Nintendo loses 3rd party developers

pinksoir

SCEA claims that 3rd-party publishers are heading back to Sony thanks to crappy sales on the Wii.

SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer recently told Industry Gamers that 3rd-party developers are heading back to the PlayStation 3 (and presumably the Xbox 360).

In a sense, the honeymoon is over: hype surrounding the Nintendo Wii and its innovative motion controller has died down to a dull roar. Additionally, Microsoft and Sony are set to hit the console scene this year with motion controller technology as well, taking some of the spotlight away from Nintendo's former "hot" product.

But Dyer paints another picture, another reason why the Wii has lost its luster: Nintendo games. Third-party developers have struggled to make revenue on a console dominated by first-party products like Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit, and even the pack-in game Wii Sports. Publishers no longer want to pour resources into a platform that doesn't return revenue, thus leaving the door wide open for Microsoft and Sony to take them back in with open arms.

"In the past, it was 'Look how hot the Wii is,' or 'Look how hot the DS is,' and 'We should put resources there,'" Dyer said regarding 3rd-party publishers. "They did that and realized, 'You know what, third-party product just doesn't sell on that platform.' So now they're taking those resources, coming back to us and saying, 'Sony we're going to be able to provide you with that exclusive content,' or 'We're going to put more engineers on it and figure out to maximize the Blu-ray and get more out of PS3.' That's what we're seeing now."

Dyer added that he doesn't have to convince publishers to develop for the PlayStation 3 platform, saying that all he had to do was show them the TRST data, show how many 3rd-party titles are listed in the Wii's top 10 titles compared to 1st-party Nintendo titles. He does the same for the Nintendo DS.Needless to say, it's not pretty for 3rd-party titles.

"It's not a hard story to sell, and they get that," he said. "Unless they've got a particular franchise that's worked well on the Wii, you don't see a lot of innovative new IP coming out on that platform.”

Sounds like the honeymoon is indeed over for the Wii.

With the imminent arrival of project Natal and Sony to follow suit, the monopolised market that Nintendo reigned over for the last few years seems in it's last throes. One of the worst things about the Wii is it's last gen graphics. If Xbox and PS3 can enter the accelerometer market successfully it could be disastrous. Granted, the fact that the most successful games are first party suggests that Nintendo could keep going, but maybe the Wii's success was down to it having no competitor. Surely there are innovative developers that could rival the Wii's first party games on other systems.

I've a fear that this could be Nintendo's last console. It seems a shame that Miyamoto creates a truly innovative product, only to have it copied by the other market leaders. Such is capitalism I guess. What freaks me out more is the thought of no more MarioKart games. Or other first party gems. I don't think it would feel right playing Zelda on a PS3...

tman

Nothing new there tbh... Developers have been treating the Wii as an afterthought for ages now for all of the AAA titles (CoD, Dead Space etc...)

Its blatantly clear that sheeple are just buying the Wii for Wii fit/sports and not buying any other titles.

Not a very valid source though, that's just someone from Sony bitching...

pinksoir

It was the first source I found. There's tons if you Google. My friend works in game dev and says that's the way it's going, rather sharply of late. True, the Wii is treated as an afterthought (how long until it gets MW??), but Nintendo also never bothers promoting 3rd party content. When was the last time you saw an ad for a 3rd party Wii game? Compare that with, say, any 360 game.

In fairness, Nintendo have done really well to corner the young/old/casual gamer market, and it's first party games are amazing (MarioKart, NSMBW, Zelda etc), but why would a hardcore (hate that term) gamer ever buy a multi platform title on the Wii? Especially since most hardcore gamers would already own a 360 or PS3. Any 3rd party hardcore, Wii exclusive titles have done pretty badly too, since the market for them ain't there. Boom Blox is pretty much the only 3rd party game I can think of that sold well, but it's hardly hardcore. Games like the Conduit etc bombed.

The question is when, and not if, 3rd party devs completely abandon Wii, will the 1st party games be enough to keep it afloat? And with competition from the other two in motion control, will it remain enough of a novelty to keep selling on last gen hardware? I'm not sure. On one hand i think Nintendo's 1st party games are great. On the other, I don't think there are enough of them. There's too much waiting in between games.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Well, I have a 360, Wii, DS and PSP as well as an old PC.

The Wii is just gathering dust along with the PSP. Can't remember the last time I played either. Regret that I bought either of them.

The 360 and DS though, well they are gaming nectar in my opinion!

The last Nintendo consoles I owned before the Wii was the SNES and Gameboy. They really don't compare.

Banjo

Nintendo don't have a vested interest in selling 3rd party games - they made their profit on the box the day you bought it. Sony and MS *have* to push the games to keep the licensing revenue coming in to pay off the losses they make on the hardware. But it's not Ninty's fault that 3rd party developers don't have marketing budgets.

Ultimately there were a couple of titles that didn't get the push they deserved and retailers gave up on really quickly relegating them to bargain bins and wild weekday sales - and thinking about it they were all made by Sega (Madworld, HotD:Overkill, The Conduit). But the vast majority of shelfspace is given over to minigame collections and churned out kiddie show tie ins. At the end of the day it's not impossible but it's bloody tough trying to push the medium forward on outdated technology. Ninty need to either stop cheaping out on the hardware or come up with some sort of modular model that let's the "casual" / "softcore" / whatever you call drunks and yoga freaks buy a cheap core system and those of us who want the bells and whistles can buy the addons - be it memory, storage, draft-n wireless etc - to let our box compete with or excel over the competition

Retr0gamer

The playstation whatever it's called will end up like the eyetoy with feck all third party games released on it also.

witnessmenow

pinksoir wrote: »

With the imminent arrival of project Natal and Sony to follow suit, the monopolised market that Nintendo reigned over for the last few years seems in it's last throes. One of the worst things about the Wii is it's last gen graphics. If Xbox and PS3 can enter the accelerometer market successfully it could be disastrous. Granted, the fact that the most successful games are first party suggests that Nintendo could keep going, but maybe the Wii's success was down to it having no competitor. Surely there are innovative developers that could rival the Wii's first party games on other systems.

I've a fear that this could be Nintendo's last console. It seems a shame that Miyamoto creates a truly innovative product, only to have it copied by the other market leaders. Such is capitalism I guess. What freaks me out more is the thought of no more MarioKart games. Or other first party gems. I don't think it would feel right playing Zelda on a PS3...

Nintendos last console? It has almost out sold the xbox and the ps3 put together

Retr0gamer

Even with Natal and PS motion packed in with consoles I suspect they will end up being half arsed into games as optional extras like the terrible six axis controls at the beginning of the PS3 life cycle. If a developer releases a game that only uses these control methods they risk missing out on a massive amountof sales by splitting their user base. I'd say you'll get third party mini game collections and a few brave first party games fully supporting it.

djkeogh

Yea I agree, I don't think the renaissance is going to happen yet. The Wii proved it's failure really. Natal and whatever else were a knee jerk reaction to the Wii's popularity but I can't see it being extended past party games unless one game comes along and pulls an avatar on the system and sets a new bar in gaming brilliance that all other games will aspire too.

Here's hoping something like that can happen, but until it does, party games ahoy.

Of course it can only lead to better drunken house parties really, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Akrasia

Of the people on here, how many have played a FPS using motion controlls?

I'd really recommend it, as a control mechanism, it works surprisingly well.

I'd say that if Sony/Msoft introduced wii style controls to a FPS it could really kick off

Xluna

Meh. It will be a cold day in Hell before I play Street Fighter with a motion sensor. Oh remember virtual reality? Yeah that was so ninties.:rolleyes:

Vyse

Akrasia wrote: »

Of the people on here, how many have played a FPS using motion controlls?

I'd really recommend it, as a control mechanism, it works surprisingly well.

I'd say that if Sony/Msoft introduced wii style controls to a FPS it could really kick off

Tried it with The Conduit. Comes nowhere close to your standard controller.

Skerries

Xluna wrote: »

Meh. It will be a cold day in Hell before I play Street Fighter with a motion sensor. Oh remember virtual reality? Yeah that was so ninties.:rolleyes:

i'd say with all this 3-d hoopla that they will seriously start looking at VR again

Banjo

The limiting factors of VR boxes were the clunky screens and the crap graphics - it was hard to feel immersed when you had two CRTs strapped to your head and you were looking at a world made of lego and giant triangles. With modern video cards being capable of rendering fairly realistic scenes with complex lighting effects - and stereoscopically for at least 3 generations - and hi-res led / lcd screens being common place maybe it is time we went back and looked at VR. It's only a matter of time before someone, probably in the porn industry (always at the forefront of cutting edge science) develops a proper variable pressure feedback system. Even if it is just a USB fleshlight deluxe...