| Bodhesatva said: Part of this is actually bad news for the Wii, by the way, specifically the part involving third parties. He has one issue with the Wii: the games are lower priced (49.99), and therefore could cut into corporate revenue (not necessarily profits) over the more expensive PS3/360 titles (59.99). His other issues with 3rd parties aren't problems with the Wii, but more general problems: large 3rd party companies have already spent a great deal of money on R&D for game engines on PS3/360, and simply brushing aside that investment could be costly. Lastly, he points out that Nintendo does very well on the software side, and this would automatically cut in to 3rd party sales. I don't believe that people just buy Nintendo-published games "just because," but I do buy the argument that people buy Nintendo published games because they are GOOD. Simple example: if System A has one good first party game, one could reasonably expect a third party game would do better on System A than on System B, which has 4 good first party titles. It's great for the consumer to have 5+ great games to play with, but for publishers of high quality, heavy-investment titles, all it means is more competition and more sales dilution. |
I agree that the revenues may be lower for wii games (but this assumes that the game would seel about the same amount on another console) But at the end day what really matters to publishers is profits. And if it take less money to develope a game, it stands a better chance of making a profit.
I also disagree with his comments about the R&D. Yes, it will sting the publishers who bet on the PS3 or 360 right off the back. But in the end it appears that motion sensing will be the future of gaming. You can likly expect at least some basic motion sensing on the future counsoles. (PS4 and 360) And now is the perfect time for the publishers to learn how to best exploit this inovation with aconsole that is cheaper to develope for. In the next generation they will have learned many tricks that they can use on more expensive games. And they won't have to use trial and error on $20 million budget games.
And while it is true that Nintendo will probably dominate the software for the Wii. This will just force the publishers to develope high quality games to try and match Nintendo. And I would assume that all of us would like to see most studios increase the quality of their games.
