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Mixed News for Nintendo, Microsoft
If you were to just look at downloadable content this week, Wii and 360 owners would have a lot to cheer about. Virtual Console downloads include the (under-appreciated) Legend of the Mystical Ninja and the original Castlevania. Xbox 360 owners can finally sink their teeth into the board-game spectacular that is Settlers of Catan. Classic titles Millipede and Centipede will also be on offer via Xbox Live Arcade. Unfortunately, there are some less cheery things to discuss as well. Virtual Console sales are down, apparently, and some analysts are questioning whether Nintendo's success may be bad for the industry overall. As for the 360 ... the Elite may be bringing back some old problems. 'Red Rings of Death' have already been reported with the just-released consoles, and DRM issues with Live Arcade titles on the 'upgraded' system are making some new owners frustrated.
I think its somewhat one-sided to say Nintendo is bad for the industry. It's bad for today's publishers who continue to pump out the same crap year after year after year because most of the new people who are getting into games (older people, etc) won't enjoy that garbage. It's good for gaming, though, because those more creative video game publishers will be more successful...
I say let the big companies fail, I'm hope I don't have to see Madden 2015 advertised...
Um... Isn't that what virtually any business aims to do? You don't think Microsoft and Sony are trying to do the same?
Although I haven't been following video games nearly as actively as I used to (read: at all), I thought Nintendo was making great strides to bring third parties on this generation, or at least claiming to.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
So getting more women and older users buying their first personal consoles, expanding the market, lowering the entry point for new enthusiasts, and coming up with a series of great first-party titles to buoy these systems rather than depending on third-party support is a BAD thing?!
Okay, I may buy 'this is bad for all the people doing things the old way', but this is only because the Wii and DS are two radically different paradigms. Once these interfaces take off, we may see the WiiMote and Nunchuk turn into a smaller, sleeker 'WiiWand' with 'Wiiry Stone' attachment, or the DS Lite become the DS Nano (or maybe the DS Slim, or DS Micro, DSleek . . . you get the idea.)
Nintendo is unlikely to change the interfaces AGAIN so soon, simply because these were so dramatically different from the norm, and I estimate that even if they update the hardware within the next few years, what we'll be seeing are not new systems in the vein of the PS3 where the engine development is the radical difference, but rather changes in form factor.
Expect crazy leaps of intuition like a WiiDR pad or DS games that are both DS-playable but have DS++ elements for whatever the DS's successor is, by all means, but since the most drastic part of Nintendo's great leap forward has already been accomplished, we shouldn't see another new switch in the actual computational hardware anytime soon.
If you're looking at consoles, last gen MS did have a very short generation relative to Sony and Nintendo. However, if you look at how Wii has been created, you see that Nintendo is trying to make their consoles more like their handhelds. Since 2001, Nintendo has released 3 GBAs and 2 DSes (money that gamers could have spent on more games), and moreover GBA was virtually completely replaced by DS in 2004, just 3.5 years after it was released in North America.
And this is why we have the first gaming "drought" all the hardcore players are complaining about. No one expected the Wii to sell like it has, and instead focused on PS3 which was supposed to dominate from Day 1. Fast forward 6 months and we get a drought of Wii games and developers are jumping the PS3 ship. Go figure.
And how is this any different from Nintendo's business strategy from past generations?
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The Wii success article is 100% whining.
Translation: "The old third party "same port across the board" style of developing doesn't work in this generation, we'd have to change the way we do things, but we don't want to or want to know how, so we will just whine about it instead."
Games are supposed to be about fun, not profit. If the game is fun, it will sell. if the Wii's first party games hurt Third-party devs' profits, it's not the Wii's fault!
Could it be that third-party devs would have to... god forbid, work a little at making a game for the wii? This reminds me of the same Bullshit that went on with the N64: Lack of third-party support. But that was for a different reason.
There really IS no reason now.
This exposes something about a few third-party publishers, and it isn't pretty at all.
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
I'd kill to get Carcassonne and Settlers on the Wii. Same with TMNT Arcade, SotN and Worms, among other games. Nintendo really should look into getting PopCap to hop on board as well. I'd be interested to see them pull of a 2-Player Bejeweled game a la 2-player Tetris.
One of the problems the Wii faces is that this is Nintendo's first major foray into areas that Microsoft came in, established, and is currently doing a "2.0" with. It seems to me that the VC is essentially Nintendo in the wading pool with online distribution, they're just trying it out for now. Same with online connectivity. Just be patient is what I keep telling people.
I still haven't explored purchasing anything through the VC yet. I have a sizable NES, SNES and N64 collection but they've got me very close. If the prices were like $1-2 less I would seriously drop the money no questions asked.
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Think again. It trades in the U.S. over-the-counter (ADR receipts) under the symbol NTDOY, and on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as #7974 (latter via wiki).
As the owner of a lovely ten shares of Nintendo ADRs, I can say that it WILL make you wealthy.. mine are up about 125% (yes, ONE HUNDRED and twenty five percent) since last March. If only I had more than ten.
You also have to consider the "EA effect". If one company does dominate an industry, then you lose competition and innovation. Nintendo is very innovative right now because getting their butt kicked last generation forced them to be, but if they're all alone at the top then don't expect the innovation that you're seeing right now.
Heres the problem. Nintendo does NOT compete with other developers. Hell they don't even compete with MS & Sony. To Nintendo, competition really doesn't exist. They aren't worried about beating out their competitor, but concerned with making money. If anyone else wants to make some money too they aren't going to complain. You'll find if you look at the problem with devs that don't do as well are relying on existing IP. It's not Nintendo's fault developers can't take a risk on something new (primarily Western developers are this problem). Hell, take a look at Elebits for a good example of a dev that did something unique. It's no Super Paper Mario by any means, but at least it shows us the people who brought us DDR can think outside of the box enough to make a good game.
Developers can piss themselves all day that they won't make as much as Nintendo, but it's kind of hard to have any sympathy for them when their mantra is to develop for one console, and port to the rest (and ones like EA weren't even on board till just recently!). Of course people aren't going to buy Prince of Persia in droves. It's been out for the previous generation of consoles for how many years? Developers need to just stop complaining, and stop giving excuses so they can get out from underneath Nintendo's shadow, and *gasp* do something new & interesting.
Which reminds me of the other problem I have with the whole 'Nintendo's success is bad for other developers' - EA totally has the resources to make excellent games. They don't because they can get away with it, but sometimes the developers get the resources that they need and put out something pretty good.
I can't help but think that if EA were required to step up, they would. (And they've said that they reckon they can become at least the #2 developer on Nintendo's platforms.)