Miyamoto calls out third parties

Good on him, too.

The publishers of the world are always whinging that its Nintendo games that sell on Nintendo systems, and very little else... maybe its because very little else thats coming out is actually worth our time.

Seriously ... did they ever expect to make a fortune and sell a million copies of Happy Feet? Or Cars?

I'm sick of seeing companies whinge that their poorly-written, rubbish-in-the-first-place shovelware isn't selling well. Of *course* its not selling well, its a crap game.

yes! finally, someone important calls them out! thank you shiggy! i hated that because third parties think they can't compete with Nintendo, they don't give it their best shot. Some may not do better than Nintendo, but the ones that do give it the full effort and do good, they will shine.

I agree with him, but I think he's painting with too broad strokes and Nintendo could be a bit more co-operative, supporting independent work a la steam in the Wii shop, and giving everybody else Mii integration.

He better call out on third parties...because as of right now my Wii hasn't even been turned on in the past 2 months...

Im starting to regret the purchase :/

I think that such advice is probably good for 3rd parties in respect to the Wii or having looked at what was produced for the Gamecube.

However, I would say that 3rd parties seem to be making an attempt to put the features of the DS to good use. I suppose there is less risk or expense in making a portable game, so publishers are willing to go for game ideas that are unique and original.

Perhaps, the idea of keeping development costs lower for the Wii will pan out in this respect. If the games are less expensive to produce, it might be more feasible to support different ideas.

The Wii is a unique console, and I hope that 3rd parties do more than give it poorly adapted ports for its entire life.

MadDescent, if you're regretting your purchase, you just email me and let me know what you want for the system. IFF it's a fair price, and IFF it's in good condition, I might be able to cure your buyer's remorse.

Good for him. These idiotic developers need to get off their lazy asses and actually start doing something! Producing a great quality game with awesome graphics (by Wii standards) is NOT to much of us to ask these companies and it is NOT beyond their abilities. Stop with the bs...

Good call Shiggy. Honestly, developers are getting lazier and cheaper with their games these days.

FFS, guys, have some pride in yourselves and put some good programmers on the job.

Honestly, where did the stigma that only Nintendo games sell on nintendo systems come from? Isn't the broad range of vastly different games on the DS testament against that fact? The AAA titles on the gamecube that sold as well as all the Nintendo titles?

It's a big, captive market waiting to happen, guys. We may be nintendo fans, but we enjoy good games from other sources too!

I think Happy Feet has actually done pretty well.

Problem is, some companies don't understand the full potential of the Wii. I did a comic about this:

http://madiart.blogspot.com/2007/02/wfgn-5.html

Well, he is right that more 3rd party developers need to put some REAL support behind the system if they want to see their games move.
...but on the other hand, it's not like 3rd party developer's fears are unfounded, either.
How many of you here bought Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil 4, Killer 7, Beyond Good & Evil, Eternal Darkness Ikaruga, Alien Hominid, Metal Gear Solid, Phantasy Star, Tomb Raider Legend and others?

It seems to me that the only ones REALLY trying 100% so far have been Sega. Konami and EA are, too, but to a lesser extent, I'd say.
It really kinda sucks because right now, this is kind of the best time in a system's life for 3rd party games to really shine and get picked up. It's still got a lot of hype/interest from consumers behind it and not a lot of games.

Oh, come on. Every time even the simplest, ugliest game concept it announced for the Wii, with trailers that don't show any gameplay at all, people applaude it with "I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS" and "GRAPHICS DON'T MATTER!"

3rd party developers got the message, all right. Stop celebrating crap, and quality will improve.

Ow, ow, ow. That was a terrible bitch slap Miyamoto, especially when you're not doing your best efforts to ensure 3rd parties have support from you. It's all good and proper to tell people to make better games, but when they're faced with increasingly difficult hardware to develop for and have little in the terms of 1st party help, what the hell do you expect for people to do? If they had less time trying out what does what and actually concering themselves with creating the best possible game they can maybe we wouldn't be at the point of Nintendo telling developers to shift their arses.

Also, don't get complacent with a market you just failed in with the gamecube, Nintendo. You may be doing well right now, but you loose that 3rd party support and the Wii will become the second Gamecube and none of us want that at all. It is also far too early to be telling developers they're lazy, we're still in the early stages of the Wii, and you can't expect miricle and magical game titles to appear until at least the 2nd gen of game titles appear.

And here was I thinking only Sony did press this horrific. =(

ssuk...

Who made you the king of wisdom? Miyamoto probabley knows what he's doing considering he does it for a living and doesn't need some loser to tell him how to do his job.

It is hard for Third parties toget involved in because the wii is so under-powered.

Well done Shigeru Miyamoto. About time they took their finger out.

If they're not careful, Nintendo might have to actually start using their seal of approval. Go medieval on those suckas.

Burnt Meatloaf:

You think 3rd parties get their message from comments made on boards and blogs, and not by how many games they sell? No one really is supporting crap.

Ssuk:
When 3rd parties are merely porting, its too early to tell them to stop? The wii is the least increasingly difficult hardware this gen.

3rd party developers probably still have a sour taste in their collective mouths from previous dealings with nintendo, and it's not like the big N is being really cooperative this time around either.

Wait, wait, you have me confused here; I'm saying that 3rd parties aren't getting support they might like so the games which these developers aren't 'trying their best' on (not the ports or cheap get-money games which are going to blow anyway) maybe because Nintendo isn't giving them the help they require.
It's all good saying "oh it's easy to develop for Wii", but when you guys actually do make something on the Wii, maybe, just maybe you'll realise it's not as easy as you think.

@ ssuk

That may have been true in the past (specifically, the GameCube's Online capabilities) SEGA proved that the GC was a perfectly viable platform for Online play (PSO Episodes I & II, and episode III), but i'm pretty sure they had to BUILD the code for Online GC gaming, and they had to use the network that they had been using with Dreamcast

The point is, is that now, Nintendo gives developers SDK's that can are open to most everything the Wii is capable of (coding for GameSpy can't be that hard), and they have systems like LiveMove, which is a pre-built engine for gesture recognition

Nintendo IS giving 3rd parties necessary support, at least so far...

Do I sense panic?

Do I sense panic?

Heck. I would believe that Nintendo does "best" for its systems when they would open them up to indies.

3rd parties always (and everywhere) suck. Because they have a business plan. But it is indies - free-thinking people - which are actually driving progress forward.

Big N itself may serve good example of it: without flourishing manga/anime community they would have nothing to sell. And the latter predominantly are indies.

Then they wouldn't even have to worry about piracy: it would be pointless since titles will be coming in faster than bootlegs would be able to steal them. Just like it is now with manga and anime.

"It's all good and proper to tell people to make better games, but when they're faced with increasingly difficult hardware to develop for and have little in the terms of 1st party help, what the hell do you expect for people to do?"

Evidence? Every developer interview for Wii states that it's actually easy to develop for...

"The point is, is that now, Nintendo gives developers SDK's that can are open to most everything the Wii is capable of (coding for GameSpy can't be that hard), and they have systems like LiveMove, which is a pre-built engine for gesture recognition

Nintendo IS giving 3rd parties necessary support, at least so far..."

There we are: evidence. It seems pretty clear that Nintendo is giving third party support, and there have been some decent third party games, but 'decent' ain't going to beat Twilight Princess, MP3: Corruption, Battalion Wars and Mario Galaxy.

Also, the rumours of developers being starved of online kits can be countered with rumours of the (fairly well connected) IGN and Gamespy that suggest we'll be seeing third party online games in Q3 or Q4 this year.

How would you guys explain how Mario Party 4, 5, and 6 outselling (individually) RE4.. the flagship game of a AAA franchise. Something of RE4's caliber comes maybe once a year (it was literally game of the year from many publications). So, please try to explain this to me.

Hmm...Here is a little something from GDC. Biggest complain from developers to Nintendo - "We are having problems porting modern games to WII because the system is horribly underpowered". This means they have to butcher current gen games just to run them on the inferior system. So unless this is an exclusive title…

Not putting their full effort? What about Square Enix complaining that friend codes were to restrictive for them to make online games? Nintendo is part of the problem.

@Loom

It's pretty easy to tell you why Mario Party outsold Resident Evil 4. It's called "affinity". Here's an example. Sonic the Hedgehog sells well on Nintendo consoles, but not so much on other consoles. This is because the other consoles' gamers are into generic fps or "realistic" graphics. Not Nintendo gamers. They are into great graphics.

I mean, for me (a Nintendo gamer), I can't stand "realistic" looking games. The way I see it, realistic games will never look exactly as they are intended (that is real), so they will always look like crap to me. However, a game that doesn't aim for realism, but some other style (think Paper Mario or Viewtiful Joe) look fantastic.

Now let this settle for just a second... Okay, now think of "Wii Sims" EA has the right idea (for once). Design a game for Nintendo Gamers. Make it look great and not necessarily realistic. Look at how Final Fantasy looks on the Playstation (and hopefully soon the 360). Now think about how Final Fanatasy looked on the Cube and the Wii. Square Soft has the right idea!

If you want to sell to the Nintendo fanbase, make "Nintendoish" games!

"Hmm...Here is a little something from GDC. Biggest complain from developers to Nintendo - "We are having problems porting modern games to WII because the system is horribly underpowered". This means they have to butcher current gen games just to run them on the inferior system. So unless this is an exclusive title…"

Isn't that a good thing? I personally don't want inferior ports with tacked on motion controls. I want original games. I think Nintendo made the right decision with their hardware. Hopefully developers will see that with all the energy it will take them to make another port, they could put that towards making a compeletely new game.