| RolStoppable said: |
@Rol, I think that both you and padib are (ironically) both right. Here's an example of where there's some exception to what you say:
Nintendo cannot reclaim its rightful image in the industry, but that shouldn't bother them. It's the market that counts, not developers. If an entertainer wins the hearts of the audience, but his colleagues talk crap about him, should they care? My point is that the opinions of the people who pay the bills are much more important.
The more accurate analogy is to say that Nintendo won the hearts of many of the audience; the ones who casually show up to the theater and will fill the majority of the empty seats on any given night. However, they didn't necessarily win the hearts of the people who are the dedicated theater goers that frequent the venue and spend the most time and money there. There are many PS360 owners who don't own a Wii simply because of the lacking 3rd party support and tech (not talking about the irrelevant haters here).
Your argument centers around the importance of third party support, but the DS and Wii succeeded despite lackluster third party software.
Agreed. However, it's no secret that Nintendo is still envious of the HD twins being the base for the new COD, GTA, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Batman, Red Dead, Elder Scrolls, Battlefield, Portal, etc, etc. Yes, Nintendo proved emphatically successful (and profitable) without these titles, but what if they could have both? They'd be unstoppable. Remember that Nintendo is no stranger to great 3rd party support (NES, SNES). The SNES version of Street Fighter 2 (easily the biggest 3rd party game at the time) was immensely popular compared to the severely lacking Genesis version.
Also, appeasing third parties inevitably raises the cost of the hardware and Nintendo's market doesn't ask for this sort of upgrade. They are not going to pay for something they didn't want in the first place (which is why the 3DS has to be sold at a loss now as stereoscopic 3D has little to no value). So there's a conflict between what third party developers want and what Nintendo's market wants which brings me back to the point I made in the opening paragraph of this post. Who should be higher on Nintendo's priority list? Does the world really need another HD twin; because ports is all the Wii U can hope for.
The Wii was the perfect system at the perfect time for Nintendo. Normally you're right that appeasing 3rd parties can come at the expense of the mass market, but it doesn't have to, as proven with the PS2. Hopefully, Nintendo can now deliver an affordable system (for the mass market) that can also deliver on what the majority of developers want (3rd parties). The determining factor is Nintendo making those key 1st party games that move systems. As you said before, the Gamecube didn't deliver on this. It had bad launch timing in relation to its competition, offered no new hook, and came after a modest selling console (N64). The Wii U has none of these problems going for it. If they can launch at around $299 with strong, system selling 1st party titles that demonstrate the functionality of the screen controller, even with just ports of 3rd party games I believe they will be very successful. $299 wasn't too much for the PS2 to fly off shelves, and if the system is strong enough to at least share the same titles as the PS4/Xbox1080, the mass market will still pick it up as the price comes down.
Again, it's all up to Nintendo. I see the 3DS launch debacle as a much needed eye-opener for what to rectify with Wii U. I definitely don't believe it'll be another Dreamcast or Gamecube as far as sales.
