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[poppabk]

Completely ignoring that Steam's player counts are miniscule in comparison to LIVE and PSN, can the DS even run any of the top 20 games (other than Monkey Island?) in a way that would draw these players away from their existing multiplayer experiences?
Battlefield 1943 has done well in its first week, but it will never reach the sales of BF2: Modern Combat or Bad Company on 360, PS3, or PC, nor could it have expected to find an audience at all if it had released at retail for $60 as the newer games in the series had.

You can't have both I'm afraid - the 5th place game on the steam list has ~20,000 concurrent players so for steam to be even smaller than Live the 5th most played game(played anytime in that week), battlefield 1943, would have at least 10 times more than the 20,000 (concurrent) figure. Which would put battlefield 1943 at a minimum of 200,000 (easily supported by leaderboards as well I believe) not far from the 350k that bad company sold in its first npd. And Battlefield company doesn't have to sell at the $60 price point of the newer sequels because it doesn't/didn't have the budget that those titles require.

That is the question being asked - could Valve have released an exclusive version of Counterstrike and Day of Defeat on ANY system, and expect the majority of the fanbase to migrate over from what they had already played, and wholeheartedly accept the new system, as Dragon Quest fans have done?

My argument was that if the DS was that system, the answer is no. A resounding no.

This is where I agree, the DS would never have garnered those gamers because they already had games that were superior in everyway, and the lure of a new storyline would not have been sufficient to overcome the massive difference between playing on a console and playing on a handheld.

The longevity of the original Half Life/Counterstrike and last-gen Halo are commendable, but they couldn't hope to be full priced retail products NOW and compete with current gen games. Halo 2 was the most fully featured FPS on 360 until Halo 3 was released. The matchmaking and stat progression in Gears, Rainbow Six, and COD3 is a joke in comparison.

They wouldn't have to be full priced now to make a profit. I would argue that Halo3 made on the Halo2 engine with new story and new multiplayer maps and the odd new multiplayer mode - at the $50 pricepoint - would have sold just as much as the actual Halo3 sold.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

^^^Except this isn't a philosophy this is business, and in business if you want to expand you do so by almost any means necessary.

First off the PS3's losses were not in any way, shape, or form were to gain marketshare in the gaming industry but more so the home video (which is far bigger than gaming). Second off sacrificing profits for market share has been SONY's and Microsoft's (especially) bread and butter in business for years (Windows didn't report profit for the longest time for example). Is it the ONLY way to go? Certainly not, but it IS an alternative.

That saying please don't get my words twisted I'm not saying that Nintendo should bleed billions in order to focus on a long term goal, but what I am saying is that they should at least flock over a fair share amount of cash to get things rolling.

This is how the 360 came to be the traditional gamer haven as Microsoft cut deals with companies such as Capcom to get things rolling. Did they take it too far? Most definitely. However did it work? Yes. Are there more cost efficient concentrated ways of doing what they did? Yes.

To stop beating around the bush comparing the 360 and the Wii will likely get us running around in circles. Nintendo is far too conservative with third parties as they often are too little too late (late especially) with their offerings. It doesn't matter if your system has an exclusive Grand Theft Auto or Resident Evil, it's 3 years since its launch and those who were interested in those games in the first place have purchased competing platforms that offer games such as those on a regular basis. With the 360 Microsoft does succeed but ends up wasting millions on making deals for games they don't really need. I could give examples but I think most know what games I'm talking about.

What I think Nintendo should do is try to find a way to get games with significants on their platform within a 18 months of the platforms launch. If Wii 2 launches two years from now and during it's first year and a half comes many games as relevant as Lost Planet and Dead Rising were for the 360 as well as working on getting as many people on board with multiplats I think it's safe to say that the platform won't have any trouble in garnering traditional third party support.

As for is profit worth sacrificing for market share? Of course it is. That's business 101. This is rapid growing industry and all the companies want as much of that as possible. And the safest way of going toward that goal is achieving marketshare since when someone has their finger wrapped around a demographic its tough for someone else to overcome it.

Now people often point to SONY as a posterchild of why this isn't worth it. The PS3 alone has put the entire Playstation project in the red. Yet this is irrelevant. The PS3's misfortunes were guided by SONY's arrogance and that alone. Prior to the few months before the console's launch the system was the industry's star-child as it garnered an enormous amount of support both mutiplatform and exclusively. It wasn't until the reveal of the $600 price tag that things started to go down hill. Come to think of it the fact that the system is still in the game with such an insane price tag (the price it currently has is still high) proves my point.

So let's change the subject of a company that didn't get blinded by arrogance when using this philosophy. Microsoft spend billions on trying to get everyone on board with Windows while Apple solely focused on profit. Now that the computer industry is so developed who seems to have had the last laugh as they now own a near monopoly on the OS industry?

I'm not saying that Nintendo should throw money around like crazy, but I am saying is that they should throw enough around to main growth and capture as many markets as possible to secure themselves as #1.

 

[Oblivion]

Regarding the issue of it being Nintendo's responsibility to attract third parties:

I have to say, I'm pretty curious what exactly some of you think that they should have done. Co-fund the development of third party titles? Relieve some of the costs in marketing? Take the CEOs out to a romantic dinner? I think there's this misconception that Nintendo willingly tells third parties to fuck off, and that they don't need them or whatever. I certainly don't think this is the case. Sure, maybe under Yamauchi, things might have been like that, but not under Iwata. The higher ups at Nintendo definitely want help and support, but the thing most people don't seem to realize is that although Nintendo may be as rich as Nazis, they still only have a limited amount of funds. Sure, they could probably moneyhat like crazy, but that won't guarantee that other third parties will start pouring over. That's why Nintendo probably feels it would be better to fund their own in-house projects.

 

[Beer Monkey]

First off the PS3's losses were not in any way, shape, or form were to gain marketshare in the gaming industry but more so the home video (which is far bigger than gaming).

It's far bigger but the size of the licensing fees are far smaller.

 

[Saint10118]

Sorry if old didn't see it posted:

jvm via Gamasutra

Exclusive: U.S. Year-To-Date Console Top 5s Reveal 2009's Victors So Far

No hard numbers but there are some estimates at the link of interest:
Killzone 2 - est. 750k
MLB 09 - est. 425k+
SFIV(360) - est. 500-700k (collectors editions excluded)
LEGO Star Wars - est. 400k+

 

[Kilrogg]

Regarding the issue of it being Nintendo's responsibility to attract third parties:

I have to say, I'm pretty curious what exactly some of you think that they should have done. Co-fund the development of third party titles? Relieve some of the costs in marketing? Take the CEOs out to a romantic dinner? I think there's this misconception that Nintendo willingly tells third parties to fuck off, and that they don't need them or whatever. I certainly don't think this is the case. Sure, maybe under Yamauchi, things might have been like that, but not under Iwata. The higher ups at Nintendo definitely want help and support, but the thing most people don't seem to realize is that although Nintendo may be as rich as Nazis, they still only have a limited amount of funds. Sure, they could probably moneyhat like crazy, but that won't guarantee that other third parties will start pouring over. That's why Nintendo probably feels it would be better to fund their own in-house projects.

That, and most importantly, as soon as they begin to moneyhat/help 3rd parties too much, it becomes a battle of resources. Nintendo knows it can't win against Microsoft. I believe it could against Sony given today's context, but definitely not against Microsoft.

Which isn't to say that Nintendo couldn't be just a liiiittle more willing to help 3rd parties, but I think they're right not to rely on this too much.

 

[Spiegel]

Regarding the issue of it being Nintendo's responsibility to attract third parties:

I have to say, I'm pretty curious what exactly some of you think that they should have done. Co-fund the development of third party titles? Relieve some of the costs in marketing? Take the CEOs out to a romantic dinner? I think there's this misconception that Nintendo willingly tells third parties to fuck off, and that they don't need them or whatever. I certainly don't think this is the case. Sure, maybe under Yamauchi, things might have been like that, but not under Iwata. The higher ups at Nintendo definitely want help and support, but the thing most people don't seem to realize is that although Nintendo may be as rich as Nazis, they still only have a limited amount of funds. Sure, they could probably moneyhat like crazy, but that won't guarantee that other third parties will start pouring over. That's why Nintendo probably feels it would be better to fund their own in-house projects.

I don't know.
Look at what Sony has done for the psp.

If Sony can get the third parties on board with an underperforming console, Nintendo should try doing the same.

It should be easier.

 

[Version 3.0]

I think there's this misconception that Nintendo willingly tells third parties to fuck off, and that they don't need them or whatever.

I don't think Nintendo has told anyone to "fuck off", but I think it's pretty clear that Nintendo does not cultivate good relationships with 3rd parties like, say, Microsoft does. Try to imagine Nintendo getting input from publishers before designing their hardware, for example.

I think there's a lot of truth to the "misconception" that Nintendo treats 3rd parties rather poorly. And they do seem to prefer having systems where they reap the lion's share of the software sales.

 

[charlequin]

But the latest iterations of Dragon Quest has been really slow.

DQ VII (PSX, 2000) ---> DQ VIII (PS2, 2004) -----> DQ IX (DS, 2009)

But that's not the right way to look at it. Dragon Quest 8 was announced in November 2002 and came out two years later; Dragon Quest 9 was announced in December 2006 and released two and a half years later. The 2009 announcement for DQ10 suggests that it's already in pre-production, which should mean (barring unintended delays) that it's expected to release 2011-2012.

Offer up a better alternative on a platform that isn't a handheld.

I was originally going to say "this is like claiming the Xbox 1 is the best JRPG system and offering as an argument 'name a better alternative that isn't a Japanese system,'" but then I realized that your statement is also not true because to date the 360 has a noticeably better RPG lineup.

You can't put the majority share of the blame on N for it.

"Majority" is an irrelevant term. Third-parties bear a huge responsibility for their own inability to take advantage of the Wii's install base (and the negative effect it's had on sustainability for niche development); Nintendo bears a huge responsibility for doing nothing to draw third parties onto their system and thereby sell more consoles. Both parties are worse off economically than they would be if either one had made a serious effort to remedy the situation; each of them bears full responsibility for the negative impact on their own economic situation.

Oh, he can and he will. That's what he takes pleasure in doing.

lolz I have a reputation

I don't really take pleasure at all in blaming Nintendo, since the actual results of that (fewer third-party games of decent quality released for Wii) are a bad thing for me, an early strong supporter of Nintendo's Wii strategy and an insanely devoted fan of the DS. But I'm not going to hold back criticism of a shitty strategy just because I saw the potential in it upfront or just because I like other things the same company has done.

I do take pleasure in the thought of making blind fans feel bad about thoughtlessly cheerleading a hardware company's every move (positive or negative), though. If everyone could start to accept the degee to which Nintendo's own actions have contributed to the drought of third-party options I wouldn't have to have this retarded argument with you people every month.

However, I'm not trying to argue that Nintendo's strategy is perfect, but just that it has rationale behind it.

Everyone's strategy has a rationale behind it. Sony's rationale was "gamers love to pay for potential and get advanced technology at a high but good-value price, so a $600 Playstation will sell well" -- yet that rationale was completely idiotic and it cost them in the marketplace.

But this is also true of Nintendo - they have always had the resources and skill to make Halo, but never the motivation to do so

Sure, but that's misdirecting the point. It's mostly the confusing and zealous Nintendo fans who actually wanted Nintendo to make a successful Halo killer. I would never advocate that -- but there's a huge gap between "go after Microsoft's #1 core competency" (a bad idea) and "don't ignore the huge spectrum of existing gamers who aren't either Halo lovers or already fans of Nintendo's limited palette of existing core IPs." Nintendo was never going to have many of the specific franchises and genres that MS and Sony have now, but there are many individual battlefields that they could easily have contested with a different development strategy, but which now are basically unassailable.

Perhaps their strategy regarding third-parties will have a long-term benefit that we are yet to see.

Magical thinking. What benefit is not having any third-party support going to bring about down the line? We already know that Nintendo doesn't need the money in order to fund some other line of development; they are cash-rich and could easily support vigorous internal R&D and courting third-parties.

And I would argue that to recapture upmarket customers does not mean to recapture the 18-35 male market, for example.

Sure. There's a broadly defined market that is mostly 18-35 males, and mostly interested in a stereotypical set of game experiences (e.g. Halo and pals) that Nintendo can't compete for. But that statistic obscures the truth of the market: there are also tons of people who mostly play RPGs, or who love platformers and lightweight simulation games, or who play fighters and racing games but never touch shooters. All of these people together make up a huge part of the old console market, even if the FPS crowd is bigger taken alone. A focus on Halo/Gears/Killzone/Resistance ad nauseam represented an opportunity to peel off some of these sub-demographics as dedicated Wii owners which Nintendo did not take.

However, you seem to be saying that the mistakes they have been made are without reason, and I don't see why this is true.

My argument is that they are the result of bad reasoning; i.e., mistakes made on the back of a key mistaken assumption ("Our Wii * brand will be so powerful that we can rely on that to drive hardware and software sales throughout the generation.") Essentially my claim is that the strategy which won the day on the DS needed additional tuning for the Wii and didn't get enough of it; thus the situation where the Wii took off like a rocket but seems, in terms of continued forward momentum, to be somewhat out of gas.

 

[Opiate]

I don't know.
Look at what Sony has done for the psp.

If Sony can get the third parties on board with an underperforming console, Nintendo should try doing the same.

It should be easier.

Yeah, it's really hard to know any of this because it all goes on behind the scenes.

It's not apparent to us what Sony and Nintendo are doing to attract third parties, but whatever it is, it's clear that Sony is doing it right, and Nintendo isn't.

 

[Oblivion]

I don't know.
Look at what Sony has done for the psp.

If Sony can get the third parties on board with an underperforming console, Nintendo should try doing the same.

It should be easier.

What has Sony done with the PSP? I know it's selling better, and it's getting more games, but how much of that could be attributed to Sony?

 

[Parham]

Sorry if old didn't see it posted:

jvm via Gamasutra

[Charts]

Capcom and Nintendo seem to be the biggest winners during the first half of the year. Also, based on the numbers for SFIV, Halo Wars has probably sold somewhere around 1 million.

 

[Kilrogg]

Sure. There's a broadly defined market that is mostly 18-35 males, and mostly interested in a stereotypical set of game experiences (e.g. Halo and pals) that Nintendo can't compete for. But that statistic obscures the truth of the market: there are also tons of people who mostly play RPGs, or who love platformers and lightweight simulation games, or who play fighters and racing games but never touch shooters. All of these people together make up a huge part of the old console market, even if the FPS crowd is bigger taken alone. A focus on Halo/Gears/Killzone/Resistance ad nauseam represented an opportunity to peel off some of these sub-demographics as dedicated Wii owners which Nintendo did not take.

This is a good point. Right now, the Wii seems better suited for genres that didn't exist up until now or weren't clearly dominated by one or two companies. Gor me, the strangest thing that has happened is the nearly sudden revival of the lightgun genre. It was dead! Not niche, not under-representend, just dead. Well, okay, there was Time Crisis on the PS3, a shit iteration of a once reverred game. And yet for some reason we see all those lightgun games on the Wii. Sure, the controller lends itself well to the genre, but I find the whole thing weird regardless.

 

[Opiate]

What has Sony done with the PSP? I know it's selling better, and it's getting more games, but how much of that could be attributed to Sony?

That's the thing, though. It's not selling better in the west, and yet it got games like a dedicated Resident Evil, an exclusive Rock Band, the next Metal Gear Solid and a very good looking Assassin's Creed, which are primarily Western properties.

Looking purely at the west, it's a system that's had a consistently downward trajectory that has been trounced and thoroughly dominated by the DS, but is still managing to get significant support.

Heck, with a mainline Metal Gear and major Resident Evil, one could reasonably argue that the PSP has more big Western-focused third party games coming than the Wii does, despite the fact that the Wii seems to have sold upwards of 5x as much software in the US this year.

How the heck is that possible? I don't know, but Nintendo messed up big.

 

[Basileus777]

What has Sony done with the PSP? I know it's selling better, and it's getting more games, but how much of that could be attributed to Sony?

They've gotten a bunch of publishers to announce games for a system (outside of Japan) that is dying and can't sell software.

 

[Spiegel]

What has Sony done with the PSP? I know it's selling better, and it's getting more games, but how much of that could be attributed to Sony?

Five months old interview:

IGN: We talked a lot last time about the hardware road show, trying to get people excited about the PSP again. Are these things you went into those meetings with and said "Hey, you know what, this can't go out obviously, but Rock Band's coming from EA, you're going to have Assassin's Creed from Ubi." Is that stuff what came out of those meetings or came into those meetings?

John Koller: I'll tell you the real background on those meetings because it's pretty interesting. There were several publishers -- I won't name them -- but there were several publishers who had said that they were considering walking away from the platform entirely. This was about 16 months ago. We saw that as a particular issue because they were making decisions from a time -- year and a half, two years ago -- when the hardware hadn't sold quite as well. The hardware picked up rapidly in the latter half of 2007 when we launched the PSP-2000. So those publishers who had titles available at that point were really capturing share. You look at titles on the third-party side that we pointed to a lot were Transformers and Iron Man. Two titles that were tied in with very strong brands and sold very, very well. We used those titles and some others as examples to publishers -- "Look what can be done when you utilize a strong franchise and utilize it in a way that's not a port." We also, obviously, had a great proof point in God of War from a first-party perspective. As we went into the meetings with these publishers, every single one of them said "We've seen the hardware sales; tell us what we need to do. Where do we need to fix our business model to make it work on PSP?"

And so what we did was we had basically a recipe for success and we went literally bullet by bullet of what we recommended that they do. In some cases we went in and we said "We think you should go in this direction with this particular franchise as a recommendation" and in others we just left it open and said "Look at each of your key franchises and see what makes the most sense." The results are what you heard yesterday -- although there are more, as I mentioned -- and there are more in 2010 as well. There are some titles -- we're still meeting with these publishers about opportunities and ways to make there business model adapt to the PSP consumer. There are a lot of publishers that are involved this year that are also layering on really tremendous games in 2010 as well, which we're aware of. We label those meetings as a success.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/958/958154p2.html

 

[gerg]

^^^Except this isn't a philosophy this is business, and in business if you want to expand you do so by almost any means necessary.

Except Sony wanted to expand, and yet it has unsuccessfully sunk billions of dollars trying to do so.

First off the PS3's losses were not in any way, shape, or form were to gain marketshare in the gaming industry but more so the home video (which is far bigger than gaming).

It doesn't matter what industry this is - the principle remains the same.

Sony's recent business shows that sacrificing profit for marketshare is not the best thing to do intrinsically.

Second off sacrificing profits for market share has been SONY's and Microsoft's (especially) bread and butter in business for years (Windows didn't report profit for the longest time for example). Is it the ONLY way to go? Certainly not, but it IS an alternative.

That saying please don't get my words twisted I'm not saying that Nintendo should bleed billions in order to focus on a long term goal, but what I am saying is that they should at least flock over a fair share amount of cash to get things rolling.

This is how the 360 came to be the traditional gamer haven as Microsoft cut deals with companies such as Capcom to get things rolling. Did they take it too far? Most definitely. However did it work? Yes. Are there more cost efficient concentrated ways of doing what they did? Yes.

It seems to me that your argument relies on building third-party relationships being an intrinsically, undoubtedly good thing.

To stop beating around the bush comparing the 360 and the Wii will likely get us running around in circles. Nintendo is far too conservative with third parties as they often are too little too late (late especially) with their offerings. It doesn't matter if your system has an exclusive Grand Theft Auto or Resident Evil, it's 3 years since its launch and those who were interested in those games in the first place have purchased competing platforms that offer games such as those on a regular basis. With the 360 Microsoft does succeed but ends up wasting millions on making deals for games they don't really need. I could give examples but I think most know what games I'm talking about.

Except you're looking at this through the perspective that building third-party relationships is good intrinsically. To say that Nintendo is conservative because it does not do so is to criticise them for doing something that you feel they have a duty, almost, to fulfill - that they are not doing something which you think they should.

What I am saying is that view only works on the condition that you think that one should prioritise and prefer marketshare over profits. I am challenging you to consider this action through another perspective, whereby you prioritise profits over marketshare. From this perspective it is entirely reasonable that it is not intrinsically good that one builds third-party relationships, and therefore one cannot criticise Nintendo for not pursuing them (unless this, in fact, turns out to impede their profit-making abilities).

I am not saying that it is right to prioritise profits over marketshare (although inevitably, one will have to choose one over the other). Rather, I am arguing that one cannot criticise Nintendo's goals unless one proves that, without a doubt, marketshare is more preferable than profit.

What I think Nintendo should do is try to find a way to get games with significants on their platform within a 18 months of the platforms launch. If Wii 2 launches two years from now and during it's first year and a half comes many games as relevant as Lost Planet and Dead Rising were for the 360 as well as working on getting as many people on board with multiplats I think it's safe to say that the platform won't have any trouble in garnering traditional third party support.

Everyone is looking at this through the best case scenario, where Nintendo gets these games on the Wii, and suddenly a healthy 18-35 male market grows and is sustained by external developers and publishers, who are making lots of money. But what if this didn't work? What if Nintendo sunk millions and billions of dollars into games, that, actually, didn't convince consumers to choose a Wii over a 360? Would Nintendo have been right to pursue this action then?

I would argue that, if we view this through the perspective of "profit is best" (as Nintendo seemingly does), this would not have been the best route of action. Why? Because one would have risked millions of dollars needlessly. Why spend money assuring something that is going to happen anyway? Why spend money getting consumers to value motion controls now when they eventually will in the future?

Please note that I'm not saying that Nintendo was right completely to refuse the olive branch to third parties. Perhaps it would have turned out that they would have gained lots of money, so by not pursuing this option they in fact are impeding their profit-making capabilities. All in all, I don't know, and probably never will. Ultimately, all I want to suggest is that to Nintendo, at least, what they did made sense. And to suggest that it didn't requires one to argue that one should prefer X over Y, which I would argue is nigh-on impossible.

As for is profit worth sacrificing for market share? Of course it is. That's business 101. This is rapid growing industry and all the companies want as much of that as possible. And the safest way of going toward that goal is achieving marketshare since when someone has their finger wrapped around a demographic its tough for someone else to overcome it.

So you're essentially saying that Nintendo's business is, what, bad business?

Now people often point to SONY as a posterchild of why this isn't worth it. The PS3 alone has put the entire Playstation project in the red. Yet this is irrelevant. The PS3's misfortunes were guided by SONY's arrogance and that alone.

Except to me, this begs the question. Why was Sony arrogant? Because they believed that consumers valued technology. As a result, they designed a console that would contain lots of technology but be very expensive and would lose them money. Why were they willing to do such a thing? Because they believed that sacrificing profits to marketshare was undeniably a good thing.

Unlike Nintendo, it is easier to say that Sony did the wrong thing because we can see more easily how their actions have affected their intended goals. However, like Nintendo, I would argue that to them their actions made sense.

So let's change the subject of a company that didn't get blinded by arrogance when using this philosophy. Microsoft spend billions on trying to get everyone on board with Windows while Apple solely focused on profit. Now that the computer industry is so developed who seems to have had the last laugh as they now own a near monopoly on the OS industry?

You don't think that Microsoft wants to be making as much money as Apple?

(In all honesty, I know very little about the computing industry, so I can't debate much about it.)

I'm not saying that Nintendo should throw money around like crazy, but I am saying is that they should throw enough around to main growth and capture as many markets as possible to secure themselves as #1.

What you're saying is that Nintendo should evaluate risk and make rational business decisions. I agree.

However, how you evaluate something and how you rationalise a business decision relates entirely to what your priorities are. You're essentially arguing that Nintendo should not prioritise profits over marketshare, and I'm asking, "why?" Why is prioritising marketshare over profits intrinsically, indubitably, good?

 

[Opiate]

Wow, interesting read, Spiegel. Thanks.

 

[Asmodai]

I was wondering if any of you knowledgeable in the ways of Sales Age knew how well Battlestations Pacific is selling? (or not well, I would guess).

I ask because it looks like an interesting tactical game, but it still retails for 60 bucks here (little steep for purchase).

 

[ViperVisor]

"Majority" is an irrelevant term. Third-parties bear a huge responsibility for their own inability to take advantage of the Wii's install base (and the negative effect it's had on sustainability for niche development); Nintendo bears a huge responsibility for doing nothing to draw third parties onto their system and thereby sell more consoles. Both parties are worse off economically than they would be if either one had made a serious effort to remedy the situation; each of them bears full responsibility for the negative impact on their own economic situation.

Nintendo's loss in the short term is not huge. But 3rd parties could be made or saved with Wii.

Games that sell consoles are good for Nintendo. But the vast majority of that games sales are to existing Wii owners. That is a game sold that wasn't a Nintendo game. Holiday 08 has been pointed to as weak citing Wii Music and AC:CF. But they have made $100 mill with those games.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Basically, go to publishers; tell them "We want your big teams". Co-market. Drop, lower, waive, or otherwise make a deal on publication fees. Give dev kits. Give programming support. Secure exclusivity. Do exactly what the other guys are doing to attract support.

Consult when you're making new hardware to find out what developers want instead of coming up with hardware in a vacuum and then delivering it to developers. Build or acquire middleware. Encourage middleware developers to set up shop on your platform. Release better SDKs, document them better (and with an eye towards Western programmers), send out teams to ambassador developers into your SDKs.

The online infrastructure suffers the most here. Everyone knows why Nintendo does things the way Nintendo does things, but in the mean time the vast majority of developers are not operating on that wavelength and do not want to operate on that wavelength. DLC was an afterthought for Nintendo and is still not implemented in a streamlined, elegant way. As much as people cry about EActivision releasing twenty kajillion dollars of DLC with Dead Edge: Duty's War of Blood, clearly this is something publishers are interested in and Nintendo being unquestionably dead last in terms of getting on the bandwagon doesn't help them.

Publishers, whether correct or not, are operating under the assumption that global achievements increase sales up-front. It's fine if you don't like achievements. It's fine if you think they scare away some customers. It's fine if you don't think Nintendo needs achievements, but publishers would certainly jump to have them.

Demos. Not every publisher wants a demo for every game, but it's certain that some publishers want demos for some of their games. Nintendo has no capacity for demos.

Look at LotCheck processes and ask where developers commonly get hung up. Refine the processes, speed up processing times, and lower fees for resubmission if developers do fail.

Don't think of it as "what can Nintendo do?", think of it as "What did the other guys do?". And it's not that Nintendo needs to copy Microsoft or Sony's failures, it's that you need to learn from your competitors successes, and stubbornly rejecting popular and profitable tactics is silly no matter who you are.

Think a year forward. Don't sit back and wait for publishers to submit finished products. Ask yourself "Why is nothing on our release calendar for July, 2010? What titles are third-party publishers working on for that period of time?". You had better believe Microsoft plans their first party around third parties, and you had better believe Microsoft has reps at publishers earlier and more often than Nintendo does during development of a game.

Shift your base of operations away from Japan or at least empower people in the European and North American markets to make big money decisions. It's great to see Iwata standing with Wada, but it only serves to underscore that you don't see Reggie standing with Kotick or Riccitiello and it's because that's not the level on which decisions are made at Nintendo, or at least it doesn't seem to be.

Why are the latest batch of PSP titles PSP-exclusive? Silent Hill is Wii-PSP-PS2; why isn't Assassin's Creed? Whether Ubisoft is to blame or not is irrelevant--there is obviously a series of steps that need to be taken to secure a title for your platform and Sony took them and Nintendo didn't.

 

[gerg]

Everyone's strategy has a rationale behind it. Sony's rationale was "gamers love to pay for potential and get advanced technology at a high but good-value price, so a $600 Playstation will sell well" -- yet that rationale was completely idiotic and it cost them in the marketplace.

But it was only idiotic in that it impeded their own goals. It is only bad that it cost them marketshare because they wanted marketshare. I agree that Nintendo's actions have cost them some proortion of marketshare. I don't think that this is bad because they don't care so much about marketshare.

If, in the near future, we can show how Nintendo's actions greatly conceded them profit, I'll happily stand and put up my hands and say "I was wrong! Nintendo should have paid for third-party support". However, until this point I don't see how we can say that it was wrong for Nintendo to pursue this action - the most honest answer seems to be to say that, simply, we don't know. Furthermore, I would also argue that we cannot assail Nintendo's actions on the measure of marketshare gained or lost if they do not care for marketshare.

I would agree that, by my own logic, it is disingenuous to suggest that it was right for Nintendo to do what they did. But through that same logic I would argue that it is equally disingenuous to say that it was the wrong thing for them to do. I would state that the most honest answer is to say, simply, "we don't know (yet)".

Sure, but that's misdirecting the point. It's mostly the confusing and zealous Nintendo fans who actually wanted Nintendo to make a successful Halo killer. I would never advocate that -- but there's a huge gap between "go after Microsoft's #1 core competency" (a bad idea) and "don't ignore the huge spectrum of existing gamers who aren't either Halo lovers or already fans of Nintendo's limited palette of existing core IPs." Nintendo was never going to have many of the specific franchises and genres that MS and Sony have now, but there are many individual battlefields that they could easily have contested with a different development strategy, but which now are basically unassailable.

Again, I believe this is under the view that it is better to prioritise marketshare over profits, that it is better that Nintendo conquer many genres than make money regardless of the variety of genres in which you sell well.

Ultimately, it does all boil down to Nintendo's motivation. You seem to be arguing that Nintendo's core motivation is wrong. I am asking why. I imagine your answer would be because it has actively impeded their own ability to fulfill their motivation - I am merely arguing that we cannot accurately state this at the moment.

Magical thinking. What benefit is not having any third-party support going to bring about down the line? We already know that Nintendo doesn't need the money in order to fund some other line of development; they are cash-rich and could easily support vigorous internal R&D and courting third-parties.

I'm not saying that there is no benefit to having third-party support, but am questioning the benefit of paying for third-party support, especially when viewed through the perspective of "profit is best".

Sure. There's a broadly defined market that is mostly 18-35 males, and mostly interested in a stereotypical set of game experiences (e.g. Halo and pals) that Nintendo can't compete for. But that statistic obscures the truth of the market: there are also tons of people who mostly play RPGs, or who love platformers and lightweight simulation games, or who play fighters and racing games but never touch shooters. All of these people together make up a huge part of the old console market, even if the FPS crowd is bigger taken alone. A focus on Halo/Gears/Killzone/Resistance ad nauseam represented an opportunity to peel off some of these sub-demographics as dedicated Wii owners which Nintendo did not take.

Basically, see below.

My argument is that they are the result of bad reasoning; i.e., mistakes made on the back of a key mistaken assumption ("Our Wii * brand will be so powerful that we can rely on that to drive hardware and software sales throughout the generation.") Essentially my claim is that the strategy which won the day on the DS needed additional tuning for the Wii and didn't get enough of it; thus the situation where the Wii took off like a rocket but seems, in terms of continued forward momentum, to be somewhat out of gas.

And I would agree if we can see for sure how their profit-making desires have impeded their profit-making abilities and worked against them. However, I would argue that we cannot know for sure.

I agree that in the scenario where Nintendo's third-party relationships work brilliantly, and they gain both marketshare and profitability, Nintendo was wrong not to bother developing these relationships. But what about the scenario where they don't work, and Nintendo ends up wasting a lot of money needlessly? Would they have been wrong then? And what about the scenario in which Nintendo may find itself in soon, where it has not nurtured third-party relationships and yet it is able to bring the fight for marketshare to itself without spending an extra dime, by successfully causing a paradigm shift in the market? And I ask, how do we even evaluate these scenarios outside of either a profit-driven or marketshare-driven corporate strategy? It seems to me that to suggest that Nintendo's strategy was wrong, one either requires the perspective that marketshare is best, or to be able to show how their own actions have categorically impeded fulfilling their goals (for making profit). I would argue that the former perspective is wrong, and that we cannot assail the latter at the moment.

Also, just to make this clear, please don't think that I'm trying to blame the situation all on third-parties here. What I think I'm closest to saying is that, quite simply, rather than being Nintendo's fault or third-parties fault, it's pretty much no-one's fault. I guess if third-parties missed their targets and lost money, then that's their problem. But they risked nothing and lost or gained nothing: you reap what you sow, but you can't grow fruit without first planting seeds. Nintendo's own software sales don't seem to have slipped all that much either (outside of the effect of the recession), if at all, so they don't seem to be greatly affected by it. Yes, their hardware has declined, but this seems to stem from a different problem, namely the delay of Wii Sports Resort. (In the market where their hardware seems to have declined most, the UK, hasn't Wii Fit outsold the 360 in the same period?) Ultimately, no party seems to have been negatively affected by this situation in ways they can't have expected.

 

[markatisu]

Basically, go to publishers; tell them "We want your big teams". Co-market. Drop, lower, waive, or otherwise make a deal on publication fees. Give dev kits. Give programming support. Secure exclusivity. Do exactly what the other guys are doing to attract support.

We already see the benefits for Nintendo in Japan using that kind of thinking. Both DQIX on the DS and MH3 on Wii are being assisted big time by Nintendo in terms of advertising and product awareness. And with the first batch of M+ games there have been extensive interviews that discuss Nintendo's desire to help 3rd parties utilize it (SEGA, EA, and Ubisoft have all said that).

Iwata even said that was something Nintendo needed to start doing more of to help the situation.

If they can only apply that to America then you could see some bigger names start to come over (makes you wonder if its not already happening with EA to get the Tiger Woods M+ and GST commercials)

 

[poppabk]

Consult when you're making new hardware to find out what developers want instead of coming up with hardware in a vacuum and then delivering it to developers.

Except doing the exact opposite of this is what made them successful this gen. I guarantee that if they had gone to developers they would have had a Nintendo xbox clone, no motion control (or a 6-axis clone) and would currently be dead last, losing money - and would still have barely any 3rd party support.

 

[gerg]

Except doing the exact opposite of this is what made them successful this gen. I guarantee that if they had gone to developers they would have had a Nintendo xbox clone, no motion control (or a 6-axis clone) and would currently be dead last, losing money - and would still have barely any 3rd party support.

I imagine that a lot of what Stumpokapow suggests could have been added to the Wii without affecting their main strategy. In this way, I would agree that many of the smaller weaknesses of the Wii can and should be addressed. I would suggest that the fact that Nintendo has not done this represents not so much a laziness on their part, but a complacency that one can see reflected in their game design.

 

[Oblivion]

Five months old interview:



http://psp.ign.com/articles/958/958154p2.html

Thanks for the link, but it didn't really any tangible proof that Sony somehow did more to attract third parties back. I mean, not to take any credit away from Sony, but from that quote at least, I didn't see anything beyond 'we held meetings and gave advice'. Does anyone think Nintendo doesn't do that? Also, in the interview it says right there that publishers started to take notice after PSP sales rose (shock and awe).

Basically, I'm saying that market forces have a far FAR greater impact on the gaming landscape than the first parties do. Take a look at the DS. It was doing pretty decently for the first year, but then shit exploded when an avalance of games were revealed during their 2005 conference. More games were released on the system, which caused more hardware sales, which caused more software to be made. Same thing happened with the PS2, and the 360. Did Sony, and MS money hat all the games they currently have? Fuck no.

Yes, it would be nice if Nintendo would provide better development tools or whatever, but guess which system had the worst, most difficult to program for architecture last gen? The PS2. And guess how negatively it was effected cause of it? 0.000002%.

I do blame Nintendo for going on the whole non-gaming spiel every time they spoke in their interviews, which caused third parties like Ubisoft to go 'hey, nintendo says it's okay to make cheap non-games, so let's go crazy!". (apparently, third parties seem to want to listen to the wrong things Nintendo does, not the good ones)

 

[jman2050]

This entire conversation reeks of not seeing the forest for the trees.

 

[poppabk]

I imagine that a lot of what Stumpokapow suggests could have been added to the Wii without affecting their main strategy. In this way, I would agree that many of the smaller weaknesses of the Wii can and should be addressed. I would suggest that the fact that Nintendo has not done this represents not so much a laziness on their part, but a complacency that one can see reflected in their game design.

But at what point do you stop listening? Developers would have pushed for a redesign of the wiimote at the very least, adding extra buttons within easy reach, an accessible analog stick. As gamers it is easy to wish they had in fact done this, but the limited button, simple remote control design was essential to the Wii's success.

 

[Kilrogg]

This entire conversation reeks of not seeing the forest for the trees.

Go ahead then. I'm not saying this to be provocative, mind you, just want to know what your take is. What is the forest for the trees in this case?

[EDIT] What I wonder is why Nintendo doesn't seem to give early access to its hardware. Are they afraid that there might be leaks?

 

[Meier]

Is there a post that collects all the other data that's come out?

 

[gerg]

But at what point do you stop listening? Developers would have pushed for a redesign of the wiimote at the very least, adding extra buttons within easy reach, an accessible analog stick. As gamers it is easy to wish they had in fact done this, but the limited button, simple remote control design was essential to the Wii's success.

Except Nintendo could weigh up what the developers want against what they want. They're not mindless and I'm sure they're capable of evaluating their options - they don't have to follow what everyone tells them to do. Again, it all seems to boil down to a complacency - probably mixed in with some amount of frugality and a sense of practicality - that seemingly runs throughout the company.

What I wonder is why Nintendo doesn't seem to give early access to its hardware. Are they afraid that there might be leaks?

Perhaps. I imagine that disruption works best when you don't give competitors any notice of it, and thus allow them time to respond. This is why the reveal of the Vitality Sensor is so surprising, although they didn't show off any games for it anyway.

 

[jman2050]

Go ahead then. I'm not saying this to be provocative, mind you, just want to know what your take is. What is the forest for the trees in this case?

[EDIT] What I wonder is why Nintendo doesn't seem to give early access to its hardware. Are they afraid that there might be leaks?

If the goal of a business is to make money and foster growth, which it is, then Nintendo has succeeded in that regard. How they got to that point is of course subject to considerable debate, but the nature of this particular debate is operating under a considerably different context, which should be expected since we're all gamers and personally invested in aspects of Nintendo's business that don't directly correlate to how they operate as a business. Point being that they've been successful without spending money to court third-parties. From an objective non-biased point of view, is that such a bad thing for them?

What happens in the future is another thing, but projecting what may or may not happen in the future into an evaluation of the past is disingenuous; the answers given to the questions people are asking in this thread about what happens from here would be irrelevant a year ago, much less at the time when these consoles were being designed, developed, and produced. The fact that Nintendo's dealings with third-parties may hurt their bottom-line in the future from this point shouldn't indicate that their process from back then was faulty, since that same process also led to its current success. All it indicates is that the market is unpredictable and needs to be adapted to. Whether Nintendo can do remains to be seen. Sony was in a similar position when the PS3 was coming out, guessed wrong, didn't adapt, and well, this is what happens.

 

[Atreides]

[EDIT] What I wonder is why Nintendo doesn't seem to give early access to its hardware. Are they afraid that there might be leaks?

They don't give early access to their hardware because they develop their hardware and their games (or at least ideas for the games they are going to develop) at the same time, game ideas influecing the hardware and hardware ideas influencing the games. It would be the same than giving away their game ideas to other developers...

 

[Kilrogg]

Perhaps. I imagine that disruption works best when you don't give competitors any notice of it, and thus allow them time to respond. This is why the reveal of the Vitality Sensor is so surprising, although they didn't show off any games for it either.

I wouldn't put it down to disruption though. I think it has more to do with Nintendo getting increasingly wary over the years, as every single significant step they've made regarding interface has been adopted by their competitors later on. If the competition copied them when Nintendo was not the leader, it's obvious that they're even more eager to copy Nintendo now that they're ahead of everybody.

In fact, I'd use your example to debunk the argument, which sounds silly, as I was the one who made the suggestion :lol. If Nintendo wants to surprise so much and keep the competition from co-opting their ideas, why on earth have they already shown the Vitality Sensor when it's clear it's nowhere near being ready to be sold with software?

If the goal of a business is to make money and foster growth, which it is, then Nintendo has succeeded in that regard. How they got to that point is of course subject to considerable debate, but the nature of this particular debate is operating under a considerably different context, which should be expected since we're all gamers and personally invested in aspects of Nintendo's business that don't directly correlate to how they operate as a business. Point being that they've been successful without spending money to court third-parties. From an objective non-biased point of view, is that such a bad thing for them?

What happens in the future is another thing, but projecting what may or may not happen in the future into an evaluation of the past is disingenuous; the answers given to the questions people are asking in this thread about what happens from here would be irrelevant a year ago, much less at the time when these consoles were being designed, developed, and produced. The fact that Nintendo's dealings with third-parties may hurt their bottom-line in the future from this point shouldn't indicate that their process from back then was faulty, since that same process also led to its current success. All it indicates is that the market is unpredictable and needs to be adapted to. Whether Nintendo can do remains to be seen. Sony was in a similar position when the PS3 was coming out, guessed wrong, didn't adapt, and well, this is what happens.

Thanks, and I agree with you.

[EDIT] @Atreides: again, if this was the reason, why show the Vitality Sensor now when the other manufacturers still have time to copy it and maybe come up with a game for it? Either there's more to it than what you say, or Nintendo believes that no one will get it and rival them (which is a possibility, as no one has been able, or willing to copy them successfully up until now).

 

[professor_t]

This is well put.

There was a time, not too long ago, when "graphics whores" were looked down upon. That's why we called them "graphics whores," a clearly pejorative term.

Look at the video where Iwata first begins discussing the Revolution system (does someone have that video? It would be really great). When he says, "I could tell you our technical specs, but I won't, because they don't really matter," there was huge applause from the Press in attendance.

It should be pretty clear that at some point in the not too distant past, it was generally agreed that games were not driven by graphics/presentation. However, many have become convinced that they are driven by graphics/presentation now, because so many great developers have spent billions convincing them that they are important. Not just Irrational and Bethesda and their ilk, but the huge investments from EA, Take 2, Ubisoft and others.

I'd assert that the people who now feel driven by graphics/presentation could also have been convinced of the value of portability, or touch controls, or motion controls, or what have you, if an equal amount of money and developer focus had been spent on those. Not only could developers have shaped "hardcore" tastes -- as they always do -- but they could have done so in a way that was vastly more secure and profitable for all involved.

But they didn't do that, and now it's too late.

I probably don't have time right now to properly convey this sentiment, and I know it's not the crux of your argument, but your post sounds a little like straw man abuse to me. Where are these gamers who care about visuals, but not controls? Show me the game that has subpar controls but was embraced by gamers solely because of superb visuals.

I want incredible visual fidelity in my games because it makes the experience more immersive, but it only does this if the controls are intact. I would say the vast majority of so-called graphics whores want great controls in addition to cutting edge visuals. Further, they resent the notion that wiggling a controller to jump or flicking your wrist to throw a pitch is necessarily an advancement over hitting a button.

In fact, if the essence of good controls is a virtually seamless, effortless interface between the player and the game, motion controls may be *inferior* (for SOME people, relax) to a more conventional control scheme.

 

[Hero of Legend]

So does the NPD show only the top 20 games for each platform and people can only legally show the top 10 overall?

I'm curious anout how Klonoa and Rune Factory Frontier have sold to date if the numbers are available? I'm sure I can't be told the exact number legally, but are they... good?

 

[gerg]

So does the NPD show only the top 20 games for each platform and people can only legally show the top 10 overall?

I'm curious anout how Klonoa and Rune Factory Frontier have sold to date if the numbers are available? I'm sure I can't be told the exact number legally, but are they... good?

I think Klonoa bombed to high hell. Four digit sales only, iirc.

@Kilrogg: And yet, if Nintendo were wary of their competitors copying their ideas (as you say), why would they show the Vitality Sensor? I think the only reason they showed it was to send a signal to Microsoft and Sony to state that they're not concerned by their advances into motion control, and that they have the faith that these companies won't be able to predict and create the software they're going to sell with it.

 

[Kilrogg]

@Kilrogg: And yet, if Nintendo were wary of their competitors copying their ideas (as you say), why would they show the Vitality Sensor? I think the only reason they showed it was to send a signal to Microsoft and Sony to state that they're not concerned by their advances into motion control, and that they have the faith that these companies won't be able to predict and create the software they're going to sell with it.

Haha, fair enough .

 

[DangerousDave]

I think the only reason they showed it was to send a signal to Microsoft and Sony to state that they're not concerned by their advances into motion control

I think that Nintendo never looks the other companies, for good or for bad. They always go in their own way, and the proof is that they didn't try to imitate the PSX or the PS2.

I start to think that Nintendo never abandoned the hardcores. Nintendo always has been in that way. They started with the NES (the Famicon, family console) and they tried to make a family computer in each generation. GC is a console clearly designed for kids, to play with their fathers, until they finally found the exact formula to do another successful family console.

Nintendo target in almost all their main sagas a userbase of 10-14 years. I'm not saying that the Nintendo games are ONLY for people of that ages, but they tried to focus the content to be adequate for that kind of people.

The other consoles (well, mostly Sony, because Xbox is still a young brand) has been growing with the new times. The young gamers of 14 yo growed to people of 20 or 22. And they adapted from the teen games to the adult ones. From Spyro to Kratos.

So I don't think that Nintendo abandoned their fans, simply the fans are demanding other things, but Nintendo keeps with the same game philosophy.

 

[gerg]

I think that Nintendo never looks the other companies, for good or for bad. They always go in their own way, and the proof is that they didn't try to imitate the PSX or the PS2.

I agree that they may not try to imitate other companies, but they certainly keep tabs on them (like any well-run company should). If last year's superfluous reveal of Motion Plus doesn't suggest so, this year's reveal of the Vitality Sensor should - it seemed to serve no other purpose than to say "you've arrived five minutes too late, we've already left" to Microsoft and Sony.

 

[Hero of Legend]

I think Klonoa bombed to high hell. Four digit sales only, iirc.

I think that was only over 1000 in that leak in the April NPD, as they stopped tracking in early May, and Klonoa came out in May 7.

Or those sales were for street date breakers.

 

[DrGAKMAN]

"Majority" is an irrelevant term. Third-parties bear a huge responsibility for their own inability to take advantage of the Wii's install base (and the negative effect it's had on sustainability for niche development); Nintendo bears a huge responsibility for doing nothing to draw third parties onto their system and thereby sell more consoles. Both parties are worse off economically than they would be if either one had made a serious effort to remedy the situation; each of them bears full responsibility for the negative impact on their own economic situation.

My argument is that they are the result of bad reasoning; i.e., mistakes made on the back of a key mistaken assumption ("Our Wii * brand will be so powerful that we can rely on that to drive hardware and software sales throughout the generation.") Essentially my claim is that the strategy which won the day on the DS needed additional tuning for the Wii and didn't get enough of it; thus the situation where the Wii took off like a rocket but seems, in terms of continued forward momentum, to be somewhat out of gas.

What more can Nintendo do though...in reality? We know they won't "open the warchest" as so many people want/expect them to. So what could they do? With Wii, the made some bad design choices here and there (YET, they still arguably have the best selling console of all time in the making), but they're sorta stuck with those choices due to the built-in limitations in the Wii. It's near impossible to reverse some of those things (graphics, online, certain "core" games, true publisher support, etc.) even with the giant marketshare/userbase. What more can they do?

The moment they start money-hatting or buying support like the big boys is the moment that everyone who has given them support thusfar would start expecting the same handouts...and Nintendo would LOSE that backscratching sort of business since MS has way more money to backscratch with. That's just not the Nintendo way of doing business anyways.

All of the "what coulda/woulda/shoulda they done" aside it's really moot, because they still have a huge userbase/marketshare regardless. And that's something publishers are ignoring by saying: "only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo systems" or "it's the casual/kiddie/shite system" or "only rail-shooters/excercising/party games sell on it" or other such excuses they have. What "good" support has been given has been crippled by lack of key features, non-marketing, lower-level teams or ports that are piss-poor, late and broken. IMO, MHTri is the FIRST true high-level support an outside company has given to Wii and with all it's glory it still has the stench of it's no longer exclussive 6 months down the line due to "it didn't sell well enough on Wii so we're porting it" or "it sold so well, we're spreading it to other platforms" BS. You can blame Nintendo 'til the cows come home, but most of those decisions aren't even made by them.

What more can Nintendo do for developers who just don't like 'em either...nothing, they can't win those guys over so why try? They don't play the backscratching game, nor can they alter the past and make the Wii something it isn't nor can they appease these gamers or game makers who don't like them. What more can Nintendo do, literally, truthfully...sell more more systems and gain more users/market. And they're doing just that, at a rate much higher/faster than any console before it despite the piss-poor effort by outside publishers. A couple months of slowing growth and lack of high-profile system sellers and suddenly it's over for Nintendo and it's momentum?

You bring up the DS comparison, I really don't see a differece with Wii...they're both different and seperate from their competition, they have some high profile outside support here and there while the competition is still getting more support anyways, and Nintendo is still making gains in userbase/marketshare/profits anyways. Why must they "win" anything other than that...there's no "winners" that way anyways...just bragging rights. They should do better with middleware, online tools/initiatives, they need to work on publisher relations, maybe they should consider lowering licensing/pricing to drive more growth...but nothing does better than a giant unignorable userbase.

Sorry if this seems like a rant or if it seems I'm mad at you or that I'm saying you're wrong...I'm just saying, what can Nintendo really do? They have arguably the best selling systems of all time in DS & Wii, what more do they, we or game makers want?

 

[EDarkness]

What more can Nintendo do though...in reality? We know they won't "open the warchest" as so many people want/expect them to. So what could they do? With Wii, the made some bad design choices here and there (YET, they still arguably have the best selling console of all time in the making), but they're sorta stuck with those choices due to the built-in limitations in the Wii. It's near impossible to reverse some of those things (graphics, online, certain "core" games, true publisher support, etc.) even with the giant marketshare/userbase. What more can they do?

The moment they start money-hatting or buying support like the big boys is the moment that everyone who has given them support thusfar would start expecting the same handouts...and Nintendo would LOSE that backscratching sort of business since MS has way more money to backscratch with. That's just not the Nintendo way of doing business anyways.

All of the "what coulda/woulda/shoulda they done" aside it's really moot, because they still have a huge userbase/marketshare regardless. And that's something publishers are ignoring by saying: "only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo systems" or "it's the casual/kiddie/shite system" or "only rail-shooters/excercising/party games sell on it" or other such excuses they have. What "good" support has been given has been crippled by lack of key features, non-marketing, lower-level teams or ports that are piss-poor, late and broken. IMO, MHTri is the FIRST true high-level support an outside company has given to Wii and with all it's glory it still has the stench of it's no longer exclussive 6 months down the line due to "it didn't sell well enough on Wii so we're porting it" or "it sold so well, we're spreading it to other platforms" BS. You can blame Nintendo 'til the cows come home, but most of those decisions aren't even made by them.

What more can Nintendo do for developers who just don't like 'em either...nothing, they can't win those guys over so why try? They don't play the backscratching game, nor can they alter the past and make the Wii something it isn't nor can they appease these gamers or game makers who don't like them. What more can Nintendo do, literally, truthfully...sell more more systems and gain more users/market. And they're doing just that, at a rate much higher/faster than any console before it despite the piss-poor effort by outside publishers. A couple months of slowing growth and lack of high-profile system sellers and suddenly it's over for Nintendo and it's momentum?

You bring up the DS comparison, I really don't see a differece with Wii...they're both different and seperate from their competition, they have some high profile outside support here and there while the competition is still getting more support anyways, and Nintendo is still making gains in userbase/marketshare/profits anyways. Why must they "win" anything other than that...there's no "winners" that way anyways...just bragging rights. They should do better with middleware, online tools/initiatives, they need to work on publisher relations, maybe they should consider lowering licensing/pricing to drive more growth...but nothing does better than a giant unignorable userbase.

Sorry if this seems like a rant or if it seems I'm mad at you or that I'm saying you're wrong...I'm just saying, what can Nintendo really do? They have arguably the best selling systems of all time in DS & Wii, what more do they, we or game makers want?

Well said.

People laying the blame on Nintendo's feet really need to look at the situation. Nintendo can't force third parties to want to make a game for the Wii. And they aren't responsible for shoddy ports, poorly conceived spinoff games, and the overall low quality of the software. What can they reasonably do about it? I've never been a real Nintendo fan (Sega fan back in the day), but even though they're on the top, they're still on the bottom. Just goes to show how ass backwards this generation has become.

 

[Fredescu]

People laying the blame on Nintendo's feet really need to look at the situation. Nintendo can't force third parties to want to make a game for the Wii. And they aren't responsible for shoddy ports, poorly conceived spinoff games, and the overall low quality of the software. What can they reasonably do about it?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16749223&postcount=2473

 

[Tron 2.0]

Did we get platform Top 10s released this month? I haven't seen any.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Except Sony wanted to expand, and yet it has unsuccessfully sunk billions of dollars trying to do so.



It doesn't matter what industry this is - the principle remains the same.

You bring upon SONY gimping the PS3 for another market and use than using the PS3 (the sacrifice SONY intentionally made) as using that as an example of an investment that wasn't worthwhile when in reality the investment they made was by adding the huge loss rate on the PS3's was for the home movie market (Blu-ray). That really doesn't correlate with the discussion.

If you were saying that SONY took a huge loss on the PS3 for Blu-ray and the format failed and you used Blu-ray for an example that would make sense, but as of now you are using the sacrifice they made to get that gain and only focusing on the sacrifice. It doesn't make sense.


Look Nintendo is currently on top. Therefore it is FAR easier with convincing third parties to develop titles for your platform. If they get third party publishers on board this will greatly secure their position at number 1. Like every market (movies, books, music, etc.) the gamings market third party support starts with the more serious titles and than it works its way up. "What if Nintendo invests millions and billions into trying to convince publishers and they don't come?" simple they are idiots. If they are THAT bad and blind that they can't even so much as glance of what Microsoft and SONY have done earlier on their generations and copy them than just wow. But you know what is even more risky than that? Not investing in building third party relations and have someone else take those third parties and eventually build on to what you done and offer MORE than what you have thus eventually surpassing you in market share. Which since this is a business world WILL happen and result in Nintendo losing potential billions upon billions of future profit.

I mean I could see if this argument was taking place if Nintendo was at second place or a not to far ahead first, but as of now they are dominating the gaming market. Don't you think it's silly that they shouldn't just take away some of their millions to secure their position just to save it and keep them highly vulnerable to competitors?

Basically, go to publishers; tell them "We want your big teams". Co-market. Drop, lower, waive, or otherwise make a deal on publication fees. Give dev kits. Give programming support. Secure exclusivity. Do exactly what the other guys are doing to attract support.

Consult when you're making new hardware to find out what developers want instead of coming up with hardware in a vacuum and then delivering it to developers. Build or acquire middleware. Encourage middleware developers to set up shop on your platform. Release better SDKs, document them better (and with an eye towards Western programmers), send out teams to ambassador developers into your SDKs.

The online infrastructure suffers the most here. Everyone knows why Nintendo does things the way Nintendo does things, but in the mean time the vast majority of developers are not operating on that wavelength and do not want to operate on that wavelength. DLC was an afterthought for Nintendo and is still not implemented in a streamlined, elegant way. As much as people cry about EActivision releasing twenty kajillion dollars of DLC with Dead Edge: Duty's War of Blood, clearly this is something publishers are interested in and Nintendo being unquestionably dead last in terms of getting on the bandwagon doesn't help them.

Publishers, whether correct or not, are operating under the assumption that global achievements increase sales up-front. It's fine if you don't like achievements. It's fine if you think they scare away some customers. It's fine if you don't think Nintendo needs achievements, but publishers would certainly jump to have them.

Demos. Not every publisher wants a demo for every game, but it's certain that some publishers want demos for some of their games. Nintendo has no capacity for demos.

Look at LotCheck processes and ask where developers commonly get hung up. Refine the processes, speed up processing times, and lower fees for resubmission if developers do fail.

Don't think of it as "what can Nintendo do?", think of it as "What did the other guys do?". And it's not that Nintendo needs to copy Microsoft or Sony's failures, it's that you need to learn from your competitors successes, and stubbornly rejecting popular and profitable tactics is silly no matter who you are.

Think a year forward. Don't sit back and wait for publishers to submit finished products. Ask yourself "Why is nothing on our release calendar for July, 2010? What titles are third-party publishers working on for that period of time?". You had better believe Microsoft plans their first party around third parties, and you had better believe Microsoft has reps at publishers earlier and more often than Nintendo does during development of a game.

Shift your base of operations away from Japan or at least empower people in the European and North American markets to make big money decisions. It's great to see Iwata standing with Wada, but it only serves to underscore that you don't see Reggie standing with Kotick or Riccitiello and it's because that's not the level on which decisions are made at Nintendo, or at least it doesn't seem to be.

Why are the latest batch of PSP titles PSP-exclusive? Silent Hill is Wii-PSP-PS2; why isn't Assassin's Creed? Whether Ubisoft is to blame or not is irrelevant--there is obviously a series of steps that need to be taken to secure a title for your platform and Sony took them and Nintendo didn't.

Awesome post.

 

[charlequin]

How is me saying that Nintendo most likely had something to do with DQX being on the Wii due to the fact that it was announced prior to DQIX (in which the games release was highly important is it was meant to test the waters of another platform arena) not relevant against a statement that Nintendo did supposedly "nothing" to get the game on their console?

Because the only relevant factor is the element unique to DQ: Horii's complete control over the franchise's direction and future. With a single director making the sole decision regarding platform placement, the kind of incentives a platform-holder can offer don't apply in the same way.

That is a game sold that wasn't a Nintendo game.

This is an erroneous thought process, which also applies to gerg's "are third-party relationships inherently good?" point.

Nintendo-developed games provide revenue to Nintendo to some degree -- let's call it N -- but have to account for development costs. Third-party games provide less revenue -- 1/2 N, maybe -- but cost Nintendo nothing.

The entire benefit of Nintendo's strategy, with profitable hardware and strong first-party software, is that everything is a win -- selling hardware is good, selling first-party games is good, and so is third-party software. This can allow Nintendo to have other companies develop games they don't have the core competencies to handle, and still profit from it.

Basically, the idea that third-party sales are inherently detracting from the potential of Nintendo's own titles is just as foolhardy and short-sighted as the converse, where third-parties worry that they can't sell on Nintendo's system.

Basically, go to publishers

There is basically no part of this I do not agree with.

I'm on a netbook which is proving difficult to type on with my giant fingers, so a longer response to gerg will follow...

 

[Sadist]

SI'm curious anout how Klonoa and Rune Factory Frontier have sold to date if the numbers are available? I'm sure I can't be told the exact number legally, but are they... good?

Are you serious? Really? You know, I love Klonoa on Wii it's great remake and finely crafted, but come on. If I remember correctly, the PS2 game didn't even break 50k or something? And Rune Factory... far to niche.

As for all the talk about Nintendo courting third parties, not going to happen. Nintendo always had a more "our way or the highway" kind of approach and some third parties deal with it. A lot of don't.

 

[DangerousDave]

Nintendo can't force third parties to want to make a game for the Wii.

Except that they can.

Nintendo has won tons of money with the Wii. And that industry is moved by the money. If they really wanted to move the hardcores to the Wii, they will do it.

Going to NIS and saying: "Ok, I want Disgaea 4 for Wii. Completly creative freedom. I know that It won't sell much, but I will support any loss if your game is over 80 in MetaCritics. Each point over that value will be 100k $"

Then, going to all the small japanese companies that made good enought Wii games, but that can't afford to translate and distribute their games to US, and saying: "Ok, I'll pay the translation and I'll distribute the game to US and probably Europe, keeping a low percentage of the benefits. Win-Win for that companies, 0 cost and the possibility of get fame out of Japan".

Then, going to all the indy scene and giving really good conditions for development in WiiWare. No more "I'll keep all the money of the first X sells", that discourage a lot of people, that fear that if the game don't sell much, they win 0$ for all the effort.

Taking risks as distributing or even producing M games, like Madworld. Getting small teams that works well with the Wii hardware but don't have enought game design experience, like the people of Conduit.

Talking with all the big third parties, like EA, Activision and Ubi, and saying: Ok, I'll discount the 75% of the royalties that you pay for develop for Wii (that is like the 20 or 30% of the final price of the game) if your game get's more than 80 in Metacritics. And if the first reviews are over 85, I'll promote your game with X$ in TV and magazine ads.

And also, the other obvious things, more freedom and suppor for the online, better and cheaper devkits, etc.

If Nintendo really wants to move the hardore to the Wii, they have enought money to do it, and even without sacrificing a great part of their benefits. It will be slow, but the hardcore will have to surrender to the evidence of the catalog.

I hope that Reggie is not reading this post, I'll hate if Sony and MS gets bankrupted by my fault.

 

[ViperVisor]

charlequin

You can't brush off the difference in selling a 1st party game.

There is/was a pretty good reason MS paid $375,000,000 for Rare. GoldenEye on it's own grossed that much. God damn.