AAA Wii third-party support on the way, says Capcom community specialist

[Viper1]

Ail said:

Viper1 said:

tuoyo said:

akuma587 said:

We have been hearing this for over a year now...I will believe it when I see it.

Some of you are ridiculously gullible if you buy his line about it taking years just to ANNOUNCE a AAA game on the Wii. 

I agree.  We keep hearing support will come.  Now even developers are saying it.  Yet we see nothing.  Yet we keep seeing new games being announced for PS3 and 360.  These are not games that were in development before Wii's runaway success.  These are games starting development now.  I am resigned to virtually all my games being Nintendo made games.  If big games by 3rd parties come then I will be quite pleased but the truth is I am not holding my breath.

Go back and read the previous page.

If you think for one minute that a PS3/X360 game announced this week only began planning within the past couple of months, you're absolutely and completely mistaken.

As for the bolded part...yes they were.   Every single game announced for PS3/X360 right now with any form of decent budget to it was in planning prior to August 2007 when Wii passed X360 worldwide.  If you are claiming otherwise, you're just amking assumptions based on...what exactly?

 

I doubt a game like Bioshock 2 was actually seriously planned 1 year ago.

The company obviously waited to see what kind of reception the first game would get before deciding to work on a second iteration.

I seriously doubt the development of the new Prince of Persia was started more than 1 year ago either seeing what kind of material they have provided to the public so far (conceptual art ?).

You have serious doubts but your doubts don't make them facts.   Planning and securing funding for Bioshock 2 began while Bioshock 1 was still in development.  Incidently, Bioshock 3 is already planned for as well.

PoP was most certainly planned for over a year ago.  It's using a new cell shaded based engine.  Do you know how long that takes to develop itself?

As a guide, most sequels to big budget franchises are already planned on before the latest sequel hits the streets.  For example, RE6 is already planned for, fuding secured, etc...yet RE5 won't be out until 2009.

 

 

Ail said:

 

For really big AAA that will sell 5 millions+ copies, HD platforms are probably more profitable than the Wii actually.

Because the developers get substantially more per copy sold.

Someone mentionned it in another thread, right now you stand to loose more if a game fails and gain more if it succeed on HD consoles...

And this gen there has yet been a big AAA game that failed on consoles...( even a game like Heavenly Sword that was hyped a lot and kinda tanked still sold over 1 million units and probably recouped development costs..)

PS : I know Heavenly Sword isn't AAA but it was hyped like an AAA game before it was released ( it was the big PS3 game for E3 2006) 

 

No, developers do not.  They get paid a fee regardless of how much the game sells (though many publishers do offer incentives for sales milestones and/or average aggregate review scores.

You might have been referring to the publishers though.  In which case substantialy is still not a valid term.   The difference in $50.00 and $60.00 is not much when development cost itself is higher.

Consider full price game X sells 5 million on Wii and 5 million on HD consoles.   That's $250,000,000 revenue on Wii and $300,000,000 revenue on HD consoles.   $50 million extra sounds like a lot but you have to remove at least $20 to $30 million just in extra development costs vs the Wii (could be more soon because I keep hearing about $40 million and higher budgets).  Ok, you're still left with a chunk of change but $270 million is not substantially more than $250 million.

If you were to look at these numbers from a financial standpoint, wouldn't it make sense to develop for both?  If you want to talk substantial difference, try this.

$300 million on a $30 million budget or $550 million on a $42 million budget?

 

Bold part 2.  Ail, for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, you're on a sales tracking web site.  Use it.  The term AAA is pointless because we're discussing budget here.

Lair - Major bomb.
Enchanted Arms - Bombed.
Stranglehold - Major bomb.
The Darkness - Bombed.
Dark Sector - Bombed.
Lost Planet - Bombed on PS3.
Haze - Not doing so good.
Condemned 2 - Lost money.
Unreal Tournament III - Currently losing money.
Virtua Fighter 5 - Lost money.

Keep in mind I'm not suggesting they would have made more money on Wi just that you said they don't fail on HS consoles and they most certainly do.

Ever notice how many studio closures we've had this gen so far?  Or how mnay studios are consolidated and merging?   Ask yourself why that is.