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[farnham]

Capcom, EA, UBISoft etc should invest some money in their games

seriously.. was there any release comparable to Modern Warfare 2 or Assassins Creed 2 on the Wii from the thirdparties (outside of MH3 in Japan maybe..)

 

[stuminus3]

I made a comment on Bonus Round that half the Wii audience is hard core and half is purely casual. That split sounds pretty agressive, and the data above suggests it's more like 25/75.

Analysis falls apart right here. I lol at you for calling the millions of people who buy GTA and Halo "hard core". They're no more "hard core" than the Wii Fit crowd. Just different.

 

[gerg]

Grin
Factor 5
BottleRocket
Pandemic

All closed due to HD failures last year alone.

If you scroll up the page, you'll see that Stump has already successfully rebutted this claim regarding GRIN and Factor 5.

 

[jay]

If 50% of Wii owners are casuals that doesn't explain why the other 33 million aren't buying core games. At some point the No AAA 3rd Party Games premise must come to the foreground of the discussion.

Unless you just continue to shift the ratio with no evidence other than what sold. In that case what's there to discuss, just say 97% of Wii owners are casuals and end the thread.

 

[Vinci]

I actually think third parties are correct now, generally speaking, but I'd point out that they're correct now because they made such significant mistakes earlier.

They should have pushed the Wii. Not only with bigger games, but with more reliable talent, with more money, and they should have done this all much earlier than they did. PS3/360 had a slew major franchises (Metal Gear, GTA, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy) lined up well before launch. That's pretty much the sort of support I'm suggesting the Wii should have had.

But they didn't do that. They disproportionately supported the PS3 and 360 from the start, and now people are surprised that their games do disproportionately well on those systems. There is very much a snowball effect within a generation, and those snowballs are too big to stop now.

At this point, it's far beyond saving. It wouldn't just require convincing people to buy the Wii: it would require convincing people to abandon the PS3 and 360 for it, because virtually everyone who wants to play the next big shooter already owns an HD system.

This is pretty much 1:1 with my perspective at this point. Nice post, man.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

I think part of the problem is making these statements about random games.

Sega thinks the final word was Dead Space Extraction.

That one guy who was on 1Up Yours about a year ago said the final word would be MadWorld.

The problem with those games is they all had at least one fatal flaw from the outset.

Dead Space Extraction? Rail shooter coming into a crowded genre.

MadWorld? Ridiculously divisive art style as well as coming from the people who couldn't get most of their games to sell on the PlayStation 2.

No More Heroes 2 however doesn't have any apparent flaws preventing it from selling well. It is the sequel to an already modest hit in an established franchise, it's not on-rails, it's "hardcore," and it's getting much better reviews and buzz than the first game.

I don't think it'll do super-fantastically well but it should do a good deal better than the first.

 

[ElFly]

RE4 sold gangbusters because for almost a year it was one of the few games worth having on the platform.

So you are saying that other good games would have sold well too.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Grin
Factor 5
BottleRocket
Pandemic

All closed due to HD failures last year alone.

You fail hard with an HD game, it's your ass. You fail with a Wii game, you'll still be working the next day.

Already dealt with -- failed due to rapid overexpansion and three simultaneous bombs. also, we learned during studio closing that there was some acrimony between workers and management, suggesting a poor use of resources internally and unrelated to any one project. A literally unprecedented amount of failure in all respects, GRiN should be put in a textbook as an example of what not to do.

Already dealt with -- failed due to an HD bomb followed by two publishers dropping them mid-project; one, Nintendo, for unknown reasons, and one because they went bankrupt and were left owing factor 5 a substantial amount of money

Not dealt with -- but an excellent example of a company not failing due to a single HD game. Bottle Rocket released two titles, both of which did not perform particularly well. Then they signed with Brash Entertainment, which went bankrupt half-way through a major title for them, leaving them without money. Then, they signed another project with Namco, who kicked them off the project mid-way. So, BottleRocket closed because they had no income for several years and nothing coming in in the future.

Already dealt with -- a decade-long record of failure and delays, and were closed not because of the failure of any one given project but because of general underperformance and EA's widespread retooling of their resources; including closing their internal casual game division and moving EA Montreal from Wii-related games to HD-related games.

If these are the best examples for the dangerous high risk tightrope game of the HD platforms, I don't think it's going to dissuade developers.

 

[Aaron Strife]

MH3 might have been a test in Japan but not here. NMH2 is more apt for the US market.

depends on how nintendo/capcom markets it vs. how ubisoft is marketing it

so yeah

 

[Version 3.0]

This topic has been beaten to death, and I don't have time to get into it again just now, but in a nutshell:

Your conclusions are backwards. 3rd party games' sales on the Wii are not a reflection of the Wii demographic, they're a reflection of the effort made by 3rd parties. If they were a proper reflection of the demographic, they'd also mirror the sales of 1st party games much more closely.

I really hate the attitude that Nintendo's games magically sell. It's not magic, and it's not impossible for another company to accomplish. It's just quality and consistency: make good games and keep making good games, and you can build brands and earn trust.

Another thing: it's not necessarily the correct approach to figure out what the audience wants and then give it to them. Sometimes it's a much better approach to make a good game and then convince people that they want it. The first approach usually means you're getting sloppy seconds (in this case, Nintendo's scraps). The second one leads to the real runaway hits.

 

[leroy hacker]

If you take a look at the Indie game selection on XBL(Xbox Box Live), I can see ALOT of casual but addictive titles. Something like Splosion Man with a strong marketing campaign would have done wonders for the Wii. It's something that can be easily picked up but advances to the point of where anyone that played the game would find it challenging. It's also not graphic intensive and doesnt need a 360 or PS3 because all of its appeal is simple but hardcore platforming. Alot like New Super Mario Bros Wii.

The fact that the Wii doesn't have more games of that type is one of the few things that can be almost entirely blamed on Nintendo, on account of how poorly they planned the Wiiware service. 'Splosion Man is a $10 game. As a $30 or even $20 retail title it would be a completely different value proposition. If Nintendo had not nearly ruined Wiiware with such restrictive storage limitations and had a better designed shop and more promotion for the service I think we would be seeing vastly more games of that type on the Wii.

 

[ElFly]

Mario vs. Sonic does!

One left nut please.

Pachter counted MvS as a first party title.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

I don't know which way to fall on Rabbids.

On one hand, they're a recognizable brand now, the game had effort put in to it, it was clearly a labor of love. There aren't a lot of excuses you can make for poor sales.

On the other hand, the flip side of brand loyalty is bad brand association. The game is selling in line with the other Rabbids games because the audience has been distilled down to those people that play Rabbids games. You can't make four rather mediocre (to put it kindly) minigame collections and expect people are just going to understand that this new game is different and good.

Thank you. I was looking for a very reasonable way to say just this.

 

[farnham]

Pachter counted MvS as a first party title.

it is in japan.. but in NA and in Europe it is a third party title..

Just like NBA Street V3 and SSX On Tour on the GC Mario in the title doesnt mean its first party...

 

[wazoo]

marketing is really a problem, the amount of marketing for exclusive games, as well as the real bias towards HD versions for multiplatform games (like EA Sports).

 

[Stumpokapow]

Analysis falls apart right here. I lol at you for calling the millions of people who buy GTA and Halo "hard core". They're no more "hard core" than the Wii Fit crowd. Just different.

This is a terrible reply.

Pachter: The Wii audience is 25% the "hardcore" (GTA crowd) and 75% "casual" (Wii Fit)
stuminus3: I'M MORE HARDCORE THAN GTA FRATBOYS PACHTER OWNED

Imagine if he had said:
Pachter: The Wii audience is 25% the "mainstream bro gamer" (GTA crowd) and 75% "casual" (Wii Fit)

Would his analysis have changed at all? No, of course not. And you clearly knew what he was talking about the first time since you specifically presented his definition in your reply only to say it was silly. So you even agree with his point!

How did it "fall apart"?

If Nintendo had not nearly ruined Wiiware with such restrictive storage limitations and had a better designed shop and more promotion for the service I think we would be seeing vastly more games of that type on the Wii.

While I can certainly fault them for the shop design and promotion, the file size limit really couldn't have been avoided based on the Wii's fundamental architecture, and I think if we're going to let hindsight be 20/20 on the Wii's fundamental architecture, there's plenty of things we'd be nitpicking for a better software outcome before we got to storage capacity

marketing is really a problem, the amount of marketing for exclusive games, as well as the real bias towards HD versions for multiplatform games (like EA Sports).

Except that EA Sports' only exclusive title this last year was for the Wii and Tiger Woods is vastly Wii dominant in sales and promotion. Also, Nintendo had exclusive advertising for Madden on the GameCube. It didn't help. At some point, the issue is the product and the health of the platform for the type of game rather than the marketing!

 

[Version 3.0]

If these are the best examples for the dangerous high risk tightrope game of the HD platforms, I don't think it's going to dissuade developers.

I think the argument that publishers/developers shouldn't make HD games is overused and not proven at all. There's money to be made there. There's absolutely no reason for the "HD vs. Wii" debate. They can choose one or the other and go with it. But most publishers are supporting both--which they should be. The problem is that their Wii support is severly lacking compared to their PS3/360 support, by any measurement, which is bad all around--for them and for us. Success on the Wii takes the same things that success on any console requires. I don't understand why it's such a big mystery.

 

[wazoo]

Thank you. I was looking for a very reasonable way to say just this.

Once more "falling in line with the other games" is a terrible argument, when the Rabbids games are one of the rare 3rd parties success stories on the Wii selling almost 2M copies each year worldwide.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

depends on how nintendo/capcom markets it vs. how ubisoft is marketing it

so yeah

That's a good point, we'll see how they do I guess.

 

[farnham]

Anyway how high were the 360 and PS3 thirdparty sales this year..?

 

[Busaiku]

One thing I wanted to ask, Mr. Pachter, is why you believe No More Heroes 2 should need to sell 500k (I'm assuming you were only talking in terms of NPD numbers) to simply break even.
The first game only did something on the order of 400k worldwide, and was considered a resounding success by the development staff, and we're getting the sequel due to it being a 400k seller.

Now, the second game is obviously a much higher budget affair, but still, 500k in the US alone would be a resounding success.
Unless you were of course referring to the worldwide sales, which would make a bit more sense.

 

[farnham]

One thing I wanted to ask, Mr. Pachter, is why you believe No More Heroes 2 should need to sell 500k (I'm assuming you were only talking in terms of NPD numbers) to simply break even.
The first game only did something on the order of 400k worldwide, and was considered a resounding success by the development staff, and we're getting the sequel due to it being a 400k seller.

Now, the second game is obviously a much higher budget affair, but still, 500k in the US alone would be a resounding success.
Unless you were of course referring to the worldwide sales, which would make a bit more sense.

yeah... its a suda 51 game... its ridiculous to suggest that he needs to sell 500k in NA alone to break even.. given how many copies of killer 7 or flower, sun and rain they sold..

 

[Stumpokapow]

I think the argument that publishers/developers shouldn't make HD games is overused and not proven at all. There's money to be made there. There's absolutely no reason for the "HD vs. Wii" debate. They can choose one or the other and go with it. But most publishers are supporting both--which they should be. The problem is that their Wii support is severly lacking compared to their PS3/360 support, by any measurement, which is bad all around--for them and for us. Success on the Wii takes the same things that success on any console requires. I don't understand why it's such a big mystery.

I don't see as though it's bad for them; if they felt that way, they'd adjust their software outputs. Which they did, around the 2007-2008 mark. And now they're doing again, only away from the Wii, starting in mid-late 2009 and continuing.

I don't see as though it's bad for us; the games people want to play are more or less still being made, it's just a matter of buying another console, and once you get to 5-6 games that you'd like ported, it's cheaper to buy the other console and bargain bin backlog titles than it is to hold out for the ports.

yeah... its a suda 51 game... its ridiculous to suggest that he needs to sell 500k in NA alone to break even.. given how many copies of killer 7 or flower, sun and rain they sold..

If No More Heroes had sold Killer 7 levels or FSR levels, do you think they would have greenlit a sequel? I wouldn't endorse a 500k number, but I think it's pretty flatly silly to assume that the "Good for Suda51" standard that applied to NMH1 would carry over for NMH2. The game was greenlit because Suda moved up to the big leagues, and future performance is going to expect real numbers of his products.

 

[gerg]

Anyway how high were the 360 and PS3 thirdparty sales this year..?

Judging from the total software estimates posted on Gamasutra a little while ago, the 360's third-party software sales should be around five million units higher; the PS3's (total) software sales were ten million units lower than the Wii's third-party software sales, so third-party sales on the PS3 are bound to be at least that much less.

 

[Htown]

Third parties need to look at WHY Nintendo games are successful, instead of just throwing their hands up and going "WELP THAT'S JUST NINTENDO!" It's not just the brand name on the box that makes people buy Nintendo's games.

Nintendo makes great games, puts 100% effort behind them, and markets the crap out of them. They don't only put out spinoffs or "test" games.

Also, not EVERY Nintendo game does millions in sales. Some games are mainstream, and some games are niche. Smash Bros sells differently from Metroid which sells differently from Fire Emblem or Battalion Wars. I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't get pissed and throw up their hands about people not buying hardcore games when Fire Emblem didn't sell three million copies. Third parties are so hung up on "casual" vs "hardcore" that they forget the "mass market" vs "niche" part.

Also, people keep bringing up Dead Space Extraction or Darkside Chronicles, but making that comparison is silly. These are spinoffs to games where the main series releases don't appear on the console. Where's the audience? Can you imagine if Nintendo put out Twilight Princess on Wii, then put out Link's Crossbow Training on 360 and wondered why it didn't sell?

 

[thefro]

NMH2 will be a success if it outsells the first game in the series. It's had no advertising outside of some banner ads on gaming sites that look like the "Youtube Poop" videos, plus it was released on the same day as a lot of other big releases. I'm not expecting it to break out as a big hit due to those issues and it being a Suda 51 game.

I do have a lot of faith in Monster Hunter Tri to end all this silliness, presuming that Nintendo & Capcom put some muscle into pushing the game.

 

[gamergirly]

While I can certainly fault them for the shop design and promotion, the file size limit really couldn't have been avoided based on the Wii's fundamental architecture, and I think if we're going to let hindsight be 20/20 on the Wii's fundamental architecture, there's plenty of things we'd be nitpicking for a better software outcome before we got to storage capacity

This probably sounds crazy but couldnt Nintendo come up with an idea where you could get dual games(2 games on one disc) and rebrand them for lesser known publishers/developers? Could be labeled "Wii Best Indies" or something like that, place next to Nintendo 1st parties, and maybe cost $15 to $30. Just start manufacturing this series with a cool boxart, demo them in some of the Gamestop/Walmart/etc kiosks, and get word of mouth going.

Maybe the best way to for 3rd parties to get exposure is to just put it out there. You also wouldnt have to worry about the storage size of WiiWare games on the Wii.

 

[ElFly]

I find dishonest to say that Lair didn't kill Factor 5.

After Lair they went from working with Sony and Nintendo to Brash (who the hell are these guys).

Then Nintendo didn't accept their Kid Icarus pitch. Can't blame them, we've seem some of the concept art.

it is in japan.. but in NA and in Europe it is a third party title..

Just like NBA Street V3 and SSX On Tour on the GC Mario in the title doesnt mean its first party...

I think pachter counted it as first party solely because it says "Mario" on the title. Branding and stuff like that, not who actually paid for development/market/distribution.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Judging from the total software estimates posted on Gamasutra a little while ago, the 360's third-party software sales should be around five million units higher; the PS3's (total) software sales were ten million units lower than the Wii's third-party software sales, so third-party sales on the PS3 are bound to be at least that much less.

Unfortunately everyone seems to have a different level of granularity in mind for analyzing stuff, and stubbornness plays a part here.

Give aggregate numbers, and then people say "right, but over how many SKUs?" Give mean or median numbers, and then people say "right, but what kind of budget are we looking at per title?" Give per-title numbers and there's an incentive to credit or discredit titles based on largely arbitrary applications of grouping titles.

This is why I tend to put quite a bit of faith into reading the situation as it is rather than being as normative as many GAF posters are. There have been people here who in 2006 said "I know what ought to happen in 2007" and then found they weren't right and so devised their theory for 2008 and weren't right and so devised their theory for 2009 and weren't right and they continue today... and it's not that any of those people weren't reading the right data, it's that the specific way they read it was disconnected from the way the people who make decisions apparently read the data

NMH2 will be a success if it outsells the first game in the series.

I'd say it'll be a success if it sells around from NMH1 sold; asset and engine reuse reduces costs significantly here, the removal of the open world sections probably reduced costs, marketing isn't any bigger this time than it was last time, the same team size is basically working on it, and second-installments-on-platforms pretty frequently slip relative to first installments.

I do have a lot of faith in Monster Hunter Tri to end all this silliness, presuming that Nintendo & Capcom put some muscle into pushing the game.

I don't have a lot of faith in MH3 to change anything, and that's regardless of whether Nintendo and Capcom meet fan standards for having done enough to push the game or not.

Side note: In my experience, GAF claims that titles that failed "were not marketed" even if they were. You hear some variation of "not enough commercials", "commercials didn't focus on the right things", "missed the target audience", etc. I heard this about Little Big Planet. About Killzone 2. About titles that I saw tons of ads for; online, in person, on TV, in magazines, in stores, on the consoles themselves...

I don't have cable TV but the last time I was at a house that did, I saw 5 television commercials for Bayonetta. On the Discovery channel. I'm going to go ahead and assume that was sufficiently marketed. People tell me the last PSP monster hunter had significant in-store marketing, significant magazine marketing, and ads on the New York City subway. I have no idea if that's sufficient or not. Hell, Nintendo did a pretty huge web marketing campaign for Magical Starsign, and despite people claiming that they've never seen Starfy or Layton ads, both products are advertised non-stop on all sorts of venues. *shrugs*

This probably sounds crazy but couldnt Nintendo come up with an idea where you could get dual games(2 games on one disc) and rebrand them for lesser known publishers/developers? Could be labeled "Wii Best Indies" or something like that, place next to Nintendo 1st parties, and maybe cost $15 to $30. Just start manufacturing this series with a cool boxart, demo them in some of the Gamestop/Walmart/etc kiosks, and get word of mouth going.

I feel that this is a good idea, especially the Walmart factor since gamers at Wal-mart will probably not be very tech savvy. Nintendo is just launching a similar program in Japan for retail titles, and Microsoft has done two compilations here for XBLA stuff, so I think you're definitely on the right track!

 

[Lonely1]

I don't see as though it's bad for them; if they felt that way, they'd adjust their software outputs. Which they did, around the 2007-2008 mark. And now they're doing again, only away from the Wii, starting in mid-late 2009 and continuing.

I can buy that the market just "isn't there" or "dried up" like opiate says. But to say that they tried is bul... wrong.

I don't see as though it's bad for us; the games people want to play are more or less still being made, it's just a matter of buying another console, and once you get to 5-6 games that you'd like ported, it's cheaper to buy the other console and bargain bin backlog titles than it is to hold out for the ports.

Well, I do own a Ps3 (and a good PC) but I hate dual analogs for aiming. I find the wii-mote setup to be very comfortable and satisfying. As a gamer, I would like to see more games for that setup. The "just buy a HD console" stuff doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

I don't think Assassin's Creed is a good example because it's made for the strengths of the HD consoles. But I don't understand why a companies like Square-Enix does multiplatform DS-Wii games, but not PSP-Wii. Or Namco-Bandai that refuses to try with Tekken and Soul Calibur.

I think you misunderstood my example.

This Game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwinVDyEags

Should have had a day and date port to the Wii and they should have both been sold at the same price.

The Dante's Inferno for the PSP is another great example. They're already doing the 'lesser' port for a system that is less technically capable than the Wii. Why isn't it getting a bare port to the Wii?

Repeat again for the Japanese companies. We see a slew of renewed versions of RPGs coming out for the PSP, along with an original Resident Evil and an original Metal Gear (may be a bad example since it seems like it's meant for the adhoc experience). Most of these would probably of little to no technical challenge to port to the Wii for simultaneous release, and shared advertising would mean that advertising would happen for the Wii version.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I find dishonest to say that Lair didn't kill Factor 5.

After Lair they went from working with Sony and Nintendo to Brash (who the hell are these guys).

Then Nintendo didn't accept their Kid Icarus pitch. Can't blame them, we've seem some of the concept art.

Bzzt.

After Lair, they did sign a project with Nintendo. Not Kid Icarus, an actual project that was approved. They were working on this project for some time. THEN Nintendo dropped them. Doesn't relate to Rare.

As for Brash, the fact that you hadn't heard of them doesn't mean that they weren't prominent or prolific. They were a venture capital-funded publisher who immediately snatched up rights to enormous swaths of licenced properties and signed long-term multiple game contracts with many developers.

I think claiming a "loss of prestige" caused Factor 5 to be unable to get real work is a massive misreading of the real situation, which was that Factor 5 had plenty of real work and got flip turned upsidedown by an incredibly unlikely, hard to plan for negative externality.

I can buy that the market just "isn't there" or "dried up" like opiate says. But to say that they tried is bul... wrong.

Oh, I wouldn't say they tried in the sense that they did the right thing, but literally every western publisher announced in mid-2007 that they were missing the boat on the Wii and they'd try to fix that. They tried to fix it with shovelware and garbage titles and misguided efforts and plenty of other failure, I was just pointing out that they did react to the initial set of numbers that revealed the Wii's destiny as a distant #1.

Well, I do own a Ps3 (and a good PC) but I hate dual analogs for aiming. I find the wii-mote setup very comfortable and satisfying. So, for me, as a gamer, I would like to see more games for that setup. So, the "just buy a HD console" stuff doesn't appeal to me.

Eh, I try not to give too much thought to minor stuff like that.

Some of the genres I like aren't big anymore, some of the genres I like are. I like FPSes, but I wish I was playing fewer of them. I wish Mass Effect was more of an RPG than Mass Effect 1, not less. Sometimes I want motion controls in a game that doesn't have them, sometimes I wish they wouldn't ruin a game that does. Sometimes I feel like a game would be better on another console. A lot of people get upset about "the way things are going" rather than just going with the flow.

In general, though, a good game is a good game and anyone who wants to play BioShock with IR controls is unnecessarily starving themselves if they refuse to play it elsewhere. IR controls might change BioShock from an 8/10 for you to a 9.5/10, but there's no sense forsaking BioShock-level games so you can buy The Conduit-level games and complaining about the lack of really good stuff on the system .

Worrying too much about where you get your games rather than just getting the games you want and accepting that they are the way they are takes away from your enjoyment.

 

[John Harker]

Forgive me, because I'm not that good at sales analysis and I don't want to give the impression I'm only blaming third parties for the conundrum that is Wii Third Party Sales. Nintendo deserves a shitcake every day for the fact they were unwilling to play ball with Third Parties in order to drum up support for their system.

But the only AAA Third Party games that aren't multiplat (like GH and Rock Band) and are from known IPs that I can think of on the Wii are MH3Tri in Japan and Rabbids Go Home in North America. We know how MH3Tri sold: very well, if a little disappointing.

So my question is: how is Rabbids selling?

~190kish

 

[megashock5]

Third parties need to look at WHY Nintendo games are successful, instead of just throwing their hands up and going "WELP THAT'S JUST NINTENDO!" It's not just the brand name on the box that makes people buy Nintendo's games.

Nintendo makes great games, puts 100% effort behind them, and markets the crap out of them. They don't only put out spinoffs or "test" games.

Also, not EVERY Nintendo game does millions in sales. Some games are mainstream, and some games are niche. Smash Bros sells differently from Metroid which sells differently from Fire Emblem or Battalion Wars. I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't get pissed and throw up their hands about people not buying hardcore games when Fire Emblem didn't sell three million copies. Third parties are so hung up on "casual" vs "hardcore" that they forget the "mass market" vs "niche" part.

Also, people keep bringing up Dead Space Extraction or Darkside Chronicles, but making that comparison is silly. These are spinoffs to games where the main series releases don't appear on the console. Where's the audience? Can you imagine if Nintendo put out Twilight Princess on Wii, then put out Link's Crossbow Training on 360 and wondered why it didn't sell?

Great post, spot on. Also, these so-called "casuals" people keep talking about? If they're THAT casual, they don't know who makes the game anyway. My parents haven't owned a console since Colecovision and they bought a Wii - I had to explain to my mom that just because a game is on Wii, doesn't mean Nintendo made it. They buy games they think look fun, and don't even know to look for a developer or publisher on the box.

Mario games certainly have brand-recognition, but they also have nearly universal appeal.

 

[Version 3.0]

I don't see as though it's bad for them; if they felt that way, they'd adjust their software outputs. Which they did, around the 2007-2008 mark. And now they're doing again, only away from the Wii, starting in mid-late 2009 and continuing.

I don't see as though it's bad for us; the games people want to play are more or less still being made, it's just a matter of buying another console, and once you get to 5-6 games that you'd like ported, it's cheaper to buy the other console and bargain bin backlog titles than it is to hold out for the ports.

It is most definitely "bad for them". Publishers are leaving money on the table at best, and some of them have publicly complained of losing money on their (quite cheap) Wii games. If losing money isn't bad for a business, I don't know what is.

And it is "bad for us", at least if you're dissatisfied with the realization of the Wii's potential, as I am. I have a lot of consoles and am anything but starved for games, but the Wii is unique (at the moment) and I was hoping for more games that use its functions well, particularly the pointer function.

 

[farnham]

I think pachter counted it as first party solely because it says "Mario" on the title. Branding and stuff like that, not who actually paid for development/market/distribution.

Wasnt it NBA Street V3 Featuring Nintendo Allstars and SSX On Tour Featuring Mario (checks box)

yup it was

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Once more "falling in line with the other games" is a terrible argument, when the Rabbids games are one of the rare 3rd parties success stories on the Wii selling almost 2M copies each year worldwide.

And the problem is that we're switching genre's. The Raving Rabbids games were decent mini/party games that sold well in their first incarnation, and then continued to sell because they weren't utter crap. They successfully created what appears to be a yearly iteration franchise for the Wii. In the 4th iteration, they've switched genres. Now it's not a mini/party collection, but it is in fact a wacky katamari-a-like. A hefty percentage of the 2 million or so people who bought game #3 are going to be in for a surprise, and the people who ignored games #2-3 because the first one wasn't what they were looking for are going to continue to ignore #4 because it's got the same name and nothing much to differentiate it from outward appearances.

At least that's how the situation reads to me.

 

[ElFly]

Bzzt.

After Lair, they did sign a project with Nintendo. Not Kid Icarus, an actual project that was approved. They were working on this project for some time. THEN Nintendo dropped them. Doesn't relate to Rare.

As for Brash, the fact that you hadn't heard of them doesn't mean that they weren't prominent or prolific. They were a venture capital-funded publisher who immediately snatched up rights to enormous swaths of licenced properties and signed long-term multiple game contracts with many developers.

I think claiming a "loss of prestige" caused Factor 5 to be unable to get real work is a massive misreading of the real situation, which was that Factor 5 had plenty of real work and got flip turned upsidedown by an incredibly unlikely, hard to plan for negative externality.

IIRC the secret-nintendo-project that Factor 5 had was Pilotwings, that had been in development since the Gamecube and moved to the Wii. I find hard to believe that it wasn't paid for in all that time. Other unannounced Wii titles they could have we don't know anything about.

Of course there was a loss of prestige; they went from being the makers of one high profile PS3 exclusive game to working with the publisher of such gems as Alvin and the Chipmunks.

edit: I mean, yeah, it was a lot of bad luck, but they hadn't been in the situation of being a tarnished developer since the N64. It was a big factor.

They also probably banked on Lair doing well to pay their debts to Lucas Arts.

Wasnt it NBA Street V3 Featuring Nintendo Allstars and SSX On Tour Featuring Mario (checks box)

yup it was

*shrugs* ok. I don't think it's relevant to this discussion. The original analysis took MvS as a 1st party game to avoid the strange third party game that had mario on the title and on the box and that sold pretty well. I think it's valid for that angle, nothing else.

 

[Lonely1]

Eh, I try not to give too much thought to minor stuff like that.

Well, for me its not minor.

In general, though, a good game is a good game and anyone who wants to play BioShock with IR controls is unnecessarily starving themselves if they refuse to play it elsewhere. IR controls might change BioShock from an 8/10 for you to a 9.5/10, but there's no sense forsaking BioShock-level games so you can buy The Conduit-level games and complaining about the lack of really good stuff on the system .

I don't refuse to play such games. But since the control setup is not comfortable for me, their replay value rather is limited. UC2 was a great a ride, just a short one. While i have spent more then 100 hours in MWR. What's wrong with me wanting a product with a control scheme that I like?

 

[Big One]

So people here are suggesting...

Little King's Story
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Super Mario Galaxy
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
A Boy and His Blob
Zack & Wiki
Disaster: Day of Crisis
Resident Evil 4: Wii edition
House of the Dead: OVERKILL
Sin & Punishment 2
No More Heroes
No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
MadWorld
Murasama: The Demon Blade
Klonoa
Tales of Graces
Monster Hunter Tri
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
Punch-Out!!
Wii Sports Resort

Are all sub-standard, B-rate games? :lol This has to be a joke.

I don't mean to start any listwars, but regardless if they're niche titles or they don't sell well there is tons of people in this thread that are suggesting these games are mediocre and/or substandard. As an owner of all three consoles this gen, if you were to gather all of the best titles for the HD consoles including their multiplat games and ports you'd probably get the same amount for about the same quality of programming.

The main problem is two reasons, which a lot of people have stated in this thread:

1. Lack of hype. Only a few of these titles had any major hype attached to them. And I don't mean just GAF-hype, I mean hype with the core gaming fanbase on GAF, many other sites, and in real life. This is what HD titles have that the majority of Wii titles don't, and is usually why they are rated so much higher. Advertising is kind of attached to this subject, but hype goes beyond just advertising nowadays.

2. Negative stimulus of the system itself due to the large amount of shovelware on the system. If you go to Gamestop to randomly pick out a game - if you're that type of gamer - you're going to have deal with this often. The majority of gamers are like this; hardcore, casual, it doesn't matter on how they are classified but most people look at games and pick them out of interest of the appearance of the box itself or maybe seeing advertisements in the stores for it. This simply almost always fails for the Wii. I mean quite obviously if you're going to pick out Carnival Games 4 you aren't going to get a quality title; neither will you get a quality title picking out something like The Conduit.

 

[Stumpokapow]

It is most definitely "bad for them". Publishers are leaving money on the table at best, and some of them have publicly complained of losing money on their (quite cheap) Wii games. If losing money isn't bad for a business, I don't know what is.

Eh, I think virtually every business leaves money on the table in some sector and virtually every business loses money on some ventures. The question is whether they're more likely to realign in such a way that follows the Wii or happily shake hands and part ways and try to stake it out elsewhere.

And it is "bad for us", at least if you're dissatisfied with the realization of the Wii's potential, as I am. I have a lot of consoles and am anything but starved for games, but the Wii is unique (at the moment) and I was hoping for more games that use its functions well, particularly the pointer function.

I disagree highly here.

The Wii is unique and it's a damn shame that more games aren't using its functionality. Of course, it's also a damn shame point and click adventures are in a relative lull. And a damn shame fewer people don't use the PS3/360s computing power for awesome 2d experiences like PixelJunk Eden or Geometry Wars. And a damn shame that Demon's Souls is the only game to do the kind of collaborative community support online thing. And a damn shame that only PS3 games have YouTube encoding.

To me, it's most important that developers are working on good games that I enjoy playing, and trying to deliver innovation wherever they are. Maybe that's in controls. Maybe it's in visual style. Maybe it's in AI. Maybe it's in game concept.

Either way, I don't think there's been any time in the last ten years where I haven't had more games to play than time to play them, and so as long as developers feel like they're doing what they want to be doing, I'm happy for them. Fretting too much about the decline or rise of a given genre or a given style of play to me is just pedantic, and that includes IR/motion controls.

If Swaggle or Natal end up producing fun stuff, great. If people make great Wii games, great. If they make traditional HD console stuff, great. Being fulfilled as a gamer strikes me as a pretty easy objective to achieve

 

[jay]

So people here are suggesting...

Little King's Story
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
A Boy and His Blob
Zack & Wiki
Resident Evil 4: Wii edition
House of the Dead: OVERKILL
No More Heroes
No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
MadWorld
Murasama: The Demon Blade
Klonoa
Tales of Graces
Monster Hunter Tri
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

They are suggesting that these, minus RE4 (which was a port) and MHT (which isn't out in most places yet), are not close to AAA big budget games. Which is true.

 

[farnham]

*shrugs* ok. I don't think it's relevant to this discussion. The original analysis took MvS as a 1st party game to avoid the strange third party game that had mario on the title and on the box and that sold pretty well. I think it's valid for that angle, nothing else.

mario vs. sonic at the winter olympics is published by sega.. and developed by sega.. its a sega game and not a nintendo game.. therefore its a thirdparty game..

 

[ElFly]

mario vs. sonic at the winter olympics is published by sega.. and developed by sega.. its a sega game and not a nintendo game.. therefore its a thirdparty game..

Isn't coming into a thread without reading the OP a bannable offense?

Cause it is explained there.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I don't refuse to play such games. But since the control setup is not comfortable for me, their replay value rather is limited. UC2 was a great a ride, just a short one. While i have spent more then 100 hours in MWR. What wrong with me wanting a product with a control scheme that I like?

Nothing is wrong with you wanting whatever you want. I want a pony some days, and I can tell you right now that I'd trade any 25 of my games on any console for an English copy of The Tower DS.

The question is what you do in life when presented with sub-optimal choices. If you feel that the loss of IR control makes playing games so miserable that it's either developers move to the Wii or you stop buying games, sorry, you're not going to be buying many games.

If on the other hand you want to play the games that are being made because while you might prefer them another way they're still worth running through, and I'm saying this based on the real way that this generation has played out, buy them on a platform they're available on.

This goes for everyone; there's not going to be a last minute game changer here, so if you're not happy with the games on the console you own, look at the libraries of other consoles. If you own one console and you happily play that library, awesome. If you find yourself wanting games on other consoles and grumbling that the teams you like aren't supporting yourself, there's only one option you have that'll actually solve that problem.

 

[Indyana]

I don't see as though it's bad for us; the games people want to play are more or less still being made, it's just a matter of buying another console, and once you get to 5-6 games that you'd like ported, it's cheaper to buy the other console and bargain bin backlog titles than it is to hold out for the ports.

I can give you a reason why it's bad.

People bought the Wii because they wanted to play games that used the Wii strengths. But the third parties decided that if someone wanted to play their best games, he would have to play them focusing in the HD twins strengths. And we know that those strengths are very different.

 

[selig]

The conclusion I draw from this is that the Wii audience is far more casual and harder to reach than the PS3 or 360 audiences (pretty obvious), and they buy brand name software (with "Wii" or "Mario" in the title, or with a TV/product tie-in).

oh pachter :/

show us the assassins creed 2, modern warfare 2 and the likes that are released on the wii and didnt sell and...OH SNAP

 

[ShockingAlberto]

So people here are suggesting...

Little King's Story
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Super Mario Galaxy
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
A Boy and His Blob
Zack & Wiki
Disaster: Day of Crisis
Resident Evil 4: Wii edition
House of the Dead: OVERKILL
Sin & Punishment 2
No More Heroes
No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle
MadWorld
Murasama: The Demon Blade
Klonoa
Tales of Graces
Monster Hunter Tri
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
Punch-Out!!
Wii Sports Resort

Are all sub-standard, B-rate games? :lol This has to be a joke.

I don't mean to start any listwars

then you probably shouldn't have begun your post with a list and stupidly condescending tone.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I can give you a reason why it's bad.

People bought the Wii because they wanted to play games that used the Wii strengths. But the third parties decided that if someone wanted to play their best games, he would have to play them focusing in the HD twins strengths. And we know that those strengths are very different.

Again, as I explained in the last few posts, getting too attached to the magical possibilities of hardware rather than the actual games that get made is a recipe for disappointment. I'd love it if 99.9999% of PS3 games actually made use of Blu-Ray in some meaningful way. They don't. Oh well. I'd love it if the 360 supported a USB keyboard and got a few PC ports. Oh well. I'd love it if retail copies of PC games had better Steam integration. Oh well. I'd love it if Wii gems like Little King's Story actually used any kind of functionality that'd make them better on the Wii than on the PS360. Oh well.

Things are the way they are and whatever expectations people had for the Wii's unique strengths, there's not likely going to be radical upsets in the kind, quantity, and calibre of software being made for the Wii, so it's best to look to the games that are actually being made.

oh pachter :/

show us the assassins creed 2, modern warfare 2 and the likes that are released on the wii and didnt sell and...OH SNAP

i don't think anyone reading your post thinks you deserved an oh snap for that particular insight

 

[Flachmatuch]

you haven't named a company that has closed down / shrunk due to investing in hd software

I know the concrete question is about third parties, but I think it's quite obvious that HD is not doing very well for the industry, and that can be very easily seen by how much MS and Sony have lost this gen, it's about $5bn so far in this gen. I think it'd be really difficult to argue that the HD stuff wasn't an overall failure for the industry.

Anyway, imo for the industry the best thing would be if the largest third party publishers (EA, Activision, Ubi) just ceased to exist. They should go bankrupt, because they're doing so badly and they're incapable to respond to the market. They shouldn't be bought up and merged, but destroyed, except for a couple of studios who could work independently. There's nothing they can (or rather, should be able to) do.

I have no idea about what will actually happen, but there are a few general purpose tools that are usually relied upon, one is the traditional transformation of competitive markets into monopoly markets (through mergers etc), the second is technology. The result of the first is obvious, and as for the second one, I think a lot of the Western publishers will try their luck with Natal. Overall, the industry will survive somehow, and the remaining large publishers will probably be able to use their superlarge predictable franchises to make money, some of them being new casual (but Natal, not Nintendo) franchises.

What will *not* happen is, imo, a real change of directions - any new strategy that builds on the Wii new casual market in a proactive way; any serious attempt to handle the new casual market will happen with Natal at best. Maybe there'll be an up'n'coming new publisher who "gets it" and can grow fast, but the barriers of entry are probably already too high for that.