EA on NX support: "If it makes sense for us - we'll be there"

[Ballas]

mountaindewslave said:

pokoko said:

Because the way Nintendo and Sony have historically treated third parties is like night and day.

Nintendo's history is well known.  There really is no reason to list everything from the past but, as an example, EA was once ready to go PC-only until Sega came along, simply because Nintendo was choking the life out of developers.  Yeah, that was a long time ago but some of that attitude still remains.

On the other hand, Sony and Microsoft treat third party developers and publishers like business partners.  They create an environment that is beneficial to them and they maintain constant communication.  It's not just about total installed base.  Sony and Microsoft have helped developers build consumer bases that follow their products and they've done it consistently over generations.  The problem for Nintendo is that they haven't done that so now third parties would have to start from scratch.  Is it worth it?  I'm willing to bet they've run a lot of projections and know far better than we would.

Imagine if console were malls and Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo were mall developers.

Nintendo builds a mall.  They tell retailers, "you can come rent a space now."  Most of the customers just come for the Nintendo brand store, though, and Nintendo doesn't give the retailers any more thought.

Sony and Microsoft don't just build a mall, though.  They talk to retailers about location, unit size, parking, lighting, and everything else first.  Then they build the mall.  After that, they run programs to pull in customers to the retailers, they help with the advertising, and they do their best to support the entire mall instead of just the Sony/Microsoft brand store.

Is that how Nintendo is going to be for the NX?  I don't know.  However, they would still have to fight all that history.  Nintendo would have to go above and beyond just to reach parity, if it's even possible at this point.  

You're over complicating this: its simple, Nintendo has a far stronger first party lineup than Sony or Microsoft. Sony fans for example tend to be loyally hardcore more for the companies hardware than software. I'm not even going to explain the gigantic missing front for Microsoft's first party games..... then you have Nintendo, with their Mario Kart, Smash, Zelda, Pokemon, etc.- the point is that that Nintendo, of the hardware manufacturers, by far has the most known and consumer powerful software

Of course its going to be more attractive for an EA or Activision to bring their titles to platforms in which their games are the stars, front and center. Since Nintendo releases so many of its own popular million selling exclusives, they slightly turn off third parties, because the software sales pool is already in a way taken

What comparable IPs are Sony or Micro releasing that distract system owners at the level that Mario Kart or Pokemon do Nintendo owners? Answer: almost none

Nintendo's software success in itself is what has damaged their ties with third parties.. their own IPs sell too well for an EA to feel comfortable investing a lot in releases (that and arguably demographic issues)

That's not what he's saying. Most of the developers in the 80's were shut down due to Nintendo and their terrible attitude to third-parties where they restricted third-party game cartriges to fuel their own growth. Dirty business, but they were a juggernaut so they went unchallenged. Not only that but Nintendo completely disregarded them and their needs and only cared about their own devs which they still do to this day. I read it once in article a couple of years ago.

When Sega came in they didn't have such policies and no censorship on Sega's console so developers went and supported them. When PlayStation came devs got an oppurtunity for growth due to the fantastic business environment Sony had and they took many decisions that made PlayStation better for game development.

What you're saying doesn't matter, if Nintendo gamers had interest in these games they would have bought them. PS4 nad XB1 get incredible amount of games every year but many of them sell well. Wii U gets a few games each yaer and still the third-party games despite little competition didn't sell. Pokemon isn't even big on consoles, Nintendo has some big IP's on consoles but not much more than Sony and Microsoft.