In the years leading up to 7th gen, reps from Sony and MS wouldn't shut up about how awesome their consoles were going to be and how they were going to dominate gen 7. Nintendo by comparison barely said a word. While it is possible in retrospect to look back at some of their quotes and take them as being a somewhat more esoteric version of the Sony/MS reteric, I think its fair to say that most people took Nintendo's reserved nature as a sign of weakness. I think that sign of weakness definately played a role in 3rd parties not committing to the Wii as hard as they might have.

Although Nintendo's whole corporate attitude seems to be a very reserved one, I think they took it to another level with the Wii. The only explination I can see for this is that they were trying to prevent the competition from copying them.

But I wonder, could a more over the top attitude have made a difference? If they had been doing non-stop publicity from the moment they unveiled the wiimote, would they have had more respect? If they had been canvasing 3rd parties saying "you can release one game on ps3 or five games on wii for the same cost; with way less risk" could they have gotten more love? How about if they had pounded hard on the similarities of the DS and wii?

So I guess I am asking two questions, did secrecy cost Nintendo, and was that cost worth it (ie. could/would the HD console have produced wiimotes)?

Nintendo hasn't had great third party support for well over 10 years now. The Wii situation is little different to the Gamecube and N64 experience.

Secrecy didn't hurt Nintendo, being arseholes in the late 80s / early 90s did.

I think secrecy definately hurts Nintendo. It's hard to play ball with someone when you don't know what ball game they're playing.

However I don't think Nintendo cares nearly as much about 3rd parties as Sony or especially MS who are dependent on them for success and profitability.

Eh no. Everyone thinking Sony would dominate out the gate and that Nintendo would have been way in the back (20 million by 2012 was the estimated install base for the Wii even until early 2006) is what really cost 3rd parties on the Wii. That's less than 3 million a year - ie: not worth developing for at all.

And if you tried to tell them differently, they laughed at you. But if you could have seriously got them to listen... well we'll never know.

That killed the N64 for sure, but everything I have read indicates that Nintendo had very good relations with 3rd parties during the GC years. (not ps2 level, sure, but that's a natural result of market share) And without a doubt they had good relations with GBA and DS developers (who are in many cases, the same companies that develop for consoles).

^ well there ya have it.

I guess my point was did everyone get the impression it was going to fail in part because Nintendo refused to talk about it. Were those estimated install bases affected by Nintendo's lack of hype?

MS had numbers only slightly better than Nintendo, but the most common prediction for gen 7 was that MS was going to give Sony a very long hard battle, while Nintendo faded into the background. I am just wondering if Nintendo's inaction (in generating hype) may have affected those predictions (and in turn 3rd party support).

Nope. Their bullying and pressuring of the 3rd parties did. Telling 3rd companies that they aren't allowed developing for others and "develop only for them or else" tactics.

I wouldn't imagine so. If anything the "suprise" factor if you will benefitted them as more of companies viewing it as "wow this thing does fly!". If Nintendo had built it up more and hyped it than I think some companies would be more sceptical in their view and say OK, its doing good but they were talking about this like its the next peanut butter (screw sliced bread!).
Does this make sense?

What this guy said.