EA continues to defecate on Nintendo

[Mnementh]

Dodece said:

Believe it or not these titles missing from the consoles library are going to be more ruinous then most on these forums are liable to admit. Nintendo didn't make a point of saying they were going to aggressively court third party developers, because they could do just as well without them. With the casual focus of the Wii, and the very real reluctance to evolve their own software. Nintendo shed a lot of the die hard core audience that ensured that they could make a solo go of any generation.

Without a certain level of third party support Nintendo isn't likely to bring many of these lapsed loyalists back into the fold, because during their hiatus usually to other platforms. They have probably evolved as gamers, and truly expect, and demand a far more varied offering then what Nintendo itself can provide. This wouldn't necessarily be a death knell for Nintendo. Except for one other thing.

When Nintendo was making mountains of cash off of the Wii. They didn't take advantage of that to expand their studios, and to diversify their offerings. They of coarse can make a go of that now, but they would be starting from scratch, and they will not be able to generate a great deal of momentum from that. Not that they are even remotely likely to consider such a thing. Nintendo isn't so much conservative as it is insular, and in a real sense that is perhaps the biggest reason that they are shedding third party support right now.

They haven't gotten to know them, and they haven't addressed their needs. What they needed from Nintendo was a partner that would make a platform that was a healthy ecosystem. That could support a wide variety of games with Nintendo leading the way by encouraging their fans to play a wider variety of things. By making those things themselves. They didn't do that, and they did what they always do. They continued to do their own thing, and asked third parties to do the wet work for them.

Which is actually compounded by the fact that Nintendo actively thwart third parties efforts. They continually skew the demographic of their platform to their favor, and they actively design their platform to service their own purposes. Developers didn't need or want a touch screen. Especially one that wasn't capacitive. That was all about what Nintendo wanted for its games. Look any console has to service two audiences, and not just the one being the fans. They have to give developers what they want so they can make the games that they want to make. I am not saying there isn't room for compromise, but Nintendo isn't doing that.

I can understand why Electronic Arts would want to wash their hands of the platform. It is fundamentally so much easier to support two consoles especially when the third console manufacturer is basically contrary by its very nature. Yes it could do serious damage to the console ambitions of Nintendo, but frankly that may a really good thing. They are far too complacent about their fans, and they haven't done enough to keep them loyal. At some point along the way Nintendo stopped being about outdoing themselves, and became more about dialing in yet another carbon copy of the previous generations game.

On and by the way isn't Electronic Arts turning on Sega exactly the reason that Sega isn't a console manufacturer anymore. I seem to recall something about them withdrawing support for the Dreamcast. Ah here we go enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dreamcast#Developer_Support

Developer Support

Electronic Arts was one of the notable developers that did not publish games for the Dreamcast. Although EA had long supported Sega's earlier consoles, and this partnership has been attributed to EA's emergence as one of the dominant players, it had suffered losses from the Sega Saturn and its premature discontinuation.

During negotiations, EA was irked by Sega's indecision over hardware, including which graphics chipset and whether to include a modem. One EA executive said "there was a push from Sega, which was having cash flow problems, and they couldn't afford to give us [EA] the same kind of license that EA has had over the last five years. So EA basically said, 'You can't succeed without us.' And Sega said, 'Sure we can. We're Sega.'^[2]

There was disagreement between Sega and EA over sports games. EA knew that hardware manufacturers were at risk when launching a new console, and would use such situations to EA's advantage. EA's then-president Larry Probst (a close friend of Sega's Stolar) noted wide competition to EA's sports franchises and wanted five year exclusive rights for EA to be the only sports brand on Dreamcast. However Sega America's president Bernie Stolar had a strategic plan that included Visual Concepts (a company that Sega purchased for $10 million) as a key element for the Dreamcast,^[10] and Stolar believed that Visual Concept's upcoming NFL title would be superior to EA's Madden NFL series. Sega offered to lower the royalty rates that EA would pay for publishing its titles on the Dreamcast but Probst would not budge on the exclusivity deal.^[2]

I agree mostly with what you said. Nintendo should have broadened their studios. but not to pave the way for third-parties, but to be more independent of them. Sony never paved the way for 3rd-parties with PS1 and PS2. They strongly worked towards some serious 1st-party offerings, but as they were new to the market they lacked diversity in games. That was no problem for the 3rd-parties back then.

And reading the stuff about Sega and EA - EA really wanted an exclusive deal for sports offerings? In Segas place I would have answered: only if you exclusively release for Sega-systems. LOL. Every console-maker has to turn down such an offer. That would be disastrous for the platform and would lead to even more dependance on EA, while EA can be independent through releasing on other platforms.