EA: Frostbite 3 Is Possible On Wii U

[Mythmaker1]

Wyrdness said:

Mythmaker1 said:

I think it's more a case of third-parties being creatures of habit. Some franchises release during the year, but the big franchises always release around Christmas time. They probably factor that in when they write up their production schedules.

I guess the pont is that it wouldn't have been practical for them to take advantage of that 8-month period even if they'd known about it months ahead of time. Especially when you consider that that space was only there because Nintendo aggressively delayed their own releases. Even if they'd known they'd have a window to work with, there wouldn't have been much they could do to have a game ready to release in that window.

And when you get right down to it, competition almost has to be a factor. On Nintendo platforms, there's usually upwards of 50% of holiday sales they have completely wrapped up, with third parties splitting the rest amongst themselves; Week of December 8, 2012, Nintendo had 7 3DS games in the top 75, totaling more than half the total for that platform. Third parties had none. When you look at third-parties on other platforms, though, the picture is a lot more rosy. More overall sales, with each getting a proportionately larger share.

I'm not saying first party supremacy is the ONLY factor dissuading third parties, or that their business habits don't create conflict, but I don't think one can simply dismiss the way Nintendo's grip on their own platform provides a substantially smaller pot for third parties to split.

Fair point but tbh you can't really blame Nintendo for being a force on their own platform, Sony for example found out the hard way with the PS3 why the strong first party approach should be part of a companies strategy and MS have for years tried to emulate the strat themselves, ironically it's third parties themselves who are the cause of this situation because platform holders realize they can't solely rely on them. Third parties are going to just have to accept it because we're not far off from a gen where first party domination issues will stretch across all platforms rather then trying to run from the problem they have to adapt to it otherwise they'll find themselves with their pants down at some point.

I don't blame Nintendo, obviously. It's their system, afterall. But it doesn't change the reality that they are far more competitive on their own platform than anyone else, which makes their system inherently less attractive for publishers to work on.