Hellfire Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Sega's vice president of marketing Scott Steinberg says third parties should work harder to get on board with Nintendo's Wii, adding that there's no excuse for missing the boat.{mosimage} Earlier this week analysts reported that even a massively successful Wii launch will do little to boost the fortunes of third parties, which have been slow to recognize the potential of Nintendo's machine. Steinberg retorts that Sega has been "on the Wii bandwagon from day one" pointing out that the firm is preparing Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz for launch and Sonic Wildfire for Q1 2007. He told Next Generation, "The pundits are missing the point when it comes to the Wii's strategy - not every third party is late to the launch. "It's true that a lot of third parties have been flat footed when it comes to having games ready for the launch window, but Sega is certainly not one of them." He added, "Some third parties have shown a lack of imagination when dealing with this new platform. The way the Wii is being built you have to design for it. Ports and upgrades are no good. That thinking takes a little bit of creativity and not every publisher has the necessary creative people available." {mosimage} He said talk of Nintendo's less-than-stellar record with third parties is a poor excuse. "I can say without any hesitation that we have a great relationship with Nintendo. The American companies don't do a good enough job of wooing Nintendo. "Sega has become a lot closer to Nintendo, which is ironic given the history of the two companies, but that proximity has given us a great view of how they wanted to get out of the polygon race and stop battling the technology companies and instead find a very comfortable position in family-friendly fun games like Super Monkey Ball." Sega showed both Super Monkey and Sonic Wildfire as playable demos at E3, "We had a Wii room for journalists and analysts and it was the best way to try playable Wii games without getting in the colossal Nintendo line. Those games are built purposely for Wii, That's what makes the Sega story unique - we have family-friendly games with a great Nintendo pedigree - we are one of the few companies that can say we had a great run with GameCube." He says some third parties lacked the imagination to see Wii's potential, until it was too late to capitalize on the launch. "We are all heavily influenced by the propaganda machines of the hardware companies and you could argue that Nintendo didn't kick into gear until E3 2006, when they seemed to go from zero to 60 in one day. They were being beaten up by pundits one day and lauded the next. The industry realized they had been ignoring Nintendo which was a massive error." {mosimage} He added that some publishers made the mistake of projecting the past onto the future. "If you were applying a GameCube to Xbox to PS2 ratio to Wii, then you might have ignored Wii," he says. "But Nintendo's core competency is creating games and they have a platform here that allows publishers and developers to get creative in ways that are different from the other platforms. It's a real sea change." Steinberg believes Nintendo could "really close the gap in a big way" on Sony in the next generation. "There is a feature creep going on in the platform wars so it's refreshing to see someone do something different. It's refreshing to see someone take themselves out and operate in a different paradigm." Interesting read and good to see such a big dev heavily interested in Wii.
Retro_Link Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Yeah it's a great read! Sega and Ubisoft are the two companies that really understand Wii! They have understood the message and realised the potential far earlier than alot of other companies and it's reflected in the support! So much so (in Ubisofts case) that Wii games are becoming the priority, and the other consoles are having to wait!! The message was already there with the DS; Lets hope other developers are quick to truely realise the power of Wii!
ShadowV7 Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 "I can say without any hesitation that we have a great relationship with Nintendo. Then give us Shenmue 3,Skies 2 and Nights :awesome: SEGA is a company I want to get close to Nintendo.Maybe there's also a chance of PSU.I realise I have high expectations
darkjak Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Heh... Hope that we get like Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, Outrun and all those other great Sega franchises then. Oh, and PGR4 or at least a port of PGR2...
ShadowV7 Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 shenmue 3 exclusive to wii = sales! I read on shenmue dojo that there's a rumour that a new Shenmue game will be shown in May '07,which is probably E3.Hope it's true.
Hero-of-Time Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Graet read Hellfire. I also read in the new Nintendo mag an interview with Sonic Team and they have a secret title in the works. Fingers crossed it will be NiGHTS and shown at the TGS.
ShadowV7 Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Graet read Hellfire. I also read in the new Nintendo mag an interview with Sonic Team and they have a secret title in the works. Fingers crossed it will be NiGHTS and shown at the TGS. Wasn't there about 3 secret titles back at E3 by SEGA?
Hero-of-Time Posted July 21, 2006 Posted July 21, 2006 Wasn't there about 3 secret titles back at E3 by SEGA? Possibly I cant remember, like it said in the interview they are really into the Wii and its great to see the support from such a strong 3rd party so the more quailty titles they make the better.
DCK Posted July 22, 2006 Posted July 22, 2006 Sega, Ubisoft and Square Enix are already busy with fantastic games... I'm afraid I'll have to miss out on more top quality games than I want
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