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[poppabk]

Something I've wondered for quite awhile now is why there aren't more games that simply use the Wii remote as a pointer. There are countless games on the PC that play that way and the Wii Remote really does work just as well as a mouse.

Where's the real-time strategy game? More turn-based strategy? Menu-based games? Something brand new that uses pointing controls even?

I just think the bottom line is that developers at most 3rd party publishers and developers don't want to make games on Wii because they can't fathom graphics that aren't the latest and greatest. That's the bottom line.

Thats one instance where the SD resolution is a major hindrance, 1080p sometimes feels insufficient in RTS's.

 

[Eteric Rice]

I just wanted to say, I don't think Nintendo "ISN'T" trying. Maybe not as hard, but recently we learned that they're making a Wii Highest Rated Games thing in Japan. They've also teamed up with Team Ninja for Metroid Other M, secured Tales of Graces, Monster Hunter 3, and supposedly DQX.

Oh, and the new Mistwalker game.

So they seem to be trying more. I think Nintendo of America needs to be given more power to secure games, though.

 

[Dave Long]

Thats one instance where the SD resolution is a major hindrance, 1080p sometimes feels insufficient in RTS's.

Eh?! I played Command and Conquer in 320x200 and had a blast. 640x480 for Red Alert was a friggin' luxury.

Resolution has nothing to do with making entertaining games.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Nintendo would NEVER go to a 3rd party nor care about a 3rd party. There was a hard bias to Sony during PS2 era from the industry because Sony was the leader. Haters gonna hate? :lol

It seems like their primary focus has been to Japanese third parties. It's quite obvious they care about that. They need to do the same with western developers though. I don't know what happened, but they had good western support on N64. I would love to see someone like Retro handle a third party IP, especially Turok. They would also be fools not to be talking to Disney right now and trying to figure out what they can do to assist in it's success.

Anyway, it's disappointing to hear this coming straight from a dev. Why don't third parties do something about it? It sounds like a pretty big deal and I would think Iwata and company would do something about it. I don't think they're trying to give western devs the cold shoulder. I blame it on NOA and NOE.

 

[Bugbite]

I wonder how many third parties have gone to Nintendo and asked them what their strategy is in regards to making successful games. I don't think many, if any, have read up on their blue ocean or disruption philosophies that they've been following, so I would think the next logical step would be to ask Nintendo themselves.

Jackson, you guys did scribblenauts, right? Has your company been in talks with Nintendo when making DS titles? If so, what were the discussions about? Technical issues regarding the DS (wii?)? Business and marketting discussions about the types of games you guys wanted to make (i.e., would they sell and if so in what quantity)?

 

[Road]

God knows I'm gonna see this image multiple times around GAF, so might as well have the updated version:

 

[Koren]

Eh?! I played Command and Conquer in 320x200 and had a blast. 640x480 for Red Alert was a friggin' luxury.

Resolution has nothing to do with making entertaining games.

I agree. But this belief came frome the fact that developpers want more and more graphics even if that doesn't always go well with gameplay. Dune 2 is a really easy to read most of the time. C&C is nicer, but a bit more difficult to read. I'm amazed that I can easily see units in Starcraft 1, and have trouble recognizing the same unit in Starcraft 2 if the image is not clean and in pretty high resolution.

With 3D now, and their graphical choices, you often really need to have a good resolution to see units well. That's not true for all games, but there's indeed an issue.

My point is not that you couldn't develop a (nice) RTS game in SD, but that usually RTS are developped for HD or more, and don't work well in SD (and personnaly, I'd prefer a hideous, readible game to the current RTS where I can't play as I'd like... I'd prefer bitmaps units on near-solid colors so that it's only a matter of strategy, I'm not into eye-candy at all, especially in those games)

 

[Boney]

God knows I'm gonna see this image multiple times around GAF, so might as well have the updated version:

I know this mostly means of games crawling past the 1 million mark, but 9 games in three months is still a lot. I'd love to see which games were though..

Here's the DS one for comparisson.

 

[Jackson]

And here we have exhibit A for why 3rd Party should really be the last to complain about their situation on Wii

Drawn to Life Wii was a stupid idea, we turned it down and advised THQ not to do it, they did it anyway and it was a major flop for obvious reasons. The DS sequel however is doing great. (not scribblenauts great, but great).

 

[felipeko]

I know this mostly means of games crawling past the 1 million mark, but 9 games in three months is still a lot. I'd love to see which games were though..

11 games.

 

[Boney]

11 games.

Oops you're right, hey it's summer here, brain is turned off.

 

[jrricky]

Drawn to Life Wii was a stupid idea, we turned it down and advised THQ not to do it, they did it anyway and it was a major flop for obvious reasons. The DS sequel however is doing great.

Interesting...I thought you guys owned the IP? At least your getting a cut of whatever minuscule amount its making?

 

[Sadist]

That million sellers list would be more meaningfull if we had some names.

Sure we know about the Resident Evil games, Star Wars TFU, Cooking Mama, Guitar Hero III and WT, Monkey Ball, EA Sports Active, a few Sonic games, Tiger Woods, Call of Duty's... but it would be nice if we had some actual numbers.

 

[rohlfinator]

I just wanted to say, I don't think Nintendo "ISN'T" trying. Maybe not as hard, but recently we learned that they're making a Wii Highest Rated Games thing in Japan. They've also teamed up with Team Ninja for Metroid Other M, secured Tales of Graces, Monster Hunter 3, and supposedly DQX.

Oh, and the new Mistwalker game.

So they seem to be trying more. I think Nintendo of America needs to be given more power to secure games, though.

They seem to be doing a better job now, but in a lot of respects it's too little too late. By this point in the generation, the consoles have basically carved out their audiences and it's going to be really hard to change that (same reason why Natal and Sony-Wand-Thingy are not likely to capture much of the Wii's audience).

Nintendo should have been doing this stuff to court third parties before the Wii had even launched. After coming off two consoles that failed to attract third party support and then designing a Wii that was 100% port-unfriendly, they should have realized that third-party support wasn't going to come easy. Nintendo repeatedly dropped the ball in third-party relations for the first 1-2 years of the Wii's lifecycle, and that's long enough to let trends start to settle in.

Had either third parties or Nintendo made a more concerted effort at the beginning of the gen, things could have been different. IMO the fault lies with all involved, but it's not the third parties' job to maintain the health of Nintendo's console.

 

[Spiegel]

You are not Jokeropia

!!!

 

[Ikael]

The Jackson post was insightful, specially about how Nintendo levels its domination on the platafform in detriment of the third parties, but sorry, this:

My opinion is that even Miyamoto couldn't keep pumping out new ideas using the waggle, they moved over to Wii Fit board. If Miyamoto can't make new original stuff on it, who can?!

Is wrong in many levels. I cannot believe that an evening with my friends theorizing about the wiiremote can be more productive than the whole third party output on it. You can create whole games from the crude mechanics introduced by some Nintendo minigames (tank battle anyone?), adapt existing genres to it without any effort (strategy games, graphic adventures), or just try things like the perennial lightsaber game or a dance game a la ouendan in the same vein of the Wario Ware minigame, yet NONE of these happened. The Wiimote and its possibilities have been criminally underused, and the only logic involved on that has been primaly economic (competition against Nintendo, experimental risk vs benefit, etc). And it is a sad thing.

 

[KamenSenshi]

The Jackson post was insightful, specially about how Nintendo levels its domination on the platafform in detriment of the third parties, but sorry, this:



Is wrong in many levels. I cannot believe that an evening with my friends theorizing about the wiiremote can be more productive than the whole third party output on it. You can create whole games from the crude mechanics introduced by some Nintendo minigames (tank battle anyone?), adapt existing genres to it without any effort (strategy games, graphic adventures), or just try things like the perennial lightsaber game or a dance game a la ouendan in the same vein of the Wario Ware minigame, yet NONE of these happened. The Wiimote and its possibilities have been criminally underused, and the only logic involved on that has been primaly economic (competition against Nintendo, experimental risk vs benefit, etc). And it is a sad thing.

i agree that it was definitely wrong, just so many things that haven't been tried or fleshed out like you said. besides the lightsaber there could be a mario paint style game. not saying that all of the users ideas are better than devs, just that the devs easily say there is nothing else that could work or no one can come up with anything.

 

[Version 3.0]

They seem to be doing a better job now, but in a lot of respects it's too little too late. By this point in the generation, the consoles have basically carved out their audiences and it's going to be really hard to change that (same reason why Natal and Sony-Wand-Thingy are not likely to capture much of the Wii's audience).

Nintendo should have been doing this stuff to court third parties before the Wii had even launched. After coming off two consoles that failed to attract third party support and then designing a Wii that was 100% port-unfriendly, they should have realized that third-party support wasn't going to come easy. Nintendo repeatedly dropped the ball in third-party relations for the first 1-2 years of the Wii's lifecycle, and that's long enough to let trends start to settle in.

Had either third parties or Nintendo made a more concerted effort at the beginning of the gen, things could have been different. IMO the fault lies with all involved, but it's not the third parties' job to maintain the health of Nintendo's console.

You had me until the end. There's never been a healthier console. It's breaking hardware records and software records--just not 3rd party software records. Nintendo's created a huge installed base and a voracious software market, exactly the things you would want from a market leader. 3rd parties' place in that market is up to them.

The things you talk about aren't Nintendo's responsibility, they're just good ideas--things that make sense to do, things we'd like them to do. But they've done their part. They're like a teacher who teaches the lesson and nothing more. You can't blame the teacher if your child fails because he didn't offer private tutoring, whether other teachers offer it or not.

 

[Sipowicz]

i do notice how much faith developers tend to put in the likes of pachter and games journalists like chris remo, which i think is a bad idea to be honest

pachter has been predicting doom and gloom for the wii since before it released, and third parties listened to him leading to the current situation

i remember chris remo throwing a shit fit about epic mickey on the wii and stating that the wii doesn't deserve proper games and should get casual spinoffs like extraction instead. that worked out well for EA didn't it? now he's "reporting" about pachter's latest forum post. it's fucking transparent

 

[Version 3.0]

The Wiimote and its possibilities have been criminally underused, and the only logic involved on that has been primaly economic (competition against Nintendo, experimental risk vs benefit, etc). And it is a sad thing.

I think Nintendo has also not explored the Wiimote's possibilities very well. Wii Sports (and Resort) and Wii Play are basically demos, but full games from these concepts and others have, for the most part, never materialized. 3rd parties have done an even worse job--almost collectively--than Nintendo has done single-handedly, which is pathetic, but I don't feel that Nintendo's been exactly a shining example.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

They seem to be doing a better job now, but in a lot of respects it's too little too late. By this point in the generation, the consoles have basically carved out their audiences and it's going to be really hard to change that (same reason why Natal and Sony-Wand-Thingy are not likely to capture much of the Wii's audience).

Nintendo should have been doing this stuff to court third parties before the Wii had even launched. After coming off two consoles that failed to attract third party support and then designing a Wii that was 100% port-unfriendly, they should have realized that third-party support wasn't going to come easy. Nintendo repeatedly dropped the ball in third-party relations for the first 1-2 years of the Wii's lifecycle, and that's long enough to let trends start to settle in.

Had either third parties or Nintendo made a more concerted effort at the beginning of the gen, things could have been different. IMO the fault lies with all involved, but it's not the third parties' job to maintain the health of Nintendo's console.

Edit - Sorry, I guess my point is that Nintendo has tried courting third parties, but below are the results of why I think the situation is what it is.

I've already said it, but I'll go into to detail of what I think the problem is. First off, both Nintendo and the third parties are to blame. You can't say Nintendo isn't trying, but they aren't trying hard enough, so let's start at the beginning.

N64 - Nintendo lost a lot of Japanese support to Sony by sticking with cartridges rather than using disc based media. They did reach out, particularly to western developers. Remember the dream team - Midway, Acclaim & Lucas Arts had a huge following on N64. Nintendo even made an arcade cabinet in collaboration with Midway. Either way, it wasn't enough and Nintendo knew they had to fix the problem. A pattern began to develop with gamers though: Nintendo's first party games were labeled as "Kiddy." Probably viral marketing by Sony.

GCN - Nintendo made a system that was easy and cheap to program for. They made deals with Capcom, Konami, Sega and Namco. They also started looking to smaller companies from both the east and west to make games with. Aside from a few examples, third party ports were kiddy. Exclusive games like Turok, Shadowman, Doom, Quake etc. were no where to be found and went to Xbox instead. Western devs had jumped ship - something Nintendo probably weren't counting on. It didn't help matters any that GCN released with Luigi and not a single mature title, but hind sight is 20/20. By the time GCN had reached it's 3rd birthday, third party ports were notorious for being unacceptably sloppy. Either way, Nintendo should have reached out to western devs like they did w/N64.

Wii - Nintendo launched with Zelda and RE4 which both sold well and released with in the first few months of Wii. Despite that, western third parties continued to push kiddy shovelware down Wii gamer's throats. Any mature third party game worth looking at is either a sloppy port, downgraded or a niche genre. Nintendo appears to be mainly focused on eastern third parties, while western third parties have all but given up like they did w/GCN. Edit - Actually western devs had written Wii off from the get go. Gamers have learned that aside from those niche titles, third party games will have to be sought elsewhere. Nintendo knew this and specifically chose to leave that fight between Sony and Microsoft. They do still need third party exclusives though.

It's really not that complicated, but both parties are responsible. I do think a lot of it has to do with Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln retiring from NOA. Every since that point, NOA has been in a serious decline. Reggie seems to be solely focused on the casual gamer and not the core gamer. Someone needs to talk to him though and resolve the situation. Miyamoto won't be around forever and when that day comes, Nintendo will need all the third party support they can get.

 

[Jackson]

(tank battle anyone?), adapt existing genres to it without any effort (strategy games, graphic adventures), or just try things like the perennial lightsaber game or a dance game a la ouendan in the same vein of the Wario Ware minigame, yet NONE of these happened. The Wiimote and its possibilities have been criminally underused, and the only logic involved on that has been primaly economic (competition against Nintendo, experimental risk vs benefit, etc). And it is a sad thing.

A dance game a la Elite Beat Agents? Well... "Just Dance Wii" came out recently and sold well for 2 months in the pipe.

Lightsaber game? It's called No More Heroes.

And yes, 3rd parties make money on PS3/360 and typically lose money on Wii, so of course they're going to continue that trend they're risk adverse.

I'm just explaining how publishers think because I talk to all of them all the time. If anyone is a champion of using a system to it's fullest and thinking outside the box with game ideas and trying something risky its me. My track record speaks a lot louder than my posts.

Bottomline is though, there's few 5th cell like games and tons of ubisoft petz clones. Games and game ideas are hard to make

 

[jay]

I agree there's tons of great ideas, but are they marketable? Zak & Wiki was fun as heck, Little King's Story too, but sold like poo cause it's not the Wii's market.(

You know a lot more than I do about most things regarding the industry, but it pains me to see a developer use these games as examples of Wii failures. Maybe with Z&W Capcom had hopes of opening up a new market of movement based adventure games, but really there isn't much reason to think it should have been a big hit when plenty of good games bomb on all platforms (say Okami on PS2, a game by the same publisher in a far more popular genre).

And I thought LKS did alright (thanks to Europe)? Maybe it didn't set the world on fire like Rule of Rose or Chulip and so seems like a comparative failure.

My point is the games you chose aren't exactly in any consoles market.

 

[MidnightScott]

The problem of third party games on Wii isn't the casual crowd, it's the so called "hardcore" gamers, which for the most part all own a Wii but rarely ever consider looking into third party games on the system.

I mean, who here actually bought Muramasa, House of the Dead Overkill or Silent Hill? Given the critical acclaim those titles got, not enough so called "gamers" did!

I've bought just about every important Wii game out there save for a few I had no interest in.

MadWorld, Muramasa, Tatsunoko, No More Heroes 1 & 2, HotD: Overkill, both the RE rail shooters, etc. Here's my collection: http://backloggery.com/midnightscott

Third parties are finally starting to bring out more games I'm interested in actually. Fragile is probably the next Wii game I'll buy in March. Maybe even Red Steel 2, who knows.

I think Zack & Wiki was made for the casual crowd, but lacked any marketing or advertising that Capcom could've put behind it. Also, the name was strange...

 

[Eteric Rice]

A dance game a la Elite Beat Agents? Well... "Just Dance Wii" came out recently and sold well for 2 months in the pipe.

Lightsaber game? It's called No More Heroes.

And yes, 3rd parties make money on PS3/360 and typically lose money on Wii, so of course they're going to continue that trend they're risk adverse.

I'm just explaining how publishers think because I talk to all of them all the time. If anyone is a champion of using a system to it's fullest and thinking outside the box with game ideas and trying something risky its me. My track record speaks a lot louder than my posts.

Bottomline is though, there's few 5th cell like games and tons of ubisoft petz clones. Games and game ideas are hard to make

Why not a Morrowind style game using WM+? Or maybe a detective game using WM+? Or a stealth game where you use the Wii-mote to clip wires to disarm alarms?

Why not a Diablo II style game using the pointer to target and move your character around?

I mean, there's a lot of neat ideas that no one seems to want to do. These are the things people wanted in the first place.

Also, I believe most third parties lose money because their games fall into niche areas, or they're just unappealing. DSE for instance, is unappealing to me because I'd rather spend my money on a 3rd person shooter or a more "full" game that gives me more control.

Also, NMH really doesn't use the Wii-mote to it's fullest imo. It's more to give you the "feeling" that you're beating the shit out of people, rather than actually contributing much to the gameplay. Which is fine, but it's kind of a different approach.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Edit - Sorry, I guess my point is that Nintendo has tried courting third parties, but below are the results of why I think the situation is what it is.

I've already said it, but I'll go into to detail of what I think the problem is. First off, both Nintendo and the third parties are to blame. You can't say Nintendo isn't trying, but they aren't trying hard enough, so let's start at the beginning.

N64 - Nintendo lost a lot of Japanese support to Sony by sticking with cartridges rather than using disc based media. They did reach out, particularly to western developers. Remember the dream team - Midway, Acclaim & Lucas Arts had a huge following on N64. Nintendo even made an arcade cabinet in collaboration with Midway. Either way, it wasn't enough and Nintendo knew they had to fix the problem. A pattern began to develop with gamers though: Nintendo's first party games were labeled as "Kiddy." Probably viral marketing by Sony.

GCN - Nintendo made a system that was easy and cheap to program for. They made deals with Capcom, Konami, Sega and Namco. They also started looking to smaller companies from both the east and west to make games with. Aside from a few examples, third party ports were kiddy. Exclusive games like Turok, Shadowman, Doom, Quake etc. were no where to be found and went to Xbox instead. Western devs had jumped ship - something Nintendo probably weren't counting on. It didn't help matters any that GCN released with Luigi and not a single mature title, but hind sight is 20/20. By the time GCN had reached it's 3rd birthday, third party ports were notorious for being unacceptably sloppy. Either way, Nintendo should have reached out to western devs like they did w/N64.

Wii - Nintendo launched with Zelda and RE4 which both sold well and released with in the first few months of Wii. Despite that, western third parties continued to push kiddy shovelware down Wii gamer's throats. Any mature third party game worth looking at is either a sloppy port, downgraded or a niche genre. Nintendo appears to be mainly focused on eastern third parties, while western third parties have all but given up like they did w/GCN. Edit - Actually western devs had written Wii off from the get go. Gamers have learned that aside from those niche titles, third party games will have to be sought elsewhere. Nintendo knew this and specifically chose to leave that fight between Sony and Microsoft. They do still need third party exclusives though.

It's really not that complicated, but both parties are responsible. I do think a lot of it has to do with Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln retiring from NOA. Every since that point, NOA has been in a serious decline. Reggie seems to be solely focused on the casual gamer and not the core gamer. Someone needs to talk to him though and resolve the situation. Miyamoto won't be around forever and when that day comes, Nintendo will need all the third party support they can get.

I agree with most everything you say here, yeah. I'd only add a few things...

One would be that it wasn't just that the Xbox took over the Western hardcore gamer audience that the N64 had had. I mean, that definitely happened, absolutely no question, and you're absolutely right that it was a key point in why the GC did not get anywhere near the N64's level of success in the US. But even beyond that I'd say that Nintendo was hurt by how some of its major N64 Western third parties collapsed during the 6th gen, so even though some of the major ones like Midway and Acclaim did support the GC with some titles, their games just weren't as popular or successful as they had been the previous generation. Acclaim went out of business in the middle of that generation, and Midway only avoided it because of Sumner Redstone... and as soon as he sold (early this gen) they collapsed and got sold and broken up. And the companies that could have potentially replaced them were all on Xbox. Meanwhile Nintendo lost Rare to Microsoft and dropped Left Field after just one GC title each, and then there was the whole Silicon Knights thing... anyway, my point is, on the GC Nintendo was still making some efforts to attract the US hardcore, with stuff like Silicon Knights and Retro. It's the Wii where they pretty much abandoned that, really. But yes, overall the GC era was definitely a big change from the N64, there were just so many fewer major Western third-party exclusive titles, and instead the major third-party exclusive titles were Japanese. The difference was very noticeable.

But anyway, yeah...
-Xbox takes the Western FPS gamers who had been N64 fans the previous generation
-More Japanese exclusive titles which are not as successful here as the Western ones on the N64 had been
-Midway and Acclaim fall apart
-Rare leaves, Left Field dropped
-Silicon Knights joining and then leaving during the generation
-Retro founded; it and NST are Nintendo's only remaining Western development teams.


And the result was that the GC sold a lot less than the N64 had in the US -- 12.93 million GCs versus a bit over 20 million N64s -- which was a much bigger drop than the SNES to GC drop was in the US (the SNES sold 23.35 million in the Americas). The N64 had sold about 60% of its worldwide total in North America. The Gamecube only slightly evened it out on that, to maybe 56%, but in Japan at least that wasn't for lack of trying. It just didn't pay off until the DS came out.

But anyway, the difference between Wii and GC, as you say, is that with the GC they were still making some efforts to recapture that base. With the Wii they abandon it completely in favor of a focus on casuals and their base instead. Meanwhile Western third parties, bitter at the weak graphics I guess, decide to not support the system with much worth mentioning. At least the GC got some of the multiplatform titles...

Of course, this does apply much more to NOA than NCL. As has been said, NCL's current strategy is quite a bit better and more comprehensive. NOA's not paying attention because of all thatm oney they're making, but yeah, eventually their near-total disrespect of hardcore gamers, with all those games they have passed on localizing, no serious efforts to get much hardcore stuff on the Wii (sure, developers don't want to develop for a weaker system, but if Nintendo was paying...), etc, might come back to bite them... maybe not, maybe the casual-and-Nintendo-fans-who-won't-give-up-on-us strategy will keep working, but wouldn't it be better to be doing like NCL is and not putting all your bets on that?

But anyway, yes, I agree, both Nintendo and third parties are to blame. Nintendo didn't put much effort into getting Western hardcore stuff on the Wii (or Japanese core stuff that Western gamers would really like like Resident Evil games), and Western developers didn't want to support it because of the graphics and just dumped minigame collections on it. But Western or Japanese, when third parties start saying things like how bad sales of a rail shooter show that hardcore games won't sell on the Wii, when to some extent it's their own decisions that got the system to this point, it's pretty stupid.

Maybe Nintendo really doesn't need a better relationship with third parties, but yeah, I can't help but wonder. Of course it's really hard to compete with Nintendo, but still, with such a large market it's ridiculous that third parties continue to mostly ignore the system, as far as actually releasing good games on it goes. I know some of those casual games are decent games, but those lower review scores even for major titles definitely say something. But yeah, it's definitely factors from all sides -- Nintendo itself, Sony and Microsoft, and third parties -- that got things to this point. You can't just blame one group for the whole issue.

 

[ksamedi]

A dance game a la Elite Beat Agents? Well... "Just Dance Wii" came out recently and sold well for 2 months in the pipe.

Lightsaber game? It's called No More Heroes.

And yes, 3rd parties make money on PS3/360 and typically lose money on Wii, so of course they're going to continue that trend they're risk adverse.

I'm just explaining how publishers think because I talk to all of them all the time. If anyone is a champion of using a system to it's fullest and thinking outside the box with game ideas and trying something risky its me. My track record speaks a lot louder than my posts.

Bottomline is though, there's few 5th cell like games and tons of ubisoft petz clones. Games and game ideas are hard to make :)

Yeah well thats what differentiates a great dev from all the others. Not saying anything about 5th cell in general but a dev shouldn't have a hard time coming up with some cool ideas for the Wiimote. Its so much more versatile than any other controller.

 

[Version 3.0]

Here's some data worth noting from the NPD thread: updated weeks of ownership and game sales per week from JoshuJSlone.

Current tie ratios in the U.S. from Nintendo's financial briefing:

360 - 8.82
PS3 - 6.62
WII - 6.56

JoshuaJSlone,

Can you update your "games purchased per week" stat with this new data? Thanks!

Sure thing, donny.

First, the loooong view:

X360: 164 M games / 1,799 M weeks ownership = 0.091 games/week
PS3: 73.6 M games / 762 M weeks ownership = 0.097 games/week
Wii: 178 M games / 1,844 M weeks ownership = 0.097 games/week

However, it's also possible to take a shorter view. The last time I have decent tie ratios noted down is after September. They only went to 1 decimal so they're not as accurate, but hey. Anyway, by looking at the change in total games as well as the change in weeks ownership, we should get a games/week stat specific to Q4 2009.

X360: 21.3 M games / 223 M weeks ownership = 0.096 games/week
PS3: 14.3 M games / 125 M weeks ownership = 0.114 games/week
Wii: 37.9 M games / 304 M weeks ownership = 0.125 games/week


I've said before that one of the key problems with the whole games/week stat is that new system owners and older system owners wouldn't be expected to buy games at the same rate. So while I won't try to calculate it away somehow, it's at least worth noting how much the userbase grew during Q4, to get some idea of how "new heavy" certain systems were that quarter.

X360: +14.6%
PS3: +27.4%
Wii: +25.9%

 

[robjoh]

And yes, 3rd parties make money on PS3/360 and typically lose money on Wii, so of course they're going to continue that trend they're risk adverse.

I am not saying your are wrong, but if EA only is losing money on Wii they must have a tons of money they spend on Wii that never is shown, because they are losing a lot of money.

2K is not doing that great either so...

Of course activision is making a lot of money from xbox360/PS3, on the other hand I think that if COD WaW didn't make money we would never have seen COD MW Reflex.

I have problem to see that the market is so black and white that your statement is indicating.

 

[Jokeropia]

You are not Jokeropia

!!!

Maybe one day people will stop being ignorant on Wii software sales and I won't have to post that anymore. I wouldn't count on it, though.

 

[Shiggy]

I'm just explaining how publishers think because I talk to all of them all the time. If anyone is a champion of using a system to it's fullest and thinking outside the box with game ideas and trying something risky its me. My track record speaks a lot louder than my posts.

I wouldn't call you "a champion of using a system to its fullest". The execution of your games still leaves a little to be desired. That's where a "champion" succeeds - great game ideas with a great execution. Of course, only a few games achieved this status during this generation. SMG was one of them - Nintendo shines with high quality and innovative games, which appears to be a problem for third parties.

Why don't we have an airplane title akin to the one in WS: Resort? Why don't we have a tank battle game such as in Wii Play? What about a power-cruising title? It can't be only my family which would love to see these games. That's where third parties failed. Their financial troubles are their own faults, I just feel sorry for all developers who lose their job due to this severe ignorance.

 

[Opiate]

Another developer has gone under.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/33773/Koch-closes-Deep-Silver-Vienna-studio

This is a victim of the Wii, as the only game they've ever produced was on the system. And was "hardcore."

I think Wii supporters need to stop with the facile argument that Wii = success, HD = death. I think the better way to put it is this: "I'm not sure what the right formula is. But clearly, whatever third parties are doing right now isn't working."

That's much less specific, but consequently much more supportable by empirical evidence. We don't know enough to be as specific as to explain precisely why third parties are struggling: all we can say is that they are indeed struggling, when taken collectively.

 

[Eteric Rice]

I wouldn't call you "a champion of using a system to its fullest". The execution of your games still leaves a little to be desired. That's where a "champion" succeeds - great game ideas with a great execution. Of course, only a few games achieved this status during this generation. SMG was one of them - Nintendo shines with high quality and innovative games, which appears to be a problem for third parties.

Why don't we have an airplane title akin to the one in WS: Resort? Why don't we have a tank battle game such as in Wii Play? What about a power-cruising title? It can't be only my family which would love to see these games. That's where third parties failed. Their financial troubles are their own faults, I just feel sorry for all developers who lose their job due to this severe ignorance.

Actually, I have to give the guys that remade Klonoa some credit. They were able to pull some really, really nice effects out. It looks almost as good as Galaxy.

I think Wii supporters need to stop with the facile argument that Wii = success, HD = death. I think the better way to put it is this: "I'm not sure what the right formula is. But clearly, whatever third parties are doing right now isn't working."

I can agree with you here. But honestly, I forgot that Cursed Mountain even came out.

Now I feel guilty.

 

[Lazy vs Crazy]

Thats one instance where the SD resolution is a major hindrance, 1080p sometimes feels insufficient in RTS's.

Man they had Starcraft on the N64 and it was perfectly passable.

 

[Shiggy]

Another developer has gone under.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/33773/Koch-closes-Deep-Silver-Vienna-studio

This is a victim of the Wii, as the only game they've ever produced was on the system. And was "hardcore."

I think Wii supporters need to stop with the facile argument that Wii = success, HD = death. I think the better way to put it is this: "I'm not sure what the right formula is. But clearly, whatever third parties are doing right now isn't working."

Cursed Mountain was a flop, that's true. But it wasn't the only reason for closing the studio. Both founders left the studio, Koch has financial issues, Ride to Hell does not look to become a great success either. You cannot only blame Cursed Mountain for the closure of Deep Silver Vienna. That would be like blaming Lair for the closure of Factor 5 LLC.

 

[Opiate]

And yes, 3rd parties make money on PS3/360 and typically lose money on Wii, so of course they're going to continue that trend they're risk adverse.

It's probably worth discussing different types of risk. For example, I would distinguish between risk of game design (that is, untested or unproven mechanics) and a risk of investment (that is, a risk of large financial resources). Typically, a large risk of one kind necessitates a small risk of the other: companies produce risky ideas at a small financial cost, or make big, risky financial investments with very well established game mechanics. This is true not only in gaming, but in any industry, although particularly so in entertainment fields.

I think most major third parties are quite willing to take a large financial risk: in fact, it's their specialty. Only a dozen, perhaps a score of publishers are capable of producing 25M+ production games, so they are in a unique position to push them. As a consequence, they are less likely to produce high risk games in terms of game mechanics. This would be true on any platform: I don't think they're being particularly creative on any system. Most PS3/360 games play it quite safe, too.

 

[KamenSenshi]

Thats one instance where the SD resolution is a major hindrance, 1080p sometimes feels insufficient in RTS's.

i wouldnt say its too much of a problem though if maybe the game was styled in a way like civ rev. or when it comes to text just do a little larger light fonts on a dark blue dialog box.

 

[Danthrax]

Cursed Mountain was a flop, that's true. But it wasn't the only reason for closing the studio. Both founders left the studio, Koch has financial issues, Ride to Hell does not look to become a great success either. You cannot only blame Cursed Mountain for the closure of Deep Silver Vienna. That would be like blaming Lair for the closure of Factor 5 LLC.

I think the idea behind the argument is that if Lair had been a big hit, Factor 5 would probably still be operational. Likewise, if Cursed Mountain had been a big hit, Deep Silver would probably still be in business.

Sure, other problems existed for those companies besides their games flopping, but those problems would have been mitigated if the games were financial successes.

 

[rohlfinator]

You had me until the end. There's never been a healthier console. It's breaking hardware records and software records--just not 3rd party software records. Nintendo's created a huge installed base and a voracious software market, exactly the things you would want from a market leader. 3rd parties' place in that market is up to them.

Yeah, I should have specified -- health for third parties. Obviously the Wii is plenty healthy, but that isn't translating into success for the industry as a whole, just Nintendo.

I guess you could argue that Nintendo doesn't owe additional help to third parties, and that's fine, but when the other two first parties are bending over backwards to help, and Nintendo continues with its "can't-give-a-fuck" attitude, I guess it's hard for me to be surprised with the way things have turned out.

Edit - Sorry, I guess my point is that Nintendo has tried courting third parties, but below are the results of why I think the situation is what it is.

I've already said it, but I'll go into to detail of what I think the problem is. First off, both Nintendo and the third parties are to blame. You can't say Nintendo isn't trying, but they aren't trying hard enough, so let's start at the beginning.

My take on their key mistakes:

N64: Cartridges, mostly. N64 third-party support wasn't horrible, and the games they lost were mostly due to the restrictions of carts.

GCN: Had very little to distinguish it from the competition, and the unique properties it had were nearly all negatives. PS2 came off the successful PS1 and had a good early start with third parties, and Xbox was attractive due to the ease of porting from the PC and its growing online community. GCN was easy to develop for, yes, but it also stifled developers with low-capacity discs, an utter lack of any online support, and a controller that was needlessly different. These generally added up to the GCN getting the worst version of multiplatform games or skipped entirely. And there were not a lot of incentives for third parties to make up for those shortcomings.

Wii: Kind of took the GCN's mistakes (toward third parties) and amplified them. The controller and hardware were completely unsuitable for ports of major games, which is IMO its biggest hindrance. Wi-Fi was built in, but real online support was completely nonexistent at launch, and it's still a ridiculous free-for-all with no unified system and no legitimate voice chat solution. And there are have been bunch of other weird mistakes, like the slowness of getting new hardware out to third parties and the lateness of WiiWare.

None of these things are completely game-breaking, but it's still a pretty large pile of missteps compared to Microsoft (which hasn't really made any big mistakes in third-party relations, IMO) or Sony (whose biggest mistake was probably the unusual Cell architecture, but by most accounts they've made pretty good efforts to help developers work through that). And instead of making significant efforts to remedy those, Nintendo has taken a really laissez-faire attitude until 3-4 years into the generation when things have already played out. I don't really have any sympathy for their third-party situation due to this.

 

[Agnates]

Nintendo continues with its "can't-give-a-fuck" attitude, I guess it's hard for me to be surprised with the way things have turned out.

That still doesn't ring true to me. No, they don't "bend over" like you say the others do, but why should they? They're making so much money on their own, why offer charity to third parties? Do third parties deserve a piece of the Wii pie just because they don't already have it? Shouldn't they actually work to gain a piece of it? Yeah, okay, Nintendo profits are down, but so what? It's still way beyond last generation which was still very profitable for them, they can fall a long way more before feeling the need to beg. On the other hand we've seen them work together with both big and small fish in the industry so they're much more open than posts like yours imply. It seems third parties don't give a fuck even though Nintendo's often willing to work with them (but not chasing them for it).

[...]Nintendo so far seems to have struck deals with some pretty major players. Capcom for Monster Hunter, Square for Dragon Quest, Team Ninja for Metroid, Mistwalker for The Last Story, helping (a bit with the aiming controls only or whatever, but it's something) Ubisoft with Red Steel 2... And smaller ones, like hiring Treasure for Sin&Punishment 2, Sandlot for Reginleiv, Monster Games for the Excite games, Next Level Games for Punch-Out!!, Heastrong Games for Battalion Wars 2... And that's just the Wii front as I'm not familiar with the DS as a platform (I have a PSP ). Surely that shows the opposite attitude than is commonly thought of about Nintendo. They seem quite open to collaborations, or at least, more so than people thought and claimed in such discussions. Maybe developers just don't even care to make proposals, than Nintendo not care to strike deals? Of course, to partner with Nintendo you'll need something much bigger than most 3rd parties' efforts so far... But not that big, given some of the titles I mentioned.

All this didn't just spontageously happen yesterday, 3-4 years too late as you imply because we just got a couple of big announcements, as even those projects have clearly been behind the scenes for a long time. It's all moves they've been doing throughout the whole generation. I even forgot to mention the m+ bundles for EA Sports' games which was huge, as their own m+ game didn't arrive until later. They worked closely with Vicarious Visions for the online features of Guitar Hero 5, and made that available to all third parties, which still don't use them. They also lent Mario to SEGA. And their dev kits are dirt cheap. What should they do? Moneyhat each and every developer individually? They seem open enough, but likely nobody cares to make a semi serious proposal as the mentioned did.

 

[D.Lo]

I think Wii supporters need to stop with the facile argument that Wii = success, HD = death.

I don't think anyone is saying that specifically.

I think it's more like this: What third parties are doing (collectively) isn't working financially, especially compared to Nintendo's parallel astronomical success. And what they are doing, by and large, is big budget, A-team, well advertised core games on PS360, and shovelware, casual, cheap C-team outsouced spin-offs on Wii.

So there's a really obvious 'other thing' to try: Big budget, A-team, well advertised core games on the Wii. So far there has been ONE by ONE third party in ONE region. Sold a million.

They could also try loads shovelware, casual, cheap C-team outsouced spin-offs on PS360, that hasn't been tried yet either.

 

[KamenSenshi]

That still doesn't ring true to me. No, they don't "bend over" like you say the others do, but why should they? What should they do? Moneyhat each and every developer individually? They seem open enough, but likely nobody cares to make a semi serious proposal as the mentioned did.

this seems to be what a lot of people who dislike the wii think. nintendo cant go around and moneyhat the way microsoft can, nor should they. it doesnt seem like a good long term plan, particularly if your first party titles can keep you floating just as well if not better. im not saying that they dont nreally need 3rd parties, just that they arent going to be as obvious as the others in trying to buy support.

 

[Slavik81]

Cursed Mountain was a flop, that's true. But it wasn't the only reason for closing the studio. Both founders left the studio, Koch has financial issues, Ride to Hell does not look to become a great success either. You cannot only blame Cursed Mountain for the closure of Deep Silver Vienna. That would be like blaming Lair for the closure of Factor 5 LLC.

He didn't blame Cursed Mountain, he blamed the system it was released on. Which is even more ridiculous.

Success is not guaranteed no matter what system you're on. Even in the best of times, there are going to be some studios that go under. Blaming everything on the platform would be silly.

I'd say it's more like blaming PS3/360 for Grin's closure. Yes, they released their titles on those platforms, but their commercial failure of their titles was because of the games and deals they made.

 

[donny2112]

Another developer has gone under.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/33773/Koch-closes-Deep-Silver-Vienna-studio

This is a victim of the Wii, as the only game they've ever produced was on the system. And was "hardcore."

It was Cursed Mountain. :lol Despite IGN Wii's trumpeting of the game, once I read a little on the game, I knew I didn't want it. Apparently a lot of others agreed.

I think Wii supporters need to stop with the facile argument that Wii = success, HD = death.

When was the last time you read that argument put forward by someone you respected here? There's always going to be people on the fringes of a position that have "out there" thoughts, but that particular position was never a central mantra.

As far as the general third-party "core" environment on Wii, we've already agreed that it's mainly due to the lack of "umbrella" games. However, Cursed Mountain is a game that probably wouldn't have done much better on the most third-party friendly system of all-time, PS2. At least not enough to prevent the studio from going under.

Edit:
To be clear, again, Wii is not currently a fertile ground for the typical third-party core/content-driven game, at this point. The reasons that have been discussed ad naseum generally refer back to third-parties' near total lack of effort to build such a base on the system. With that in mind, no, the Wii possibly isn't the best place for really low tier core games like Cursed Mountain, but it might also be the only place left outside of going downloadable. That can change on Wii, but the effort to do so seems outside of what Nintendo or third-parties are willing to do. Therefore, it is unlikely to strongly improve on Wii from here on out.

That said, it'd sure be nice to see somebody try. :lol

 

[onipex]

this seems to be what a lot of people who dislike the wii think. nintendo cant go around and moneyhat the way microsoft can, nor should they. it doesnt seem like a good long term plan, particularly if your first party titles can keep you floating just as well if not better. im not saying that they dont nreally need 3rd parties, just that they arent going to be as obvious as the others in trying to buy support.

I don't think the money hats would pay off for Nintendo anyway. They haven't in the past with games like RE4 and it is usually do the efforts being screwed up in some way. One could argue that even MH3 was held back due to not shipping the more popular option.

Then there are the quality games that fail to set the sales charts on fire, capcom vs tatsunoko comes to mind. It remains to be seen how the MH3 deal will work out in the west. So far DQX is the biggest third party deal Nintendo has to hold on to and just like MH they have to try hard to push it in the west.

 

[Agnates]

Then there are the quality games that fail to set the sales charts on fire, capcom vs tatsunoko comes to mind.

When did a VS game set the charts on fire? Even with licences far more popular than that? It's not like this is a mainline SF game people... It's a spin off essentially. And from people who are into that stuff it seems it had already failed its arcade release test in the first place, so the problem wasn't the Wii. I'm sure it sells enough.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

It's interesting how nobody ever seems to discuss how third party games on any system can't touch Wii first party sales.

I mean, CoD4 had impressive sales, but it couldn't even dream of touching MKWii.

And in regard to first parties (if you don't want to compare 1st to 3rd); Microsoft and Sony should be looking into how their efforts can get to those levels. You wonder why it's "Wii's third party compared to 360/PS3 third party sales are terrible" but the reverse "Wii first/second party compared to 360/PS3 first/second party sales are amazing" is never discussed.
Shouldn't gamers on the other side of the coin be wondering what their respective 1st/2nd parties should be doing to try and meet Nintendo? They rely almost too much on third party support, which in my opinion, is far more dangerous than relying too much on 1st party.

 

[farnham]

It's interesting how nobody ever seems to discuss how third party games on any system can't touch Wii first party sales.

I mean, CoD4 had impressive sales, but it couldn't even dream of touching MKWii.

And in regard to first parties (if you don't want to compare 1st to 3rd); Microsoft and Sony should be looking into how their efforts can get to those levels. You wonder why it's "Wii's third party compared to 360/PS3 third party sales are terrible" but the reverse "Wii first/second party compared to 360/PS3 first/second party sales are amazing" is never discussed.
Shouldn't gamers on the other side of the coin be wondering what their respective 1st/2nd parties should be doing to try and meet Nintendo? They rely almost too much on third party support, which in my opinion, is far more dangerous than relying too much on 1st party.

i think first party comparison makes no sense at all.. first of all nintendo games sales are just not comparable... they produce 2 to 3 10 million + games every year... that is something even sony couldnt do with their ps2

 

[balladofwindfishes]

i think first party comparison makes no sense at all.. first of all nintendo games sales are just not comparable... they produce 2 to 3 10 million + games every year... that is something even sony couldnt do with their ps2

So shouldn't Sony be looking into ways to improve its first party efforts to increase sales?

I mean, the media asks Nintendo to try and find ways to improve its third party support, but they seem to look the other way to the first party efforts of the other two systems. Downplaying Nintendo's strengths and making them into weaknesses.

 

[Margalis]

I think it's more like this: What third parties are doing (collectively) isn't working financially...

It's amazing that despite constant closings, negative financial reports, layoffs and more layoffs very few people seem to get this.

Financially the industry as a whole is in bad shape, and Nintendo is one of the few bright spots. Financially third party publishers are in poor shape. These are just simple facts.

Really the question should not be "what should third party publishers do on the Wii?" but rather "what should third party publishers do, period?" Or even "what should publishers do, period?" Because very few of them are making money.

And it's not like the failures are small companies making niche products. Even companies that pursue the "blockbuster AAA title" and succeed are failing. Companies like EA and Take Two put out massive hits and still post poor overall results.