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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Oddworld Creator Comment: is it the fault of a console maker if third parties don't do well?

Puppyroach on 10 July 2017

I've often heard that Nintendo has done to little to cater to third parties, but not really what that means. Could someone clarify what people mean when they say it?



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vivster on 10 July 2017
Mnementh said:
vivster said:

Hardware and 3rd party relations mostly.

While Sony and MS are specifically building their machines for 3rd party, Nintendo builds their machines for Nintendo and Nintendo alone. So of course it's their fault when no one wants to visit glass shards beach.

You should read how ridiculous it is what you write. Nintendo is a game maker. If they make a machine to play their games, everyone can make games that run on that machine. Nintendo does not have some magic sauce.

You could argue with power, but the main thing about 3D from developer view is that 3D is pretty scalable. By changing resolution, polygon-count, texture-quality, effects, framerate you can target pretty much every platform. And they do, including phones. Sure, if you not compromise on image quality, some games will not run, but that is true for every console. Here in germany on forums people complain that games are held back by consoles. That means PS4 and Xbox One. People assume that the game might be more visually advanced, if not for consoles. That might be true in part, but mostly because developers WANT their games to sell on PS4 and Xbox One. The reason for that are better sales. If they wanted to sell their games on Switch, they easily could do that. But they expect worse sales (probably right) and therefore don't do it. But the hardware isn't preventing anything. That is just outright ridiculous.

Also, if you blame power your glass shard mataphor is basically flawed. The power example would be a beach too small, which is why some would avoid it, but glass shards is something actively holding it back. Also, funnily enough your metaphor shows the flaws in your argument: if Nintendo put glass shards on the beach, they would get bloody feet as everyone else.

You probably should think better before posting. Badly thought-through arguments like this destroy your poster-reputations.

You're defeating your own point here. First you claim anyone can develop on it and then you go on counting the adjustments that have to be made for it.

PC, PS4 and Xbox share the same architecture and similar powerlevel making it very easy and welcoming for developers to port their games. Nintendo chose to opt out of the development easy mode and specifically chose not only a different architecture but also a much lower power level.

No one is claiming it's impossible to develop for Switch. But considering the hurdles Nintendo put up on purpose it's no surprise that the majority of developers decide it's not worth it.

Also the glass shards metaphor is fine because some people enjoy pain and still go.



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Mnementh on 10 July 2017
vivster said:
Mnementh said:

You should read how ridiculous it is what you write. Nintendo is a game maker. If they make a machine to play their games, everyone can make games that run on that machine. Nintendo does not have some magic sauce.

You could argue with power, but the main thing about 3D from developer view is that 3D is pretty scalable. By changing resolution, polygon-count, texture-quality, effects, framerate you can target pretty much every platform. And they do, including phones. Sure, if you not compromise on image quality, some games will not run, but that is true for every console. Here in germany on forums people complain that games are held back by consoles. That means PS4 and Xbox One. People assume that the game might be more visually advanced, if not for consoles. That might be true in part, but mostly because developers WANT their games to sell on PS4 and Xbox One. The reason for that are better sales. If they wanted to sell their games on Switch, they easily could do that. But they expect worse sales (probably right) and therefore don't do it. But the hardware isn't preventing anything. That is just outright ridiculous.

Also, if you blame power your glass shard mataphor is basically flawed. The power example would be a beach too small, which is why some would avoid it, but glass shards is something actively holding it back. Also, funnily enough your metaphor shows the flaws in your argument: if Nintendo put glass shards on the beach, they would get bloody feet as everyone else.

You probably should think better before posting. Badly thought-through arguments like this destroy your poster-reputations.

You're defeating your own point here. First you claim anyone can develop on it and then you go on counting the adjustments that have to be made for it.

PC, PS4 and Xbox share the same architecture and similar powerlevel making it very easy and welcoming for developers to port their games. Nintendo chose to opt out of the development easy mode and specifically chose not only a different architecture but also a much lower power level.

No one is claiming it's impossible to develop for Switch. But considering the hurdles Nintendo put up on purpose it's no surprise that the majority of developers decide it's not worth it.

Also the glass shards metaphor is fine because some people enjoy pain and still go.

Actually the devs make adjustments if they port between PC, PS4 and X1. And they adjust down for the consoles. Nothing else would be happening if they include Switch. They don't do it, because they don't expect the game to sell well, as I explained before. There is no technical hurdle that is more difficult to take as by porting between X1 and PS4. You assume less power means they have more work, but the work is the same. The adjustments are just flags for the program, but the actual work for porting are the tests, which have to be made if a game is ported from X1 to PS4 the same as from X1 to Switch. The problem is many people don't program themself and therefore have cloudy understanding of what is happening. The work in porting are the tests. The technical differences are just number adjustments for some stuff, like resolution etc. Even if nothing of this has to be adjusted, on a new platform you still need to test.



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freebs2 on 11 July 2017
twintail said:
freebs2 said:
For a partnership to succeed, you'll need commitment form both parties. I don't think there's much else to say.

 

Pretty much anyone who answered like this know whats up. Is pretty obvious that Sony, and even MS, do something a lot better than Nintendo has ever done (and even now), and that is actually establish, maintain and strengthen their relations with 3rd party devs/ publishers. Of course every specific situation is different, and everyone makes mistakes.

It's also pretty obvious 3rd parties have shown little to none commitment to establish quality game frachises on Nintendo consoles, those few who have supported the system with some consistence have seen a positive return: Ubisoft, Sega, Level-5, Square Enix for example.