"Wii Third-Party Struggles Highlighted by May NPD" - GameDaily

[Bodhesatva]

DarkNight_DS said:

Bodhesatva said:

That post was verbose, Legend, I'm sorry. Let me summarize:

I agree that third parties are struggling on the Wii in the face of Nintendo's overwhelming success. But what should they do about it? Just leave Nintendo to control 50% of the market all by itself and singlehandedy make 3/4 of all the profit in the industry? Should every other company in the entire industry fight over the 1/4 of profits left over?

The Wii clearly isn't the third party machine that the 360 is, but it's also much more popular worldwide and significantly more profitable. What are third parties supposed to do? I ask that question honestly: I really don't see a great solution here.

Start off by making good games. I think a lot of people here would agree on that. Boom Blox is heralded as being some sort of miracle game. I own it and I've played it quite a bit. It is not this be all end all game of greatness people try to make it out to be. If anything it's an average game that happens to be fun.

Third parties need to market their games to everyone, they also need to put their first string teams on some Wii projects.

Although to be honest there aren't very many GOOD third party game studios anymore. Most studios put out one or 2 good titles a year and then go nuts on the below average titles. If you are going to compete with Nintendo for market share you need to bring your A game everytime you step up to the plate. So far everyone's bringing minor leaugers up against a pro.

This may sound simple to you, but regardless of whether it's unfair or unjust or something, that isn't how these companies will work.

Yes, competing against Nintendo is very hard. Guess what the typical response is to that problem? It isn't "step up our game," it's "find somewhere else to work." That's how businesses work; they find the path of least resistance. Nintendo's strength creates a lot of resistance. Therefore, they will try to find other paths.

I suppose in some just, utopian world, all these companies would try hard to compete with Nintendo, to match their wits against the best -- but in reality many will choose simply to avoid Nintendo altogether because it's a lot easier.