Should Nintendo just not care about 3rd parties?

[Ghost]

Because it seems that 3rd parties certainly dont care about Nintendo users. With the 3DS and Wii U it seems like Nintendo has bent over backwards to please 3rd parties, with the 3DS launch Nintendo delayed their big titles so that 3rd parties would have more exposure, they made a second analogue stick specifically for 3rd parties to help them bring console like games to the system. For the Wii U Nintendo has been very quiet about its own games and dedicated most of its E3 conference to 3rd party titles. Yet it even with this and the fact that the Nintendo DS and Wii were huge successes it seems that support for these systems are worse than before. EA has gone from being a huge supporter of the Wii U to barely bothering and their 3DS support is pretty non existent. Most other western publishers, with the exception of Ubisoft and Activision, are not bothering with Wii U. Japanese support is even worse which is surprising considering that the 3DS is destroying everything in Japan and Wii U seems to be aimed specifically at the Japanese market. Companies like Konami are just ignoring the system completely, with no Metal Gear Rising, Castlevania or even PES, all of which are easily possible and would likely do quite well given the history of these series on Nintendo hardware.

3DS support is shockingly bad all round, Japanese support is much better but the majority of those games never make it out of Japan, problem is theres nothing being made in the west to fill the gap.

Its kind of worrying that Nintendo has a new console out and other than a few more games in the launch period there is pretty much nothing announced or shown for the months after march. I think Nintendo should forget about trying to woo over third parties and just build up and create new internal teams to make new games and fill the gaps. It seems pretty clear that third parties don't care about Nintendo hardware no matter what Nintendo do to try and win them over.

[tokyochojin]

Yeah, but if they just "forget about trying to woo over third parties", then they can also forget about making $$$$$. Console manufacturers cannot survive on profits from their own games alone, they need the commission that 3rd party sales bring in. I think Nintendo needs to do more to attract these publishers, especially in doing more to promote the Wii-U, where even in Japan most people only think it's an added controller and not an entirely new console.

[sj33]

One of the reasons why Nintendo have traditionally never sold hardware at a loss is because they cannot rely on a high attach rate of software outside of their own first party releases. Attach rate is the reason why most console hardware is sold at a loss - in theory, the likes of Sony and Microsoft can start to make a profit on each console sold after the owner buys more than a couple of games. Nintendo's strategy with the Wii whereby a handful of first party titles like Wii Sports and Wii Fit were the main attraction of the console resulted in relatively low attach rates, but this was offset by the fact that all hardware was sold at a profit.

The WiiU is supposedly being sold at a slight loss, implying that Nintendo are focusing on increasing attach rates, and they need third parties to be able to do this.

As a side note, I dislike soulless terminology such as 'attach rate', but I can't think of a more 'normal' word for it.

[importaku]

The problem is, i still think third parties dont have a grasp on what to develop for the wiiu and 3ds, there was a similar problem during the start of the ds launch, there were third party games but there was a lot of expanded tech demo feeling kind of games. Took ages for games that utilize the features of the hardware. Its going to be years before we start seeing what both consoles can really do, wonder if there is going to be obscene amounts of shovelware like with wii and ds. Considering most of it was from third parties im not too bothered if some stay away. There was a lot of quirky ds stuff that i loved from third parties but it was so hard to find them in a sea of ****.

If you look at what the released on wii towards the end ot was pretty much sod all from nintendo, no idea what nintendo are up to nowdays dosent seem like much coming.

[Neon Ignition]

As long as they can get compelling 3rd party games like ZombiU they should as every little helps but its not as make or break that they have heavy support as it is for the other 2 platforms. With the heaving release schedules on other formats and no doubt minor audience that only owns a WiiU Nintendo don't have an immediate need to release tons on the format as 3DS showed. Theres at least 1 decent game per month till Easter and then no doubt a dry spell bjt I guess E3 will start the systems wheels turning enough.

[Brad]

Nintendo would have to take up the slack. You can't have a console that only has 4 or 5 games a year. So Nintendo would have to output more and there's no way they can do that. If they did then they'd just produce the crap that the 3rd parties do now. I seriously think the industry is going to crash big. Indie games and Kickstarter backed titles will be the main thing going forward.

[Dogg Thang]

If Nintendo ditched 3rd party, who would make their pony games?

[nakamura]

Games like Resident Evil Revelations and Metal Gear Solid 3D have shown that high quality action adventure games work on the machine and sell. There has been mentions of a new Revelations title, I certainly hope so.

I'm most surprised that Square haven't jumped on the 3DS. The machine is ripe for PS1/PS2 style Japanese role playing games and they could raid their back catalogue and smash out updates.

[wakka]

Nintendo don't need third parties that much because their main franchises are consistently very high quality, as well as being enormously popular and well known. When I buy a Nintendo system, I buy it for their games. And that's why I don't buy them at launch.

I don't think the reason Nintendo launch systems without their key franchises is to 'give third parties a chance', it's part of a strategy of relying on early adopters (many of whom will buy the latest Nintendo system/games console in general no matter what) to beta test the system and give them a nice installed userbase before they break out a couple of big guns like Mario Kart a year or so later.

[sj33]

^That's the common perception and there's truth to it, but that would ignore the fact that the Nintendo (just like other hardware manufacturers) receive something like 20% of sales from third party titles through the licencee fee that third parties have to pay. In other words, Nintendo receive a significant profit from third party games.

With this in mind, regardless of the strength of the Nintendo's own first party games, Nintendo are the ones who suffer when third parties choose to not publish for the format, or if sales are weak. If people are buying two or three Nintendo games per year, that is quite a poor return for Nintendo. The fact that the Wii U is reportedly being sold at a slight loss only makes it more necessary for Nintendo to maintain a revenue stream from third party titles.

[wakka]

True, I'm not denying that third party games can be a huge revenue stream for them too - and no doubt they want as many released as possible. But the way Nintendo support their systems is pretty unique. I mean, god, look at the Vita. Uncharted and WipEout were great but then Sony shut down Sony Liverpool and had the makers of various poorly received minigame titles make CoD AND Resistance in one year.

[Pikate]

Nintendo don't need third parties that much because their main franchises are consistently very high quality, as well as being enormously popular and well known. When I buy a Nintendo system, I buy it for their games. And that's why I don't buy them at launch.

You say that but all year I was intending to buy a Wii U and before I had chance someone made the point to me that paying ?40 for NSMBU in the age of Braid, Fez, Limbo, Mark of the Ninja etc is a bit hard to stomach and in the end I actually just bought a 360 instead which may actually be the best gaming decision I ever made (Hello the above mentioned titles + Bioshock, SSFIV:AE, Portal, Bioshock Infinite, GTA V).

Also IMHO Rayman Origins is supremely better than NSMBW or NSMBU and I think Nintendo may be about to shoot theirselves in the foot by having Rayman Legends a Wii U exclusive/promoted so heavily as I suspect (perhaps hope but whatever) it will become known as the Wii Us best game and an exclusivity coup (at least until they drop the pre-Christmas releases) but then I think Ubisoft will take that recognition/publicity and stab Nintendo in the back and port it to other consoles which would then be damaging for the Mario franchise and Nintendo since lets face it Mario/Zelda is their main reason for being and if we have an alternative to Mario elsewhere it won't help Nintendo?

[J0e Musashi]

EA has gone from being a huge supporter of the Wii U to barely bothering

I don't get it.

I don't care about any of this talk either. As long as they bring out F-Zero for Wii U I'll be ok.

[Dogg Thang]

I'm not sure I would say that Nintendo's own support has been all that strong. Nintendo have often made far fewer games for their systems than they could or should. For example, we get a single Animal Crossing a generation. A single Mario Kart a generation. Very few Marios - in fact, Mario Galaxy 2 really stood out as being strange when it was a direct sequel. We didn't have that for ages (Mario64 and Sunshine stood alone). They advertised the DS with Nintendogs years after it came out, probably made a mint on it and yet didn't see the need to make a DS sequel.

Only now with New Super Mario Bros do they seem to be doing the more regular sequel thing that we get on other consoles. Good or bad thing? I don't know.

But, to me, it looks like Nintendo mainly cover the system with what they see as the important games to sell the system itself. The DS seemed to be sold more on hardware than software and that was very much the case for the Wii. That must be in part due to them having been, up to now, in the unique position of actually making a profit on the hardware but also, as pointed out, that the third party revenue will be high for very little extra work on their part. They could make a fortune selling three Mario Karts a system. They choose not to. Why? They only need one really good one to sell the system itself. They seem more hardware driven than software driven, when it comes to their own output.

[sj33]

True, I'm not denying that third party games can be a huge revenue stream for them too - and no doubt they want as many released as possible. But the way Nintendo support their systems is pretty unique. I mean, god, look at the Vita. Uncharted and WipEout were great but then Sony shut down Sony Liverpool and had the makers of various poorly received minigame titles make CoD AND Resistance in one year.

The Vita has problems on both sides of the equation. Poor third party support, and very little first party support to entice anybody to invest in the format. The Vita does have good games, but none significant enough to maintain momentum for the format. The Vita is doing worse than the Wii U in that sense.

If Nintendo had the capability to invest in enough first party titles to make third party titles unnecessary, and have them sell enough to make up for the R&D costs as well as cover the lost revenue from third party titles, then Nintendo wouldn't have a problem. But they can't do that - significant first party releases are becoming increasingly scarce as the resources required to develop them increases, so third party releases remain important.

I really like Nintendo. As a person who is becoming increasingly jaded with the direction gaming is heading in, and am in two minds about even investing in the next generation, Nintendo titles like Mario and Zelda are almost like the last bastion of the kind of gaming that I used to love. When I say Nintendo needs third party titles, it's because I don't see how they can run the whole show on their own.