i have a spare 10 mins so i thought id start a blog to see if their are any people out there that who agree with my opinions. if this one worls i will most likely write more at some point. and yes i am a nintendo fanboy but i will try to keep the fanboyism to a mimimal
For a while now Nintendos 'big 3' have been Mario, Zelda and Metroid. These are series that if your buying a main game in the series (not a spin off) you know you are getting a really great game.of course tastes differ and some dont like these games but they cant deny that still have great quality. for example i know that halo 3 is a brilliant game even though i didnt really like it. As well as that nitendo have numerous other franchise that have proven themselves. these so called B franchises include star fox, wario, f-zero, and fire emblem. Whislt not as famouse as the big 3 they are still loved enough to warrant huge demand for new iterations on nintendos latest consoles/handhelds. of the four B franchises i metnioned all had gamecube titles and 2 have had wii titles. Im sure we will see f-zero and star fox titles on wii before this generation ends. But with such feirce competition from established IPs can new IPs survive in nintendos roaster?
for example lets look at nintendo's new IPs over the past couple of generations. exctie truck, captain rainbow, chibi robot , doshin the giant, Giftopia these are all new IPs but its unlikely we will ever see sequels to these games, partly because nintendo didnt believe some of these games could find markets outside japan. of course there are some exceptions, the wii series and endless ocean have become big enough franchises with the expanded audience. The only new core IP that managed to become a fully fledged franchise is Pikmin(i believe). but how many more IPs can slip in before Nintendo's becomes saturated with them. with nintendos next console will we be seeing demand for a new Disaster game. or will it still be demand for a new amrio/zelda/metroid?
As well as questions over demand, there are also questions over supply. nintendo has quite a few developemtn teams but it also has a lot of fans to try and please. With both a handheld and a console to focus on it can be hard to make all the games that fans want. as its number of franchises grow it cannot keep up. we may reach a point where nintendo will have to 'kill off' some of its franchises to focus on others. ( will we ever get a new donkey kong platformer on a console?) Nintendo is increasingly outsourcing its projects just so these games can be made. in some cases this makes sense; Treasure is making S&P2 because they amde the first one. Skip are making the art style games for wiiware because they made the bit generation games. in other cases it seems nintendo is doing it becuase they dont have the manpower to make these games. punch out is being outsourced to next level games, kid icarus is being made by factor 5.
Not that I am complaining this is a viable soloution. Nintendos answer to its lack of development teams seems to be fostering good relations with third partys to get them so the develop exclusively for nintendo systems. this is happening with Skip and next level games even though they are not owned by nintendo. we can see that they are also reaching out to other third party devs. factor 5 said that they had to make Lair to get money because nintendo didnt have anything for them. Now however they have 3 wii games in developement. Look at the games they announced at the japanese conference. Dynamic slash developed by sandalot, cosmic walker developed by Gaia, spawn smasher developed by Artoon, line attack heroes developed by grezzo games these are all new IP, published by nintendo(at least in Japan) but developed by third partys. by acting as publisher nintendo is also helping bring DS IPs to Wii. for example takt of magic developed by taito is a sequel lostmagic on DS
of course the other, but more expensive soloution is to buy new dev teams.of course this is a route nintendo has sometimes taken ie. Retro and Monolith Soft. while we dont know what Retros next project is Monolith has expressed a desire to make original IP for wii, and that was major reason in the going to nintendo. So far we only know about diaster and a new RPG. if disaster sells enough i can see it becoming a new major core franchise for nintendo. the recently annouunced RPG fits with the rumour that monolith soft is working with Matsuno to make a final fantasy killer. this new RPG is intended to be part of a series
In conclsuion then, i believe nintendo will publish more new IP(in japan at least) for wii than any other generation except NES.of course whether the games are published by nintendo worldwide and whether they become new big nintendo franchises remains to be seem. please comment and leave your thoughs, im off to play tomb raider.
nintendo fanboy, but the good kind
proud soldier of nintopia
