EA's Riccitiello: Nintendo 'learning' how to support third parties

Nintendo hasn't exactly been developer friendly. The N64, with it's obsolete cartridge format, scared developers away. The GameCube's dev kits were insanely expensive, and again, the proprietary format didn't help their reputation with developers. The Wii has gimmicky controls, and is massively inferior hardware-wise, which makes it harder for developers to put games on that console.

That is part of the underlying problem. 3rd parties still think of themselves as the kingmakers, that they're support is what makes or breaks market leaders. That's part of what endlessly frustrates them about Wii, that despite their continual lack of effort there, and blatant efforts to promote the other platforms, they can't stop it.

If you're an Indie gamer trying to get some street cred with a game you just made, and the only thing we owners are buying is Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and workout games, what hope do you have?

I've seen a ton of games put out for the Wii by no-name developers....and no one's buying. You wanna know where they are? They're in big boxes at the check out lines of Best Buys marked at $9.99 collecting other merchandise that people decided they didn't want at the last minute.

Distribution costs and getting picked up by a publisher are probably the main reason.

Wii Ware is actually pretty good in that respect though, once you get past all the shitty puzzle games.
I'm still waiting for someone to make a game on the scale of a 3D Zelda on WiiWare, though. If they can jam Ocarina of Time on there...

"I've seen a ton of games put out for the Wii by no-name developers....and no one's buying. You wanna know where they are? They're in big boxes at the check out lines of Best Buys marked at $9.99 collecting other merchandise that people decided they didn't want at the last minute."

So because games like Anubis II are now $9.99 thats somehow Nintendo or Wii owners fault? Why the fuck should anybody (except crap peddlers) care if crap dose not sell?

When fairly good Wii titles like Dead Space: Extraction get cleared out for 20 dollars that shortly after release, it doesn't give a lot of confidence in that system's userbase.

They are. Frontier, Gaijin Games, 2DBoy (the only reason they made any money off of World of Goo was due to WiiWare), Nicalis

They're not big names, but they're out there, and they're subsisting almost solely on WiIWare.

*hardly

Wii games have been marketed, and still failed. You can't say EA hasn't pushed their Wii titles, and with the exception of EA Sports Active, they've flopped.

EA hasn't pushed their Wii titles that didn't sell well.

There. It's said. The ones EA put their own support behind did well. Boom Blox just passed a million, long after people were done pointing and laughing about it only selling 60k early on. Dead Space Extraction had nothing at all, and you might as well not know the Wii exists, the way that FIFA and Madden ads portray themselves.

EA did push them. Remember the controversy because they showed footage from the 360 versions instead of the Wii versions, because the Wii version 'wasn't suited to TV'?

DSE marketing < EA Active marketing. and now you know why EA Active had more success. but anyways, regarding the article, how do you suppose nintendo should help 3rd parties, if they dont want to help themselves? bottom line, Riccitiello wants nintendo to foot the marketing bill for their games.

Good games don't move copies. How many times have we heard how awesome Beyond Good & Evil, Psychonauts, Ico, Indigo Prophecy, or Okami were? Even Conker's Bad Fur Day deserved more sales due to gameplay. Zero marketing lead them to doom though.

Marketing marketing marketing. People will buy shit in a box as long as they think it's cool. How do you think Apple has gotten this far? Edgy, new, unbelievable products? No, the same as Nintendo. Hype the hell out of your product and get people believing it's the sweetest shit there is without ever seeing, hearing, or reading about it.

Exactly. I like the way you think.

Yes, but you only give marketing to a product you have confidence in. Marketing doesn't automatically generate sales, you need to have some substance underneath it, or you're just pissing money away on expensive TV spots and whatnot.

The issue is that EA is putting out games that they clearly have 0 confidence in, which is why they get 0 advertising, and then they complain that they're not getting support. And Nintendo does the same thing for their own games. They've sent quite a few out to die this generation (like Excitebots), that released with no real blessing or advertisement from the big N. If Nintendo isn't willing to spend money on their own games that they don't think can sell, why should they waste that money on other companies who lack confidence in their products?

Absolutely right! +1 Nintendo doesn't NEED to market anything but themselves. It prints money! Know your target. Alright here's a freebie for someone ,Retiree RPG. It's an open world environment where you can do anything like shopping, going to the post office, or doctor's office. Take your meds to keep health bar steady, maybe have branching dialog trees ala bioware. Bank transaction finished will you A:move on? B: Chat about the weather? or C: Fart loudly? Maybe use Miis for characters. I know people who would buy it.

I had forgotten about that. Nintendo launched an entire peripheral early for these people, and agreed to help bundle it.

Nintendo's 'strategy' is so flawed it's not even funny. Notice the near-terminal decline of Wii hardware sales lately? That system is a sinking ship, because they pissed off the hardcore and went for the casuals, who have now moved on to the next fad.

Near terminal? Are you kidding? If where Wii at right now is near terminal, then PS2 was clinically dead back in 2004.

It's still tracking ahead, and people are harping about how it's on its last legs. That is delusion, right there.

Sales were down what, 26 percent? After a price drop? That's pure insanity.

"Nintendo's 'strategy' is so flawed it's not even funny. Notice the near-terminal decline of Wii hardware sales lately? That system is a sinking ship, because they pissed off the hardcore and went for the casuals, who have now moved on to the next fad."

Are you like the Stephen Colbert of Joystiq?

"It's still tracking ahead, and people are harping about how it's on its last legs. That is delusion, right there."

I believe there's a whole rule on the internet dedicated to this exact phenomenon: "Nintendo is always doomed. No exceptions."

Yeah. It's standard procedure for some publisher to complain about this every couple of months, and yet very few of them ever actually figure it out.

So first, I wanted to address your last reply to me:
The post I mind was in response to a question about why more Indie developers weren't making games for the Wii. I didn't say that Nintendo's lack of support was scaring them off, so to speak.

But let me lay some hard truths on everyone here:
Most Wii customers are, for lack of a better term, "soccer moms" and kids. Parents are buying it because Nintendo has a family-friendly demeanor and it's cheaper. Kids want it for the same reason we all wanted the NES in the 80's. The bottom line here is that no matter how you slice it, The Wii is not a mature console, Nintendo is not a mature company (in the sense of content) and they're not going to budge. This facade of being family-centric and promoting good health and good nature is being eaten up by parents who want to buy a game console for their kids and it's making them oodles of dough. Good for Nintendo, bad for those of us who grew up with NIntendo and would like them to grow up with us in a sense.

"The Wii is not a mature console."

Yes, and that's why the 360 and PS3 have completely decimated the Wii this generation, right? You are measuring the Wii by the wrong metric. Nintendo has changed gaming. They have disrupted gaming. They changed the rules, and embraced the "low-end" gamers. The so-called soccer moms are going to be your future core gamers. Console gaming as we know is facing marginalization or completely extinction because of the creative dustruction of gaming from Nintendo and other avenues of low-end gaming (flash games, iphone gaming, handheld gaming is still thriving in Japan while the console market remains stagnant).

The fact of the matter is that the failures of a lot of the major third parties to sell to the Expanded Market shows that they really don't know how to make or sell games at all. The NES created gaming by appealing to everyone. Back then everyone was a "casual" gamer. But then those gamers ultimately went upstream thanks to advancements in gaming.

Do you think this will be any different for Nintendo this time. They made Wii Sports to show people how the new motion controls work, and then they made bridge games for them to move upstream into, like with Mario Kart Wii and NSMB Wii. The third parties don't want to compete as much as they want to "exploit" gamers to make money. That's why they cling so desperately to the 360 and PS3 to fleece revenue from the so-called "hardcore" gamers, who are the easiest to hoodwink with their marketing--marketing that is completely useless against the Expanded Market. That's why their games fail. Expandeds won't buy the hype, but they buy word of mouth. That's why NSMB DS, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, and why NSMB Wii will continue to sell strongly long after they have been released, even with a minimum of hype.

"But it's Nintendo, people always buy Nintendo's games!" Okay, then why didn't Mario Galaxy barely sell anything in Japan, yet NSMB Wii is already well on its way to eclipsing it in a scant few weeks? Why hasn't Zelda been a huge entertainment phenom in Japan since Ocarina of Time? Why did Wii Music flop (and by Nintendo's own admission, the game flopped because it failed to fuel momentum for their hardware)?

There's a disconnect between the game industry and gamers. We see it with blog posts like this where a third party developer demands that the console manufacturer do all the legwork for them, when the first party doesn't even need to really hype or market their games to get them to sell. The third parties are only looking at it in terms of sales and not in terms of pleasing customers, which is where all money comes from in any business. Nintendo pleases its customers, the money rolls in. Nintendo releases games that don't light a fire under its audience (Wii Music and Animal Crossing) and the sales decline.

That's all there is to it, and if the third parties truly competed with Nintendo for customers, or sought to disrupt their games themselves, they'd be doing fantastic on the Wii. But they won't put in the effort, they won't change and adapt to the times, so they'll ultimately be left out in the cold when the game industry as we know sinks into the icy depths in a scant few years from now.

So you support the destruction of gaming as we know it?

You make me sick.

A Malstrom follower, i see. Are you on VGChartz, by any chance?

Oh man its hard to read your posts. I swear you could just swap out a few words here and there and you could write for a political hack site.

You have your talking points, you never back them up with any solid evidence, other then your gut feeling or the feelings of those who frequent the sights you do (hardcore is what you dubbed yourself right?) and you seem to have a pretty narrow view point on this subject.

When I saw narrow lets take a look at the use of the term "soccer mom", obviously you mean that in a demeaning way. Somebody that is less consumer savy then you right? Somebody that has come into your once exclusive club and is bringing the place down with ideas and values that dont gel with yours correct?

So basically your lumping this very large and DIVERSE group of people into one pile and calling them soccer moms because you don't understand them, but that ok. We're all soccer moms to somebody.


"Parents are buying it because Nintendo has a family-friendly demeanor and it's cheaper."
People are also buying it first because its entertaining and has universal appeal which is a good thing to get a large and Diverse group of people (or as you'd call us, soccer moms) to buy something.

"Kids want it for the same reason we all wanted the NES in the 80's." And the same reason they wanted any console since? Im not sure I'm follow you. My son is obsessed with my 360, dose that mean something bad?

"The bottom line here is that no matter how you slice it, The Wii is not a mature console, Nintendo is not a mature company (in the sense of content) and they're not going to budge."

What dose "The bottom line here is that no matter how you slice it" even mean? Is that shooting from the hip talk?
And what is mature? Brain age and stuff like that I'm assuming right?
I'm joking about the Brain age btw, but if there was a mature title that would be it.

I don't even think you know what you mean when you say mature.
It seems that when you say you want "mature" you're really asking for games that would have mostly been on pcs 10 years ago. FPS, western Rpgs and so on (and maybe even Japanese devs who are adopting a more western style). Which is fine, I love those games and thats why I use my 360 as a cheap Pc.
So when you toss around the word "mature" and act as if it is synonymous with quality instead of just same buzz word the hardcore use to describe western games that are heavey on male empowerment fantasies it can get confusing for everybody.

"This facade of being family-centric and promoting good health and good nature is being eaten up by parents who want to buy a game console for their kids and it's making them oodles of dough. Good for Nintendo, bad for those of us who grew up with Nintendo and would like them to grow up with us in a sense."

Facade? Thats a weird word to use, do they not have a lot of games with universal appeal (family friendly)? I'm not sure I'm understanding what you saying. Are you under the impression that Nintendo customers are being tricked into buying Nintendo products?

Oh I understand, back to the stupid "soccer mom" stuff again, I see. They're tricked because they're "soccer moms" and if they were educated on your amazing artistic hobby then their tastes would fall more inline with yours. witch would be old pc stlye games with a heavy emphasis on male empowerment right?

I see you know what you're talking about.

I'm not a Malstrom follower, it's just the truth. Remember when Yahtzee reviewed Peggle? Textbook example of disruption and embracing the low-end. World of Warcraft's success is another example of disruption, only in the MMO market, and it explains why all attempts from other MMOs that try to usurp or cash-in on its success fail. It also explains why handhelds are so successful in Japan right now.

The fact is that Sony, Microsoft, and the major third parties that pegged their futures with them overshot the low-end gamers, and Nintendo capitalized on this with the Wii and DS. The third parties saw money rather than customers, which is how they view their audience on the PS3 and 360 and PC, but unfortunately what has been successful for them up until now is now a chain that's drowning them. They can cut the chain and be successful but that means changing how they've been doing things, and they just don't seem capable of doing that.

You can't argue with economics. Gaming is not exempt from the laws of supply and demand.

@theblackman

You're a moron if you think console gaming as we know it is going anywhere. There will always be a market for consoles like the PS3 and 360, just like there is a market for high-end mobile phones and high-end cars. You think just because one market is supposedly very profitable (but in reality is volatile and just like WoW, me-tooing won't get you in), developers will drop what is a stable and profitable market (core gamers)?

Besides, you think the Wii flies with the young male demographic? As long as we exist, core console gaming ain't going nowhere.

^^^^^^
Well, I hope you have enough money for games when they cost $100 each.

on what grounds has nintendo got to do anything for 3rd party's THEY ARE TO BLAME NOT NINTENDO .......

I THINK WHAT YOU GUYS REALLY MEAN IS NINTENDO SHOULD SUBSIDIZE THE 3RD PARTY'S LIKE A CHARITY CASE

IF COMPANY'S NEED SUBBING THEN THEY DON'T DESERVE TO EXIST

NINTENDO HASNT GOT TO DO A DAM THING EA poor performance is ea's issue not frigging nintendo's

nintendo has an issue THERE SUCCESSFUL OH MY GOD IS THAT NOT ALLOWED

stop siding with a CORRUPT INDUSTRY TRYING TO BLAME NINTENDO FOR THERE OWN IGNORANCE

Right, because your user name totally doesn't make you look biased at all.

My source: http://www.wayofthenerd.com/Game-News/nintendo-qwii-failq.html

Jeez...grow up.

How was EA supporting the PS3 wrong? They make more money from Sony platforms than they do Nintendo or Microsoft platforms...