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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why is the Switch still not getting big games from 3rd parties? October edition

potato_hamster on 17 October 2018
GoOnKid said:
potato_hamster said:

All you mean Nintendo's policy of price-gouging third parties and limiting the number of titles they could release on NES/SNES per year while not limiting the number of titles they published themselves? Or maybe it was when they started to censor what kind of content third party developers could publish on their platform to a point where Mortal Kombat games couldn't even feature blood? Those kinds of things Nintendo thought they could get away with when they were the only real option. Is that the kind of "bias against Nintendo" you're referring to? And it's not like it got any better from there. Just look into Nintendo's history with Argonaut games.

Third parties never liked working with Nintendo, they've always been by far the most difficult to work, the most anal about shit that really doesn't matter. Getting a game certified by Nintendo was like pulling teeth. Third parties worked with Nintendo for the NES because they had little other choice. it was the only real viable platform at the time. But when other first parties like Sega, Sony and Microsoft gave third parties viable options to work with, third parties didn't have to put up with Nintendo's shit anymore, so they didn't. It's taken over 20 years, but Nintendo's finally started to lighten up and be more willing to work with third parties, but you know, it's a bit late.

TL;DR Nintendo were giant dicks and no one wanted to work with them, not the other way around.

That was 30 years ago. How is it nowadays? Genuine question, as I'm no developer. I look at it from the consumer perspective and I see nothing of that stuff from the past anymore.

I haven't been a developer myself for a couple years. In the decade plus I had to work with Nintendo (Wii/Wii U/DS/3DS era) they were horrible. Developer tools were head and shoulders below anyone else, with such a limited feature set it wasn't even funny. Support for those tools was equally as bad. Certification was spent with Nintendo nitpicking the smallest detail of anything that referenced a Nintendo console or control to a point where they often submitted an issue that some text or an icon needed to be changed only to later submit another issue that the new change was wrong and would often be solved by reverting back to the previous asset. I cannot stress how frustrating it was to deal with them, but hey, the Wii and DS were hot shit consoles so we put up with it to get out games out there and into that audience. Wii U on the other hand? Nintendo was just as bad on every front. They listened to none of our feedback, the console was selling like shit, so it was very very easy to justify dropping the Wii U as a development platform. It just wasn't worth it.



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Drakrami on 17 October 2018

Have you seen how heavily downgraded diablo 3 needs to make it work on Switch? May be you have your answer..?



potato_hamster on 17 October 2018

edit: WTF vgchartz, where did my comment go, and why was that quotation blob in its place?

Last edited by potato_hamster - on 17 October 2018

Conina on 17 October 2018
HoangNhatAnh said:
KBG29 said:
ARM and Underpowered.

AAA games are built for X86. So not only do they have to downgrade, but they have to completely rewrite the game for ARM.

Switch is capable of running anything on PS4 and XBO with reduced fidelity, but the chances of turning a profit are slim. Had Nintendo went with X86, they would be getting a lot more titles. Unfortunately, at the time there were no good X86 options. Sony and Microsoft are set if they want to compete with Switch in the future, because Ryzen is incredibly scalable.

What handheld use x86 chip?

 

HoangNhatAnh said:
KBG29 said:

Nothing yet, but Ryzen is fully capable of running in a Mobile device.

So there is none at the moment, got it. All things that you said are very correct and logical for ... your theory only. 

 

GPD Win 1 and GPD Win 2 are x86 handhelds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPD_Win

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPD_Win_2



potato_hamster on 17 October 2018
RolStoppable said:
potato_hamster said:

Is this a language thing? Nintendo "lightening up" doesn't mean "third parties hold grudges". Not even a little bit. These companies aren't discriminating against Nintendo at all. "Third parties are hesitant to invest in a platform that proves time and time again ti's difficult to develop for and make money on. It's much easier to make money on Sony and Microsoft platforms. They're much easier to work with, they actually support third parties. It requires less effort, less money and less dicking around playing patty-cake bullshit to make a game for a Sony or Microsoft platform.  That's a fact. And yes, it is Nintendo's problem that they continuously fail to deliver a platform that requires so much work to port multi-platform games on. Even the publishers that are supporting Nintendo like Ubisoft and Bethesda are only releasing a fraction of their multi-platform titles. Why? Because it's not worth the effort.

Those restrictions on limiting the number of games of censoring content to a rather extreme degree didn't make the games better. All it did was make publishers more creative and create new publishing labels to appease Nintendo. You're still not understanding that Nintendo were such a pain in the ass that the first chance that developers had to put their games on a competitive platform almost all of them jumped ship and abandoned Nintendo as a main development platform overnight. Did EA and Activision or Squaresoft or Capcom or Konami start flooding  Sony  and Sega platforms with garbage titles? Nope. They just closed up all the pseudo-publishing labels Nintendo forced them to make and kept on trucking. But keep perpetuating that myth.

You said "it's a bit late," implying that it doesn't matter what Nintendo does, games won't be made. Considering that Switch is the console with the fastest growing library in history, it's evident that there's no general third party problem here. It's only a select few third parties who don't want to bother, the rest is laughing to the bank and preparing more Switch games.

You are rambling at this point. I clearly talked about American third parties and you mention Squaresoft, Capcom and Konami in your counter-argument. Your other two examples (EA and Activision) did release a lot of garbage titles for the Genesis and PS1. You'll have a hard time finding EA and Activision games on lists of the best Genesis and PS1 games. Nevermind that the NES was never the main development platform of EA, so jumping ship doesn't apply in their case.

No. Stop making assumptions about what I'm saying. If you're reading comprehension isn't good enough, don't try. "It's a bit late" means it's now unreasonable to expect third parties to give the same support to Nintendo platforms as they do Sony and Microsoft platforms. It's not third party developers fault that Nintendo has continuous failed to give them a platform that a) requires no more work to port a multi-platform game to than the competition b) can expect a similar return on investment as the competition. A strong userbase is not enough to justify a strong investment, as the Wii demonstrated time and time again. Nintendo has to make developers make games for their platform because it's an easy choice to make, not because its a hard one.

Rambling? You're the one that narrows the goalposts so you can dance around as if everything is merry in Nintendoland, and all of the Japanese developers are counting their yen like Switch is a licence to print money. Meanwhile in reality, let's take a closer look at what Japanese developers aren't putting on the Switch. Let's start with the most obvious "laugh to the bank" choice as they have made millions and millions off of a franchise that has thrived on Nintendo platforms in the past: Monster Hunter World. I can play that on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Yet curiously... not found on the Switch. How about Devil May Cry 5? Kingdom Hearts 3? Yakuza? Persona 5? Nier:Automata? Final Fantasy XV? Resident Evil VII? Soul Calibur VI? How come games that would require a serious effort to port to Switch aren't getting ported?

Ohh right, it must be those Japanese developers and their bias against Nintendo.

Last edited by potato_hamster - on 17 October 2018

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potato_hamster on 17 October 2018
RolStoppable said:
potato_hamster said:

No. Stop making assumptions about what I'm saying. If you're reading comprehension isn't good enough, don't try. "It's a bit late" means it's now unreasonable to expect third parties to give the same support to Nintendo platforms as they do Sony and Microsoft platforms. It's not third party developers fault that Nintendo has continuous failed to give them a platform that a) requires no more work to port a multi-platform game to than the competition b) can expect a similar return on investment as the competition. A strong userbase is not enough to justify a strong investment, as the Wii demonstrated time and time again. Nintendo has to make developers make games for their platform because it's an easy choice to make, not because its a hard one.

Rambling? You're the one that narrows the goalposts so you can dance around as if everything is merry in Nintendoland, and all of the Japanese developers are counting their yen like Switch is a licence to print money. Meanwhile in reality, let's take a closer look at what Japanese developers aren't putting on the Switch. Let's start with the most obvious "laugh to the bank" choice as they have made millions and millions off of a franchise that has thrived on Nintendo platforms in the past: Monster Hunter World. I can play that on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Yet curiously... not found on the Switch. How about Devil May Cry 5? Kingdom Hearts 3? Yakuza? Persona 5? Nier:Automata? Final Fantasy XV? Resident Evil VII? How come games that would require a serious effort to port to Switch aren't getting ported?

Ohh right, it must be those Japanese developers and their bias against Nintendo.

You sound pretty aggravated. You talk about me narrowing the goalposts in a thread about Western AAA third party games when I am the one who broadens the topic to all third party games. You talk about me narrowing goalposts and proceed to name Japanese AAA games when I talk about how Switch has the fastest growing library in history which can't mean anything other than Nintendo is doing things right. You are the one who tries to keep the focus on the few things Switch doesn't have. That can be easily flipped around: Octopath Traveler is exclusive to Switch, so is Yokai Watch 4 and Shin Megami Tensei 5. Why aren't those games coming to the PS4?

I remember when before the Switch's launch we had a discussion where I said that it's laughable that Nintendo would go third party anytime soon and you jumped at my throat, claiming that Nintendo following Sega is not such a farfetched idea. When I pointed out that Nintendo's IPs are much more valuable than Sega's, you called it wishful thinking. It's difficult to have a reasonable discussion with you and nothing about that has changed.

You broadened the topic to All third party games? Then why did you give me shit about bringing up EA or Activision earlier? Ohh right, because you tried to narrow the scope of the conversation to Japanese devs to paint a better picture of the Switch's third party situation. The thread is about "big games from third parties". I just listed the biggest games from Japanese third parties that skipped or will skip the Switch. I can start listing ones from North American or European third parties if you like, but I mean, it diesn't get better.

And about that "fastest growing library in history".. does that change when we talk about games with a $60 price point? (That's a rhetorical question, we already know the answer) Just pretend it's one of those "quality over quantity" arguments you like to make when talking about great which platforms have the best games. Why aren't those games coming to the PS4? For a variety of reasons, but one reason you can definitely rule out is "the PS4 can't handle a standard Switch game, and it's just not worth the time and effort to have to rework such a significant part of the game, especially when games like this have traditionally sold overwhelmingly in the past. It's hard to justify the investment".


I love how you sugar coat arguments we had years ago. Come on, Rol, we all know you referenced your notes. We don't need your interpretation, just post the links you have readily available! I know, why don't you just go on baselessly asserting that I hate Nintendo once again, or questioning whether or not I could have possibly played Breath of the Wild because I don't think its the greatest game ever. I know you're just dying to.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 17 October 2018

So why didn't you respond to my post about PS2 Potato Hamster? I'm curious.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 17 October 2018
potato_hamster said: 


And about that "fastest growing library in history".. does that change when we talk about games with a $60 price point? (That's a rhetorical question, we already know the answer)

Stop narrowing goalposts  



potato_hamster on 17 October 2018
AngryLittleAlchemist said:
potato_hamster said:

All you mean Nintendo's policy of price-gouging third parties and limiting the number of titles they could release on NES/SNES per year while not limiting the number of titles they published themselves? Or maybe it was when they started to censor what kind of content third party developers could publish on their platform to a point where Mortal Kombat games couldn't even feature blood? Those kinds of things Nintendo thought they could get away with when they were the only real option. Is that the kind of "bias against Nintendo" you're referring to? And it's not like it got any better from there. Just look into Nintendo's history with Argonaut games.

Third parties never liked working with Nintendo, they've always been by far the most difficult to work, the most anal about shit that really doesn't matter. Getting a game certified by Nintendo was like pulling teeth. Third parties worked with Nintendo for the NES because they had little other choice. it was the only real viable platform at the time. But when other first parties like Sega, Sony and Microsoft gave third parties viable options to work with, third parties didn't have to put up with Nintendo's shit anymore, so they didn't. It's taken over 20 years, but Nintendo's finally started to lighten up and be more willing to work with third parties, but you know, it's a bit late.

TL;DR Nintendo were giant dicks and no one wanted to work with them, not the other way around.

At the same time, didn't Sony have a lot of restrictions for devs already by the time the PS2 came around? I specifically remember hearing about how Sony tried to enforce restrictions so that third parties wouldn't put their games onto other consoles, and one of the restrictions actually ended up biting them in the ass because it made Rockstar put more effort into their GTA port for Xbox, which made them the superior versions.

Really, I think the biggest reason is sales. By the time Playstation started fucking up in a lot of the same ways as Nintendo (with both of them having their 3rd home consoles being disasters), Playstation was too big of a brand worldwide to lose third parties entirely. It had Europe on lockdown, was very competitive in Japan and America, and it essentially owned the world. If it was just about how many problems one company had, PS3 wouldn't have ended the generation having caught up with Xbox 360. 

I haven't heard anything  like this before. Do you have a source? I always figured the Xbox 360 had the better versions of GTA ran better because the Xbox 360 was easier to develop for. Many third party games ran better on xbox, like Bethesda games, for example.

As for Playstation being too big of a brand, I'd have a hard time arguing it's a bigger brand than Nintendo, and Nintendo had no problem pissing third party support down the drain. I think PS3 caught up with 360 because Sony put in a genuine effort to make their console more appealing, and showed some humility along the way. Actually listening to the people that want to buy your product, and putting a meaningful effort into addressing their concerns can go a long way to make people want to buy your hardware.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 17 October 2018
potato_hamster said:
AngryLittleAlchemist said:

At the same time, didn't Sony have a lot of restrictions for devs already by the time the PS2 came around? I specifically remember hearing about how Sony tried to enforce restrictions so that third parties wouldn't put their games onto other consoles, and one of the restrictions actually ended up biting them in the ass because it made Rockstar put more effort into their GTA port for Xbox, which made them the superior versions.

Really, I think the biggest reason is sales. By the time Playstation started fucking up in a lot of the same ways as Nintendo (with both of them having their 3rd home consoles being disasters), Playstation was too big of a brand worldwide to lose third parties entirely. It had Europe on lockdown, was very competitive in Japan and America, and it essentially owned the world. If it was just about how many problems one company had, PS3 wouldn't have ended the generation having caught up with Xbox 360. 

I haven't heard anything  like this before. Do you have a source? I always figured the Xbox 360 had the better versions of GTA ran better because the Xbox 360 was easier to develop for. Many third party games ran better on xbox, like Bethesda games, for example.

As for Playstation being too big of a brand, I'd have a hard time arguing it's a bigger brand than Nintendo, and Nintendo had no problem pissing third party support down the drain. I think PS3 caught up with 360 because Sony put in a genuine effort to make their console more appealing, and showed some humility along the way. Actually listening to the people that want to buy your product, and putting a meaningful effort into addressing their concerns can go a long way to make people want to buy your hardware.

I was actually talking about the OG Xbox port ... I think it was of San Andreas. It would take a long time to find the source, I'll look. I could very well be wrong though. Never know how much is just shitty rumors to make a company look bad  

And yeah, I agree that PS3 had a lot of effort put into it to help it catch up. I should have specified about the first couple of years. About Playstation not necessarily being a bigger brand than Nintendo ... whilst I agree, we are talking about home consoles here.