Why do developers act like Nintendo fans are obligated to buy their shitty games?

[gumby_trucker]

RolStoppable said:

I am not sure, if I have covered everything. If that's not the case, feel free to make me aware of it.

Basically it boils down to my original question. I understand Nintendo treated the majority of the industry unfairly during the 8-16 bit days, and that they payed for it by losing a ton of support with N64, and that this extended into the Gamecube generation as well, perhaps also due to some design issues with the later two consoles...

In 2004 Sony was (in theory) threatening to make Nintendo obsolete with their entry into the handheld market which was sustaining Ninty, so they had to make some drastic changes to their strategy in order to come out of the situation favorably, which they did with DS and Wii. In the process they also managed to regain much of the ground they had lost in terms acceptance and popularity in the public's eyes, though the same can't be said about developers I'm afraid.

Nintendo showed this generation that good third party games can sell well on Nintendo platforms, that's true. Did they prove that sales are so good that it warrants an investment by 3rd parties in alternate technologies and different training for the staff? I'm not sure... But the phenomenal level of success did at least bring a higher level of acceptance among developers that Nintendo's philosophy has a right to co-exist in the market, to the point where today even companies like Id, Crytek and Epic have favorable things to say about them.

Since Wii U will support developer's existing tools and production pipelines, it is no longer necessary to go though the trouble of rebuilding your entire game from scratch for another meager 1-2 mil. sales at most. Thus the fact that good 3rd party games can sell decently on Nintendo systems is once again relevant.

What remains to be seen IMO is if 3rd parties will ever enjoy the same level of success on Nintendo platforms as they do elsewhere. Better yet, I'd like to know if there are certain games that make sense to develop with Nintendo in mind to begin with, and not just as an after-thought, which is why I initially asked about games that have done better on Nintendo hardware in the past.

When I ask myself whether or not a certain 3rd party game that finds success on Nintendo hardware can succeed elsewhere, the answer is almost always yes, and probably to a greater degree. When I think about many 3rd party games on competing platforms selling well on Nintendo systems, the answer is usually much less clear...

I think that in order to remain relevant, Nintendo have to show that they can provide new areas of expansion for developers which are as significant as online was for Xbox and 360. Take that feature away and MS would have been sitting on an expensive Playstation derivative with no reason to exist.