| Killiana1a said: As for the real answer to why 3rd party developers do not partner with Nintendo as much as they do the HD systems, I think there are couple of important factors. First, Nintendo had sterling 3rd party support in the SNES era, but went almost exclusively 1st and 2nd party in the N64 and Gamecube era. Developers still remember Nintendo for how Nintendo treated them during the N64 and Gamecube era, which has predisposed them to work with Microsoft and Sony. |
Actually it is the opposite of what you said that is reality. Nintendo was hard on 3rd parties in the NES and SNES eras. The five games per year rule on 3rd parties was one of the reasons they don't like working with Nintendo, Nintendo of America also censored some games until the ESRB was formed.
During the N64 and GameCube Nintendo had partnered quite a lot with them, with Hudson Soft for the Mario Party series, Kuju Entertainment for Battalion Wars, Sega for F-Zero GX, and this is without including games for handhelds.
| Third, Nintendo's dependence on recycling their franchise games for each generation and being able to sell over 5 million on Mario, Zelda and Metroid games has given Nintendo an extreme self confidence to the point where it is Nintendo vs. the world, to the outside observer. Who needs MW 3 if you have Super Mario Galaxy 3, which will cost less and sell comparable numbers? |
I say Nintendo doesn't use their franchises more than any other large publisher. And I have not seen Nintendo manifest this "extreme self-confidence".
| Finally, I think we are all underestimating how much the majority of 3rd party developers originating in the West has to do with their predisposition to work with Microsoft and Sony. Sony may be Japanese based, but Sony banked the success of the PS1 on quality 3rd party support and got it. All the intanigbles of shared history, common language, gameplay vs. graphics and on are compatible with both Microsoft and Sony, just not Nintendo.At least three of the intangibles need to be present. Nintendo may speak the language but their foucs on gameplay first, graphics second and a lack of shared history is not a benefit to bring to the bargaining table with 3rd party developers. |
Actually Sony wanted as many 3rd party games on the PS1 as possible, they didn't care for quality.
