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[tehrik-e-insaaf]

I think Nintendo cares so much about its own image to associate it to Itagaki. That's sad, he's awesome.

It's slightly more complicated than that - Nintendo has a good relationship with Tecmo that has far more developers and IPs than Itagaki alone... Team Ninja is still a B+/A- development team and they have expressed interest in continuing to work on Nintendo IP... Tecmo absolutely hates Itagaki for all the bad blood that went down... so Nintendo risks alienating a key partner to gamble on one developer whose project was dumped by THQ (who is desperate for content as they spiral into bankruptcy) recently... the Tekken team also hates Itagaki and Nintendo needs them totally on-board for Smash 4 because it's a key title for the Wii U and Sakurai doesn't have the skills to run a studio on his own (Project Sora was a management nightmare for Nintendo)

For Itagaki to get back into the good graces of the industry in Japan more generally, there is going to have to be some effort by someone at Nintendo (despite his comments about Pikmin) or someone else well respected like a Kojima (unless he has pissed off Kojima too?) that he hasn't pissed off, to try and give him an opportunity to develop some projects and re-develop relationships without mortally offending Tecmo...

I don't think that is going to happen anytime in the next few months... Sony and Microsoft have zero interest in helping Itagaki nor are they in need of his content... Microsoft had their one-night stand with Itagaki and they are basically ignoring his phone calls... Sony is investing away from Japanese devs and neither are they willing to overlook all the negative comments he made about Sony hardware in the past...

But yes I agree with you, I think he is a craftsman... even if being into virtual breasts is a bit of a weird thing to be a fine craftsman of... uhm... he still takes his work seriously... If he can showcase his gameplay ideas and impress Nintendo with some clever mechanics... he could be back... this isn't an issue of whether Itagaki is right or wrong... it's an issue of human relationships... Itagaki was just in an unfortunate situation where he spoke his mind too often and alienated so many people that when his bad days came, no one was there to protect him

 

[Proven]

What, what PSN/Capcom incident that caused MH4 to move away from Sony systems?

 

[Laughing Banana]

Wow, that EA/Nintendo Origin fallout was an interesting read.

 

[Hiltz]

What, what PSN/Capcom incident that caused MH4 to move away from Sony systems?

This is probably referring to the attempt to localize MH Portable 3rd HD for PS3. Christian Svensson, Senior Vice President of Capcom, commented on the situation:

Still talking to SCEA and SCEE about it however there’s been no progress at this time. They [SCEA and SCEE] have to make exceptions to approve this sort of project in the West: one that runs on PS3 but doesn’t have trophies or make use of regular PSN for online play… it uses a modification of adhoc party which doesn’t exist in the West.In short, it requires them to localize and launch SCEJ network services (which is development work and QA/support on their side) that don’t currently exist in either territory and a release it from the usual platform requirements for trophies, etc. It’s not trivial on Sony’s part. And we won’t start the localization process until we know we can bring it out here (as much as I know you guys want it).

At least one of those prior games was supposed to have been here by now. Portable 3rd HD was how I’d hoped to bring Portable 3rd content westward, and for a variety of reasons that just wasn’t able to happen. Some of which under Capcom’s control, but ultimately a key part not under our control, which involved ad-hoc party support, particularly of a specific variety that exists in Japan, but has no plans to exist on the SCEA or SCEE PlayStation Networks.

 

[MarkusRJR]

Wow, that EA/Nintendo Origin fallout was an interesting read.

Yeah it's so interesting to read about all the behind doors meetings and deals at Nintendo. Shit like that makes me wonder "what would have happened if they actually did so and so". I'd imagine EA's support would have been crazy good if the deal went through.

 

[sketchsanchez]

Wow, that EA/Nintendo Origin fallout was an interesting read.

wait, isnt the "source" for that rumor an ign forum post?

I remember a gaffer bringing it up in one of the many post launch wii u threads and the mods laughed and told him to put a sock in it.

 

[ugoo18]

Yeah it's so interesting to read about all the behind doors meetings and deals at Nintendo. Shit like that makes me wonder "what would have happened if they actually did so and so". I'd imagine EA's support would have been crazy good if the deal went through.

Depends on your definition of good 3rd party support especially in relation to Nintendo. Considering how the article says Ubisoft and Valve jumped completely on board the WiiU as a result of that till we see their future support we can only speculate.

So far from Ubisoft we have seen a decent AC3 port, ZombiU, a Rabbids game and a very nice looking Rayman Legends as well. Can't remember how that stacks up compared to their initial Wii support but from what i remember of games like Far Cry Vengeance and Red Steel it's definitely better so far at least in terms of quality not sure about quantity. Although those early efforts could and probably were more indicative of the inexperience of the dev studios with the Wii at that time as shown by the greatly improved Red Steel 2.

Although part of me does wonder how last gen and this supposed falling out with EA would have ended up had Battlefield been the Gamecube exclusive it started out as.

 

[oconnomiyaki]

I feel this thread flies in the face of history. Developers didn't like working with Nintendo. Yamauchi was ruthless and cruel (he fired his entire family from Nintendo when he took charge) and developers/publishers didn't like working with him. They did so because they had to, and because their contracts had anti-compete clauses. The US and Japanese markets were too lucrative in the 80s to consider Sega.

Yamauchi also called PAL "a necessary inconvenience", showing his overall distain for the consumer. It's no wonder that Sega was able to trump Nintendo in those regions.

Nintendo's turn to third parties now is basically evidence that Howard Lincoln was wrong all along: first-party software isn't enough to carry you through to success. Nintendo properties are still amazing pieces of software, but they are too few and their nostalgic pull not strong enough on a generation that didn't grow up with them. Mario alone will not a success make.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I would put Hatena up there for Miiverse, not a game but sure feels like one

 

[speedpop]

wait, isnt the "source" for that rumor an ign forum post?

I remember a gaffer bringing it up in one of the many post launch wii u threads and the mods laughed and told him to put a sock in it.

I would say that it's more about the perceived innuendo than anything else. No one can deny the complete 180° reversal of attitude that EA had from E3 '11 compared to E3 '12 when it concerned the Wii U. Unfortunately that's the type of kindle perfect for those sort of rumours to start spreading throughout the forums and websites.

 

[DjRoomba]

Yeah I find it hard to buy EA would push something like that, even harder to believe they would sulk when refused. Im not sure I see what would be in it for Nintendo either. That link talks of an upside allowing integration with Facebook and twitter and the idea of user accounts - something Nintendo can obviously figure out without help from EA. Clearly something happened with EA, but probably not that.

 

[speedpop]

I feel this thread flies in the face of history. Developers didn't like working with Nintendo. Yamauchi was ruthless and cruel (he fired his entire family from Nintendo when he took charge) and developers/publishers didn't like working with him. They did so because they had to, and because their contracts had anti-compete clauses. The US and Japanese markets were too lucrative in the 80s to consider Sega.

Yamauchi also called PAL "a necessary inconvenience", showing his overall distain for the consumer. It's no wonder that Sega was able to trump Nintendo in those regions.

Nintendo's turn to third parties now is basically evidence that Howard Lincoln was wrong all along: first-party software isn't enough to carry you through to success. Nintendo properties are still amazing pieces of software, but they are too few and their nostalgic pull not strong enough on a generation that didn't grow up with them. Mario alone will not a success make.

If there was one thing that was good for Yamauchi it was his habit to speak frankly about the industry like an old obnoxious cranky shit. His reputation for being an ass was immeasurable. In a way I kind of miss him.

I always found it humourous that the fact that the GameCube, despite having a stellar library in certain circumstances depending upon who you ask, was their weakest console of all time. It was after that period and during the life of the GBA where an outreach for Japanese third party deals began to spread. Some might even argue it was happening during the GameCube's life, what with F-Zero GX and the like. Was it mere coincidence that this level of talk and development was beginning to take place after Yamauchi had stepped down, and the whole thing all seemingly ramped up after he left the board? I'll let the armchair analysts speculate over that one.

But what I can say is that it's going to be most interesting to see what unfolds over the next 5 years, specifically when a majority of US gamers are looking over the horizon for Microsoft's and Sony's next machine all the while stating that the 3DS (or handhelds in general) is a flailing product and the Wii U is doomed. Nintendo have barely shown their cards, but they've already managed to let an ace slip out of their pocket with Platinum Games doing Bayonetta 2. Then there's Animal Crossing continuing to do what Animal Crossing does.

It's going to be an exciting time we look ahead to and see who writes the history.

 

[Celine]

Yeah I find it hard to buy EA would push something like that, even harder to believe they would sulk when refused. Im not sure I see what would be in it for Nintendo either. That link talks of an upside allowing integration with Facebook and twitter and the idea of user accounts - something Nintendo can obviously figure out without help from EA. Clearly something happened with EA, but probably not that.

Well they did something like that to wimpy Sega during their demise in the DC era.

The part I've found unlikely in the story is where Nintendo managers actually thought one minute long before shutting down the option.
Well that or the fact that one of the source (that he don't won't to reveal to protect) was actually in the meeting room (if I didn't read wrong).

 

[BishopLamont]

As much as I want the another golden era of PS2/SNES style of dominance for Nintendo, I also want the playing field to be fair. Nintendo has and will always have its first party, while Microsoft has Live and the dudebros. Playstation has the universal casual/gamers worldwide appeal still. The game is now a 3 way even level playing field more than ever and it makes me excited. Now more than ever, every side has learned many lessons and opportunities, risks and rewards are numerous. Add to the fact that Apple is also a semi player also makes it much more interesting. Either way, whoever wins or loses, its us gamers that will gain the most out of all this. I don't play games as much as I use to, but the business and politics is something I simply can't resist.

I also gotta add: Everyone seems to think Nintendo should be reaching out to these big western companies, why should they? Nintendo's main priority is to produce a large userbase for games to sell, its a two way street, if third parties aren't willing to show a hand to Nintendo, why should Nintendo kow-tow to them? Iwata knows western third parties are badly burned by Yamauchi and its gonna take baby steps to regain the trust, but that shouldn't mean complying to everything they want. The Wii U is gonna have a 360 level of headstart in terms of userbase and its not severely aged like the Wii, yes its underpowered, but not antiqued, if third parties aren't willing to support them meaningfully, then there's nothing much Nintendo can do but rely on what they've known best: their own IPs and developers and continue their slow progress towards regaining western third parties that will actually support Nintendo's consoles through their games and actions and not just their PRs and words.

 

[Thrillhouse]

I feel that what Nintendo did wrong with Wii compared to GC was to not replace all the western developers lost during the generation. They launched the GC with Rare, Retro, Factor 5, Silicon Knights, NST and more all flourishing under their lead. They even had a decent third party support at least during the ealy life of the cube. They launched the Wii with all of them lost but Retro and with only Ubisoft to fill the gap. Now when we look at Wii U those gaps still haven't been filled and we haven't seen anything Retro and have no indication that NST is alive and well enough to produce a real game.

I think it's clear that Wii had and Wii U will have significant gaps in their libraries that japanese devs are unwilling/unable to fill. So my question is why Nintendo isn't expanding in this area? They have the money obviously. They have the IP, today they have more IP capable of selling ganbusters than they have time and resources to develop. Why should beloved franchises sit in the cold for years after years when there clearly is money to be made? And besides that, they need new franchises to keep up. Where would Disney be today if they only made Donald Duck and Mickey-cartoons? Aquire or contract some western studios and give them one of your IPs currently not being developed in house. Or give them substantial founds and encourage them to create something new and exclusive to Nintendo.

 

[Stewox]

Retro's had major staff turnover after basically every project.

Yeah, US is much trickier because of high butthurt rate.

Afaik one Retro prototype was shotdown and some devs left like crybabies. None of those were key.

Nintendo did nothing wrong, making a hit is a process and takes research that probably very few companies go through. Americans aren't used enough to prototyping, atleast the production teams.
But proper prototyping doesn't involve production. You don't see nintendo showing trailers and then canceling or redoing later.

Nintendo secrecy is not without reason, some of those prototypes may be modified later, turned into another game., etc

E3 whiners just don't get it. Who even expects hits at every show, nintendo is not activision, quantity is not quality

 

[Alexios]

How about learning more to have your "afaik" more informed?

Three key members left in 2008 to start their own studio alongside a deal with EA that gave them more creative freedom and possibly money (nothing seems to have been delivered). Designer Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller, and principal technology engineer Jack Mathews are not "non key". I'm not saying Retro is awful now, they've proven they've still got it and that all three of those had staff worthy of replacing them working with them with Donkey Kong Country Returns, but after that two senior designers, Kynan Pearson and Mike Wikan, also left the studio to join 343 Industries and id Software. I'm sure it affected the team but I'm also sure once again they weren't all the reason why Donkey Kong Country Returns was good.

Source.

That's all we can really know, there's absolutely no reason to speculate over if they cried or if a particular project was the reason. People's desires change and leaving one job for another isn't uncommon or means the previous job was a shithole nobody should be in or the new job the dream of all. I remember reading some of Retro Studios are ex Valve developers. I don't think we can bad mouth Valve for losing them or being a little bit suckier since they left from what we know of them or on the other hand claim they're all Valve rejects or something with their track record. So, let's not do similar shit in this case.

Things from now on could go well for them or go badly, games development is risky and you never know how each person will take each situation, it doesn't mean anything bad for them if they desire a change in environment and goal or bad for the parent company if they can't entice them enough to stay when it could be impossible for them to do.

 

[Subaru]

It's slightly more complicated than that - Nintendo has a good relationship with Tecmo that has far more developers and IPs than Itagaki alone... Team Ninja is still a B+/A- development team and they have expressed interest in continuing to work on Nintendo IP... Tecmo absolutely hates Itagaki for all the bad blood that went down... so Nintendo risks alienating a key partner to gamble on one developer whose project was dumped by THQ (who is desperate for content as they spiral into bankruptcy) recently... the Tekken team also hates Itagaki and Nintendo needs them totally on-board for Smash 4 because it's a key title for the Wii U and Sakurai doesn't have the skills to run a studio on his own (Project Sora was a management nightmare for Nintendo)

For Itagaki to get back into the good graces of the industry in Japan more generally, there is going to have to be some effort by someone at Nintendo (despite his comments about Pikmin) or someone else well respected like a Kojima (unless he has pissed off Kojima too?) that he hasn't pissed off, to try and give him an opportunity to develop some projects and re-develop relationships without mortally offending Tecmo...

I don't think that is going to happen anytime in the next few months... Sony and Microsoft have zero interest in helping Itagaki nor are they in need of his content... Microsoft had their one-night stand with Itagaki and they are basically ignoring his phone calls... Sony is investing away from Japanese devs and neither are they willing to overlook all the negative comments he made about Sony hardware in the past...

But yes I agree with you, I think he is a craftsman... even if being into virtual breasts is a bit of a weird thing to be a fine craftsman of... uhm... he still takes his work seriously... If he can showcase his gameplay ideas and impress Nintendo with some clever mechanics... he could be back... this isn't an issue of whether Itagaki is right or wrong... it's an issue of human relationships... Itagaki was just in an unfortunate situation where he spoke his mind too often and alienated so many people that when his bad days came, no one was there to protect him

Oh, could you tell me more about the bold part (Project Sora management)? Never heard about this, must be interesting!

It's sad that Itagaki buried himself that much. He's very good and his games have a really good thing, it's all about mechanics, impact - even if they are not very polished. Nothing compares to Ninja Gaiden [1,2] or DoA [2,4] and the recent iterations don't have that "Itagaki feeling".

 

[Effect]

I don't think we'll ever see the return to the past where Nintendo systems were the go to system for all games. They simply aren't the only game in town and as soon as alternatives showed up companies were gone. However while the reasons for the bad relationships are now gone I don't think there is any incentive for a majority of third parties to really nurture markets (the investment needed to increase sales of certain types of games over time) on Nintendo systems. They have the Sony and Microsoft markets. Nintendo could possibly step in here more but it would be at the expense of their own titles and interest. I see Sony possibly having this issue in the future. They have a lot of IPs as well and really should be given more attention by them. However that could just simply upset third party developers when Sony's own IPs end up being the best selling titles on Sony's systems in wide numbers. Many of them should be I think.

That isn't the case for all but I doubt Nintendo really believes they can change this in a meaningful way. They can't just drop tons of money and buy support year after year. Which is why they likely decided to expand in Japan the way they have. The brand new building. Partnering more with Japanese third party developers to get more of their IPs (even in the west with a few other companies. This might need to be addressed more.) out and being willing to fund and publish more games themselves.

I don't think the idea that they can or have to support themselves is gone. Just that it can't be done 100% in house as they can only do so much with the complexity games now have and the scale they have to be at, especially on the console front.

I like to think that people would be okay with this and even be more understanding if Nintendo communicated this better and more consistently in a way that's viewable by all. Communication has always been my biggest issue with Nintendo. Nintendo Directs have helped but they are largely Japan focused. There is no significant western presence in a way by comparison. However I'm not sure who is to blame for that. NCL or NoA/NoE (who have largely focused on twitter and facebook while wasting their websites (the first thing anyone goes to) as a method of interaction).

 

[Pociask]

It's crazy that Nintendo has not built up more studios in North America and Europe. They obviously have not been able to support two platforms for a long, long time. They need more software. Even if the games produced only broke even on average, it would still move hardware, netting profit for Nintendo. Yet they sit on their hands.

I think it's pretty clear at this point that Nintendo is just a very, very Japan-focused company, that exports its products made for its domestic market. As they've shown, they'd much rather just make stuff for Japan only, and not export it if it wouldn't do well worldwide, then develop a product that has Western appeal first and foremost.

Just to be clear, Nintendo does make products that have worldwide appeal. Duh. But they also make a steady stream of Japan only content, that is never even intended to be released to the rest of the market. And this, despite the fact that the vast majority of Nintendo's sales occur outside of Japan!

 

[tehrik-e-insaaf]

Oh, could you tell me more about the bold part (Project Sora management)? Never heard about this, must be interesting!

It's sad that Itagaki buried himself that much. He's very good and his games have a really good thing, it's all about mechanics, impact - even if they are not very polished. Nothing compares to Ninja Gaiden [1,2] or DoA [2,4] and the recent iterations don't have that "Itagaki feeling".

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=43147626&postcount=91

Managing a studio, producing and directing games was way beyond Masahiro Sakurai. Sakurai's wife helped him managed the studio as well, but it just wasn't enough. Specifically procuring and hiring talent became arduous for Sakurai. Basically he was never able to assemble an internal staff capable of developing a game on its own. For Smash Bros. Brawl and Kid Icarus, they only we able to hire about 20-50% of the necessary staff required for a Wii-3DS game. Nintendo had to subcontract several companies for each game to reach development. Again, they tried to hire staff for the Smash HD-3DS project, and they just gave up, liquidated the subsidiary, and hired Namco-Bandai to do the intial labor. Three strikes and you are out.

Iwata wanted Sakurai to join EAD Tokyo from the beginning. Have management run the studio, and just have Sakurai focus on producing or directing the games. Sakurai initially refused.

Also...

I like to think that people would be okay with this and even be more understanding if Nintendo communicated this better and more consistently in a way that's viewable by all. Communication has always been my biggest issue with Nintendo. Nintendo Directs have helped but they are largely Japan focused. There is no significant western presence in a way by comparison. However I'm not sure who is to blame for that. NCL or NoA/NoE (who have largely focused on twitter and facebook while wasting their websites (the first thing anyone goes to) as a method of interaction).

I'll only speak for myself and what interaction I have with NoA, but I honestly have to say the quality of folks that NoA has is terrible... the vast majority of great managers they had jumped ship to Microsoft ~10+ years ago or to other tech companies like Apple even... NoA tried to open up regional offices in SF and NYC to try and bring back good marketing people after Perrin Kaplan left, but overall they've just been terrible at attracting good people on the business side, and much of it comes down to the fact that up and coming marketing and sales folks see no future at the company... part of it is the incestuous culture they've developed... a bunch of 40 to 50-something dudebros who know little about hardcore Nintendo fans and more generally gaming culture and have stuck around for YEARS despite their complete inability to do anything - often blaming NCL for their laziness...

People who have no idea about anything happening at NoA keep saying it's "Japan! They won't let the Americans do what they want" - that's totally absurd! NCL is WAY too busy to bother micro managing the bureaucracy at NoA... they have a pretty hands-off approach to the local market and pretty much leave it up to NoA to decide what to bring over, localization, etc - and Yamauchi famously wanted more devolution of power so that younger American executives at NoA could make decisions on their own (read the BusinessWeek article in the OP)...

TBH I don't think NCL wants to send a bunch of Japanese people to NoA to try and run things... At the same time they keep thinking hiring one or two really good leaders will solve the problem... People like Reggie have tried to make inroads into the Nintendo gaming culture in America... but at the end of the day they aren't really gamers and the personas they take on are more a mockery of Nintendo fans than anything else... It's frankly a little embarrassing...

If I were NCL, I would restructure NoA's mandate, and get them to focus on the following with specific milestones for each

1. All marketing and localization (which they already do) - but set targets to maximize content discovery and breadth/depth in as many channels as possible - stop relying on the Wal Mart / Gamestop crutch

2. Talent - NoA does a terrible job helping to find and procure talent - outside of Digipen, they pretty much have no active presence to find and recruit developers for NST or Retro - they pretty much just expect developers to find websites... meanwhile other game devs are swarming technical talent at the top schools (Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, UT, Urbana Champaign, Olin Engineering) and great design and art schools, and getting them on board as well as going to GDC and other conferences to find experienced development talent... Retro and NST don't have the resources to do these large scale recruiting efforts on their own so NOA needs to take a lead if they intend to ramp up the studios to get 5-6 high quality games a generation...

3. Developer/Publisher relations - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE (disturbing, I know) - NoA pretty much continues to drop the ball here - they are mostly absent in these discussions and it really affects the marketing potential of Nintendo products as well - their Indie discussions are getting better - but still overall incredibly poor and that's because they don't have engineers but corporate shills trying to do this stuff

4. Other Software - OS, UX, dev kits, etc - It's absurd that Nintendo is hiring Japanese software engineers to do this - and it's absurd that the best NoA can do is license existing software for TVii - they need their own software teams thinking about apps, etc. There are plenty of people they can poach from MSFT and plenty of enterprise software folks in Texas they could pick up and locate in Austin - they just need to try

5. I'd also shake up the organization from the bottom up by developing young people out of college or early in their career - similar to Google's APM (Associate Product Manager) program that Marissa Meyer started and is now the most lucrative post-college entry level job in Silicon Valley

I guarantee NoA will change fundamentally if they could just do a few of these things well

I always found it humourous that the fact that the GameCube, despite having a stellar library in certain circumstances depending upon who you ask, was their weakest console of all time. It was after that period and during the life of the GBA where an outreach for Japanese third party deals began to spread. Some might even argue it was happening during the GameCube's life, what with F-Zero GX and the like. Was it mere coincidence that this level of talk and development was beginning to take place after Yamauchi had stepped down, and the whole thing all seemingly ramped up after he left the board? I'll let the armchair analysts speculate over that one.

Nintendo had really good relationships with third parties in America during the GC and they really made a lot of in roads in Japan - Yamauchi was the reason for that as he funded a lot of independent development studios with his own cash and took in refugee developers from other studios (*cough*Square*cough*)... Sony had a tyrant-like grip during the PS2, so a lot of the key IP stayed on the PS2 - but with the exploding popularity of the DS and the decline of the Japanese console market - Japanese developers warmed up to Nintendo's profit machine (low dev costs, high user base)

For this reason, I really think people don't know WTF they are talking about in terms of Yamauchi when they bash the man sometimes - yes the man was eccentric, but he was immensely respected - he took the risks that ensured the games market in Japan survived - and he kept everyone - yes even the great NAMCO - on an equal playing field - he believed talent was all that mattered and had zero tolerance for entitlement - one of the reasons smaller game developers emerged was precisely because Yamauchi advocated such an equal playing field - do you think a small studio like Square would have emerged during the PS2 life cycle given all the preferential treatment Sony gave to large publishers?

The DS was Yamauchi's idea as was the target demographics for it (new gamers), and the reason he hand-picked Iwata was because Iwata was the closest thing to a younger Yamauchi (Iwata made a bunch of the planning decisions on Gamecube) - the one thing Iwata added to the mix was the fact that he himself was a developer and gamer - which allowed him to connect personally with talent that was fleeing from established studios - and the dividends are being paid as EAD Tokyo and Nintendo's partnerships have proven

Iwata knows western third parties are badly burned by Yamauchi and its gonna take baby steps to regain the trust

...

 

[AzaK]

I also gotta add: Everyone seems to think Nintendo should be reaching out to these big western companies, why should they? Nintendo's main priority is to produce a large userbase for games to sell, its a two way street, if third parties aren't willing to show a hand to Nintendo, why should Nintendo kow-tow to them? Iwata knows western third parties are badly burned by Yamauchi and its gonna take baby steps to regain the trust, but that shouldn't mean complying to everything they want. The Wii U is gonna have a 360 level of headstart in terms of userbase and its not severely aged like the Wii, yes its underpowered, but not antiqued, if third parties aren't willing to support them meaningfully, then there's nothing much Nintendo can do but rely on what they've known best: their own IPs and developers and continue their slow progress towards regaining western third parties that will actually support Nintendo's consoles through their games and actions and not just their PRs and words.

Thing is, the big Western devs seem very hardware focussed. The cinegame boom of this generation blew out budgets and separated the big studios from the small ones for better or worse. Nintendo though, once again chose to go the mediocre power route and aiming more for the 360/PS3 level than the 720/PS4. I imagine they are aiming more for the mid tier and indy developer this generation which is a decent size of the market and quite possible very profitiable long term. However when it comes to the big AAA studios wanting to put their top level games out, the Wii U might be left out of that.

It's possible Nintendo just thought "Hey, anyone into those sorts of games will get another system anyway" which is probably true and so all Nintendo need is a steady stream of titles that people want, even if those are not the AAA blockbusters on 720/PS4.

 

[StreetsAhead]

But they also make a steady stream of Japan only content, that is never even intended to be released to the rest of the market.

Looking at Nintendo's recent track record, this statement is patently ridiculous. It may take a long time for some games to be released after Japan, but they have or are planning to release just about every game they have released in the US and almost Europe. In fact, there are more games on this list that don't have a JP release confirmed than games without a release for US/PAL.

DS/3DS:
Nintendogs + Cats
Pilot Wings Resort
Steel Diver
LoZ: OoT 3D
Star Fox 64 3D
Pokemon Rumble Blast
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 7
Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir
Kid Icarus Uprising
Fire Emblem Awakening
Mario Tennis: Open
Brain Age: Concentration Training
New Super Mario Bros. 2
New Art Academy
Stylesavvy: Trendsetters
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Pokemon Black & White 2
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Infinite Magnagates
Crossword Plus (no JP release announced)
Freaky Forms Deluxe: Your Creations Alive (no JP release announced)
Friend/Tomodachi Collection
Band Brothers 3DS

3DS Ware:
Beauty Clock
Dillion's Rolling Western
Pushmo
Crashmo
Fluidity: Spin Cycle
Freakyforms: Your Creations Alive
Tokyo Crash Mobs
Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword
Swapnote
Rhythm Hunter: HarmoKnight
Sparkle Snapshots 3D
Ketzal's Corridors
Pokedex 3D
Pokedex 3D Pro
Pokemon Dream Radar

Wii U:
Nintendo Land
Game & Wario
New Super Mario Bros. 2
Wii Fit U
Bayonetta 2
Lego City Undercover
Pikmin 3
The Wonderful 101
Sing Party (no JP release announced)
Ninja Gaiden: Razor's Edge
Panorama View

Please, correct me if I am wrong. However bad they may have been historically, they've clearly been attempting to get more or less every game out of Japan.

 

[Subaru]

tehrik-e-insaaf, thank you so much, I've missed that topic and it's very interesting!

 

[remnant]

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I also gotta add: Everyone seems to think Nintendo should be reaching out to these big western companies, why should they? Nintendo's main priority is to produce a large userbase for games to sell, its a two way street, if third parties aren't willing to show a hand to Nintendo, why should Nintendo kow-tow to them? Iwata knows western third parties are badly burned by Yamauchi and its gonna take baby steps to regain the trust, but that shouldn't mean complying to everything they want. The Wii U is gonna have a 360 level of headstart in terms of userbase and its not severely aged like the Wii, yes its underpowered, but not antiqued, if third parties aren't willing to support them meaningfully, then there's nothing much Nintendo can do but rely on what they've known best: their own IPs and developers and continue their slow progress towards regaining western third parties that will actually support Nintendo's consoles through their games and actions and not just their PRs and words.

no the hardware is to old and quite frankly this attitude, this "go it alone" style of thinking is why Nintendo fortunes have so sharply turned.

These machines are platforms for 3rd party games, becuase if the 360 has taught us anything, exclusives only take you so far. At the end of the day you need the library and the community, two things Nintendo has already bowed out on.

This idea that Nintendo can stay relevant by practically being the backbone of the Japanese market is crazy and let's be honest here, is a lucky coincidence of having weaker hardware. Yeah they will always have a market there, but they will never capitalize on the growth of the market. It's incredible how the wii has so completely died the last few months, if not years, and that that can be traced directly to Nintendo not listening to western publishers and coming out with a weaker machine on every front.

Iwata needs to step down and someone needs to step in who has a more global outlook on the market and understands you need to aggressively court western publishers. Even if that means the WiiU successor has to be, god forbid be competitively powerful.

 

[radcliff]

Mikami tried to recover his Nintendo relationship and he did to a large extent, but RE4 going to PS2 was really rough to recover from so I mean obviously Nintendo wasn't jumping up and down to fund Tango Gameworks

I thought the decision to put RE4 on PS2 was Capcom's decision and Mikami knew nothing about it until it was announced (I remember the whole [paraprased] "I'll gut my own head off if it comes to PS2" fiasco). The whole puprose of the Capcom 5 was that Mikami wanted to move away from Sony development. Why would Nintendo hold a grudge against Mikami?