First draft on an article/blogpost about Nintendo and third parties

Something I typed up for my website I thought you guys and girls might enjoy.

E3 is like a week long holiday for gamers. Yes there are other big video game events such as GDC and Tokyo Game Show, but none bring the internet in to a frenzied uproar quite like E3 does each and every year, and one particular reaction has me rather surprised. After over a year and a half of doom and gloom, Nintendo’s E3 digital event seems to have blown both fans and journalists away. (This is not an overview of the event so if you haven’t seen it yet, go to youtube and check it out) Among the overall positive response there is one particular discussion that I think needs to be focused on, namely that if Nintendo had third parties on board they would utterly dominate right now.

Now this is not a new subject for many people and this discussion has been going on for literally years. The conversation tends to go in only a couple of basic directions; that third party games don’t sell on Nintendo consoles or that Nintendo doesn’t do enough to bring in third parties. What bothers me in this discussion, which I know has been done to death by the way, is that there’s very little criticism or even discussion on third parties themselves and their games. The blame for the state of things is that Nintendo isn’t doing enough and usually that their hardware isn’t good enough to be supported or that the consumers themselves are to blame because they didn’t do their part in buying third party games. Third parties play the part of helpless victims, they WANT to support Nintendo and they want to develop on the hardware but it’s just beyond their control. It’s this last part that truly annoys me. Third parties are by no means victims in all of this, but to explain why we need to first break down the two so called excuses that are used.

The first is that third party games don’t sell well on Nintendo consoles. Now from a purely business stand point this makes perfect sense. Businesses are after all looking to make money and if their games don’t sell on a particular system then there’s no incentive for them to support said system. It’s a fairly solid argument until you start applying it to what’s actually going on. Yes, there are third party games that have bombed on Nintendo’s systems in the past, but they didn’t bomb because of the platform. There isn’t some supernatural magic or curse that dooms third party efforts on Nintendo hardware, in fact when you look back there are many great third party franchises that started on Nintendo’s platforms. Castlevania, Megaman, and Final Fantasy all began and flourished on the NES and SNES. What’s changed between then and now are the games, more specifically the quality of games and the level of commitment a third party is willing to put forth. No this is not a pro retro gaming nostalgia argument, third parties these days refuse to put forth effort when it comes to Nintendo systems and the Wii U is home to tons of examples.

Look no further than EA’s so called attempts at supporting the system. They released Mass Effect 3, an almost year old port of a game at the end of a series that is meant to played sequentially and completely (it also didn’t have access to any of the dlc). Who was going to buy that? Seriously, who? Anyone with any interest in that game had most definitely already played it. Did EA release any of their fall lineup on to the new system? No, they release a game that had already seen it’s time, and what makes it worse is that around this same time they announce a Mass Effect collection with all three games coming out a little later for the PS3 and 360. Now I’m not a business expert and I’m not going to pretend to be, but I would have to think that somebody, anybody, within this company with half a brain would have thought ‘hmm, you know maybe this Mass Effect collection would sell better on the Wii U than just Mass Effect 3 by itself’. Is it any wonder that Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U didn’t sell well? Who is to blame for that? EA, that’s who. It wasn’t Nintendo’s fault and it certainly wasn’t the fans. EA and EA alone are responsible for the products they release. What’s sad is that I have so many examples of things such as this that it’d take too much time to go through all of them properly and it’d be way too long for this article so here are just a few off the top of my head:

Batman Arkham Origins: No online mode

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag: No DLC

Call of Duty Ghosts: No DLC

Sniper Elite: Too many to list, they stripped this game down to bare bones

Watch_Dogs: Not even released yet

Basically each time a third party ‘tries’ to work on a Nintendo system the products they release are either lacking content of other versions or in Watch_Dogs’ case is releasing so later on in the year that nobody is going to care. All of these games sold abysmally on the Wii U (Watch_Dogs will no doubt follow suit I’m sure) but they didn’t sell badly because of the system. They sold badly because anyone with any interest in these games isn’t going to buy a copy with less content if given the choice. These companies put out incomplete products and then acted like victims when the consumer behaved exactly like how the consumer does, by buying the best product IE the version of the game that wasn’t missing content. The irony of this is that these same developers would never, and I mean never, pull this kind of stunt on any other platform. If Arkham Origins had released on the PS3 or 360 without its online mode the internet would have flared up like crazy and the developer would have gotten flak for it. It’s not that third party games don’t sell on Nintendo systems, games that are made lazily and half-assed don’t sell on Nintendo systems, and they shouldn’t.

This brings us to the second argument which is that Nintendo isn’t doing enough for third parties, but this is a moot point when third parties aren’t even releasing complete products. It’s the old saying that you can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Nintendo can bend over backwards to try and accommodate third parties but it doesn’t matter if the very same third parties aren’t going to put their full effort and support behind the system. As a hardware manufacturer Nintendo has to design their consoles in whatever way they believe is going to be best for their business and bring them the most financial success. The console that Nintendo makes is going to be the single biggest foundation of their business’ revenue for the next four to six years and therefore is something they have to take great care to do well. However third parties want Nintendo to design their consoles in a way that benefits them most; they want input on the process of building the platform in to what they want. The problem is that Nintendo is taking all the risk and just hoping that third parties will invest in the system and help make the console a financial success, something that history has shown to be dangerous for Nintendo.

Unfortunately one major consequence of all of this is that gamers simply don’t trust third party efforts when it comes to Nintendo anymore. So many people focus on Nintendo’s relationship to third parties, but nobody ever talks about third parties relationship with Nintendo gamers, or at least gamers in general on Nintendo hardware, and it’s something that I think NEEDS to be talked about. Third parties have absolutely ruined their reputation when it comes to Nintendo platforms with gamers and this has come primarily from either releasing watered down versions of games, putting out shovelware, or simply ignoring the systems entirely.

I’ve already talked about the watered down games but I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I’m not talking about specs. I’m not saying that a Wii U game should be technically or graphically identical to its PS4 or Xbox One counterpart. Third parties can only make do with the specs of a system and that’s perfectly fine. No, I’m specifically referring to games with content cut. When you remove content in one version of a multiplat then you’re essentially sending that version out to die. For an example of this done right then simply look at Soul Calibur 2. It sold incredibly well on the Gamecube and that was because it was essentially the same game across all platforms. It didn’t look as good as the Xbox version but there was no content cut from it. If third parties would adopt this philosophy then their games would sell better on Nintendo systems.

If you need to talk about shovelware then simply look at all the crap big name studios put out on the Nintendo Wii. Not only did they flood the system with lazy games, they made the truly great third party titles get lost in the wave of fecal matter. Third parties treated the Wii much like how they treat the mobile/tablet community now. They saw it not as a place with a wide audience for its games, but simply as a large group from which to get money from. They didn’t care about making good games, they just cared about making money.

Finally that brings us to ignoring the systems, and you can see this in basically every PS3 and 360 that has released within this last year. Each and every one of those could have easily been ported to the Wii U, and in fact they very well could have found a sizeable amount of sales given that the system was in its first year with a rather small library, but no. Games like Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, Dark Souls, Kingdom Hearts HD, etc. all passed by the system. Once again, this sours the relationship with gamers and third parties.

Anyways, this particular piece has gone on far longer than I ever meant for it to, so I would just like to ask all of the gamers and especially Nintendo fans reading this to hold developers responsible for the bad decisions they make, and certainly don’t allow them to push the blame on you. You’re the consumer, and they’re the producer. If their product doesn’t meet your expectations then that’s their fault and they should own up to it. To any developers reading this, I would simply say own up to your work. Nintnedo needs to mend relations and start working to make their consoles platforms for all developers, but they’re not going to start doing that until they see your support. A business relationship, just like a personal one, is a two way street.

Edited by Azure-Edge, 15 June 2014 - 09:06 PM.

I wouldn't necessarily say that's true, Indeed we got half assed ports of years old games, but how about games which didn't get half assed?
Splinter Cell Blacklist got 1 tiny feature removed although we got a bunch added from the gamepad, it sold 60 thousand copies,
Resident Evil Revelations sold 90 thousand
Injustice God Among us 90 Thousand,
On other consoles it sold tons more, they weren't half assed like the rest of the games
Although now we look at Rayman Legends, that sold 340 thousand copies, more than the the rest of the consoles besides PS3, Probably would have sold a lot more if Ubi kept it exclusive.
What i'm trying to say is, I don't think the games are selling badly because we don't trust them, I think they sell badly because the Wii U's audience isn't filled with people interested with them type of games. They won't start to sell like the other consoles until the install base starts rising. Like Ubi said, they're holding games back because they're waiting till the install base increases.
Seeing as how expensive it is to make a game, and how easy it is to lose money, I don't blame the publishers who make these photorealistic shooters type games for not putting it onto the Wii U, it's not worth the risk. Whereas they know games like platformers, adventures, colorful, indie and/or casual games sell well.

I'd say wait it out, when it starts selling monthly the same as the 3DS is, then i'll expect the third parties to jump aboard since they may start making a profit from it.

Uh, reveleations already sold a million on 3ds years before it was released on wii u.... and ps3/360/windows at the same time.

Thats why I didnt buy it for wiiu. I have a 3ds to play 3ds games. I got a wii u to play Wii u games. So unless your game has a metric wiiton of content to make it worth owning on both 3ds and wii u... Im not getting it twice. And apparantly a lot of people feel the same way.

Which is why Monster hunter ultimate is ont its way to being a million seller, crapping on the titles you brought up from orbit.

On one hand, you are right, those are not the games people on nintendo platforms are looking for. As in Nintendo platform owners are used to Nintendo quality games, with outstanding quality and substantial amounts of content for that 60 dollar asking price, and those games you mentioned are superficial, flashy, and no more content than a small one way ride with fancy cutscenes, that are completely done after seeing the events unfold once. Repetitive multiplayer isnt going to do much to entice us. We need something more organic, stimulating. A tool we can use to create our own way of playing, rather than going through the same motions over and over (see splatoon, and the organic gameplay tool of paint/squid gameplay that led to emergent player created gameplay that took the developers of the GAME THEMSELVES by surprise).

Which brings us back to the authors point. The problem lies with 3rd party publishers giving crappy content for nintendo systems. NOT with Nintendo system owners refusing to buy crappy content. The fact ps360/ps4/xbone users will gladly eat diarrea all day long has nothing to do with us.

And yeah, compared to a game like rayman legends, splinter cell and injustice are pretty half assed. They dont have a fraction of the content of legends.