Multishanks said:
I have been seeing a lot of wishful thinking about Nintendo's next hardware being third party friendly as some like to call it.
STOP DOING THIS TO YOURSELVES. They will never be that because their business model doesn't include that.
|
Actually, Nintendo has always (OK, it's more accurate to say "since Iwata took over") been third-party friendly. It's the third parties that haven't been friendly. Third parties complained about how they had to compete with Nintendo's own software, so Nintendo held back some of their games to give third parties an opportunity to release their titles... third parties completely ignored the gap, and instead focused on other hardware... and then complained about Nintendo not driving sales of their hardware.
Nintendo paid third parties to make games for them in the Gamecube era. Those games then got ported to the PS2. Nintendo drove massive system sales on the Wii, and third parties pumped out shovelware onto the system while putting their real titles on other systems. Nintendo pushed third party titles heavily on 3DS, and third parties completely ignored those titles. Nintendo designed the Wii, and later the Wii U, to be developer-friendly (including both ease of development and keeping down of costs), and third parties complained about the lack of power... but third parties certainly weren't interested in developing properly for Gamecube, which was more powerful than the market leader and comparable to the Xbox. And when given an opportunity to be the only notable game released in a six month window on the Wii U, Ubisoft decided to instead delay their big game to have it release simultaneously on other systems, thereby shifting the release date to right in the middle of Nintendo's big releases.
When it comes down to it, they just pump out excuse after excuse, but the truth is that the major third parties are simply far too risk-averse to actually make the kind of effort necessary to really establish a franchise on a Nintendo system, even though once the franchise is established on the system, it'll no longer be a risky move. It's why Nintendo is being more picky about which developers to actually support. Platinum makes risky moves all the time, for instance. Indies are always big on risky moves, so Nintendo is embracing the Indie movement.
If the major third parties weren't so risk averse, they'd try actually releasing quality products on Nintendo systems in genres and styles that aren't already present, and thus establish their own market on the system. They'd spend time developing real uses for Nintendo's innovations, rather than doing things like having a hacking game on a system with a touchscreen, and using it for a map. The few times that they've actually taken such risks, those risks have paid off.
Also note that you can tell a lot about the third parties' efforts on Nintendo systems by looking at which "badly-performing" exclusive titles ended up being ported to other systems. ZombiU? Nope, despite moaning about how Wii U owners just weren't buying their masterpiece, they haven't made any efforts to move the game over to the PS4 or Xbox One.
The only thing Nintendo isn't going to do for third parties is completely design their systems around them, because Nintendo knows that doing so isn't going to be a successful move, especially when two other systems are already doing exactly that (hence why, for two generations now, people have been referring to them as "twins" - because aside from certain issues with the PS3, Sony and MS have spent a lot of time developing what amounts to nearly-identical systems).
And to be clear, the risk-aversion is present elsewhere, too - it's why third parties didn't put any real effort into Move or Kinect. It's why most AAA titles are getting more and more alike. It's why RE is now a shooter game with a horror motif rather than a horror game. It's why franchises that haven't historically brought in multi-million sales have been thrown in the bin, and why the few such franchises that have survived have been turned into games filled with microtransactions, etc. It's why popular franchises are being annualised rather than being made even better. And it's why they run massive hype campaigns in the leadup to release while trying to keep reviewers from saying bad things about their games until after launch. They don't stand by their dev teams, they don't stand by their products, and it's all about maximising profit while minimising risk. And if it continues, we can expect a crash. Nintendo's relationship with third parties is nothing more than a symptom.
