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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The real reason why 3rd party games do not sell well on Nintendo hardware

Mummelmann on 03 March 2013

Nintendo gamers are too good for 3rd party titles, is that what you're saying? Wow.
And the whole "360 and PS3 owners just don't know any better" is among the most elitist remarks I've heard in my time in here. I own both those consoles and I've played Nintendo games my whole life but dedicate my gaming time to my PC, what does that make me?

People complain about 3rd party support on Nintendo platforms and then you (OP) go on to simply dismissing 3rd party titles as useless and cheap and below you. Guess what? Gamers like you don't deserve support, 3rd party or otherwise. And if you're such an elite gamer, how about spending some cash on more consoles or a PC and get the best from all worlds, or are you too proud?

This is the most childish thing I've seen in months, the current Wii U situation is producing some of the most defensive, juvenile posts and threads I've ever seen. So much for "Camp A or B fans are the worst".



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Scoobes on 03 March 2013
cyberninja45 said:
Scoobes said:

Neither was Resistance (relatively low meta score), or the original Assassins Creed (OK, not a shooter, but the principle is the same... I'm simply using it here because it's also from Ubisoft, had decent marketing and was released early in the gen). Heavy marketing, little competition and being an early release exclusive on the best selling console at the time all pointed to Red Steel selling well and finding a decent share of the market. However, it didn't sell particularly well especially when compared to similar titles on the HD twins, and other shooters on the console didn't fare so well either.

As I mentioned to Fordy earlier, the Wii was in a difficult position for 3rd parties. Not only was it underpowered but it also had an older chip architecture meaning porting of core games to Wii was much harder than porting between 360, PS3 & PC. Most publishers obviously thought they would have difficulty in making money from a Wii version otherwise we would have seen more core games on the console.

The majority of games would have to be built from the ground up for the older architecture on Wii rather than a cheaper porting job. Justifying a Wii version when it was effectively like making a second game (and engine) and with all previous data suggesting the market size would be the smallest of all the 3-4 versions meant the Wii was overlooked for all but the very biggest of 3rd party franchises.

So for publishers, the Wii didn't look like it had a particularly strong market for some traditional genres, and the extra costs of porting down (virtually building a game from the ground up) meant it got few of the multiplats. In the markets it was shown to be strong in (mentioned in my previous post), 3rd parties put games on the console.

It'll be interesting to see how much core support Wii U will get with its modern architecture and with most Engine makers boasting about the scalability of their game engine. Theoretically, we should see far more multiplats appear.

@bolded Your argument here and mine in the OP both come to the same conclusion. My point in the OP are that nintendo gamers BS radar tend to be a little more fine tuned than ps360 gamers the fact both games were reviewed badly and there is huge difference in sales only backs my claims.

For the rest I can mostly agree with you about devs having to build a game from the ground up for the wii.

Not really as Nintendo hasn't actually produced a quality shooter that's sold particularly well on Wii either. The closest is Metroid Prime 3 which never passed 2 million sales. Even the trilogy never passed 1 million. When you look at platformers, dance games, fitness titles and the party genre it pales in comparison. In the same way, a dance game (almost regardless of quality, depends on competition and other external factors) is more likely to find success on Wii than on PS3. Look at Epic Mickey 2; same game on multiple platforms that sells a lot better on Wii (about 3 times better than any other platform) because the market is already established on that particular platform and therefore much stronger.

Like I said, different markets, different focus from third parties. Third party games have sold well on nintendo platforms and in the case of the Wii they were simply in different markets to what you would normally associate with core or for many "quality" gaming.




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cyberninja45 on 03 March 2013
hunter_alien said:
cyberninja45 said:
hunter_alien said:
No... the quality of Nintendo 1st party is subjective, so your argument falls flat.
The truth is that the established 3rd party fanbase is nowhere to be found on Nintendo consoles. Since the SNES they never had a stable 3rd party relationship, and that is the bigger truth. The quality of AAA 3rd party games is more than enough to rival and even surpass Nintendo. I think myself and the majority of gamers agree on this one


Quality maybe subjective to an extent. But are you honestly telling that most nintendo games are not highly rated?

Yes there are some very high quality 3rd party games, most of them just don't grace nintendo platforms.


Not at all. I am simply saying that 3rd party offerings can be of same quality.

Its actually funny. I mostly grew up with Nintendo franchises but went over to the PC/Playstation combo mostly for the quality 3rd party support, and rhe fact that by the end of the 90's Sony had a more than strong enough 1st party exclusive library that I believed that is enough to rival the N64 and later on the GC.

The truth is that 3rd party IPs became so dominant in modern times that Nintendo is loosing center stage with their IPs. New IP's from Ubi/Capcom/EA/ActiBliz are getting som much attention every day from the gaming media that Mario is starting to get sidelined, especially when you get a "New"SMB every year now.

The fact is that the biggest flaw of the OP's argument is its argument itslef. Not only 3rd party games are highly rated, they are starting to steal that creative/new feeling what Nintendo used to offer gamers. It will be nice if the 3DS gets a new Metroid, but Im willing to bet that more gamers are excited for Deep Down and Watchdogs.

Well I guess by e3 we would be able to know if you were right or wrong about 3rd party games stealing nintendo's thunder because I guess they are going to show most of the wiiU games they have been working on, or at least I think they should show them or else the wiiU might have an impossible task against Sony and MS new consoles.



My 3ds friendcode: 5413-0232-9676 (G-cyber)



cyberninja45 on 03 March 2013
Scoobes said:
cyberninja45 said:
Scoobes said:

Neither was Resistance (relatively low meta score), or the original Assassins Creed (OK, not a shooter, but the principle is the same... I'm simply using it here because it's also from Ubisoft, had decent marketing and was released early in the gen). Heavy marketing, little competition and being an early release exclusive on the best selling console at the time all pointed to Red Steel selling well and finding a decent share of the market. However, it didn't sell particularly well especially when compared to similar titles on the HD twins, and other shooters on the console didn't fare so well either.

As I mentioned to Fordy earlier, the Wii was in a difficult position for 3rd parties. Not only was it underpowered but it also had an older chip architecture meaning porting of core games to Wii was much harder than porting between 360, PS3 & PC. Most publishers obviously thought they would have difficulty in making money from a Wii version otherwise we would have seen more core games on the console.

The majority of games would have to be built from the ground up for the older architecture on Wii rather than a cheaper porting job. Justifying a Wii version when it was effectively like making a second game (and engine) and with all previous data suggesting the market size would be the smallest of all the 3-4 versions meant the Wii was overlooked for all but the very biggest of 3rd party franchises.

So for publishers, the Wii didn't look like it had a particularly strong market for some traditional genres, and the extra costs of porting down (virtually building a game from the ground up) meant it got few of the multiplats. In the markets it was shown to be strong in (mentioned in my previous post), 3rd parties put games on the console.

It'll be interesting to see how much core support Wii U will get with its modern architecture and with most Engine makers boasting about the scalability of their game engine. Theoretically, we should see far more multiplats appear.

@bolded Your argument here and mine in the OP both come to the same conclusion. My point in the OP are that nintendo gamers BS radar tend to be a little more fine tuned than ps360 gamers the fact both games were reviewed badly and there is huge difference in sales only backs my claims.

For the rest I can mostly agree with you about devs having to build a game from the ground up for the wii.

Not really as Nintendo hasn't actually produced a quality shooter that's sold particularly well on Wii either. The closest is Metroid Prime 3 which never passed 2 million sales. Even the trilogy never passed 1 million. When you look at platformers, dance games, fitness titles and the party genre it pales in comparison. In the same way, a dance game (almost regardless of quality, depends on competition and other external factors) is more likely to find success on Wii than on PS3. Look at Epic Mickey 2; same game on multiple platforms that sells a lot better on Wii (about 3 times better than any other platform) because the market is already established on that particular platform and therefore much stronger.

Like I said, different markets, different focus from third parties. Third party games have sold well on nintendo platforms and in the case of the Wii they were simply in different markets to what you would normally associate with core or for many "quality" gaming.

@bolded Ok fair enough, although the trilogy was a limited edition but I see your overall point there, but it still stands that red steel was not a good game.

Yes the wii did reach a wider market, but as I pointed out earlier with my RE4 example there was still a market for core games, maybe not as large as ps360 +pc combined, but still there and bought games once it was a "quality" title. Maybe it was the continuous 3rd party efforts that created those different markets on ps360 and not the other way around, like you said it was. After all COD3 on wii did outsell the ps3 version ,notice how this was before the wii was considered a "casual" console and ps3 a "core" console.



My 3ds friendcode: 5413-0232-9676 (G-cyber)



TripleMMM on 04 March 2013

I would normally agree with the OP.., if I was a fanboy... And would make me feel more like a hypocrite than I already am. :/



 And proud member of the Mega Mario Movement!
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hunter_alien on 04 March 2013
cyberninja45 said:
hunter_alien said:
cyberninja45 said:
hunter_alien said:
No... the quality of Nintendo 1st party is subjective, so your argument falls flat.
The truth is that the established 3rd party fanbase is nowhere to be found on Nintendo consoles. Since the SNES they never had a stable 3rd party relationship, and that is the bigger truth. The quality of AAA 3rd party games is more than enough to rival and even surpass Nintendo. I think myself and the majority of gamers agree on this one


Quality maybe subjective to an extent. But are you honestly telling that most nintendo games are not highly rated?

Yes there are some very high quality 3rd party games, most of them just don't grace nintendo platforms.


Not at all. I am simply saying that 3rd party offerings can be of same quality.

Its actually funny. I mostly grew up with Nintendo franchises but went over to the PC/Playstation combo mostly for the quality 3rd party support, and rhe fact that by the end of the 90's Sony had a more than strong enough 1st party exclusive library that I believed that is enough to rival the N64 and later on the GC.

The truth is that 3rd party IPs became so dominant in modern times that Nintendo is loosing center stage with their IPs. New IP's from Ubi/Capcom/EA/ActiBliz are getting som much attention every day from the gaming media that Mario is starting to get sidelined, especially when you get a "New"SMB every year now.

The fact is that the biggest flaw of the OP's argument is its argument itslef. Not only 3rd party games are highly rated, they are starting to steal that creative/new feeling what Nintendo used to offer gamers. It will be nice if the 3DS gets a new Metroid, but Im willing to bet that more gamers are excited for Deep Down and Watchdogs.

Well I guess by e3 we would be able to know if you were right or wrong about 3rd party games stealing nintendo's thunder because I guess they are going to show most of the wiiU games they have been working on, or at least I think they should show them or else the wiiU might have an impossible task against Sony and MS new consoles.


Lets hope so But they are shwoing they big guns on a HD console, so it cant be that bad



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