Publishers wary of creating Nintendo titles, says Wii developer

[Dante]

Perception of poor third-party performance sees big names hold back

 

Big publishers have been wary of creating new titles for the Nintendo Wii due to the perception that first-party titles are better supported than third-party games, says Brian Dreyer, business development manager for Frontline Studios.

 

The trepidation of companies to support the console and its motion sensitive controller has left a gap in the market that independent studios have been wise to exploit, claims Dreyer

 

"Nintendo hardware is traditionally seen as great for first-party titles, but not so much for third-party games," said Dreyer, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz

 

"That fact really scares a lot of publishers and frankly we've seen a lot of publishers take that wait-and-see attitude with the Wii," commented Dreyer. "Rightly or wrongly, publishers are more frustrated with that than independent developers are."

 

While publishers such as Ubisoft and Sega have supported the Wii since launch, others, such as Capcom, are yet to get boxed product to market.

 

Frontline is currently working with Digital Amigos and Nibris on the Wii project Sadness. For the developer, the attraction of working on Nintendo hardware is the innovative elements of the console that provide a different approach to game development.

 

"It's the marketing warfare," said Dreyer. "Nintendo is the challenger, it's the underdog and it has to be coming to market with something that is completely different."

 

"Gamers are yawning at these supposedly great-looking games on other systems. With the Wii, we're back to the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts of any videogames experience, which simply means it has to be fun,"

 

The full interview with Frontline Studios, where the developer discusses Wii and DS development, as well as his thoughts on the PS3 and Xbox 360, will be published on GamesIndustry.biz tomorrow.

 

GamesIndustry.biz

[thirtynine.]

maybe if the third party games relased wernt utter crap with the exception of one or two then they wouldnt have been percived as better supported.

[darksnowman]

Do you see where he says about Wii being back to the nuts and bolts of gaming? Does he mean that in this day and age that its much easier to make a game that looks astoundingly wonderful than a game thats got the fun factor?

 

If this is the case, then game developers really have lost their way.

[Tellyn]

Frontline studios... What have they made?

 

I'm impressed with Ubisoft's support, and I will definitely be buying a lot of their games for Wii. Blazing Angels looks good. Ubisoft > EA

[Retro_Link]

There aren't many bid name developers holding back!

 

EA are creating fantastic third party Wii-mote games,

Sega are in support and using the Wii-mote,

Ubisoft have offered loads of support, though the Wii-mote use is not great,

Konami/MGS creator have shown interest,

Valve are very interested and much more impressed by Wii than PS3,

Capcom have Resi: UC, though not much else as yet.

 

"Nintendo hardware is traditionally seen as great for first-party titles, but not so much for third-party games,"

Well if many developers weren't so lazy nowadays relying on sequels, ports and remakes (though it's where the quick cash is, so it's fair enough from their point of view!),

and actually put the work into creating new games, they'd produce games as well as Nintendo!

[LukeLee]

Nintendo and Square Enix make the best games, if the other developers want to do better then than have to step up to the challenge more often, rather than occasionally.

[McPhee]

There aren't many bid name developers holding back!

 

EA are creating fantastic third party Wii-mote games,

Sega are in support and using the Wii-mote,

Ubisoft have offered loads of support, though the Wii-mote use is not great,

Konami/MGS creator have shown interest,

Valve are very interested and much more impressed by Wii than PS3,

Capcom have Resi: UC, though not much else as yet.

 

Theres loads of publishers holding back, i note you only managed to come up with EA, Sega and Ubisoft as supporting names. Activision have taken an interest too, but even with them the line-up is hardly stellar.

Looking at the 3rd party games that have been released, how many actually had much effort put into them? They were all made on the cheap to test the water

 

Compare the 3rd Party Wii release schedule to the Xbox 360/PS3/DS/PSP ones and you'll see the point.

[Shino]

This might be true, but its the devs own fault for not keeping up with Nintendo's quality.

[Dante]

The same can be said to the DS because only Square Enix are making games for it.

[Hellfire]

It's been like this for ages, but there's not a way to go around it is it?

[Tellyn]

No effort at all is put into licensed games, which may be why people are put off buying them!

[LukeLee]

No effort at all is put into licensed games, which may be why people are put off buying them!

 

although saying that the British games charts are often dominated by cheap movie spin off games.

[mcj metroid]

this is Stupid.i always find that nintendo creates cartoony,Japanese games while its up to the rest to fill the gap .Like mario football is hardly competing with fifa.metroid is hardly competing with medal of honour.i also thought nintendo held back at launch.i mean just zelda and wii play.They left the rest to third parties

[Tellyn]

although saying that the British games charts are often dominated by cheap movie spin off games.

 

True, GBA games now are only licenses, Nintendo don't make games for it or Gamecube anymore.us

[Goron_3]

Gamecentral had an article about this on today...except it was why big companies weren't making big DS games (like Capcom, Konami etc). Shame if the same happens to the wii due to the market its aimed at.

[The3rdChildren]

Well, I don't know about anyone else... but I buy Nintendo machines to play Nintendo games. The Xbox 360 is where The3rdChildren's third party is at.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I think it's really the same with all the consoles. I mean, how can any FPS on the 360 ever succeed when Halo 3 comes around?

 

At times, it sorta feels like we're being punished as Nintendo console owners. Yes, we love Nintendo games, but just because their games are popular doesn't mean third parties should just give up. What are they afraid of? Competition? If anything, competition brings out the best in us.

[thirtynine.]

this is Stupid.i always find that nintendo creates cartoony,Japanese games while its up to the rest to fill the gap .Like mario football is hardly competing with fifa.metroid is hardly competing with medal of honour.i also thought nintendo held back at launch.i mean just zelda and wii play.They left the rest to third parties

metroid and medal of honor is a stupic comparison one is a realistic game one is about a woman in a crazy suit battleing wierd life forms, maybe you could compair halo and metroid but halo will never be on the wii.

[Dante]

3rd parties sure are weird with Nintendo.

 

Example:

 

Namco:

Did well with ToS thanks to Nintendo porting it to US and Europe but later made a version for PS2 with add things and blank out Nintendo with Tales series for GC. Also SC2 on GC & Xbox sold better than PS2 version but made SC3 only for PS2.

 

Capcom:

Said RE4 will be on PS2 with extras before it came out on the GC.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I see his point. Take for example, Wii Sports. That is trying achieve something totally different to Tiger Woods golf, for example. A knockout kings/fight night boxing game is going to a way, way different type of fighter to the super smash bros. games.

 

The whole point of releasing games for each system is to add variety. Gamers like a variety, and it's always nice to have a choice.

[solitanze]

Perception of poor third-party performance sees big names hold back

 

This is what i've said in the past basically. Why develop for an unproven system? Going by their past performances on 3D systems, its no wonder developers are reluctant to develop for Nintendo systems, when they can develop for the HOLY GRAIL that is Playstation 3 and 100% guarantee sell millions of units. Nintendo, its acquisition time, start using that fortune and dry up supply of premier games on other systems...

[pedrocasilva]

This is what i've said in the past basically. Why develop for an unproven system? Going by their past performances on 3D systems, its no wonder developers are reluctant to develop for Nintendo systems, when they can develop for the HOLY GRAIL that is Playstation 3 and 100% guarantee sell millions of units. Nintendo, its acquisition time, start using that fortune and dry up supply of premier games on other systems...

It's not that. take Xbox versus GC for example, it was basically a tie, (less than 5 million consoles diference worldwide). Still Nintendo console was bought for exclusives and Nintendo titles, whereas I bet a third party title sold best at Xbox; even because people who had Ps2+Xbox or GC+Xbox would buy a third party title on Xbox knowing it had optimized graphics, whereas GC would have graphics equaling PS2 (Microsoft actually funded enhanced ports).

 

So... third party titles on GC had to be good in order to sell, same on N64, nintendo users are a minority, so they are a informed and united group, just look at how we spam every pool about Wii versus PS3/X360, we post it on forums and news sites and just mass click on it.

 

The only solution... is getting casual public to buy the console, Wii is doing fine on that front, besides, it gave new life into a lot of third party franchises.

 

We obviously won't buy chicken little, but then again neither will most of the guys we see in Ps2 forums, it's just that their market is big enough to make it feasible.

 

We need casual gamers to buy those games. Also a lot of franchises could sell better on Wii, take tiger woods for example, after wii sports a lot of people might be interested in a more in-depth one, maybe even golf entusiasts, now take into account that there's boxing, tennis, baseball and American Football (at least) who are feasible too. lots of niche markets, good stuff.

 

Namco:

Did well with ToS thanks to Nintendo porting it to US and Europe but later made a version for PS2 with add things and blank out Nintendo with Tales series for GC. Also SC2 on GC & Xbox sold better than PS2 version but made SC3 only for PS2.

Tales is important in Japan, and they reached the conclusion they were just spliting the userbase in half, also Sony must have flashed some money in there, hence the game not coming out of japan on Ps2, because Nintendo paid localization.

 

Sony managed to grab for PSP a tales of Eternia port, a Tales of Phantasia and Tales of the world 4 (previous 3 were on GB/GBA) and god knows what, DS got Tales of the Howl; nice.

 

SC2... Sony did say in E3 that SC2 was PS2 exclusive, and Nintendo said otherwise, I'm betting Sony paid most development costs for SC3, Namco wouldn't do a SC3 so soon, taking into account the time between SC1 and SC2 justified by the improvement. SC3 is just SC 2.5 or something.

Capcom:

Said RE4 will be on PS2 with extras before it came out on the GC.

Moneyhats on the executive board, a lot of them must own Sony's stockholdings and PS2 meant money last gen.

 

Capcom has that habit of porting everything (they should port Okami too).

 

They actually lost Shinji Mikami because of that RE4 on PS2 thing.

[Gaijin von Snikbah]

Nintendo owners are less likely to buy crap is what they really are saying.

[Gredin]

It is entirely true that a lot of people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games. I myself am a big fan of many of Nintendo's franchises and with many of the Wii games out at the moment I have no interest. I want to rent some of them to give them a go with the controls.

 

That being said, I'm willing to give support to those companies that will do unique things, exclusives that take full advantage of what Nintendo is trying to offer with this interaction in gaming. I got Red Steel for Christmas otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it, but I'm glad I did get it because the controls show promise for what hopefully will be a totally refined and improved sequel.

 

I think once 3rd party developers see what some of the other companies are bringing to the table, like Sega, EA and the independent developers, then they will start to get ideas and hopefully back the Wii with more support and exclusives. After all, it isn't so easy this generation to port cross platform with the technical barriers between Wii and the PS3/X360. Hopefully that barrier forces new content and new innovation and Wii's development costs will hopefully coerce some of those innovations.

 

Here's to a future Wii without crappy ports.: peace:

[Teppo Holmqvist]

I find it hilarious how people here take Frontline Studios seriously. I mean, we are talking about studio that is responsible for hits like Mafiaso, Tuff E Nuff, Chicken Shoot, Hardcore Pool and Sexy Game. Who really can disagree with company that has portfolio like this?