We constantly hear that Nintendo should go 3rd party, make games for PlayStation and/or Xbox - or that they should make mobile games. Lots and lots of people say this. Gamers say it, journalists say it, analysists say it. The only ones NOT saying it seem to be Nintendo and Nintendo fans.
Is there a viable future for Nintendo as 3rd party? Nintendo games are often accusted of being "kiddie" and not "mature" enough, and that's why people aren't buying their consoles to play the games. But had they BEEN on other consoles these same people would have bought the games. But let's look at that for a moment, shall we?
Let's look at the best selling games on PS4; on number 19 (!!) we find the first "kiddie" game on PS4's most sold games. It's Minecraft. Then we find Knack on nr 22 (a heavily bundled game at that). Then at nr 28 we have LBP3 followed by Lego Marvel Super Heroes at nr 29. That's 4 "kiddie" games on PS4's 30 best selling games.
And the situation is even more dire on XOne: Minecraft is at nr 21 followed by Lego Marvel Super Heroes at 25. And at nr 30 we have Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. 3 "kiddie" games in the top 30 best selling XOne titles.
But fair enough, these are NEW consoles, mostly bought and played by a more "core" audience, and maybe they're not the ones playing "kiddie" games (which seems contradictive since they're the ones saying Nintendo should go 3rd party, but whatevs). Let's look at the top 30 best selling games of PS3 and X360!
Sadly, the situation on PS3 is even WORSE than on XOne! LBP comes in at nr 20, and is the ONLY "kiddie" game in the top 30! Next "kiddie" game comes in at nr 44 (!!) and is LBP 2. Minecraft is as nr 46, and is the last "kiddie" game in the top 50.
X360's best selling game is actually a "kiddie" game! It's Kinect Adventures. A bundled game that came with the original Kinect. Bundled. The best selling "kiddie" game that's not bundled is Minecraft, at nr 16. After that comes Kinect Sports at nr 22, which is the last "kiddie" entry in the top 30. And top 40. At nr 41 we have Lego Indiana Jones....
As you can see, there really isn't a big market for Nintendo as a 3rd party publisher on the other two consoles. Oh, but Nintendo games would sell anyway, I hear you say, because it's Nintendo! Why then haven't any Nintendo like games sold well at all on the competing consoles? Could it be that the gamers that want Nintendo to go 3rd party actually are a small minority? Just because this group of people yell the loudest doesn't make them the largest group.
The OVERWHELMING majority of the best selling games on ANY PlayStation and/or Xbox console are shooters and action games (with a lot of shooting in them) with a few sports games and racing games thrown in. Does that REALLY sound like the audience that craves Nintendo games? That would buy Nintendo games?
tl;dr: There isn't a big audience for Nintendo games on PlayStation or Xbox. Those wanting Nintendo games on other systems are (probably) a loud, but small, minority, and this is backed up by the fact that Nintendo like games don't sell well on PS/XB.
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Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.
