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[Stinkles]

I had to double check the date of the OP to be sure this wasn't 1990.

 

[hauton]

Every business looks after itself before others.

It's just Nintendo's better at it than everybody else. Whether it's consumers or 3rd-party publishers and developers, they've never been exactly selfless.

I mean, it's the only one that will sell you their hardware at a premium for launch - royalties apparently aren't good enough.

 

[duckroll]

Then why do people pre order games? If people can wait months (or even years) or a game release I am sure those users can wait 3 weeks to get a copy if they want the game.

For big titles which have a huge marketing campaign and sell hundreds of thousands, this is less of a problem. We're talking about niche games from smaller publishers here. If they ship 30-40k of a title, not knowing if it will be a hit, and the word of mouth is REALLY good, then immediately shipping more copies would result in sales moving very briskly. If on the other hand they cannot reship, even though there is good buzz and there are many people interested in buying the game at that moment, if they cannot find it in stores they'll lose interest very quickly. It's not a game they've been looking forward to, only something they heard about from a friend or whatever. With 10 games a week being released in Japan, and used game sales making up a big segment of the market, not being able to reship for 3 weeks = doom.

 

[gerg]

What? Where does it sound like that? I read through the original and I can't see where you got that impression.

I've been trying to read the original Japanese, but I'm finding it difficult.

The reason why I say this may be a combination of an inaccurate OP and an inaccurate understanding of the comments Iwata made at the 3DS conference. Indeed, if Iwata admits that Nintendo needs to do more to work with third-parties, thereby implicitly suggesting that these problems are Nintendo's own, it seems odd for the boss of this company to say that the "crux of the matter is that a lot of the issues with third parties on Nintendo hardware are still Nintendo's fault".

I mean, yes, Iwata said as much.

People that say that number 2 is "not so bad" clearly don't understand how big the used games market is in Japan.

I don't think that people are denying that this is a problem, but that, if this is, indeed, the fastest time that Nintendo can produce any cartridges whatsoever, then this practice is just an unfortunate reality of working with the Nintendo DS, and not so much Nintendo saying "Dirty third-party developers must wait three times longer for their cartridges to be delivered than the glorious Lord Nintendo must!"

Of course, this then begs the question of whether or not Nintendo should have used cartridges in the first place, but I don't think that UMDs were that wise of a decision either.

 

[badcrumble]

Because Nintendo can't outspend Sony and Microsoft. They don't want to have to rely on moneyhatting games (and rightfully they shouldn't have to as market leader)

But that is also only a small part of 3rd party developer's reluctance to support Nintendo. There is a long standing hatred that dates all the way back to the NES/SNES era (and western devs hate them even more since they stand for everything that is the opposite of what they are interested in)

Personal grudges are very hard to kill. And most 3rd party devs' visions of the future of the industry are aligned with Microsoft and Sony's visions. To them, Nintendo can be seen as a mortal enemy.

Wait, you're given concrete reasons for why third parties are reluctant to work with Nintendo and you still chalk it up to this they-just-hate-them-for-no-reason conspiracy theory rubbish?

 

[Vic]

I had to double check the date of the OP to be sure this wasn't 1990.

:lol

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

For big titles which have a huge marketing campaign and sell hundreds of thousands, this is less of a problem. We're talking about niche games from smaller publishers here. If they ship 30-40k of a title, not knowing if it will be a hit, and the word of mouth is REALLY good, then immediately shipping more copies would result in sales moving very briskly. If on the other hand they cannot reship, even though there is good buzz and there are many people interested in buying the game at that moment, if they cannot find it in stores they'll lose interest very quickly. It's not a game they've been looking forward to, only something they heard about from a friend or whatever. With 10 games a week being released in Japan, and used game sales making up a big segment of the market, not being able to reship for 3 weeks = doom.

Yes, this makes perfect sense for publishers like Nippon Ichi and Falcom who have never supported Nintendo. Would be interesting to see how their Wii disc turnabout times compare to the DS (since it should rightfully be much quicker)

Wait, you're given concrete reasons for why third parties are reluctant to work with Nintendo and you still chalk it up to this they-just-hate-them-for-no-reason conspiracy theory rubbish?

Thank you for (not) reading my earlier comment. This is just a few of many reasons, but ultimately is a smaller point than their long standing distrust which is ultimately the root of their poor relations with Japanese devs.

 

[jay]

This excuse might have worked before, but Nintendo is filthily wealthy, and can easily throw weight behind any developer they choose. And yes, they could even outspend Sony or Microsoft if they wanted to. It's not necessarily about how much a company could hypothetically spend, but how much they ACTUALLY would spend.

What do you base the assertion that Nintendo could outspend Microsoft on? Besides making it up, I mean.

 

[WillyFive]

I had to double check the date of the OP to be sure this wasn't 1990.

Ironically, the system that saved the industry from shovelware in the 80's isn't so hot now.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

Ironically, the system that saved the industry from shovelware in the 80's isn't so hot now.

That old system is dead and buried (and ironically, you keep hearing people on here pleading for Nintendo to bring it back to stop the onslaught of shovelware :lol)

Because Sega of America's "5 Star Policy" really worked out well for the Saturn...

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

These costs and manufacturing issues actually explain a lot of shortages and undershipping of initial shipments on the DS for smaller and lower budget Japanese games. Infinite Space, EO1, and SMT Strange Journey come to mind.

Yeah, Strange Journey's long gap between shipments was the first thing that I thought of when I read this.

If Nintendo really do want to improve support of third parties, then these are all issues that they should be working on. Obviously, this stuff doesn't really impact folks like Capcom or Square-Enix, but it's pretty big when it comes to small and even mid-size companies.

 

[Amir0x]

What do you base the assertion that Nintendo could outspend Microsoft on? Besides making it up, I mean.

It never fails to amaze me how bad your reading comprehension is every time you respond to me. It's like seriously comically awful. Like, almost self-parody bad. Like, sometimes I'm assuming you're doing it on purpose bad.

We know that if Microsoft threw the accumulated weight of all its industry behind it, it could outspend Nintendo - but they'll never do that. Indeed, they have put very real restrictions and limits of what they will spend and what they won't (exact numbers being elusive, but we've seen serious restructuring going on at Microsoft recently and a statement that they refuse to keep losing money in the game industry). Same with Sony.

Nintendo is a games only company, and they are factually filthily wealthy - they can absolutely outspend the caps Sony and Microsoft themselves put on, if they had themselves the desire enough to get certain support. Sony and Microsoft have proven throughout this entire generation they're willing to pay for "certain" exclusives, but not others... or are merely content to just get exclusive content, not games.

So, for reading comprehension succinctness, let me paraphrase: it's not about what you can spend, it's about what you're WILLING to spend. Nintendo could easily throw $50 million or $100 million to buy this property or that - EA regularly pays out an insane amount of money to keep its licenses, and Nintendo is bigger than EA. Much bigger.

But are they willing? The same standard applies to them as it does Sony and Microsoft, in that it's not about what they can spend, it's about what they're willing to. But Nintendo doesn't even bother to be in contention most of the time. Mostly because they're embarrassingly incompetent at courting third party support, but also because they're cheap fucks and their actions say they don't need third party support. Which may be true, but it's bad for Wii only gamers who cry about it every waking hour.

 

[Opiate]

Ugh, the deflections in this discussion are rather repulsive. These are publisher unfriendly business practices.

Let's discuss those, and not boogeymen, vague accusations of irrational, seething hatred that third parties hold in their cold, irrational hearts. I'm not even saying that third parties can't be irrational: I would argue that they often are. But we've had approximately one thousand discussions about that topic. Can we at least have one about these real, substantive claims, rather than nebulous accusations?

 

[Freezie KO]

1-3 seem like extremely reasonable requests to change. But they also seem like they might affect small publishers the most. I wonder how much a company like Capcom cares about the difference between manufacturing a hundred cards versus a thousand.

 

[HK-47]

Then why do people pre order games? If people can wait months (or even years) for a game release I am sure those users can wait 3 weeks to get a copy if they want the game.

Maybe cause of the savage used game market in Japan?

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Ugh, the deflections in this discussion are rather repulsive. These are publisher unfriendly business practices.

Let's discuss those, and not boogeymen, vague accusations of irrational, seething hatred that third parties hold in their cold, irrational hearts. I'm not even saying that third parties can't be irrational: I would argue that they often are. But we've had approximately one thousand discussions about that topic. Can we at least have one about these real, substantive claims, rather than nebulous accusations?

I'm wondering how many folks defending these decisions are familiar with the history of Nintendo as a business?

 

[Amir0x]

Ugh, the deflections in this discussion are rather repulsive. These are publisher unfriendly business practices.

Let's discuss those, and not boogeymen, vague accusations of irrational, seething hatred that third parties hold in their cold, irrational hearts. I'm not even saying that third parties can't be irrational: I would argue that they often are. But we've had approximately one thousand discussions about that topic. Can we at least have one about these real, substantive claims, rather than nebulous accusations?

The one thing I want is some context.

What "other manufacturer" is providing these better turn around times and better monetary incentives, and are they talking about the same type of format?

For example, what other company right now is really making cartridge games to compare to the turn around time of Nintendo titles?

 

[RurouniZel]

Seriously, Nintendo should have a huge round-table discussion with the CEOs of smaller devs like Alchemist, Gust, N1, etc. and hear their problems and suggestions. It'd do Nintendo a WORLD of good I'd imagine.

 

[Jin34]

#3 is pretty fucked up on Nintendo's part. #1 and #2 need some clarification because he seems to only be talking about DS carts in which the longer turnaround makes sense since its easier/cheaper to get discs, now if those same rules apply to the Wii then thats something Nintendo has to address. #4 is just complete and utter bullshit, the fuck is this constant crap about them having to subsidize your marketing? You can really see how messed up some things in this industry are when so many companies count on subsidies from the hardware manufacturers.

 

[jay]

It never fails to amaze me how bad your reading comprehension is every time you respond to me. It's like seriously comically awful. Like, almost self-parody bad. Like, sometimes I'm assuming you're doing it on purpose bad.

We know that if Microsoft threw the accumulated weight of all its industry behind it, it could outspend Nintendo - but they'll never do that. Indeed, they have put very real restrictions and limits of what they will spend and what they won't (exact numbers being elusive, but we've seen serious restructuring going on at Microsoft recently and a statement that they refuse to keep losing money in the game industry). Same with Sony.

Nintendo is a games only company, and they are factually filthily wealthy - they can absolutely outspend the caps Sony and Microsoft themselves put on, if they had themselves the desire enough to get certain support. Sony and Microsoft have proven throughout this entire generation they're willing to pay for "certain" exclusives, but not others... or are merely content to just get exclusive content, not games.

So, for reading comprehension succinctness, let me paraphrase: it's not about what you can spend, it's about what you're WILLING to spend. Nintendo could easily throw $50 million or $100 million to buy this property or that - EA regularly pays out an insane amount of money to keep its licenses, and Nintendo is bigger than EA. Much bigger.

But are they willing? The same standard applies to them as it does Sony and Microsoft, in that it's not about what they can spend, it's about what they're willing to. But Nintendo doesn't even bother to be in contention most of the time. Mostly because they're embarrassingly incompetent at courting third party support, but also because they're cheap fucks and their actions say they don't need third party support. Which may be true, but it's bad for Wii only gamers who cry about it every waking hour.

So in other words you have no facts to back up your claims. I knew that already but thanks for typing it out.

 

[rosjos44]

For big titles which have a huge marketing campaign and sell hundreds of thousands, this is less of a problem. We're talking about niche games from smaller publishers here. If they ship 30-40k of a title, not knowing if it will be a hit, and the word of mouth is REALLY good, then immediately shipping more copies would result in sales moving very briskly. If on the other hand they cannot reship, even though there is good buzz and there are many people interested in buying the game at that moment, if they cannot find it in stores they'll lose interest very quickly. It's not a game they've been looking forward to, only something they heard about from a friend or whatever. With 10 games a week being released in Japan, and used game sales making up a big segment of the market, not being able to reship for 3 weeks = doom.

So lets say they do get them in a week but that shipment they paid for only sells through 20% then whose lost / fault is it? That 3rd party just lost a lot of money on that gamble. If A person wants a title and its not at launch they will get it regardless. 3 weeks does not = doom. If the first week sold 40k or lower and not turning a profit = doom.

You do realize how much a typical company spends in their Marketing Budget? less than 5% of their budget. How much money do these 3rd parties spend? How much does 5th cell spend? Btw they made a success with independent resources. Why can't others?

 

[CTLance]

Oh yeah, and I'd love to hear more about this stuff. Like Opiate said, this helps us understand what's going on behind the scenes.

Judging by some posts in here it also apparently brings "teh lulz", so it's something for all of gaf to enjoy.

I wonder if alchemist plans on continuing Nintendo support. I would expect the next business meeting with Iwatas ninjas to be very... interesting.

 

[Lonely1]

#3 looks bad on Nintendo part. 1 and 2, we need to clarify is this also applies to wii. I'm worried if this factors into Sony decision to go disk based storage for PSP2, . Number 4, being dependent on subsides is a bad businesses model, imo. Although Sony and MS (and some times, even Nintendo) clearly subside many games, they don't subside all. Can't companies receiving the short end claim foul play on that?

 

[Amir0x]

So in other words you have no facts to back up your claims. I knew that already but thanks for typing it out.

hey if you didn't want to participate in this topic and just wanted to troll you could have asked me right away, I would have escorted you out sooner.

 

[badcrumble]

Thank you for (not) reading my earlier comment. This is just a few of many reasons, but ultimately is a smaller point than their long standing distrust which is ultimately the root of their poor relations with Japanese devs.

I'm pretty sure the OP contains the reasons for their 'distrust.'

 

[Bebpo]

Now Strange Journey makes sense.

Poor Atlus I wonder why they didn't bail on the DS after EO and that.

 

[Opiate]

It never fails to amaze me how bad your reading comprehension is every time you respond to me. It's like seriously comically awful. Like, almost self-parody bad. Like, sometimes I'm assuming you're doing it on purpose bad.

We know that if Microsoft threw the accumulated weight of all its industry behind it, it could outspend Nintendo - but they'll never do that. Indeed, they have put very real restrictions and limits of what they will spend and what they won't (exact numbers being elusive, but we've seen serious restructuring going on at Microsoft recently and a statement that they refuse to keep losing money in the game industry). Same with Sony.

Nintendo is a games only company, and they are factually filthily wealthy - they can absolutely outspend the caps Sony and Microsoft themselves put on, if they had themselves the desire enough to get certain support. Sony and Microsoft have proven throughout this entire generation they're willing to pay for "certain" exclusives, but not others... or are merely content to just get exclusive content, not games.

So, for reading comprehension succinctness, let me paraphrase: it's not about what you can spend, it's about what you're WILLING to spend. Nintendo could easily throw $50 million or $100 million to buy this property or that - EA regularly pays out an insane amount of money to keep its licenses, and Nintendo is bigger than EA. Much bigger.

But are they willing? The same standard applies to them as it does Sony and Microsoft, in that it's not about what they can spend, it's about what they're willing to. But Nintendo doesn't even bother to be in contention most of the time. Mostly because they're embarrassingly incompetent at courting third party support, but also because they're cheap fucks and their actions say they don't need third party support. Which may be true, but it's bad for Wii only gamers who cry about it every waking hour.

This argument does not stand to reason, I believe. Sony lost 5 billion dollars subsidizing the PS3 and it produced no clear, meaningful change in direction. I'm not entirely sure Nintendo could do that without being torn apart by shareholders. Their overall revenue streams are too small, comparatively.

Most importantly, I believe that a primary reason that Sony/MS are unwilling to keep losing money is that -- thanks to Nintendo -- it is blindingly apparent to even the most casual shareholder that huge money can be made in the industry, it's just that Sony/MS haven't done it. If Nintendo were in the trenches losing money right along with them, it would be far easier to justify to shareholders continued subsidization if it meant outspending, and ultimately killing, Nintendo, whose resources are indeed still significantly less vast than either Sony or Microsoft's.

These policies are almost certainly a consequence of Nintendo's reticence to enter a spending war with their larger competitors. Such reticence clearly pervades their entire business philosophy. However, as Nintendo's revenue streams grow and they maintain high profitability, it becomes an increasingly poor decision to remain this conservative in all aspects of their business. They absolutely must start spending, and third party relations are the clear place to focus that spending on. In my opinion.

 

[Vic]

I wonder if a PSP2 which might use flash memory will operate under almost similar conditions.

 

[rosjos44]

Plus I do not blame the used market in Japan. Why do people over charge for games in that country? Sooner or later people will get smart and say "F this" and go get a used copy. Why do you think Wal-mart, Best-buy, and Gamestop love the used game market (other than the fact it will make them a ton of cash)? Because they know that people like cheaper products.

 

[Freezie KO]

They absolutely must start spending, and third party relations are the clear place to focus that spending on. In my opinion.

Well, I don't think all the third-party support on 3DS is from goodwill alone.

 

[Opiate]

Fair warning: this thread discusses Nintendo's real, carefully detailed deficiencies in corporate relations. Any attempts to divert the discussion towards the far more nebulous "third parties have an irrational hatred of Nintendo" discussion will be viewed harshly from this point forward. From a business minded poster's perspective, this information is too noteworthy to let it be drowned by apologists and diversion tactics.

 

[badcrumble]

I wonder if a PSP2 which might use flash memory will operate under almost similar conditions.

Almost certainly. I don't think this stuff is Nintendo-specific in many ways so much as it's policy based around the particulars of how third parties are asked to store their games; it's actually possible that some more direct competition between Sony and Nintendo on the cartridge front might lead to some productive and competitive resultant shifts in policy. I don't really know enough about the specifics of all that within the SNES/Genesis era, but it could be a useful comparison with regard to the discussion of cartridge production policies even if the overall context is wildly different.

 

[Amir0x]

This argument does not stand to reason, I believe. Sony lost 5 billion dollars subsidizing the PS3 and it produced no clear, meaningful change in direction. I'm not entirely sure Nintendo could do that without being torn apart by shareholders. Their overall revenue streams are too small, comparatively.

Most importantly, I believe that a primary reason that Sony/MS are unwilling to keep losing money is that -- thanks to Nintendo -- it is blindingly apparent to even the most casual shareholder that huge money can be made in the industry, it's just that Sony/MS haven't done it. If Nintendo were in the trenches losing money right along with them, it would be far easier to justify to shareholders continued subsidization if it meant outspending, and ultimately killing, Nintendo, whose resources are indeed still significantly less vast than either Sony or Microsoft's.

These policies are almost certainly a consequence of Nintendo's reticence to enter a spending war with their larger competitors. Such reticence clearly pervades their entire business philosophy. However, as Nintendo's revenue streams grow and they maintain high profitability, it becomes an increasingly poor decision to remain this conservative in all aspects of their business. They absolutely must start spending, and third party relations are the clear place to focus that spending on. In my opinion.

5 billion dollars? We're talking about the cost of buying a few individual properties, which at this point they could certainly stand to do a little investing.

I'm not saying they could outspend them on every occassion, because it's a case-by-case basis. Who wants this more, who wants that more? Which property would better fit our portfolio? But they absolutely could extend their arms and purchase a little developer support with marketing partnerships or simple brand exclusives. And yes, they could even outspend Sony or Microsoft, since as I said, they have their own limits. Sony and Microsoft don't even want to try to outspend the other two, as we see there are so few exclusives this gen altogether. Clearly, it's not out of the question for Nintendo to pick a few low hanging apples. I doubt Nintendo could outspend Sony or Microsoft for Grand Theft Auto or something like that, of course. For any property those two deem as a necessity.

 

[bdouble]

Those all sound very conservative. I don't think this is surprising. NIntendo is insanely conservative in everything it does and well its sad for some people but for others it works out.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I very much doubt these are the reasons Nintendo is not receiving development from major third party studios, particularly in the west.

Rockstar didn't touch the Wii, say, for a Grand Theft Auto title because they had to pay the manufacturing costs up front? Right.

This sounds like more of a concern for low to mid level developers. While it is a VERY valid one, I very seriously doubt these are the worst or even moderate issues to a company that runs on anything other than a strict budget.

 

[Lonely1]

Why shouldn't Nintendo help them the way Sony and Microsoft does?

Wait, scratch that... let Sony and Microsoft keep getting all the games that all the Nintendo fanboys keep whining they don't get.

Most of this issues would really only affect small publishers. Hardly the companies nintards are asking games from.

 

[Opiate]

5 billion dollars? We're talking about the cost of buying a few individual properties, which at this point they could certainly stand to do a little investing.

The 5 billion dollar example is intended to show how far Sony is willing to go. Let's say Nintendo was willing to pay 20 million dollars to get an exclusive Resident Evil on their system. I can almost guarantee that the result of this trade would be Sony upping the ante to 25 million -- not literally for that exact RE game, but for future corporate transactions. This is an oversimplified example to clarify the concept -- more generally, what I'm suggesting is that whatever Nintendo offered, Sony was willing and capable of offering more. At least until very recently, Sony would have been perfectly happy to get in to a subsidization war with Nintendo.

I'm not saying they could outspend them on every occassion, because it's a case-by-case basis. Who wants this more, who wants that more? Which property would better fit our portfolio? But they absolutely could extend their arms and purchase a little developer support with marketing partnerships or simple brand exclusives. And yes, they could even outspend Sony or Microsoft, since as I said, they have their own limits. Sony and Microsoft don't even want to try to outspend the other two, as we see there are so few exclusives this gen altogether. Clearly, it's not out of the question for Nintendo to pick a few low hanging apples. I doubt Nintendo could outspend Sony or Microsoft for Grand Theft Auto or something like that, of course. For any property those two deem as a necessity.

I think this is becoming increasingly true as we speak. I think it was far less true just 3 or 4 years ago.

I am arguing that these policies are archaic remnants from a time when it was a legitimately horrible idea for Nintendo to engage in spending wars with Sony and MS of any kind. As Nintendo grows in wealth and size, and as Sony and MS are forced to reign in spending both by Nintendo's successes and their own failures, it is becoming increasingly likely that Nintendo should be more aggressive with their spending.

 

[Linkup]

who's alchemist? and what games have they developed?

 

[mr_nothin]

I don't mind if they miss out on fps 233561001. I normally get all the consoles so its not an issue for me but this thing with companies placing the blame and responsibility where needs to stop. Nintendo doesn't like losing money while the other two are fine with it apparently. After all this time the 3rd parties should know this.

What Im saying is, it is not a good thing to be in the habit of always paying for others games one easy our another. Sony was known for gta and tomb raider, now on everything. Sure variety is nice, but at what price, why does the market lesser have to hand out services to try and get games.

What about the 3rd party devs that want to create something unique on the Wii because of the motion controls and the unique install base? You're missing out on all sorts of games there. Games that could potentially be awesome and sell millions...

 

[bdouble]

What about the 3rd party devs that want to create something unique on the Wii because of the motion controls and the unique install base? You're missing out on all sorts of games there. Games that could potentially be awesome and sell millions...

potential. There are other outlets. This is why we have Wiiware and other digital distribution systems.

Its not like the Wii is the only platform for these games. Even if it is again there is Wiiware and I think its more akin to what your talking about rather than a retail release for a small developer anyways.

 

[Somnid]

In the 3DS context I would imagine more smaller devs will be referred to 3DSWare. Should solve a few of these problems.

 

[charlequin]

These issues may seem small, but they are the types of issues that tend to snowball over time. That is, the Playstation version (as an example) of a game might be slightly easier to produce, so they decide to produce that. That game does well. This, in turn, encourages other producers to follow suit, as there is now proven success. This extrapolates even further over time.

This is, in fact, precisely what happened with the original Playstation.

No no, Im just saying I want Nintendo to continue to be careful if they are going to go down that path of paying for games.

Reducing the issue to "paying for games" is what makes most of the discussions about this issue so terrible. Very few examples of a platform-holder helping out third-party publishers involve "paying for games" (i.e. throwing money speculatively at an as-yet nonexistent product to "win it away" from other platforms) -- most of them are legitimate business partnerships where a publisher has a game they're already interested in developing and publishing, the platform-holder has a platform they're already interested in getting more support for, and both work together to maximize the sales of that game and therefore the profits both receive from it.

These are publisher unfriendly business practices.

Right. And publisher-unfriendly business practices are a problem because publishers are companies you are engaged in a long-term business partnership with as a platform-holder.

3 weeks does not = doom.

Quite frankly, don't bother commenting if you don't know what you're talking about. A three week restock window in Japan might as well be ten years.

How much does 5th cell spend? Btw they made a success with independent resources.

5th Cell has Warner Brothers publishing their games.

However, as Nintendo's revenue streams grow and they maintain high profitability, it becomes an increasingly poor decision to remain this conservative in all aspects of their business. They absolutely must start spending, and third party relations are the clear place to focus that spending on. In my opinion.

Precisely. Wise management will adapt strategy to the prevailing conditions. Austerity in a time of plenty might not be quite as bad as reckless expenditures in a time of poverty, but it's still pretty bad.

Rockstar didn't touch the Wii, say, for a Grand Theft Auto title because they had to pay the manufacturing costs up front? Right.

Rockstar didn't touch the Wii because supporting the Wii is incompatible with their broad platform strategy, but that just means Rockstar was never there as a "get." Small publishers are a legitimate area of growth for Nintendo in the third-party arena in a way that R* are not.

In the 3DS context I would imagine more smaller devs will be referred to 3DSWare. Should solve a few of these problems.

ghettoization != solving problems

 

[Opiate]

What about the 3rd party devs that want to create something unique on the Wii because of the motion controls and the unique install base? You're missing out on all sorts of games there. Games that could potentially be awesome and sell millions...

It's rather amusing that the company which positioned their system to significantly benefit from small, quirky developers has (what appears to be) the least friendly corporate policies for those same small businesses.

 

[MechaX]

Now Strange Journey makes sense.

Poor Atlus I wonder why they didn't bail on the DS after EO and that.

Surprisingly, this, Infinite Space, and probably 7th Dragon all rang through my mind after reading this article. Old habits die hard, I guess.

However, most of my venom is still reserved for the localization side of Nintendo's fence.

 

[Man God]

I don't if all of these policies even apply to the Wii though which has gotten a ton of smaller publisher support. Maybe more so in the west then Japan though but you see rinky dink shovelware titles coming out all the time for the Wii from sources you've never heard about.

On cart based systems this has always been Nintendo's problem and one of its biggest.

Hell that's the reason why Square and Capcom started to get out of the SNES's business pretty early and why Capcom largely stayed off of the N64.

 

[Somnid]

ghettoization != solving problems

I hardly think this is the case especially when Nintendo is heavily regulating their platform to prevent DD price collapse. Also, by the end of 3DS's run the DD market will be nowhere near what it is now.

 

[BocoDragon]

I can't believe Nintendo is running the same racket they have been since the NES days...

 

[Black Rainbow]

Nintendo could stand to improve relations with 3rd parties. Iwata seems to be serious about doing just that. Time will tell.

 

[gerg]

Hell that's the reason why Square and Capcom started to get out of the SNES's business pretty early and why Capcom largely stayed off of the N64.

What's the absolute fastest a cartridge can be produced? Are the inflated "minimum shipment numbers" associated with cartridges, as well?

Because as bad as these policies may be I really don't think that using cartridges for the DS was a mistake.

 

[NeonZ]

Rockstar didn't touch the Wii because supporting the Wii is incompatible with their broad platform strategy, but that just means Rockstar was never there as a "get." Small publishers are a legitimate area of growth for Nintendo in the third-party arena in a way that R* are not.

Without big titles to attract a certain audience to a console, small developers just won't be very successful if they're dependent on that audience. Trying to expand growth only with small publishers, unless one of their games unexpectedly has an appeal way beyond their usual productions, just isn't sustainable in the long run if the console doesn't have support of publishers that actually matter.