| happydolphin said: As long as Nintendo is still able to pump out casual content and continue to attract the DS audience while expanding on this new front, Nintendo has nothing to fear. |
A well thought out reply! I don't agree with all of it, though.
To begin with, having lived through the N64 and Gamecube eras in particular, I promise you that the means do in fact matter. Nintendo has been trying for over a decade to re-attract third-party support, so the goal is nothing new. I don't believe that this new method will bear fruit. By funding games that have fallen to the wayside, Nintendo is essentially putting itself in a quandry. They're attempting to bank on IPs which the owners no longer believe are commercially viable. How likely then is the IP publisher to devote their top-tier developers to these projects? Without that talent, this gamble is unlikely to be successful, as numerous C-and-D-team Wii games have amply demonstrated. Nintendo is investing its money and energy into getting another Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I suspect its going to end up with a series of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.
But let us assume that the C-team goes out there and hits a homerun. It does not logically follow that mass third-party support will flow in through the backdoor. Recall the myriad of "test games" we saw on the Wii. Successes did not breed Big IPs on the Wii. They bred more spinoffs and test games. Occasionally, they'd breed ports and sequels for the other systems. But failure rarely if ever failed to cut off further support. Recent history shows that trying to get big support by entering the backdoor creates nothing but hollow victories and utter defeats.
Furthermore, I believe you're overestimating the likelihood of these projects' success. You asked me to consider Megaman. I have. It is part of my pessimissm. Legends 3 only "existed" because its creator was passionate about the project. It no longer exists because its owner does not think it is commercially viable. They assigned it no resources, and repeatedly tried to kill it. Some people on the internet are confused by this desire to terminate it. They want to play it! There are other people on the internet that want to play it! And in 2000, when Legends 2 released in Japan, it was the 138th best-selling game for that year. Worldwide, it went on to sell half of what its predecessor had. The PSP release in 2005 was a financial disaster. It's a series that suffers from Snake-On-A-Plane syndrome: the internet loves it, the public doesn't buy it.
And that holds true of all the dead series. Shenmue gets a lot of love online, but the original's sales don't approach the internet hype and the sequel sold like crap, even after Microsoft pushed for an Xbox port. Crazy Taxi's an awesome game. Its multiple sequels argue that the world has moved on. Jet Grind Radio? Future's fate says everything we need to know. As for Killer Instinct, it's been a long time since a revived Rareware title has done anything worth noticing. And while Seaman did okay, we should take a look at how its sequel compared. Don't worry if you're surprised to learn a sequel existed. It's a secret to most people!
I admit that I can not say for certain that this strategy won't work. Stranger things have happened, after all. But I have two main questions for everyone who likes this news. What part of the Wii's library makes you believe that the success of minor titles will inspire third-parties to bring their big guns to the system? And if the games' owners have no faith in these titles, why should you?
