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[mysticstylez]

No, lower dev costs do not in any way breed creativity. But I can imagine it being incredibly difficult to get the green light on a game with unproven sales potential if it requires a next-gen graphics budget. Even games with a proven low sales potential (read niche) have the possibility of making a profit on the Wii where it might not on the more powerful platforms.

Thats the biggest problem with Wii, while it may be cheap to make games on it, it gives dev's no reason to take advantage of the system cause there is no competition. When the most consistent selling game is Wii Play, 3rd parties don't have much to reason to be creative.

 

[titiklabingapat]

I have a bunch of friends from work who bought the wii and aside from wii sports they really don't know what's coming to the platform (they don't even know about wii fit, for that matter), they bought it thinking it's "fun" (maybe it really is, I don't really know) but now it's just something that's sitting in the living room and they don't really play it much.

I wonder how many of the wii owners are those who don't play or give a shit about traditional games and are just kind of waiting for the next "wii sports", and I wonder if third-party publishers know the kind of audience they're dealing with here when they decide to move some of their franchises to the wii because of the success of the console. More importantly, given this new composition of wii owners, I wonder how Nintendo will approach their own traditional franchises like Zelda (the only franchise from Nintendo I actually give a shit about).

Sounds like many people I know who owned...PS2s...

 

[Bluemercury]

That's disgusting. Poor kitton.

I hate cats, they're filthy animals.

filthy? that makes dogs what?poop with four legs?

 

[Odrion]

filthy? that makes dogs what?

Chick magnets.

 

[mepaco]

If the point is to keep the costs down and ensure fair return, why would a developer even take the risks? Green lighting an odd ball project is RISK TAKING, whether you're spending 10 million or 5 million on an odd ball project that might end up selling 50k, you're still screwed.

Just because you're operating on a PS2-level budget doesn't mean all of a sudden you'll take more risks especially when you're choosing to expose yourself to fewer risks by limiting your budget by choosing the wii as a development platform.

If you were arguing the merit of small downloadable games maybe, but not games that would still cost 5-10 million or more to make.

Because taking risks is part growing a company and an industry; it is a necessary part of business. But that doesn't mean you can't limit the risks by spending less on the development. I'm really not sure what you are trying to say. I wasn't trying to say that putting a game on the Wii is not a risk, it still is, just less so. Where are you getting your figures from anyway? I have trouble believing that Wii games necessitate a budget of 5-10 million dollars.

 

[Mariah Carey]

"Nintendo how dare you make a videogame system that people like! And Capcom how could you bring your game to a platform where the most people will get to enjoy it?! You should be making games for me. Me, me, me, ME, ME!"

 

[Amir0x]

Man Mariah catches on quickly. Finally the heart is shown: People want games made for them, as opposed to for someone else.

Bravo, you ball of neverending wit! May your shit taste in games carry on forward for eternity!

 

[ksamedi]

I don't see how everyone is saying that Wii development is cheap. It can be cheap for a very cool idea with the controller which needs no graphical showpiece to stand on its own but if we don't count these type of games the Wiimote could be cause of huge budgets for big scale, epic games. If developers who make these kind of games want to make full use of the Wiimote they are going to need as much resources as those projects that use those extra resources to create HD graphics. The Wiiremote could be used for very complex (yet intuitive) games which needs huge programming resources.

 

[mysticstylez]

"Nintendo how dare you make a videogame system that people like! And Capcom how could you bring your game to a platform where the most people will get to enjoy it?! You should be making games for me. Me, me, me, ME, ME!"

To think that Capcom brought MH3 to the Wii for any other reason than because they can use the PS2 versions assets and add waggle, is crazy.

 

[junier]

Nintendo didn't "set us back a generation," hardware companies tried to leap a generation ahead when the audience didn't want it.

7 vaginas

Spoiler

kidding

 

[Mariah Carey]

Man Mariah catches on quickly. Finally the heart is shown: People want games made for them, as opposed to for someone else.

Of course they do. And it's fun to watch them demand a company to cater games specifically for them, and not, you know, the millions of other people out there.

Bravo, you ball of neverending wit! May your shit taste in games carry on forward for eternity!

It will. And may your shit taste in games be relegated to the high-end PCs from whence it came. *Blows kiss*

 

[mysticstylez]

I don't see how everyone is saying that Wii development is cheap. It can be cheap for a very cool idea with the controller which needs no graphical showpiece to stand on its own but if we don't count these type of games the Wiimote could be cause of huge budgets for big scale, epic games. If developers who make these kind of games want to make full use of the Wiimote they are going to need as much resources as those projects that use those extra resources to create HD graphics. The Wiiremote could be used for very complex (yet intuitive) games which needs huge programming resources.

Why should they, when they have no real reason to do so? They can bring over ports with wiimote enhancements, spend as little money as possible, make a profit, and call it a day. Whereas on 360 and PS3 owners expect to get the best production values possible by man, so devs have to spend the extra money to compete with other devs.

 

[Tenbatsu]

To think that Capcom brought MH3 to the Wii for any other reason than because they can use the PS2 versions assets and add waggle, is crazy.

That is true but other than that I dont think so. Before, the transition from MH2 Dos from MH on the PS2 is huge. So I expect this time to be too.

 

[ksamedi]

Why should they, when they have no real reason to do so? They can bring over ports with wiimote enhancements, spend as little money as possible, make a profit, and call it a day. Whereas on 360 and PS3 owners expect to get the best production values possible by man, so devs have to spend the extra money to compete with other devs.

Because those games rarely sell.

 

[Amir0x]

Of course they do. And it's fun to watch them demand a company to cater games specifically for them, and not, you know, the millions of other people out there.

Fuck those millions of others, they have proven each time that they have shit taste, are worthless and should die. A horrible death too, with crotch bugs and boils and venom.

It will. And may your shit taste in games be relegated to the high-end PCs from whence it came. *Blows kiss*

Man good thing some of the best games of all time are on PC. *phew*

 

[mysticstylez]

Because those games rarely sell.

Look at GBA games, why do you think there were all those crap games on it, because they sold enough to make a profit.

 

[Moridin]

Because those games rarely sell.

Although I'm sure there are a few that sold better than Metroid Prime 3. What happens when the publishers realize they can spend less time & money to makes something that will sell more to the alpha moms than the hardcore? Tim Rogers & Pazuzu are right.

 

[ksamedi]

Fuck those millions of others, they have proven each time that they have shit taste, and worthless and should die. A horrible death too, with crotch bugs and boils and venom.

Well atleast they don't buy the shitty third party games. The funny thing is, when these games don't sell GAF reasons its because its a Nintendo console, when they do sell, they somehow think its bad for gaming.

 

[Mariah Carey]

Fuck those millions of others, they have proven each time that they have shit taste, and worthless and should die. A horrible death too, with crotch bugs and boils and venom.

And who gets to determine what is "shit taste" here? YOU? Yeah, I thought so.

Man good thing some of the best games of all time are on PC. *phew*

...So why are we complaining? I'm sure LAN parties will still be held in basements for generations to come!

 

[mepaco]

I don't see how everyone is saying that Wii development is cheap. It can be cheap for a very cool idea with the controller which needs no graphical showpiece to stand on its own but if we don't count these type of games the Wiimote could be cause of huge budgets for big scale, epic games. If developers who make these kind of games want to make full use of the Wiimote they are going to need as much resources as those projects that use those extra resources to create HD graphics. The Wiiremote could be used for very complex (yet intuitive) games which needs huge programming resources.

That really isn't true at all. To effectively use the Wii-mote, you need a good idea for the control scheme, and one good developer to write the routines that interface with it. HD art for a full fledged game takes many times the costs.

 

[Jonnyram]

The way I see it is that technology was becoming more important than the games themselves (this was pretty much Sony's corporate stance, however), and the decline in the industry could only be resolved by this move. I don't necessarily agree with the waggle, and the total lack of HD, but the industry definitely needed a machine that was massively affordable this generation. 360 and PS3 could have achieved an affordable price eventually, but with the dearth of good stuff at the end of SD gen, and the slow take-up of HD gen, the industry was going to be in a fucking huge mess, financially speaking.

 

[ksamedi]

Although I'm sure there are a few that sold better than Metroid Prime 3. What happens when the publishers realize they can spend less time & money to makes something that will sell more to the alpha moms than the hardcore? Tim Rogers & Pazuzu are right.

When Metroid is done and its doing better numbers than MP1 (which sold close to 2 mill), only Zelda, maybe Mario Party and Wiiplay will have outsold it. No third party game has come close to these numbers besides Resident evil 4, Rayman and RedSteel which are all well below the 2 million. It just shows that people don't buy crap games so easily.

 

[Amir0x]

And who gets to determine what "shit taste" is here? YOU? Yeah, I thought so.

Of course it's me. I am the only one who appeals to me, and knows me, so I get to decide what is good taste and what is bad taste. You guys can come up with your own theories, but it's not my theory so it doesn't matter.

...So why are we complaining? I'm sure LAN parties will still be held in basements for generations to come!

Fuck LAN parties, see PC actually has competent online play unlike Wii.

 

[mysticstylez]

The way I see it is that technology was becoming more important than the games themselves (this was pretty much Sony's corporate stance, however), and the decline in the industry could only be resolved by this move. I don't necessarily agree with the waggle, and the total lack of HD, but the industry definitely needed a machine that was massively affordable this generation. 360 and PS3 could have achieved an affordable price eventually, but with the dearth of good stuff at the end of SD gen, and the slow take-up of HD gen, the industry was going to be in a fucking huge mess, financially speaking.

The PS2 was doing that well.

 

[ksamedi]

That really isn't true at all. To effectively use the Wii-mote, you need a good idea for the control scheme, and one good developer to write the routines that interface with it. HD art for a full fledged game takes many times the costs.

This is not true, the Wiiremote could be your hands in any type of game. Its not a matter of simple routines when the game is big and well executed. The Wiimote gives a lot of data and all should be filtered out for whatever action. There could be a lot of stuff that developers could do in these kind of games.

 

[Mariah Carey]

Of course it's me. I am the only one who appeals to me, and knows me, so I get to decide what is good taste and what is bad taste. You guys can come up with your own theories, but it's not my theory so it doesn't matter.

:lol Of course you mean the world to yourself. Just don't complain when you don't mean shit to anybody else.

Fuck LAN parties, see PC actually has competent online play unlike Wii.

Oh, dear! You can't play with actual people but rather with disembodied screen names and voices and avatars? I didn't realize things had gotten that bad...

 

[mepaco]

This is not true, the Wiiremote could be your hands in any type of game. Its not a matter of simple routines when the game is big and well executed. The Wiimote gives a lot of data and all should be filtered out for whatever action. There could be a lot of stuff that developers could do in these kind of games.

The only way in which this could possibly be true is if Nintendo didn't provide any sort of reasonable API and you were trying to do something close to 1:1 and even then I seriously doubt it would even be close. I'm sorry but the cost of developing HD art assets is much greater. I didn't say the code would necessarily be easy, but it doesn't require near the same amount of assets. The controller routines are going to be an extremely small part of the overall code base.

 

[QuickKick89]

Of course they do. And it's fun to watch them demand a company to cater games specifically for them, and not, you know, the millions of other people out there.

The thing is, right now it's looking like nearly 10 Million people will buy Halo 3. 10. Million. People. A lot of people wanted it. And I never saw a lot of people shitting a brick in anticipation for Wii Fit.

The fact is, the "mainstream" Nintendo is going for isn't the real mainstream. The mainstreamer wants games like Halo, GTA, and Madden.

 

[sprsk]

Broken record itt.

 

[Jonnyram]

The PS2 was doing that well.

Yes, but it was dropped, because the machine is now seven years old and software sales were falling every year. It's past saturation, basically.

 

[Jive Turkey]

And I never saw a lot of people shitting a brick in anticipation for Wii Fit.

Of course you didn't but you'll see them shitting entire buildings for Wii Fit 2.

They don't know what they want until Nintendo tells them they want it!

 

[QuickKick89]

This leads me to another question. Why is it when an analyst points a finger at Microsoft or Sony we get a decent conversation (as decent as possible on NeoGAF), but when Nintendo is threatened it turns into a 20-page flame war?

 

[twinturbo2]

I have to ask: has there been any Car Vaults in this thread yet?

 

[hellclerk]

The thing is, right now it's looking like nearly 10 Million people will buy Halo 3. 10. Million. People. A lot of people wanted it. And I never saw a lot of people shitting a brick in anticipation for Wii Fit.

The fact is, the "mainstream" Nintendo is going for isn't the real mainstream. The mainstreamer wants games like Halo, GTA, and Madden.

so you mean the 360 userbase? if thats the case, the 360 is the most mainstream gaming system out there, it certainly must be flying off of the shelves and comparing to the ps2 as one of the most popular gaming systems ever, right?

oh wait...

 

[jrricky]

To think that Capcom brought MH3 to the Wii for any other reason than because they can use the PS2 versions assets and add waggle, is crazy.

What? Looks at Wii's userbase.........................

 

[ethelred]

This leads me to another question. Why is it when an analyst points a finger at Microsoft or Sony we get a decent conversation (as decent as possible on NeoGAF), but when Nintendo is threatened it turns into a 20-page flame war?

Because it's Tim Rogers.

 

[QuickKick89]

so you mean the 360 userbase? if thats the case, the 360 is the most mainstream gaming system out there, it certainly must be flying off of the shelves and comparing to the ps2 as one of the most popular gaming systems ever, right?

oh wait...

Attach rates. That's all I'm gonna say.

 

[mepaco]

This leads me to another question. Why is it when an analyst points a finger at Microsoft or Sony we get a decent conversation (as decent as possible on NeoGAF), but when Nintendo is threatened it turns into a 20-page flame war?

Well, the article the thread is about really doesn't inspire decent conversation. When you start with crap like:

Hmm -- okay, Nintendo, just include some Sudoku puzzles and thirty-two variations on a minigame where you inflate a balloon by belligerently shaking the controller on a separate disc in the Monster Hunter 3 package, and maybe we can call it even.

Now, if only connecting the Nintendo Wii to the internet were easier than assembling a custom-made stereo circa 1968 . . .

you really can't expect too much out of the following thread.

 

[ksamedi]

The only way in which this could possibly be true is if Nintendo didn't provide any sort of reasonable API and you were trying to do something close to 1:1 and even then I seriously doubt it would even be close. I'm sorry but the cost of developing HD art assets is much greater. I didn't say the code would necessarily be easy, but it doesn't require near the same amount of assets. The controller routines are going to be an extremely small part of the overall code base.

Well from what I read about it is that the code gets a lot more complex because of the Wiiremote. Not only that but you have to also cope with the limitations of the Wiiremote, like detection errors. You have to guess some of the stuff the user was trying to do as accurate as possible and you have to build your entire game on these complex manipulations. You could be right in that it doesn't cost as much as HD assest but RedSteel costing 10 million is purely because of the Wiiremote because that game was lacking in every other department (Graphics, AI, presentation, story).

 

[Mariah Carey]

The fact is, the "mainstream" Nintendo is going for isn't the real mainstream. The mainstreamer wants games like Halo, GTA, and Madden.

I don't think we can really justify trying to define what "REAL" mainstream is. Yes, Halo and GTA and Madden are mainstream the same way The Matrix or The Terminator was mainstream. Nintendo seems to be going for a Titanic type of mainstream.

 

[ksamedi]

The thing is, right now it's looking like nearly 10 Million people will buy Halo 3. 10. Million. People. A lot of people wanted it. And I never saw a lot of people shitting a brick in anticipation for Wii Fit.

The fact is, the "mainstream" Nintendo is going for isn't the real mainstream. The mainstreamer wants games like Halo, GTA, and Madden.

Dude, WiiFit is only one game out of the many Nintendo is developing for Wii, they want more people to play games not lose customers.

 

[Jive Turkey]

This leads me to another question. Why is it when an analyst points a finger at Microsoft or Sony we get a decent conversation (as decent as possible on NeoGAF), but when Nintendo is threatened it turns into a 20-page flame war?

Missed the Gabe Newell thread did ya?

 

[legend166]

The thing is, right now it's looking like nearly 10 Million people will buy Halo 3. 10. Million. People. A lot of people wanted it. And I never saw a lot of people shitting a brick in anticipation for Wii Fit.

The fact is, the "mainstream" Nintendo is going for isn't the real mainstream. The mainstreamer wants games like Halo, GTA, and Madden.

1st - Halo 3 won't sell 10 million

2nd - Even if it does, it'll still be outsold by Nintendogs, Brain Training, etc

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

This leads me to another question. Why is it when an analyst points a finger at Microsoft or Sony we get a decent conversation (as decent as possible on NeoGAF), but when Nintendo is threatened it turns into a 20-page flame war?

Oh my. I don't know how much you're reading the GAF these days, but anytime an analyst points a finger at anyone a shitstorm erupts. The Microsoft fans are somewhat more well-behaved, but not significantly so. If Nintendo threads end up a bit longer it's only because there are more people sanctioned to poke at the crazy-ass Nintendo radicals free from the worry of bannination than the other groups.

 

[hellclerk]

Attach rates. That's all I'm gonna say.

and PS2's attach rates at this time in it's life were what?

 

[mepaco]

Well from what I read about it is that the code gets a lot more complex because of the Wiiremote. Not only that but you have to also cope with the limitations of the Wiiremote, like detection errors. You have to guess some of the stuff the user was trying to do as accurate as possible and you have to build your entire game on these complex manipulations. You could be right in that it doesn't cost as much as HD assest but RedSteel costing 10 million is purely because of the Wiiremote because that game was lacking in every other department (Graphics, AI, presentation, story).

It definitely isn't easy, especially when you are trying to closely mimic the operations of the user, but it still is a small part of the overall project. I would equate it to AI in that it is very hard to write good AI, not because it takes a lot of time and a whole lot of code, but because it requires skill and a certain amount of creativity. From what I remember, on most next-gen games, the amount spent on art assets and design is slightly higher than the amount spent on the programming. Seeing as how the controls are a small part of the overall code base, I really can't see how it could ever cost nearly as much as the art assets.

 

[blu]

Fatal INERTIA? That shitty ps3 racing game which got so in the red that it had to be ported to everything else to get a chance at getting even? No...no I don't want that

fixed

*goes back to playing excite*

 

[sprsk]

Oh my. I don't know how much you're reading the GAF these days, but anytime an analyst points a finger at anyone a shitstorm erupts. The Microsoft fans are somewhat more well-behaved, but not significantly so. If Nintendo threads end up a bit longer it's only because there are more people sanctioned to poke at the crazy-ass Nintendo radicals free from the worry of bannination than the other groups.

This is due to me working hard on banning the bat shit insane ones.

Nintendo has more "protected trolls" than any other system on this forum. I don't know why, just lucky I guess?

Or perhaps I'm wrong, maybe it's just the 2 major ones are so vocal we notice them more.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter.

 

[etiolate]

The worst case scenario is that Sony/MS upped the graphic requirement and know-how beyond that of the majority of developers and Nintendo upped the gameplay requirement and know-how beyond that of the great majority of devs, leaving everyone in two different colored dusts.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

This is due to me working hard on banning the bat shit insane ones.

Nintendo has more "protected trolls" than any other system on this forum. I don't know why, just lucky I guess?

Or perhaps I'm wrong, maybe it's just the 2 major ones are so vocal we notice them more.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter.

Yeah, whatever the case, it's not just a Nintendo or Sony or MS phenomenon that these crazy-ass threads ensue. It's pretty much a matter of course when you're dealing with 'superfans' of anything.