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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Microsoft: the great negotiators?

Onimusha12 said:

Pity Nintendo lacks this charisma, though after two generations of screwing over third party developers its hard not to see why many are so hesitant to adopt the Wii.

And Leo-J is actually right for once, Square was facing bankrupcy for the second time when they went to Sony (first time was before they released the first Final Fantasy and the third was when Enix bought them out).


 The end is near...

 

On topic... does the third party devs fear the power of the Nintendo Monopoly???



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I don't think its Microsofts negotiation skills that are good..

I think its more the size of their wallet



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Onimusha12 said:

Pity Nintendo lacks this charisma, though after two generations of screwing over third party developers its hard not to see why many are so hesitant to adopt the Wii.

And Leo-J is actually right for once, Square was facing bankrupcy for the second time when they went to Sony (first time was before they released the first Final Fantasy and the third was when Enix bought them out).


 I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't "screw over" third parties last generation, at least with any of its policies.  Gamecube didn't sell very well, which may have screwed over third parties, but it wasn't a PR/policy problem like the n64 days.



eugene said:
Ironicly, this is almost exactly how the PS1 did so well in the first place. They secured Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid as exclusives and almost used them as mascots to the system both of which were given life from Nintendo. They also had other fantastic third party relations. I believe it was even Namco games that even brought attention to Playstation in the first place with games like Tekken and Ridge Racer. Strange to see Sony stray so far from their roots. Microsoft just took great notes on how the the Playstation became so popular and Sony strayed into becoming more like the original Xbox.

 i'll disagree with you on this one.  i think it had less to do with sony being good at securing third party and more to do with nintendo completely fucking third party developers over.  third parties were really upset with nintendo by the end of the snes era and would have gone just about anywhere, sony just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 ..and if sony strayed from it's roots it pretty much repeated nintendo's mistake, thinking those developers needed nintendo/sony more than nintendo/sony needed them.  that's simply not the case.  not now, not ever.   



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Bodhesatva said:

All of the different major companies in gaming have their strengths and weaknesses, and one strength that's definitely in Microsoft's corner is their ability to associate and negotiate it with outside companies: in the case of gaming, that means third party publishers. I think their strength in this area is virtually unparralleled.

There is no concrete proof to verify this, but there is so much anecdotal and partial evidence: the GTA IV situation, where they managed to not only secure a day-and-date simultaneous release, but also to secure exclusive content; the Guitar Hero and Madden ads, which prominently displayed the Xbox360 logo and managed to help secure the Xbox360 as THE Madden-system of choice for the generation; the system bundles with third party software such as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and even this recent public event in Japan:

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=12233&start=0#end


Where Microsoft clearly teamed up with Namco to provide not only Viva Pinata mascots (which are first party) but Katamary mascots, as well (which are decidedly third party). The number of promotions and financial deals and marketing collaborations between Microsoft and third party publishers is unparalleled, and it has clearly had a beneficial effect on the system, which has seen extraordinary third party support.

Any comments or criticism? Just as Nintendo has thrived off its strength in innovation, I think Microsoft's surge in popularity and support is a direct result of their extreme hard work in getting third parties aboard.


I agree.  I think their other big success is that they've managed PR their way through the image that they garnered from Windows - I think especially this generation, fewer people think of the 360 as as much of a product of an arrogant behemoth with way more money than scruples. 



MS HAS to have the 3rd parties. It doesn't have enough in house studios to survive. Doesn't Sony have like 15 studios under its belt?

As far as the 360 being THE Madden machine... They won this year, Madden 09 will be the same or better for the PS3 next year when the "new" game engine is used. EA has yet to port a game that utilizes any SPEs. Thus PS3 owners get inferior ports. It's not that the PS3 just couldn't do it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7598043&postcount=1



So what do you win if your prefered console sells more than another?

Zero Hero said:
MS HAS to have the 3rd parties. It doesn't have enough in house studios to survive. Doesn't Sony have like 15 studios under its belt?

As far as the 360 being THE Madden machine... They won this year, Madden 09 will be the same or better for the PS3 next year when the "new" game engine is used. EA has yet to port a game that utilizes any SPEs. Thus PS3 owners get inferior ports. It's not that the PS3 just couldn't do it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7598043&postcount=1


He's not saying that the PS3 can't handle Madden as well as or better than the 360.  Madden games looked much better on the original Xbox than PS2, and yet far more casuals played Madden on PS2.  He's saying that they've positioned the 360 as the 'cool' console to play Madden on.

 Does anyone know why Nintendo was so strict about third-parties on N64?  IMO they would still have the monopoly in gaming (for better or for worse) if they didn't have this 'big 5' policy in which only Rare, Namco, Konami, Capcom, and THQ could develop on N64, in addition to themselves.

 

 

I'm also going to add one strength that MS had until recently, which shouldn't be ignored: Peter Moore



rasone77 said:
Microsoft is buying their way into the market. I have no doubts or reservations about this fact. Buying exclusive content, paying to get a game on their system and advertising are just a few of the legitimate ways they are doing so.

The real question is how much of their money is going to sabotage efforts of the other consoles?

Microsoft has long been known for shady business practices and I wouldn't put it past them to have manufactured some of these glitches in PS3 and Wii versions of game that are multiplat. (The real question to me is how much did they pay Activision to fuck up GH3 and Rockband?)

I think that this type of thing is abhorent (not to mention illeagal) and I become more certain that this is happenening each time a new glitch or missing feature appears that doesn't affect the 360 version.

This could just be conjecture, as you make an interesting point, but couldn't this just be because the 360 is the easiest of the HD consoles to develop for?  Sony has developed a very complex architecture for PS3, whereas MS' is apparently very adaptible to peripherals.  In Nintendo's case, It could just as well be another case of developers tossing together a lazy Wii port.  Remember, the Wii version wasn't announced until much later after the other two, so it was likely an afterthought, and its' unforeseen success has caught them off-guard.

 

Does anyone know if there are any such issues with the PS2 versions of RB and GH?

Edit: Now that I think about it, doesn't the PS2 version lack online play?  Very interesting theory, rasone...



Bodhesatva said:

the Guitar Hero and Madden ads, which prominently displayed the Xbox360 logo and managed to help secure the Xbox360 as THE Madden-system of choice for the generation; the system bundles with third party software such as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and even this recent public event in Japan:


This is not unique to Microsoft. It's a common marketing technique. Intel does it with Dell and other companies all of the time. The idea is that Microsoft provides marketing money to publishers to split advertising costs for their big-name games, and those publishers also advertise the 360 in their commercial. This way, both Microsoft and Activision (or whoever) get their products advertised in the same 15 or 30 second slot, and they split the cost. That's the nice way of looking at it.

Money talks. Microsoft has a lot of 'advertising' money waiting to be spent and they'll spend it in the most aggressive way possible.

You've found something of a truism in the industry right now, however.  Microsoft is one of the greatest marketing companies in existence.  This has been true since the first Windows release where Microsoft managed to market it to everyone wishing to sell cheap home computers.  And that was the emergence of the home PC for most people.

Microsoft isn't about innovation or quality.  They never have been.  They've always been about taking an idea that someone else had, copying it, and marketing it better than that other company.  When MS and Apple copied Xerox to create Windowing operating systems, Apple did it better.  But Microsoft marketed it better.  This has been true, more or less, throughout Microsoft's existence. 

I agree. I think their other big success is that they've managed PR their way through the image that they garnered from Windows - I think especially this generation, fewer people think of the 360 as as much of a product of an arrogant behemoth with way more money than scruples.

You could argue the exact opposite when you consider the 360's outrageous failure rate and Microsoft's very casual "we'll fix your 360 on our own time and send you someone else's repaired 360 in another three weeks" approach to supporting their defective product.