TunaLover said:
It´s really stupid from Nintendo side launch a system that only can match current generation, thinking in getting current gen ports is short sighted, I wonder they didn´t think that PS4/720 are around the corner.
Why didn´t they consider next generation ports?
There's a few possible reasons
A) Shit's expensive. They didn't want to release a $500+ system or take a massive loss on a $500+ system. Loss leader only works if you're the leader. If you're not the leader, you're kind of fucked.
B) Shit's expensive
part II. Assuming the 720 and the PS4 are the graphical monsters they're rumored to be, the catfight between EA and Activision to see who can make the most expensive games bulges out to push everyone else out of the room. The Wii was partly Nintendo's weird attempt at helping third parties by offering a cheap, familiar place to make the same games they have been so game budgets did not balloon - or at least so there was a safe-haven from ballooning. Companies like THQ may not last the next calendar year at the rate they've been going and it's because the only games that really succeed anymore are either once-in-a-blue-moon niche titles with rabid fanbases and super-high budget games with marketing budgets that double the game development cost. So in Nintendo's mind, giving the developers the tools to make the games they've been making but without the need to got to 80 million+ development budgets.
But it's a vicious cycle, because the developers want to play that game because they think their game is going to make it. THQ genuinely assumed Homefront would be a massive success on the scale of Call of Duty or Battlefield instead of a moderate one. It wasn't. So publishers are going to want to keep making high-budget, high-marketed
swill games on the off-chance that it will be the next big thing. Therein lies Nintendo's problem. You can't convince someone hooked on cocaine to spend way less on alcohol.
3) Shit's expensive
part III. Nintendo themselves probably does not want to be developing super high budget games. The gap between PS4 development and Wii development is likely shockingly huge. When a Mario Kart game costs them $65 million to make, then it no longer has the same margins they want. Add in the fact that it does not look like the problems with the dollar and the euro will be fixed in the next four years and shit is expensive.
4) They probably didn't know where MS and Sony were going. If you asked me a year ago if they were going to pull the same "massive graphics bump" that they're apparently doing, I would have said you were crazy. But here we are.
5) The Gamecube, if nothing else, has proven that developers may port to Nintendo systems but they don't have to like it. One of my favorite stories back in the day was when I talked to the guy who ported Sands of Time to Gamecube. Yes, the
guy. Ubisoft had one person port the entire game to the GC because they didn't want to dedicate a team to it. I see no reason the degree of quality for those ports will have changed.
6) Nintendo can be overly frugal at times.