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Squilliam on 18 May 2009
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Stefan.De.Machtige said:
Squilliam said:

Truth or not, don't you think that some of the reasons why Nintendo and 3rd parties don't get along are due to how Nintendo acted in the past?

This is exactly the problem the wii has. 3rd party developers see good profits on a really low investment. So they continue do the same. They have no incentive to do better or invest more in a game, because of decent competition or broad demand for quality. It acts out like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because the whole 'stupid kiddy console' idea took hold, they see very little reason to put more effort in the wii games.

This year sees a far better line-up of quality. But it is still not what a marketleader should have. It seems the mindset is truly changing, but it painfully shows that most 3rd party developers have little imagination or courage to do something new. When i first saw the wii, i thought of the new gaming opportunities coming our way. I saw it, Nintendo sure saw it, but not many others. It's sad that an old veteran like Nintendo got so much disbelief. Nintendo basically started the business with the same daring attitude. And for the most time they kept it, despite some stupid mistakes (you know them). If i worked in the industry, ik knew this: Don't take your eyes of Nintendo, ever.

I don't think thats the case, low development costs can be both a blessing and a curse because it allows for a lot of very shallow development to take place. Furthermore you seem to have this other image about what the Wii is, its not the market leader of all markets. Hell its definately not likely to be the market leader amongst the main demographics which buy violent video games.

Low development costs are a mixed blessing, indeed. In this recession it acts more like an advantage, for now.

"But it is still not what a marketleader should have."

By this sentence i implied your point about how a marketleader should rule most demographics of consoles. Normally a markerleader with the wii numbers should have a far more dominant hold over those markets. In a one year or maybe two we could see far more special exclusives coming to the wii. if so, it will be a marketleader like the PS2. That process seems to underway with Dragonquest 10 or Monsterhunter 3.

Low development costs are balanced by more games being released. In general these things tend to approach an equilibrium which sees most developers on whichever platform losing money or breaking even on projects. Its unfortunately human nature, people are generally gamblers by nature which is why they seem willing to lose money on average in the hope of making it big.

The issue with the Wii is that its both the market leader in a strict SKU sense and not a market equal in a strict development sense. The Wii's software market share equals its hardware market share, this has nothing to do with that fallacy anyway. Furthermore for a multitude of different reasons, albeit developer preferences, publisher bias or perhaps fundamental market research which we don't see the Wii doesn't get its fair share of every genre. It doesn't look like the Wiis going to get a flood of FPS, WRPG and Sandbox games, for example and the reasons for this I cannot truthfully explain. Im sure however there are as many good and bad reasons for this.

 



Tease.