Nintendo and 3rd Party Development: Solving the Problem

[Veknoid_Outcast]

pokoko, this is a well-meaning thread but I think you're projecting too many of your own video game standards onto the industry in general and Nintendo in particular.

If you look at the sales numbers, Super Mario, Pokemon, Mario Kart, and Wii Sports sold (and continue to sell) better than games like Halo, Uncharted, and God of War. There is a huge demand for the games Nintendo makes.

Nintendo started losing the console war because Sony made a better mousetrap. They landed all the sexy, must-have software. But Nintendo never went away. Even against the PS2, arguably the finest console ever made, and surrounded by a serious stigma, Nintendo managed to survive. And then, a few years later, it revolutionized the industry.

As much as your OP wants to let third parties entirely off the hook, there is some truth to the idea that third parties are wary of publishing games on Nintendo platforms. Is it justified? Historically, yes. But because of that unfortunate history, third-party developers have fallen into a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the reaction to the belief that third-party games will fail on Nintendo platforms causes them to fail.

In the end, third-party support -- actually the better term is third-party popularity -- on Nintendo systems is a problem that cannot be solved in a single generation. Third-party developers need to take a leap of faith. They need to take several years to build up momentum and win over Nintendo system owners. The rub is that third-party developers have no short-term reason to support Nintendo since they can move their product more successfully on other platforms. One might argue that suffering some early losses on Nintendo platforms might pay off in the long run, but what developer would want to take such a risk?

Over the past few months, according to reports, executives at Nintendo have been working to forge relationships with third-party developers and publishers. I believe Miyamoto met personally with many of them. Nintendo is trying to fix it's Achilles' heel during the seventh generation: lack of high-profile third-party games. But, as I wrote earlier, it requires a leap of faith from these companies. Did EA, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros. expect a few launch games to undo 16 years of video game history?

So the question isn't "what can Nintendo do to make third-party developers comfortable and successful?" It's "should third-party developers invest money and resources developing for Nintendo systems if the payoff will come much later, or, perhaps, not at all?"