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Soundwave on 12 September 2014
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Vena said:
Soundwave said:

Eh it seemed to me that most Western support for the DS was shovelware crap. 

There were a few decent games and Take 2 even attempted a Grand Theft Auto game, but I don't think it sold to their expectations. 

DS was largely driven by Japanese IP -- Mario, Brain Training, Nintendogs, Mario Kart, Professor Layton, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc. 

Western devs are making tons of portable games they're just all for the iOS/Android. Minecraft, Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Plants Vs. Zombies, are all break out hits from Western devs. 


A lot of the software for the DS was shovelware crap but there was, simply, a consatnt stream of numerous titles (not all of them crap). The system was simply FULL of games, and Nintendo was also streaming out constantly good games. Nintendo is still producing a stream of costantly good games but that stream has been cleaved in two, and we see both ends of the spectrum struggling because of it. There's just so little western aligned coming out at all.

Take 2 did do a GTA game but that had other issues like being fundamentally broken, and not balanced.

And I agree that the DS was largely driven by Japanese IP. Now take that list and tell me how many of those major titles have come out on the 3DS. A new Final Fantasy? Not yet. A new Dragon Quest? Nope. Resident Evil? Nope. There's more than a few IPs that are outright missing this generation for some reason or other.

Those "western developers" aren't developers. Almost all of those games, sans Minecraft, can be made in GameMaker by someone with rudimentary understanding of programming. They may be break-out hits but they are also one-hit wonders in a flooded and cancerous market which is spiraling out of control... a fact that even Apple has gone ahead and admitted as a whole for the entire app market. There's no security in that market because there's no quality control nor is there any sort of legal control on definitions of "free" that undercut every product on the market with rip-offs.

I agree that the handheld market has shrunk, though, don't get me wrong.


3DS does have Dragon Quest in Japan, in the US it's not as big of a deal. Resident Evil it does have (actually the DS really didn't have a proper RE game). Final Fantasy has been missing in action though unless you count Final Fantasy Theathryhtm. 

A hit is still a hit even if it's a one time fad, Nintendo couldn't replicate Wii Sports or Brain Training, but that doesn't mean they didn't reap massive rewards from it.