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[MadOdorMachine]

I often read that at some point in the 90's(people generally specify 1996-1998, with the arrival of the nintendo 64) Nintendo mysteriously stopped understanding players and caring about third party, but there is much more than just that.

A sort of divorce happened between Nintendo and players, who started caring more about Playstation and less about Nintendo.

As a teenager, i remmbered that the Gaming channel available on the satellite, Gameone, talked more about Playstation than Nintendo games. The N64 used cardridges and the limiations involved with this support, and Playstation could read music CDS which was a bonus. Playstation games also looked more mature and realist, and as a teenager i was fascinated by the games brought by Playstation, while Nintendo games looked like a bit behind.
Starting from that point, and until today in 2017, i have always been under the feeling that something was broken, and i cannot put an accurate word on it; Nintendo does produce consoles that can be successful and offer something different, but even so in many fields, there is that latent feeling that either they are behind either they fail to understand modern expectations.

Whether you agree or not with them, you often hear people complaining about Eshop's lack of competitivity, games bought that do not carry over and you have to buy again, lack of third party support.
Despite the success of their products, i have that impression that they cannot reach some sort of consensus or be as "mainstream" as other companies, and cannot help but associate this issue to the middle of the 90's.

As if, to be satisfied with them you need to be a fan, while to be satisfied with other console makers or on PC, you just need to be a customer.
But then, there are people who argue that there is a bias against Nintendo running in the industry and among medias, which makes us less forgiving with Nintendo than we are with their competitors.
Where is the truth in those perceptions and is there a schism that is still not fixed between Nintendo and players?Why do i often read that Nintendo's problem is that his fans do not support third parties? I think i never read that Sony's biggest problems are ps4 owners.

I think there's a misconception of Nintendo and their relationship with third parties during the N64. Nintendo clearly cared that they lost so much third party support during the N64 era or else they wouldn't have done what they did with GC. During the GC era, they tried really hard to meet the demands and expectations of third parties, but there was no stopping the PS2. It had too much momentum.

If you weren't around during the N64 era or were too young, this might be harder to understand, but Nintendo designed the system with gaming in mind. Everything about it from the chipset to the controller were all designed to appeal to the player. It was an amazing moment in gaming history that I don't think has been repeated since. Its really difficult to express the sense of awe people had seeing and controlling Mario in a 3D world for the first time. I don't even think VR reaches this level. In a lot of ways, the N64 was ahead of its time. There was nothing on PS1 or Saturn that came close to replicating the experience you had on N64.

Probably the biggest problem with the N64 were price of the cartridges, but it's important to note that cartridges (and solid state) has a lot of advantages over discs. Nintendo claims that LoZ - OoT wouldn't have been possible to make on N64 had they used CDs as the storage format. In addition, although CD's had more storage capacity and were cheaper to manufacture, the disc drives were expensive at the time and likely would have raised the cost of the system from around $250 to $400.

It's true that PS1 had more third party support than N64, but this didn't necessarily translate into better quality. It could also be argued that western third party support was better on N64 than PS1. Sony also had great marketing at the time that really painted Nintendo in a negative light and still affects them today. Although people no longer label Nintendo as "kiddy" there is still a stigma against them. Despite all of this, it could be argued that the first and third party games on N64 were more influential to the industry than what was on PS1 or Saturn.

So, I don't think it's accurate to point to the N64 era or GC era as the time when Nintendo stopped understanding gamers because when you look at these two systems and Nintendo's policies at the time, there is a lot of the evidence that shows they actually did care. In my mind, the era that Nintendo actually stopped understanding the market was with the Wii. As far as the controller goes, they had a great idea with the Wii remote and nun-chuck, but the completely abandoned the idea of competing with other technology, mainly graphics and online infrastructure. It's such a drastic change in direction, that I think it's pretty apparent if one looks at all the facts. They also either failed or didn't care about what the consequences would be with third parties due to these decisions. The fact that they have stuck with it this philosophy again with the Switch is truly mind boggling to me. At least with the Switch, they have left themselves with more room to maneuver and adapt though, so it's possible they could still turn things around. As it currently stands, I'm not convinced that the Switch will be a long term success, but time will tell and like I said, at least now they have options due to the architecture they chose to use.

 

[staticneuron]

I often read that at some point in the 90's(people generally specify 1996-1998, with the arrival of the nintendo 64) Nintendo mysteriously stopped understanding players and caring about third party, but there is much more than just that.

A sort of divorce happened between Nintendo and players, who started caring more about Playstation and less about Nintendo.

As a teenager, i remmbered that the Gaming channel available on the satellite, Gameone, talked more about Playstation than Nintendo games. The N64 used cardridges and the limiations involved with this support, and Playstation could read music CDS which was a bonus. Playstation games also looked more mature and realist, and as a teenager i was fascinated by the games brought by Playstation, while Nintendo games looked like a bit behind.
Starting from that point, and until today in 2017, i have always been under the feeling that something was broken, and i cannot put an accurate word on it; Nintendo does produce consoles that can be successful and offer something different, but even so in many fields, there is that latent feeling that either they are behind either they fail to understand modern expectations.

Whether you agree or not with them, you often hear people complaining about Eshop's lack of competitivity, games bought that do not carry over and you have to buy again, lack of third party support.
Despite the success of their products, i have that impression that they cannot reach some sort of consensus or be as "mainstream" as other companies, and cannot help but associate this issue to the middle of the 90's.

As if, to be satisfied with them you need to be a fan, while to be satisfied with other console makers or on PC, you just need to be a customer.
But then, there are people who argue that there is a bias against Nintendo running in the industry and among medias, which makes us less forgiving with Nintendo than we are with their competitors.
Where is the truth in those perceptions and is there a schism that is still not fixed between Nintendo and players?Why do i often read that Nintendo's problem is that his fans do not support third parties? I think i never read that Sony's biggest problems are ps4 owners.

That is because nintento's focus and audience they cater to is narrow. Most of their titles have a "General Audience" feel and are non-offensive. Because of this as well story takes backseat in most of their franchises. Sony came along and instead of making ALL games a GA feel they decided to cater to different tastes. Therefore when people talk about their fave games on the playstations they might be different genre's, tone and artistic style. That approach has worked well for them and so the appeal is wider. For nintendo, you know what you are going to get for the most part. There are little surprises. For Sony, there are surprises, good(horizon) or bad (socom confrontation), they keep it interesting.

 

[Even]

Sony deliberately targeted 18-34 year old males at a time when gamers were starting to grow up. They still cling to that demographic.

Nintendo deliberately stuck to its core market of 8-12 year olds.

Sony targeted almost the same market. Kids (in body and/or mind) who want to look like grown ups. An easy target for all the "Nintendo is for kids" nonsense.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

Kinda weird everyone is drudging up things that happened 20 or more years ago under Yamauchi's warlord reign.

Heck, that Square Enix quote above is so old that Square Enix came back to Nintendo after Yamauchi left the company and Iwata became the new president.

It's a bit of a GAF epidemic, actually. It's cropping up more and more in more places.

Matt Leone's 'Oral History of Final Fantasy 7' is really quite impressive, and though I've mentioned the piece in quite a few threads already, there's one point that is perhaps worth making more explicit, in this context:

In the November 1995 issue of Maximum magazine, Nintendo's Yoshio Hongo said Mario RPG had already been in development for "about two years", which would suggest that its development started in late 1993 or early 1994 (although Gaming Historian states in the video that work started in summer of 1994). [Shigeru] Miyamoto's appearance with [Square's] Fujioka at the 1995 V-Jump Festival would have been around July 1995. Square's Final Fantasy SGI Demo at Siggraph was a bit later, in August 1995, and Matt Leone's Final 'Fantasy 7: An Oral History' gives us some additional details about the timeline...

One thing that surprised me when reading through Leone's piece was the apparent sense of loyalty that Square had towards Yamauchi-era Nintendo, all the way up until late 1995: despite whatever resentments Square may have had with respect to some of Nintendo's policies (such as Nintendo's reportedly preferential treatment towards Enix), there was still an apparent sense of loyalty towards Nintendo, all the way up until the late-1995 decision to switch to PlayStation.

For example, in Leone's piece, Kitase, Nomura, Kawai, Kajitani, Yoshinari, Sakakibara (of Square) and Darren Smith (of Nintendo) are all quite specific in their recollection of the earnest efforts that were made by Square in experimenting with the early N64 hardware, before any decision was made by Square to switch to PlayStation:

https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7
Final Fantasy 7: An Oral History
BY Matt Leone

...Nintendo [had] a partnership with Silicon Graphics for its Nintendo 64 hardware, making for what some thought would be a natural transition using [Square's] experience from the [August 1995] Siggraph demo. Square began to put together a plan for what a 3D Final Fantasy 7 could look like on Nintendo 64. The concept involved making the game for Nintendo's 64DD peripheral... Square was one of the biggest studios to jump ship, announcing in early 1996 that it had decided to shift its entire lineup to Sony's hardware, with Final Fantasy 7 as the centerpiece...

Hiroshi Kawai: ...one of my responsibilities ...was to write performance applications that compared how well the 64 fared against the prototype [PlayStation]. And we'd be running parallel comparisons between the [PlayStation]... There was actually this one trip that [Nintendo] organized for me, [main programmer Ken] Narita-san, a few other lead devs who were working on the battle portion for the Final Fantasy 6 [August 1995 Siggraph] demo at that point... I think Nintendo had been getting signals from Square saying, you know, "Your hardware isn't up to snuff. Not only in terms of raw 3D performance, but in terms of storage." And they said, "We're gonna fabricate this brand new chip," which was supposed to have a bunch of hardware improvements to get a little bit more performance. Which, my suspicion is they probably just repeated that verbatim from SGI, and I think there was, in general, a disconnect between SGI and Nintendo in terms of what they were expecting the hardware to do... But Nintendo had certain specific performance metrics that had to be met, but I don't think those were communicated well to SGI... We spent a few days, I remember, optimizing my code, to try to get a few more polygons out, but it didn't really make much of a difference...

Yoshihiro Maruyama: [In September 1995] I was hired by the president of the company, [Tetsuo] Mizuno-san, and he told me that, "Squaresoft will always be with Nintendo. ... As long as you work for us, it's basically the same as working for Nintendo." And the week after I joined, they started saying, "Oh, maybe we should switch to Sony." So I was kind of shocked...

Hiroshi Kawai: ...[Masafumi Miyamoto, Founder and Former President of Square] just comes in. "OK so, how was it?" And I gave a few figures when asked, but Narita-san was the main person who was talking. And he was essentially saying, "We're just not getting the performance [from the N64]. We're nowhere near what we did during the [August 1995] Siggraph demo." [Masafumi Miyamoto] just silently acknowledged that, and I didn't hear anything from them until the point when Sakaguchi-san called [the office] together and said, "We're not doing the 64 anymore."

[...]

Hironobu Sakaguchi: When we made our decision, the president of Square [Masafumi Miyamoto], our lead programmer [Ken Narita] and I went to a meeting with Yamauchi-san. There is an old cultural tradition where, in Kyoto, someone will welcome you with tea, but you're not supposed to really drink that tea. It's just polite to have it there. And Yamauchi-san welcomed us with a very expensive bento meal and beer, and gave us a very nice welcome and basically patted us on the back to say, "I wish you the best." No bitter feelings or anything...

[...]

[Note: In October 2001, then Square president Hisashi Suzuki said in an interview that Nintendo became especially frustrated not when Square left, but later when Square helped convince others, such as Enix, to leave as well. Suzuki declined an interview request for this story.]

Some additional discussion of the difficulties many (including Nintendo itself) ultimately had, in working with SGI's design for the N64: one / two

 

[technozombie]

I don't think a quote from 20 years and 2 Presidents ago accurately sums up any company in the present. It's absurd to think so

It's not absurd when everything they do points to the same mentality. The Wii U was clearly designed for Nintendo to make games for without regard for 3rd parties. The Switch is the same way. That's just how Nintendo is, it's not a bad thing per se, it's just how they do business.

 

[sfried]

It's not absurd when everything they do points to the same mentality. The Wii U was clearly designed for Nintendo to make games for without regard for 3rd parties. The Switch is the same way. That's just how Nintendo is, it's not a bad thing per se, it's just how they do business.

I think that is completely false, considering the implementation of non-exotic architecture and the adoption of more mainstream engines like Unreal Engine 4. And we all know Nintendo themselves prefers using their own custom engines in their own games.

 

[SMattera]

Sony targeted almost the same market. Kids (in body and/or mind) who want to look like grown ups. An easy target for all the "Nintendo is for kids" nonsense.

It's not nonsense. Nintendo very deliberately targets children. Cartoon mascots, limited violence, an obsession with parental controls. Insert Shiggy quote about how his Pikmin shorts are aimed at kids. Since Wii/DS era they've expanded more to families in general I guess you could say.

 

[MTC100]

Heck, Sony would kill for a Monster Hunter.

They wouldn't. For Mario or Zelda though? They would erase a whole country.

 

[pixelation]

-either they are behind either they fail to understand modern expectations.



-As if, to be satisfied with them you need to be a fan, while to be satisfied with other console makers or on PC, you just need to be a customer.

I think these two points are valid and real (as well as pretty much you entire opening post), they are indeed behind. Technologically speaking and with their offerings (still waiting on a mature franchise from them and not just a one off and done in house by Nintendo not outsourced). I feel like most of the Nintendo fans and people who own their consoles grew up with Nintendo, and/or they buy Nintendo consoles for their kids, but i also think that Nintendo likes to live in their own wacky little bubble.

 

[Nanashrew]

It's not nonsense. Nintendo very deliberately targets children. Cartoon mascots, limited violence, an obsession with parental controls. Insert Shiggy quote about how his Pikmin shorts are aimed I at kids. Since/DS era they've expanded more to families in general I guess you could say.

That's true. It's the same in the NES era.

There was a time when Sony targeted absolutely everyone though. The PS1 had something for all but then they began going hard on a specific demographic. The teen and adult demographic like we see today. Sony doesn't have the family market like they did in the PS1 or PS2 era. Titles aimed at kids and families tend to not do well on their systems these days because they have dropped that demographic while Nintendo kept it going. That's why even if PS4 got some family titles like the Lego games, so did the Wii U despite poor sales of the system.

I think these two points are valid and real (as well as pretty much you entire opening post), they are indeed behind. Technologically speaking and with their offerings (still waiting on a mature franchise from them and not just a one off and done in house by Nintendo not outsourced). I feel like most of the Nintendo fans and people who own their consoles grew up with Nintendo, and/or they buy Nintendo consoles for their kids, but i also think that Nintendo likes to live in their own wacky little bubble.

Technologically speaking, the Switch is very current technology. It's in no way behind.

 

[technozombie]

I think that is completely false, considering the implementation of non-exotic architecture and the adoption of more mainstream engines like Unreal Engine 4. And we all know Nintendo themselves prefers using their own custom engines in their own games.

My opinion is just the opposite. If Nintendo were really interested in 3rd party support then they would have went with some sort of x86 chip and probably not made a handheld. The fact that the Switch uses an ARM CPU has more to do with the form factor they desired than 3rd party friendliness. Nintendo has used ARM before in handhelds.

 

[fireflame]

I was a teenager when N64 came, and back then there was a price gap between the 64 and the PSX, and the games had a difference of about 20 of our modern euros in price.

This made quite a difference , and my father, back then, told me that he felt Playstaiton would give me more choice.

 

[Lord Malachite]

Nintendo's relationship with publishers/developers and overall arrogance is much more of an interesting subject and directly affected what you are saying OP.

The most notorious example is of course Final Fantasy 7 with Squaresoft and Nintendo. Square wanted (needed) the higher storage space of CD's. Before this during the SNES days, Nintendo kept fucking them over by giving them lower storage cartridges than they were giving to Enix. Square pleaded with Nintendo to go with CD's for the N64, but Nintendo arrogantly decided to go with cartridges. Nintendo enjoyed having the control and profit margins they got from selling cartridges to game companies.

The worst part was that Squaresoft had loyalty to Nintendo. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but Square was a high profile company that would only release their games on Nintendo. There is a reason you'll noticed Square never made a game for the genesis, unlike most other companies. But instead of rewarding that loyalty, Nintendo spurned them.

We're over 2 decades separated from this, perhaps someone could dredge up an example of such arrogance within the past 10 years to start repeatedly discussing in lieu of this tired old chestnut?

You can't just pretend history doesn't play a deciding factor. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in 1588 and Spain never recovered it's world power status, which persists to this day (Spain is still an awesome country though, with a lot of relevant culture).

The point is, history has lasting effects that don't just go away or cease to be relevant because You're tired of hearing them.

 

[Terrell]

You can't just pretend history doesn't play a deciding factor. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in 1588 and Spain never recovered it's world power status, which persists to this day (Spain is still an awesome country though, with a lot of relevant culture).

The point is, history has lasting effects that don't just go away or cease to be relevant because You're tired of hearing them.

Please tell me what is still relevant about Final Fantasy VII's transition to PlayStation in the modern era.

 

[Jubenhimer]

It's not nonsense. Nintendo very deliberately targets children. Cartoon mascots, limited violence, an obsession with parental controls. Insert Shiggy quote about how his Pikmin shorts are aimed at kids. Since Wii/DS era they've expanded more to families in general I guess you could say.

Nintendo has always tried to target a very wide demographic. Sure, a lot of times they market to kids, but when you have some of the most recognizable brands with kids under your belt, why not take advantage of that?

 

[UnemployedVillain]

You can't just pretend history doesn't play a deciding factor. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in 1588 and Spain never recovered it's world power status, which persists to this day (Spain is still an awesome country though, with a lot of relevant culture).

The point is, history has lasting effects that don't just go away or cease to be relevant because You're tired of hearing them.

This isn't really an answer to his question. You essentially just stated that some historical events have long last effects therefore this one does, even though I can't point to a single point of evidence.

 

[Nanashrew]

My opinion is just the opposite. If Nintendo were really interested in 3rd party support then they would have went with some sort of x86 chip and probably not made a handheld. The fact that the Switch uses an ARM CPU has more to do with the form factor they desired than 3rd party friendliness. Nintendo has used ARM before in handhelds.

There's no difference between ARM and x86 that would hinder any kind of development at all. All game engines support ARM.

EDIT: The ARM CPUs are comparable to the latest x86 CPU's these days. Some newer supercomputers planning to be built are even leaving x86 behind for ARM.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...The most notorious example is of course Final Fantasy 7 with Squaresoft and Nintendo. Square wanted (needed) the higher storage space of CD's. Before this during the SNES days, Nintendo kept fucking them over by giving them lower storage cartridges than they were giving to Enix. Square pleaded with Nintendo to go with CD's for the N64, but Nintendo arrogantly decided to go with cartridges. Nintendo enjoyed having the control and profit margins they got from selling cartridges to game companies...

As discussed here and here, and noted succintly by PdotMichael here, there's a bit more to the story than what you've described above.

 

[technozombie]

There's no difference between ARM and x86 that would hinder any kind of development at all. All game engines support ARM.

I wasn't speaking to ease of development, but rather processing power. If Nintendo were trying to court 3rd parties they would have went with some hardware more akin to a PS4. The fact that they didn't tells me they are still marching to their own drum. That's ok, it's not a bad thing, but to me they haven't changed. Why would they change? They've survived and had many successes.


Had to edit to reply you the previous edit. ARM does not have the capabilities of x86. They are designed for different things. If a super computer uses ARM it is because it is meant for a specific thing. For general computing x86 is faster.

 

[jroc74]

Nah, Sony chased people who weren't gamers and thought games were 'kiddy'. And they got them.

?

What does this even mean?

 

[Nanashrew]

I wasn't speaking to ease of development, but rather processing power. If Nintendo were trying to court 3rd parties they would have went with some hardware more akin to a PS4. The fact that they didn't tells me they are still marching to their own drum. That's ok, it's not a bad thing, but to me they haven't changed. Why would they change? They've survived and had many successes.

Probably because their handhelds have always been given more support and people are more willing to buy their handhelds over their home system regardless of region? Also the rapidly shrinking market in Japan for home consoles which could reduce support on their system.

EDIT: also the A5's are comparable to the processors in PS4 and Xbox One and even have more updated instruction sets and architecture for being newer than those jaguars. The A9's are more powerful than the processors in the PS4 and Xbox One but I think those are way too new.

 

[Lord Malachite]

This isn't really an answer to his question. You essentially just stated that some historical events have long last effects therefore this one does, even though I can't point to a single point of evidence.

I wasn't aware the obvious needed evidence, but sure, let's go there then. Nintendo's home consoles never saw another mainline Final Fantasy game once Square threw in with Sony. Instead they got only spinoff series. This is something that persists in 2017. Nintendo consoles do not get those major titles, even upcoming ones.

If we branch this out further to include today's major publishers such as EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Betheseda, etc. The amount of games Nintendo platforms have seen from them are small, and the publications are often afterthoughts and downports. Just 4 years ago, WB decided to cancel DLC for Arkham Origins on WiiU and refund people that purchased the Season Pass rather than give them the content. Other major publishers quickly pulled out of Wii and WiiU. Nintendo's portfolio outside its own games has been weakening with each generation. With every new generation, the question is asked if this will be the console from Nintendo that shifts the tide. But it never happens, even when Nintendo finds big success, like with the Wii.

The core problem is third parties. Many had a terrible experience with Nintendo's Gestapo tactics in the 80s and 90s. In the modern era, Nintendo may be friendlier to third parties, but the initial bad taste coupled with an overall lack of success continues to turn third parties off.

Lastly, one big flaw Nintendo has is that they insist on their own ideas. They expect publishers and consumers alike to want what they make, rather than designing a product the market shows consumers already want. Nintendo does not adapt, they expect the market to adapt to them. Sometimes this works, like with Wii and DS. Often times it does not, like WiiU and Gamecube.

 

[MiamiWesker]

Interesting thread and I think the responses are proof of how Nintendo is viewed differently. In here we have those that think Nintendo tries many new things, people that think Nintendo relies way too much on old franchises, those that think the media is biased against nintendo, those that think the media is biased for Nintendo.

They have basically decided to be Nintendo and damn everyone else. They won't start making giant sized story driven games like an uncharted or TLOU. They won't make complex RPGs like skyrim. They won't make mature titles like GTA or CoD. They will keep doing what they always done, focus on family friendly fun games, for many people that is not enough. For those of us that still love those genres Nintendo is best at it's still worth it to buy a whole console just to play their games.

I can never have just a Nintendo console, they don't cover even a small percentage of what's out there, is a secondary console at best. But I also don't want to miss out on their games so I will buy their products.

 

[Nanashrew]

I wasn't aware the obvious needed evidence, but sure, let's go there then. Nintendo's home consoles never saw another mainline Final Fantasy game once Square threw in with Sony. Instead they got only spinoff series. This is something that persists in 2017. Nintendo consoles do not get those major titles, even upcoming ones.

If we branch this out further to include today's major publishers such as EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Betheseda, etc. The amount of games Nintendo platforms have seen from them are small, and the publications are often afterthought and downpours. Just 4 years ago, WHICH decided to cancel DLC for Arkham Origins on WiiU and refund people that purchased the Season Pass rather than give them the content. Other major publishers quickly pulled out of Wii and WiiU. Nintendo's portfolio outside it's own games has been weakening with each generation. With every new generation, the question is asked if this will be the console from Nintendo that shifts the tide. But it never happens, even when Nintendo finds big success, like with the Wii.

The core problem is third parties. Many had a terrible experience with Nintendo's Gestapo tactics in the 80s and 90s. In the modern era, Nintendo may be friendlier to third parties, but the initial bad taste coupled with an overall lack of success continues to turn third parties off.

Lastly, one big flaw Nintendo has is that they insist on their own ideas. They expect publishers and consumers alike to want what they make, rather than designing a product the market shows consumers already want. Nintendo does not adapr, they expect the market to adapt to them. Sometimes this works, like with Wii and DS. Often times it does not, like WiiU and Gamecube.

I mean, it literally does not help to receive old ports and bad ports either. Never forget Mass Effect 3 and just a short while later, the Mass Effect collection is announced but not for Wii U.

 

[thenewjeva]

I think a lot of people are missing the point as to why Nintendo doesn't get third party support. It's not because of the shady shit that happened over 20 years ago or even the fact that their hardware is different from their competitors. The real reason why Nintendo doesn't get the same third party games as the other platforms is because Nintendo supports a different audience than what most third party developers are going after.

It's no secret that the target audience for a lot of AAA games today are adult males aged 18-35. Sony and Microsoft create their own games (Last of Us, Uncharted, Halo, Gears, etc.) that specifically aim for that audience, which aligns with the audience that third party developers want to target, meaning Sony and Microsoft also promote the third party games that align with the audience that they're going after, and thus their games do well on platforms where the primary audience is mainly 18-35 year old males.

Nintendo, on the other hand, targets another specific audience: kids and families. Sure adults can enjoy their games, but you can't deny that most of Nintendo's games are made to be as inoffensive and colorful as possible so that everyone in the family can enjoy them. Thus, Nintendo generally promotes games that stick with their family-friendly image. Sure they may make M rated titles from time to time, but generally they are given a quiet release and are barely given any promotion outside of gamer circles. Thus this means that they also don't promote the same games that third parties make for other platforms, meaning those games don't sell well to the point where third parties decide to not even bother releasing those games on Nintendo platform.

This wasn't always the case if you took a look at the third party support of the N64 with a plethora of shooters thanks to the success of Goldeneye, but once the Gamecube came out, Nintendo stopped making shooters, sold off Rare, and consolidated to making the system as family friendly as possible. This reached its peak with the Wii, where they were working hard to make the system as family-friendly as possible, and it was so successful that third parties even decided to make games for it, but they stuck with making family-friendly games for the system. Some were able to find a lot of success with this formula and continued to make a ton of family-friendly games for the system, but for those that did attempt to make M-rated games for the Wii, they didn't find much success. Therefore, the Wii received a lot of family-friendly shovelware and little else until the well ran out, and this trend continued with the Wii U, but then again, no game outside of Nintendo games were able to find success on that platform.

Now Nintendo is trying the family-friendly route with the Switch again, having its marketing focused once again on kids and families, and now they're finding success with it as well as with their mobile games. Because they keep finding success with families, they will continue to focus on them, Thus, we continue to see the same family-friendly games as well as some of the more asinine design choices for their platform (specifically their online services). If Nintendo truly cared about gaining third parties back, they would need to start catering more towards the adult male demographic, making and promoting their own titles similar to Halo or Uncharted, and making sure those games sell decently enough that it'll encourage the same players to buy similar third party games. However, if Nintendo truly cared, they would've done this over a decade ago, so right now it stands that Nintendo simply doesn't care about getting M-rated titles on their platform. Thus, third parties that do make primarily M-rated titles will continue to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

tl;dr: Nintendo primarily targets kids and families with their consoles, thus not promoting adult titles (what third party devs make nowadays) thus making them not sell and causing third parties to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

 

[Nanashrew]

I think a lot of people are missing the point as to why Nintendo doesn't get third party support. It's not because of the shady shit that happened over 20 years ago or even the fact that their hardware is different from their competitors. The real reason why Nintendo doesn't get the same third party games as the other platforms is because Nintendo supports a different audience than what most third party developers are going after.

It's no secret that the target audience for a lot of AAA games today are adult males aged 18-35. Sony and Microsoft create their own games (Last of Us, Uncharted, Halo, Gears, etc.) that specifically aim for that audience, which aligns with the audience that third party developers want to target, meaning Sony and Microsoft also promote the third party games that align with the audience that they're going after, and thus their games do well on platforms where the primary audience is mainly 18-35 year old males.

Nintendo, on the other hand, targets another specific audience: kids and families. Sure adults can enjoy their games, but you can't deny that most of Nintendo's games are made to be as inoffensive and colorful as possible so that everyone in the family can enjoy them. Thus, Nintendo generally promotes games that stick with their family-friendly image. Sure they may make M rated titles from time to time, but generally they are given a quiet release and are barely given any promotion outside of gamer circles. Thus this means that they also don't promote the same games that third parties make for other platforms, meaning those games don't sell well to the point where third parties decide to not even bother releasing those games on Nintendo platform.

This wasn't always the case if you took a look at the third party support of the N64 with a plethora of shooters thanks to the success of Goldeneye, but once the Gamecube came out, Nintendo stopped making shooters, sold off Rare, and consolidated to making the system as family friendly as possible. This reached its peak with the Wii, where they were working hard to make the system as family-friendly as possible, and it was so successful that third parties even decided to make games for it, but they stuck with making family-friendly games for the system. Some were able to find a lot of success with this formula and continued to make a ton of family-friendly games for the system, but for those that did attempt to make M-rated games for the Wii, they didn't find much success. Therefore, the Wii received a lot of family-friendly shovelware and little else until the well ran out, and this trend continued with the Wii U, but then again, no game outside of Nintendo games were able to find success on that platform.

Now Nintendo is trying the family-friendly route with the Switch again, having its marketing focused once again on kids and families, and now they're finding success with it as well as with their mobile games. Because they keep finding success with families, they will continue to focus on them, Thus, we continue to see the same family-friendly games as well as some of the more asinine design choices for their platform (specifically their online services). If Nintendo truly cared about gaining third parties back, they would need to start catering more towards the adult male demographic, making and promoting their own titles similar to Halo or Uncharted, and making sure those games sell decently enough that it'll encourage the same players to buy similar third party games. However, if Nintendo truly cared, they would've done this over a decade ago, so right now it stands that Nintendo simply doesn't care about getting M-rated titles on their platform. Thus, third parties that do make primarily M-rated titles will continue to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

tl;dr: Nintendo primarily targets kids and families with their consoles, thus not promoting adult titles (what third party devs make nowadays) thus making them not sell and causing third parties to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

Majority of the marketing for Switch has been aimed at young adults more than kids and families.

ARMS, a game you would think would be primarily aimed at kids and families in their marketing has no kids or families in the commercial at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8DSI623kxI

 

[whalleywhat]

Wait, Candyman is real now? Fuck.

Only one way to find out...

 

[Jubenhimer]

Itl;dr: Nintendo primarily targets kids and families with their consoles, thus not promoting adult titles (what third party devs make nowadays) thus making them not sell and causing third parties to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

Plus, whether people want to accept it or not, Nintendo's primary target audience is casual gamers. True. their games have depth for hardcore players. But Nintendo's main mission statement as a company is to appeal to people who don't really play a lot of games, or never really played games before. They've made this clear multiple times already, and they're not really changing their stance on this. This is why I laugh at those who want Nintendo to be this "hardcore" competitor to Sony and Microsoft, because Nintendo has made it very clear that's not the audience they're primarily targeting.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

tl;dr: Nintendo primarily targets kids and families with their consoles, thus not promoting adult titles (what third party devs make nowadays) thus making them not sell and causing third parties to stay away from Nintendo platforms.

This is not true and is proven false almost every time we get the demographics for their systems and games.

Plus, whether people want to accept it or not, Nintendo's primary target audience is casual gamers. True. their games have depth for hardcore players. But Nintendo's main mission statement as a company is to appeal to people who don't really play a lot of games, or never really played games before. They've made this clear multiple times already, and they're not really changing their stance on this. This is why I laugh at those who want Nintendo to be this "hardcore" competitor to Sony and Microsoft, because Nintendo has made it very clear that's not the audience they're primarily targeting.

This is also not true. They've always said they target everyone. The Wii was the only console of their that made it an explicit mission to target casuals and even Miyamoto said Nintendo aren't targeting that demo anymore

There are so many bizarre misconceptions about Nintendo. It's like people latch onto whatever they've seen or heard years ago and ignore evidence of the contrary

 

[TLZ]

Nintendo's first party output is usually very high quality. There are a limited number of games a console owner will purchase in a year. With Nintendo's quality higher than average, they get a higher proportion of a console owners dollars than on first parties on other platforms. This creates a scenario where third parties are more successful on non-Nintendo consoles because they don't have to compete against Nintendo for their piece of the pie.

Is that how we're spinning lack of 3rd party now?

 

[zenspider]

Mostly when you starting talking about Nintendo fans being listened to. Because that's clearly almost never been the case.

Ah! I guessed I meant listened to like acknowleged, not actually addressed though I can only really speak to this in the West with NoA. I have no idea what Japanese fandom is like or how NoJ interacts with them.

 

[Nanashrew]

This is not true and is proven false almost every time we get the demographics for their systems and games.



This is also not true. They've always said they target everyone. The Wii was the only console of their that made it an explicit mission to target casuals and even Miyamoto said Nintendo aren't targeting that demo anymore

There are so many bizarre misconceptions about Nintendo. It's like people latch onto whatever they've seen or heard years ago and ignore evidence of the contrary

Recently too in discussion of Mario Oddysey on Oddysey following along Mario 64 and Sunshine than Galaxy 1, 2, 3D Land and World.

I believe Miyamoto had said something along the lines of "more casual players have Mario Run" or something to that effect.

 

[A.Romero]

I've always thought that third parties worked with Nintendo because they had too. When they were at the top they mistreated third parties a lot so when Sony presented them a really successful alternative while showing the finger to Nintendo... Well, we know what happened.

Iwata's strategy worked. They have their own marked, locked down. Similar to what happens with for example Apple. Nintendo consoles just don't belong in the same group as Microsoft and Sony's.

Personally, my last Nintendo console was a N64. I enjoyed it a lot but mid generation I sold it and got a PSX. Never been even tempted to go back.

Nowadays I play mostly on PC and on PS4 for exclusive games and I never feel I'm missing anything.

I'm also a fan of cutting edge technologies and to me Nintendo hasn't brought anything to the table in that sense for a long time (note I'm saying tech, not innovation in general which Nintendo does have some).

 

[Lord Malachite]

I mean, it literally does not help to receive old ports and bad ports either. Never forget Mass Effect 3 and just a short while later, the Mass Effect collection is announced but not for Wii U.

I agree this is a valid point. Part of the fault lies with Nintendo though. Specifically in that their systems are not easy to copy and paste to, usually because they lag behind and, even when we take the case of WiiU vs. PS360, the architectural differences still make publishers decide if they want to be bothered. Oftentimes the case is no. The publisher does play a role in that decision, but the situation would probably be very different if Nintendo made their consoles more uniform.

 

[Hilarion]

When people talk third party support, where's the mention of the DS? It had better support from a wide variety of publishers than any other 7th gen system and started a lot of great franchises (for some reason people here shit on Brain Age, but I love that series and would take it over most franchises on PS3 or 360 at the same time).

 

[jroc74]

I mean, it literally does not help to receive old ports and bad ports either. Never forget Mass Effect 3 and just a short while later, the Mass Effect collection is announced but not for Wii U.

And I feel none of that had any effect on sales except for the ppl that hung out in forums like this.

As many PS3 games were sold last gen and the start of this, when many 3rd parties ran better on 360, the only folks who knew the differences were the ppl that sought out the differences.

Like ppl on this forum.

If one only had Wii U, why would it matter what happened on another platform?

 

[Nanashrew]

I agree this is a valid point. Part of the fault lies with Nintendo though. Specifically in that their systems are not easy to copy and paste to, usually because they lag behind and, even when we take the case of WiiU vs. PS360, the architectural differences still make publishers decide if they want to be bothered. Oftentimes the case is no. The publisher does play a role in that decision, but the situation would probably be very different if Nintendo made their consoles more uniform.

How uniform though? The Switch has no unique architecture at all. It's a straight up standard Tegra in a Nintendo shell just with unique control schemes.

 

[Xadjim]

no one buys a nintendo for third party.

 

[Hilarion]

If one only had Wii U, why would it matter what happened on another platform?

In the case that the previous poster had mentioned, it matters a great deal. Releasing Mass Effect 3, a game building on a story universe developed in the previous two games, on a system with neither of the previous two games available is a recipe for disaster. Who wants to jump into Mass Effect with the third installment? Mass Effect Trilogy might not have been a success on the Wii U, but I don't think it's controversial to say that it would've sold far, far better than Mass Effect 3 alone did.

 

[Hilarion]

no one buys a nintendo for third party.

One of the reasons I got a DS was for the Ace Attorney games (by Capcom). Ditto the 3DS, actually...I was on the fence for it until Ace Attorney 5 came out. The Ace Attorney series is probably more iconic of the DS/3DS to me than any first party Nintendo software, and I loved both systems. (The Dragon Quest IV-VI remakes, Chrono Trigger DS, Final Fantasy III and IV DS, and The World Ends With You, all by Square Enix, were also a big reason I loved the DS as much as I did)

 

[AmFreak]

I agree this is a valid point. Part of the fault lies with Nintendo though. Specifically in that their systems are not easy to copy and paste to, usually because they lag behind and, even when we take the case of WiiU vs. PS360, the architectural differences still make publishers decide if they want to be bothered. Oftentimes the case is no. The publisher does play a role in that decision, but the situation would probably be very different if Nintendo made their consoles more uniform.

The WiiU launched with more 3rd party games than any other console (this gen).
Everything bombed.
That's enough to explain the 3rd party situation.
No money, no games.

 

[Quasar]

no one buys a nintendo for third party.

Its why I don't buy Nintendo. I keep hoping one day they'll have a platform where its more balanced. I guess they are with handhelds.

 

[Niceguydan8]

My opinion is just the opposite. If Nintendo were really interested in 3rd party support then they would have went with some sort of x86 chip and probably not made a handheld. The fact that the Switch uses an ARM CPU has more to do with the form factor they desired than 3rd party friendliness. Nintendo has used ARM before in handhelds.

You think it's not possible for Nintendo to care about 3rd party support unless they make a home console? That seems like a silly opinion, honestly. Nintendo (and plenty of games not created by Nintendo) has thrived in the handheld environment.

I think they are making strides towards getting third party support. Allowing the Switch to compatible with new engines is a pretty good way to go that way in my opinion. Nintendo can get third party support without getting the latest Mass Effect game or whatever. 3rd party support =/= AAA 3rd party support.

 

[Nanashrew]

And I feel none of that had any effect on sales except for the ppl that hung out in forums like this.

As many PS3 games were sold last gen and the start of this, when many 3rd parties ran better on 360, the only folks who knew the differences were the ppl that sought out the differences.

Like ppl on this forum.

If one only had Wii U, why would it matter what happened on another platform?

If that was the case, the PS3 and XBO would have sold alot less games.

It was a late port of the 3rd game and anyone who bought it for Wii U never would have gotten the full story.

Also Mass Effect 3 U launched in November of 2012. EA announced Mass Effect Trilogy September 2012.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/26/mass-effect-trilogy-set-announced

 

[True Fire]

It's aesthetics. Nintendo's current aesthetic is a marginal evolution of its 90s aesthetic, while Sony has undergone an image transformation every generation correlating with advancements in technology (Crash to God of War to Uncharted to Horizon).

Sony is racing for absolute realism, while Nintendo has settled for cartoony games. The only "schism" here is the divide in aesthetics.

 

[Nanashrew]

no one buys a nintendo for third party.

Handhelds though. Gameboy to 3DS people have been buying 3rd party games and saw a lot of successes. Franchises being born on handhelds just last generation, even.

Switch will likely get the devs and pubs that worked on 3DS. The Vita devs will have to learn though that there's nothing left in Vita, and moving to PS4 is not doing anything either and they're selling less domestically. They'll need to be multiplatform. Even NIS realizes this.

 

[Jubenhimer]

This is not true and is proven false almost every time we get the demographics for their systems and games.



This is also not true. They've always said they target everyone. The Wii was the only console of their that made it an explicit mission to target casuals and even Miyamoto said Nintendo aren't targeting that demo anymore

There are so many bizarre misconceptions about Nintendo. It's like people latch onto whatever they've seen or heard years ago and ignore evidence of the contrary

Miyamoto's quote was taken out of context. He was actually talking about how Nintendo isn't focused on games that deliver a passive cinematic experience like your typical AAA blockbusters.

Besides actions speak louder than words. Look at the Joy-Con, look at Nintendo's decision to not go with the most powerful hardware. Look at 1-2 Switch. Shinya Takahashi even said they want to get the same audience as the Wii.

The ability to pick it up and hand it to someone else was a very important part of the hardware. We began to look at how can we leverage these technologies to create new experiences that will appeal to that wider range of ages and a wider range of interests than even the Wii audience had. One of the things we’ve continued to consider for a long time is how we can give an audience that played Wii another opportunity to come into contact with Nintendo software. Adding this level of freedom to a game console means more people will see it in use. They’ll have more opportunities to have contact with games in general.

You're telling me they're not targeting casual gamers? It's true that Nintendo provides experiences for everyone, but they're not interested in being a typical hardcore gamer box.

 

[Nanashrew]

Miyamoto's quote was taken out of context. He was actually talking about how Nintendo isn't focused on games that deliver a passive cinematic experience like your typical AAA blockbusters.

Besides actions speak louder than words. Look at the Joy-Con, look at Nintendo's decision to not go with the most powerful hardware. Look at 1-2 Switch. Shinya Takahashi even said they want to get the same audience as the Wii.

You're telling me they're not targeting casual gamers? It's true that Nintendo provides experiences for everyone, but they're not interested in being a typical hardcore gamer box.

Look at 1-2 Switch out of all the current games released and coming? That game is more the exception right now.

Not going with the most powerful hardware was a business decision to appease two markets. The Switch is the most powerful handheld system in the market. It's also a home console that's a bit behind the XO.

And what would a powerful home console serve with Nintendo when all their support is largely on handhelds and home console Nintendo systems are a hard sale?

EDIT: What point would it serve Nintendo when home consoles have cratered in Japan where Nintendo gets a majority of its support?

 

[Jubenhimer]

Look at 1-2 Switch out of all the current games released and coming? That game is more the exception right now.

Not going with the most powerful hardware was a business decision to appease two markets. The Switch is the most powerful handheld system in the market. It's also a home console that's a bit behind the XO.

And what would a powerful home console serve with Nintendo when all their support is largely on handhelds and home console Nintendo systems are a hard sale?

EDIT: What point would it serve Nintendo when home consoles have cratered in Japan where Nintendo gets a majority of its support?

If Nintendo wanted to target the core gamer solely, they would've made a pure home console more powerful than the PS4 Pro. But they didn't, they decided to do something completely different to target casual gamers as well. It's true that they are also trying to get Japanese gamers as well since console gaming is dying there like you said. But Nintendo has made it very clear they'll still cater to casual gamers, even games like ARMS and Splatoon are designed to be accessible to newcomers.

Tell me which of their upcoming Switch games are targeting casual gamers?

ARMS? Splatoon 2? Mario Odyssey? Fire Emblem? Xenoblade Chronicles 2?

ARMS and Splatoon 2 as mentioned are very accessible games designed for both casual and core gamers. Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are the only other games that primarily target core gamers.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Miyamoto's quote was taken out of context. He was actually talking about how Nintendo isn't focused on games that deliver a passive cinematic experience like your typical AAA blockbusters.

Besides actions speak louder than words. Look at the Joy-Con, look at Nintendo's decision to not go with the most powerful hardware. Look at 1-2 Switch. Shinya Takahashi even said they want to get the same audience as the Wii.

You're telling me they're not targeting casual gamers? It's true that Nintendo provides experiences for everyone, but they're not interested in being a typical hardcore gamer box.

Look at the joycon? A fully featured controller? So what? And 1-2 Switch is ONE game. You don't say MS isn't focused on core because of their Kinect games, do you? Nintendo's ACTIONS with the Switch are largely core games, so going by that logic, you've invalidated your point. Tell me which of their upcoming Switch games are targeting casual gamers?

ARMS? Splatoon 2? Mario Odyssey? Fire Emblem? Xenoblade Chronicles 2?

You're muddying the definition of "core" and greatly expanding the definition of "casual" to encompass all Nintendo games for some reason. Improving accessibility =/= targeting casuals. Street Fighter 5 is a more accessible game than 4 of 3, that doesn't make it for "casuals". Call of Duty and Battlefield are more accessible than previous entries. Fallout 4 is more accessible than 3, and especially more than 2. The equating of being made more accessible has nothing to do with targeting casuals and everything to do with broadening the target audience, if anything. The skill ceiling and depth of a game are the best ways of determining its actual target audience.