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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
meanwhile their fanboys flock to slashdot and post tired comments.
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.
"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.
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.