Slashdot Mirror
Game Devs Migrating Toward iPhone, Away From Wii
A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly:
"Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."
The summary seems to create the assumption that the same developers which are abandoning the Wii are moving to the iPhone.
I'm not even sure how something like this would work. The economics are different, the scale is different, hell, even the target consumers are probably different.
The summary seems to create the assumption that the same developers which are abandoning the Wii are moving to the iPhone.
You're likely right. I imagine the recession starting in 2008 has slowed major label video game development in general, and a different group of developers are doing things on the iPhone. Unlike Wii Shop Channel, which requires developers to have a dedicated office and a successful commercial title on another platform, Apple's App Store model (almost an exact copy of Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games) is much friendlier to 1- and 2-man shops.
This isn't a change in game developer preference, it is a change in the definition of game developer.
Spooooon!!!!!
Four years is around the time it took for the 5th and 6th generations to lose steam. Difference is next-gen no longer impresses anyone.
People just want smaller, quieter, lower power.
mostly all of nintendo's biggest games for wii or any of their platforms are developed in-house anyways, so it'll mean the heaps of crap disguised as games being thrown at the wii daily will be slightly less frequent, while the titles with actual quality behind them (not quality ideas, just quality presentation and design) won't be bothered
Nice way to cover your bet: "I am willing to bet they actually increased, stayed the same or slightly decreased.", and still say nothing at all.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I largely agree with your statement, but I would imagine that there is are least *some* developers jumping ship from Wii (or, more likely, DS/DSi) to iPhone/iPod. And they're probably making games for the older consumers that Nintendo has been courting in recent years.
For all the talk of Apple's restrictive policies, Nintendo's stance towards developers is almost draconian by comparison. Development kits for Nintendo hardware run into the thousands of $$$ -- assuming Nintendo even sells you a devkit, which they won't unless you're an established developer or you're being published by someone with a known track record. And unlike Apple which takes 30% off the top, Nintendo's cut is largely determined on a case-by-case basis (EA probably gets a much more lucrative deal than a small publisher.
Nintendo isn't very hostile anymore, especially not enough to make ignoring half the console market worth it. Third parties only make godawful games for the Wii to prey on "stupid casuals" while putting anything worth buying on the 360 and PS3, then they proclaim that third party games don't sell on the Wii. I don't know if they honestly believe the bullshit they've been spouting but they act like Nintendo is some magical being that does not follow the rules of the market that the rest of the world follows and is inherently the only company capable of making games sell on the Wii. No matter how many stupid prejudices you have about the Wii userbase, there should be no reason that the next big thing on the system can't be made by a third party instead of Nintendo but the third parties don't think of ideas like Wii Fit until Nintendo does it first, grabs the whole market and shows them how it's done properly (at which point third parties will release shoddy knockoffs that will not convince anybody to buy a non-Nintendo game). If you only offer products that have been done before and better how do you expect to compete?
For visualization, look at these lists and imagine you aren't informed as to which games are good, wouldn't you likely end up with a few duds and associate those company names with crap? I've seen user reviews on Amazon for a shitty Wii Sports knockoff by Activision and these "non-gamers" swore to never buy a game from Activision again because they felt cheated out of their money. Is that how you develop a positive brand image?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Do you realize that the Wii just had its best Christmas sales-wise due to New Super Mario Bros Wii?
Third parties abandoning the Wii does not mean the Wii is suffering, for the most part these third parties have been completely useless and only producing garbage that hurts the Wii more than it helps.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The Wii is going to tank? You hope Nintendo has enough cash? Dude, the Wii came out almost three and a half years ago, sales dropping off now means only that it might not have the longevity Nintendo hopes, not that it's tanking, as you say. It's still sold more units than any other Nintendo console. Calling the Wii anything but a success seems silly.
Why yes, but that means that the Wii is the N64 and Gamecube all over again, where everybody buys the exact same Nintendo games so when you go check out the Nintendo sections of the used games stores over the years, they have 10 copies of Nintendo-foo, and one copy of non-Nintendo-foo great game that no one bought.
Which do you think is easier to find, the N64 version of Mega Man Legends or the PSone version.
Or between the Gamecube and PS2 versions of Balder's Gate: Dark Alliance.
The Wii is like the Monopoly or Life game set that everyone has, but only plays at holiday get togethers. I'd lay odds that PS3 and Xbox owners put far far more hours on their consoles than Wii owners do.
Microsofts Indy games for live is the copy, the app store predates it
XNA Game Studio 2.0 (which introduced what is now Xbox Live Indie Games): December 2007. App Store: July 2008. When I first read about the App Store's business model, I found the $99 fee and the 70/30 split to be suspicious similarities.
A good game should leave you tired and sore all over not just your ass.
Uh, what? I hesitate to ask which game you were playing. The Wii controller does NOT go there!
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
A bit of thought, if you're willing to invest it, should make you very embarrassed that you said all that publicly. The Wii could stop selling NOW, and it's doubtful the 360 or PS3 would EVER catch up to it. Nintendo has already won this console generation in terms of sales, profit, and popularity.
The DS (yes, you have to count all versions in the wild)
The DSi has both an online app store and a retail channel. The DS and DS Lite have only the retail channel, and retail channels strongly favor major labels, even on fully open platforms such as PC. So among handheld platforms with an app store, I count iPhone+iPod Touch, PSP+PSP Go, and DSi. Of the three, only Apple's app store has an official developer program open to the general public.
Plus, every new game Nintendo releases is a hit. Nintendo seems to make their own success rather than depending on third party developers.
If your game is high quality, you need to hit Steam.
Top sellers on Wii include Carnival Games, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart, and similar party favorites. These video games allow up to four players to join in without having to own a separate console, monitor, and copy of the game per player. The PC app store Steam, on the other hand, is limited by the comparatively small median monitor of a PC, where it's difficult for four players holding gamepads to see the screen. True, it is fairly easy to connect a PC to the VGA or HDMI input on an HDTV, thereby forming a "home theater PC". But I get an impression from other Slashdot users that the number of HTPC owners is nowhere near enough to support a major-label development budget.
Yeah, it must really suck to TOTALLY DOMINATE both the handheld and livingroom console markets for three years straight. Yup, Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot there all right.
Surely there's only one mobile phone company that [DRM lock-in] applies to (Apple)? The rest, you are free to write apps for them.
Are you talking about only smartphones? A lot of feature phones still use BREW.
There are three issues that the wii presents for most game developers used to developing traditional console or even PC games.
All three of these issues can be summed up as that the Wii presents a completely new gaming paradigm for developers. I think the biggest issue is that the wiimote presents a very different interface than traditional console and PC games. I bet most developers have no idea how to take advantage of the wiimote and the motion-sensitive options it provides. The few games that have used the wiimote hasn't used it well. This is because the wiimote isn't terribly accurate, even with the motion plus. I think most developers still have the "hardcore" mentality, where motion sensitivity has to be fairly accurate. If you look at the games that nintendo creates, you'll notice that most of them aren't made with accuracy of the wiimote feedback in mind. In terms of how much leeway the games provide the player, and how "difficult" the games are, they both lean towards the simplistic.
The second issue is the user base of the wii. For systems like the xbox or the PS3, the install base is fairly well known: hardcore games who like fancy graphics, difficult combos, in-depth storylines, and action of some form. The wii install base is very diverse, from hardcore gamers, to more casual gamers, to social (party) gamers, to non-games, to senior citizens. It is very difficult to come up with a game that caters to all of these groups, and effectively makes developing for the wii very discouraging. Add to that a group of "hardcore" nintendo fans that will easily love everything nintendo but will treat 3rd party games with a far more critical eye, and intersperse them within the other gamer types, and you have a recipe for disaster if you're not nintendo but try to copy them.
The final issue is the fracturing of the wii install base that accessories like the balance board and the motion plus cause. It's pretty impossible to write for those games, as that's literally taking away your user base. Nobody will do that, so few developers are willing to write for those accessories, instead opting for writing for the base system. That is very limiting considering the above two issues. Granted, developers can work around it by making the accessories optional, but even that is a complete paradigm shift away from traditional console and PC games.
It boils down to this: large game development studios are as risk-adverse as the movie and music industry. They're going to go the safe route--do the things nintendo has done successfully. They're not going to try something different, like what smaller developers would be willing to do. Where a smaller shop may be willing to develop games specifically for the wii and try to work around or work with the three issues I listed above, the larger ones will only want to put out what's been tried and true, but prettier, or more realistic. The problem is that nintendo, through their wiiware developer policy, isn't letting small developers thrive. Whether by being overprotective or being greedy, they're strangling their own infant ecosystem. And if they don't change this soon, they're soon going to have a lot of competition from more hardcore motion systems.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
If your game gets on steam, and it's good, you're guaranteed 5 digit sales.
On a 6 digit budget game?
Some steam games sell 6 or 7 digits.
Guaranteed 5 digits is pretty good. The iPhone has a guaranteed 2 digits, and the Wii only ~4. :P
And why does this software have such a limitation? Based on everything I've read in other Slashdot comments, it's because there aren't enough customers in the PC gaming market who have the appropriate hardware. Major-label PC games aimed at the median PC gamer are designed for the median PC monitor, which is smaller than the median console monitor. This in turn is because the median PC gamer is less of a hardcore enthusiast than someone like you who runs dual head 1080p-class monitors. One person does not a market make.
There are plenty of customers out there. What publishers don't grasp, is we're not all on their schedule. People upgrade at different times. Although there's a big burst on release, you could get a steady stream of sales for years after release, especially if you drop the price every once and a while.
I know people with computers that will only play older games like Far Cry. When they see a deal like this week's on Steam, they pick it up. Places like GOG.com are a heaven for them.