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Nintendo Shares Up, But Do Devs 'Get' the Wii?
kukyfrope writes "Nintendo shares have jumped over six percent since the Wii's unveiling at E3 last week." Despite both Peter Moore and Phil Harrison recommending you should get a Wii, the future of Nintendo and the Wii aren't assured. Next Generation reports that third party developers may not really 'get' the ambitious console.
Nintendo will have a ton of great games (good for them, they usually have a few, things are looking great here) but while EA made out like a bandit on the 360 launch (Madden, Fight Night, Burnout, whatever) there is just Nintendo here.
Of course, if they could get Super Smash Brothers out at launch (instead of a few months later as I think they said) then they could really cream the competition.
A $200 system (just a guess) with a new Mario, Super Smash Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, Wario Ware, and a few other titles at launch. What gamer could possibly resist that?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Remember, when the DS first came out not that many third parties "got" the DS either, but now they do, and we're seeing tons of titles coming out for it. Developers will figure Wii out, and since it's such an innovative platform, developers will WANT to develop for it. I can see Wii having much better third party support than the GameCube did, even though it was generally easy for a quick "port" to the cube. We won't see those cheap ports on the Wii, but we'll see some actual games developed specifically with the Wii in mind. Sure, we'll see some gimmicky crap too, but "90% of everything is crap".
Knight37 - Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer
Wasn't this the same issue with the DS when it first launched?
If I recall (I'm too lazy to look anything up and I'm about to leave work), the DS had limited (if any) 3rd party support at launch. Everyone claimed the device was gimicky and no one would use it. It took a while before we saw games that took real advantage of the hardware.
I believe this is the case with the Wii as well. The first year of the device will see a lot of 1st party support with interesting games, but the 3rd party developers will use that time to figure out what the hell to do with it. Don't get me wrong, I fully intend on picking one up on or near launch (which I've never done for anything). However, I fully expect to only have a few titles that really make use of the new control scheme.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
It took quite a few months before games that really took advantage of the DS's capabilities (the two screens as well as the touch capabilities) came out, but now the market is full of them, and the PSP is largely being ignored. It might take a while for developers to appreciate what the Wii can do, but hopefully they will make the most of it when they understand its potential.
They are *sure* to get it! $$$$
Now I'm not a graphics guru and could be wrong, but to my understanding, this greatly eases the art pipeline-- for example textures and polygon counts could be the same size.
The problem with the Wii is that it is not in the same class as the Xbox360 and PS3.
Many people don't realize that for a given game, as much as 3/4 of the manpower goes into art and *not* code. Most developers leverage existing game engines. A friend of mine is on a project where they have ~ 40 artists and ~ 10 coders.
No, Zonk, of course developers aren't interested in the Wii. After all, why would they be? Nothing could ever stand up to the developer heaven that is your precious XBox 360. The author of the blog you link is right, even though he's apparently never heard of EA or Activision.
The massive outpouring of launch exclusive support by EA, Ubisoft and Sega unlike anything we saw directed at Nintendo at any point during the Gamecube era is just a coincidence. And not such a big deal either. After all, as the article puts it, nobody's getting involved in the near term except Sega and Ubisoft (merely two of the biggest game publishers in the world), and it isn't like any important names are getting involved (like, y'know, EA or anything), so what good will it be? Spongebob Squarepants Spongebob Squarepants Spongebob Squarepants.
Go back to sleep so the rest of us can look forward to Red Steel and Super Monkey Ball in peace.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but this Pachter guy sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about.
"no publishers would be able to take advantage of the installed base because they haven't fully committed to the early life of the platform"
How does that make any sense? Even if this were true, I believe there were 25 Wii games shown at E3? I'm pretty sure not all of those games are being published by a small number of publishers. Nintendo seems to have plenty of 3rd party backing for Wii.
Only if they are lady devs. otherwise, they give the wii.
;-)
Sorry, I thought I had that out of my system already
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's a controller that senses every move you make with it, and every mistake seen at E3 has been discussed in public to no end (like Red Steel not having totally free-form sword fighting). I'm guessing that those who didn't get it in the beginning certainly get it now, especially after playing Nintendo's own games.
Almost everyone who's not bound by contracts with MS and Sony will want to get in on this, who are they kidding? This is the most fun thing in gaming since.......... ever.
Say what?
There are lots of games coming out for the Wii.
And just because big third parties aren't frothing at the mouth doesn't mean anything. I'm FAR more interested in titles like Sadness. These less-known developers are going to take risks that you won't see any big third party developer take.
:(){
What are Nintendo doing to get the devs? Part of the reason they've historically had poor 3rd-party support is because they make it _hard_ for outsiders to get in.
The delay for Smash Bros. may be intentional. This was a 'must have' game for the Cube but as mentioned previously does not really take advantage of the Wii's unique features. Perhaps Nintendo thought it best to launch games that highlight the controller first before bringing in the tried and true favourites.
the future of Nintendo and the Wii aren't assured.
FUD
Next Generation reports that third party developers may not really 'get' the ambitious console.
FUD
Any questions?
See, it's no longer a question of building a better product, which Nintendo obviously did since they pwned E3. It's getting past all the dockers-wearing bullshit shovelers with the truth. Of course, Nintendo's name was an act of simple pure genius, since even the skeptics (who are always wrong, ALWAYS wrong) can't stop talking about it.
Nintendo and Apple are the same company. They consistently build better products and consistently build a better business while the nasal voices of criticism for the sake of criticism keep trying to shout them down.
Short version: Nintendo owns your sorry ass. Shut the fuck up.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I'll definitely buy the Wii as soon as it's launched because of the Nintendo exclusives and the backward compatibility. I still regret missing the chance of having a Nintendo 64 back when it was relevant and won't miss it again.
For third party games I'm considering the PlayStation 3 for two reasons: the Sony exclusives and the possibility of running Linux on a relatively cheap Cell implementation.
>Many people don't realize that for a given game, as much as 3/4 of the manpower goes into art and *not* code.
And that's the problem right there. When I play a game, I want to [B]play a game[/B], not look at pretty graphics.. If graphics were everything, then Guild Wars would have way more players than World of Warcraft. It has better graphics and doesn't require a monthly fee.
But WoW, despite its monthly fees and "lower quality graphics", is still the winner in terms of total number of players.
The fact that the Xbox 360 and PS3 [B]require[/B] more graphists (because of the higher-resolution textures) just makes games even more expensive to make.
Which is where Nintendo has the advantage: the console costs less to buy (players), costs less to develop for (games).
Besides, not that many people have an HD display. IMHO HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will both flop just like SACD and DVD-Audio.
The Nintendo Wii's video card does support vertex and pixel shaders. It just doesn't support really really advanced vertex and pixel shaders. Did you see the preview for Super Smash Brothers Brawl?
-:sigma.SBWARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
I see it a lot nowadays mostly as an indicator someone doesn't agree with something. That doesn't mean it is FUD. Anymore then someone having a different opinion is a troll or someone having an argument is flaming.
Nintendo consistently builds better products? WHAAAAHAAA. Yeah right. That is why Sony took them for a ride with the PS1. Sorry but no. Nintendo screwed up badly in the past and had to pay the price. But then you mention apple. So I get my own word that lost all meaning to rebutt your fud.
FANBOY.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You can use the motion activated controller, and toss it for your nintendog to go and fetch. Of course... you will have to fetch the actual device yourself, but it will help you shed a few pounds.
The fact is, if enough consumers "get it," then you can bet that the developers will "get it."
Okay, so this is off topic, but...
My friends and I were at the arcade last night playing House of the Dead 4 and we couldn't stop talking about how awesome that game would be for the Wii. For those who haven't played it, HOTD4 uses motion sensors in its light guns to achieve a number of effects, from throwing off zombies to opening doors. The controller has a trigger and a grenade button, which map perfectly to the trigger and A button on the Wiimote.
How much fun would a 4-player home edition of HOTD4 be? Are you listening, Sega? Get on it!
I wouldnt compare graphics right now. There are pictures floating around that showed that the demo stations were actually modified gamecubes and not the wii console it self. You cant compare graphics right now because they havent showed anything using the final console yet.
If the developer is named Ben Dover they get the Wii all right...
Nobody expects the Wii in the middle of the night!
And yes, after playing Groo,
This is the best I can do.
"THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell spoke about developing for the Nintendo Wii, touching on a number of topics including THQ's first reactions to its Wii games..."
"...[The Wii] wasn't a whole new programming environment," Farrell said. "So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs--and again, I hate these broad generalizations--but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles... Maybe the range is a quarter to a half."
Regardless of how great the Wii turns out to be, Nintendo is going to need some time to overcome the less then impressive image they have gained from the N64 and Gamecube. Part of it is that not many companies are going to be eager to bet on the guy who came in 3rd place in a 3 way race. Gamecube did better in Japan then the X-Box though, and that is why your seeing alot more Japanese publishers giving it a shot.
Aside from that issue, another more insidious problem is that people tend to hold grudges, and Nintendo has alienated many developers over the years. It took most of 2 console cycles for Square to do anything with Nintendo after Yamauchi said that Squares RPG games suck. And Nintendo also managed to drive away Silicon Knights shortly after the Metal gear port was done. There are many more companies that just dont much care for having to work for Nintendo.
The last issue is that even once the console starts to take off, most 3rd party games (except probably for those done by Sega) are just not going to feel as good to play as most of the Nintendo titles will. While the SDK is cheap, its going to take a while for the designers to get their head around the sort of things that are possible. WarioWare: Smooth Moves will be the best demo title for the sort of things someone can try with this console, and Metroid will point the way for FPS games. But beyond that, its going to take a while before 3rd parties come up with the sort of Original titles that will truly sell the system.
Its like playing a Texas Hold-em poker game, and your starting hand is 7 Jack, when your opponents have pocket aces and pocket kings. You will win once the flop comes down as 7, Jack, Jack, but its going to be a while before everyone else at the table watching the game realizes it.
END COMMUNICATION
Whenever I hear both Microsoft and Sony advising consumers to buy a Wii as a second console, I hardly see that as an endorsement. Instead, I can see fear in their eyes. Fear that consumers are going to buy a Wii first.
The huge splash Nintendo made at E3 has spin masters frantically running for cover. They're trying to downplay the Wii as good enough only as a secondary console. But even they feel the former Revolution is going to be a coup.
As for third-party developers, I'm planning to buy a Wii on launch day and at least 4 games (Metroid, Mario, Zelda and Red Steel, maybe Wii Sports). That's enough quality gaming right here to prevent me from actually seeing the light of day for the next few months, and I'm not even counting the countless classics on the Virtual Console.
The Wii is not suffering from a lack of titles. Actually, it already has too many strong launch titles to even let me try an unknown third-party game. Out of my 4/5 launch titles, only one is from a third party. The publishers that missed the boat have only themselves to blame.
The Wii Talk is posting a Miyamoto interview that hints at a $200 price at launch to be announced in September at the Tokyo Games Show.
...because new developers that DO will take their place, and do quite nicely to boot.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
For the Wii to sell tons of units, there will probably need to be a good amount of third-party games. If no third-party games come out until many units are sold, then that would be a catch-22.
Nintendo has already stated in the past that people often buy a console because of one title. If there are two good games for the Wii, then that will be enough for me. If the price point of the console is around $200, then it will be enough for a lot of people to put money down, simply because it won't hurt too much, even if they do get it wrong. On the other hand PS3's price point is enough to make anyone hesitate, so Sony depends much more on killer titles.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Who modded that up? I can barely break +1 on the moderation scale, and someone modded that up without confirming facts.
There are available pictures of the PS3 development kit on HOME.BTCONNECT.COM. There is an article with a strategic view of the PS3 development kit on WWW.TECHEBLOG.COM. Yet, there has been no price shown. For under USD 2000, one could just buy some Dell PC's and cluster them for a better solution to anything Sony could pull out of its proprietary mind. Why stop at USD 16000000? I say the development kit could be as much as Sony is worth. I'm impressed Sony is advertising PS3 as a Linux solution bending to an 100% open-source environment, yet at the same time BOUGHT its solution from Microsoft--nope, not surprised. If I'm uptodate on my studies in gray-area politics and economics, two competitors can build their products for eachothers benefit to prevent use of their IP (think Blu-Ray) while competing like dogs in a market.
For conclusion to the matter above; The PS3 Development kit WIKIPEDIA article yiels that Sony purchased technology from Microsoft that would provide access to GNU development tools on the Playstation 3! (I kid you naught!) And within that article, the Playstation 3 is not limited to a game console but a complete multimedia entertainment center -- this would propose it not to be a shabby little game device like the competing Nintendo Wiivolution and Microsoft XBOX.
The sad truth is, that I and many others may only buy a controller of a certain gaming system, and just theme the desktop chassis of our computer and theme the visual presentation through an X or DirectFB solution to "have it better than the real thing" while we run an emulator.
Sony and Microsoft have been turds since they ever started competing, no exceptions. Nintendo appears to be an honest venture, having evinced to not choose any intellectual properties that conflict with their customers' and stockholders' interests and securities.
Anyone asking me for a suggestion; I recommend they choose the lesser of two Wiivels...
without prejudice
a lot of the good DS games like Castlevania, Mario Kart, Mario & Luigi, Tetris DS, New Super Mario Bros, did not really use the touch-screen and when they did it wasn't really anything. I think ultimately third parties "got" the DS when they heard Nintendo sold 17 million of them :)
FreeSimpleGames - some fun games I made
Yes, there will likely be tons of crap out there because of the bar being lowered,
And then, I wish we could have the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" again here. At least I hope that if there are games downloadable at the Virtual Console, Nintendo will choose just quality games to add.
And of course, there are still TONS of crappy games out there (just look at the numer of titles for PSX or PS2) even though the bar was quite high.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
PS3 and XBOX 360 games are the same as the previous generation with updated graphics (and not far better than a PC anyway). But Nintendo's Wii games will be an experience totally different, thanks to its controller. I can't wait to play my favorite sports games with it! :-)
http://revolution.ign.com/articles/690/690730p1.ht ml Last paragraph on the bottom. Sure wikipedia might not be good enough to be a refrence but the articles it points to are excellent.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
"Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter..."
Just bear in mind he's a stock analyst. You know they're *never* wrong.
Last post!
Does the Wii have the potential to propel someone new, who "gets" the Wii remote control, to the forefront?
Only time will tell.
But, I like the bold, eveocative nature of the Wii controller. It speaks well of Nintendo to be thinking of things other than polygons and shaders.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
... will end up as first against the wall when the Revolution comes!
No really, isn't this true of any studio? If all your investment in the R&D for titles on a new platform falls through on a lame title, you're dead, right?
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
Well, I think EA is a publisher that also "gets" the Wii. They are making that Madden game for launch, and I have to believe that they have a baseball game in the pipeline. It is something that lends itself to a baseball game, IMO.
Konami will likely do well with Elebits, also.
I think, however, there are a lot of games in the pipeline that we know nothing about that could be very good---the Crystal Chronicles game, the Dragon Quest game, the new Wii version of Trauma Center, Sengoku Action (presumably a Dynasty Warriors type game), the unnamed flight game from Hudson, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Call of Duty 3, et al.
But if in fact none of the games by third-party publishers are very good nor plentiful and the Wii sells very well (which it probably will), I think that it is possible that smaller companies with good ideas could fill the gap thanks to the fact that the Wii is way more small-game-company friendly than the others, not just due to the fact that the dev kit is cheaper and it will require less graphic fidelity, but also thanks to the fact that a new control scheme means that a company really has the opportunity to hit big if they find a new, inventive use for the controller.
LucasArts made a very coy comment about how they are "looking into" doing a Lightsabre title for Wii. This will be the absolute reason for Wii's existence, folks. Expect a title in time for the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie. 5/25/2007, baby. That's my fearless prediction.
Of course, it will be even cooler if they built the game around Master Mace Windu, but who knows. A "secret level" where he has to deal with a snake-filled starship would be the ultimate in kewlness.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I was told that the creators of Castlevania had said that they didn't know how to make the game on Wii.
And if more developers start to say that they need to great a weird active waving-around game just because it's for Wii we might lose quite a few games. I still want to regular games aswell, they should just use the tilted Wii-remote, virtual console controller, a shell or whatever. Not all games has to be special just because it's a Wii.
I hope they do understand that so they don't say "Hey, only waving-around games on Wii, people buy PS3/Xbox360 for the other games anyway."