| Insidb said: Let me try to clarify this for you, to accomodate the apparent conflation of disparate points. I apologize if I came off as agressive, but it's frustrating to exchange forum posts, in lieu of having an actual, human conversation. Since 2000, all but 2 of the top-selling video game has been third-party, multiplatform. Consequently, for the last ten years, gaming has trended away from first-party gaming. Since 2008, the top-selling video game has been third-party, multiplatform. From 1984 to 2000, however, every top-selling video game was a first-party exclusive. The games that broke the first-party trend, from 2001 to 2006, were the usual fare: GTA, CoD, and Madden. In 2007 and 2008, the best-selling games were Halo and Wii Play, respectively. I think this is where the confusion arose. There's a clear trend towards third-party, multiplatform games driving the industry, and it extends long past their last decade streak. Despite that, the Wii (which was a massive success) saw almost exclusively first-party best-sellers (the aforementioned top 1-17). Some argue that third-party disdain for Nintendo started with the N64 and its cartridge format, but I remember there always being an N64 version of the big titles. The Wii's success was predicated on its mainstream appeal as the novel, accessible, essentially easy-the-play console. The only system my non-gamer sister has ever owned was a Wii, and she is the rule, not the exception. It was unique, accessible, and favorably priced, and the market responded accordingly. If you look at the top-selling games list, Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Wii Fit take 5 of the top 7 spots. I bring that up to note that this system was not carried by games for the traditional gaming audience, but rather for the casual audience. It's first-party success was, in essence, wholly aberrant, because those games were built around the system's novelty. This is why the lack of third-party success and support is important context and why the first-party success isn't very meaningful, in the face of current gaming ecosystem. The Nintendo Switch is built around the traditional gaming audience, which has trended towards the third-party best-sellers that have trended away from Nintendo. It's not surprising, given the sales figures that we've gone over. The Switch, much like the Wii, has to rely on its novelty to be successful. Nintendo has made it clear with the launch price, specifications, etc. It seems unlikely to me and is my greatest concern that the casual gamer that bought the Wii is not interested in the pseudo-novelty of a portable system. Seeing as we live in the CoD, GTA era, I would fully expect the traditional, mainstream (hard term to use, because the Wii was a truly mainsteam system) to look for the best versions of those games. Then, Nintendo gets caught in-between. |
Much better argumentation.
I do agree that a handful of 3rd party blockbusters have been driving the industry. This is in part a big problem, as these guys bitch they can't compete Nintendo (you may notice certain problem with the argument with the data you provided) but everyone else is in the same situation with these third parties: nobody has the money to compete them, and 3rd parties are driving each other to bankruptcy. However, we're talking about a console's success, not the success of the industry. As far as I can tell Switch already has more interesting games coming out, than the 8th generation home consoles had combined. If the developers don't make games the market want's to play, it's really their problem and not the market's problem.
Argument between Nintendo and third parties not coming along is proved false by the 3rd party support on Nintendo's handhelds. Just the blockbuster model do not like Nintendo, because Nintendo isn't discounting them royalties.
The reason why 3rd parties did so bad on Wii was because they did not understand the Wii customer and the people who were interested in multiplatforms, already had another platform to play them with (keep in mind the huge overlap between ownerships of PCs, PS360 and Wii). One mistake was to make games only for the casual gamers - that make the core of the industry - but not to previous non-gamers and/or oldschool gamers. The casual gamers are very much the heart of the industry, this is the people who buy FIFA, COD and the rest of the blockbuster games.
You point out your sister as a rule, not an exception, and go on to call her a non-gamer, but still contradict it by saying Wii was made for traditional gaming audience (the casual gamers). Yes, there were certain type of accessible arcade games that sold on Wii and were driving it's sales. And when you look at Wii U, it does not have these type of games
One interesting thing with Wii audience and the traditional audience is, that the Wii audience is viewed more as gamers from the outside than the traditional audience: apparently you as traditional audience have strong emphasis on who makes the games, whereas I as a Wii audience care only about if the games are good. This is why you saw Wii as an anomaly to a trend, when it in fact was following a different trend where people buy only the games they like.
Ei Kiinasti.
Eikä Japanisti.
Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.
Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.
