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flagstaad on 18 September 2014
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A controversial topic, but an interesting read...

"Do you think the average consumer cares about who caused Wii U's third party problems? I mean, we can debate about whether third parties are at fault, or whether Nintendo is at fault, but do most consumers (in the real world) care about who is at fault?

Here is a quote from Nintendo's George Harrison in 2005 about why GameCube struggled.

“Consumers want consistency. They would never buy a DVD player that had only one or two good movies a year; they want consistency and variety” — Former Nintendo exec George Harrison

This is the only thing that consumers care about. Consumers only care about results -- not how you reached those results.

Nintendo is selling a $300 system, and in the words of Chris Kohler, "It's *Nintendo's* job to convince third parties to get their games onto their hardware and services by making it an attractive proposition". It's Nintendo's job because they have a royalties/licensing business. It's Nintendo's job to keep consumers happy with their Wii U purchase so then they'll buy Nintendo's future products.

It doesn't matter if third parties are too stupid to see good opportunities.
It doesn't matter if third parties are terrible at business.
It doesn't matter if third parties are too lazy to port a game.
It doesn't matter if third parties are greedy, corrupt, selfish, or any other adjective that you want to give them.

The only thing that matters is Nintendo can convince third parties to get on board...because that's their job.

Because if you can't get them on board, Nintendo consoles won't be able to provide consumers with "consistency and variety". People expect consistency and variety when they are paying for a $300 console.

They can't just count on indies to pull the weight. Indie developers can't afford licenses to popular properties like Star Wars, Batman, Marvel, WWE, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, FIFA, or UFC."