Wii U graphics power finally revealed - "we can now finally rule out any next-gen pretensions for the Wii U"

[Scisca]

RolStoppable said:

DanneSandin said:

The thing is that developers are lazy... They couldn't be bothered to make anything unique for the Wii, so they didn't do anything at all. Except for Ubisoft, and they sold a shit ton of Just Dance and Skylanders. But looking at sales of other "core" games on Wii made by Ubisoft, it didn't sell gang busters; Red Steel 2 (I'm not gonna talk about the first game, since it seems really bad). That's quite a good game, and it got good reviews - but Wii owners didn't bother picking it up. I think it sold 1m or so... But why don't you go a head and post some of your points as to why/how 3rd parties are biased to Nintendo? I'm sincerely curious!

And I have heard that story about Tekken, and couldn't believe what I was reading. Seemed to incredibly stupid!!

If you heard the Tekken story, then why would you believe that developers are lazy? The Tekken guy wanted to make major changes to the game which would be much more work than a straight port.

Skylanders is an Activision IP.

Red Steel 2 was a pretty average game that had nothing going for it, except motion plus controls. Not particularly long, no multiplayer, no replay value. Good reviews for Wii hardcore games don't mean anything, because there is always Dead Space Extraction. The main reason why some Wii third party games are deemed good is because there was hardly anything of the caliber of a Resident Evil 4. If you take that game (or Monster Hunter Tri) as a benchmark, then original third party games on the Wii were lousy, including Red Steel 2. You could say that it didn't sell well, because there weren't enough people who were willing to lower their standards. If a game like Red Steel 2 was actually good, then you would have people say that it's worth owning a Wii for third party games alone.

A lot of the third party bias against Nintendo has to do with their hivemind nature. If a big third party holds a certain mindset, others are likely to follow without giving it much or any thought. So if a publisher like Electronic Arts goes on record to declare certain things, it's likely that most of the rest of the industry adopts the same mindset. I am pretty sure Nintendo knows this as well which is why they made it a point to court EA and had their CEO on stage at E3 2011. You need to sway the big guys to really change something.

As for why third parties have a beef with Nintendo:

1) Nintendo doesn't bend over for third parties like Sony and Microsoft do. That's actually a perfectly sound stance by Nintendo, because as a console manufacturer they are putting billions on the line, so it's only fair that they have the final say on everything.

2) Nintendo's first party software sells a lot and third parties mistakingly believe that any sale of a first party game equals a lost sale for a third party game. But big first party software does not only drive hardware sales (which subsequently increases software sales on the whole), it also increases interest in other games. If people liked what they bought, they will be inclined to buy more. The following purchase isn't necessarily another first party game.

3) Nintendo's first party software is usually highly polished and offers a lot of replay value. The consequence is that consumers naturally adopt high quality standards. This is something that can bother third parties who want to make a quick buck.

4) Nintendo had strict licensing policies during the NES and SNES generation, so one or the other third party may still hold a grudge over this, even though it feels like ages ago.

What's the argument about DS:E about? This is an honest question. I own the game and like it a lot, just don't know what it stands for in the console wars :P

 

I think your points are pretty much ridiculous. A grudge since NES and SNES? C'mon! Gamecube had a very nice 3rd party support, it got ports which were upgraded versions od PS2 games, so you can't complain. Nintendo could have easily gone on from that point and developed the relationship, but instead they decided to take a different route with the Wii, which was too weird and upredictable for other companies to follow. Remember, if you're investing millions in your games, you don't want to invest in something that's fickle and not certain, when you can invest it in a more certain platform. This is why Wii lost 3rd parties.