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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - id Boss: 3rd-Party Wii Development "Not Really Justified"

1337 Gamer on 12 April 2009
WereKitten said:
NJ5 said:

Just one more thing:

if you're a third-party developer, I would say, "Show me what makes such a compelling case for the Wii.


Here is what makes a compelling case for the Wii:

1- It has nearly 50% of market share.
2- It's the platform which sells the most 3rd party software.
3- It's the platform with the cheapest development costs.
4- Good quality 3rd party titles have had success on the platform.
5- By developing for the Wii, you'll make your company and franchises known to many new gamers, and keep the previously existing ones mindful of them. The alternative is to let Nintendo regain most of the attention and brand recognition.
6- Focusing on the other platforms is proving financially disastrous.

Aren't those enough reasons to make a serious effort with Wii development?

 

Hmm, numbered lists are too inviting...

1) depending on your game, the effective target market share is much smaller. Let's say id wants to create a fps/racer, they look at the Wii and they see the sales of MP3, COD:WoW. From those the audience potentially interested in their games can probably be estimated into 7-8M.

This is kind of what ive been saying for games like madworld. It would probably have sold better on the PS360 and PC because more of that kind of audience have those platforms.

2) the total number across genres is irrelevant for id.

3) false in this case. They are developing a multiplatform game for PC/360/PS3. It takes +30% more rather than developing it only for - say - PC. Enters the Wii: having lower res doesnt save them money. They already had to create the assets once, in HD and great detail. It is the only version that is radically different from the other ones in scaling down assets, scope, CPU requirements. In the end the Wii version is the most expensive port for them.

The mantra of lower cost must be taken with a pinch of salt.

4) a general statement. Would their game port be a good investment for them, given the limited audience and the extra costs? If Rage on Wii ends up selling 1M and they had to develop a port that took as much investment as an exclusive, was it worth?

5) you might have a point here

6) has to be proven in general. i don't think id or Valve are in financial troubles.

PS: I also wonder what game-centric IP means...

This

 



I mostly play RTS and Moba style games now adays as well as ALOT of benchmarking. I do play other games however such as the witcher 3 and Crysis 3, and recently Ashes of the Singularity. I love gaming on the cutting edge and refuse to accept any compromises. Proud member of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race. Long Live SHIO!!!! 

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JoHnNyFr3sC0 on 12 April 2009

I totally agree with GOONYDUDE....if they wouldve released the Wii with a tradiational controller instead of the Wiimote they would have had alot more 3rd party support...I dont think developers are grasping the feel of this new innovative technology yet...they shouldve released the Wiimote as a separate rremote you can buy to play certain games



Arius Dion on 13 April 2009
JoHnNyFr3sC0 said:
I totally agree with GOONYDUDE....if they wouldve released the Wii with a tradiational controller instead of the Wiimote they would have had alot more 3rd party support...I dont think developers are grasping the feel of this new innovative technology yet...they shouldve released the Wiimote as a separate rremote you can buy to play certain games

 

 Yeah, right. Just like having higher specs than the PS2 helped GC receive more third party support.



Bet between Slimbeast and Arius Dion about Wii sales 2009:


If the Wii sells less than 20 million in 2009 (as defined by VGC sales between week ending 3d Jan 2009 to week ending 4th Jan 2010) Slimebeast wins and get to control Arius Dion's sig for 1 month.

If the Wii sells more than 20 million in 2009 (as defined above) Arius Dion wins and gets to control Slimebeast's sig for 1 month.

Bobbuffalo on 13 April 2009

Id always look for the more capable machine not the most popular. That's why Doom appeared on the SNES, Quake on the N64 and Doom 3 on the Xbox.



Cobretti2 on 13 April 2009
Arius Dion said:
JoHnNyFr3sC0 said:
I totally agree with GOONYDUDE....if they wouldve released the Wii with a tradiational controller instead of the Wiimote they would have had alot more 3rd party support...I dont think developers are grasping the feel of this new innovative technology yet...they shouldve released the Wiimote as a separate rremote you can buy to play certain games

 

 Yeah, right. Just like having higher specs than the PS2 helped GC receive more third party support.

 

 Agreed,

 

To add, the Wii is compadible with the GCN controller and it has it's own classic controller.



 

 

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jake_the_fake1 on 13 April 2009

Id have their reasons....perhaps they see the wii as a financial risk.

Think about it, it has 50% market share right, but at the same time quality games which have been aimed at the hardcore market have bombed, and the only hardcore games which sell crap loads are Nintendo game, the other games that sell crap loads aren't exactly hardcore but they aim at the new market which Nintendo's little white box has aimed for and captured, the casuals.

Perhaps Id's game is aimed at the hardcore market, and a safer bet than the wii's market, hence why there not currently making a wii game....remember that the wii is a different beast than the it's competition, and it's all thanks to the controller, so games have to be made accordingly.

Just a thought.



sakicfan84 on 13 April 2009
Shanobi said:
WereKitten said:
LordTheNightKnight said:

It is not risky. Most developers learned it's more risky on HD systems. Take Two and EA have admitted that. And "powerful enough" shows you didn't really read my statement.

Most developers? Is that why they are flocking to develop for the Wii like there's no tomorrow?

Oh, no, wait. They are not "because they're pigheaded".

What EA, Activision, Take Two have admitted is that diversification is healthy. That's what any financial promoter will tell you when building a stock portfolio.

Look at EA. Are they porting Dead Space to the Wii? No, they are making an on-rail game. As I said, playing it safe because other on-rail shooters sold well enough on the Wii. Their other project? A tennis game.

Look at Capcom. Did they make the necessary investment when porting Dead Rising? No, they went with low-budget and a recycled engine because it was risky. Did they include the Wii when developing RE5? No, they used a common engine on 360 and PS3 and they announced a new on-rail shooter on the Wii.

Face the facts: these developers are not sure that they can get their investment back if they develop mature, AAA games on the Wii. You can tell each other that the costs are lower and that they are stupid, but I doubt any of you has access to more statistics, cost projections and risk assessments than those "pigheaded" developers.

 

That said, what has "powerful enough" in the context of toolchain convergence and cost saving to do with your statement:

"I'd say it's not developing for the top selling, and less expensive to develop for, system is being justified here. It's just being pig-headed that's making developers still see HD development as default."

I read it. It said the same things I read many times in the past.

Actually, developers like Activision have stated that the Wii is their biggest bread winner. The flocking to the Wii has already begun, and will continue to move in that direction.

 

Again, Activision for one has stated that the Wii is now their priority.

 

Did that quote about the Wii being their biggest bread winner exist in the world where Activision didn't reap the rewards from World of Warcraft?  That world must exist in your butt, since that's where that information was most likely pulled from.

Also they said that creating original content for the Wii is now a priority as opposed to using the Wii as an extension of the HD consoles.  They didn't say "the wii is now their priority".

 



WereKitten on 13 April 2009
LordTheNightKnight said:
WereKitten said:
LordTheNightKnight said:

 

And Gears 1 was also hyped and marketed.

That's not the point. Ports could always be done. What is new is that you can develop multiplatform products using shared tools right from the get-go. It saves a great amount of time and money. Plus you can directly share many of the assets.

Less money spent to develop for a bigger market implies less risk.

That isn't actually true. Similar tools come from system similarities, not spec similarities. That's just a fallacy to assume similar specs save cost on their own. It's because of the Direct X system that 360 and Windows development is easier, not specs.

And that doesn't change the fact that HD development is still really high, and they can still take a while to develop, like GTA IV and RE 5 (and the latter doesn't even have the excuse of throwing out three builds before the final version).

You do understand that the PS3 doesn't use DirectX(1), and thus that multiplatform engines have to abstract out the library calls?

And that it's only because the consoles have grown powerful enough that you can develop in such abstractions spending much less time and money optimizing for the peculiar hardware, where with older consoles you would have had to separately optimize AI, graphics, I/O to the last bit if you wanted an acceptable performance.(2)

 

 

1. Duh! That's why I didn't mention it.

2. That does not save that much, nor does it mean doing what you can on the Wii would raise the cost too much to risk it (which seems to be an implication here).

1) then you're not addressing my initial point, that was that for the first time the PS3 amd 360 are powerful enough to be considered a single platform together with the PC

2) does not save that much?

You can develop a game for the 360, spending, say, 18M dollars.

Add 20% of that and for 21.6M you have a 360/PS3 game. Your target market has just doubled.

Assume 15 dollars of revenue per copy and you break even at 1.44M sold between the two consoles.

Enters the Wii from stage left.

You have to rewrite most of the code, downsample the textures, modify the geometries, maybe change some AI or number of enemies of set up pieces to accomodate the single cor, less powerful CPU. You must find a way to integrate Wii controls. You end up spending 5M on that (the same as the minimum investment for a PS2 game)

This new investment makes money if more than 500K Wii owners will buy the game.

Now seriously, by looking at past sales, if I am a third party developer and my game has no licensed character and a mature appeal, which bet would you take:

- sell 1.44M+ between PS3 and 360 for profit

- same as above, plus risk 5M more and spend more time in development, sell 500K+ on the Wii for increased profit

I am pretty sure that selling 770K on 360/PS3 is a lesser risk than selling 500K on Wii for most genres that have limited appeal on the "extended" audience.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman

Cobretti2 on 13 April 2009

sorry, enter key got stuck.



 

 

Cobretti2 on 13 April 2009

sorry, enter key got stuck.