| superchunk said: I have to disagree with you. Nintendo needs 3rd parties more than they need Nintendo. 3rd parties only need a vibrant and wide userbase. With PS360/PC they have that. In fact, that base is larger than the Wii and additionally all share a very similar set of capabilities allowing far easier cross platform development by a single team. Wii requires a different set of tools and a different dev team just for itself. You can't use gamecube tools as those largely didn't exist or were based on PS2; which is FAR lower in tech than Wii. This is why Wii gets tons of crappy games when we all know they could look and be so much better. Devs have been utilizing slightly improved PS2 based engines to make Wii games. Nintendo makes hardware and software. They want they hardware to sell in order to sell their software. They know the best way to keep hardware selling is to have a string and diverse library selection. Wii was gaining this in 2007/2008. Then all hopes of even better selection with big 3rd party names vanished and since then all we've had to look forward to were largly 1st party games. With that you have a rapidly slowing sales of Wii systems. Its not dead, but its not even leading either. Nintendo will focus on a far more similar base with special enhancements to ensure 3rd parties at worst can port the same game over and at best can add unique features to push Nintendo hardware as an almost unique experience. |
Looking at the % of each console and dev budget of 6th gen vs 7th gen, I'm pretty sure it's financially more and at least equally viable to develop for the Wii than for PS3/360/PC. 40% vs 60% ( rough assumptions ) for half if not less the budget cost. Seems more like 3rd parties just don't want to.
Also, when you say "They want they hardware to sell in order to sell their software.", and the rest of the paragraph, the great library does definitely help, but it's the 1st party games that lead the sales, nearly always. Wii was selling phenomenaly in 2006-2008, when 3rd party games sucked somewhat, 2009's sales got an insane boost thanks to 1 game, NSMBWii. The flagging sales are because the 1st party games have gotten worst, and the 3rd party ones have remained meh.
