Nintendo and 3rd parties *Formerly; Nintendo is f*cking up big times with 3rd parties*

[gumby_trucker]

RolStoppable said:

My rebuttal is still relevant, because if developers were truly serious about the Wii, but held back by limitations regarding the controls, then their efforts and ambition would have still shone through in the graphics department, as well as in the overall design of the game. The third party games we've seen on the Wii were usually plagued by two or all of the following traits:

1) Lacking controls.
2) Subpar graphics.
3) Lack of content, poor game design.

The supposed issues with motion controls also don't work as a universal excuse, because it was perfectly possible to create and sell good games on the Wii that barely used motion controls or didn't use them at all. I can once again point to Resident Evil 4 that was released in mid-2007 and shattered its sales expectations. Pointer functionality was easy to implement and a selling point for shooting games. There were of course also Nintendo games that proved that you didn't necessarily need motion controls to be successful on the Wii.

At the end of the day there really was a pathetically small number of games that made successful attempts at gesture-based motion contrlols so this may be an indication that it was more difficult to achieve than it could/should have been.

Addressing this part specifically, at the end of the day there was a pathetically small number of third party games that seriously tried, whether that concerns controls, graphics or content. I could believe there was a problem with the Wii and Nintendo, if it was clear that games were held back by the machine. But all the evidence we have, the actual games, doesn't support that Nintendo is the main culprit (which is DanneSandin's claim). There's a chance that Nintendo held some tools back, but that wouldn't really matter in the big picture, because third parties clearly didn't use the tools they actually had to their full potential (it wasn't even close).

To be clear, no where am I claiming Nintendo is/was the main culprit, I am merely advocating for a more balanced and less one-sided view on the situation. As I've already said in this thread, even if Nintendo withheld information or supplied poor development tools to third parties, everything we know from developers proves that Sony were far worse in this regard when it came to developing on PS2 and PS3, and we know that never had a serious effect on the support they got.

Perhaps Sony made up for their poorly documented and unintuitive hardware designs by moneyhatting publishers to guarantee support, while Nintendo didn't. It wouldn't surprise me if that was part of the explanation for why Sony got more support despite having a less friendly developer environment.

But my main point wasn't necessarily addressed to the same part of the development community as yours was. We can agree that there are developers who's support Nintendo can gain simply by being on good terms with their respective owners/publishers. This is probably true for most studios owned by EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Take Two, etc. In these cases even if the studios themselves don't like Nintendo's console, the publisher will force them to make quality games for it (at least on par with other versions) and they'd have no choice but to comply.

On the other hand, there are other development studios, usually more independant ones (at least in the west), but also a few who have proven themselves to be successful enough they can make their own choices when it comes to platforms, that can't be persuaded to develop on Nintendo systems in this way. More often than not, I'd imagine these are actually the studios Nintendo want to work with, as they are more likely to be driven by creative vision and desire to innovate than the big publi$hers. They are also the ones who are more personally invested in their work, regardless of the platform it releases on, and are therefor more likely to put actual effort into their games, regardless of whether or not they believe there is massive sales potential.

The way to approach these studios is not by force, but by sparking their imagination, creating an environment in which they can fulfill a dream project they've been tinkering with in their spare time, being a facilitator rather than an inhibitor. In the case of these kinds of studios, Nintendo needs to be as open and forthcoming and friendly as possible. They need to give these teams all the tools and hardware access Nintendo's own internal teams get. If a developer comes to them with a cool idea for using the Wiimote in a game he's passionate about, having him held back by arbitrary restrictions benefits nobody, and at the end of the day may even frustrate the developer and deter them from working on the system again. 

My main complaint against Nintendo last gen isn't how they treated big publishers, because we all know for them moneyhatting has become the standard, and Nintendo are right not to support it. However the multiple arbitrary restrictions they placed on developers who actually did care about utilising the system - from WiiWare size limitations, to unfair payment plans, to the terrible online store and restrictions on interacting with strangers online, including other possible roadblocks suggested by the OP - were detrimental to all.

edit: As a final thought, my impression as an outsider without any knowledge about what goes on behind the scenes is that surprisingly enough, Sony is actually a far more approachable partner than Nintendo for these types of studios, despite having more complicated hardware. So maybe it's not surprising they seem to be getting far more support in this area.