Placing the blame on third party devs only is unreasonable at best. Nintendo is the one making deals with these developers to bring content on their platforms. It's Nintendo in the end that has the responsibility to entice developers to create compelling content for their consoles. The fact is third parties don't want to create special versions of their games for a gimped console. Nintendo do things their way, very stubbornly. The Wii managed to be a hit for a certain type of games and crowd. But looking at Nintendo's performance since the N64, the Wii U is pretty much in line with how things have been for them in the market. When the casuals aren't there, the console sells mostly to Nintendo fans. The sales are pretty much speaking for themselves: In-line with the Gamecube and the N64.

Now you bring up the handheld market in the mix. A different market altogether, you have to admit. And one that Nintendo has always been the leader. Making games for the DS and 3DS isn't as expensive and doesn't involve nearly as much risk as making a high budget game for a console that doesn't sell.

"But... but... The Wii??" The Wii was mostly selling casual games. When third party devs made games that catered to the "hardcore" audience, sales were on most accounts disappointing, barely breaking even with the devs investment. It's not very difficult to see why devs would prefer to make their games on system where porting them from one an other costs little and bring the most revenue in the end. The risk just isn't as high on the other home consoles compared to Nintendo's.

I think it's really laughable when people blame anyone other than Nintendo for the mess the company is in right now. Developers go where there's money to be made. Which is totally normal. Figures from the last few generations show how difficult it is for them to make money on Nintendo's home consoles. To deny this, and make excuses like "they're just releasing lazy ports", only tells me that some of you don't want to face the possibility that Nintendo may not be as Godly as you see them.

I see that impertinence was right, you were able to add to the list. Now let's go through this.

First, you make the argument that it is a console manufacturer's responsibility to make third parties create compelling content. Wouldn't it be more logical to say that it is third parties' responsibility to create compelling content if they want to be successful as a business? If I took your statement at face value, it should also mean that Nintendo should be the one that should be praised whenever a good third party game is released for one of their systems, not the creators of said game. If Nintendo deserves the blame for bad third party games (according to you), it would only be fair to praise them for good third party games. Mega Man, Chrono Trigger, Turok 2, Resident Evil 4 and many others, we have to thank Nintendo for that.

The handheld market isn't all too different from the home console market. They have a lot of things in common. In my previous post I only asked you one thing: Why do you think that third parties find success on Nintendo handhelds. I take it that your answer is "Making games for the DS and 3DS isn't as expensive and doesn't involve nearly as much risk as making a high budget game for a console that doesn't sell." - Actually, that's just the closest of an answer you gave. You didn't really address my question.

The third paragraph enters mindboggling territory. First, tell me the names of those hardcore games that were barely breaking even. I am sure that 360 and PS3 owners were jealous of those Wii-exclusive games. Secondly, the statement about risk is laughable. We are coming off a generation where studio closures for failure on Sony and Microsoft consoles outnumber the same thing for Nintendo consoles by a factor of 25:1 (random guess, but you get the point).

The last paragraph is more or less a rant. Answer my question from the previous post, because that is a key to this discussion. Although it's possible that you believe you did answer my question, but in that case I worry about my own judgment.

Placing the blame on third party devs only is unreasonable at best. Nintendo is the one making deals with these developers to bring content on their platforms. It's Nintendo in the end that has the responsibility to entice developers to create compelling content for their consoles. The fact is third parties don't want to create special versions of their games for a gimped console. Nintendo do things their way, very stubbornly. The Wii managed to be a hit for a certain type of games and crowd. But looking at Nintendo's performance since the N64, the Wii U is pretty much in line with how things have been for them in the market. When the casuals aren't there, the console sells mostly to Nintendo fans. The sales are pretty much speaking for themselves: In-line with the Gamecube and the N64.

Now you bring up the handheld market in the mix. A different market altogether, you have to admit. And one that Nintendo has always been the leader. Making games for the DS and 3DS isn't as expensive and doesn't involve nearly as much risk as making a high budget game for a console that doesn't sell.

"But... but... The Wii??" The Wii was mostly selling casual games. When third party devs made games that catered to the "hardcore" audience, sales were on most accounts disappointing, barely breaking even with the devs investment. It's not very difficult to see why devs would prefer to make their games on system where porting them from one an other costs little and bring the most revenue in the end. The risk just isn't as high on the other home consoles compared to Nintendo's.

I think it's really laughable when people blame anyone other than Nintendo for the mess the company is in right now. Developers go where there's money to be made. Which is totally normal. Figures from the last few generations show how difficult it is for them to make money on Nintendo's home consoles. To deny this, and make excuses like "they're just releasing lazy ports", only tells me that some of you don't want to face the possibility that Nintendo may not be as Godly as you see them.

I see that impertinence was right, you were able to add to the list. Now let's go through this.

First, you make the argument that it is a console manufacturer's responsibility to make third parties create compelling content. Wouldn't it be more logical to say that it is third parties' responsibility to create compelling content if they want to be successful as a business? If I took your statement at face value, it should also mean that Nintendo should be the one that should be praised whenever a good third party game is released for one of their systems, not the creators of said game. If Nintendo deserves the blame for bad third party games (according to you), it would only be fair to praise them for good third party games. Mega Man, Chrono Trigger, Turok 2, Resident Evil 4 and many others, we have to thank Nintendo for that.

The handheld market isn't all too different from the home console market. They have a lot of things in common. In my previous post I only asked you one thing: Why do you think that third parties find success on Nintendo handhelds. I take it that your answer is "Making games for the DS and 3DS isn't as expensive and doesn't involve nearly as much risk as making a high budget game for a console that doesn't sell." - Actually, that's just the closest of an answer you gave. You didn't really address my question.

The third paragraph enters mindboggling territory. First, tell me the names of those hardcore games that were barely breaking even. I am sure that 360 and PS3 owners were jealous of those Wii-exclusive games. Secondly, the statement about risk is laughable. We are coming off a generation where studio closures for failure on Sony and Microsoft consoles outnumber the same thing for Nintendo consoles by a factor of 25:1 (random guess, but you get the point).

The last paragraph is more or less a rant. Answer my question from the previous post, because that is a key to this discussion. Although it's possible that you believe you did answer my question, but in that case I worry about my own judgment.

Yep.  Why waste time and money learning to optimize a console when then the 360/ps3 are completily mapped out already and the PS4/One are vastly stronger and easier to program for.  Then throw in the fact that the game attatch ratio is terrible on the Wii U and you see a situation where it just makes no sense to make games for it.  

i guess in your world.

Yep.  Why waste time and money learning to optimize a console when then the 360/ps3 are completily mapped out already and the PS4/One are vastly stronger and easier to program for.  Then throw in the fact that the game attatch ratio is terrible on the Wii U and you see a situation where it just makes no sense to make games for it.