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jarrod on 05 April 2010
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psrock said:
MontanaHatchet said:
psrock said:
MontanaHatchet said:
I sometimes wonder how  Nintendo would be faring right now in Japan without the DS. It seems like it's the only thing keeping just about every Japanese third party and IP from switching to Sony.

 

At first I was wondering why you were quoting me and not saying anything. Then I realized you edited my post.

Well, to answer your question, Nintendo would still be doing fine. The Wii is still far superior to the PSP at moving software in Japan, even if its hardware sales lag behind. The difference is that Nintendo has a killer combo of two systems (the Wii and DS) that are great at selling software in the Japanese market. Sony only has one. 

The Wii is superior at moving Nintendo games, we were talking about 3rd party and frankly, The Wii wish it had the PSP support. In fact, The PS3 while it doesnt sell nearly as well as the Wii still get as many third if not more than the Wii.

Funny enough, I would say DS was likely the chief stumbling block to Wii getting better Japanese 3rd party support.  It pretty much became the new PS2, while Wii (despite selling at better than PS2 figures early on) had to settle for scattered leftovers.  You can't get real market leader style support when there's already a record breaking market leader in place.

For one, I think most of those DS Square Enix RPGs would've been on PS2 (FFIII, FFXIIRW, etc), then transitioned Wii (FFCC, DQIX, SaGa2, etc).  Level-5 likely would've gone straight to Wii with Layton, Inazuma, etc.  Konami, Namco Bandai, Capcom, Sega, etc, likely would've thrown more support Wii's way earlier.  And with increased support upfront from the large publishers and brands, we'd have seen increased support from mid tier and small publishers and brands, and a much healthier ecosystem for software sales sooner.  This is how it worked on Famicom and PlayStation, and with DS out of the picture it's likely how it would've worked out for Wii...