pokoko said:
| KrspaceT said:
E.A is probably the worst supporter of the Switch
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First, it should be noted that EA, or any other developer/publisher, owes absolutely nothing to Nintendo or anyone else (and vice versa). Though it appears to be changing, there was also no doubt that, for a very long time, Nintendo was the "worst supporter" of western publishers and developers. With EA and Nintendo in particular, though it likely has no bearing on business decisions now, they were once enemies with regards to the way Nintendo pushed around and controlled third-parties. After all, EA went over to Sega because of that and worked on breaking Nintendo's DRM-ish piracy control mechanism. At the time, they even said they'd rather go PC-only rather than support Nintendo's chokehold over the industry. However, that was a very long time ago.
To put it more clearly, NO ONE should be mad at developers/publishers for not supporting Nintendo--rather, if they're unhappy, it should be because they believe that consumers are being shafted and they should send their complaints to both Nintendo and those particular third-party companies.
More recently, I think it came down to wanting to keep Nintendo environments as a separate market. Nintendo was striving to be "different" and made games that didn't really overlap that much with the rest of the industry. Ignoring Nintendo meant losing some measure of profits but it also meant less overhead from developing for a much different platform, marketing costs, and logistical expenses. In addition to that, it also let them keep their eggs in fewer baskets. For example, the environment for "shooters"--rather than expanding your costs to include yet another platform, what if you could make most of your prospective clientele jump over to platforms you already support fully? That's less overhead and easier to manage. It hurt the PC, as well, until it because clear that the PC wasn't going to be abandoned by its userbase. This was a situation that Nintendo played into at the time, considering their focus and the types of games they developed. They let third-parties go when the PS1 arrived and then failed to create an environment that would attract them back. That's on Nintendo--they and they alone are responsible for the success of their platform.
With the rise of the Switch and the ease with which some engines (but not all) can be scaled, though, it's probably time for that mentality to start to fade, especially if Nintendo really has improved their third-party relations. Up through the time of the Wii U we can be pretty sure that Nintendo was failing badly in that area, at least in the west, as the picture painted by Bethesda and others made Nintendo seem far behind Sony and Microsoft when it came to forging a mutually beneficial relationship with developers and publishers. Reports have become much more positive, however, and Bethesda's increased support likely indicates a change in mentality.
That being said, business isn't about the past, it's about the future. Corporations can and should get along if there is money to be made, no matter what kind of history they have. Is EA's mentality the same as before? I don't know and I don't know what's going on behind the scenes between the two companies but it does seem like more of EA's catalog should find its way to the Switch. All of it? No, probably not. More? Yeah, I think that's a fair expectation for consumers at this point. Games coming out now would have had access to Switch development kits from the beginning.
Overall, that was a pretty good video and does paint some of EA's behavior as irrational and, at times, incompetent. I don't buy the "scared of competing with Nintendo first party game" train of thought, though. No one cares how much money someone else is making, only how much money they make themselves.
However, there is one very real consideration to add to that. How many Switch owners also own another console? I've seen reports that it's very high. If that's the case ... well, from a business standpoint, that's an awful lot of redundancy. It's like the report that Subway was hurting itself with increased costs by opening restaurants that were too close to one another. That could be an argument that EA is having internally and, to be honest, it would be a fair point.
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