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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Which third party company is simply going to miss the Wii boat?

Insomniac and NaughtyDog



Wii Code 8761-5941-4718-0078 

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What about Eidos ?

Tomb Raider Anniversary port bombed (as expected) and the only game they were working on beside Tomb Raider, is Monster Lab (surprisingly a new IP).

But still better than the crappy support from Midway.

Concerning Konami, i´ll wait how Winnig Eleven will do. It`ll have a great chance to sell well.



After many from Square left, original members left, and the way Square seems to give Nintendo console projects 'less effort' makes me take their games less seriously... I always thought two non-mainstream, spot-lit, hyped games of Squares was Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger - I just haven't heard of, or played any, shining lower-budget projects. It's either fluffed beyond recognition or sub-par due to over-employment.



Numbers: Checker Players > Halo Players

Checkers Age and replayability > Halo Age and replayability

Therefore, Checkers > Halo

So, Checkers is a better game than Halo.

Eidos an Midway seem to miss the boat completely; for the others, Naznatips made a great list, but I want to add a few things.

Square-Enix: I'm not sure about them, I think they are the worst out of the major publishers right now. FFCC:TCB is not going to release anytime soon it seems and from what we've heard, DQS was more of a milking the franchise than a let's use the Wii improvements game.

Konami: Not too bad I think, especially the way how they are doing PES shows me that they see the Wii's potential. Also, no game from them on the Wii has been really bad yet, all seem to be of a quite high quality.

For Capcom, Namco, Marvelous, Tecmo and Sega I have nothing to add.

Ubi Soft: They were the ones that understood the Wii's appeal the fastest (And I would bet that is because they are european-based) but they did not expect it to do well outside of the casual market. Therefore, their games have been either franchise milking or made for casuals. They have yet to prove that they will also do something great on the Wii, but I'm quite sure they will.

The others are summed up fine too.

Free Radical is a company I want to add to the list. I guess we will see TS 4 on the Wii, and if that is a success, they probably will continue to support the Wii because they seem to really like the console. Knowing that they are former Rare employees makes it a sure bet to say they will release some games on a successful Nintendo console actually.



Currently Playing: Skies of Arcadia Legends (GC), Dragon Quest IV (DS)

Last Game beaten: The Rub Rabbits(DS)

One issue is the way Nintendo advertised their console to developers. They informed developers that they had a console which was cheap to develop on and would take only a minor investment. So many companies spent only a minor investment on their games for the Wii. For many companies like EA and Ubisoft this meant creating a casual game division which produces cheap to develop titles like My Word Coach. These games probably do not require high sales to pay off the investment. I expect nearly every 3rd party developer will show this kind of support. The support most "gamers" are eager for is support through big-budget million-seller titles (Like say a full next-gen FPS). Very few companies have shown this kind of support. This may never change.

Some companies like Sega, Midway and Namco are making some efforts, but just have trouble making good games in general. EA and Ubisoft are both creating new IPs for Wii games, although never endowing them with a PS3-size budget(they probably never will). Square Enix enjoys producing spin-offs and milking their franchises. The Wii will obviously never recieve a numbered Final Fantasy, but Kingdom Hearts is quite likely. The Wii will have its Crystal Chronicle games and will be home to essentially all of the console-based spinoffs. So the Wii will have no shortage of Squeenix titles, just not the "hardcore" ones. It just comes down to developers seeing the Wii as an entirely different market, and not putting certain type of (big budget) games onto it.

Marvelous Entertainment I expect to be a full supporter of the Wii because it matches their products so well. They produce Harvest Moon and other cute anime-styled RPGs which don't have particularly showy graphics and aren't enormous budget titles. They seem to always migrate to the console with the largest installed base first the PS2, and DS and now the Wii. They never produce system-sellers but would produce a nice support of RPGs for the Wii.



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Konami.  They seem to have most of their eggs in the PS3 basket because of poor planning and the (undeserved) flop of Dewey's Adventure. The new Silent Hill game would be completely perfect for Wii, there clearly is a market for those types of games that is (except for RE4) completely untapped.



This all just points to how really clueless developers are now-a-days. Without Sony as the dominating force on the market, they're completely lost as what to do.



mancandy said:
Insomniac and NaughtyDog

Naughty Dog is owned by Sony, and thus not really third party. I keep mixing the two up as well, but momentarily remember which is which due to checking mere minutes ago. =P



Konami has been putting some minor support but their big guns like Castlevania or MGS or anything major have not been given any support to make a wii version.

Square is not as great as people are saying. They added some spinoff games which might do well but until we see a serious major series (not spinoff) I can't give them many points. They have many more series than just FF and DQ, things like Star Ocean or etc. Remember all their SNES rpg's?

Midway...well they'll be going bankrupt fairly soon so no point in kicking a dog that's pretty much close to death.

Tecmo & Namco is getting better but still to be desired. I mean, Soul Calibur Legends? Gimme a break.

Honestly, the only one I can give any props to is Capcom, their moving MH3 is a big sign of support. I'm guessing Ubisoft is doing a lot of support as well, just not announced. I think they saw that wii will be successful and is delaying their games to give them more importance and support. I'm betting thats what is happening with Square and FF:CC.



Free Radical is a company I want to add to the list. I guess we will see TS 4 on the Wii, and if that is a success, they probably will continue to support the Wii because they seem to really like the console. Knowing that they are former Rare employees makes it a sure bet to say they will release some games on a successful Nintendo console actually.

 

http://www.psu.com/PSU-talks-with-Free-Radical---Haze-and-Timesplitters-4-Feature--a2034-p0.php

After reading that interview I was left with the impression that they're working on the PS3 exclusively. 

If Haze doesn't meet sales expectations then they may change their tune. 



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