The Wii has netted Nintendo a lot of disrespect these past couple years, both from developers and gaming consumers alike. They claim that the reason great third party games don't have a majority on Wii is because a.) The system is underpowered compared to the competition and b.) it has a casual focus. Yet I can't help but recall the level of support received in previous two generations when Nintendo had made consoles that were either on par or more advanced in tech to the competition, as well as having a strong target towards hardcore gamers.

So, as the title suggests, I wonder "what is it going to take for Nintendo to get the majority of great third party support again?" If Nintendo had made their current console on par tech-wise with the 360 and PS3, and put all 1st party resources toward hardcore games, who's to say things would not have turned out just like the Gamecube, or even worse for that matter? Who's to say it won't happen next gen should Nintendo decide to go with top of the line hardware? I think we need to be reminded from time to time why the Wii is what it is. For me, I think of two examples. The first is a quote from Yamauchi from 2004:

"If we are unsuccessful with the Nintendo DS, we may not go bankrupt, but we will be crushed. The next two years will be a really crucial time for Nintendo."  - http://cube.ign.com/articles/492/492253p1.html

The second is Iwata's keynote at GDC 2006: "Disrupting Development," where he likened Nintendo's new focus of targeting new markets to that of Pepsi who had done so in order to compete/survive.

Both Yamauichi and Iwata were pretty clear that Nintendo could not live on with the same old formula, and were forced to take risks. Given their eagerness to jump on new ideas, motion controls are something that could have always been in the plans for future hardware.  But the turn for old-gen processing power and a casual focus, I strongly believe, would not have happened if they had received significantly better support for the N64 and Gamecube.

At times, the paranoid side of me almost thinks that 3rd parties would want the Wii to fall into the same Gamecube sales trap, so that Nintendo would be out of the hardware business and the decision to put their stuff on their consoles would no longer be a future consideration. Which brings up the "we can't compete with Nintendo software" argument. No matter where third parties put their games, they are competing with Nintendo, and the Wii's commercial success proves that they won't be going the way of Sega for a long time. 

I suppose for Nintendo, it could have just been the right move at the wrong time. When the presence of Western devs (devs who rarely made a Nintendo console their platform of choice in the past) is stronger than ever before, in addition to many Japan devs are conceding that their teams aren't doing as well by comparison and are starting to target games for western audiences, winning over third parties as the market leader in generation #7 may not be as easy for them as it might have in, say, generation #5.

So what can Nintendo do that they have not done already?

Image? To this day, they can't seem to shake the "kiddy" image despite the fact that they've published multiple M rated games and don't restrict 2nd/3rd party content any more than MS/Sony. In some cases, Nintendo systems have even been home to the more explict version of certain games (BMX XXX, Killer 7, Conker). Personally, I don't think any more should be asked of them than this.

Moneyhatting? Nintendo is certainly capable of funding some exclusitive titles, and has done so numerous times, but there is a limit to how much they can bleed. Despite selling hardware for profit, Nintendo doesn't have the non-gaming divisions to fall back on financially that MS/Sony do, and though they, to our knowledge, do appear to be a tad stingy with their warchest at the moment, they still can't throw money left and right to every relevant third party, especially when exclusitivity can be whisked away in a flash as it was last time around with Tales of Symphonia and 3 of the Capcom 5.

Pray that the alleged "hive-mind Nintendo grudge" goes away? This one I've always been a bit skeptical on. Business is business, and holding Nintendo accountable for 3rd party Though, John Carmack did say the grudge had been alive and well at id for many a year.

Get lucky and predict which future game generations that third parties care less about install base and more about multiplatforming releases on the highest tech hardware (current gen), and which ones where the complete inverse applies (gen #6), and then make systems accordingly? Semi-Kidding.

I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of points, but I think I'll leave it at that for now.

Thoughts?

Nintendo don't have to do anything.

THQ lost $191.75 mln last quarter & EA lost $641 mln last quarter. So basically, they start giving proper support to Nintendo consoles or they go bankrupt. It's as simple as that.

thats correct, By the end of this year many companies will go bankrupt while Sega, EA and whoever else wants to join them will have a safe steady stream of potentially evergreen titles on the Wii.

The second is Iwata's keynote at GDC 2006: "Disrupting Development," where he likened Nintendo's new focus of targeting new markets to that of Pepsi who had done so in order to compete/survive.

Im a coke man, guess im now a pepsi man

Third parties are only now beginning to get the hang of the Wii and this years titles seems to have more third parties full priced decent quality games lined up than party games.

Maybe the day has finally arrived where party games are saturated and fitness games seem poised to take over the baton but Nintendo's decision to lay low for a year is all they have to do in my opinion as Shaun Whytes snowboarding and COD WAW has hit 1M in sales, every years tiger woods wii games are getting stronger sales, Sega seems to have legs on every wii game they release and have some major AAA titles lined up, THQ seem to have the right idea and we all know we'll see a De Blob 2 (I also loved Deadly creatures and have completed it twice now).

Things are looking bright right now and we haven't seen Nintnedo's plans for this year (next Zelda anyone?)

^In other words, any companies that refuse to obey the laws of economics won't be able to continue for very long.

I agree with all posts so far. I think this gen and last gen are two different beast.

The console with the least 3rd party support is the runaway winner and the most profitable.

In terms of Nintendo making money they don't need 3rd party support. They are making mega bucks.

This time it is the other way around. With quite a few of developers in the red it can be regarded as payback for not supporting Nintendo this and last gen.

Listening and reading what high Voltage (they are the ones making the Conduit) and sega said regarding the wii 3rd party the future is bright.

Forget the old school established developers, they have made their minds up not to support the wii, instead look to the young, hungry, up and coming developers who see the wii as the perfect console to make a name for themselves.

Get them onboard and support them.

As a wii developer said a lot of these so called casual gamers don't care about who developed what in the past. There is a whole new page to be written with this new casual gamer generation the wii has found.

Only nintendo has mastered this, the 3rd party must learn to do this as well, but there is still plenty of time.

I know some might think Capcom is one of those neglectful developers, but they were one of the first to admit they should have seen the Wii would do well. They can't make big games overnight, or else we would already have MH3, and Conduit (not from Capcom, just that it's not being made overnight).

This is the year we are seeing the new support. It started late, but all that's proven is that they can't ignore the Wii anymore.

Claiming that those games won't sell (because someone will) is just wishful thinking.

Developers want to make bigger, better, flashier games. The Wii's hardware will not allow them to do that.

It seems quite a few would rather face financial peril than take the step down to the Wii's level.

Nintendo can't do anything about that.  It's just a matter of waiting and seeing who's left at the end of this generation.

I don't think thats it at all. I think they still believe they can sell more copies of their "style of game" to 360 and PS3 owners than they can on Wii, in alot of cases its true but in other cases its not. Look at the genres of games that are suddenly competiting and in some cases surpassing the PS360 totals, sport, adventure, platforming, rhythm, etc. One by one the Wii is knocking them down in case you haven't noticed.

Im hopin HOTD does something magical in the next 6 months, not for onrails sake but for mature gamings sake. It looks like Madworld is sleepwalking to a million so thats half the work done. I dont think Conduit is going to do it, i think another 2 or 3 COD's will. RS2 for sure.

Dev. will notice that although Mushroom men, Deadly Creatures and other games have died more importantly other titles haven't. They have been selling better and better as market share grows.