"Nintendo Should Have Their IP on Every Platform"

Olas

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Dec 24, 2011
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This would be the most un-Nintendo thing Nintendo has ever done. It's never going to happen. Even if Nintendo completely gave up on making consoles they'd close shop before considering developing games for someone else.

And considering how unique Nintendo consoles are from their competition it's not exactly hard to understand why it would be a bad idea to develop multiplatform.
 

SpAc3man

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Jul 26, 2009
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Unless Nintendo start to go bankrupt because of their consoles doing badly they will never go multi-platform.
Back in '89 or '90 John Carmack of ID Software fame created the first smooth side scrolling game engine for the PC. Carmack, Tom Hall and John Romero worked together to make a perfect PC port of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the engine and presented it to Nintendo to try and convince them to publish it. Nintendo congratulated them on their achievement but declined to publish the game as they saw their games as console games and not anything more.

Carmack, Hall and Romero then went on to create Commander Keen as ID Software using the engine Carmack developed and published it as a shareware title through Apogee. A lot of this engine was then repurposed to create Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and eventually Quake.

From a financial perspective Nintendo could be called crazy for declining a pre-made PC port of one of their games that they didn't have to fund the development for. All they had to do was say yes and write up a contract to sell the game.
By sticking to their vision they probably sold more consoles and gamers everywhere got FPS games.

Don't ever forget. Nintendo's stubbornness led to the FPS genre being invented.
 

Guffe

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Jul 12, 2009
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Making their games multiplatform would maybe increase their sales in games but that would mean no one would buy their consoles because PS and Xbox won't go multiplatform for each other and the WiiU.
I don't see why Nintendo would do this unless Sony and Microsoft jump along and they unite in making 1 console with IPs from everyone.
Then again most PS and Xbox gamers are too "hardcore" for the childish Nintendo games?
 

el_kabong

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Mar 18, 2010
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So, a lot of comments are saying similar things. I, for one, can play devil's advocate and see the merit in the suggestion. However, only if they decide to bail on their hardware at the same time. Hardware development can be a much more costly process than making software.

While they have certainly found success in the past with their hardware, I don't feel that they've reliably delivered on consoles throughout their history. Like Microsoft OSs, they usually have one good release for every two to three they produce. I haven't bought a Nintendo console since the Super Nintendo, but you better bet your sweet ass I'd pick up a Zelda/Metroid game if it was available on a console that I owned. Opening their games up to this huge market of people who don't own a current Nintendo system could be more valuable in the long-term than continuing to pump money into hardware that will potentially fail on a much grander scale.

In addition, their reliance on IPs has caused their company to narrow their focus to only judge their console by Nintendo logic. So they develop consoles that are underpowered for the generation their in and contain gimmicky hardware that can be cool, but also have a strong likelihood of flopping. With underpowered systems and failed gimmicks, developers are less likely to want to spend the time to make good games for the console. This has resulted, in the most recent generation, where those who will only buy one gaming machine have to choose between getting the Nintendo IPs or having access to a wider variety of third party developer titles. A pretty good summary of this concept can be found here:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/x86-architecture-vs-nintendo/

I'm not ready to say that Nintendo needs to abandon ship on its consoles, but if it can't succeed with its next console, I would say 2 failures in a row could warrant a hard look at restructuring how they do things.
 

UltimatheChosen

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CriticKitten said:
UltimatheChosen said:
Mr. Omega said:
I'm curious: Why is it Nintendo is the only one who "needs" to stop having exclusive first-party titles? This line of thinking never comes up with Sony or Microsoft. It's always Nintendo.
They're not the only ones that should do it. They're just one of the most prominent examples.
Okay. Then go ask Microsoft about Halo, or Sony about Uncharted. Tell them you don't think they should keep those games locked onto their consoles because folks might "miss out".
Halo 1 was released on the PC. And it's worth noting that Nintendo (arguably) has more exclusive IPs of consistently high quality than any other company. Even the less respected Mario games like Super Mario Sunshine are still really good games.

Nintendo isn't the only one to do this, but they are the poster boy for it.

CriticKitten said:
You don't get to whine at Nintendo for doing the same thing as every other console on the market.
Sure I do, because the stuff that every console is doing is stupid, too. These companies are making games, intentionally limiting their audience, and then losing money hand-over-fist because sales need to be astronomically high to recoup development budgets.

CriticKitten said:
What's with this mentality that "consoles shouldn't ever have exclusives", anyways? Why exactly should a business not be allowed to offer products which are only available through them? Oftentimes the most attractive prospect of any product is what it does differently from every other product of similar intent on the market. That's a fundamental aspect of competition in the business world. If your product is just like every other product of similar intent, you don't stand out and you're less likely to attract a large following.

What people are basically proposing when they say "no console should have exclusives" is a world where consoles are all samey and bland, because they'd all play the exact same games (and presumably so would PCs in this "utopia" of non-exclusive gaming, thus eliminating nearly every benefit of owning a console in the first place) and would offer nothing unique to differentiate themselves. I'd rather have three distinct consoles with their own rosters of games than three shitty PCs.

It basically sounds like this core argument is fueled by people who don't have the money to own all three consoles but don't want to actually have to make a decision for themselves about which console they want most. Tough. You can't always get everything you want with everything you buy, sometimes you need to compromise and make sacrifices. You want to play Nintendo games, buy a Nintendo console.
Yes, that's exactly what's fueling it. That, and people who don't want to buy any console, but still want to play the games on a PC.

"Three distinct consoles" simply will not happen, because there won't be enough third-party support. We're already seeing the industry buckle under its own weight-- as I noted above, budgets are so large that games need to see tons of copies just to break even. No publisher is going to put that kind of money into a game that's tailor-made for a console that not everyone has.

This is the reason why the Wii failed for hardcore gamers last generation-- even though there was a lot of interesting stuff you could do with motion controls, anything that used those motion controls in a meaningful way was incompatible with PCs and the other two consoles. It wasn't worth the money to make Wii games, and thus the bulk of the big releases were Nintendo games. The Wii did get some third-party support, sure, but it paled in comparison to PCs and the other consoles in that same period.

Console wars, and the exclusives that go along with them, are stupid. I'm a fan of Nintendo's games, and I'd buy them, but I'm not going to drop hundreds of dollars on a console so that I can play the six or seven games that interest me over the next five to ten years. And that goes for every console.
 

NoeL

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May 14, 2011
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Terminate421 said:
I always supported Nintendo, their morals have always been one thing I respect about them.
Seriously? I suggest you dig a little deeper. Back in the NES days Nintendo forced developers to sign exclusivity agreements, preventing them from releasing the game on any other platform for six years or something (by which time it'd be too dated to bother porting). It's why the NES had such a huge library of games and the Sega Master System only had around 300, I think.

I admire them for their incredible business savvy and game design skills, but they got to where they are now by being ruthless. Morality takes a backseat to profits in Nintendo's playbook.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Sonic Doctor said:
DVS BSTrD said:
After seeing the review of The Last of Us, I'm not too keen on ANY platform having exclusives.
That is why I find Livingstone's comment so damn stupid. If he is going to make a comment like that, he has to say that to Sony and Microsoft as well, if not, then his point falls flat on its face.
while this is true, Nintendo is excreme on the exclusivity, thats their selling poitn for consoles as noone would buy them otherwise, while for other consoles exclusivity is 1 in 10 games sort of thing. So he probably picked on the biggest target. Like if you had a burning house and vulcanic eruption im sure youd be commenting on the volcano first of all.

Capcha: Bond, james bond

really capcha, you reincardnated bond? all is explained now.

SpAc3man said:
Don't ever forget. Nintendo's stubbornness led to the FPS genre being invented.
And that... is... a good thing.... because?

Im kidding of course, FPS have thier palce, but i never found the attraction people had to wolfenstein or quake or doom. i played them, quite boring one-timers imo. then again i was always more of a strategy gamer.
 

GodzillaGuy92

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Prior to reading any of the comments, I said to myself, "Regardless of the fact that console exclusivity benefits absolutely no one besides the companies eager to throw their consumers and the whole medium under the proverbial bus so long as it stands a chance of upping their short-term profit margin, I hereby predict that there will be people vehemently disagreeing with the sentiments expressed in the article." And though I was indeed unsurprised, reading the ensuing posts still made me die a little inside.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Well that would be neat and all but right now their games are the only thing still selling their console, take those games elsewhere and you are killing the console on the spot.
 

Akisa

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Jan 7, 2010
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RicoADF said:
Why would they remove the only draw card for their consoles? For fabs of their series a Nintendo system is a must, however I agree this could bite them on the ass later.
Because it's time for Nintendo to go the way of Sega.
 

Asuka Soryu

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Jun 11, 2010
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Sleekit said:
Bleidd Whitefalcon said:
suntt123 said:
PS3 and 360 controllers aren't compatible with the PS4 and Xbone unfortunately
and yet there's no real reason for that as all the controllers are USB devices...except to get you to buy controllers ofc....and because the added a couple largely pointless extra buttons or something as a cockblock.
It's really simple. You see, they go to the trouble of remaking these controllers, they then ship em to stores.

Barely anyone buys them, because the majority of PS4 and XBox One owners have a 360/PS3 controller.

Old controllers aren't compatible with new systems simply because it cuts into the sales of new controllers.
 

Asuka Soryu

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suntt123 said:
Xman490 said:
Every time I read Nintendo's firm stance on cross-platform development, I sigh in disappointment. I, for one, would not buy their systems, even if their franchises make their needed moderate jumps.

The 3DS is too bulky for me to carry it around, even for Pokemon, but I'd love to have Pokemon on my iPhone since no other good game on the platform has its easy-to-play, fun-to-experiment-with formula. Every time I hear of a game coming out on the Wii U, I think about getting the system and remember the huge, necessary tablet controller with its short battery life. It's not like their games are really special now.
The 3DS is "too bulky"? I have one and it's no bigger than the original DS. If anything the thing is too damn small. It feels so tiny and delicate when I hold it in my hands. And the Wii U controller is optional... I wish they'd bundle the thing with pro controllers and sell the tablets as peripherals, instead but you can buy pro controllers separately. Besides off screen play is awesome. I can play monster hunter while my brother watches TV or plays COD or something.

OT:
And anyway, who wants to play a nintendo game on iOS, with no buttons... The PC maybe... But nintendo hardware has survived on 1st party software before and if they ever leave the hardware biz, I feel that the games industry would be a much more boring place.

Ugh, hell no.

Pro controllers aren't that expensive(when compared to PS3/360)

Tablet controllers are expensive as hell! According to Nintendo, they're valued around 150$ to replace. "To his or her surprise, the owner had to pay over $150 to receive a replacement ? the price was accumulated from the cost of the controller itself, sales tax and a shipping charge"

I'd rather get a Wii u with a free tablet controller and pay 60$ for the pro controller, then have a Wii U with a free pro controller and pay 150$ for the tablet.
 

Asuka Soryu

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Akisa said:
RicoADF said:
Why would they remove the only draw card for their consoles? For fabs of their series a Nintendo system is a must, however I agree this could bite them on the ass later.
Because it's time for Nintendo to go the way of Sega.
And why would that be?
 

Asuka Soryu

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Don't most exclusive games get made for exclusivity? Would they have ever been made if Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and all the others didn't see a point to investing in these things?
 

Akisa

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Jan 7, 2010
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Asuka Soryu said:
Akisa said:
RicoADF said:
Why would they remove the only draw card for their consoles? For fabs of their series a Nintendo system is a must, however I agree this could bite them on the ass later.
Because it's time for Nintendo to go the way of Sega.
And why would that be?
Aside for handhelds Nintendo is not doing well in the hardware department, and even than it's being chipped away by mobile devices.
 

SpAc3man

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Strazdas said:
SpAc3man said:
Don't ever forget. Nintendo's stubbornness led to the FPS genre being invented.
And that... is... a good thing.... because?

Im kidding of course, FPS have thier palce, but i never found the attraction people had to wolfenstein or quake or doom. i played them, quite boring one-timers imo. then again i was always more of a strategy gamer.
I started on Doom as a five year old in '96. It was pretty damn amazing back then.

While they were awesome for the time, most of ID's games have an importance in terms of what they enabled. Doom had a huge custom map and modding community, the Quake engine was used in a huge number of very important games throughout the years.
For example Valve used the Quake engine to create their GoldSrc engine for Half-Life and subsequently the Source engine. Infinity Ward made the first CoD game using one of the Quake engines before developing it into the engine that (unfortunately) every single CoD game (good and bad) since then has used.

From the good to the bad to the very bad, all of this is Carmack, Hall and Romero's legacy. A legacy that stems from Nintendo refusing to publish a Super Mario Bros. 3 PC port.
 

The Funslinger

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Sep 12, 2010
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Can someone find me a pie chart for sales of multiplatform games between the three consoles?

Because I'm fairly certain those statistics won't favour Nintendo, if their exclusives are non-exclusives, we're looking at that happening again.