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[charlequin]

It is probable that Nintendo simply doesn't care about courting the small potatoes publishers because their presence on the platform doesn't significantly affect the bottom line.

Having a volume of small developers is extremely significant to the bottom line: it represents the easiest way to generate exclusives (since small devs are more likely to focus on one platform solely for cost reasons) and unique software that's very distinct from what other platforms are offering;

Nintendo is at the end of the day a business. If being profitable comes at the expense of being a good platform holder, you can bet they'll do it.

But it doesn't. That's the entire trouble here. Nintendo is suffering reduced profitability as a result of their failure to court third-parties effectively and we've now proven that "do nothing, let the platform's sales speak for themselves" is not an effective substitute for such courting. Their ability to offer a compelling package for their next home console in order to match or exceed the Wii's success is going to be heavily dependent on their ability to improve these relationships.

Cartridges aren't some simple commoditised item like DVDs are and it's unrealistic to expect the cost structures or turnaround times to be the same.

Sure. If Nintendo fixed the upfront payment issue, the first two problems would become far less significant already; if Nintendo could make some sort of minor changes to their policies that didn't entirely fix them but did in some way offer a small improvement to small publishers on top of that, it might also do a great deal to improve their perception even if cart fab issues were still greater than those for optical media.

I really wonder if all those issues listed in the OP are not related medium itself rather than Nintendo supposedly being evil tyrants like they were back in the days.

Requiring full payment upfront is downright insane and completely unjustifiable on any level besides a "we think we can get away with it" level.

 

[Ranger X]

After Iwata's big speech at the 3DS announcement, about how third party games are not selling like Nintendo's, Alchemist's boss got a little infuriated, and posted a blog entry to vent his anger: http://www.alchemist-net.co.jp/nikki/?p=2741

The crux of the matter is that a lot of the issues with 3rd parties on Nintendo hardware are still Nintendo's fault. In particular, the software manufacturing process leaves a lot to be desired. Here are the key points mentioned:

1. Repeat manufacture starts from X thousand units.
Say your game is more popular than you expected (or you were a little too "safe" with first run numbers). If you decide to manufacture more copies, Nintendo says you must start with X thousand (the X is secret because of NDA). Other hardware manufacturers start at 100. There's a massive risk involved for smaller publishers, in particular, here.

2. Manufacture turnaround time is 3-4 weeks.
In the case of DS games, it takes Nintendo 3-4 weeks to manufacture a second run of carts. Other hardware manufacturers have a one week turnaround. When your game is selling like hot cakes, you can understand the need to get extra units out quickly. Nintendo, apparently, doesn't.

3. Manufacturing costs have to be paid 100% upfront
Other hardware manufacturers are not mentioned here, but the example is given that "let's say it costs 1000 yen per unit to manufacture" (actual cost depends on cart size), and if a game is expected to be a big hit and sell 1 million units, that's 1 billion yen that has to be paid upfront. That's a ridiculous amount and causes a bit of a headache as far as company capital goes. He suggests reducing it to 1/3 upfront payment, to ease the problem.

4. Nintendo could try to help with TV advertising
Right now, Nintendo is sponsoring a lot of TV shows via advertising. It would be a good opportunity for Nintendo to sub-let advertising, at a reasonable price (thanks cvxfreak) to third parties during these programmes.

He mentions the last point is really a personal request, but the others are serious issues.

I believe in all of this and I suppose it's true but it still is the quality of the software and the budjet invested in marketing that will influence the sales more before all of this.
This topic here almost sounds (again) like damage control.

Miyamoto once said the simple truth:

"If you'd put your best team to devellop your games and invest as much as we do for the marketing, you would sell as much games as us".

It's its exact words but that's what he said and this, was the simple truth. Nintendo general software quality and polish level is WAY BEYOND anything most third party are doing on any Nintendo console. Over the years, this gave Nintendo a solid fan base and many people trust them. AND THEY KEEP DELIVERING so the money is simply ranking in.

Other publishers should commit more on quality and seek the long term benefit.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

I believe in all of this and I suppose it's true but it still is the quality of the software and the budjet invested in marketing that will influence the sales more before all of this.
This topic here almost sounds (again) like damage control.

Miyamoto once said the simple truth:

"If you'd put your best team to devellop your games and invest as much as we do for the marketing, you would sell as much games as us".

It's its exact words but that's what he said and this, was the simple truth.

Sadly not every company has the capability of matching Nintendo's marketing budget.

 

[TunaLover]

Nintendo is very picky about this side cost (refering to charlequin post), I know they will try to minimize even in slight items, it's well known how some first party release don't see reprints ever, in some cases the initial prints are extremely low. So it's no surprise they want to grab every penny. Not saying it´s good or bad thing, though.

 

[Ranger X]

Sadly not every company has the capability of matching Nintendo's marketing budget.

Sure. But it's not just that. Hit where you can. Less marketing? bring more quality.

 

[Gravijah]

Sure. But it's not just that. Hit where you can. Less marketing? bring more quality.

I'm pretty sure small developers are bringing as much "quality" as they can. They aren't only giving 70% effort or something.

 

[Nemo]

Sure. But it's not just that. Hit where you can. Less marketing? bring more quality.

Really man? How many amazing titles have we had over the last few years that didn't sell

 

[Nirolak]

Sure. But it's not just that. Hit where you can. Less marketing? bring more quality.

That didn't work out so well for Bayonetta, and they even had a fairly sizable marketing budget.

 

[Amir0x]

That didn't work out so well for Bayonetta, and they even had a fairly sizable marketing budget.

Yeah. Good quality doesn't even remotely mean you'll be rewarded with good sales.

Actually, more often than not, this seems to NOT be the case :lol

 

[Somnid]

It's not just quality but consistency. A bunch of cash-ins with a few amazing games doesn't exactly instill consumer confidence.

 

[HK-47]

It's not just quality but consistency. A bunch of cash-ins with a few amazing games doesn't exactly instill consumer confidence.

Tell that to Clover.

 

[Gravijah]

Edit: Meh.

 

[Vic]

Tell that to Clover.

Which became Platinum Games and is well estimated by gamers?

 

[Nirolak]

Which became Platinum Games and is well estimated by gamers?

And releases games that frequently bomb, or at best, have mediocre sales.

 

[professor_t]

Nintendo's business has demonstrably suffered as the direct causal result of a lack of third party releases. The Wii, previously on target to be the highest-selling system of all time, has decreased its performance significantly in every region, especially Japan where it is now at best selling evenly with the PS3, and these lulls are directly attributable to Nintendo's inability to produce the quantity of desirable software necessary to keep sales as high as they potentially could have been. This reduces Nintendo's overall level of profitability, which in turn has led to multiple cuts of yearly expectations, disappointing investors (who Nintendo are legally obligated to maximize profits for) and potentially contributing to greater difficulty or less timeframe flexibility in terms of launching their successor console.

That might seem like a reasonable assumption, but you can't draw causal conclusions based on the available information. It's why experiments involve two conditions. We have a control, in this case, but not an experimental condition.

And I'm not just saying this to play devil's advocate -- given their fanbase, I'm really not sure if Nintendo would benefit from increased third-party support. I don't think Nintendo is sure, either. At the very least, they're not sure enough to pour time, money, and effort into the endeavor. Ultimately, you may be right, but I don't there's sufficient cause for Nintendo to abandon a time-tested business strategy.

 

[Kintaro]

And releases games that frequently bomb, or at best, have mediocre sales.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Sega and PG happy with sales of MadWorld and Bayonetta? From the sounds of it, they vastly underestimated Infinite Space in Japan as well (that game was going to hit here in the US though). PG even sated that they would like to do a sequel to MadWorld.

So, I believe your statement isn't really true.

 

[Nirolak]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Sega and PG happy with sales of MadWorld and Bayonetta? From the sounds of it, they vastly underestimated Infinite Space in Japan as well (that game was going to hit here in the US though). PG even sated that they would like to do a sequel to MadWorld.

So, I believe your statement isn't really true.

Well, we know they weren't happy with MadWorld:

CVG: Do you think Platinum Games' natural home is on PS3 and 360?

Sega: I think so. I guess there's a reference to MadWorld there. Critically it got a lot of acclaim, but commercially it wasn't the success we wanted it to be. Clearly that was a mismatch with the Wii audience - particularly in terms of the amount of cross-ownership between Wii and the other home platforms. If you're going to play a mature-rated game, you're going to get your 360, PC or PS3 out to do so. But you can't knock us for having a go.

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239411

We also know that they were hoping for a #1 retail sales slot with Bayonetta:

Sega announced the game's official release date today, and while it was indeed pushed to 2010, it wasn't pushed very far into the year. Bayonetta will launch on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in North America on January 5, with European gamers able to pick it up January 8. In a statement, Sega America and Sega Europe CEO Mike Hayes cited the January launch window as the best time to launch a new intellectual property in the West.

Hayes also said the January release will help the game "push for a #1 retail slot." If Bayonetta is going to take the top spot, it will have to do so against stiff competition. In addition to lingering holiday blockbusters, Bayonetta will also be competing on the charts against an unusually strong lineup of January releases, including Army of Two: The 40th Day, Dark Void, MAG, and Mass Effect 2.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6238396.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;3

Here was the January 2010 NPD:

1. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) / Nintendo / 656,700
2. Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 572,100
3. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) / Nintendo / 555,700
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360) / Activision Blizzard / 326,700
5. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) / Nintendo / 310,900
6. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) / Nintendo / 297,600
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3) / Activision Blizzard / 259,000
8. Army of Two: The 40th Day (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 246,500
9. Just Dance (Wii) / Ubisoft / 191,900
10. Darksiders (Xbox 360) / THQ / 171,200
11. Army of Two: The 40th Day (PS3) / Electronic Arts
12. Wii Play (Wii) / Nintendo
13. MAG (PS3) / Sony
14. Darksiders (PS3) / THQ
15. EA Sports Active Bundle (Wii) / Electronic Arts
16. Mario Kart DS (NDS) / Nintendo
17. Bayonetta (Xbox 360) / Sega
18. New Super Mario Bros. (NDS) / Nintendo
19. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (NDS) / Nintendo
20. God of War Collection (PS3) / Sony

 

[Fimbulvetr]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Sega and PG happy with sales of MadWorld and Bayonetta? From the sounds of it, they vastly underestimated Infinite Space in Japan as well (that game was going to hit here in the US though). PG even sated that they would like to do a sequel to MadWorld.

So, I believe your statement isn't really true.

Madworld did badly(I think it was the game that made Sega adopt their "no mature games on Wii" policy) but the maker of that one moved to another company I think.

I know Bayonetta did well.

IS apparently did do good in Japan, no word on Western sales though.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Having a volume of small developers is extremely significant to the bottom line: it represents the easiest way to generate exclusives (since small devs are more likely to focus on one platform solely for cost reasons) and unique software that's very distinct from what other platforms are offering;

But is that volume of small publishers (not developers - this is largely an issue that they are one step removed from) really all that significant? We're talking games that sell maybe a few thousands of units on a platform where 50% of the software sales are of first party software and the lions share of the rest seem to be taken by the big publishers.

I'd love to see what the breakdowns of software sold are per publisher on something like (say) the PS2 and determine how much of the market the smaller publishers in fact do make up. While I'd like to think that they'd collectively make up a significant chunk of lifetime software sales, it seems likely that they comprise less than 20% of licensing fee revenues (going by the 80/20 rule-of-thumb) on any given platform.

As for them producing unique exclusive titles for a platform, it seems that Nintendo has less incentive than other platform holders to court these titles, especially if expected lifetime sales of each amount to less than a few thousand units a piece. Nintendo platforms get Nintendo exclusives which are sufficiently differentiated from competitors to maintain their allure in spite of competitors. For better or worse, this means they have less of a need to court unique/niche titles and more of a need to court genre kings in big established genres they don't themselves cover.

But it doesn't. That's the entire trouble here. Nintendo is suffering reduced profitability as a result of their failure to court third-parties effectively and we've now proven that "do nothing, let the platform's sales speak for themselves" is not an effective substitute for such courting. Their ability to offer a compelling package for their next home console in order to match or exceed the Wii's success is going to be heavily dependent on their ability to improve these relationships.

I never mentioned the Wii and I'm not entirely certain as to why it is being brought up. The developer is complaining about practices related to cartridges as opposed to discs.

Again, though, the courting of small publishers has never been the issue. With the Wii, the issue has been that publishers have by and large been putting their best and highest selling content on other platforms, meaning that install base growth benefits due to these titles have gone elsewhere. Aside from Monster Hunter, what big marquee titles have third publishers put on the system?

Logically this would mean that Nintendo would be best positioned to increase their third party licensing revenues on their next platform by courting these big publishers rather than the small fish. It seems to me that they're set up to do that for the most part (at least as far as the DS goes), but that their failure to attract third parties to the Wii has to do with other factors.

Sure. If Nintendo fixed the upfront payment issue, the first two problems would become far less significant already; if Nintendo could make some sort of minor changes to their policies that didn't entirely fix them but did in some way offer a small improvement to small publishers on top of that, it might also do a great deal to improve their perception even if cart fab issues were still greater than those for optical media.

Indeed.

 

[apana]

Nintendo sometimes even refuses to publish their own games.:lol They have to be a lot less conservative about things. As bad as Nintendo can be, third parties are even worse. I'm sure things will improve once Nintendo has better hardware. Two simple things that third parties can be doing are:

1. Developing some sort of mascot for Nintendo platforms. Sega has Sonic (sells to mainstream audience) and Disney has Mickey (will probably sell also). I think these sorts of characters help to lower fear when buying a game. I really wish a third party would take the Banjo from Microsoft.

2. Partnering with Nintendo. I mean Starfox, Diddy Kong Racing, etc. are games that third parties could very easily make.

 

[donny2112]

I really can't say whether these policies were ever "good" or "bad" during those times, but I can confidently say that they're bad now.

Probably/Hopefully all these points have been covered, but just found this thread and wanted to chime in some before catching up all the way.

• These policies are almost certainly a hold-over from the NES days, when Nintendo was actively trying to prevent a repeat of the Atari collapse due to all the crapware being released. Limiting number of releases per year for third-parties and requiring a minimum order would make sense to try to get third-parties to take their releases more seriously. Nintendo had the number of releases per year part overturned in court.
• Digital's not a refuge, as it has the same kind of policies. There's a minimum sales number that has to be reached for WiiWare/DSiWare before payout occurs. This serves the same purpose as a minimum cart purchase. It keeps out $0.99 flashware crap, since developers will only get paid if their game sells.
• These policies would've already been in place before Iwata became president. He's made a lot of changes in Nintendo's structure, but we have no visibility into whether he's made attempts to change this policy. Don't blame him (not speaking specifically to Opiate) if you don't know what he's been trying to do behind the scenes with this policy.
• Alchemist is hardly the company you want to hold up as an example of this hurting someone. They've put out no Wii games, so this has to be about DS. We've known DS has had turn around problems even for big publishers. e.g. Final Fantasy III, the plastic shortage. Their best-selling DS game in Japan is at 83K, and their best-selling game across any platform is at 113K on PS2 (which sold 71% of its LTD in the first week). Looking through their DS list, I personally don't recognize any noted examples of shortages affecting sales, but that's hardly conclusive. :lol

It's a problem. It could stand for some adjustment. We don't know what, if any, adjustments Iwata is already planning, but it stands to reason he's not just hoping without action to improve third-party relations/sales with 3DS (and the probable next Wii system).

Back to reading.

 

[charlequin]

But is that volume of small publishers (not developers - this is largely an issue that they are one step removed from) really all that significant?

Collectively? Absolutely. Having multiple small publishers producing real (but niche) content on a regular basis is a large part of what fills out the release schedule and it adds up to a significant chunk of overall software. Looking at garaph, for example, around one-third of DS software sales for titles released in a given year are from titles that end up with LTDs less than 200k. (I know this isn't a perfect measure by any means, but it's illustrative nonetheless, I think.) For the Wii that's more like one-sixth or less, and that's specifically because the Wii market is much more lopsided and less open to smaller releases adding up.

This is also ignoring the ability for niche titles in bulk to drive platform adoption. Many niche titles can effectively sell hardware on their own to their own limited audience, and selling Nintendo hardware to anyone is basically a guarantee of selling some first-party software to them in the future.

I never mentioned the Wii and I'm not entirely certain as to why it is being brought up.

Because the Wii is where Nintendo has larger problems with third-party relations, at least some of the listed criticisms are not DS-specific, and because any discussion of Nintendo's third-party relations has to take into account their relative success on their different

Logically this would mean that Nintendo would be best positioned to increase their third party licensing revenues on their next platform by courting these big publishers rather than the small fish.

Honestly, I think overvaluing the contribution of the "biggest" titles is a long-running fallacy in sales analysis. We've seen hundreds of people falsely attribute messiah-like powers to individual "killer apps" on loser systems that ultimately produced a two-week bump and nothing more. Almost always, sustained performance improvements come from having a full release schedule with a diverse set of at least moderately desirable games, and that's simply not possible to achieve simply by getting a few large marquee titles locked down (as we certainly saw on the GameCube.)

Furthermore, if courting small pubs were some incredibly difficult and costly affair, it'd be one thing, but it really isn't; we have Alchemist here basically asking only for Nintendo to stop actively screwing over small publishers and instead offer market-standard terms. That would be an extraordinarily straightforward and relatively non-costly set of changes that would almost certainly help with this issue, and one that would demonstrate an actual commitment to improving third-party support.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Almost always, sustained performance improvements come from having a full release schedule with a diverse set of at least moderately desirable games, and that's simply not possible to achieve simply by getting a few large marquee titles locked down (as we certainly saw on the GameCube.)

We especially saw this with the Playstation 3 as well, but only with a contrast cause and effect compared to the GameCube.

 

[charlequin]

That might seem like a reasonable assumption, but you can't draw causal conclusions based on the available information.

You might as well say we should never draw conclusions about anything because we can't perform a scientific, controlled experiment on it. :lol In the real world we have to reason stuff out from the available info all the time.

With the Wii in particular, the evidence is pretty straightforward. The Wii's sales toppled in Japan as a direct result of a lack of software (there's really no debating this -- the system quite literally saw no desirable releases for stretches of months at a time and lost sales in direct correlation with sales of older evergreen titles decreasing.) That lack of software is attributable partially to Nintendo's inability to consistently produce ultra-gigantic 5+ million sellers in addition to a strong lineup with at least one smaller desirable release every month, and partially to the complete lack of any third-party software being released.

Clearly something needed to change in order for the Wii not to suffer these kinds of droughts and hardware declines, and the idea that third-party support could be improved from "non-existent" to "decent" is dramatically more sensible than the idea that the problem was that Nintendo's first-party lineup was bad.

 

[MidnightScott]

Instead of using some huge budget just to develop the game, they could devote a million bucks to a TV advertisement. I mean really! They are always whining that games cost a ton to develop, they need to find a way to use some of that for the marketing campaign. >_>;

But they also need to just try instead of copying or porting shit to the system. And Nintendo needs to stop crappy games from coming to the system. But like you said, they get paid upfront so they don't care.

Guess we'll always have the mindset that our Nintendo systems are for Nintendo games, and maybe a few small third party gems every once in a blue moon. :/

3DS is looking great because Nintendo is failing in Japan because they didn't embrace 3rd parties. I mean hell if Nintendo can publish 3rd party stuff like Samurai Warriors 3, and then put a marketing campaign behind Dragon Quest 9, they should be able to help 3rd parties more.

 

[Pureauthor]

Instead of using some huge budget just to develop the game, they could devote a million bucks to a TV advertisement. I mean really! They are always whining that games cost a ton to develop, they need to find a way to use some of that for the marketing campaign. >_>;

But they also need to just try instead of copying or porting shit to the system. And Nintendo needs to stop crappy games from coming to the system. But like you said, they get paid upfront so they don't care.

No they don't.

Guess we'll always have the mindset that our Nintendo systems are for Nintendo games, and maybe a few small third party gems every once in a blue moon. :/

3DS is looking great because Nintendo is failing in Japan because they didn't embrace 3rd parties.

Come off this 'wah wah 3rd parties hate Nintendo systems' stuff. It's been specifically stated that this isn't the thread for it.

And I have no idea what your 3DS statement is supposed to mean.

 

[shaowebb]

Cue up the Iwata Deal with it pics.

 

[Pureauthor]

Cue up the Iwata Deal with it pics.

*pst*

This statement was made in response to a statement by Iwata himself that he wanted to improve the 3rd party situation on Nintendo's systems.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

Ehh - it's Ubisoft. Ghost Recon Predator seems destined to fail as well, but they're still making it. Who knows why?

I remember reading somewhere that Sony pretty much subsidise the development costs for PSP games from Western studios, because of how bad the market is outside of Japan at the moment.

Look, I think Nintendo knows that many third parties have washed their hands of the Wii, and they're using the 3DS as a way to get them back on board for their next home console.

As far the OP goes, Alchemist are a small Japancentric publisher, so the concerns about the cart print amounts, the turnaround time to print DS carts and the 100% upfront payment are very valid. The DS cart printing time is something that could only be solved by Nintendo hooking up with another subcontractor, which could be good or bad. The upfront payment and locked print amounts are issues that probably should be looked at by Nintendo, because the smaller, niche devs and publishers tend to fill those gaps in the software lineup that larger studios and first-parties don't. That kind of thing keeps consoles selling more regularly, instead of having those massive spikes and dips the Wii is experiencing at the moment in Japan. It's never really a good idea to drive them away.

 

[TunaLover]

But I remember that Bamco refused Nintendo mayor involvement with ToG, even Nintendo's help could having significated more chances in the US localization, how can they be understood?
I really think that some publishers just don't want to get too close to Nintendo for some reason...

 

[Vic]

But I remember that Bamco refused Nintendo mayor involvement with ToG, even Nintendo's help could having significated more chances in the US localization, how can they be understood?
I really think that some publishers just don't want to get too close to Nintendo for some reason...

Umm, you're talking about the Tales series here. For some untold reason, Bamco doesn't want to release a lot of games in this series outside Japan since a couple of years ago.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Nintendo reminds me of Jay-z when he was the president of def jam.

 

[thetechkid]

Umm, you're talking about the Tales series here. For some untold reason, Bamco don't want this series to be released outside Japan since a couple of years ago.

Bamco hates money dude, all Tales fans know this.

 

[Zoe]

Instead of using some huge budget just to develop the game, they could devote a million bucks to a TV advertisement. I mean really! They are always whining that games cost a ton to develop, they need to find a way to use some of that for the marketing campaign. >_>;

I believe it's actually pretty difficult to get advertising blocks on Japanese TV. They're pretty much set in stone by the sponsors of the programs.

 

[J-Rzez]

Nintendo is loosely like Apple, while other companies "tell" you what you want (more like suggest), nintendo and Apple dictate to you what you want nearly literally. They also know, like Apple, that their fans are wildly interested in their products and franchises, and they rarely bat and eye in another's direction as far as the software goes. Nintendo is another "solo" company that doesn't really care about what their consumers want, nor care what their competition does. Even if they fail hard, they know they made their money back due to the "profit per always" when it comes to hardware motto, where their fans will buy enough hardware regardless to recoup costs. I'm also sure their games have strict, low budgets from their internal teams as well to turn a massive profit.

It's pretty damning though that you had one of the hottest machines out there, and people still refuse to support your machine. That's either due to policies like they seem to still have, your hardware route (underpowered/incapable Wii), or both. I'm sure this even shocked nintendo that they still don't have support despite their wild success, but I'm also sure they really don't care and will continue to do the same thing they've done now for decades regardless.

The interesting thing is going to be "next-gen" consoles, as the Wii is getting less and less support of "quality" 3rd party support as this gen goes on, even if their new machine is semi-capable like the new boxes from Sony and MS, will they even get support or did they dig far too deep of a hole by now?

 

[Dalthien]

Collectively? Absolutely. Having multiple small publishers producing real (but niche) content on a regular basis is a large part of what fills out the release schedule and it adds up to a significant chunk of overall software. Looking at garaph, for example, around one-third of DS software sales for titles released in a given year are from titles that end up with LTDs less than 200k. (I know this isn't a perfect measure by any means, but it's illustrative nonetheless, I think.) For the Wii that's more like one-sixth or less, and that's specifically because the Wii market is much more lopsided and less open to smaller releases adding up.

Without meaning to argue your specific points in this thread (because I agree with much of it), this particular stat seems fairly skewed. A large chunk of those sales under 200k are games from Konami, Bandai Namco, Sega, etc.

I think it would be far more illustrative to see what things look like with the big publishers separated from the small publishers, as opposed to big-selling games separated from lesser-selling games.

I don't actually know exactly how that would break down, so I might try to put together a publisher breakdown. I'm busy at the moment, but give me a few hours, and I'll try to put something together.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

I wonder how many posters in this thread know what this topic even deals with.

 

[donny2112]

you had one of the hottest machines out there, and people still refuse to support your machine.

These comments are about 1) DS and 2) Japan. Your comment doesn't apply in the slightest in that case. This is like someone complaining in late-stage PS2 era about how hard programming for the system was, but with some financial slants. By this point in the generation, how Nintendo handled DS cart manufacturing is a moot point. It's how they'll handle it on the 3DS (i.e. will these policies be continuing there?) that would be meaningful.

This thread is about DS, and despite charlequin's attempts to tie comments from a non-Wii developer as applying to the Wii, it's not about the Wii. Some things may also apply to the Wii, but comments from Alchemist's president aren't going to get us there.

 

[Jokeropia]

Nintendo is another "solo" company that doesn't really care about what their consumers want

Uh, what? It's pretty evident from the sales of their games that they know better than anyone else what the consumers want.

I'm also sure their games have strict, low budgets from their internal teams

:lol

The interesting thing is going to be "next-gen" consoles, as the Wii is getting less and less support of "quality" 3rd party support as this gen goes on

That's not true, though. There was never much "quality" 3rd party support and if anything, upcoming titles Epic Mickey and DQX are more significant than anything that's been released so far.

 

[Cosmonaut X]

This thread is about DS, and despite charlequin's attempts to tie comments from a non-Wii developer as applying to the Wii, it's not about the Wii. Some things may also apply to the Wii, but comments from Alchemist's president aren't going to get us there.

To be fair, at least one of the polices here (item 3) suggests similarly unhelpful (to put it lightly) policies may apply to Nintendo's other systems so I can see why the Wii is getting dragged in.

However, I think it would have been more helpful to have had the OP and title spell out that it's the DS that is being discussed. As it is, issues in connection with DS manufacturing (and two of which may not be "let's go fuck over third parties!" and more inefficiencies and issues with Nintendo's manufacturing setup that apply across the board) are being spun out into "Hey, this is why third parties don't want to deal with Nintendo!".

 

[Glix]

Do we have numbers on the Wii version of the new Spiderman game yet?

As it is one of the few to be the EXACT same game as its HD cousins, just with some sacrifices made, I'm so curious as to how it did. I think it was a really good move by Activision to do this.

Also, I think Nintendo DOES have to do a better job with the third parties, I think they just don't trust them. I can think of many times they have tried to fix this in some way, such as the CAPCOM 5 (4, whatever) which didn't really go as planned. So they are in this place, where they are constantly flip flopping between trying to make things work with the 3rd parties and then giving up, and just being brutal to the third parties.

I mean, just look at N's relationships with its SECOND party companies and how much strife and difficulty (Rare, Retro) there was in getting these companies to make game the "Nintendo Way (tm)" I can't imagine how much disdain they have for the third parties.

Also, with the introduction of shaders on the 3DS, it's going to be very interesting, as for the first time, we are dealing with a Nintendo system where the 3rd parties seem to be consistently showing more know-how and zazz with the system, graphically, than Nintendo itself.

Sorry about my rambling.

 

[donny2112]

To be fair, at least one of the polices here (item 3) suggests similarly unhelpful (to put it lightly) policies may apply to Nintendo's other systems

Yes, but Alchemist's president is not going to be the one to tell us if that's the case.


Looking a little further into Alchemist's releases, it looks like they tend to be a company that comes in very late to a system's lifespan.

First Famitsu charted Dreamcast release was 2002.
First Famitsu charted PS2 release was 2004.
First Famitsu charted NDS release was 2008.

As such, maybe they have been used to a company having relaxed their production requirements by that point in their lifetime?

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Collectively? Absolutely. Having multiple small publishers producing real (but niche) content on a regular basis is a large part of what fills out the release schedule and it adds up to a significant chunk of overall software. Looking at garaph, for example, around one-third of DS software sales for titles released in a given year are from titles that end up with LTDs less than 200k. (I know this isn't a perfect measure by any means, but it's illustrative nonetheless, I think.) For the Wii that's more like one-sixth or less, and that's specifically because the Wii market is much more lopsided and less open to smaller releases adding up.

This is also ignoring the ability for niche titles in bulk to drive platform adoption. Many niche titles can effectively sell hardware on their own to their own limited audience, and selling Nintendo hardware to anyone is basically a guarantee of selling some first-party software to them in the future.

I'm not sure the data would bare out your point, to be honest. Also, keep in mind that these are issues that have been affecting small publishers much more so than the bigger guys, so not all LTDs below 200k are, in fact, equal. If, in fact, video game sales in Japan don't tend to approach a normal curve and the 80/20 rule doesn't bear out, I'll concede.

I do see your point behind keeping a regular release schedule. However, I see this as a problem that solves itself. Get the bigger third parties on board and the smaller guys will be right behind them to pick up their scraps with clones and genre games and the like. Atlus, for instance, would perform very differently on platforms where the likes of Square Enix aren't there to blaze a trail, establish a market and define just how big that market gets. It makes sense for a smaller business to allow the bigger guys to take on the risks inherent in entering new markets.

Courting them directly is putting the cart before the horse, ignoring cause to go after the effect. Nintendo failed to do this on Wii and the platform floundered as a result, with even small publishers eschewing the platform on account of risk.

Because the Wii is where Nintendo has larger problems with third-party relations, at least some of the listed criticisms are not DS-specific, and because any discussion of Nintendo's third-party relations has to take into account their relative success on their different

I really don't see that the Wii is all that similar, to be honest. The Wii uses DVDs - a commodity medium that anyone can easily manufacturer, so the minimum order sizes and turnaround times aren't an issue. Even the money up-front thing shouldn't be an issue if publishers are able to go to other manufacturers if they don't like Nintendo's terms (I don't know if this is possible).

That there are deeper issues with Nintendo's third party relations on home consoles is obvious, but these aren't articulated or relevant here and I think including the Wii in this discussion is going off-topic and a distraction.

Honestly, I think overvaluing the contribution of the "biggest" titles is a long-running fallacy in sales analysis. We've seen hundreds of people falsely attribute messiah-like powers to individual "killer apps" on loser systems that ultimately produced a two-week bump and nothing more. Almost always, sustained performance improvements come from having a full release schedule with a diverse set of at least moderately desirable games, and that's simply not possible to achieve simply by getting a few large marquee titles locked down (as we certainly saw on the GameCube.)

Furthermore, if courting small pubs were some incredibly difficult and costly affair, it'd be one thing, but it really isn't; we have Alchemist here basically asking only for Nintendo to stop actively screwing over small publishers and instead offer market-standard terms. That would be an extraordinarily straightforward and relatively non-costly set of changes that would almost certainly help with this issue, and one that would demonstrate an actual commitment to improving third-party support.

Don't think that the point I'm making is that "Title X will save the Y" or "Wait for Title X". Rather, that courting the big publishers and securing their continued and earnest support (with big titles and small) for a platform is critical in attracting the medium and smaller ones as well.

When you have a small business with low turnover and not a lot of cash reserves, you cannot afford to expose yourself to too much risk. Trying to establish an audience for your wares in a market that is totally unknown to you is a huge risk. Playing follow-the-leader allows a small business to "outsource" these risks to the larger publishers and put their efforts where they know money is to be made.

You won't see a lot of small publishers putting out launch games for new, unproven platforms. Rather, for the start of a new generation, they will stick to big but dying platforms (like the PS2 and soon enough, the DS) until a little later on once the big publishers have taken on all the risks. The argument I'm making is essentially "build it and they will come".

Also, courting small publishers could very well be a difficult and costly affair, for all we know. Perhaps the costs of reconfiguring the manufacturing trains are just that high. The problem would be compounded by the fact that there are more of them and the benefits you'd derive from obtaining the support of each would be small. When on the other side of the fence, you have publishers that sell more on a single title than the entire catalogue of a smaller publisher, it starts to make less sense to have your effort be scattershot rather than focused.

Could Nintendo make the environment more attractive to third parties? Yes. Absolutely. Will they ever accommodate smaller publishers in a way that is detrimental to their treatment of bigger publishers? No. It will probably mean more costs for less benefit. Will they change their billing practices to line up with industry standards? Possibly. I think it's in their best interests to do so.

Someone suggested before that Nintendo could get a subcontractor to handle the smaller orders. I think this could solve the problem of turnaround times and minimum orders quite well, though I'm not well-versed in the actual numbers involved here.

 

[Dalthien]

Okay, just went through the publisher breakdown on the DS. This is Famitsu data through Sept 19/10 (only the first week of Pokemon B/W included). Based on Chris1964's awesome database, which basically includes everything that we ever got data for or that ever showed up on the end of year Top 500 or Top 1000 charts. Anything that is missing basically sold such a ridiculously small amount that it is hardly relevant anyhow.

One may quibble with my choices, but for Big Pubs I went with Activision, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Disney, EA, Hudson, Koei Tecmo, Konami, Level 5, Nintendo (Pokemon), Sega, Square Enix (Taito), Takara Tomy, THQ.

Big Pubs = 142,257,890 (623 Titles)
Small Pubs = 14,159,456 (432 Titles)

With Nintendo included, small Pubs amount to 9% of game sales on the DS.
Without Nintendo, small Pubs still only amount to 19.7% of game sales on the DS, even though they account for 46% of all titles released.

Honestly, I don't think anyone can look at this list and feel as though small 3rd-party pubs have kept away from the DS this gen. They've been all over the system for the most part. In fact, it has been the larger publishers which have mostly missed the boat on the DS. Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sega (once you remove Love & Berry), Koei Tecmo - they've all largely shit the bed with what has been the most popular system ever in Japan. (Capcom seems determined to remedy this by getting in on the ground floor with the 3DS).

I still maintain that Nintendo would be far better off trying to fix their situation with the big publishers rather than trying to court the small guys. With the DS (which is what the Alchemist guy was referring to anyway), the small guys have been there en masse, with or without Nintendo's policies.

But bringing Capcom, Konami, Sega, Namco aboard the 3DS in full force would be far, far more valuable to Nintendo. And really, print runs of less than a thousand units won't mean squat to the big boys. And although I'm sure they'd prefer not having to pay manufacturing costs upfront, that is largely a non-issue with the big boys as well. Capcom isn't deciding whether or not to bring Monster Hunter to the 3DS based on paying for manufacturing costs upfront.



LTD - Publisher - Titles

41,532 3 O'Clock 2
9,184 5pb 5
23,793 Acquire 2
22,635 Activision 4
144,712 Agatsuma 5
334,367 Alchemist 7
2,741 Alpha Unit 1
17,109 Alvion 1
97,178 AQ 5
159,642 Arc System 10
5,481 Arika 1
46,757 Artdink 1
81,478 ASCII 5
1,130 ASNetworks 1
673,337 Atlus 8
10,597,611 Bandai Namco 109
1,737,472 Bandai 7
854,380 Banpresto 9
433,903 Benesse 6
6,883 Broad 1
16,966 Broccoli 3
3,956,878 Capcom 28
540 Cave 1
11,108 Commseed 2
1,556 Comolink 1
9,301 Compile Heart 4
208,945 Creative Core 10
118,498 Culture Brain 6
43,356 CyberFront 5
926,934 D3 54
6,837 Digital Works 2
29,596 DigiToys 1
31,814 Dimple 6
146,233 Disney 7
2,850 Dorart 1
5,816 E-Frontier 1
609,651 EA 21
333,937 Enterbrain 2
39,020 Ertain 1
14,410 ESP 2
9,550 FonFun 6
15,713 Four Winds 1
15,557 From 2
18,792 FuRyu 3
124,118 Gakken 5
84,271 Genki 5
18,386 Genterprise 5
32,334 Global A 7
105,332 GungHo 5
89,055 Gust 3
1,538,573 Hudson 28
57,316 Idea Factory 11
2,952 Ides 1
1,912,895 IE 24
70,249 Interchannel 11
224,319 Jaleco 4
145,395 Kadokawa 4
2,300 Kamui 1
29,281 Kids 1
282,372 Koei 14
6,623,348 Konami 95
6,078,381 Level 5 13
1,768,027 Marvelous 30
5,500 Media Works 2
1,300 MegaHouse 1
23,228 Milestone 1
2,000 Mirai Shounen 1
699,764 MTO 19
292,330 Namco 5
2,030 NCS 3
64,560,273 Nintendo 104
84,677 Nippon Ichi 7
15,702 Now 1
83,707 Paon 1
650 Pi Arts 1
8,810 Plato 1
19,979,940 Pokemon 12
7,371 Prototype 1
1,506,078 Rocket 16
18,806 Russel 2
5,188,527 Sega 56
534,299 Shogakukan 3
1,000 ShoPro 1
102,580 SNK 8
2,800 Sonic Powered 2
818,426 Spike 19
17,711,581 Square Enix 52
9,273 Starfish 3
30,315 Sting 3
116,693 Success 18
6,926 System Soft 1
491,551 Taito 20
1,409,334 Takara Tomy 32
104,876 Tasuke 4
488,634 TDK 7
664,163 Tecmo 11
1,310 THQ 2
5,500 Tommo 1
365,727 Tomy 3
15,218 TryFirst 3
2,400 Zenrin 1

156,417,386 Total 1,055

 

[charlequin]

Dalthien, thanks for doing the breakdown. Out of curiosity, how much does it shift the needle to count Level-5 as a small publisher? Given that they literally published a game for the first time ever on DS I think it's arguable that they qualify as a "small publisher made good" historically (though obviously no longer going forward.)

Don't think that the point I'm making is that "Title X will save the Y" or "Wait for Title X". Rather, that courting the big publishers and securing their continued and earnest support (with big titles and small) for a platform is critical in attracting the medium and smaller ones as well.

Well, I mean, no one's been an advocate for Nintendo using sensible methods of courting large publishers more than me. My problem with making this particular issue into a dichotomy is that a) I really don't see the evidence that it is, and b) given the business practices discussed in this thread, what you and donny are suggesting is tantamount to suggesting that Nintendo shouldn't bother even having ethical (much less constructive) business relationships with small publishers because they don't strictly need to. I'm not going to climb up on that horse with you.

 

[rosjos44]

That didn't work out so well for Bayonetta, and they even had a fairly sizable marketing budget.

They let SEGA do their marketing. No offense but SEGA cannot do anything correct imo.

 

[Pureauthor]

They let SEGA do their marketing. No offense but SEGA cannot do anything correct imo.

Sega created a 5 million + selling game this generation!

Also Bayonetta's boxart probably didn't do it any favours.

 

[rosjos44]

Sega created a 5 million + selling game this generation!

Also Bayonetta's boxart probably didn't do it any favours.

Bayonetta is one of my favorite action games this generation. When I saw the type of marketing was done for it, I was like "my former marketing classmates could have done better".

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Dalthien, thanks for doing the breakdown. Out of curiosity, how much does it shift the needle to count Level-5 as a small publisher? Given that they literally published a game for the first time ever on DS I think it's arguable that they qualify as a "small publisher made good" historically (though obviously no longer going forward.)



Well, I mean, no one's been an advocate for Nintendo using sensible methods of courting large publishers more than me. My problem with making this particular issue into a dichotomy is that a) I really don't see the evidence that it is, and b) given the business practices discussed in this thread, what you and donny are suggesting is tantamount to suggesting that Nintendo shouldn't bother even having ethical (much less constructive) business relationships with small publishers because they don't strictly need to. I'm not going to climb up on that horse with you.

Expecting a corporation to be ethical, fair or for it to not treat its customers like crap if they can get away with it is just unrealistic. I'd definitely like it if Nintendo made all their hardware region-free or didn't participate in blatant price-gouging in PAL territories, but there'll be frost on the windows of Satan's corner office before that happened. If Nintendo (or any other company) is ever going to do anything good for the consumer or the industry, the market has to force its hand. Whether we like it or not, Nintendo is a business and will behave like one.

I would never suggest that Nintendo don't behave arrogantly on a regular basis and that this loses them money in the long term, but the way they have their manufacturing set up isn't one of them.

Draconian policies like demanding money up front, on the other hand, I'm with you all the way. I'll light the pitchforks and bring extra torches for stabbing if you want.

 

[Dalthien]

Dalthien, thanks for doing the breakdown. Out of curiosity, how much does it shift the needle to count Level-5 as a small publisher? Given that they literally published a game for the first time ever on DS I think it's arguable that they qualify as a "small publisher made good" historically (though obviously no longer going forward.

Yeah, Level 5 is an interesting case. There's obviously no hard and fast definition available, but for me personally, the main difference between big and small publishers is that the big pubs have the ability to put the necessary resources into a project(s), specifically including resources for advertising. Small pubs typically have to rely upon small initial prints for a title, and small advertising budgets, hoping for large word-of-mouth to carry the title.

I suspect (though I wasn't following them all that closely at the time, so I could be wrong) that Level 5 was in position from the start to properly support their own titles on par with the other big boys. But if you want to argue that they should be a small publisher, then you won't get a huge fight from me.

The other case that I wasn't sure how to classify was D3. They are owned by Bandai Namco, but I believe that they were still independent for a large portion of their DS offerings, so I left them classified as a small publisher.



Anyway, here are the numbers with Level 5 switched to a small publisher.

Big Pubs = 136,179,509 (610 Titles)
Small Pubs = 20,237,877 (445 Titles)

With Nintendo included, small Pubs amount to 12.9% of all game sales on the DS.
Without Nintendo, small Pubs amount to 28.2% of 3rd-party game sales on the DS, and they account for 47.4% of 3rd-party titles released.