Could Nintendo Survive Going 3rd Party?

[Daft]

I never said it would.

[Sheikah]

They dont need to unleash everything at launch just give us more than 1, 2 games a week or sometimes no games. The library is huge and we should be getting 4 games a week minimum. The fact the VC wasnt even ready @ launch should of meant that once it did go live it would of been stacked with loads of games but no.

 

Not forgetting the 3DS still having no snes games.

 

It's really weird, the SNES is really easy to emulate. It can only be marketing holding it back; to make it appear as if things are in the pipeline, and to get people to focus on individual games when they do come 1 or 2 at a time.

 

I don't buy that it takes them any serious amount of time to 'fine tune' games that run perfectly in emulators like snes9x already.

[Hogge]

I don't think it's short sighted at all. Sega went down a route of making 3D Sonic games that were pale imitations of what they did best, and had nowhere near the same sort of roster of games Nintendo has. So that's not really a good comparison; you're basically extrapolating one incident and trying to suggest that everything else would be doomed to fail if it did the same. Which really, just doesn't make sense.

Look at the first party roster on the Dreamcast.

Sonic Adventure, Sega GT, Shenmue, Rez, Jet Set Radio, Metropolis Street Racer (the first game in the Project Gotham Racing series), Phantasy Star, Jet Set Radio... the list goes on. Sega had a massive roster of IP's which are spread out and exclusive for either one format or another.

 

When Sega went third party, it was a nightmare for Sega fans. Shenmue, Jet Set Radio and Project Gotham Racing became Xbox-exclusives, Virtua Fighter, Yakuza and Sega Rally were PS2-exclusive, while Skies of Arcadia, Sonic and Phantasy Star came out for the Gamecube.

Not only that, Sega games have taken a nose dice since then. They make way fewer and worse games. And the variety is just gone.

 

I'll rather see Sony see their consoles as what they are: money gobbling black holes in Sonys budget, and themselves stop making consoles. Kutaragis infantile revenge has gone on long enough. Sonys IP's are few and far between (when they made a Smash Bros-clone, two thirds of the characters were third party, the other third were long forgotten, like the bugger from Medievil), the ergonomics of their controller is medeival and so on. I'll rather see Sonys franchises spread out on other franchises and die, than Nintendo ones. Espescially not for only a few polygons more. Gran Turismo and Uncharted on Wii U NOW!

Nintendo hardware is woefully under-impressive compared to its competitors and long they have struggled with producing a console that can attract good third party software. Not only would putting their software onto multiple devices increase the number of potential customers, it'd mean I wouldn't have to buy hardware just to run a few games that I actually want. I'm talking about their home consoles here rather than handhelds.

Sorry, no. We are yet to see any game to make good use of the Wii U. And to be honest, I have seen NOTHING on the PS4 that's impressed me.

Nintendo have had a problem which is good to have: their games sell so well on their own formats, that third parties have difficulties to compete.

Although, to be honest, the third parties should at times blame themselves. Look at the awful Mass Effect Port. It's supposedly a special edition, but the only special thing about it is ONE gun. And it's got framerate issues, lacks DLC AND it was released at full price, even after the Trilogy Pack had been announced for all other formats. As they say in Sweden: shit in = shit out.

I actually don't mind if Persona went PS3/Xbox/PC multiformat. So long as it's not a Nintendo exclusive I'd be happy enough. Games like Dark Souls show that excellent presentation and online features can be maintained across these platforms.

This part of the debate I just don't get. What particular online features does Xbox or PS3 have that the Wii U doesen't? Voice chat and..?

Assuming they made the next Persona game exactly as they intended regardless of which platform it went on, a WiiU version would be exactly the same as a PS4 version but more limited in how technically impressive they could make it. It's kinda like how I was really happy that Ni no Kuni went to the PS3 and not the Wii, even though I had both consoles.

Um... the current Persona games aren't that amazing looking to begin with. I doubt that it's using the full power of the PS3. Do you think that the developers are going to take the quantum leap to use the full potential of the PS4? No, sorry to say, I think it'll at best look like a graphically more high-end PS3-game. Which is well in reach of the Wii U.

[Clownferret]

Nintendo are not getting out of the hardware business... period!

With the exception of the Wii, even though their home consoles may not sell as many units as Sony or Microsoft, combine their handheld sales and they have comfortably sold more units than their rivals every single generation.

They make much more profit than either Sony or Microsoft gaming divisions and they have got into a neat cycle where each handheld generation has the power of the previous home console and gives them the opportunity to rerelease all their home console games to the handheld market.

[Hero-of-Time]

@Hogge While I kind of agree with the Sega part of the post I dont agree with the Sony part.

 

Sony has demostrated that they have some great IPs that appeal to their market. This generation alone we have had new IPs such as Heavenly Sword, InFamous, Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Beyond Two Souls, Heavy Rain, Rain, Puppeteer, Gravity Rush, Tearaway and The Last of Us. They also continued to support the console with fan favourite IPs like Ratchet and Clank, Sly Raccoon, Killzone, Gran Turismo and God of War. Granted some of these may havent done as well as they hoped but they havent stopped trying to create new games.

 

The PS3 is apparently at the end of its life yet look at the support Sony is still throwing at it. At least 3 new IPs have/are launching at the end of the consoles life and thats how you keep fans happy and keep a hold of mind share.

 

The Wii U online issues are quite apparent when you have played on the other consoles. Voice chat is missing, the lack of instant messaging notification is just stupid, you cant invite a person to play a game with you unless they are playing that game themselves and the list goes on. You basically have to set up games for online play via a text message or on a website.

 

Persona has never been on the PS3 so we have no idea what it will look like on a HD console. Persona 4 looked great on the PS2 and looks great on the Vita.

[Sheikah]

@Hogge, I think you need to step back and look at the situation here. The Wii U is fundamentally underpowered compared to its competitors, as the Wii was to the 360 and PS3. It therefore won't be able to run many of the multiformat games that the others can; that's pretty much a given that also occurred with the Wii.

 

The online issues aren't just features, there's just generally a very poor infrastructure throughout the 3DS in my experience.

 

For instance - friend codes are pretty cumbersome, 3DS messaging is slow / has a separate app, there's a difficulty in jumping into friends' games/invite people aside from Mario Kart...

 

And a colossal cock up... it's impossible to see a real time message popup a friend sends to you on the 3DS. How on Earth can you matchmake?

 

Taking a specific example (Animal Crossing NL) into account here - in order to real time message someone I have to arrange on the forum first to make sure we have friend coded each other (can't just be initiated in console by one person). Next, I have to make sure on the forum that we pick a time to visit each others' town. Then one of us has to open the gate, the other has to join, then we have to friend each other in game. Then, and only then, have we found a way to message each other in real time. And only when in game.

 

The online infrastructure is really gash. I have no idea why the messaging feature is so slow (clicking messages button on Vita loads instantly).

 

 

Also, last point (aside from the one example of Sega which I feel is being unfairly extrapolated), you realise when you say the Persona games don't look amazing is due to the last one being on the PS2? Right?

[liger05]

Or it meant that they had only perfected the base emulation by then and were going at the fastest rate they can?

 

Which again begs the question. What were they doing for 2 years. The 3DS launched with no eshop. The wii u launched with no VC. That's not acceptable no matter how hard you try to excuse it.

[Helmsly]

Look at the first party roster on the Dreamcast.

Sonic Adventure, Sega GT, Shenmue, Rez, Jet Set Radio, Metropolis Street Racer (the first game in the Project Gotham Racing series), Phantasy Star, Jet Set Radio... the list goes on. Sega had a massive roster of IP's which are spread out and exclusive for either one format or another.

 

When Sega went third party, it was a nightmare for Sega fans. Shenmue, Jet Set Radio and Project Gotham Racing became Xbox-exclusives, Virtua Fighter, Yakuza and Sega Rally were PS2-exclusive, while Skies of Arcadia, Sonic and Phantasy Star came out for the Gamecube.

Not only that, Sega games have taken a nose dice since then. They make way fewer and worse games. And the variety is just gone.

.

 

I don't know, all this really shows me is that Sega handled the change to becoming a third party company badly. I don't see it as the absolute only way going third party is for every other company out there. I think Sega made just as many bad decisions after becoming third party as they did before and I don't think Nintendo would make the same mistakes if they went third party themselves.

[Serebii]

Which again begs the question. What were they doing for 2 years. The 3DS launched with no eshop. The wii u launched with no VC. That's not acceptable no matter how hard you try to excuse it.

 

They provide a weekly stream of Virtual Console games for both the 3DS and Wii U. That's what they have been doing. So it didn't start at launch. Big deal

[Grazza]

Nintendo could survive but I don't think we'd get the same games. At the moment they spend years making titles like Zelda and Pikmin, but only because they know they need a few games like that to sell the console. Reading between the lines, this type of game has become expensive, time-consuming and even difficult to make. They still do it because they need to, but without the need to sell hardware...? Every single thing would be low budget and feature characters from the Mario universe. They might take risks, but they'd probably be "Angry Birds" type risks.

 

On a personal level I'd have no problem playing Nintendo games on non-Nintendo machines. I just don't think the reality would be as good as we'd like.

[Sheikah]

I don't know, all this really shows me is that Sega handled the change to becoming a third party company badly. I don't see it as the absolute only way going third party is for every other company out there. I think Sega made just as many bad decisions after becoming third party as they did before and I don't think Nintendo would make the same mistakes if they went third party themselves.

 

Exactly this. I think some people are inferring from this one example where a company did such wrongs, and saying "this is what will happen". I would prefer to think instead "Here is how they handled it. Let's not do it like that". Which makes a lot more sense.

 

Nintendo could survive but I don't think we'd get the same games. At the moment they spend years making titles like Zelda and Pikmin, but only because they know they need a few games like that to sell the console. Reading between the lines, this type of game has become expensive, time-consuming and even difficult to make. They still do it because they need to, but without the need to sell hardware...? Every single thing would be low budget and feature characters from the Mario universe. They might take risks, but they'd probably be "Angry Birds" type risks.

 

On a personal level I'd have no problem playing Nintendo games on non-Nintendo machines. I just don't think the reality would be as good as we'd like.

 

You could also see it as making the quality of titles improve.

 

Right now with the Wii U, Nintendo knows that it must provide most of the games to the system on account of limited third party support. While it will always be making certain titles like main Mario and Zelda games (regardless of whether it has its own home console or not) it may also have to conform to quantity over quality to deliver enough games to make the system seem reasonably supported enough to be worth buying. I'm looking at reused formulas and countless spin offs here.

 

Not saying it will ever happen (it'd be equivalent to being told to sell your house and rent instead) but losing a home console would remove that pressure. It'd be all about spending more time producing fewer games of higher quality. Right now people complain about a lack of games on the Wii U, but if a third party dev like Naughty Dog took 2-3 years in between games then that would probably just seem normal. My point is, they currently have a responsibility and that can lead to bad decisions.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Sheikah

[liger05]

They provide a weekly stream of Virtual Console games for both the 3DS and Wii U. That's what they have been doing. So it didn't start at launch. Big deal

 

You really cant find it in yourself to criticise Nintendo. You defend them to the hilt regardless.

 

Let me ask you this would you buy an android phone which had no access to the play store when you bought it?

[nekunando]

You really cant find it in yourself to criticise Nintendo. You defend them to the hilt regardless.

 

Let me ask you this would you buy an android phone which had no access to the play store when you bought it?

 

..maybe if he wanted to call and text people with it in the knowledge that all those extra features were on their way..?

 

Give the guy a break.. he loves Nintendo

[Oxigen_Waste]

Fuck Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. The whole notion of "1st party" is terrible for the consumer. We need a standardized industry with hundreds of different hardware competitors and "exclusives" need to disappear. All developers need to go 3rd party. All developers except Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft would benefit immensely and the consumer would benefit outrageously. Standardization is key. As it is, the market/industry is incredibly disrespectful and limiting to the consumer.

[Jonnas]

Let me ask you this would you buy an android phone which had no access to the play store when you bought it?

 

The play store is the least of my worries when buying a phone. The VC/eShop factors relatively little into whether I want a console or not (especially if the only flaw is "It will only be available in a few months")

 

I just think you're blowing this flaw a bit out of proportion. A few months delay in starting a service is hardly what I'd call "unacceptable".

[Serebii]

You really cant find it in yourself to criticise Nintendo. You defend them to the hilt regardless.

 

Let me ask you this would you buy an android phone which had no access to the play store when you bought it?

 

If Nintendo did something wrong, then you'd have a point. I do complain when Nintendo does something stupid. As evidenced by when they announced they weren't doing an E3 conference.

 

However, you're assuming these things can be done instantly. They need to finetune the emulators first, which takes a while. Then, for each game, they have to finetune it and that takes a short time too. Then, they need to bug-test it.

 

It's not a "Oh, let's drag and drop this ROM" situation. Please think things through before you complain.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Fuck Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. The whole notion of "1st party" is terrible for the consumer. We need a standardized industry with hundreds of different hardware competitors and "exclusives" need to disappear. All developers need to go 3rd party. All developers except Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft would benefit immensely and the consumer would benefit outrageously. Standardization is key. As it is, the market/industry is incredibly disrespectful and limiting to the consumer.

 

...People are already struggling with 3 home console creators. Why would suddenly having hundreds help? There would be no point in owning more than one console, because they would all essentially be the same. At the moment there is a point because each one tries to offer something different. You could argue that the 360 and PS3 are similiar-ish, but this is where the exclusives are important: they take advantage of the key features of that particular console.

 

I think having such a wide choice would confuse the consumer further in this case. It would lead to dilution of the industry.

[Serebii]

...People are already struggling with 3 home console creators. Why would suddenly having hundreds help? There would be no point in owning more than one console, because they would all essentially be the same. At the moment there is a point because each one tries to offer something different. You could argue that the 360 and PS3 are similiar-ish, but this is where the exclusives are important: they take advantage of the key features of that particular console.

 

I think having such a wide choice would confuse the consumer further in this case. It would lead to dilution of the industry.

It would cause issues. Look at DVD & BluRay Players. They all run differently, especially BluRay players. Some struggle. Some have pauses when they go to the next layer. Some have horrific loading.

 

Imagine if it was just one standard player, made by loads. You get Call of Duty 34: Geriatric Warfare and go to play it. However, your player can't play it as well as it's meant to. How is this acceptable?

Edited July 23, 2013 by Serebii

[Hogge]

Fuck Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. The whole notion of "1st party" is terrible for the consumer. We need a standardized industry with hundreds of different hardware competitors and "exclusives" need to disappear. All developers need to go 3rd party. All developers except Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft would benefit immensely and the consumer would benefit outrageously. Standardization is key. As it is, the market/industry is incredibly disrespectful and limiting to the consumer.

 

Then whom is going to decide when the next generation should come out? And what specs and features they should have? It's going to be like the PC market, where some people will buy high-end PC's and moan and groan because too few game developers will make full use of their computers. And on the flipside, others will complain that they paid a lot for a compute, and then can't play every single game, just months later.

 

Besides, a standardised format has already been tried and failed, because that's exaactly what the 3DO was: a format defined by one company, and then manufactured by anyone who desired to do so. And it failed miserably.

[pratty]

Nintendo might make inferior hardware, but they do make relatively affordable (and subsequently usually profitiable) hardware. You get what you pay for. The XBOX One might be more powerful than the Wii-U but it also costs a small fortune. As the Wii and DS proved there is a market for a games console/handheld that doesn't break the bank. I for one wouldn't pay more than than £300 for a console no matter who makes it and what it does.

 

Nintendo's strategy is one of accessibility. Losing Nintendo has a hardware manufacturer could actually shrink the market, the dreaded "casual gamer" isn't going to pay £400-500, but they might pay £200-250. It's a lower entrance barrier into the gaming hobby.

 

Also if Nintedo went handheld only, I can't see the point of releasing Mario and Zelda etc on the Playstation and the X-Box. They are still Nintendo's competitiors, despite being different types of format, they're still competing for the gamer's dollar. If Nintendo want people to buy their handheld as well as Playstations and X-Boxes, having Mario and Zelda etc as exclusives would be a great incentive to do so, making them available elsewhere would just undermine their own hardware in my opinion.

[Sheikah]

I wouldn't say that recently Nintendo's hardware is particularly affordable. Not for what you're getting, anyway.

 

The Wii U launched at an expensive price - only now it's around £200 in certain places (usually timed sales) and it comes with a poor storage size. I would prefer to spend £100 more with them if they delivered a heck of a lot more like the competition (including higher spec parts).

 

...People are already struggling with 3 home console creators. Why would suddenly having hundreds help? There would be no point in owning more than one console, because they would all essentially be the same. At the moment there is a point because each one tries to offer something different. You could argue that the 360 and PS3 are similiar-ish, but this is where the exclusives are important: they take advantage of the key features of that particular console.

 

I think having such a wide choice would confuse the consumer further in this case. It would lead to dilution of the industry.

 

I get what he's saying; he's basically saying turn gaming into one format, a la PC. We already have several companies selling computers and there is no confusion.

 

Admittedly PCs do not appeal to everyone, but there's no reason why people couldn't sell PCs that were as simplified as consoles (plus ran well on TVs), yet all handled the same software. It would make things so much cheaper for everyone. It'd also mean that a game developer could release a piece of hardware to go with their software, and if it was a hit (e.g. Kinect) then they could licence it for use with other games.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Sheikah

[M_rock]

I wouldn't call their hardware inferior by far. The WiiU is not the most powerful console out there, but it is perfect at what it does. It transmits game footage directly to a tablet screen without any latency while rendering a full HD image for the television screen. It might not be packed with 8Gb RAM, but it sure is packed with some very clever and inventive technology.

[Sheikah]

The thing is though the price point it launched at was not worth the value of the parts. While there's no doubt that it runs the sorts of games we're currently use to pretty well, it won't be able to natively run the sorts of games we can expect to see on the PS4/One, and as a result it's most likely going to miss out on a lot of third party games like the Wii did.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Sheikah

[Oxigen_Waste]

...People are already struggling with 3 home console creators. Why would suddenly having hundreds help? There would be no point in owning more than one console, because they would all essentially be the same. At the moment there is a point because each one tries to offer something different. You could argue that the 360 and PS3 are similiar-ish, but this is where the exclusives are important: they take advantage of the key features of that particular console.

 

I think having such a wide choice would confuse the consumer further in this case. It would lead to dilution of the industry.

 

What Sheikah said, mostly.

 

There would be no point in having more than one console. Precisely. Wouldn't that be awesome? If the gaming industry functioned just like every other entertainment industry, where the consumer doesn't get fucked up the ass? I mean, currently, you have to buy an average of 6 different types hardware per generation just to be able to keep up with videogaming! I don't think it'd lead to dilution, economically speaking it would lead to higher purchase power, a higher audience, cheaper games, higher profit margins for developers and more (equivalent) hardware choices. Creatively speaking it would probably mean the single greatest boom in video game production since the genre started, which would mean there'd be alot more good games (as well as alot more bad and average games as well, of course).

 

Then whom is going to decide when the next generation should come out? And what specs and features they should have? It's going to be like the PC market, where some people will buy high-end PC's and moan and groan because too few game developers will make full use of their computers. And on the flipside, others will complain that they paid a lot for a compute, and then can't play every single game, just months later.

 

Besides, a standardised format has already been tried and failed, because that's exaactly what the 3DO was: a format defined by one company, and then manufactured by anyone who desired to do so. And it failed miserably.

 

"next generation" doesn't exist. It's propaganda. A genius marketing idea. And one which only makes sense under the current situation, too.

 

As for who decides when to kick things up a notch, the market regulates itself, the hardware designers will decide. The others can keep up or get left behind. That's how things work.

Yes, it's going to be like the PC market. Except the hardware would be simplified. Like consoles. Imagine if you only had to buy 1 console every 6~7 years to be able to keep up with and enjoy any and all video games.

 

And better yet, under a standardized market, you have backwards compatibility in every single hardware unit. Not to mention a more unified audience, meaning all developers will be working towards the same mass audience.

 

Besides, game development is reaching a technical peak, we are now beginning to deal with resolutions that don't even make sense unless you're playing your games with a projector on a huge wall... Technically speaking the advances are going to slow down to a crawl in the next 10 years, soon there will be nowhere left to go.

 

3DO was standardization? oO A half assed attempt by one brand isn't standardization, standardization is an industry consensus, not a whim of one single company. Standardization has never happened, and sadly may never happen.

[Helmsly]

It would cause issues. Look at DVD & BluRay Players. They all run differently, especially BluRay players. Some struggle. Some have pauses when they go to the next layer. Some have horrific loading.

 

Imagine if it was just one standard player, made by loads. You get Call of Duty 34: Geriatric Warfare and go to play it. However, your player can't play it as well as it's meant to. How is this acceptable?

 

I'm no expert on the matter, but manufacturers of DVD and Bluray players do have to uphold to a certain standard to be allowed a licence to put a dvd player on the market. I remember hearing this was a reason why Nintendo didn't put in a DVD playback option with the Wii.

 

Same thing could be done with consoles.

 

That said, I think we are already at this situation you describe, if you look at some of the multiplats that get released. There are plenty of instances where a game has had a noticeably worse framerate on one console over another or worse loading times etc.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Helmsly