Nintendo Promises 3rd Party Support

Eurogamer reports on claims by George Harrison (NoA's Senior VP for Marketing) that the Revolution will feature extensive third-party support in the coming years. From the article: "'One of the lessons we tried to learn from GameCube was that we kept things too close. And so as we got ready to launch, we had some of our own great games but third parties were kind of behind the eight ball in terms of being able to have games ready,' Harrison stated. In terms of early support for the Revolution, which launches this year alongside Sony's PS3, third party software ought to be available in abundance, Harrison confirming 'We've got more than 1,000 developer kits including the controller kits, out, so there should be plenty there.'"

Comments

Interesting

[Knight Thrasher]

Since we've seen that the Revolution isn't revolutionary hardware-wise, which means the games won't be all about the graphics, we may see some kickass storyline games that are well-written around this system.

On the other hand, we may see silly shoot-em-up games with the new controller. It's a coinflip until the system has been on the shelves for a few months, really.

Re:Interesting

[edwdig]

which means the games won't be all about the graphics, we may see some kickass storyline games that are well-written around this system.

Screw storyline. If that's what you want, you're better off going with the systems with tons of storage and graphics capabilities.

How about instead we hope for games that are fun to play. Heavy emphesis on the storyline tends to put more limits on the gameplay.

Re:Interesting

[Eideewt]

I have to agree. If you want storyline, you're probably after a book or movie and not a game at all. Gameplay is what games are about, and while storyline is great as icing, it won't make a game.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Third, rumoured spec leaks also point to that conclusion (the architecture is similiar to the Gamecube's so it is very possible to directly compare clockrates and such).

The problem with rumored specs is it is impossible to determine which rumors to listen to; everyone claims to have an inside source while no one says who their source is. Matt from IGN lied (or was lied to [and foolishly believed it]) and I can say that for a fact; Nintendo has never released a system which was not a dramatic technical improvement over their previous generation system, and Iwata and Myiamoto have both said that you "wouldn't notice a difference between the systems on a standard definition TV".

Nintendo has been low-balling their estimate because of one obvious thing: Resident Evil 4 (and a few other current generation titles) look nearly as good as anything on the XBox 360. I'm not trying to bash the XBox 360 but games that had the extra processing power (or games that used pre-rendering) are at a level of graphics where they're nearly good enough. Think of Soul Calibur 2, Resident Evil (remake, 0 and 4), Rogue Leader, etc. if these games were running at 1080p they'd be competative (visually) with anything we'll see in the next generation.

I'm not trying to be negative about the PS3 or XBox 360, but Sony and Microsoft have spent Hundreds of Millions of dollars of dollars to gain 10%-15% of performance; whereas (I'm willing to bet) Nintendo went to ATI and IBM and asked for a reasonable performance increase for a modest price tag. Essentially, what I'm saying is that where Microsoft and Sony have been targeting an X2 4800+ and a Geforce 7800 Nintedo focused on a X2 3800+ and a Geforce 7600; there are differences, the most dramatic one is the price.

Re:Interesting

[c_forq]

we may see some kickass storyline games that are well-written around this system.

I have to say some of the games I've had the most fun with have the weakest stories. For example Blaster Master has the great story of a kid catches a frog, the frog jumps down a hole, the kid follows and finds a tank. The rest of the game is classic side scrolling and top down blasting action. I don't remember an introduction to Contra, just start blasting mutants. Also Super-Monkey Ball was a complete blast, but I don't seem to remember a story at all.

stuff like this

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

really illustrates the difference in style between Satoru Iwata and Hiroshi Yamauchi.

It might actually happen...

[KeiichiMorisato]

Hopefully this is true.

Nintendo has recently taken a partnership approach with other developers instead of the historical "Give me money, and I'll let you develop FOR us" approach.

With the recent praises from many third parties with regards to the Revolution, hopefully Nintendo will rise again.

Well at least they've learned their lesson

[shoptroll]

... Or will still be learning it.

I will say that after losing a lot of the 3rd party support when the 64 came out they have started making pretty good progress getting most of it back. Although that is sometimes done by using the GBA as the carrot on a stick (Square-Enix anyone?).

Nintendo dominated the later years of the 16-bit generation through a good stable of 3rd party developers, and Sony's success has shown that 3rd party devs really make or break the system.

Like other people have said before, they say this every generation, so I'm skeptical about this, but E3 will hopefully offer up some proof to the validity of this statement. Also, the Revolution does have a lot to offer 3rd party developers: lower budget games (don't need to spend extra time developing HD-res textures), a (hopefully) cheap install price which hopefully results in a large player base, a chance to try something new, online connectivity, backwards compatibility (I wonder if this something indies could make use of (if Nintendo offers up cheaper dev kits for smaller games)) through the virtual console, and an online marketplace.

Developers

[ScaryFroMan]

One clue I'm seeing with this is the staggering amount of developers who say they are excited about developing games for the Rev. I'm seeing a lot more of those than the PS3 or 360 equivalents. I suppose Nintendo did this right to get thier interests piqued.

Of course, they would say that.

[Goldrush]

Was there ever a game console that claimed otherwise?

Re:Wow!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Now we get to see Mario done by multipe studios! Go Nintendo!"

It'd be a nice break from FPS shooters, racing sims, and fighting games.

Third party support is overblown

[Rosebud128]

Third party support really won't make or break the Revolution. It will be the first party support.

For the first couple of years, the Famicom had no third party support. Yet, it beat its challengers such as the Atari 2600 (or whatever they called it in Japan). When the NES emerged in America, it was the quality of first party titles that moved systems. People bought the NES because of Super Mario Brothers and Zelda. Third party support was icing on the cake.

Look at the Super Nintendo. The quality of first party (and second party) games moved systems. People wanted Super Mario World. Later, they wanted Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Mario All-Stars (the best selling SNES games).

Look at the N64. Again, the quality of first party titles was the primary driver of system sales. Super Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario Kart 64 were the best selling N64 games.

Now look at the Gamecube. The quality of first party titles were still good but disapointing to what Nintendo delivers. Honestly, would anyone say Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Windwaker, Mario Kart: Double Dash were the best entries in the franchise? Most fans had problems with them in one way or another. And while Metroid Prime was nice, it also put off many traditional Metroid fans. The problem with the Gamecube was really with the Nintendo made games. Second party games became a joke (as Rare became a joke).

The DS had this initial problem. At launch, the 'best' DS game was Super Mario 64 DS... a port! Warioware Touched was a disapointment to warioware fans, Polarium was a joke, but at least Yoshi's Touch and Go was decent. The real change occurred with the DS not when great third party titles came out like Castlevania: DS or Meteos, but with First and Second Party Nintendo games like Kirby: CC, Advanced Wars: DS, and the killer-app of Mario Kart DS. Add in Nintendogs if you'd like. The DS is moving because Nintendo is focusing hard on the quality of their software. Tetris DS is amazing. Metroid Prime Hunters is impressive. Brain Age is... different. I have no doubt that New Super Mario Brothers will be a killer app as Mario Kart DS was.

Keep in mind that the same situation applied for Sega. Sega began to move consoles only when it made games like Sonic.

Third party support is important but nowhere near as important as first party support. Nintendo is the #2 game publisher for good reason.

All this talk about third parties is really only because Sony and Microsoft are in the market. Do you ever hear talk about first parties? No! Because Sony and Microsoft cannot match the sheer quality and diversity of first party Nintendo games. This is why their marketing will say, "Only Nintendo games sell very well on Nintendo consoles," without mentioning the fact that this has been the case ever since the NES.

Only a few third party games ever seem to move consoles. Losing Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest hurt Nintendo especially in Japan. Not having Grand Theft Auto 3 hurt Nintendo in the West and helped give it the reputation of 'kiddie console' (though Nintendo didn't help with its purple toy look).

Through console history, the primary system sellers have almost always been Nintendo's first party games. This is why the DS is outselling the PSP even with western third party support for the DS being very low yet very high for the PSP. This is why when Peter Mooer said that if he could take any game franchise from any other system, his answer was solid: "Mario. I want Mario." Peter Moore knows that Mario sells. Even the disapointing Super Mario Sunshine sold as much as Halo did. Moore knows what moves units which is why he would pick up Mario if he ever could.

larnin'

[plonk420]

Nintendo sure has learned a lot since the days of the SNES -they learned that developers went gaga over the prospect of tons of space even tho it took a while to master the downsides to the format -they learned that they could make a little more money by bending their "family oriented" games rule -they learned that ~~ i have no idea wtf the whole N64 fiasco was ~~ something about overhyped, underdelivering, hard-to-program-for hardware? and, well, my videogame rag subs ran out sometime in the first few quarters of the GC's existence, so .. yeah