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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Third Party Devs have made up their minds about the Wii.

NJ5 on 15 January 2010
Netyaroze said:
NJ5 said:
@Netyaroze:

The companies' financial reports don't have enough detail to show this, but if you just look at everything they say about development costs, and then look at their revenue, it's painfully obvious that development costs have risen much faster than revenue.

If you compare to the last generation alone, development costs have risen between 3-4 times according to many statements from publishers... no way revenue has risen that much. Game prices (on the PS3 and 360) have increased by about 20%, and the size of the gaming public hasn't increased anywhere near 3 times (and it rose more on the Wii platform than on the HD platforms vs the PS2).

 

Yes I know that they dont have enough detail so maybe everybody should atleast show a sign of uncertainty if he made claims like they are going down because of HD consoles etc.

 

Development cost have risen yes. 3-4 times yes maybe but the numbers have risen too maybe not enough but that makes the gaming companys to just produce high profile titels. 

 

And you forge that there are several ways to decrease the costs. Like using always the same engine makin multiplatform title. Using ingame engine instead of cutscenes. And yes the real big games cost 50-60 Million but this is not the average First part games from sony need lesser units sold to break even because they dont have to pay themselfs licensing fees. DLC content is another way to get money back. And most of the costs are fix costs that means that if they payed once for things like Hardware and special educations and if they developed tools the costs will go down its always like this in the beginnig there is a jump- PS1 games were 1.5 Mln PS2 games 5-10 Mln this jump is always but costs decrease with the time. We just have a lot of development at the moment Online gaming is big DLC is new digital distribution those things needs huge investments but next or the gen after there wont be much to improve everything will stagnate.

 

They calculate properly. Everytime something changes someone lose and someone wins. This will happen in the future too.

 

most games cost 20 Mln even some of the best. 50-60 Mln is special. And maybe 35 Mln for a Multiplat title. Thats 17.5 per version i bet games like wipeout cost maybe 12 Million or 15 Million or Siren blood curse. The companys know that they if they know that a title costs more to make then it possibly sells they wont do it. I think it will stabilze in the next 2 years 2rd party devs will be in the black if all the most are still in the red then it indicates a major problem its still ok. 1-2 Companys arent the whole market. 

 

 

How many actually made losses the in 2009 ? 

 

 

 

I know there are some good things happening as well, but in general the industry is getting into trouble for its development costs.

How many made losses? We can definitely count EA, Take 2 and THQ. Activision-Blizzard made money, but who wouldn't with Blizzard and its WoW cash cow (though this year, Activision itself should contribute a lot due to COD).

Then there were many closed studios/publishers, and layoffs:

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=83767

 



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

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LordTheNightKnight on 15 January 2010

"And you forge that there are several ways to decrease the costs."

Just that those methods are either not being done or other cost increases undo those savings.

"And yes the real big games cost 50-60 Million but this is not the average"

The reported average is $18-$28 million (http://kotaku.com/5446921/ever-wonder-how-much-it-costs-to-make-a-game-these-days), but that's still high enough (especially combined with marketing) to mean only a few hundred thousand sales can make those games a flop (despite how many like to pretend Madworld and No More Heroes are flops instead).



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Netyaroze on 15 January 2010
LordTheNightKnight said:
1. When the largest market is not where you are, you are not really serving the customers needs as much as you think you are, especially when the flashiest games are not the bestsellers (Crysis versus Modern Warfare, for one). If you still insist on making those games when the results are constant, it's clear you are making them for you, not the customers.

2. That is not what I wrote. I wrote they would not have given the HD games to the Wii if the system had been HD. It's just an excuse, or else we would have had more than three converted HD games in all this time.

 

 

1.Crysis vs Cod is a bad example first because COD is an established franchise Crysis was unknown and it was just for PC where piracy is an issue infact Crysis and MW2 sold pretty similar on PC both have 1-2 Millions on PC. And the difference is not that big the difference between crysis and MW2 is tiny compared to the difference to MW2 and Cod games on wii. Both are actually the same market.

The largest market is the HD market even without PC (software sales wise and hardware wise). The people want HD games outside of Nintendo games the sales between SD and HD market is not comparable.

 

2. Maybe they wouldnt give Hd games we cant know it. But the reason "or else we would have more than three converted HD games in all this time" is not a good argument because first those games sell bad on Wii Cod sells bad it sells ten times better on HD consoles. And the problem is if you want to port an HD game over to wii you have to make the game from the scratch. You have to begin completly and since the sales are not good enough most of the developers just dont want to invest the money. 

 

Ok I want to sleep now its 5 in the morning here and I am tired... We can talk about it some other time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



LordTheNightKnight on 15 January 2010

BTW, this could explain something.

http://kotaku.com/5449175/dylan-cuthbert-game-funding-model-is-fundamentally-broken (and a comment shows that EA's boss made a lot more than Fahey thought).

The thing is that following that model, stock options and revenue matter over profit. The HD systems and games make those more than the Wii games, despite the rising costs. But by the actions of those CEOs those rising costs don't matter to them. They will still be rich when those companies go under, same as the heads of Midway got away with millions as the company sunk.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Arius Dion on 15 January 2010

LoL..They may have and I've made up my mind about their support on Wii. They can leave Money on the table if they'd like. At this point, I don't care either way.

But there are consequences for not properly supporting the market leader..I hope they are fully prepared to deal with them.



Bet between Slimbeast and Arius Dion about Wii sales 2009:


If the Wii sells less than 20 million in 2009 (as defined by VGC sales between week ending 3d Jan 2009 to week ending 4th Jan 2010) Slimebeast wins and get to control Arius Dion's sig for 1 month.

If the Wii sells more than 20 million in 2009 (as defined above) Arius Dion wins and gets to control Slimebeast's sig for 1 month.

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LordTheNightKnight on 15 January 2010

"1.Crysis vs Cod is a bad example first because COD is an established franchise Crysis was unknown and it was just for PC where piracy is an issue infact Crysis and MW2 sold pretty similar on PC both have 1-2 Millions on PC. And the difference is not that big the difference between crysis and MW2 is tiny compared to the difference to MW2 and Cod games on wii. Both are actually the same market."

The point was that the flashiest games were not the big sellers. Of course there are other reasons involved, but since the idea for supporting the HD systems is that flashier games are better, then being flashy must be a selling point, and it isn't.

And Call of Duty didn't have the same release setup as on the HD systems. If Modern Warfare had been buried in hype and marketing on the HD systems as it was on the Wii it would not have been the breakthrough for the series.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

MaxwellGT2000 on 16 January 2010
Procrastinato said:
Khuutra said:
Procrastinato said:
The "because of HD graphics" is pretty vague statement. Gears 2 cost $10M to develop. Lots of people claim it has some of the X360's best graphics.

Almost every Wii game in existance probably derived from a pre-existing GameCube engine, since the architectures are next to identical, outside of clock -- so how did Gears 2 get so cheap?

I'm not calling your honesty into question here, but could you source that? I'm really curious, now.

It's pretty easy to find.  Here's the first thing I came up with in Google:

link 

My point was to illustrate that 3rd parties were comparing re-used engines (GameCube engines, which are basically Wii engines) to brand new PS3/360 engines, when those "1/4th to 1/3rd" quotes were made.  That's no longer the case.

That wasn't that long ago, around the time you made your new account after Groucho was banned for you trying to refute that claim from EAs own mouth.

During the summer they also made the claims that most HD games take 1.1 million copies sold on average to break even, again not that long ago, funny how the quote you use is from Epic games, which as others posted that was the cost taking out the cost of the engine, which is also one of the most used engines on HD consoles with royalties paid to Epic games for its use. 

And not to call your realiability into question but you claim "that's no longer the case" but I really can't just take your word for it after some of your previous claims you've yet to back up with evidence and facts... so in short, instead of just claiming something and finding random google links, can you show me something that proves "that's no longer the case" its only been a year since EA made that claim, and about 6 months since the 1.1 million claim, and they're one of the biggest in the business with a lot more clout so than some random forum guy.  Especially after 2009 saw so many developers making HD games go under, which also happened in 2008.



MaxwellGT2000 - "Does the amount of times you beat it count towards how hardcore you are?"

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mushroomboy5 on 16 January 2010

Sigh...I dream of a day when I only have to own a single system...



Lostplanet22 on 16 January 2010
psrock said:
I just got a feeling a member just ended this thread, in an epic way.

I guess that member's post made to much sense...



 

MRFENIX on 16 January 2010

Wii gets a lot of support from third parties. If I remember correctly Wii has the most released third party games. That IS support. Is it the support YOU would like? Maybe not.

I am not going to McDonald's demanding for a kebab and get pissed if they don't sell me a kebab. That is not what the majority of people who go to McDonald's want. Instead I will go to a kebab place and get what I want.