Software developers worried about the Wii, hesitant to make games
by Scott Jon Siegel 
{ Oct 11th 2007 at 12:55PM }
IGN reports on a recent article from The Nikkei Business Daily. After speaking to a number of software houses on the future of the Wii, The Business Daily reveals that several developers, preferring to stay anonymous, expressed concerns over the longevity of the system, and were hesitant to develop games in the event of the Wii's popularity dropping suddenly.
Several houses perceive the motion-sensing Wii as a fad, and believe its success to be ending shortly. This could possibly be in response to the Wii's sales in Japan, which The Nikkei Business Daily reports are at their lowest point since late last year. Several developers also blamed Nintendo for their hesitancy, claiming that the company puts third-party developers at a disadvantage while ensuring the success of first-party titles. It remains to be seen if any of this Wii fear is justifiable, although a lack of third-party confidence is never a good sign for a console manufacturer.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
JodyAnthony @ Oct 11th 2007 12:58PM
here comes konny
upz @ Oct 11th 2007 1:05PM
Pre-emptive strike FTW!
But you're right. The SDF will be here soon enough. Especially after that fat guy beat us up this morning.
Lemmiwinks @ Oct 11th 2007 1:19PM
looks like I got the honors.
Matt B @ Oct 11th 2007 1:24PM
Of all the things Gabe Newl hates(PS3,MAC,DX10, anything new)he did say he likes the wii.
upz @ Oct 11th 2007 1:29PM
I'll be the first to buy him a copy of Wii Fit.
borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 2:52PM
As a SDF member, I will take the high road and avoid recognizing karmic justice. Now we just need someone, anyone, to complain about developing games for the 360 and the circle will be complete.
Jaffe will you please report to the white courtesy phone? We need hyperbole on line one please.
Lemmiwinks @ Oct 11th 2007 1:01PM
I like how the IGN article says "just 168,000 units" for the month.
Konny @ Oct 11th 2007 1:04PM
Thats because they use to push 100k+ weekly not so long ago... wait till this week's numbers come out.. less than 20k..
xoxox
mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 1:05PM
Did you really expect it to keep up those numbers? Has any system ever kept up those numbers? (aside from the DS)
Lemmiwinks @ Oct 11th 2007 1:17PM
Thanks for the hugz 'n kissez, Konny. Big ol' smoocheroo for you too.
I realize the drop in sales is significant, but that doesn't take away from the hilarity I personally find when reading about a $250 piece of hardware managing to push "just 168,000 units" in a month, Nintendo or not.
$42 million is not "just" anything.
Rubang B (NDF - Heart) @ Oct 11th 2007 1:51PM
Oh crap the Wii is ONLY outselling everything else ever by a TINY ASSLOAD. Waa waaaaa. I wanted a huge buttload of a lead! Not this barely outselling 360 and PS3 combined! Weak! I'll make games for the PS3rd place now instead!
Is it just me or are ALL developers whiny pussies? I thought it was just a few, but damn, it gets worse every year. I wish I had their names so I could boycott their shitty derivative trash. Oh wait, I'll probably get lucky and not buy it anyway!
Tipsy @ Oct 11th 2007 5:41PM
You do know the 360 has been out selling the Wii for the past two weeks (Teh haloz).
Jtenma @ Oct 11th 2007 1:04PM
in b4 WAR and FLAMES!!!!!1
mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 1:04PM
I like how developers don't make games for a system because they are afraid it's popularity will wain, then the popularity of the system wains because there aren't any games coming out for it.
Self-fulfilling much?
BTW, I don't think this will happen to the Wii.
Raikage (NDF - PK THUNDER RING) @ Oct 11th 2007 3:28PM
I thought that too, hmmm the transitive property.
Hopefully this doesn't happen. I own a Wii
Personaly I think it could... but who knows...
ukickmydog (NDF - Earth) @ Oct 11th 2007 7:17PM
FUD, direct from IGN
Questworld @ Oct 12th 2007 3:37AM
You said it. For some reason, when it comes to a Nintendo console, these guys just have this defeatist mentality. Where's our MGS4 kind of effort? Where's our FFXIII kind of effort. I guess they just don't believe in the Wii, as in it's not the kind of picture they want to see or the heading they want to go. They probably don't even want to consider the pitfalls of a PS3/360 kind of world, where the prices are high, the technology grand, and the limitations such a world will entail.
I've always had this sneaking suspicion that most third-party developers just look for this golden excuse just so they can throw up their hands and say "well, we've tried" (remember that movie You, Me, & Dupree and the job interview scene). It's either kiddy, lack of online (yeah, a game couldn't possibly good without it), demographic isn't right (like you couldn't build that on a Nintendo platform), etc.
Heck, even some commentators here can't even acknowledge the Wii's sales as a good thing (apparently Nintendo fans are "obsessed" with sales now and it's really not all about sales and is apparently something deeper... like sales attachment). Why, some are even cheating. Before it was "well, 360 still has the biggest userbase," but now it's the PS2's got a bigger userbase or that the 360, PS3 AND PC has got a bigger userbase and that's it's better for than supporting the Wii because you can just make and port around a game between those behemoths. What next? "Wii, PS2, and PSP are bigger together; take that."
People are now even deluding themselves that somehow you can't have deep, mature, epic games on the Wii. The PS2 had many, but the Wii, oh God it's so "weak" it can only run text (wait a minute, text-based game can have deep storylines - AHA!!!). Beautiful graphics? Forget that. Common retort - "it's not just about better graphics, power means better AI, physics, etc." My retort to that - well, I'm pretty sure many games last gen had great AI and physics, you people said so yourself. You think all 360 and PS3 games just happen to have great AI and physics? No. It takes work too, so you can't just compare some lousy PS2 game with poor AI and compare it to, for instance, MGS4's AI. I can easily take the worst on the "next-gen" consoles and compare it with the best example from the last gen. The point is, regardless of which system, all have potential for beautiful graphics, relatively smart AI, and good physics. The only thing limiting people's opinion of the Wii as a sucky piece of tech is merely preference. Pure subjective preference. And if that means these third-parties don't care for the system and it bombs, it's certainly due to the lack of trying, and by trying I don't mean the shovelware, token effort they call "support." There are reasons why people bought PS1s and PS2 y'know, and potentially, it can be the same reason why people would buy and keep a Wii (outside of top Nintendo games to boot).
FrankTheCrank @ Oct 11th 2007 1:06PM
First the PS3/Valve story...now this.
Making games is so hard. Wahhhhhhh!
Jtenma @ Oct 11th 2007 1:12PM
Indeed, I always wanted to get into the gaming industry, but then I found out its a business all about money and scandals...developers are starting to lose focus on whats important..the fans.
Poisoned Al @ Oct 11th 2007 6:22PM
Funny, I thought it was about making something you love. Fans are those annoying little twats that think they know better then you, and just because they got their pocket money this week they think you have to treat them like gods and not the worthless bags of blood and organs that they really are! Most people with talent don't always do what the fans want because the fans are usually idiots that want the same old shit, and flip out like ninjas every time you try something new.
Burnt Meatloaf @ Oct 12th 2007 6:00AM
Indeed. I think developers are just dumbfounded as to how so many people are actually enjoying all the 8-bit recycling and Mii crap. They're not doing things they like, they're doing the same thing that bad developers always do: try to pander to the mass market. This time, however, they just don't understand why the mass market likes the Wii. How can a game like Happy Feet be among the best-selling games of 2006 with such horrible reviews?
I think the problem will be market saturation, though. Will party games still be popular when there's 100,000 of them available?
360 rocks @ Oct 11th 2007 1:07PM
So its the wii's turn now, after the PS3 in the earlier post.
I suppose its all down to fact that the 360 is so well designed compared to the wii / PS3 - unreliable, noisy, no free multiplayer or upgradeable hard drive.
And then we want a bunch of games - GRAW, Oblivion, R6, Lost Planet, Gears, Bioshock, Halo 3 - that are almost all available on PC - and would play better on PC, with mouse-kb, more content (Gears) and bet you Halo 3 wont be running on 640p on pc!
Warlord @ Oct 11th 2007 1:26PM
They'd be better on PC... If they didn't have that legacy console crap in it, like mouse acceleration, that makes you want to choke any QA tester for the PC version. Or simplistic controls. Or Simple console-friendly PC-UNfriendly UI. Or...
borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 2:56PM
No Halo 3 will probably make an 8 core PC with quad SLI curl up, whimper, and die. I've played the Halo games on the PC; they are coded to act worse than any game of its generation on the PC.
LeChuck @ Oct 11th 2007 1:09PM
DS, Nintendogs, Brain Age, Pokemon. If there's one thing Nintendo's good at its keeping a fad alive for a long time.
borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 2:57PM
I don't think many argue that point. But they are also good at looming large over 3rd parties.
Mr Khan @ Oct 11th 2007 4:43PM
Yeah, i don't really see their marketing going anywhere
But developers who think Nintendo puts them at a disadvantage to insure "the success of their own games."
Those are called mediocre developers. If you don't want to compete with Nintendo, then you pride yourself in your mediocrity
Publishers not wanting to compete i can understand, but developers should be shooting for the moon, right?
Ska Oreo @ Oct 11th 2007 5:39PM
if a fad lasts a long time then it's obviously not a fad now is it?
zwarrior @ Oct 11th 2007 6:55PM
If it lasts for a long time, wouldnt that exempt it from being a fad? And Nintendogs is a fad, I dont think anyone who bought this game is anticipating a similar sequel
LeChuck @ Oct 11th 2007 11:24PM
To Ska Orea and zwarrior: That was kinda my point. Nintendo is good at turning something that might seem like a shallow fad at first into a lasting success.
Konny @ Oct 11th 2007 1:10PM
"It remains to be seen if any of this Wii fear is justifiable, although a lack of third-party confidence is never a good sign for a console manufacturer."
360 is the king of 3rd party support and sales, hands down, no contest... Wii is distant last, behind GC even. Unless, it says "Mario" somewhere in the title, it doesnt stand a chance.. take a look at MP3, it hasnt even broken 500k yet with its huge install base. And, Metroid isnt exactly huge outside of North America... hype it all you want, it aint.
Even RE4 Wiimake sales have been a bust. Ditto for Boogie, Madden '08, etc, etc.. outside of the portacular launch window, nothing 3rd party sells on the Faddish Wii.. while everything with "Mario" sells.. so sad.
Crono (NDF - French Taunting from Holy Grail Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 1:32PM
VGCharts has Metroid Prime 3 corruption at 500k even, and Resident Evil 4 wii edition at 800k.
Where do you pull you're numbers from, other than your ass?
Conversely, Initial estimates from japan show wii either holding flat or up to 25 to 30k (an improvement of 25%-50%). Meanwhile, sales of your precious PSP software FF Crisis Core are down to around 19k, an over 90% decrease from launch week. PSP sales look to still be strong at 80-120k. DS sales look to be flat at 75k.
So you're wrong. Wii sales are going up for last week, crisis core sales are down, and PSP is flat. Just another heads up, they show worldwide wii sales at 12.22 million, 360 at 11.64 million, and the mighty PS3 at 4.92 million.
Do you ever get tired of being wrong?
LeChuck @ Oct 11th 2007 1:36PM
So you're saying Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8, and Mario Strikers Charged are the only games that have sold well on Wii? Because those are the only three games I know of with Mario in the title.
Sihylm @ Oct 11th 2007 1:36PM
Unless I'm totally mistaken and just not noticed, MP3 isn't out in Europe.
I may be wrong but I've been looking to get it.
Maybe all mah Orange Box distracted me.
Crono (NDF - French Taunting from Holy Grail Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 2:26PM
You're right. MP3 is only out in the US. Its not even out in japan right now, though I don't expect it to do very well there.
So its got 500k on US sales alone.
Konny is wrong again.
Bluebrake @ Oct 11th 2007 1:11PM
>>"This could possibly be in response to the Wii's sales in Japan, which The Nikkei Business Daily reports are at their lowest point since late last year."
Bluebrake @ Oct 11th 2007 1:12PM
Hmm, most of the post got cut off. As I was saying...
Funny how the North American sales are up every week by the same amount the Japanese sales are down... I can't imagine what's going on there.
Anyone still thinking the Wii is going to turn out to be some fad is delusional.
I'm not worried at all about the number of games on the system. Now, if someone wants to do a piece explaining where the *good* games are...
iMax @ Oct 11th 2007 1:12PM
The reason why third-party games don't do well is because the developers don't give a shit about making quality stuff.
Kristof @ Oct 11th 2007 1:15PM
Well perhaps if developers made games for the Wii, people may not drop it in a hurry.
durr durr durr ....
I love how developers didn't develop for the Cube because it didn't have high sales and now that it does there's a new excuse.
Simply put, make a good game and people will buy it. People will start dropping a system because there are no games. Make games people like and you won't have to worry about it.
Konny @ Oct 11th 2007 1:21PM
How do you explain that Madden '08 sold 20x more on 360 than Wii with a smaller install base? Its basically the same game. Go ahead, give it a try.
mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 11th 2007 1:26PM
Madden sells in America, 360 has more units sold in America.
Plus, 360 owners have worse taste in games.
Kristof @ Oct 11th 2007 1:29PM
Pretty easy to explain. 360 owners mainly comprise of Halo/Gears of War loving jocks in the US ... which taps directly to the Madden demographic.
Was this supposed to be a challenge?
JodyAnthony @ Oct 11th 2007 1:30PM
i would like to see where this 20x came from.
or is konny just continuing to make shit up?
Abscissa @ Oct 11th 2007 2:09PM
That Madden '08 phenomenon occurred because there's a high correlation between being a sports-jock/fan and being a 360 fan (Sure, the Wii did well with Wii Sports, but that's more casual audience than actual sports fan). Take ESPN-simulating out of the equation and go to actual videogame-style videogames and the dynamics shift.
I don't know the numbers, but I suspect Call of Duty 3 may have done better on the 360 than on the Wii (even though it also looks just about the same). I would chalk that up to a chicken and the egg problem that FPS fans (like me) are facing. Third parties are (irrationally) afraid of the Wii, thus very few FPSes have been coming out for Wii (exactly 4, with even less on the horizon, and literally half of the ones that are out are complete half-assed hacks anyway) which pushes FPS fans into 360 territory. Of course, if the FPS developers would pull their heads out of their asses long enough to quit dry-humping Unreal Engine 3 and actually bother to port more than just Call of Duty 3 to the Wii, then the fact that the Wii has an actual, you know, POINTING DEVICE, would bring a lot of FPS gamers back to the Wii.
Loki @ Oct 11th 2007 2:32PM
Plus, 360 owners have worse taste in games.
FUCK YOU...
Tim @ Oct 11th 2007 2:52PM
I have Madden for Wii and not Xbox360.
Wii version looks horrible in comparison, but it's definitely more fun than the normal button mashing.
Dirt @ Oct 11th 2007 1:16PM
This is a bit strange. Didn't we just see stories about 3rd parties turning record profits thanks to the Wii? So why would they say this? Also, were they also asked why they weren't making software for the 360 while it is already considered a huge success as well? I mean, it just sounds like some developers are just upset the PS2 years are over and they don't want to do anything now that Nintendo and Microsoft are running the show, while Sony is pretty much regulated to NeoGeo status.
Mr Khan @ Oct 11th 2007 4:47PM
Publishers are making money. Publishers love the Wii
This article talks about developers
faqhalo @ Oct 11th 2007 5:21PM
neogeo status!?
what kind of crack are you smoking?
microsoft running what show? can i remind you of the red ring of death. the countless people that had to send their faulty systems back for repair. if you cannot see that the wii is just a fad, you seriously must be smoking crack. developers arent lazy, nintendo only pushes their own (children) to the spot light. you all can bring up the sale number all you want. a fad is a fad. when something so gimmicky sells multi millions proves the point that it is a fad. wii is so out of the box that it hurts itself. when you grow up and get tired of wagging your wii control and you get tired of talking to your boyfriends online. we'll see where you end up.
Kristof @ Oct 11th 2007 1:17PM
And by "now that it does", I meant the Wii = it.