Why should Nintendo go third party?

[Stavros Dimou]

It's because Nintendo consoles have been quite incompetent in comparison to other gaming platforms the past recent years.
There once was a time that buying a new Nintendo console meant that you would be able to play all the cool AAA 3rd party games of the market,that they would have the best multiplayer experience,as Nintendo was the only one who cared on adding 4 controller ports and split screen back then,plus Nintendo's first party games that were quite innovative,and their consoles had the best graphics.

Today their consoles are the weakest home machines for gaming there are,those who will buy only a Nintendo console will loose even the best-selling 3rd party franchises,the graphics of Nintendo games are also still way behind those of the other consoles,multiplayer of Nintendo games is crippled because of the lack of proper online,and they aren't that much innovative any more.

People bought NES,SNES,N64 and even GAMECUBE as their one and only console in which they would be playing all their games for about 5-6 years. Wii wasn't like that. Wii was a secondary,supplementary console that people would buy only for Nintendo's first party games. But at least it had some brand new experiences that got people excited with all the motion controls stuff. But WiiU games doesn't even have that feeling of excitement for a new experience. Having an inventory menu on a second screen doesn't excite people.It would be more practical to just access it with a single button press while still looking at the main screen.

On a list,if you were buying SNES,N64 or Gamecube you knew that:

# The games on that machine will have the best graphics in comparison to other consoles of the same age.
# The games on that machine will be supporting multiplayer functions the most.
# You would be able to play the best 3rd party AAA series on that platform.(with the exception of Rockstar and id Software games for the Gamecube)
# You would be first to play with new cool technologies and gameplay features like force feedback,split screen,3d environments,motion controls...

Slowly but steadily the above points the brand had been associated with during the decade of the 90s and early 2000s,have been diminished.

1) First you got partial 3rd party support with Gamecube,with id Software and Rockstar snob the platform
2) It also failed to adopt to a new standard for multiplayer,the system link connection that Xbox introduced
3) When the Wii came,Nintendo lagged even more to keep up with expanding multiplayer,by not having proper online infrastracure.
4) With the Wii Nintendo did a 180% turn and rejected graphics as something substantial,while in the past it was leading the hardware race. Many Nintendo fans that valued graphics left Nintendo at that point.
5) The Wii also was left far behind in advancements and new standards when it comes to multiplayer,and especially online.
6) The Wii was also left behind with other advancements like DLCs and achievements.
7) With the WiiU thus far Nintendo seems to be loosing one more thing that made past Nintendo consoles desirable: It lacks some kind of a new technology or unique revolutionary gameplay mechanic that would excite people.


As it is obvious,all the reasons people considered Nintendo consoles THE consoles back then,aren't there today.
Since the middle Gamecube days Nintendo stopped advancing and adopting to new trends and standards of the industry.
They did tried something new and brought their own standard with the Wii which was motion controls though. And that was what made Wii the success it was. But WiiU doesn't even have that.


As such,with most of the reasons people valued Nintendo consoles missing,people stopped valuing Nintendo consoles as they did in the past. Nintendo consoles are so incompetent,that not people not only aren't excited for them,but they actually see them as a hindrance. The points they could use to justify buying a Nintendo console are so few if any that people just doesn't buy WiiUs,without that meaning they wouldn't be willing to play some of the games Nintendo is making for their consoles. People see WiiU as a thing they really don't see value in it other than playing Nintendo's first party games,but apparently a large percentage of those people aren't so fanatic with Nintendo franchises to justify buying a full price console (WiiU) just for playing one two or maximum 3 franchises. There are people who like Mario,then people who like Zelda,and then people who like Metroid. Perhaps there are also people who like some of the less popular franchises of Nintendo. But most people are fans of these franchises.

So if you put all these down and make some lists,you have WiiU feeling as a console with one of the worst value for money ratios ever.

All the other platforms get these non exclusive nice franchises:

Dragon Age
The Elder Scrolls
Fallout
Wolfenstein
Doom
Far Cry
Crysis
Serious Sam
Duke Nukem
Battlefield
Mortal Kombat
Left 4 Dead
Dishonored
The Witcher
Tomb Raider
Dark Souls
Metro
Saints Row
Grand Theft Auto

And even more that I'm currently forgetting,that WiiU just isn't going to see.
So people might love Mario,Zelda and Metroid,but when other platforms offer so many more good AAA franchises and Nintendo only has a handful,it just doesn't feel justifiable to pay a premium console price just to play such a few games.
And Nintendo's idea of making 3 Mario games per year isn't helping. They need MORE and NEW franchises. Ideally for people with different tastes.

People had been waiting and asking Nintendo to FIX problems since the Gamecube era,but Nintendo keeps ignoring them,lagging way behind,failing to conform to standards,and in turn loosing support by devs/pubs and eventually gamers.
Nintendo might be making some of the best software,(arguably) but their hardware and online infrastructure is laughable,and their introvert business relations cost them.

 

[The Lunatic]

I don't see why not. It wouldn't hurt them any.

I'd love the hilarity of them release on only the Nintendo Consoles and the PC however.

The uproar would be incredible.

 

[VG_Addict]

How has Nintendo not gone out of business for failing to get with the times, then?

What's wrong with the Wii U's online infrastructure?

 

[senordesol]

How has Nintendo not gone out of business for failing to get with the times, then?

What's wrong with the Wii U's online infrastructure?

Because, obviously, it hasn't lost enough money (yet) for it to close its doors. It's also worthwhile to realize that Japanese business models are not like American models (i.e.: The Japanese don't tend to sell or jump ship just because they've had a few bad years).

In short: it's Nintendo's business to stay in business.

That said, it feels like you're looking for something that you're simply not going to get on this forum: validation that Nintendo will survive as it always has. To be quite frank, whether Nintendo sinks or swims at this point is Nintendo's decision. Currently, there's little exciting consumers with regard to the Wii U or 3DS, and so the two are losing money. Speaking for myself, apart from the new Donkey Kong Country (which is NOT enough to justify my buying a new console), there is NOTHING on either system that I'm interested in playing...and if you're a console maker AND videogame maker; and people don't want to buy your console nor play your games; well that's unsustainable no matter what your previous successes were.

Nintendo can try to make another console if it wants, but what would it matter if it can't spark interest? Like I said, I don't care if I play another Zelda or Mario game again, so if they want to sell it to me; they need to offer more than just the ability to play next-gen renditions of their tired old properties.

They need to excite me. They need to give me a reason to believe that their console experience is superior (or at least superior in certain key aspects) to anything anyone else is offering. I'd be willing to play a Nintendo property in the near future, but I don't care if it's on Nintendo's Box.

 

[StriderShinryu]

if you're a console maker AND videogame maker; and people don't want to buy your console nor play your games; well that's unsustainable no matter what your previous successes were.

This is very true. There's also the very important reality that, spoiler alert, Nintendo probably doesn't want to go bankrupt. It's commonly stated that Nintendo still has relative oodles of "money" in the bank. That may well be true, but it doesn't mean Nintendo is going to want to toss it all away throwing good money after bad. It's, not surprisingly, the sign of a smart business to not spend itself into bankruptcy. They need to and will draw a line somewhere long before they get to a point where they actually run out of money. Now, will that line be drawn by them going third party on the console development side or going with a new console altogether? Who knows.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

We've all been here before (multiple times). I'm not an investment banker so I can't make a reasonable business case for why they should, it's an entirely selfish reason, that I simply don't want to buy another (inferior) console just to play a couple of games.
I've already got my PS4 and as Sony has proved to me, they put out more exclusives I'm interested in, even to the end of the machines cycle (The Last of Us, Ratchet & Clank: Nexus, etc). Can't say the same thing for the Wii that didn't get a title for almost half a decade I was interested in.

As much as I've never wanted or owned an Xbox, I would have to say it was the Nintendo killer. The scheming vizier behind the throne, waiting years to slowly poison and kill him. The poison of choice: Online Multiplayer (and achievements to some degree). The lack of a good online store really capped Nintendo in the ass, and Sony was wise to follow suit with the PSN.

 

[Josh123914]

Because simply put, some people that enjoy Nintendo's games but can only afford 1 console will usually get a playstation or Xbox instead, so they have themselves believe that Nintendo will inevitably go 3rd party for said consumer's own convenience.
At least, thats the rationale.

Personally, I believe Nintendo would sooner go bankrupt and have their IPs die with them than go 3rd party and have Mario go the way of Sonic the Hedgehog post-Dreamcast.
If I can't afford a Nintendo console, I'll either save up for one, or skip the current generation and buy the next console (which tends to be backwards compatible, which is a nice feature the other 2 seem to forget about.)

 

[MrBaskerville]

I would assume that Nintendo would try to turn the ship around before they jumped ship after one bad year. I don't know why people assume that it's all doom and gloom, while they have yet to see what they intend to do and whether their strategy will be succesful or not. Will they be as big as Ps4 is going to be? Probably not, but they still have a chance to make the console profitable, and i'm sure they will try to do this before they cancel everything and turn into a multiplatform developer. It just doesn't seem sensible to close down on the 4-5 million that allready own the console so early, it's going to hurt the customers trust.

 

[COMaestro]

I don't see Nintendo going third party any time soon. However, if they do make another console and it flops like the WiiU is doing, then they'd best abandon the console market and go solely with handhelds. I love my Vita and play it more than anything else at the moment simply because it's so convenient, but I can't deny that the 3DS is blowing it out of the water when it comes to sales. There are also a number of properties that the 3DS has that aren't available elsewhere (Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, Fire Emblem, new Shin Megami Tensei) that if Nintendo can keep hold of, in addition to their normal first party titles, will keep them in the lead on handhelds for a long time.

A lot of money goes into the R&D of a new console, and Nintendo has lost pretty much all of it on the WiiU since no one is buying it. I agree they need to continue supporting it as best they can or they will lose any consumer trust they still have. Meanwhile, if they plan to stay in the console business, they need to spend a lot of that money on the features that people want. They need a good network infrastructure for online play. They need a main user account that will have access to all purchases made on their stores that works across all their devices. They need to include a Blu-Ray player so people can watch their movies without needing a dedicated player in the living room (though really, this point may not matter for the next console, as it seems lots of people are moving away from physical media).

If they make some kind of special peripheral like the WiiU's GamePad, it should be optional, rather than coming with every device, unless it has an obvious benefit or use that every developer will want to incorporate. Right now, the GamePad is almost completely under-utilized except maybe for remote play. I have not seen a single game that uses the GamePad in a way that couldn't be done just as easily with an onscreen menu and it doesn't appear that any game in the pipe is focusing on using the Pad in an innovative way. As such, I believe the GamePad is a large part of the failure of the WiiU (in addition to poor advertising and lack of high demand titles), as it upped the cost of the console package considerably.

Finally, they need good titles ready to launch with the platform and excellent titles to follow every three months or so for at least a year. Not just their usual lineup either, but some new IP mixed in. Launch with a Mario Bros. and a couple of new IP's. Three months later, release more new IP games and Zelda. Three months later, Mario Kart. Round out the year with a new Smash Bros. In between you can have smaller titles like Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion, Paper Mario, etc. Plus, make it so the third party developers WANT to put games on your console. Cut them an amazing deal on licensing for the first year or something, but make sure those 3rd party games are available.

The WiiU did NOTHING with it's first party content. There's actually a good number of third party releases on the platform when you look, but they were almost all games that also came out on PS3/360 which people already had, many of which had been released MONTHS earlier on the other systems. The other exclusive titles were of the usual launch title quality. Nintendo needed to push their exclusives right away, and while they started okay, they didn't do it enough. They had New Super Mario Bros U and NintendoLand, which are still the top two selling games for the platform and that's it. Next big releases were 7 months later with New Luigi U and Pikmin 3!! Those should have been out in Feb-Mar 2013. Next big release was a Zelda remake in October and finally a real big seller with Super Mario 3D Land a full year after the console launched.

I'm not going to consider a Zelda HD remake as a highly anticipated title. In fact, the only game on that list that I consider highly anticipated is 3D Land, which is probably why it's the third best selling game for the WiiU, despite being one of the newest. They should have had one highly anticipated title out every three months. Instead it took a full year for one. I think the only anticipated title that even has a release date is the next Mario Kart. Even Bayonetta 2, which was a huge part of their initial advertising since it's going to be exclusive to the WiiU doesn't yet have a release date. All we have been told as far as Bayonetta and Smash Bros is 2014. Some future Zelda game? Metroid? Kirby? Kid Icarus? All their other titles? Nothing. Either no release date or no plan to make a game for it. They have a ton of unused IP that's molding in a closet somewhere that should have been helping to sell their platform.

God, after typing all that out, I'm just downright disgusted with Nintendo... They aren't even trying because they didn't think they'd need to after the success of the Wii. Well wake up! No one who picked up a Wii because of the innovative motion control cares to purchase a new console. They had their fill of it and don't see the need for a new console that does the same thing. Wii's were purchased by retirement homes and hospitals and even enterprise-scale businesses as it gave people an opportunity to come together and goof around while getting some exercise. They still have these systems and don't need to replace them. The lighting that was the Wii is not going to strike twice.

 

[viranimus]

I dont think it is a bad idea, provided they go about it the right way.

The reason for it is because outside of the Wii, which was a fluke that capitalized on a fad, Nintendo has been incredibly behind as a hardware producer. They lucked out with a "right fad at the right time" on motion controls, and it puttered away the same way Rhythm games with their fake instrument controllers. Honestly for all the "good" Nintendo has been over the last decade as it relates to main stream home console manufacture, they have really just been living on borrowed time and by the grace of their handheld dominance.

Their greatest strength has effectively always been their proprietary software anyway. Hardware, outside of the handhelds (which is likely to be a dying market with tablets & phones in the mix) is little more than an albatross around their necks and killing their profitability.

So if they would adopt a wide and open platform for their software, (say on PC, but to a lesser extent android) they could focus their efforts on where they have always shined and end up much more profitable for it.

In fact doing so might be sort of forward thinking considering that it seems as if consoles will possibly go the way of the dinosaur and from their bones will evolve "clients" that utilize PC hardware, instead of wasting money on producing costly hardware. This is something I could see MS and Sony gravitating toward. Having proprietary software that acts as a dashboard client, that allows them to sell games and other media all the while keeping their "product" being the service that these digital distributors WANT and have a hard time rationalizing because of the physical nature of their proprietary hardware. The console wars would effectively evolve into "client" wars as Nintendo, MS, Sony all effectively invade Steams playground.

So It actually not only makes sense, it would be in Nintendo s best interest and in fact allow them to get a leg up on what is likely going to happen in the industry anyway, Rather than what they have done for the last decade and making poor decisions that leave them sorely behind the curve and wanting.

Edit: Uhh Oh, first post on the top of a new page not speaking 100% positively about nintendo... /preparing for Quotageddon.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, but it's necessary because Nintendo still has a huge amount of money in the bank and likely has a couple of failures left in it before it has to do something that drastic.

Nintendo's been known to develop hardware specifically suited to their games, so I doubt they have any internal motivation to go third-party.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Making software available on more than one platform = Wider userbase and more customers
More customers = More money

Seems simple enough.

So where are the threads demanding that Microsoft and Sony go third party? Where are the threads demanding that Valve make stuff for consoles?

More customers = more money, after all.

Microsoft makes games?

Eh. All joking aside, I can't actually think of any first party games by either company that anyone cares about in the slightest.

Don't get me wrong, Microsoft and Sony have had interesting exclusives but an exclusive made by a 3rd party has little to do with actual first party titles.

Name one game made by either of those companies that wasn't the result of them buying out an existing independent development studio...

Quick, what's the most famous game 'made' by Microsoft? - If you said halo, then you've demonstrated precisely the point I'm getting at. (Halo being originally developed by Bungie, and being made by microsoft only in the sense that they bought bungie outright.)

That's not to say there are no games made by these companies whatsoever, but realistically, most of the things they are known for are the result of buying up other companies.

So asking for Sony or Microsoft to go 'third party' is really just more like asking them to let go of the companies they've bought up over the year.

I'd love to see Bungie do something independently from any involvement from Microsoft; I also used to be a huge fan of Rare before Microsoft got their claws on it.

For that matter, I quite liked psygnosis games back in the day, and would love them to release a game or two independently as well. (For those unclear on their history, Psygnosis was bought by Sony around about the mid 90's, and was renamed something like Sony dev 1 or something equally non-descript.)

That, I would say is the reason, more so than anything else...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

How has Nintendo not gone out of business for failing to get with the times, then?

Oh it's getting there. Not with a bang but a whimper, as Eliot would put it.

 

[Nixou]

"Apple is a software company" (famously), it's also one of the richest companies in the world because it also exclusively owns the hardware that delivers the software (most of which it does not outright own).

And of course, there were a lot of "Apple should have started making software for PC, now they doooooomed" talks, back in the 90s, an epoch best summarized by this picture:

 

[CrystalShadow]

I'd love to see Bungie do something independently from any involvement from Microsoft

*cough*

... OK then... Of course, the point I was making still stands, but, uh... Good. XD

 

[Soxafloppin]

Do Nintendo sell the WiiU at a loss? like Sony and MS do? If so, it seems like a fair deal.

Also the GBC/GBA Pokemon games on Iphone and Android with trading and battling enabled between all versions, just sayin!