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Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo Enthusiats: No Mr. Adelman, You’re Wrong About Nintendo’s Third-Party Situation

pokoko on 27 January 2015
Mr Khan said:

I'm curious, the head of Bethesda said what about them?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEtrhxjCPLM

Why can I no longer show videos on these forums?

Anyway, this is a Blackbond video but you don't have to watch him at all, as the video of Pete Hines, the marketing guy from Bethesda, is right at the very front.  He seems pretty passionate about what he describes as a complete lack of communication from Nintendo.



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oniyide on 28 January 2015
Mr Khan said:
Shadow1980 said:

I knew the current third-party situation with the Wii U would come to pass from the very beginning. Once they started putting more emphasis on the PS4 and XBO their support for the Wii U would dry up. The Wii U got a lot of games that were purely seventh-gen (or at least originally so), including ACIII, Arkham City & Arkham Origins, Black Ops II, Ninja Gaiden 3, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, NFS: Most Wanted, Injustice, RE: Revelations, Deus Ex, and Rayman Legends, among others. But cross-gen games? Not as many. It got AC: Black Flag, COD: Ghosts, Watch Dogs, and a couple of Lego games, but that's about it. The Wii U's poor commercial performance probably accelerated the process, but there was no way third parties were going to continue supporting the Wii U once the PS4 and XBO became their primary focus. Even the 360 & PS3 have noticably reduced support this year and will likely have no major games in 2016.

Even though the Wii U didn't get the third-party games it needed (most cross-gen games were no-shows, and no purely eighth-gen games are present), it did show that third parties weren't just shunning Nintendo on principle. Given the relatively low costs of porting 360 & PS3 games to the Wii U (<$1M according to Ubisoft, which means they'd maybe need to sell only 50k copies to break even) it was probably more of a case of "Why the hell not?" Even if Nintendo fans (likely pretty much all of the Wii U's user base) don't buy a ton of third-party games, it was enough for some additional pocket change for the third parties. But once the PS4 & XBO came out it was obvious that it was more worth their time and effort to ignore the system that was already about to end up in third place in a generation it had a year-long head start in (the PS4 sold more in its first few weeks than the Wii U did in all of 2013). There were already two systems with a combined install base of almost 170 million plus two more destined to sell many tens of millions of units in their own right. These new systems were going to be where the real money is going to be made when it came to cross-gen games, but more importantly they offered the kind of power they needed for purely eighth-gen games. Ultimately, the Wii U was a victim of its lack of power when it came to third-party support. The sales situation merely exacerbated things.

But if Nintendo made a conventional system next time it would be suitable to the needs of third parties and would appeal to people other than Nintendo fans. Unless they can come up with another gimmick that resonates with gamers and is marketed well enough, then without third-party support the best they can hope for is 20-25 million. With strong third-party support, I think they could do three times that.

We must be seeing two different things. I look at Wii U third party support as a precise example of third parties shunning Nintendo on purpose. A purpose that was retroactively justified, but they could hardly know that (look how badly they blew it with the Wii).

what are you seeing? because you really didnt debunk anything he said. And how did 3rd parties blew it with WIi? by making money?



Mr Khan on 28 January 2015
oniyide said:
Mr Khan said:

We must be seeing two different things. I look at Wii U third party support as a precise example of third parties shunning Nintendo on purpose. A purpose that was retroactively justified, but they could hardly know that (look how badly they blew it with the Wii).

what are you seeing? because you really didnt debunk anything he said. And how did 3rd parties blew it with WIi? by making money?

I already said it: third party support ended for Wii U *before* PS3/360.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

oniyide on 01 February 2015
Mr Khan said:
oniyide said:
Mr Khan said:

We must be seeing two different things. I look at Wii U third party support as a precise example of third parties shunning Nintendo on purpose. A purpose that was retroactively justified, but they could hardly know that (look how badly they blew it with the Wii).

what are you seeing? because you really didnt debunk anything he said. And how did 3rd parties blew it with WIi? by making money?

I already said it: third party support ended for Wii U *before* PS3/360.

it ended cause the sales sucked. And that doesnt answer the blowing it with Wii inquiry



zorg1000 on 02 February 2015
oniyide said:
Mr Khan said:

I already said it: third party support ended for Wii U *before* PS3/360.

it ended cause the sales sucked.


That's not true, they stopped supporting Wii U before they started. What major 3rd party releases came out in the first 9 months of 2013 that werent late ports or games that sold like shit regardless of platform? Injustice in April and Splinter Cell in August. If 3rd parties actually had any plans to support Wii U then we would have seen a bunch of 3rd party titles released in its first year.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

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Mr.GameCrazy on 02 February 2015
zorg1000 said:
oniyide said:

it ended cause the sales sucked.


That's not true, they stopped supporting Wii U before they started. What major 3rd party releases came out in the first 9 months of 2013 that werent late ports or games that sold like shit regardless of platform? Injustice in April and Splinter Cell in August. If 3rd parties actually had any plans to support Wii U then we would have seen a bunch of 3rd party titles released in its first year.


Ubisoft even delayed the Wii U version of Rayman Legends (originally an exclusive) for a year just to get the game ported to the other systems.



MikeRox on 02 February 2015
Soundwave said:
spemanig said:
Pretty ignorant article, if I'm honest. He ends it with "I think what they're doing is best." No. It's clearly not best. In what backwards world is performing the worst the best decision to make.

If he has an argument against Dan's suggestion, he needs to come up with a superior alternative. Staying the same is the inferior alternative, clearly.

I always say this, but if Nintendo wants third parties, they need to spend the money. What they're doing now with 3rd party collaborations is a small step, but it's not enough. Instead of investing more money securing multiples, they need to spend money creating exclusives that create an ecosystem that those games can actually live in.

Nintendo will never keep games like Destiny on their systems if they have no exclusives that can bring those types of gamers in. They need to invest heavily in western studios that can make those types of games. Nintendo needs like 5 studios like Retro/Rare, and they need to be focused exclusively on making new Western IPs. And they have to be good, quality games with mass western appeal.

Once Nintendo has an exclusive ecosystem that houses games similar to those made by western devs, they can finally bring over those gamers with those exclusives, which means that the console will have an audience that would actually buy those games.

In other words. If Nintendo wants GTA, first they have to make GTA.

Do you actually think Nintendo would do any of that? I doubt it. Nintendo's shown they have zero interest in this. Adelman's insightful comments about Nintendo's internal structure in Japan also indicates why this would never happen, too many old farts on their board of directors would staunchly oppose such moves. Nintendo's had amply oppurtunity to expand into the West, they simpy don't want to, in fact if they did it would be a threat to many on Nintendo's Japanese board of directors (what happens if the US division gets too strong? What happens if like Rare they start making games that begin to outshine the Japanese games?). 

Yamauchi could cut through all that political BS, but Iwata can't. He has to play ball with the board. 


Sounds suspiciously similar to Sega in the 90s.



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.

Soundwave on 02 February 2015
zorg1000 said:
oniyide said:

it ended cause the sales sucked.


That's not true, they stopped supporting Wii U before they started. What major 3rd party releases came out in the first 9 months of 2013 that werent late ports or games that sold like shit regardless of platform? Injustice in April and Splinter Cell in August. If 3rd parties actually had any plans to support Wii U then we would have seen a bunch of 3rd party titles released in its first year.


The launch title sales for games like Zombi U, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed III were relatively dissapointing. 

Nintendo had a poor launch in general. I'm actually surprised they got another COD and AC and Batman game still. 

The system was doomed with the audience that buys the big gun third party games from day 1 because of Nintendo's design choice to make a system only roughly as powerful as a PS3/360 and not a full on generational leap ahead. 

In said scenario they're basically asking people who buy third party games (those who pretty much 100% own a PS3/360 already) to buy another similar system with fewer games at a higher price for no good reason other than "Mario". It was a plan that predictably failed miserably. Would anyone have bought a SNES/Genesis level system just as the Playstation/N64/Saturn were launching with a library starting at 0?

It's not just a "Nintendo thing". If Sony or MS tried the same stupid concept, they would find zero audience for such a system and would get minimal to no third party support. Sony can't get big third party support for the Vita, developers are simply looking at the install base and potential sales for their product. 



zorg1000 on 02 February 2015
Soundwave said:
zorg1000 said:


That's not true, they stopped supporting Wii U before they started. What major 3rd party releases came out in the first 9 months of 2013 that werent late ports or games that sold like shit regardless of platform? Injustice in April and Splinter Cell in August. If 3rd parties actually had any plans to support Wii U then we would have seen a bunch of 3rd party titles released in its first year.


The launch title sales for games like Zombi U, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed III were relatively dissapointing. 

Nintendo had a poor launch in general. I'm actually surprised they got another COD and AC and Batman game still. 

The system was doomed with the audience that buys the big gun third party games from day 1 because of Nintendo's design choice to make a system only roughly as powerful as a PS3/360 and not a full on generational leap ahead. 

In said scenario they're basically asking people who buy third party games (those who pretty much 100% own a PS3/360 already) to buy another similar system with fewer games at a higher price for no good reason other than "Mario". It was a plan that predictably failed miserably. Would anyone have bought a SNES/Genesis level system just as the Playstation/N64/Saturn were launching with a library starting at 0?

It's not just a "Nintendo thing". If Sony or MS tried the same stupid concept, they would find zero audience for such a system and would get minimal to no third party support. Sony can't get big third party support for the Vita, developers are simply looking at the install base and potential sales for their product. 

That's kinda irrelevant tho, oniyide said 3rd parties stopped supporting Wii U because of low sales, which is not true, the majority of 3rd parties gave little to no support from the start.

U are correct that Wii U was not a system designed for 3rd party success but that's a completely different conversation altogether.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Soundwave on 02 February 2015
zorg1000 said:
Soundwave said:


The launch title sales for games like Zombi U, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed III were relatively dissapointing. 

Nintendo had a poor launch in general. I'm actually surprised they got another COD and AC and Batman game still. 

The system was doomed with the audience that buys the big gun third party games from day 1 because of Nintendo's design choice to make a system only roughly as powerful as a PS3/360 and not a full on generational leap ahead. 

In said scenario they're basically asking people who buy third party games (those who pretty much 100% own a PS3/360 already) to buy another similar system with fewer games at a higher price for no good reason other than "Mario". It was a plan that predictably failed miserably. Would anyone have bought a SNES/Genesis level system just as the Playstation/N64/Saturn were launching with a library starting at 0?

It's not just a "Nintendo thing". If Sony or MS tried the same stupid concept, they would find zero audience for such a system and would get minimal to no third party support. Sony can't get big third party support for the Vita, developers are simply looking at the install base and potential sales for their product. 

That's kinda irrelevant tho, oniyide said 3rd parties stopped supporting Wii U because of low sales, which is not true, the majority of 3rd parties gave little to no support from the start.

U are correct that Wii U was not a system designed for 3rd party success but that's a completely different conversation altogether.

Actually COD, AC, Batman, FIFA, and Madden are probably 5 of the top 8-9 third party IP on the market today. And Zombi U was a fairly decent launch game to go with that. 

It had decent support at launch. Yeah FIFA and Madden weren't quite up to date but the others were decent enough. The launch just was extremely poor and the games did not sell. It had better third party games at launch than the Wii, Vita, or 3DS did. 

Why should third parties continue to support a system that doesn't have a good outlook for third party sales? This is like the single guy blaming the girl at the bar for not picking on his half-assed advances at the bar and not giving him more time to get to know the real him. After 10 minutes of listening to the guy, can you blame the girl for wanting to go back to the table to sit with her friends? 

The onus was on Nintendo here to come out swinging and show from day 1 that they had changed their stripes, they failed miserably, in this business other companies don't have time to sit around and wait for one company to get their sh*t together.