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Silicon Knights, Nintendo Cease Exclusivity Deal
Divine Shadow writes "IGN Cube is reporting that Silicon Knights (developer of Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes) is no longer an exclusive second-party developer for Nintendo. This is really surprising given that interviews with Nintendo and Denis Dyack (SK's leader) always seemed to suggest a bond and shared philosophy between the companies. Have to admit too, that this makes me less excited about Ninty's E3 lineup." Elsewhere in the article, Denis Dyack claims: "It's possible that we may do another game with Nintendo, actually. It just means that we've decided to break our exclusivity with Nintendo."
More games for Xbox
I hope Eternal Darkness gets ported to the PS2 and Xbox. -S
...what's a Ninty?
Well there goes any hope of Silicon Knights to produce that "mature" Zelda people were hoping for.
Dennis made a comment about how he'd like to make a mature zelda similar to how he said he wanted to make a Metal Gear game prior to the annoucement of MGS:TTS
the exclusive partnerships of console makers and game developers provide little benefit to the consumer, yet take away choice, and give monopolistic-like power to the console-maker (if you want the game, you have to go through him). It's no different than software that works only on one OS, or a web site that is only viewable on one browser or a song that is only playable in one media player.
I see this as a victory for the consumer and gamers worldwide!
Here come the "Nintendo is dying/failing" comments.
And now you're running and you're running and you're running away
You're running from the Plumber Man
And now you're running and you're running and you're running away
You're running from the Plumber Man
Rare - checked out. Left Field - checked out. Silicon Knights - checked out.
No need to lock up exclusives from third parties if one is getting out of the hardware business.
Seems a bit alarmist...I think they just want to grow as developers. I don't think they'll just abandon Nintendo either, afterall that's their area of expertise at the moment.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
This is bad news from Nintendo's point-of-view. Over and over again they have shown a unique stubborness, and unwillingness to compromize with others. Nintendo picked Silicon Knights up from the dust and made them into gold. Now, they leave Nintendo to get a possibility to develop games for other platforms. This can only be bad for Nintendo. Not only do they lose much-needed "mature" games, but also make sure that more quality games are being brought to the other systems. Suddenly Nintendo's upcoming E3-booth seems much less exciting. *hark* Too Human *hark* Eternal Darkness II *hark* Who's next to go the way of Rare and SC? Retro Studios? What are Nintendo thinking? Probably "we don't need them anyway, their games werent profitable enough". Thinking profit only, black/white, unwillingness to see the bigger picture... Something is wrong in the Nintendo Dynasty. If we look at it at a non profit-only way of thinking, that is.
Just so you all know, Silicon Knights was not a 2nd party to Nintendo, they simply had a comtract to develop a few games exclusively. Now the contract has ended and Nintendo is just letting SK have some freedom. This news really isn't that bad. Dennis Dyack has always expressed how much he loves working with Nintendo, I'm sure that they will continue to make games for them in the future. But of course the online gaming world is going to turn this into some kind of "Nintendo aer teh d00med!!!!!11"
First/Second party support has never been a problem for Nintendo. Third party has always been an issue, due to software houses not appreciating the "draconian" nature employed by Nintendo to prevent shoddy games from making it onto their system. (If more people took this stance, we might avoid travesties such as Enter the Matrix.)
I would hope this may signal an effort from Nintendo to garner better relationships with third party companies.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
I'm sorry, there's so many ways I dissagree with this that to begin I have to go back.
Yes, Exclusivity does hurt the hell out of the Industry. No one wants a return the 1988 when Ma-Nintendo controlled 90% of all things released in the United states. That was a bad thing.
However, no one wants to buy a game and have another version appear on another console marketted as better. As much as I hate it, everytime I'm in an EB or a Software ECT I hear the counter monkey berating people for buying a specific consoles version of a game becuase 'Console Z has a better processor' or some other tripe.
The industry needs console specific games. Without them there is no reason to buy any one specific console. I'd never support the PS2 if I could get GTA3 in a Gamecube, or Microsoft if i could get True Fantasy Live on the PS2.
The games will get better if everyone has fun, exclusive content, not if everyone else has it and yours trys to be better.
X
I'm not sure why, but I'm one of the few people who thinks that Silicon Knights isn't the amazing development house everyone considers them to be (I've only played Eternal Darkness and MGS:Twin Snakes though, keep that in mind. I don't know what else they've done).
Eternal Darkness, I simply hated. The graphics looked ugly, the gameplay felt sloppy, and the story didn't get me involved at all. If I wanted to play a good, polished horror game I'd pick either of the new/updated Resident Evil games on the Gamecube, definitely not ED.
As for The Twin Snakes.. slightly different story. The graphics were improved, and they added an updated control scheme.. but those are pretty much a given; they had to be in the next-gen version. Not really much innovation here, any game studio could have done this. They just took an already excellent game and updated it, and there isn't much revolutionary about that. I'm not sure why they seem to be getting all the praise that they are.
Sorry for the rant. Everybody recommended Eternal Darkness to me, and when I actually played it it left a really bad impression of the company on me.
How many games has Silicon Knights produced for Nintendo in 4 years? 2. In case math isn't one of your stronger suits, that is only one more than one. Not a very strong showing is it? While this doesn't help Nintendo in terms of game library, the loss of SK is not going to be putting any nails in any coffins anytime soon, they just haven't done enough to really matter. Nintendo has bigger things to worry about than this.
And Rare? I think "Grabbed by the Ghoulies" says all that needs to be said about Rare: Free Radical obviously took all of their gifted staff and left behind the second string.
Your out of the hardware comment is very obviously an attempt to rile up the fan-boys so I don't really feel any need to address it. Or do you have proof? Didn't think so.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Oh thats clever, what are you, In the 3rd grade or something?
I can't wait till your Karma runs out and you have to go back to whoring to get it back up; you are so much easier to ignore when you are kissing ass.
all you have is your opinion about the quality of a few games to refute me
This is what "sales figures" are for my child. Look at the number of units sold and you will see that he is correct in the case of Rare's X-Box debut, and maybe a little exagerated in the case of Silicon Knight's two GCN titles. Or check gamerankings to see how these games scored with many different reviewers?
But you won't
I think there's enough people around here that love Nintendo that I don't think we'll see the "Down With N!" fanboy blurts. I think it is interesting, though, that both Microsoft and Nintendo seem to be trimming their waistlines. As good as Silicon Knights are, I seem to remember seeing that their MGS remix didn't sell terribly well, and Eternal Darkness (which is fantastic) didn't perform either. So, as far as numbers go, it makes sense to cut the extra money involved in exclusivity.
What I think this trimming down means for us is that the next generation console is definitely going to be quite a battle. Even Nintendo has admitted that they stumbled around with this generation, and it took some time for Microsoft to get on their feet with the Xbox (cf. living room sized controllers). Basically, I think these developments in MS and N are representative of them rolling up their sleeves, pulling a Sly Stallone "Over The Top" move and turning the cap around.
With this next generation, I think it's going to be leaner, meaner, and inevitably bloody. Both Microsoft and Nintendo are much more efficient than they were at the start of this generation, and moves like this show they're obviously ridding themselves of whatever excess they think is holding them down in catching up to Sony.
Ultimately, good for us the consumers, and bad for whatever company gets the living daylights knocked out of them with this next generation.
It's easy enough to twist any quote to fit a rebutal. Jerry Falwell's been doing it for a while now.
However, I think the original point was that Nintendo is neither better NOR worse off for shedding it's exclusivity with those 3 publishers, not becuase they may/maynot have sucked, but becuase they produced next to nothing over the past 2 years.
Unfortunatly, I have to agree. It looks alarming that this is happening, but in reality the world goes on, and no one really cares.
X
This won't hurt Nintendo this generation at all. Simply put, I highly doubt that Silicon Knights has much experience with either the PS2 or the Xbox, since they've been working exclusively with Nintendo for the last few years.
If SK makes any more games for this generation of consoles, it will be for Game Cube or be technically less polished ports of Eternal Darkness.
Long term though, I think this will hurt Nintendo. Silicon Knights made the type of games that Nintendo itself won't. More complicated, darker games with more attention paid to presentation (story and flash). This will just further reinforce peoples' view that Nintendo systems are for kids. I love playing Nintendo's games, but it does get boring not having something darker to play, and makes it that much harder to convince friends to play on a Nintendo console.
Silicon Knights had talent and were a good complement to Nintendo's usual style. Unless Nintendo manages something better with 3rd parties than it has (simply allowing Japanese companies to make Nintendo-published games isn't enough), things are only going to get worse. A good thing would be to seriously pursue Square-Enix to make games for their next system, even if only by telling them that they can't afford to allow Sony or Microsoft to go unopposed by Nintendo. After all, if Nintendo stops making consoles, then there'll be less competition amongst the hardware companies and they'll have to start competing with Nintendo games on PS4 or Xbox3. Not good for any 3rd party company.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
Any company leaving your second party ring is bad for the image, but let's not forget that E3 is right around the corner, and there's gona be a spot open left by SK... ...Specifcly, i'm refering to that rumor a while ago about Zoonami becoming second party. No offense to Dennis, but if the choice came up, i'd much rather have Martin Hollis (Leader of Zoonami, Of Perfect Dark and Goldeneye fame)stick around to make exclusive games. His work really helped keep N64 going, and if I remember the dates right, he's been working on a Gamecube game since dev kits first shipped for it (4, 5 years ago!).
That's the reason for the split up. Nintendo and SK both value quality over quantity: Both want to spend as much time to make a game as good as it can be. They share similar ideas about the industry. However, their styles are completely different: SK likes to make plot-rich, dark games, while Nintendo favors simplicity that appeals to everyone. Both companies obviously recognized this, as the agreement to end the deal and feelings between the two companies are quite mutual. This could be good, in the long run: SK is now free to develop the games it wants to develop. On the downside, they need to find a publisher, and that could determine which console they make the game for, which might not be what they want. But overall, this should help the industry. Best of luck to both Nintendo and Silicon Knights
Btw, you won't see either MGS: TTS or ED on Ps2 or X-box. The full rights of ED are owned by Nintendo (Check the ED credits if you don't believe me. The message reserving the rights to the game is in there, and it says the rights are reserved by Nintendo, not SK). I doubt Nintendo would want to let ED appear on the X-box and Ps2. And MGS:TTS's rights are controlled by Konami. However, Hideo Kojima went to Shigeru Miyamoto for it. Kojima wanted MGS:TTS made for just the GC, so it's not likely that'll change.
If you're going to mod a 0 AC post down, have the courage to put your name to it by at least labelling it flamebait or troll instead of furthering your agenda.
I'm worried that Microsoft will jump in and buy them, just like Rare. Their strategy of throwing money at the industry until they finally succeed may actually work.
Seriously, Eternal Darkness is a great game.
Damn HTML. My post is ruined now.
'much-needed "mature" games' is an oxymoron. The gaming industry doesn't need mature games, nor does Nintendo. What the gaming industry needs is fun games that sell for things other than boobs and blood. While a fun, mature game isn't a bad thing, an E-rated game (or whatever it is in America) which is just as fun is better.
http://cube.ign.com/articles/506/506508p1.html?fro mint=1
The trickle is slow, but significant.