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Gamerace on 12 August 2013
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famousringo said:
RolStoppable said:
Gamerace said:
IF the lack of software is a chronic problem for their hardware then it's long past time Nintendo invested in more studios or focused on only a home or portable system since they are clearly incapable of sufficiently supporting both adequately.

If they know lack of software is going to hinder hardware sales (which then hinders software sales) why don't they actually do something the (expletive) about it? More than a temporary influx of games like WiiU is getting.

They did things to do something about it, it's just that those measures have fallen flat, because they always revolve around getting third parties on board. Since the industry keeps shouting that you need third parties to be successful and because Iwata is a nice man, that's what Nintendo has been trying to accomplish. Investing in more first party development capacity would have gone against the narrative, because it's said that first party software hinders third party software sales.


Furthermore, Nintendo has been engaging third party developers as a publisher to get more development on their platform, but has run into problems with the games being mediocre quality (Fatal Frame) or limited appeal outside Japan (Zangeki no Reginlev), sometimes even when the game is a long standing Nintendo IP (Metroid: Other M).

This is a strategy that Nintendo continues to use today with Platinum, but they can't just expand it to infinity. Eventually, even Nintendo runs out of talented game designers to oversee these external projects, and now they're fighting against the rising costs and slowdowns of HD development.

It's not an easy problem to solve, and Nintendo is right to be cautious about growing their development too aggressively.

Y'know I hear all this and I agree to a limited degree.  I also acknowledge Nintendo did buy Monolith and has been working with 2nd parties (but that's nothing new) but on the flip side, they sold Rare (long time ago now) and did not replace that lost productivity.   A LOT of 3rd party developers went under this gen which Nintendo could have snapped up cheap including Factor Five.    Simply put, Nintendo's knew lack of development resources has been an issue for a long time yet continues to do little about it, while they continue to bleed because of it (DS launch drought, GC droughts, Wii droughts, 3DS launch drought issues/price cut, now WiiU HUGE mother of all droughts, 'we didn't know HD was sooo hard' and possible price cut?).

Yes Nintendo is looking to be alive 100 years from now and moves according to that long term plan so they aren't doing EA's stick of buying, raping, killing developers which is great, but what they are doing isn't working too well either.    Some smart purchases would work wonders both short and long term.