Why is it so hard for Nintendo to release games for it's systems?

[Salnax]

DevilRising said:

Salnax said:
Nintendo is not that big a company, yet they have to support two platforms. Their small size is only highlighted by a lack of third party support. If they only needed to support a single platform, their average of about 20 games a year would be plenty.

To be fair, Nintendo actually is a pretty huge company. If by "not that big" you mean they aren't the mega-conglomerate that Sony and MS are, you'd be right. But Sony and MS' games divisions are relatively small compared to the decades-old operation Nintendo has going on. The "Big N" actually has far more development teams under it's umbrella than Sony and MS do combined, but as you say, they have to provide not only retail content for Wii U and 3DS, but also digital eShop content for those platforms as well.

 

Wii U will be getting PLENTY of games.  So this mundane rehash of a thread topic really needs to go away. E3 will be here soon enough, and then people can finally shut up.

Last time I checked, Nintendo had about 5,000 employees. Admittedly, this isn't exactly tiny, but compare it to other gaming companies. Ubisoft has 7,000, Konami has 6,000, EA has 9,000, etc. And sure, not everybody in those companies is making games all the time, but I imagine that a good chunk of Nintendo also has to work on hardware.

My point it, Nintendo is barely a big enough company to supply two platforms with a large number of quality releases. Sure, they do release plenty of good games for both handhelds and consoles eventually, but they're too small to prevent droughts like the current one.

If Nintendo wants to have a situation where they can truly support themselves, without relying on thrid parties for their dubious support, they either need to have a console/handheld combination, so they can focus on a single platform, or they need another half a dozen studios to make games for them.

 

I'm saying this as a Nintendo fan. I love them and their games and philosophies. I just realize that they're small enough so that the lack of 3rd party support hurts them a lot.