Nintendo Is Not Ever Going Third Party

With the unveiling of the PS4 and the alleged "failure" of the Wii U, several gaming "journalists" and members of the online gaming community have very rapidly begun to make the claim that Nintendo, its hardware and its franchises are DOOMED. Dead in the water. Obsolete. Kaput and all that sweet music. They're going the way of Sega and will become third party.

It's not happening. Not anytime soon. And I'm going to explain why.

For an entire generation, Nintendo had the top selling console for the first time since the SNES. The Wii was a cultural phenomenon, so much so that the competition tried to emulate the same technology into their HD consoles in hopes of gaining the same type of success. For a while Nintendo was rolling dough; I remember nearly every financial review showcased Nintendo earning millions and billions of yen/dollars and how the Wii and DS were "printing money."

Nintendo reported their first loss in years, or decades rather, of half a billion in dollars. Sony reported a loss of over six billion the same year.

Fast forward to now where the Wii U is currently the latest and most expensive console on the market and after two months of speedy sales in a risky economic climate has now dropped to Vita level sales (even being outsold by the Vita a previous week, though not by much, in Japan).

Now stop me if you've heard this scenario before; a new piece of dedicated gaming hardware comes out, it's a little pricey and initially has very few games that people want to play on it and therefor does not sell many units. That sounds a lot like the PS3 and 3DS. Two platforms that started off unbelievably sluggishly, were seen as DOOMED but were able to turn things around and become pretty successful (especially in the 3DS' case which is currently selling faster than its predecessor).

Can someone provide me what facts or historical events that support the idea that the Wii U cannot make a similar turnaround? The 3DS' third party content is not exactly huge, yet it still has many well received games on it. The PS3 was not the primary console of development with multiplats yet it still had solid exclusives to support it. But those systems found ways to turn the course of history around. Nothing suggests the Wii U cannot do the same.

Which brings me to my next point; people suggest that Nintendo have become the modern Sega, with the Wii U following in the footsteps of the Dreamcast.

This is so unbelievably baseless that it boggles the mind that people seem to believe it so vehemently. Yes, the Wii U is weaker than its upcoming generation 8 brethren (this was obvious), yes it has a screen in the middle of the controller and yes it's doing something completely different from the competition.

But here's where the absent minded lose the argument; Nintendo's overall history is absolutely nothing like Sega's. Sega saw failure after failure after their first console. From the poorly supported Genesis add-ons to the horribly marketed Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast had a string of failures before it. Failures which lost Sega money.

Nintendo saw no such things happen. The N64 and the GCN are considered to be commercial failures and yet Nintendo turned a profit on both devices, making them financial success as oppose to commercial. Whether a detractor wishes to accept it or not, popularity and having the most units sold is not the road to success; profit is. The only major Nintendo device to ever be both a commercial and financial failure was the Virtual Boy. What Nintendo platform managed to flop as hard as that since then?

The bottom line is that history is on Nintendo's side. Even with the 3DS and all of the doom and gloom surrounding it, Nintendo has made the 3DS exceptionally profitable (the 3DS supposedly stopped selling at a loss roughly around September last year) so Nintendo is more than capable of adjusting its strategy to make a product successful if need be.

The bottom line is Sega's reasoning for becoming third party is an extremely particular case riddled with failure after failure in hardware. Nintendo's history is not even remotely similar to that. Linking Nintendo with Sega is a piss-poor argument at best and hold next to no water. And considering Sony's losses from the PS3 and its stock recently reaching "junk" status, going by the logic of those saying Nintendo is doomed, you may as well say that Sony is doomed nearly ten times over.

Whether your reasoning for believing it will happen is based on current events or simply because you want to play Nintendo software without buying Nintendo hardware, there needs to be at least some form of factual or historical evidence to support the claim. And frankly from where I'm standing there is none.

[majiebeast]

PS3 numbers were never as low as the WiiU at double the price. Nintendo has lost the people who made their wii a succes the casual, and most of the core gamers go with Playstation or Xbox for third party games. So whats left is the Nintendo fans, but how many are their left of them? Did it decline since the Gamecube era or increase? We shall see, but Nintendo better bring it all at E3 and never repeat E3 2012, that was a massive disaster.

[PopRocks359]

The PS3 was also released in a far more stable economy and on top of that was losing Sony hundreds of dollars on every unit made. Not such a case is happening with the Wii U or any of Nintendo's previous console.

Nintendo's E3 2012 showcase was far from a disaster. It was an unbelievably standard show with far too many expectations riding on top of it. People expected Star Fox HD; what they got was Nintendo Land. It was okay at best and immensely disappointing at worst. But calling it a disaster, to me, is a stretch.

After all, they could have brought in that "Doodluh-doodluh" guy. I think his name was Mr. Caffeine or something along those lines.

EDIT: What about the 3DS? That platform was certainly a lot less casual than its predecessor, yet it is selling faster than the DS. Obviously Nintendo and its franchises have a place in the market if that device is selling as well as it is.

Also PSP numbers were never as low as the Vita's and the DS' numbers were never as low as the starting numbers of the 3DS, yet the Vita still can bounce back like the 3DS did. So can the Wii U.

[Qrphe]

Although the economy was more stable, the PS3 also cost $570/$680 adjusted for today.
Since the PS2 proved that console price isn't as important as 3rd party support I'd say let's wait for the non-stop flux of games to roll in to see the Wii U come back.

Third party support is vital for the success of the console (it's the reason why the DS and 3DS did/do so well, not just because of 1st party titles).

[SnakeCQC]

wii u game sales have been insanely low you can rehash old ips for inly so long. First party games are good but sony does it well they have many amazing first party devs like naughty dog, quantic dream, SCE Santa Monica Studios etc who all produce very good first party titles that push what the console can deliver and all of which produce varied games, which is very important. I think nintendo should start making android/ios games along with their own peripherals etc because they no longer are relevant to the actual gaming scene. I mean come one they decided to give hd games a miss with the wii that shows their out of place mindset.

[PopRocks359]

How is Nintendo irrelevant? They've existed as game company for around three decades, revived the market after it crashed and changed the course of the past generation by introducing motion control to mainstream consoles. You probably wouldn't be playing a PS3 or expecting a PS4 if it wasn't for Nintendo's history.

New Super Mario Bros. U on the Wii U has one of the highest attachment rates to the Wii U console, so Nintendo's franchises can sell just fine. Look at the 3DS library; Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 both sold over a million units within the span of a month or two.

Also Nintendo has Nintendo EAD, Next Level Games, Retro Studios, Monolith and Camelot, not to mention they have stated they want to generate more third party partnerships like with Platinum Games and Team Ninja. So I really don't see what you're attempting to get at here.

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

I see everyone using that term "rehash". I don't think half you people even know what rehash means. Then again, this is n4g, where next-gen means graphics and only graphics. So I shouldn't expect much from people on this site.

[Adnan_rules]

LOL bro dont even compare Sony's first party titles to Nintendo's, Sony first party titles are impressive I'll admit but Nintendo's are far more successful, influencial. How many franchise after 25 years on the market, th elatest game come out and hits game of the year? come back in 20 years and tell me if Sony can do that.

[thebudgetgamer]

At some point If I said Sonic and Mario would end up in the same game I would have bveen beaten.

[wingman32x]

I think that it's possible for that to happen, but I think some people are going way overboard with their estimations as to when.

The money they have in reserves can't really be overstated. I think estimations were that they'd have to have their next 2 systems, not counting the Wii U, flop epically for them to be in serious proximity of that.

Even if Nintendo pulled out of the home console market, their handhelds must also fall off a cliff before opposing companies could even get a whiff of their franchises.

So, overall IMO, the perfect storm of perfect storms would need to happen in order for Nintendo to go third party anytime remotely soon. Both of its divisions would have to be hurting so badly.

Then, there's the fact that Nintendo has said that the games will go down with them pretty much, and I think they're stubborn enough to do that.

[Adnan_rules]

e3 2013 will be big, Nintendo has never really relied on 3rd part publishers that much so whats the worry?

[D_RoyJenkins]

Because 3rd party is more relevant than first party.

[Adnan_rules]

Regardless if it is or not Nintendo has done fine with out it!

[Krew_92]

This question can't be answered by me or you or anyone for that matter.

It can or it can't happen. Your information can be backed up by past events, Nintendo's direction and any amount of information, but in the end anything can happen. No one would think SEGA would go multiplatform, especially with their (initial) success with the Dreamcast. It sold very well at its infancy, most people seem to forget that.

Unless someone here builds a time machine, then we can't say anything for sure...

[PopRocks359]

That's a fair point; I shouldn't have approached this blog with as much of a level of certainty as I did. Of course it CAN happen. However, I feel history and evidence suggest otherwise and tilt the scale in that outcome's favor.

[Krew_92]

I get where you're coming from, at least, as you said, you approached this without blindly saying so. You did in fact try to support your point with solid evidence.

As I said though, sometimes history doesn't shape the future, so we'll have to wait and see how all this turns out.

[lema008]

Nintendo wanted the Wii U to be a smash hit and it's just not happening. After christmas, sales have tanked. But to say Nintendo's is finish is premature at best. Nintendo has too much cash on hand plus there handheld is selling well.

Nintendo is a very smart and well run company. How old is mario?? Yet, mario is still making money for them. Now compare that to Sega's sonic the hedgehog and Playstation crash banticoot.

Personally, I serious doubt they will get out of the hardware business anytime soon.

I

[Garrison]

I wonder how many times people have said that nintendo consoles are doomed? It happens every generation. Every generation it's time for nintendo to die so the saying goes.

None of Nintendo's big franchises have yet to hit the system yet, why do people say the same thing over and over only to be proven wrong? I honestly don't think that Nintendo fans wouldn't go bananas over a full fledge HD Zelda and Mario which is what Ninty will deliver.

Ninty did a good enough job on it's console for them to deliver that, I don't think their cartoon like characters need a console that can run Crysis 3 on full settings for those.

And WiiU will be the cheapest system too which is always good. Ninty's doing alright.

[D_RoyJenkins]

Nintendo's big franchises appeared on the gamecube, how'd that turn out?

[Garrison]

Making a profit for them. How do you think it turned out?

[D_RoyJenkins]

being outsold by over 100 million units

[PopRocks359]

Being in last place doesn't mean Nintendo lost any money on the Gamecube. If you can't begin to comprehend that then you have very little understanding of how this industry works.