By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming - Why is it hard to believe that third parties are biased against Nintendo?

st0pnsw0p on 24 April 2014
Zero999 said:
st0pnsw0p said:

Despite popular belief, Nintendo games aren't so good that they appeal to absolutely everyone and stop people from wanting to buy any other type of game. The reason most 3rd parties sell poorly on Nintendo consoles is due to their completely different demographics. People who buy a Wii U generally aren't the type of people who are interested in AAA 3rd party games and vice versa, hence why games like AC, CoD and the like sell worse on Wii U than on other consoles, but for a Rayman Legends, which appeals 

If Nintendo made a console that both audiences bought, both types of games would sell well and third parties would be willing to support it, just like they supported the PS3 at the start of the generation despite its faults simply because their games sold on it.

this demographic thing is also a myth. and there will always be some franchises that sell beter on platform a,b or c.

And why does that happen, if demographics has nothing to do with it? Random chance? If that were the case, the FFXIII games would have sold more on PS3 some of the time and sometimes more on the 360, but that's not the case. All three games sold more than twice as much on PS3 as they did on 360.

All the Call of Dutys and Battlefields sold more on 360 than on PS3. All the Skylanders sold better on Wii than on any other system. Resident Evil 5 and 6 sold better on PS3. All the retail Sonic games, except All-Stars Racing Transformed, sold better on PS3 than on 360. All 9 the NFS games released on both 360 and PS3 except two did better on PS3 than on 360. How can you possibly explain all of these without using demographics?



Around the Network
ICStats on 24 April 2014

They're not biased against Nintendo, they're allergic to Nintendo.  Big difference.

What are they allergic to?

 - Not being put first.
 - Not having the features, support and tools that they're used to from MS & Sony.
 - Lack of hardware parity is a pain.  Devs want the consoles to be as close as possible, preferably the same.

The medicine for that is to have a big market, a lot of users.  All pains can be forgotten if there's a market, like with Wii.

Imagine a scenario where Wii U had similar specs to PS4 or XB1.... we'll come back to this.

Although the GC didn't set the house on fire with it's sales, 3rd party devs supported it.  Why?  It was pretty easy
to port to from PS2.  In some ways it was a pleasure to port to GC than to develop for the PS2.  But... Nintendo
must not have been happy with GC so they risked the Wii strategy - make a console that can't compete on power being 5 or 6
times weaker than high end consoles, but cheaper and with a new widget.  It worked, against all estimates.

So Nintendo tried to do the same again, release a console 5 or 6 times weaker than PS4/XB1, with a new widget... only
this time the widget didn't catch on.  Now they're stuck with a console that's not competitive on power and has no widget
to sell.  A worse position than the GameCube, it's big difference from PS4/XB1 is why it will not get 3rd party support.

Back to the imaginary scenario, if Wii U was close in specs to PS4/XB1, not beating anything but close, then devs would just
port their PS4/X1 software, plus you'd get awesome 1st party.  It would be a great console to own.



My 8th gen collection

Nintentacle on 24 April 2014
HipHopGodd said:
It's no biggie really. I've heard for many years now that Nintendo's 1st party games are what sells their consoles. That's proving to be absolutely true.

Wii U's sales say otherwise. 

OP: Yeah, I'd say some companies like EA have a bias against Nintendo.



F0X on 24 April 2014
RolStoppable said:
Mythmaker1 said:

The difference between the question in the thread title and the examples in the OP is that, unlike those examples, there's an actual basis for third-parties to avoid Nintendo. 

They have a history (albeit one that, depending on your perspective, is in the past) of being a bad partner, their tendency to make radical changes to their hardware makes them an unreliable platform, and from a purely financial perspective their platforms offer less potential return for third-parties.

Two simple tasks for you:

1) The PS3 made programming hard and drove up development costs, its sales pace was far below expectations which in turn crippled third party software sales to the point that in the year after the PS3 launch almost every big third party publisher posted losses and had to close studios. During the same timeframe, the PS3 sold the lowest amount of third party software between itself, the 360 and the Wii. Explain how the PS3 could end up with the best third party support in the long run.

2) The 3DS had built over a ten million lead in installed base over the PSV in Japan and Monster Hunter was very successful on Nintendo's handheld. Explain why God Eater 2 skipped the 3DS.


1) Nintendo barely supported the Wii after 2010, and it seems to me as if third parties followed Nintendo's lead. In terms of PS3 vs. 360, Sony had a massive advantage in the Japanese market, which I believe helped the PS3 gain steam in 2008 and 2009. Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls were successful internationally.

2) Not sure if moneyhatting or bad business decision.



3DS Friend Code: 0645 - 5827 - 5788
WayForward Kickstarter is best kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1236620800/shantae-half-genie-hero

Keegs79 on 24 April 2014
Zero999 said:

how about a simpler fact? over 300 games sold 500k+ on wii, most of them are third party, both exclusive and multiplatform. with those sales, the vast majority, if not all, are profitable.

Now you said 300 made sold over 500,000? Wrong. It was 262.

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/2/wii/

The market was huge for the Wii. Of course it was going to have third party games that sold but it doesn't mean its going to be successful. What third party games sold well? No surprise, casual games. Games that the Wii was targeted to in the first place. That is the spin! That was the one hit wonder with the Wii that made Nintendo successful. They can't capitalize on it because the Wii U isn't attracting the casual market and major AAA titles from third parties didn't even sale all that well. Those casual games don't have huge budgets so of course those are likely profitable but Nintendo's own Wii Music sold 3 million

There is so many great games on the Wii that got outsold by crap so why should they have even bothered.



Around the Network
PATRIOT7GAMING on 24 April 2014

Why is it hard to believe that part of it is Nintendo's fault and it isn't all bias. I can understand it with the Wii but the wii u is a different thing though.



Started gaming on PS3 3/6/14 :)

burning_phoneix on 24 April 2014
F0X said:
RolStoppable said:
Mythmaker1 said:

The difference between the question in the thread title and the examples in the OP is that, unlike those examples, there's an actual basis for third-parties to avoid Nintendo. 

They have a history (albeit one that, depending on your perspective, is in the past) of being a bad partner, their tendency to make radical changes to their hardware makes them an unreliable platform, and from a purely financial perspective their platforms offer less potential return for third-parties.

Two simple tasks for you:

1) The PS3 made programming hard and drove up development costs, its sales pace was far below expectations which in turn crippled third party software sales to the point that in the year after the PS3 launch almost every big third party publisher posted losses and had to close studios. During the same timeframe, the PS3 sold the lowest amount of third party software between itself, the 360 and the Wii. Explain how the PS3 could end up with the best third party support in the long run.

2) The 3DS had built over a ten million lead in installed base over the PSV in Japan and Monster Hunter was very successful on Nintendo's handheld. Explain why God Eater 2 skipped the 3DS.


1) Nintendo barely supported the Wii after 2010, and it seems to me as if third parties followed Nintendo's lead. In terms of PS3 vs. 360, Sony had a massive advantage in the Japanese market, which I believe helped the PS3 gain steam in 2008 and 2009. Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls were successful internationally.

2) Not sure if moneyhatting or bad business decision.


1) Why would Third parties follow Nintendo's lead? Wouldn't less 1st party games make for a more appealing release window for 3rd parties?



Serious_frusting on 24 April 2014
mysteryman said:
noname2200 said:

He's assuming that everyone on this site can take the formula "1+x=2" and find x. Stupid of him, I know.

 


What kind of sorcery is this???



It's okay, He-Man the spoon is here to save us all


God forbid that someone makes a title that coninsides with the thread.  He just name droped Nintendo to get people to view his thread. Understandable really when you think about it after you see the op.

 

I am not the only one who thinks this because everyone who has commented has been talking nintendo. So they have been answering his thread title and not the tripe thats in op. Sorry thats just my opinion. One of the worst threads he has ever made, Why cant the title be Why is it so hard to believe 3rd parties are biased?  or better still 'that 3rd parties can be biased'. 

Maybe because he knew people would not care about his thread else? Just a thought.



Nobody's perfect. I aint nobody!!!

Killzone 2. its not a fps. it a FIRST PERSON WAR SIMULATOR!!!! ..The true PLAYSTATION 3 launch date and market dominations is SEP 1st

Captain_Tom on 24 April 2014
RolStoppable said:

Definition of bias:

1. A preference or inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
2. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.

The fall of Square-Enix has much to do with this. On one day the company suddenly decided that what it was successfully doing for two decades wasn't going to work anymore, so their output changed. The JRPGs the company became known for were pushed to the side in order to pursue the new things. Meanwhile, smaller companies like Atlus and Gust kept putting out their JRPGS and saw stable or increasing sales. Not only was there no evidence for Square-Enix to justify their change, but there was plenty of evidence that disproved the reason for their change. Apparently the company woke up from their delusions that classic JRPGs have no market anymore, but only after years of bad financials. The executives in charge stubbornly stuck to their course, unwilling to accept all evidence that showed they were wrong. It has to be seen what comes out of this, but admitting that there was a real problem these past few years is probably the most positive news about Square-Enix since the seventh generation started.

Another example of bias is the industry-wide belief that entire genres do not sell anymore. Survival horror is one prominent example, challenging games like Dark Souls are another. Such decisions aren't made based on actual data, but very narrow-minded views of the video games market. And everytime a game succeeds, it's written off as an anomaly to uphold the narrative that the executives in charge know what they are doing and can keep doing what they are doing.

Then there's the notion that singleplayer-only games are not viable anymore. For people on VGC, this is an absolutely mindboggling statement, because it's so easy to point out numerous million-selling singleplayer games of the last few years. But once again, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, the majority of the video game industry sticks to their guns. A biased perception of the market is clouding their judgment, so the nonsense doesn't stop, but rather gets worse. The hivemind of the industry dictates that there can only ever be one thing that is the future and until that bubble bursts, there won't be a serious re-evalution of the way the companies are doing business.

Biased decisions are a very real thing in the video game industry. They happen all the time.

Why is it so hard to believe that third parties have a very valid reason for avoiding Nintendo?



mysteryman on 24 April 2014
Serious_frusting said:
mysteryman said:
noname2200 said:

He's assuming that everyone on this site can take the formula "1+x=2" and find x. Stupid of him, I know.

 


What kind of sorcery is this???



It's okay, He-Man the spoon is here to save us all


God forbid that someone makes a title that coninsides with the thread.  He just name droped Nintendo to get people to view his thread. Understandable really when you think about it after you see the op.

 

I am not the only one who thinks this because everyone who has commented has been talking nintendo. So they have been answering his thread title and not the tripe thats in op. Sorry thats just my opinion. One of the worst threads he has ever made, Why cant the title be Why is it so hard to believe 3rd parties are biased?  or better still 'that 3rd parties can be biased'. 

Maybe because he knew people would not care about his thread else? Just a thought.

The use of non-Nintendo examples of bias in the industry was to circumvent anti-Nintendo blinkers. Of course this meant that some insight was required to appreciate the message. Clearly this was asking too much.

 

Dont worry though, here comes the aeroplane:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=6251599