to have the same universal appeal that Pixar's animation output has. While these movies would not get made if kids didn't want to see them, they are still very popular with adults as well and their content and humor reflects that in my opinion.

Why then does it seem that in games land only Nintendo realizes that colorful and cheerful games can appeal to almost all audiences? Or do even they not realize this enough? I.e. should they try to mimic Pixar even more by making their games both colorful AND smart / complex / less "handholdy"? Regardless, what screws them over on the third part front is that the big publishers and developers don't seem to want to follow in the footsteps of Pixar when it comes to colorful design decisions at all (anymore - because they did do this more in the ps1 and 2 era).

Good discussions in this thread by the way!

 

[ymmv]

IThe PS1 sold the way it did not because FMV was flashy, but because Sony made a conscious decision to target older gamers (16-25 or so) that nintendo and Sega had neglected. (note that I'm not saying "American" gamers here.)

The SNES sold about 50 million units. the Genesis sold about 30. The PS1 by itself sold 100 million in addition to the 35 million N64s sold. that's a jump of about 50 million gamers seemingly out of nowhere, and it wasn't "fmv" that brought them in. just different experiences that nintendo wasn't making. People used to grow out of gaming, now that's no longer really true.

This is a very good point. The PS1 and PS2 became runaway successes because adults started buying gaming consoles in great numbers. The interesting thing is that the PS1/2 catered to both families (children) and the new expanded adult audience, whereas the PS3 and 360 targeted primarily adults. You can see that change in the games Sony's main studios made: the PS1 was about platform games with funny cartoon characters, the PS2 signaled a shift when Sony started with games like Jak & Daxter and Sly Racoon but ended that gen with Killzone and God of War. The PS3 was when all of Sony's studios were making "adult" games like Uncharted, inFamous, etc.

In fact, Sony was so focused on that adult audience they neglected casuals and families. The Move controller and Wonderbook were belated attempts to make the PS3 more suitable for a wider audience.

Just about all of today's publishers are only making games for that male 16-35 year old audience. Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Capcom, Konami, Bethesda, Square Enix, etc etc. It's a completely different audience than what Nintendo is going for. This is the main reason why Nintendo consoles are such a bad fit for third party publishers.

Nintendo really hasn't grown up or diversified since the 16 bit era. They're more or less still making spiritual successors to the games they were making twenty years ago, before the PS1 entered the scene. Sony's first party studios dramatically changed course this console generation. Naughty Dog went from making Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter games to Uncharted and The Last of Us. Could you imagine Nintendo doing the same? In fact, they've become even more conservative. Just look at Retro Studios, they went from making first person Metroid games to 2.5D Donkey Kong platform games.

Nintendo's aversion to change will do them in.

 

[Narcosis]

I see alot of people saying that developers only cater to the 18-35 male demographic, thus leading to a lack of content made for Nintendo consoles. I question the truth of that view because I see a shit-ton of software that doesn't fit the 18-35 male gamer range released all the time, but it just happens that those games end up on the much more free and open PC and not on the closed and restricted ecosystems of consoles.

So before everyone immediately assumes the entire industry is avoiding Nintendo consoles because they're not a haven of shooters or whatnot, I think when you see all this content released elsewhere that would seem to fit pretty well on a platform driven by Mario you have to wonder if the infrastructure of the platform holder is preventing those games from coming to their console platform.

When it comes to large budget AAA games (the 18-35 gamer market basically) this is where you see the effect of Sony and Microsoft's aggressive courting and relationship building with third party publishers coming into play. Nintendo never seems as aggressive in this regard as their competition, and coupled with the fact that they now release systems so far behind the tech curve that they force a publisher to choose Nintendo-only or Sony/MS/PC multiplatform release, I'm not shocked at all at the results.

Finally, one more point about Nintendo's struggles: it absolutely astonishes me how inept they are at first party development on WiiU this past year. Given how bare the last 2 or 3 years was on Wii, just what the bloody hell were all their studios doing? I can't imagine the 3DS being THAT resource intensive to drain the output on both the Wii and the WiiU to levels one could only call abysmal. Given how much money they raked in during the Wii boom they surely could have invested in buying or setting up up some new development studios to increase their capability of supporting multiple platforms, but instead it seems they only managed to moneyhat a couple games from a niche developer which are going to tank (and I hope Platinum doesn't eat the losses when 101 and Bayo 2 bomb) and then sit on the rest of their profits without much re-investment into the future.

 

[wildfire]

Because maybe it's not that clear?

Making games is risky business, and you're not going to find very many publishers willing to take a risk on bringing AAA games to Nintendo consoles if Nintendo doesn't do the work to prove that audience is there. It's their platform. It's THEIR responsibility. Nintendo has to lead by example, it's as simple as that.

Funny thing is, the thing that people don't want to admit about the Wii is that it DID get support. It got a shit ton of support. Nintendo lead by example and proved there was a lucrative market for casual, family-friendly, low budget games, and the industry responded by supporting the system with those kinds of games. The Wii got a ton of support in that regard. But people ignore this because when they complain about 3rd parties not supporting Nintendo hardware, what they really mean is why aren't 3rd parties supporting Nintendo hardware with the AAA games I really want to play? The traditional, "hardcore" gaming experiences 3rd parties bring to other platforms, that's what we're REALLY talking about here.

And then my question becomes this: If Nintendo had to lead by example to prove there was a market for family-friendly games not tied to legacy Nintendo IP, why do any of you think they DON'T have to do that to get 3rd parties to risk their AAA, 13-36 male demographic games?

It is true we have been complaining in that matter. I have done as much but I also have complained that 3rd parties didn't address the needs of the expanded audience Nintendo cultivated.

The Wii was selling clearly because of the promise of motion controls and Wii Sports.

Most of their responses to catering to the expanded audience was making clones of Nintendo's biggest sellers that had terrible motion controls and were vastly lacking in depth. It was infuriating watching them squander that opportunity with poor design choices. It didn't help that, aside from EA all of the rest applied marketing techniques designed to attract sophisticated gamers; instead of being more thoughtful with their approach like Nintendo was during the 1st year of the Wii in going after potential customers in venues were you traditionally don't see advertisements for videogames.


Unfortunately it wasn't just the Wii that was given shitty software. I only paid attention to the DS when some news article was pointing out how much money it was making by selling so much hardware. Due to a discussion a couple of weeks ago I started looking at what was selling the most on the DS and it was dominated by Nintendo just as much as the Wii was. I was honestly shocked by that because since the playstation portables sold terribly I always believed Nintendo had the better 3rd party support in the handheld space.

So I check out metacritic and the average scores for 3rd parties on the DS is abysmal compared to the PSP or Vita. It's fucking handhelds. Why were 3rd parties shoveling so much garbage to even the DS?

 

[DragonSworne]

The parallels between NES era Nintendo and Wii era Nintendo are scary.


Nintendo employed most of the same tactics from 2 decades ago to propel the Wii, but consumers, retailers, and developers got fed up with it and handed Nintendo a big plate of crap in response to the Wii U launch.

 

[MrT-Tar]

Given how much money they raked in during the Wii boom they surely could have invested in buying or setting up up some new development studios to increase their capability of supporting multiple platforms, but instead it seems they only managed to moneyhat a couple games from a niche developer which are going to tank (and I hope Platinum doesn't eat the losses when 101 and Bayo 2 bomb) and then sit on the rest of their profits without much re-investment into the future.

Nintendo did expand during the past generation, just not enough.

For example, they outright bought Monolith, expanded Retro (but at the same time lost several key members of staff), you have their new HQ at Kyoto to house more staff, you have the setting up of NERD, you have the whole Project Sora situation. Didn't they also hire the creater of the Mega Drive Sonic games and employ him at NST?

I'm not saying that's enough. If I were Iwata, I would've 'saved' Eurocom and put them under NoE's control, and done a similar thing with Cing (just under NCL, obviously). Maybe Headstrong/Kuju would've made a good second party as well. I just disagree with this narrative that Nintendo just did pretty much nothing this last generation.

 

[Shiggy]

Nintendo did expand during the past generation, just not enough.

For example, they outright bought Monolith, expanded Retro (but at the same time lost several key members of staff), you have their new HQ at Kyoto to house more staff, you have the setting up of NERD, you have the whole Project Sora situation. Didn't they also hire the creater of the Mega Drive Sonic games and employ him at NST?

I'm not saying that's enough. If I were Iwata, I would've 'saved' Eurocom and put them under NoE's control, and done a similar thing with Cing (just under NCL, obviously). Maybe Headstrong/Kuju would've made a good second party as well. I just disagree with this narrative that Nintendo just did pretty much nothing this last generation.

Don't forget that they also killed console development at NST by the way they implemented the "focus on casuals" strategy.

 

[wildfire]

Inventory control and cash flow management are too often overlooked by gamers. Understandably because they don't see the business side. To expand one your point, Nintendo by far had the worst payment terms. Sony DADC and Microsoft+Technicolor allow terms of 30 days or so. After discs are delivered, the publisher has 30 days to pay Sony and MS. Net 30 terms are very common in business to business sales.

Nintendo didn't operate that way. They required a Letter of Credit from the publisher. Nintendo provides a bill of lading (proves shipment) to the publisher's bank and payment is made then. Risk of loss is entirely on the publisher at this point.

When the economic crisis hit in 2008, terms got even worse. Nintendo now required a deposit up front before they'd start manufacturing a single cart. This is devastating to a publisher's cash flow. In a time when outside credit was hard to come by, Nintendo introduced a longer lag time between manufacturing the game and when publishers received cash from retailers.

Nintendo has operated as a monopolist for a long time and believed in high prices and lower quantities. Sony disrupted this model by aggressively introducing royalties on a sliding scale. This allowed games like Katamari Damacy, for example, to debut at a price lower than the standard $49.99. Sony also did a better job pushing the Greatest Hits line to expand game audiences.

Microsoft largely copied Sony's structure, and gave 3rd parties additional revenue streams through digital items (avatars, expansions, DLC) on XB Live.

Nintendo is way behind in embracing alternative game models like F2P, MMO sub, online-only, etc. Their business structure just doesn't facilitate it for 3rd parties because Nintendo 1st party doesn't make those types of games.

Nintendo acts like 3rd parties don't matter. It's no surprise 3rd parties prefer the other two manufacturers.

Now this helps explains the questions I expressed earlier about why publishers were more reluctant about making games on Nintendo's platform in spite of the fact they care about financials more than tech.


Is there any credence that the platform holders historically have a great influence on how games are marketed (outside their digital shops) or is that solely on whoever is in the role of publisher?

Are there any other big differences in financial transactions publishers have to deal with?

I think you could make the argument that Nintendo's fanbase is at the very least particular, such that Nintendo are entrapped by them.

That isn't to say they're bad or more fervent than other fanbases, mind you. But let's consider fans of Microsoft's games: by and large, those fans want them to make games that are quite a bit like everybody else's games. That may sound like a criticism, but it also means that Microsoft's games will be similar to other popular "core" games and subsequently pave the way for those third party games to appear on Microsoft's platform.

Anecdote:Well during the mid 90s to early 00s Microsoft fans wanted more and more simulators.

Microsoft shifting over to more arcadey style games was a frustrating point for certain people.

I've worked in the games industry for over 6 years and I know a bunch of folks from a bunch of different companies that have worked on a variety of projects on every platform (some even with Nintendo) and I'd like to chime in with what I believe is the core issue why many 3rd parties are not terribly interested in working on Nintendo platforms.

Amirox's OP is a good read and he does a fantastic job of summarizing what were the core issues that prevented 3rd parties from working with Nintendo in the past. At the moment however, a huge part of the gaming industry is made up of 20 somethings that obviously only have fond memories of the NES days, and so we must wonder, what's preventing them from hooking up with their favourite company with which they hold so many fond nostalgic memories?

It's simply this:

Nintendo is not producing products that enable game developers to develop the games that they want to create.

We forget that game developers are made up of individual people, and that these individuals have their own passions, interests and life goals. These individuals have their pet projects that they dream about working on. We have to expect that they will push to realize those dreams. The problem for Nintendo is that when I talk to my friends about their passion projects it utterly clashes with what Nintendo is doing on the market right now.

People I talk to are working on projects where concepts like online play, free to play and asymmetrical gameplay are utterly essential to the core concept, and these are all areas that Nintendo products are incredibly weak in. Nintendo is improving in some areas, but their account-system-less eShop is utter garbage compared to the well realized online systems of PSN and Steam, so it is completely understandable to me why online and indie developers I know are focused on those platforms.

Other people I know have spent their lives developing amazing cutting edge technology in graphics and animation and are passionate about creating the most cinematic and awesome experiences possible. This is the "cool factor" that encourages them to get into work every day. This is their life work. On a Nintendo platform, this is not a priority. If you were so passionate about pushing the bar of games technology, why on earth would you want to develop for a Nintendo platform?

I'm sure some will criticize these people for not supporting the Wii and leaving money on the table by developing doomed AAA products or obscure indie titles, but these are these peoples' passions and we have to acknowledge that individuals will pursue their passions and individuals drive a company's agenda.

If Nintendo wants to receive the support of independent 3rd party developers, they have to align their product more towards what 3rd parties are interested in. If Nintendo doesn't want to do that that's fine. They can develop their own games by themselves.

Another great post but as someone hinted at earlier isn't this more the case for indie devs and smaller developers? Don't the majority of devs have little avenues to be creative because of signing up to do a licensed game or must follow the design principles of whatever parent company they belong to like Blizzard, Rockstar or Square Enix?

Funny, I'd say Nintendo's biggest strength is the fact they have games that can be played by all consumers. Even by the oh so loved 18-35 male demographic. Look at NeoGAF. There are like three threads a day about Nintendo and every single one contain posts about them offering their games on different platforms. Those aren't nine year old kids.

When I feel in a reductionist mood I equate this behavior to Nintendo being anime and Sony/MS being Holywood.

No matter how much you try to argue that anime has mature content that can surpass what Hollywood puts out people have their hang ups about anime being nothing but lolis and tentacles and even if they know better still ask the question "why isn't this for kids" indirectly pointing out that it is animated ergo it shouldn't have content that could appeal to them.

But as I said, it's reductionist and a deeply flawed comparison since Nintendo refuses to make first person genres. That said, they have made or published a small amount of games with very mature and sophisticated themes in the last 2 decades.

 

[Snowden's Secret]

Nintendo lead by example and proved there was a lucrative market for casual, family-friendly, low budget games, and the industry responded by supporting the system with those kinds of games.

See, this may be true, but Nintendo also proved there was a market for core titles too, right out the gate. Twilight Princess and Red Steel, the only core launch titles, were both very successful. I think Wii owners were upset with third parties because they never pursued traditional games (which had a proven audience Day 1), but only put out cynical me-too cash in shovelware.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Twilight Princess and Red Steel, the only core launch titles, were both very successful.

Well who wouldn't buy Red Steel with all the crazy shit you can do with the motion controls?

 

[Krabboss]

The idea that people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games is largely because there's nothing else. And Nintendo has played it so lazy and safe with their first party titles that even that isn't a good enough draw anymore.

 

[Interceptor]

You complain about reading the same post 10K times.. well i do the same. I am tired of reading "Nintendo caused every single one of their own problems with third parties" for the 10K time. I agree with you on the N64 and some extend the Gamecube. Their biggest mistake was the "Dream Team" and their arrogance towards Sony and Square. With the Wii and the rest of the cubes era we got a new set of problems. A new generation of developers, the shift to the west and a biased community (of customers and developers alike) who has grown up on "cool and mature" games. They are quick to dismiss Nintendo just because well .."lol Nintendo lolol" It´s hard to argue against that. A new generation of developers will be need who can develop for a market without prejudice. The indies of today. That´s why Nintendo is focusing so hard to establish a good relationship with them. It´s an investment in the future.

 

[wildfire]

The idea that people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games is largely because there's nothing else. And Nintendo has played it so lazy and safe with their first party titles that even that isn't a good enough draw anymore.

As much as they retread old franchises and game concepts, what was lazy and/or safe about Wii Fit, Wii Music, Xenoblade, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Endless Ocean, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Pandora's Tower, Sin and Punishment, and Link's Crossbow Training?

 

[Cygnus X-1]

TLR: 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.

Impressive reading. Well said.

 

[Y2Kev]

Not sure if there was a commercial, but it was in print:



edit: Bigger picture, there's more text on the bottom.

Look at the textures on that mountain. Lol.

 

[Sadist]

Nintendo really hasn't grown up or diversified since the 16 bit era. They're more or less still making spiritual successors to the games they were making twenty years ago, before the PS1 entered the scene. Sony's first party studios dramatically changed course this console generation. Naughty Dog went from making Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter games to Uncharted and The Last of Us. Could you imagine Nintendo doing the same? In fact, they've become even more conservative. Just look at Retro Studios, they went from making first person Metroid games to 2.5D Donkey Kong platform games.

Nintendo's aversion to change will do them in.

I’d say everyone is conservative with a few exceptions here and there. A lot of people point towards Naughty Dog as the poster child of change and growing up, but honestly they’re one of the few. Polyphony Digital is “just” the Gran Turismo factory. Insomniac still makes the same type of games if there’s not some focus group involved. Santa Monica more or less makes the same games and so on. Everybody talks about change and diversification with Nintendo being everything but that and they should take a better look at the industry at large. But that’s the point, that wouldn’t be Nintendo. They would fall in line with the wishes of a small group of enthusiasts who think their views could be the one solving their problems. The thing is it’s not the games.

But as I said, it's reductionist and a deeply flawed comparison since Nintendo refuses to make first person genres. That said, they have made or published a small amount of games with very mature and sophisticated themes in the last 2 decades.

The refusal to make first person games is not the problem which Nintendo fights here. It’s only a view of people on messageboards and maybe some industry insiders looking for (bad) explanations. If there would be such a problem, why do games like Mario Kart or New Super Mario Bros. always find a very sizable audience? And no, it’s not just kids, women or elderly.

 

[Gucci Messiah]

The idea that people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games is largely because there's nothing else. And Nintendo has played it so lazy and safe with their first party titles that even that isn't a good enough draw anymore.

People buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games because that's the only place they can play them. Say what you will about the hardware, their software is consistently some of the best stuff being put out there in the industry today.

 

[Interceptor]

TLR: 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.

Pretty good analysis. This man understands Nintendo.

 

[Pociask]

Solid gold

This wholw thread has been awesome. Posting from my phone, so a couple brief thoughts:

Sony and MS. Have made themselves the home of big budget games. Tiny indies are on mobile, social, or pC. Mid tier has found a nice home on portables. What's left for Wii U?

To the poster saying devs haven't studied why N suceeds, maube they have? Nintendo releases great games, but I can't think of any risky new titles they've made that didn't have a major franchise attached to it. And it has to be major - Smooth Moves was by all accounts a good game, but how did it sell? And how did third parties do that released Nintendo like games? A Boy and his Blob, e.g.

 

[royalan]

People buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games because that's the only place they can play them. Say what you will about the hardware, their software is consistently some of the best stuff being put out there in the industry today.

I think this is wrong.

People buy ANY console for a well-rounded lineup of games and the excitement factor.

Without the excitement factor similar to the Wii's motion controls, the Wii U looks to be returning to the trend Nintendo faced with the N64 and Gamecube -- diminishing 3rd party support, sales, and market relevance, despite providing some of their BEST titles to those systems.

I think the lesson we're going to take from the Wii U is that no one developer is an island. This includes Nintendo.

 

[Game Guru]

Nintendo's aversion to change will do them in.

Or keep them alive during the upcoming contraction of the video game console industry due to them catering to different tastes than the other two. We assume Wii U is having a problem in appealing to people when it could be just as likely that the entire console industry is having this problem. 3DS, while successful, is not near the success of the DS. Both Vita and Wii U are not even successes at this point. So far, every system released has not been as much of a success as its predessessor was. As for future systems, Microsoft has likely hurt their very brand with the Xbox One because of their attempt with always online DRM. Xbox One is stuck with a higher price point due to including Kinect, which is a device that has limited appeal outside of the casual market which admittingly may not return. PS4 hasn't had any major mistake, but the signs are clear. Even if the PS4 is a success compared to the PS3, it will likely be off the failure of the Xbox One in retaining the audience they gained with the 360, and without the casual market from the Wii and DS, the video game console industry is going to face a contraction period.

I really cannot see anything else but a contraction happening to the console industry... Sure, video games as a whole will continue to be a success, but it will be on the back of games on Browsers, PC, iOS, and Android which have inexpensive games that appeal to a broad market, not on consoles or dedicated handhelds.

 

[royalan]

Or keep them alive during the upcoming contraction of the video game console industry due to them catering to different tastes than the other two. We assume Wii U is having a problem in appealing to people when it could be just as likely that the entire console industry is having this problem. 3DS, while successful, is not near the success of the DS. Both Vita and Wii U are not even successes at this point. So far, every system released has not been as much of a success as its predessessor was. As for future systems, Microsoft has likely hurt their very brand with the Xbox One because of their attempt with always online DRM. Xbox One is stuck with a higher price point due to including Kinect, which is a device that has limited appeal outside of the casual market which admittingly may not return. PS4 hasn't had any major mistake, but the signs are clear. Even if the PS4 is a success compared to the PS3, it will likely be off the failure of the Xbox One in retaining the audience they gained with the 360, and without the casual market from the Wii and DS, the video game console industry is going to face a contraction period.

I really cannot see anything else but a contraction happening to the console industry... Sure, video games as a whole will continue to be a success, but it will be on the back of games on Browsers, PC, iOS, and Android which have inexpensive games that appeal to a broad market, not on consoles or dedicated handhelds.

If there's a contraction in the console industry, wouldn't it be fair to say that it would likely be due to Nintendo not being able to capture the casual market as they did with the Wii?

I suppose what I'm saying is that I agree that contraction is likely, but I'm doubtful that it will have the industry-wide effect people claim.

 

[RedSwirl]

I've worked in the games industry for over 6 years and I know a bunch of folks from a bunch of different companies that have worked on a variety of projects on every platform (some even with Nintendo) and I'd like to chime in with what I believe is the core issue why many 3rd parties are not terribly interested in working on Nintendo platforms.

Amirox's OP is a good read and he does a fantastic job of summarizing what were the core issues that prevented 3rd parties from working with Nintendo in the past. At the moment however, a huge part of the gaming industry is made up of 20 somethings that obviously only have fond memories of the NES days, and so we must wonder, what's preventing them from hooking up with their favourite company with which they hold so many fond nostalgic memories?

It's simply this:

Nintendo is not producing products that enable game developers to develop the games that they want to create.

We forget that game developers are made up of individual people, and that these individuals have their own passions, interests and life goals. These individuals have their pet projects that they dream about working on. We have to expect that they will push to realize those dreams. The problem for Nintendo is that when I talk to my friends about their passion projects it utterly clashes with what Nintendo is doing on the market right now.

People I talk to are working on projects where concepts like online play, free to play and asymmetrical gameplay are utterly essential to the core concept, and these are all areas that Nintendo products are incredibly weak in. Nintendo is improving in some areas, but their account-system-less eShop is utter garbage compared to the well realized online systems of PSN and Steam, so it is completely understandable to me why online and indie developers I know are focused on those platforms.

Other people I know have spent their lives developing amazing cutting edge technology in graphics and animation and are passionate about creating the most cinematic and awesome experiences possible. This is the "cool factor" that encourages them to get into work every day. This is their life work. On a Nintendo platform, this is not a priority. If you were so passionate about pushing the bar of games technology, why on earth would you want to develop for a Nintendo platform?

I'm sure some will criticize these people for not supporting the Wii and leaving money on the table by developing doomed AAA products or obscure indie titles, but these are these peoples' passions and we have to acknowledge that individuals will pursue their passions and individuals drive a company's agenda.

If Nintendo wants to receive the support of independent 3rd party developers, they have to align their product more towards what 3rd parties are interested in. If Nintendo doesn't want to do that that's fine. They can develop their own games by themselves.

Exactly. This is probably the reason so many third parties basically ignored the Wii.

The challenge Nintendo faces is basically finding new third parties to support them. Their machines these days seem to be a better fit for the lower-end game studios.

 

[Game Guru]

If there's a contraction in the console industry, wouldn't it be fair to say that it would likely be due to Nintendo not being able to capture the casual market as they did with the Wii?

I suppose what I'm saying is that I agree that contraction is likely, but I doubtful that it will have the industry-wide affect people claim.

Not necessarily... the PS3, as well as PS1 and PS2 had some sales due to their multimedia functions... Both PS2 and PS3 were the cheapest DVD and Blu-Ray player respectfully at their launch. With the move to digital, there is no multimedia format to push. PS3 can play DVDs, Blu-Rays, and downloaded files just as well as the PS4 could. In addition, much of the success Microsoft had with the 360 was due to Sony's early mistakes with the PS3 and Microsoft's later success with Kinect. Right now, it is Microsoft who is making the early mistakes and Kinect appeals to the casuals in the same way the Wii did... If Nintendo isn't capturing the Wii's casual market with the Wii U, then isn't it just as likely that Microsoft won't capture the 360's Kinect market with the Xbox One's Kinect market?

One must also remember that both Sony and Microsoft cater to the 18-35 males. That's an established fact. However, 18-35 year olds are also the one demographic hit hardest by the recession. No one is hiring new people and are retaining their old people, leaving the new people struggling to buy anything, let alone a device like a game console. This is not the boom era of 2006 here... this is the bust era of 2013, and given that, that is likely to slow adoption of consoles among a very key demographic.