| HappySqurriel said:
Years ago I saw an interview with Kayne West where he was talking about why he was such a successful rapper and (while his talent can be debated) one of the things he mentioned is actually very important here; essentially, he said that there were no "Throw away lines" (or something like that) and compared himself to rappers who wrote phrases simply to rhyme with something else they produced. This relates to Nintendo because there are no throw-away games being produced by Nintendo, and the same can not be said about third party publishers. To put a number to it, around 66% of third party games released to Nintendo platforms are throw away games where the publisher assumes the game is going to fail so they starve it of support, resources, and marketing and then seems surprised that it fails. To use Activisions' 2012 releases on the Wii as an example: Skylanders Giants (80% on Gamerankings) There is obviously no effort to make something that sells because it is high quality, there is only an effort to get something out to cash in on the popularity of a licensed property they hold at the moment. If Activision was run like Nintendo, Battleship, Wreck-it-Ralph, Men In Black, and Ice Age would (probably) have not been made, their budgets would have been re-allocated to the teams behind Skylanders Giants, The Amazing Spider Man, and Transformers prime. Third party publishers repeatedly burn their customers by releasing shitty games and those same customers learn to choose Nintendo franchises in the future because they know they're good games. |
Third parties are conflicted because on the one hand they want to only release top content whilst on the other hand they see the seemingly random success of various titles which are thrown out there and stick for one reason or another. Games like Just Dance or Guitar Hero for instance become fads which blow up for a while and then crash or on the mobile front games like Angry Birds become popular because everyone has heard about it and it is a simple and easy game to get into. How for instance was EA to know that a spinoff to Sim City would become 10* bigger and be the number 1 selling PC game of all time? It is the role of 3rd parties to take risks and throw random half hearted efforts around to see what sticks because otherwise there would be very little variety and change in the game market. Where Activision wouldn't dare change the formula of Call of Duty there has to be another lesser funded developer who would take that risk.
The difference between a Nintendo ecosystem and a Microsoft ecosystem is that whilst they both release very strong content it is a lot easier to be competitive on the same games the latter makes than the former. You can generally bet that the best selling platformers, RPG, arcade racer and brawlers will be Nintendo titles simply on name recognition alone. With the majority of the big traditional genres covered by a strong Nintendo staple you have less traditional and more risky types of games as niches to fill because without the kind of gamer who would buy more than one of a game/genre when you miss the mark you miss the mark by a huge distance. The reason why the core/hardcore market is so coveted is that they keep the 'not quite there' franchises alive long enough to either find their own niche or develop into something big.
Tease.
