Here we go again: Nintendo's success is bad for the industry

Shiggy said it best. Stop sending out the fourth stringers. When Nintendo makes a game to push hardware they use their number one teams and even upend tea tables to make good games. Step up or shut up.

Agreed. I mean, hell, Nintendo's holding out on pumping their first party games out to let the 3rd party guys get in.

And what do they do? Give us lame ass ports, and crappy "waggle" controls on the games.

I'm sorry Nintendo is a better developer, maybe they should aspire to be as good as them... or even better.

There are some third parties that need to get it into gear instead of complaining. There is no reason why a lot of third parties can't rise above the bar of standard that Nintendo sets. Plenty of games, in fact, have already done it. Look at some of the previous high hitters to come to the Wii/GCN: Killer 7, Resident Evil 4, Elebits, Soul Calibur, Star Wars: RS games, Baten Kaitos, Sonic, Trauma Center, Rayman:Raving Rabbids, and I'm sure many I'm missing.

Nintendo has even tried to make it easier on 3rd parties, but all they can do is come back and still complain. There really is no reason why 3rd parties can't sell just as much, or even higher than, as Nintendo. If you want a good example of this then look back to the days of the NES and SNES and ask people to come up with a top ten for each console. I would put money down that most of people's list would be littered with more 3rd party than Nintendo games. If not more than Nintendo, the 3rd parties would at least be equal in the list.

I will admit, however, that the hardcore fans do harm 3rd party support. There are a lot of hardcore fans that will only get Nintendo or familiar franchise games(Like RE or MGS). However, this should change with the fact that the Wii is becoming more and more mainstream, and as such this is becoming less and less of an excuse.

Not to mention that marketing is key, no matter what, and that's one major thing a lot of 3rd parties seem to miss the boat on. There are a lot of great games for all of the consoles that go unnoticed because nobody knows about them. On the other hand there are a lot of games that aren't so great, but get into people's hands because of marketing.

So let's recap.

1)Nintendo is not at fault

2)3rd parties need to actually put their best foot forward in making games.

3)3rd parties need to actually market their games, and I don't mean a simple banner ad on some webcomic site that nobody cares about.

First those bastards at Nintendo make a system thats cheap to develop for, and then they sell it at a competitive price so the public buys insane amounts in just months to ensure that games will sell in profitable numbers.

Now Nintendo releases games for the system that are high quality! Disgusting! How are half-assed efforts like shovelware last-gen ports supposed to sell if Nintendo has their quality titles on this system? If Nintendo had their way, every title on the Wii would be a quality title!

Once a bar for high quality is set in, crap will not survive, and yeah, that is bad for the industry. But that sounds alright from the consumer's POV.

If Nintendo stop making games... The Industry collaps completely.
I mean, to start, what cool games would we have for Wii? Red Steel? Obviusly, if Nintendo stop making games, maybe third parties would try harder to make good games, but I don't see anything like Halo or Final Fantasy on Wii. Why? Because FPSs and RPGs aren't Nintendo main genre, and yet, we don't see those games on Nintendo systems everyday [I know Nintendo has Metroid Prime and Pokemon, but only one game per genre?].

Besides, want it or not, Nintendo has created many standards across time, with Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64, Wii Sports, Zelda, Pokémon, etc.

>> There are a lot of hardcore fans that will only get
>> Nintendo or familiar franchise games(Like RE or MGS).

At $50 a game I can't blame them. Even if you don't like a certain Nintendo title all of them seem to have high levels of quality in craftsmanship. Buying a Nintendo game or a RE or a MGS title guarantees you that at least certain aspects of the game will be top notch. Look at all the people that took a chance on Ubisoft and bought Red Steel; they got a game that most were disappointed in and it had terrible production values. You just don't seem to get a title from Nintendo, Capcom, or Konami that's crap under every for of measure.

Gamers are mainly kids without high paying jobs. That's less true today than 10 years ago but it's still true. The parents and grandparents who buy most of these games are going want a little assurance with quality. They probably grew up with the House of Mario so they stick with titles that company makes.

I'm gonna say to these whiney 3rd parties exactly what I say to whiny teenagers who think their life sucks:

Stop being emo. If things suck for you, do something about it! Otherwise, shut the hell up because we don't care.

@Hobofuzz: Damn straight :p

There's nothing more pathetic than companies that keep whining about their own lack of success. Jesus mothereffin christ translate that to any other type of competition.

"The silver and bronze medal winners of the olympic games have complained today that other people winning the gold would prevent them from getting good advertising deals. The olympic comitee is discussing plans to force all gold medal athletes to pay all their merchandising income to people who are not able to compete as well."

If those guys would shell out something innovative they could play that exclusivity card too -and trust me they would. Nintendos business policy is successful for decades and these whiny pricks are jealous and that's all. Sure Nintendos policy is a pain in the ass for customers and developers alike but they are still one of the "coolest" companies with an incredible brand recognition and that's the recipe you should go for.

Nintendo is ruining the video game industry, because of them, I have to wait until a game is actually good to be able to play it, I want to be able to play all the shitty games I want right now.
Why is it that they can't provide me a FPS where I shoot things, and then provide me another FPS where I also shoot things? It just doesn't make sense, they spend so much time making smash bros melee such an awesome fighting game that I can barely enjoy regular fighting games that haven't changed more than graphics since 1980
Heck, if Nintendo didn't even exist, I'll bet companies would still be doing just fine developing for the Atari, and then we'd be able to play those unforgettable classic games... like E.T.
So yeah, I totally think this is all nintendo's fault. The developers shouldn't have to deal with the pressure of competing with them, and we should be happy with whatever crap they feel like giving us.

Comment 8 was beautiful.

Well said everyone. The thing about Nintendo is, regardless of whether or not every game or system they make is a hit or not, you never know them to be the type of company to just "rest on their laurels".

Yes, you could argue that making yet another Mario game is like that, but then you play those games and realize that they have still managed to innovate one way or another.

All these third parties have an enviable position in that they have the luxury of making one game and porting it out to every console made... But this is actually bad for the gaming industry if you think about it. How much innovation have we really seen from MOST (I won't say all, there are still some gems out there) of the third parties in the past 10 years?

Steve:Oh, I fullheartedly agree with you. Like I said, there are some devs out there that expect to put out subpar games and expect them to sell. I think it would help vastly if devs wouldn't kid themselves into selling a 20 dollar game for 50 dollars. Well ultimately it's the publisher, but you know what I'm saying. I think there would be a lot of games selling better if they just started off at 20-30 dollars.

I see far too many times,"The game looks like a great concept, but I wouldn't buy it at 50 dollars," and ultimately what ends up happening is somebody sells their copy because they're upset they payed 50 bucks for it, and this other person buys it used at the price it should have been from the start. I think a lot of games miss being bought because of this, and reasonably so. Imagine how well Red Steel would have done if it were priced from 20-30 dollars. I think a lot of people here would be less reluctant to buy it.

Hang on, so first, the industry and the consumers kept on bitching about how bad the Gamecube was, basically telling Nintendo to up-the-ante with its games and console. So it brings out two of the greatest gaming machines to date, making them affordable and fun in accordance with Nintendo's mission statement. and THEN the industry has the audacity to whinge about them being too GOOD! Make up your mind, you whiney women, do you want Nintendo to succeed or not?!

It is encouraging to hear that those who can't take the heat ... fear being booted from the kitchen.

I vote with my hard earned cash. I don't buy games unless I am passionate about them.

There is only one thing I want, and I would pay a premium for it. Earthbound universe games. Mother, Mother2, Mother3... I want my Mother. I can't get enough Mother.

qiqsand:I can't get enough of your mother either!

(I'm sorry, I couldn't resist)

I'm sure someone has said this before, but Nintendo isn't ruining the industry, crappy, rushed-out, effortless 3rd party titles do.

Todd Mitchell needs to do some hard thinking before blaming Nintendo. For one, the remake of Final Fantasy III is just amazing. Number two, there's so much crap out there because of Nintendo's installed base with the DS and Wii. It's not Nintendo's fault that consumers are gobbling up these systems. By Mitchell's thinking, the game consumers should be to blame, too, for *buying systems and buying games for them.*

It isn't the consuming audience's fault that 3rd-party companies are trying to take advantage of Nintendo's installed base, neither is it Nintendo themselves.

i hate it when people attempt to place blame on others because of their problems that have been brought about by their own doing. its not Nintendo's fault that 3rd party developers are set on throwing waggle controls in their ports from other consoles. i bought a Wii because it was revolutionary, and now the 3rd party developers are still pumping out the same crap they were pumping out before. and now they complain about it because Nintendo has evolved to suit their new hardware.

im an athletic guy. and i always believed in "put your best players on the field". so if these 3rd party guys arent performing, then they should shut up, grab some pine , and figure out what they're doing wrong so they can take somebodies spot and get in the game. Nintendo's success is great for the industry because it sets a new standard, and if you dont achieve that standard, then you dont succeed.

ive already said im not buying third party ports anymore after being disappointed with Madden and DBZ. Zelda is the only Wii game i have that is fun. i might go pick up Super Paper Mario actually. make way for the good games.

end rant.

hobofuzz is a gross name. I don't want to know where you got the inspiration for that...

To #10 "Gamers are mainly kids without high paying jobs."

Clearly you didn't read the ESA report. Almost 3/4 of all gamers are over 18, and the average age is 33.




If Nintendo didn't make games, the bar for game standards would be much, much lower. Assuming they didn't make games, 3rd parties would still release crappy games/ports/etc, but we'd have nothing to compare them to, we wouldn't know what a good game was. It's easy to fault Nintendo for that, but it's specious reasoning.

Nintendo should lapse their licencing requirements. 3 previous titles and a shit load of money? No wonder you're driving off aspiring 3rd party developers. Not to mention the lack of support by Nintendo to the 3rd party devs.

Plus, Nintendo helps out a lot of 3rd party developers, like CiNG (creators of Hotel Dusk, Another code/Trace Memory) and these people are often the over-looked people, where as games like Hotel Dusk are 3rd party, just published under Nintendos wing and deemed 'first party'. But it obviously helps sell games. Heh.

It's a little bit like Apple. Apple's customers also tend to buy Apple's software over 3'd party developers, because Apple design great software. But also because they're Apple and they have the customer's trust and they share the same design visions. This had Adobe pull their video software Premiere for instance. (But now they're back again to compete!)

Nintendo games are Nintendo, and people interested in Nintendo's consoles are of course interested in Nintendo's software and game visions. Software developers should try harder to understand this and start designing exclusive titles for the Wii instead of complaining about them being lame.

This news should have been on Joystiq. How in the the hell can you get a good debate on Wiifanboy???????

Back on topic. Alot of people are tired of THE SAME OL Mario/Zelda shit. I've been jumping on turtles and spitting fireballs since 1985. Bring something new!

Yup; clearly Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine are the exact same games as the original Super Mario Bros.