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

[SaviorX]

Bodhesatva said:

Smash_Brother 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.

I find this whole argument mystifying because so many 3rd parties used to do just fantastic on Nintendo consoles, like Capcom, Konami, Hudson, Square, etc.

If you ask older gamers what games defined the systems like the NES and SNES, they're undoubtedly going to list Street Fighter, Contra, Castlevania, Bomberman, Megaman, Final Fantasy, etc. (unless they're an idiot or a troll trying to make a fallacious point).

They never seemed to have a problem competing with Nintendo's 1st party titles then and they clearly survived from the profits of doing so because they're still around today.

So you have to ask yourself: why is it such a flipping problem to compete with them now? Does Capcom not like putting piles of cash behind their games and the ADVERTISING of games anymore?

If kids were buying SNESes for Street Fighter 10 years ago (and they were), how the hell can it be impossible for Capcom to not be able to replicate that success today?

And over the course of the last 15 years since the SNES, 3rd parties have moved farther and farther away from Nintendo-style development.

I am not saying that 3rd parties can't possibly ever compete with Nintendo and Nintendo has a magical hold over their platforms that can't be broken; I'm saying that in the process of moving toward Xbox/Playstation style development over the last 15 years, third parties have consequently moved away from Nintendo, and now they're stuck.

Nintendo is asking third party to challenge the traits that have led them to success: third parties have built their empires over the last decade on constantly improving graphics, static control methods, and a consist focus on the 16-30 year old male demographic. Now, Nintendo is challenging the notion that graphics matter, that control is static, and are expanding the gaming demographics.

Again, think of a company like Epic as a supreme example (but this is also true, to a lesser extent, of companies like EA and Ubisoft). Epic has built their entire company around pushing tech; their games largely rely on cutting edge technology to appeal to their fanbase, and in addition, they sell tech, in the form of Unreal Engine 3. Therefore, the Wii directly challenges their entire business model: if Epic were to make games on the Wii, they'd go bankrupt almost instantly. EA et. al are not quite as locked in as Epic is, but the same truths do generally apply; they have spent the last 15 years selling their games partly on the basis of increasing technological power and higher production values. The Wii directly challenges that method of game design.

This isn't just about switching platforms, it's about changing the entire philosophy of how to sell games, and that's a very hard transition to make. Especially when you're changing from a philosophy that directly led to your success in the first place.

 Care to explain how that's possible?