| bdbdbd said: Sony's position when developing the PS3 was similar to Nintendo's when they developed the N64; they did not need to listen to anyone else - or so they thought. PS3 had the DSP as a CPU because this was what Sony was planning to use on all it's devices. If I recall PS3 wasn't supposed to have a dedicated GPU in the first place and as an afterthought it was "upgraded" having two Cell-processors, until that idea was ditched too. I believe it was the developers that wanted a dedicated GPU (and that without it 360 had been a lot more powerful, atleast graphically) so that the the system could be programmed at a relative ease in comparison. |
Yup, Sony was making the same mistakes as N64-era Nintendo was during that time. They were convinced their market dominance was enough to sell a console on the back of pure brand loyalty and flashy gimmicks (Cell, Blu-Ray, SIXAXIS) without any regards to what actual game creators thought of it. For example, Shuhei Yoshida, then Senior VP of WWS America didn't even know about the PS3 controller having motion controls until a phone call from someone in PR, so teams had to shove it in at the last minute during development of their games. Hence so many early first party games on PS3 having tacked-on SIXAXSIS controls (LAIR).
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bdbdbd said: Nintendo mostly managed to fix it's issues with 3rd parties already with Gamecube, the new CEO surely helped a lot in that regard, but since GC did not sell, the 3rd parties were not interested in it. When Wii came out, nobody wanted to develop games on it because of it's lack of system power relative to competition. It was also why it was hard to port any PS360 games to. Wii could have had ports of PSP games, because it was a lot easier to make. Switch is interesting 3rd parties because of it's sales numbers and since there aren't other handheld systems, the 3rd parties' dev resources for handhelds go to Switch. |
The GameCube was the start, but it would take Iwata nearly a decade to completely fix up the mess that Yamauchi made with third parties in the 90s.
The Wii was going after a very different market from the PS3 and Xbox 360. Developers knew that, and so for a while, it actually had pretty good support for the kind of platform it was. Developers were making PS2/PSP multiplatform games like Baroque and Silent Hill: Shatered Memories, exclusives like No More Heroes and Elebits, and enhanced ports with improved controls like Resident Evil 4. Things only fell apart for Wii when HDTVs and HD development costs came down in price, third party sales started becoming volatile, Wii gaining an image of a "casuals" console, and both Sony and Microsoft introducing their own Motion Control platforms, which stole a lot of developers from the Wii, leaving it with mostly shovelware during its later years.
The Wii U was designed as a reaction to these changes by being HD, and having a giant GamePad with traditional controls come standard. Problem is, it came out far too late (2012), didn't have enough compelling games in its launch period, had a name and marketing that didn't make it clear it was a new platform, was riding on a brand that had lost all of its momentum, had a woefully outdated architecture and SDK, and by the time it was ready to release, the PS4 and Xbox One were already around the corner.
The Nintendo Switch is basically the Wii's original pitch for the modern age. It's a Blue-Ocean product with a unique gimmick that doesn't compete directly with PlayStation and Xbox. And while its under-powered compared to those consoles, it makes up for it with a flexible, well known architecture that's easy and cheap to develop for. Only this time, it supports all the modern game dev tools and has a full button layout of standard game controllers. It's a big reason why the Switch has so many "Impossible Ports", indie games, and AA titles.
Last edited by TheMisterManGuy - on 13 October 2023
