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

Forums - Sales Discussion - Nintendo means bad news for 3rd parties!

n00b said:
TalonMan said:
ckmlb said:

The so called big flood of huge 3rd party games to Wii still hasn't come even though it's clear that it is selling more than the other two consoles now, anyone wonder why that is?

I mean all the new games announced are small quick cash ins that look terribly made and are really unappealing to the average video gamer.


But this will change...

...you've got to remember, almost ALL of the 3rd parties were caught with their pants down when Nintendo was showing off the Wii at the last E3. Many of them admitted to having dismissed the Wii before E3, and afterwards, having to ramp up and switch gears to start pumping out Wii games.

No, it won't change. Developers have had plenty of time to observe the Wii and the kind of people who want it, and they're still shunning the Wii. Another good announcement today, with the upcoming Chronicles of Riddick to be on the 360 and PS3. The Wii is just too weak to attract the heavy hitters. It'll get the Nintendo games, a handful of decent multiplatform games, and a tremendous amount of totally crap shovelware.

 


 Then in the end Nintendo will be left with the majority of the market and profits, and only a few intelligent devs will be there to share, while the rest just suffer huge losses or even bankruptcy



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

Around the Network

Nintendo sounds like it is endangering gaming as an industry by hurting third parties.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

In the long run it will only benefit third parties to have Nintendo more successful then the competition.

Despite Nintendo having always been their own consoles number one software publisher their has always been alot of room for third parties to profit. On the GameCube Sega sold more copies of their titles then on any of the competitions far more successful consoles.

 Basically your not looking at all third parties profits rather at just a few of the major ones. Atari reduced its yearly losses big time thanks to their DragonBallZ game being a major hit in European markets. You also saw an increase in UbiSoft's profits and Konami's and Sega saw a small increase too.

 In the end the only third parties in bad positions are the dumb ones who didn't think the Wii could amount to anything. I mean the DS should have proved that Nintendo's innovative approach could yeild major profit margins. So when publishers like EAGames didn't jump on the bandwagon that was their own stupid fault.

 Think about it according to NamcoBandai a big budget Wii game can be developed for around 4-million USD while a big budget PS3 game goes for about 30-million. So thats alot of extra profit the Wii game can make I mean 25-million more dollars then the PS3 one.

 So why didn't more third parties use logic? thats the real question!



-JC7

"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer

 

Don't get how the system that offers a potentially higher user base(by the time the game is put out) than both the other consoles combined and offers you profit at a lower buy in rate could possibly be bad for third parties. I mean if 500,000 is the break even point on the PS3 and its probably that much lower on the Xbox360 and you can produce a game that will go to a higher number of potential buyers and only need to sell 250,000-375,000 copies to break even not to mention cost you less to make. I mean as a developer looking at numbers like that you've got to think hey if I make a good that sells half as well on this system I make a profit whereas it has to sell double on this other system to be profitable which ones should I stick my devlopers on. I mean right now I think you haven't seen the shift yet as it has been mentioned games don't take 6 months to make they take at least a year and if companies waited to see the quarter ending results that means we have at least a year from now to wait to see some of the fruitions of the changing market anyways just my thoughts.



Akuma... after what a lot of people have posted here, you really can't say that. In fact, with any common sense you can't say that. Nintendo makes consistently top-quality games. The second they start making games that dip below 90% reviews, it's considered failure. That's like blaming Jordan for being a better player than everybody else on the court. The problem is that third parties haven't shown Nintendo as much support as the competition since the launch of the N64 (for legitimate reasons), and now Nintendo is even *more* identified with their console. All you need are half a dozen AAA third-party games on Wii, and you'll see they'll sell just as well as Nintendo titles.



Around the Network

It's not about rushed games or bad games or any of the usual excuses. The problem is Nintendo gobbles up 2-3 times as many sales as a percentage as Sony or Microsoft because people buy Nintendo systems for Nintendo games (yes, this again). Great for profits, but don't expect anybody to actually make games for your system. The most groundbreaking game in the world wouldn't change that any. Of course, the dumbed down hardware doesn't help matters any either but does mean we won't see any ground broken regardless. To make matters even worse, the biggest success stories for the Wii have been Wii Play and Wii Sports. When developers do spend money, you can bet they'll try to mimic those games rather than come up with another Gears of War. If you want third party games, buy PS3 or 360. Period. The bad news is that once gamers realize that the good third party games are not coming out for Wii, its sales will sink. Gamecube had substantial support at launch. There's no way anybody was completely ignoring Wii. Perhaps they were taking it less seriously than they may be now, but plans were in place to develop for Nintendo.



akuma587 said:
Nintendo has been kind of hostile towards third parties, even this generation. Not allowing them to do online, not opening the Miis up to them, forcing them to use seperate Wii online handles for individual games, among other things. They have helped them by keeping development costs down though. They do need to adapt to the Wii, I agree, but I think no matter what Nintendo does they are less friendly to 3rd parties than Microsoft and Sony because they are exclusively a game company that cannot afford to lose profits.

Nintendo is allowing 3rd parties to make online games... Sega is currently making a game that uses Miis (sega is 3rd party)...and you are correct with the online handles (friend codes).



fishamaphone said:
N00b, are you telling me that missing out on what will probably be a crappy tie-in shovelware game is a bad thing?

 What are you talking about? I already pointed out that the Wii will practically be drowning in crappy shovelware. Missing out on what?



Shane, name some major 3rd-party launch titles for any Nintendo system. Super Monkey Ball sold really well and has so far spawned (I believe) five more games. Red Steel, despite poor reviews, is on its way to being a million-seller. Feel the Magic... well, it's seen pretty good success outside of the US. I really don't think there's much to support what you're saying beyond sheer conjecture.



Christopher_G2 said:
It's really up to third parties to put their A teams on projects for the Wii and DS. If they're banking on the 360, PS3, and PSP than they're seriously limiting their potential to grow as companies. Like it or not, Nintendo is probably going to own the industry practically for the next few years, expecially as far as Japan and most of Europe. Theoretically if third parties joined hands and did give up Nintendo would only make more money as their games would sell to people without third party options. People aren't buying Nintendo systems for third party games, but if there are good ones there they'll buy them once they have it.

Big developers would be wasting resources putting their A teams on Wii projects. It's just too weak, they can farm that crap out to interns. Developing for the Wii seriously limits their potential to grow as good developers.