Honestly, why can't Nintendo have some sort of quality control? Why can't they stop publishers that only bring down Nintendo's good name for a quick buck? Look at the following two publishers:
Conspiracy Entertainment:
Anubis II
Billy the Wizard: Rocket Broomstick Racing
Myth Makers: Super Kart GP
Myth Makers: Orbs of Doom
Ninjabread Man
Octopuzzle
Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge
Destination Software:
Arctic Tale
Balls of Fury
Chicken Shoot
Garfield Gets Real
M&M's Kart Racing
Monster Trucks Mayhem
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure
Showtime Championship Boxing
Yamaha Supercross
If you're looking at the same thing I am, you'll notice that most of the worst shovelware on the Wii is being created by two publishers. Neither one has any respect for quality gaming. Why can't Nintendo pull them aside and tell them to cut the shit? Do you really think Capcom, Konami and Square-Enix, among others, are going to care because Nintendo is cracking down on Conspiracy and Destination? Not only are the games awful, but they're insanely buggy most of the time. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony all have the right to sit a third party down and say this needs more time from your team. Frame rate drops, glitches, sound issues, awful texturing, PS1 quality graphics, unfinished games, etc. etc. I heard that Anubis II, Ninjabread Man, and Billy the Wizard were actually the same exact game with different character models and slightly tweaked environments. Why should THAT be tolerated? I never said Nintendo should pull a monopoly and demand exclusive rights for two years, I'm merely talking about sitting down with publishers and saying "fix your game, it doesn't run correct". Why can't Nintendo tell Midway that Cruis'n is broken and needs more time? I'm not talking about boring games here. I'm talking about broken games. With Nintendo as the market leader, they have a reputation to upkeep. There's a lot of people that don't want to walk into a store and see that much garbage so early on. It clogs shelf space. With the PS2 it doesn't matter, because most of it came after there was a healthy assortment of titles that could hold that shelf space and show quality. People that buy that crap can lose faith in buying titles for the Wii.
Also what is a third party to do? Conspiracy Entertainment had a 333% increase in profit in three months after Ninjabread Man, Counter Force, Power Play Pool and Cocoto Kart Racing were released. Another third party looks at that and sees what they should see, a gold mine. Why reallocate resources for the Wii when you can just purchase some low quality shovelware for dirt cheap and release it? Or just port an oldie but goodie? It only took 30 people at the most to port Okami to the Wii. Imagine how many more it would have taken were it a sequel instead. Capcom may have not been able to use Ready At Dawn, who were already tied up with God of War for the PSP.
For those of you that think Capcom is REALLY behind the Wii, here's a quote from Christian Svensson, Capcom's Vice-President of Strategic Planning & Business Development:
Christian Svensson asks to "spread the Okami gospel across the net, my sons and daughters." and we have complied. He also said in regard to the good sales from the Resident Evil games that "all of you Wii fanatics better have Okami pre-ordered by now because that's the next test (and it's waaay better with Wii controls, than it was on PS2... it's very different, in a good way)." We'll keep you posted.
That's right. If Capcom is really on board with the Wii, why are they testing us? They don't seem to be testing 360 and PS3 owners. This quote is like a week old too, so obviously this is the current mindset they're on regarding Wii. It sounds very cautious and unsure, like they'll revert back to not supporting Wii if Okami fails. Not only that but they've decided they couldn't allocate enough budget to release any commercials, so don't expect anything but some game magazine ads for Okami.
I think Nintendo's market approach regarding this console, the incompatibility graphically to the competition and their inability to stop even the worst offenders of shovelware that clog up tons of shelf space is all Nintendo's fault. If Capcom can't get on board fully with a console that is the obvious winner this gen saleswise, after supporting Nintendo through all of the bad years, then I think something is wrong, and Nintendo needs to play hardball like Sony and Microsoft do and get the damn games on their system already. They are not some startup console like Sony, the comparisons do not match. Nintendo is a former market leader and got that way by showing balls, kicking ass, taking names and showing third parties why the best chance they had to make a blockbuster was to come over to Nintendo.
