Should Nintendo Develop for iOS Devices?

[Burny]

In short, if Gameloft can pump something like this out for only £4.99, how can Nintendo justify charging 7 times as much for something like Pilotwings or Nintendogs? It's madness.

 

Well...

 

To believe that Gameloft has a somehow found a way to squeeze the work a full blown studio does over two years into a game that sells at about 1/10 of the price, while having shorter development cycles, without cutting corners, is a bit... overcredulous maybe?

 

Provided, I haven't seen any articles about working conditions at Nintendo.

 

As I said, with a strict pricing model, you get games that are subjectively - and even objectively - not worth the price. There is no other way around it other than to make informed purchases.

 

And the question how Nintendo can charge this is easily answered: They own the platform. As long as people buy it, they can continue to charge what they like. You are arguing that they should make phone games when so far they've always gotten away with their pricing model, because you want to pay less? That's laughable at best. You could as well argue they should charge less, because it's the charitable thing to do. They aren't charitable and they won't care until they feel the pain. The recent price reduction for the 3DS has shown that they cannot get away with overly greedy pricing while delivering insufficient value.

 

Jamba touches a much more sensible and important question: Should Nintendo continue to keep enforcing their price model for 3rd parties?

[Jamba]

Well...

 

To believe that Gameloft has a somehow found a way to squeeze the work a full blown studio does over two years into a game that sells at about 1/10 of the price, while having shorter development cycles, without cutting corners, is a bit... overcredulous maybe?

 

Provided, I haven't seen any articles about working conditions at Nintendo.

 

As I said, with a strict pricing model, you get games that are subjectively - and even objectively - not worth the price. There is no other way around it other than to make informed purchases.

 

And the question how Nintendo can charge this is easily answered: They own the platform. As long as people buy it, they can continue to charge what they like. You are arguing that they should make phone games when so far they've always gotten away with their pricing model, because you want to pay less? That's laughable at best. You could as well argue they should charge less, because it's the charitable thing to do. They aren't charitable and they won't care until they feel the pain. The recent price reduction for the 3DS has shown that they cannot get away with overly greedy pricing while delivering insufficient value.

 

Jamba touches a much more sensible and important question: Should Nintendo continue to keep enforcing their price model for 3rd parties?

 

 

Ok I will keep it brief. You have argued that 3DS scope games cannot/will not be done on iOS. Pookiablo has shown you a great example of a game that can and will but you're somehow disputing that?

 

You argued that Nintendo's business model isn't bad for their own business whilst noting that they are a platform holder. No 3rd party support is a pretty big reason.

 

Also about online, it's both a problem with the infrastructure and Nintendo's attitude. They want to enforce their model on 3rd parties and refuse to allow them to implement things thatake freemium and so on models work. In short, 3rd parties go else where. Seriously what are you misunderstanding here?

 

Also the online system that are on game center games like Gun Bros. and Metal Storm do need to be sophisticated to handle things that happen outside of the game.

 

Maybe you should ask someone to show you how it all works. I'm getting tired of trying to explain stuff that we are having to tell you rather than you just asking.

[darkjak]

Ok I will keep it brief. You have argued that 3DS scope games cannot/will not be done on iOS. Pookiablo has shown you a great example of a game that can and will but you're somehow disputing that?

 

Do you KNOW anything about this game? Do you KNOW if it's any good? Do you actually KNOW if it's got a huge scope and so on?

 

Gameloft have an amazing skill to create games that look good in screenshots and even trailers, but rarely is the gameplay any good.

 

I however don't think that scope is any problem. Modern cellphones have ginormous amounts of memory and can store pretty much any game. What I yet again want to adress is the controls.

And also the lacking financial viability of making games with a large scope and selling them for 5euro or less.

 

Yes, you can make games and make a profit selling them for 5 euro a pop. And yes, you can make games with huge scopes and fairly high-end graphics for modern cellphones. What you cannot do is BOTH.

And like I've stated before, and I'll keep stating again is that with the modern touchscreen only-layout, developers will be limited as to what they'll be able to release.

 

Nintendo can release a dedicated portable machine and sell games for it for a fair bit of money. And they're making a profit from it.

 

Let me put it like this: who gives a s**t about Atari now that they've stopped making consoles? As a matter of fact: who gives a s**t about Sega now in the post-Dreamcast era. The only thing Sega can develop and sell now, are ports of the games they released back in the day.

 

If Nintendo were to stop making hardware, noone'd care about their games. And because Nintendo make hardware, they earn a lot of money from that fact. They get license money from everyone who releases a game for any of their machines. And they earn money from the machines themselves.

 

 

I see two variations of the future in front of me. One where Nintendo launch a DS-phone.

And a second where your stationary home console will be the same as your portable one. Let me elaborate: you have a device similar to the 3DS which you play while on the move. When you come home, you attach the charging cable (or don't, if your battery is good) and then connect to your TV wirelessly.

[Burny]

Ok I will keep it brief. You have argued that 3DS scope games cannot/will not be done on iOS. Pookiablo has shown you a great example of a game that can and will but you're somehow disputing that?

Far too many words and a page back, I was talking about the games that are possible when you know you'll be selling for 40€-60€, not necessarily on the 3DS, as the 3DS is technically rather outdated. I give you that it is absolutely possible to put together a team of the same size as you get for a large retail title, have them labor for two years and put out a phone game equaling any full priced retail title in scope. Let me correct myself then: Replace "possible" with "likely". Until there is hard proof that the grass is greener in the smartphone market that's going to stay this way.

 

Quiet frankly though, yes. I am disputing that "Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation" is able to keep up with the scope of the games it was inspired by - namely Call of Duty. That is, until you show me how many people worked on it for how long and that the resulting number of person months put into it is roughly comparable to what your average CoD takes now.

 

Admittedly, I was rather impressed by the scope of Gameloft games on Smartphones, although I haven't played any of them. After reading that bit about working conditions above though, I'm distinctly less impressed.

 

As for complete lack of third party support on the 3DS that you are assuming is set in stone: Look who's got a title in the eStore despite Nintendo's general online implementation being shit and not offering Game Center's functionality - Gameloft.

 

Edit: @darkjak: I find myself agreeing with you. Please stop it! Mostly at least. Sub par control setups don't stop devs from developing games when there's money behind it and no alternative available. Neither do they stop people from buying the games if it's only X gold.

 

And on another note: Did I miss something or has Activision no CoD title in the appstore? They've had external teams develop mobile CoDs in the past, so I'd expect they'd have such teams develop something to compete with Gamelofts blatant ripoffs.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Burny

[Pookiablo]

Do you KNOW anything about this game? Do you KNOW if it's any good? Do you actually KNOW if it's got a huge scope and so on?

 

Gameloft have an amazing skill to create games that look good in screenshots and even trailers, but rarely is the gameplay any good.

 

Modern Combat 2: Dark Pegasus (the prequel)

 

- 8.5/10 from IGN

- 9/10 from Pocket Gamer

- 4/4 (I think?) from Slide to Play: "Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus provides top notch modern warfare on the go, with a lengthy campaign and a deeply addictive multiplayer mode".

 

All the reviews say that the game plays well, especially in the control department.

 

And I'd go on record and say that N.O.V.A 2 is a pretty decent game, 9mm plays very well bar its terrible story/setting and Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard is better than anything on 3DS, except for OoT. This is my opinion only of course.

 

Having read the last few posts and realising that there are people in this thread that still know absolutely nothing about what they're talking about and are just making up facts, I went and viewed the credits for Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus on my iPad and, amazingly, I counted 179 different names of people involved in its production. Hardly sounds like a small development team now does it?

 

I've no problem with people dismissing mobile gaming if they don't actually like it, but as I said above, most people have such a limited general knowledge of the subject that they really shouldn't be claiming or saying some of the things that they are.

[Magnus]

Gameloft has always struck me as a developer that makes sort-of-okay games on a platform that doesn't have a lot of those particular types of games. So they release a Zelda rip-off or a Call of Duty rip-off on a platform that doesn't have Zelda or Call of Duty* and people eat that stuff up because there's nothing better out there on that particular platform.

 

It's why people were so excited about The Conduit.

*According to Wikipedia there's a zombie Call of Duty for iOS, but that's not really the same thing.

[darksnowman]

When asked by Nikkei about whether Nintendo will develop for smartphones, Iwata had the following to say:

 

"This is absolutely not under consideration," replied Iwata. "If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It's the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It's probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we'd make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo's mid and long term competitive strength."

 

Gamepro

 

Sounds conclusive.

Edited September 14, 2011 by darksnowman
Automerged Doublepost

[darkjak]

My personal opinion for the future of gaming:

 

Cloud gaming:

All high-end games will be launched for Cloud gaming-services, such as OnLive. Consumers won't have to wory about buying a new console again, until perhaps there'll be some major change in viewing technology (3D, Holograms etc).

The possibility to completely eliminate piracy will attract the developers, and the cheapness of the service (short term renting of brand new games along with the possibility of renting play paks, plus the small initial cost of the system), along with the posibility to play your games anywhere, and keep your savefiles will be very appealing to consumers.

 

Nomad:

Remember the Sega Nomad? A portable console that only played Mega Drive games. Well, that's my vision of the future: the portable consoles and home consoles will be one and the same. Essentially, you buy a portable console like the 3DS, you play your game on the move, then you come home and connect it to a power source and a TV, and you have HD home gameplay. Perhaps you'll keep the console in your hand, perhaps you'll hook up a more ergonomical controller.

The difference between portable games and stationary is continually shrinking. Remember the mid 90's? We had the N64 at home, and a weak black and white Game Boy on the go, or perhaps a Game Gear, if you had deep pockets. In the late 90's you had a Dreamcast at home and the same Gameboy, only in colour on the go. In other words, portable home consoles were about four generations behind. By 2004 we had Gamecubes and yet we got the DS which was as powerful as an N64.

Soon it'll be pointless to have two seperate machines.

 

Cellphones

Cellphones will keep getting games, and keep earning big money. But I think that phone makers will want to keep the buttons to a minimum. Both consumers and developers will learn what kinds of games work on phones and which don't. The cellphone will not take over the market, even though certain people would want them to.

Just like Toyota, Subaru, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Dodge and a whole bunch of other car manufacturers in the last few years have realised that the car market has enthusiasts who want true drivers cars, the game industry will have to deal with the fact that there are lots (over a hundred milion and growing) of enthusiasts who wants gamers games to play on dedicated devices.

Edited October 1, 2011 by darkjak