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Carl on 18 February 2010
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RolStoppable said:
Carl2291 said:

There is a lot there, so have some colour.

Red - They sold well, and gave 3rd parties an idea of what sells on Wii. Thus they followed suit. I think if Nintendo did the same with for example, a 3rd person shooter. And it sold what... 5mil +, you would see a lot more TPS on Wii. Same for FPS games, or whatever.

Orange - It mainly goes back to my point on advertising. While Zelda, SMG and Smash Bros are big core franchises, we have had 3 of them this gen, and one of them was in 2006. You could also say Metroid, but we have had... One new Metroid game released back in 07, and a re-release. Since Brawl we have had nothing but "casual" stuff from Nintendo. This means Ninty have been marketting it for that specific audience for 2 years. Animal Crossing, Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, NSMB Wii are not games that cater to the "core" audience. You could possibly argue Mario, but with the way it was advertised it's not exactly going to draw in the core crowd. 

2010 is looking different with SMG2, Zelda and Metroid all hitting in the same year. Ninty are also putting themselves behind Monster Hunter. Maybe they can influence some more core games on Wii, but i'm not expecting much.

Blue - Instead of making more new franchises themselves, why don't they? They can easily afford it. Why don't they pay Square to make a new Final Fantasy on Wii? Or Activision to give Wii it's own Call of Duty? Capcom for Res Evil 5 + 6? Sony/MS are willing to do it, why aren't Nintendo, who are in a much better position?

Red - I got this point covered already. There were no new games like Zelda or Super Mario Galaxy, despite the audience for large scale action-adventures and 3D platformers being there. The reason being that third parties don't want to invest in the Wii and rather go with their third and fourth string teams. If Nintendo made a TPS that sold 5+m, third parties would shrug and say "well, it's a Nintendo game" and put out more casual stuff.

Orange -

No, really. Do you actually believe what you have written? NSMB Wii doesn't cater to the "core" audience? You honestly think that the "core" audience would hold off of buying good games because of the way the console itself or the games are advertised?

And why would SMG2, Zelda and Metroid encourage third parties to make more core games? The Wii already had those games in one form or another, but now, two years after they have all been released, where are all these third party core games that were supposed to come out? The easiest answer is often the right one: Third parties don't want to make these games.

Blue - This isn't a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. Talent is rare in this business, so there are only so many games that can be made at the same time. Paying off third parties isn't really going to help either, because all their most talented developers are already working on 360/PS3 games.

Why isn't Nintendo willing to do it? Well, did you ever look at the sales charts? There's no need to act desperately and as I have previously said, it shouldn't be required to moneyhat third parties for every single game. The Wii offers a good environment for third parties to succeed (highest software sales, lowest development costs, biggest userbase), it's just that for some reason they don't want to try.

What that reason is? Third parties want to be in the driver's seat of this industry. They want to be the ones who decide about the fate of video game machines. If that is the case, then console manufacturers will fight over them and pay for exclusivity or fund entire games. Their ideal world is Sony and Microsoft having about even shares of the market (with Nintendo being a minor player, because they are evil and refuse to moneyhat like the other two), because if one would become too successful, there wouldn't be much reason to pay off third parties.

Now of course things developed differently compared to what was expected by the industry. Nintendo became the dominant player and that is the nightmare scenario for third parties. Nintendo is good to go alone, they don't have to rely on third parties like Sony and Microsoft. In case third parties would fully back the Wii, Nintendo would only become more dominant which is exactly what they don't want. So they decided to fight Nintendo with all they've got. Pretty much all major games go to the HD consoles, but not the Wii. They come up with reasons why the games aren't coming to the Wii, but over time those reasons became more and more questionable. Low software sales? Games get ported for the PSP, not the Wii. The Wii hardware isn't capable of running the game? But no problem to bring the game to the PSP or lately, also the iPhone.

Red - I don't think that would happen. But hey, opinions vary.

Orange - Nah, i don't mean that. Mario appeals to everyone. What i mean is the advertising for it brings a certain gamer to the machine. Then the 3rd parties cater to that said gamer. It's easy money.

Maybe they don't want to. Maybe they are happy with what they have on PS360. But if there are any 3 games that Ninty could do this year to persuade them onto Wii, those are the 3 games. If Zelda suddenly hits with the casual crowd and sees, for example, 10m+ sales. It could lead to a bunch of original new adventure games on Wii.

Blue - I think it is, with the money Nintendo have. And who's to say that they can't make Wii games after they have finished current projects? We all know the Wii software is selling like crazy, but it's not the core software that's lighting up the charts every week. That's the problem. The 3rd parties are catering to the market's that DO light up the charts. Your fitness games, kids games and party games.

Bold - Biggest conspiracy theory ever