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[family_guy]

People seem so sure that a competitively specced "straight up" console from Nintendo wouldn't sell, but I'm not so sure. Yes, the Gamecube can be used as an example but that was over a decade ago now so who really knows?

But that looked like a purple lunch box with a Fisher Price controller. Plus it didn't have DVD. Amongst your peers, Gamecube was just not the cool console back then. Product perception and social awareness matter just as much as specs. Nintendo is bad at marketing.

 

[sörine]

Landstalker and The Immortal

LandStalker was produced by Sega.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

it didn't have Blu-ray

notsureifserious.gif

 

[Snakeyes]

You can't realistically invest and hope to compete against Sony/MS for the western AAA gamer, or mobile devices for the casuals. In the first case it's a matter of sinking trucks of money into developing cutting edge hardware, features, westernize internal teams (Uncharted, Gran Turismo, Killzone, God of War equivalents), grab exclusives to get internet talking, market the shit out of everything; the brute force approach.

For starters, they could at least try to balance their software lineup so that there aren't three kid-friendly looking games for every Bayonetta 2. I don't think they need to spend all that much to compete, but they do need to specifically create at least one or two high-profile IPs aimed squarely at the western gamer, just like they did with Goldeneye back in the 90s.

 

[Biker19]

SNES destroyed it in the genre. And I love Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force I-II and Beyond Oasis, but it's not even close.

Especially if we're talking 3rd party, Genesis was a wasteland there. I mean there was Warsong and ... what else?

This. Both consoles were great in their own way, though while Genesis/MegaDrive had more Sports games & Shoot-'Em-Up games, the SNES/Super Famicon had more JRPG's & were possibly more superior in one other genre far greater than Genesis/MegaDrive.

 

[lewisgone]

Interesting, all the people pointing to the GameCube disc size as a major example. I was under the impression that the decision to keep the N64 cartridge based was a far greater issue with third party relations, as the decision was deliberately made to make development difficult and weed out bad third party games (wasn't it? Remember reading that somewhere.)

 

[Ragnarok]

notsureifserious.gif

Most certainly meant DVD

 

[John Harker]

"Nintendo hasn't acted the way I've wanted them to since the NES"

 

[Poimandres]

But that looked like a purple lunch box with a Fisher Price controller. Plus it didn't have Blu-ray. Amongst your peers, Gamecube was just not the cool console back then. Product perception and social awareness matter just as much as specs. Nintendo is bad at marketing.

I think that generation is a strange one because Sony just destroyed everyone. I honestly don't know if there's anything Sega/Microsoft/Nintendo could have done to really change that outcome.

 

[TSM]

I think the main problem is that Nintendo has reached a crossroads. There exists so many hardware and software alternatives that they can no longer effectively lock people into their proprietary hardware anymore. They then exacerbated the situation by releasing hardware that is completely out of step with the rest of the industry. As a third party there's no compelling reason to want to be involved in Nintendo's walled garden at the moment.

 

[TreasureHunterG]

The person you're responding to was dead on correct. Your response tells me you weren't even around back then to know. Nintendo had an iron grip on third parties, plain and simple, and you didn't dare cross them and put your games on a competing platform unless you wanted to lose your license to put games on the NES!
Atari 5200 was already dead and buried by then so I don't even understand why that's mentioned. Commodore 64 was on it's way out.
The NES's competition was the Sega Master system and the Atari 7800. Both were absolutely trounced and sufferend from almost nonexistent third party support, because nobody wanted to cross Nintendo. Why not leave? Uh, because nobody was buying the other systems that's why!

I'm curious to know why did you left out SNES in your argument.

Little of this makes sense when both Sega Genesis and NEC PC-Engine came out first than SNES. Genesis in 10/29/88 (JP) and 08/14/89 (US) and PC-Engine in 10/30/87 (JP) and 08/29/89 (US). SNES came out in 11/21/90 (JP) and 08/23/91 (US). PC-Engine had a three years gap in Japan and two in US and Genesis had two years gap in both regions. TWO YEARS. More than enough time to build an installed base and create an alternative ecosystem for third-parties.

Third-parties were angry and waiting an opportunity to leave Nintendo? They didn't left NES because there weren't viable alternatives to compete against it? Okay.

Two systems already avaliable for three/two years on the market with a decent userbase, by those claims, it was reason enough for third-parties abandoning Nintendo and SNES suffering a third-party support shortage. Even when SNES came out, Genesis was outselling it in the first years. PC-Engine did fine on Japan, had consistent support from third-parties like Hudson and Namco and outsold Genesis during it's life time around there. There were viable alternatives on the market by 1990/1991, when SNES came out. In the end, third-parties kept their support, even with two platforms already avaliable on the market. SNES was the most supported platform at that generation. Outside from some exceptions, it was supported by every single third-party by that time.

The "no viable competion" and/or "no selling platforms avaliable on the market" excuses makes no sense with SNES. Like I said before, if third-parties were holding a grudge against Nintendo and were waiting a chance to free themselves from their practices, makes no sense for them to keep supporting the "draconian" company with two viable alternatives on the market.

It wasn't until a one two punch of Sonic the Hedgehog and killer marketing that the Genesis took off. It was then that Nintendo finally had a true competitor they couldn't keep down. Finally third parties could put their games on another popular platform without fear, because the monopoly was finally crumbling.

Despite Genesis outselling SNES in US, third-parties didn't left Nintendo. Some third-party games like SFII were pivotal for Nintendo starting a turn around against Sega.

Anti-competitive licensing practices which forbade them from developing for competing consoles.

Despite that they did. They dropped support for the NES relatively quickly and hopped aboard the Genesis early on, destroying Nintendo's console monopoly in the process.

There were many third-party games for NES even when Genesis and SNES were already on the market. Mega Man 4-5-6 came out at that time line.

The SNES was fighting from behind for a good stretch of its life and the superior third-party support the Genesis received in a number of genres certainly didn't hurt it there. Once the SNES was a success it got plenty of support, but it didn't start off that way.

Uh? Which genre do you think Genesis had upper hand over SNES?

 

[Theognosis]

Nintendo makes good games and does nothing else well. I think they need to partner with another company who can handle all the rest. Nintendo should not be designing hardware, and OS, or an online infrastructure.

There's no way in hell Nintendo will follow Sega on the latter's path to irrelevancy. Designing hardware goes hand in hand with introducing new games to the market. Nintendo brought us Game & Watch, Gameboy, Wii with Wiimote, dual screen touchscreen gaming, etc. Great games came along with those technologies.

 

[Log4Girlz]

I think the main problem is that Nintendo has reached a crossroads. There exists so many hardware and software alternatives that they can no longer effectively lock people into their proprietary hardware anymore. They then exacerbated the situation by releasing hardware that is completely out of step with the rest of the industry. As a third party there's no compelling reason to want to be involved in Nintendo's walled garden at the moment.

This is very true. In fact, they are probably having an existential crises.

 

[Game Guru]

I think that generation is a strange one because Sony just destroyed everyone. I honestly don't know if there's anything Sega/Microsoft/Nintendo could have done to really change that outcome.

No, the seventh generation is the strange one, because Sony didn't destroy everyone. You look at the sales of the PS1 and it's the fourth best selling system ever compared to nearest competitor N64 which sold less than the Genesis. You look at the sales of the PS2 and it's the best selling console ever compared to nearest competitor Xbox which sold less than the N64. PS4 at the moment has sold twice as much as the XB1 and looks to be continuing that trend for the rest of the generation. However... the generation of the PS3 had all three consoles sell as well as a first place console would generally do. That makes the seventh generation the aberration, and that is because of Sony being arrogant about their success which allowed a resurgent Nintendo and a determined MS to gain ground against them.

 

[Sakujou]

btw. OP should get a warning for stealth-port-begging.

No, the seventh generation is the strange one, because Sony didn't destroy everyone. You look at the sales of the PS1 and it's the fourth best selling system ever compared to nearest competitor N64 which sold less than the Genesis. You look at the sales of the PS2 and it's the best selling console ever compared to nearest competitor Xbox which sold less than the N64. PS4 at the moment has sold twice as much as the XB1 and looks to be continuing that trend for the rest of the generation. However... the generation of the PS3 had all three consoles sell as well as a first place console would generally do. That makes the seventh generation the aberration, and that is because of Sony being arrogant about their success which allowed a resurgent Nintendo and a determined MS to gain ground against them.

on the other hand, sony did quite well, even with their price point, fucked up artsy marketing(i loved it but i dont like sony) and of course their inferior version of games which were delivered in the first years. still most people bought the ps3 instead of 360 which is why iam still salty that sony can do whatever they want and people still buy their stuff.

have a look at psn, people were against always online and still 95% of the ps4 userbase is always online.

is there any logic?

 

[Sakujou]

. sry double post.

 

[Celine]

You look at the sales of the PS1 and it's the fourth best selling system ever compared to nearest competitor N64 which sold less than the Genesis.

Genesis/Mega Drive LTD (provided by Sega): 30.75M
N64 LTD (provided by Nintendo): 32.93M

 

[lazygecko]

Despite Genesis outselling SNES in US, third-parties didn't left Nintendo. Some third-party games like SFII were pivotal for Nintendo starting a turn around against Sega.

As I said earlier, Capcom had a very close personal relationship with Nintendo at the time so there might have been some conflict of interest. Their support for Sega was very reluctant token-like (even their first batch of games like Strider and Ghouls & Ghosts were ported by Sega themselves).

Regional markets were also very different, with Sega doing well in the US and Europe but were behind even NEC in Japan and a lot of Japanese developers were mainly concerned with the domestic market.

 

[Bar81]

Can we at least change the thread title so that the OP's ignorance doesn't remain on full display?

 

[Bar81]

Compared to Genesis? Sports games, SHMUPs, and beat em ups all come to mind. The Genesis was better, even if the SNES wasn't bad.

Genny/MD cleaned up on shmups and sports, the SNES/SFC was pathetically lacking in those categories. Beat em ups were much closer.

 

[Bar81]

Err... bullshit. There were many alternatives to Nintendo hardwares before 1991. Atari 5200 and 7800, MSX, Sega SG-1000, Sega Master System, NEC PC-Engine, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64... to name a few. This is a very biased and agenda driven point of view created around Nintendo, mostly to antagonize it, rather than tell the truth. Yes, there were some unfriendly practices toward third-parties from Nintendo at the time, the cartdrige manucfaturing and limited titles per year, as Konami had to create Ultra Games to overrule it and Namco and Tengen fought against it, but are very exagerated.

If Nintendo was so "evil" and "draconian" as some try to paint it, third-parties would have left them before Sony. Why didn't they left the NES and went to Sega SG-1000/Sega Master System, instead, if Nintendo was so mean to them? Why did they kept their support for SNES when there were NEC PC-Engine and Sega Genesis competing against it, if they were unhappy? Stockholm syndrome? LOL! This doesn't make any sense.

You don't seem to have any knowledge of what you are talking about.

 

[MrCunningham]

Little of this makes sense when both Sega Genesis and NEC PC-Engine came out first than SNES. Genesis in 10/29/88 (JP) and 08/14/89 (US) and PC-Engine in 10/30/87 (JP) and 08/29/89 (US). SNES came out in 11/21/90 (JP) and 08/23/91 (US). PC-Engine had a three years gap in Japan and two in US and Genesis had two years gap in both regions. TWO YEARS. More than enough time to build an installed base and create an alternative ecosystem for third-parties.

It may be true that Sega had more time to prepare, but they struggled with third party support for the Genesis/ Mega Drive in the early years, just like they did for the Sega Master System years before that. In the western regions Nintendo had a lock on third parties with their lucrative contracts, publishers were prohibited from developing games for competing consoles. If you look at the games that were released on the Sega Master System from its launch until about 1989-1990 or so, the majority of them were published by Sega.

in the first two years of the Genesis/ Mega Drive, third party support was almost non-existent 1988 only saw four retail games released for the console total, and 1989 were almost all Sega releases aside from the obscure publisher release. Things didn't start to change until Nintendo were forced to take their stranglehold off of third parties somewhere around the early 90s'. 1990 was really the year where third party support started to take off on the Genesis, Electronic Arts really made a big splash that year with games like Populous, Madden, Battle Squadron, NBA, Sword of Sodan and a few others. They were one of the first major third party publishers on that console and a key component to the systems early success.

In Japan NEC had a decent lineup of third party software for the PC Engine and were doing pretty well for themselves. They probably held off on releasing the PC Engine in western regions because Nintendo had a monopoly on third parties in those areas, even though NEC's third party support was still strong enough in Japan. Sega was in third place in Japan, selling way behind both Nintendo and NEC. Getting third parties to support the Mega Drive was probably next to impossible for them. Most Japanese publishers didn't even see the Mega Drive/ Genesis as a viable option until it started selling well in Western regions, and after Nintendo's contracts were lifted.

A lot of third party publishers did continue to make games on the SNES because it was a highly profitable console, but that third party dominance really started to shift with Sega in the 90s' and something that really slipped away from Nintendo with the event of the Playstation. The moment they lost their tight control on everything was when things started to go south.

 

[sörine]

Sega's early Japanese MegaDrive support consisted mainly of developers who'd previously focused on Japanese computers. Companies like Tecnosoft, Telenet, NCS, T&E Soft and Game Arts. The only "big" console oriented publisher they had early on really was Namco and that's mostly because of their fallout with Nintendo over Famicom licensing. It wasn't until later in the early 90s that Konami, Capcom and others came to the platform and that was due entirely to it's western success.

PC Engine had a quicker much build up of Japanese 3rd party support and was also much more successful in the home market. I think it's success tends to get underplayed in retrospect but in the late 1980s it was very competitive with Famicom and even matched it's hardware sales in some years.

Of course computer platforms were also big for games in the 80s in Japan, particularly NEC's PC88/98 and the MSX standard. And basically every large 3rd party had a presence there too, the Japanese market was much more varied and diverse than people seem to give credit for. Nintendo was never really the only option, just the largest one.

 

[LegendofLex]

People seem so sure that a competitively specced "straight up" console from Nintendo wouldn't sell, but I'm not so sure. Yes, the Gamecube can be used as an example but that was over a decade ago now so who really knows?

It wouldn't sell. That kind of console is fundamentally incompatible with Nintendo's business model. You're basically asking them to make a console that can handle games that cost 100s of millions to make (this console would likewise need to be very expensive), when the needs of their audience are games that cost 10s of millions to make (in other words, that only require cheap hardware because they rely on craftsmanship more than production value).

 

[Nickovic]

Bayonetta 2 is out?

 

[Game Guru]

Genesis/Mega Drive LTD (provided by Sega): 30.75M
N64 LTD (provided by Nintendo): 32.93M

Our sources on the N64 number seem to agree, but this is my source on the Mega Drive number, which includes any model of Mega Drive made by Sega including stuff like the Nomad, but not stuff like Majesco's Model 3 or the various Mega Drives put out by AtGames... What's your source for your number?

on the other hand, sony did quite well, even with their price point, fucked up artsy marketing(i loved it but i dont like sony) and of course their inferior version of games which were delivered in the first years. still most people bought the ps3 instead of 360 which is why iam still salty that sony can do whatever they want and people still buy their stuff.

have a look at psn, people were against always online and still 95% of the ps4 userbase is always online.

is there any logic?

Eh, Sony didn't do all that well at launch... What happened is that they got better sales over time as the price of the PS3 dropped and the games became on-par with the 360. It didn't help that 360 dived right in the Wii's market with Kinect and MS decided to kill anything core related save for Halo, Fable, Gears, and Forza. Really, the success of the Wii and Kinect made Nintendo and Microsoft blind to the efforts Sony was doing to rebuild their core fanbase which culminated in Nintendo fumbling with the Wii U and Microsoft fumbling with the XB1. Comparatively, the only fumble Sony made was requiring PS+ for online multiplayer while everything else has been focused on getting the core fanbase back.

In addition, Sony only completely dominates home consoles. In handhelds, it is Nintendo who dominates even if the seventh generation of handhelds was just as much an aberration because of Sony trying to enter the market. Of course, PC and mobile both dominate compared to home consoles and handhelds.

 

[MaverickHunterX]

And this is what screwed over Capcom. With carts you had to buy them from Nintendo and they were slow to make them. So you had to know how many carts to order in the initial release which is where most of your sales would be. Guess to low and you lose sales. Guess too high and you're stuck with a boat load of carts.(Which is what happened to Capcom. They figured SSF2 would sell well and ordered on the order of a million carts which they had to pay Nintendo before they sold anything. When it didn't sell they were stuck with them.) With CD's you could make them yourself and the turn around time for production was quick. So you could do a lower order and if it sold well just order more.

Don't mean to change topic, but does anyone have a link to an article that goes into this deeper? (The Capcom part, to be specific) I've been curious about the detailing of this...

 

[Wynnebeck]

btw. OP should get a warning for stealth-port-begging

Backseat modding is also bannable by the way. Cut it out.

 

[Cheerilee]

Sega's early Japanese MegaDrive support consisted mainly of developers who'd previously focused on Japanese computers. Companies like Tecnosoft, Telenet, NCS, T&E Soft and Game Arts. The only "big" console oriented publisher they had early on really was Namco and that's mostly because of their fallout with Nintendo over Famicom licensing. It wasn't until later in the early 90s that Konami, Capcom and others came to the platform and that was due entirely to it's western success.

PC Engine had a quicker much build up of Japanese 3rd party support and was also much more successful in the home market. I think it's success tends to get underplayed in retrospect but in the late 1980s it was very competitive with Famicom and even matched it's hardware sales in some years.

Of course computer platforms were also big for games in the 80s in Japan, particularly NEC's PC88/98 and the MSX standard. And basically every large 3rd party had a presence there too, the Japanese market was much more varied and diverse than people seem to give credit for. Nintendo was never really the only option, just the largest one.

Although it should also be noted that just because Nintendo didn't have a complete monopoly, doesn't mean they weren't abusing their monopoly powers during the NES era.

Nintendo threatened to cut off third parties and retailers who tried to support the competition, and engaged in tactics like artificial shortages and price fixing.

In the SNES era, there was more/healthier competition (despite Nintendo's best efforts to ensure that there wasn't), and Nintendo backed down from much of their oppression (because their bark had no more bite, and they couldn't afford to lose more allies), but plenty of people still thought that Nintendo was going to win, which still put Nintendo into a strong position.

 

[SargerusBR]

Nintendo has never played nice with third parties, third parties just didn't have a choice before 1991.

That first post.

 

[TreasureHunterG]

A lot of third party publishers did continue to make games on the SNES because it was a highly profitable console, but that third party dominance really started to shift with Sega in the 90s' and something that really slipped away from Nintendo with the event of the Playstation. The moment they lost their tight control on everything was when things started to go south.

SNES became a very profitable machine thanks to many of the third-party efforts. Sure, Nintendo titles were the top selling, but it would never had the same exodus relying only on Nintendo's own titles. Nintendo's success was partially due to its retention of most of it's key third-party developers from it's earlier system, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square, Koei, and Enix.

It's true that Nintendo no longer had an iron fist over third-parties from SNES onward, but there's nothing to suggest they were angry over Nintendo's practices and waiting for a chance to free themselves from their gasp, like it's commonly spreaded nowadays. Otherwise, companies mentioned above would find in PC-Engine/Genesis, considering their already avaliability on the market and even outselling Nintendo, an opportunity to get away and eliminate the need to support the dominating platform. Companies which had some kind of issue with Nintendo's practices, like Namco, did that. Hudson was a major PC-Engine supporter, their games were pivotal for it's initial success, but in the end, they returned for Nintendo/SNES.

They were angry with Nintendo since the NES days? Then makes little sense to keep support intact and help Nintendo's stance on the market when there was alternatives (and built ground) from both Sega and NEC to compete against it.

This is a NeoGAF post from 2010, it's an accurate story from why Square left out:

Definitely NOT.

The anger is older than that. There were a lot of problems between Nintendo and Square during SNES era (maybe some of them are incorrect, but the general idea is there) :
- problems with Super Mario RPG rights/benefits
- problems with royalties
- problems with large carts allocation (the rumor says Secret of Mana was scaled down because Nintendo chose to give largest carts to Enix first)

Most of the issues were money. Difficult to find ONE culprit, but generally, I'd say Nintendo didn't see Squaresoft as a major part for success and treated them with disdain.


As far as I know, it went further when Squaresoft was not in the N64 "Dream Team", and didn't receive any early development kits, like Enix did. The "FF6 64 demo" was developped on a SGI station instead.


Then Sony came to grag Squaresoft. Cheaper media indeed, but also and especially lower royalties, and a way to limit Nintendo near-monopoly on the market convinced them. Then, then went to convince Enix to go Sony's route too, by explaining them that splitting the market would be dangerous.

The rumors I heard says that Nintendo was especially angry against Squaresoft not for their departure but for taking Enix with them. Nintendo thought they could do without Squaresoft, but not without Enix, and the rumor also says that Dragon Quest was about to be annouced for N64. Difficult to know if it's the truth.


But shortly they were not happy together far earlier than N64, for money reasons, and CD is not the reason. It's the official explanation, that's all

And here's a part from an article explaining why the N64 Dream Team was a bad strategy from Nintendo.

http://videogamereview.tripod.com/n64/history.html

What happened? The delay "was a quality issue...we needed more time to get the quality level to the point where we were satisfied," said Howard Lincoln. That was as close as Nintendo would get to admitting it had made some mistakes with its "Dream Team." The companies Nintendo picked for their "Dream Team" software developers troubled the industry from the very start. Where Sony and Sega had hundreds of developers, Nintendo had chosen only 10. With the exception of Paradigm (which would develop PilotWings 64, with Miyamoto leading its development team), none of them were obvious choices. Williams was primarily a coin-op arcade game company. Spectrum Holobyte and Sierra Online were computer game developers, with little cartridge programming experience. DMA and Rare were unknowns. Gametek had no stable of hits. GTE Interactive Media and Angel Studios had never produced a game. And Acclaim was known for its high volume of lackluster, movie-licensed games for 16-bit systems. Either Nintendo knew something about them the competition did not, or the pool of Ultra 64 applicants was considerably smaller than predicted. The new November introduction date suggested the latter.

The road to Shoshinkai was an exercise in damage control. Nintendo had to move forward in the most visible ways possible to ensure the public progress they were making progress. Three new developers signed on, most notably LucasArts Entertainment, which would develop a high-profile Star Wars title, and Electronic Arts, to create a badly needed sports game for the new platform.

The first development Ultra 64's reached the "Dream Team" in August. Along with their arrival came hints that the controller was truly revolutionary, producing unprecedented control over new game elements. Also piquing the public's interest was the "storage accessory for the Ultra 64...not a CD."

 

[lazygecko]

Here is an old Frontline episode about Nintendo and their shenigans in the retail side of the business:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwd56K7rp7A

I remember seeing another news segment from the late 80's, but I can't find it.

 

[BishopLamont]

Not like third parties have treated Nintendo any better, its a two way street.

 

[SturokBGD]

Backseat modding is also bannable by the way. Cut it out.

A spiral within a spiral. A wheel within a wheel.

 

[Chindogg]

"Nintendo hasn't acted the way I've wanted them to since the NES"

I like you.

 

[MrCunningham]

Sega's early Japanese MegaDrive support consisted mainly of developers who'd previously focused on Japanese computers. Companies like Tecnosoft, Telenet, NCS, T&E Soft and Game Arts. The only "big" console oriented publisher they had early on really was Namco and that's mostly because of their fallout with Nintendo over Famicom licensing. It wasn't until later in the early 90s that Konami, Capcom and others came to the platform and that was due entirely to it's western success.

Oh, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, a lot of the earliest Japanese support for the Genesis came from those companies, which were all Japanese PC developers initially. It really seems like that was one of the hooks Sega had going for them back then, a lot of early western support came from the Amiga and other home microcomputers from the time and Japanese support came from home computer developers too. Though I guess there were exceptions like Namco, Taito (mostly known for arcade games) and Data East.

They were angry with Nintendo since the NES days? Then makes little sense to keep support intact and help Nintendo's stance on the market when there was alternatives (and built ground) from both Sega and NEC to compete against it.

I don't think companies were ever collectivly "angry" with Nintendo. Sure there are some noteworthy exceptions (posted in this thread) and once in a while companies did have their spats , but I think most publishers were fine working within the Nintendo ecosystem as long as they stayed profitable.

But I do think other first party developers made their systems look more enticing by offering better royalties and less restrictions than Nintendo was ever willing too. During the 8-bit years Nintendo was very restricted to how many games publishers could release per year, this caused a few publishers to create alternate labels to get around this. Konami had the Ultra brand, and Acclaim had different brands too, for example. Sega was also much less restrictive with censorship than Nintendo, which was another benefit. And yeah, the royalty fees were another thing.

Here is an old Frontline episode about Nintendo and their shenigans in the retail side of the business:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwd56K7rp7A

I remember seeing another news segment from the late 80's, but I can't find it.

Great video, and it really shows how much control Nintendo had on the industry. The video nails it that Toys R Us were always worried about offending Nintendo by stocking competitors products because Nintendo products made up at least 25% of their overall profits. They also made a point that Nintendo was very stingy on price drops.

Tengen was one of the few opposing companies, who were making unlicensed games for their console. Which is interesting, because Sega granted Tengen official licensing, as they did with Galoob with the Game Genie.

 

[Goldenroad]

Do ppl really think if Nintendo had a more powerful system theyd get 3rd parties?

No, but if they had a more powerful system and a large install base they would.

 

[number47]

Ill just throw out they tried to work with Sony. When that deal fell apart,suddenly the Playstation arrived. I don't blame them.

 

[Disaster Nebraska]

Nintendo was the first console manufacturer to enforce rules that reduced shovelware. They limited the titles-per-year that each publisher could release on the NES (which led to some companies just proxying their titles through other devs) in an effort to cut down on games that simply didn't work. A lot of people don't realize just how awful quality-control was during the Atari era.

 

[sfried]

Alright, I get what this thread is all about: "Let's all hate on Nintendo thread."

The issue of third parties has been discussed before (to death), and I don't see a lot of new arguments here apart from "Wii U is proof that they need 3rd parties desperately".

 

[Manmademan]

Ill just throw out they tried to work with Sony. When that deal fell apart,suddenly the Playstation arrived. I don't blame them.

They also tried to work with Phillips and THAT deal fell apart and we got Zelda and Mario games on the CDi.

 

[Paracelsus]

Ill just throw out they tried to work with Sony. When that deal fell apart,suddenly the Playstation arrived. I don't blame them.

Technically both Nintendo and Sega at one point had the Sony match ball and they blew it hard.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I don't see a lot of new arguments here apart from "Wii U is proof that they need 3rd parties desperately".

WiiU is also proof that Nintendo can be surprisingly resilient in the market with a product that has absolutely zero traditional 'core' third party support.

 

[Manmademan]

WiiU is also proof that Nintendo can be surprisingly resilient in the market with a product that has absolutely zero traditional 'core' third party support.

.

 

[anotherVegan]

Nintendo saved the gaming industry and put those standards on during the NES days because publishers were saturating the market with bad games. That led to the great crash in the eighties.

And Nintendo is the only reason Bayonetta 2 exists after others turned them down.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

.

You don't think its resilient, or that that resilience is surprising?

 

[Manmademan]

You don't think its resilient, or that that resilience is surprising?

Not at all. It's the worst major console launch of all time. You have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like "jaguar" and "3DO" to find systems that are worse.

If not for the handheld business, and banked money from the prosperity days of the wii propping up the company it would be "all dead" instead of just "mostly dead." There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

You have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like "jaguar" and "3DO" to find systems that are worse.

Which both had more and better third party support.
Or - as a more recent comparison - the Vita, which also has substantially more third party support.
The WiiUs been running on fumes for the last 18 months, and yet still has a lineup that means its going to continue going until at least the end of 2015.

Thats not surprisingly resilient? People expected a successor to be announced by now.

 

[Sandfox]

Which both had more and better third party support.
Or - as a more recent comparison - the Vita, which also has substantially more third party support.
The WiiUs been running on fumes for the last 18 months, and yet still has a lineup that means its going to continue going until at least the end of 2015.

Thats not surprisingly resilient? People expected a successor to be announced by now.

Anyone who expected that is crazy.

I will say that my Wii U has more than paid for itself in the amount of quality games I own and plan to own in the near future, and you wouldn't really expect that given how much focus is put on the bad things with the platform.

 

[Manmademan]

Which both had more and better third party support.
Or - as a more recent comparison - the Vita, which also has substantially more third party support.
The WiiUs been running on fumes for the last 18 months, and yet still has a lineup that means its going to continue going until at least the end of 2015.

not sure I understand you here, but let's clarify. I don't consider the Jag or 3D0 major consoles. Atari was a relic at that point under different ownership with barely any capital, and 3D0 was basically an unknown player with their first console outing. The Vita isn't a console, but a handheld, and that market is different and not under discussion here.

The Jaguar by no means had better third party support than the WiiU. The WiiU is better, full stop. What were the major Jag third party games? AvP? Rayman? Club Drive?

The 3D0 had marginally better support, but was crippled by a $600-700 price tag, slapped on a box with a name no one had ever heard of. The WiiU doesn't have that problem.

those two are worse consoles than the WiiU, but nintendo isn't working from that position. They're coming off a 100 million selling console and 30 years in the industry with a gigantic pile of money. Yet somehow they're projected to lose about 85% of their console userbase in a single generation. resilient this isn't. It's failed in every possible sense of the word, with only the hardest of the hardcore hanging on. Without wii and DS revenues, it would have been dead by now.

Thats not surprisingly resilient? People expected a successor to be announced by now.

No one sane expects a successor to a major console launch in 2 years. This has never happened, ever. Nintendo would have had to be planning for the WiiU to fail years before it ever hit shelves.