A few days ago an article showed up stating that it was Sony to blame for Nintendo failing to entice 3rd party developers to make games for the Wii U. That may or may not be the case but i believe that Nintendo is their own worst enemy in this matter & it all started with the original Wii.
Take a trip back in time with me, back to the end of the 6th generation of game consoles. The Sony PS2 soundly trounced the competition from the newcomer Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo's Gamecube who had the unfortunate distinction of finishing in 3rd place. That massive defeat in the eyes of Nintendo made they take a different approach in how to construct their next hardware.
Both Sony & Microsoft seemingly had control of the 'hardcore' gamer that Nintendo realize may be out of their reach. All they had that can rival the next consoles from the other 2 were their AAA first party games (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon etc.), though that may not be enough for them to regain market control.
This is where i believe Nintendo made their first steps into where they are now. Instead of catering to the 3rd party publishers & developers that are vital in having a long term successful console. Listening to what 3rd party developers need to make games on a console they turned their backs on them to go for the 'EASY' money.....the casual crowd. Thus the original Wii was born. Nintendo saw that neither Sony & Microsoft were enticing the 'casual' gamer, so Nintendo took advantage of that.
We all know the Wii became a financial gold mine for Nintendo (the Easy money) but once the original hype died down you need the 3rd party developed games to keep the hardcore gamers to come back. The casual gamer will eventually slowly lose interest so you need the hardcore gamer cause they will usually always be playing the console. Since there were little to next to none support from 3rd party the Wii slowly lost sales after the initial boom, while the other 2 stayed consistently strong throughout the generation.
The Wii's lost of momentum forced Nintendo to rush out a console to match (or Nintendo initially thought surpass) the current gen systems of Sony & Microsoft. Nintendo finally realized they needed the 3rd party help to safely maintain a healthy console life. Unfortunately the Wii U hasn't been able to gain 3rd party momentum cause it came out at a bad time when Sony & Microsoft were just about to reveal their next gen systems thus making the hardware of the Wii U be insignificant to 3rd party.
So we are now at the point where Nintendo is at now, at a crossroads. Do they scrap the Wii U & try to mitigate the damages of that by releasing another console to match the PS4 & XBone? Or do they stand pat & ride the potential losses & support the Wii U with their own AAA library. It's a touch decision for Nintendo no doubt. All of this troubling situation that Nintendo is in is thanks to the success of the original Wii.
The Wii as of right now is the 7th generation console leader (with over 100 million sales) & potential 'winner' but is it really? Did all that sales really help Nintendo?
My answer is no. It was the worst thing to ever happen to Nintendo cause that success has lead them to the situation they are in now. The Wii's success made Nintendo believe they didn't need 3rd party support to have a successful console in this day & age. That 'arrogance' or lack of respect of the 3rd party has soured many relationships with 3rd party & Nintendo may or may not be able to make amends.
I was a fan of Nintendo back in the NES/SNES days cause they cared for the gamer not only with their massive 1st party titles but they catered to the 3rd party as well. Somewhere down the line they forgot that 3rd party are vital for a console to have a successful life & that 1st party games can only take you so far.
In my heart i still have a place for Nintendo wishing them they can get out of their troubles. I really want them to do well but man do they REALLY need to change how they approach the industry.
In a poignant announcement, Dutch indie developer Paladin Studios bid farewell after an impressive run spanning “almost 19 years.”
Despite No Man Sky's rocky launch, Hello Games managed to turn it into one of the best space exploration RPGs out there.
I hate the whole concept of "comeback story" because at the end of the day it doesn't remove the core issue we had in the first place, that we were lied to, it was disappointing and it launched with bare content to what was promised for years.
Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch but for me if you launch in a terrible state then you had your chance. I can applaud you for what you've done after but at the end of the day there's not much of a choice since most gamers would blank your next product if you ditched your last game so fast, it's not about repairing the game but spending your time repairing gamers trust before you launch your next product otherwise it would be dead on arrival.
With these stories and the games being updated, the only way is up most of the time so of course it's going to improve the game and feel better over all, getting better and better as time passes. No Mans Sky, Sea of Thieves, Fallout 76 etc but then you have games like Anthem, Suicide Squad, Redfall and The Avengers where the devs just clearly moved on, now if they have another product people won't be as exited for it, I mean hell Guardians of the Galaxy was a great game but because of the Avengers it didn't help its sales since people were obviously still sour at that point.
I still think despite the improvements to games like No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk along with being better now overall the games are still not up there to what was promised and hyped as for years.
If we keep celebrating these “comeback stories” then unfortunately it only strongly supports the concept that these studios / publishers can continue to push half arsed broken products out for the sake of quick sales instead of waiting until they are fully finished. We need to condemn this awful behaviour or sadly we lose all voice and power as consumers.
I feel the same way about Cyberpunk 2077. I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm not a fan of comeback stories as well. But No man sky developer was a small indie team compared to CDPR. It's worse when it's coming from a AAA developer
"Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch"
You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not. After release Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone. That's not normal.
The reason NMS and HG are held in such high esteem and calling them liars is a weak stance is the amount of work they've put into it, for free. They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted.
They are liars though...
We are not revising history here, I'm sorry but we're not
They built this game up for years and they launched it knowing full well it wasn't up to scratch to what they originally showed off or hyped it up to be.
"They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted"
And like I said above most of that comes from the fact that if they had just moved on straight away nobody would have supported their next game. They've washed most of that sour taste away after supporting No Mans Sky so now they are doing a new game which more people feel like they can support and get excited for.
Anyway how can you say "You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not" and then make the point that "Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone"
This means that if a small team like this can turn a game around then big AAA games like Suicide Squad, Redfall, Anthem and the like should have been able to do it no problem, oh but that's right they didn't want to put the time or effort into it. They can do it but some people just decide not to.
I really enjoyed it at launch and had every trophy by August 2016.
The experience I had is no longer in the game: It was just me and my ship. It was a survival game and the feeling of loneliness in the universe was pervasive. There was no way to ruin too far from your ship and, in an emergency, you grenaded a hole in the ground to survive.
I miss that aspect, but since then, I love what they've done.
Asura Kagawa from NoobFeed writes - Vindictus: Defying Fate is the upcoming action RPG game by NEXON, and it has the potential to have a significant impact on the action role-playing genre. Expanding upon the immense universe of its 2010 predecessor Vindictus, this installment is being developed using state-of-the-art Unreal Engine 5, ensuring an immersive and graphically stunning experience.
I agree with you, I feel the Wii was really bad for Nintendo's home console division. They read part of the market (fitness/active craze that really took off in 2006) but they completely missed a vital shift in the market where third party exclusives went away and a big focus of big multi-platform games. Porting a 360/PS3 game to the Wii was almost impossible and the PS3/360 had conventional controls. The Wii ended up overloaded with shovel ware because it was sold to that crazy fitness/family market and it couldnt take ports from the PS3/360. I think this has transfer to the Wii U.
Also Nintendo has spent less time developing its online infrastructure because of the Wii. The Wii U is behind because Sony and Microsoft have been testing and refining their online services for over 6 years. Nintendo hasnt had that luxury. The Wii made have sold a lot and made Nintendo money but it has had a really bad lasting impact on the company (which I feel may cancel those impressive sales)
No. The Wii was for better or worse a triumph. The Gamecube proved that noone would buy a nintendo system just for it's specs and N games. So nintendo went all out and did somehthing unique with Wii and DS and it paid off big time. Also it had the Galaxy Games
The thing is that you have to go back to "why" Nintendo made the Wii in the first place.
The reason is because they didn't want to "directly" compete with Sony anymore. Sony battered them from pillar to post with the PS1 and PS2.
I keep telling everyone that Nintendo brought this upon themselves with the N64. THAT was their biggest mistake. Ignoring third party devs in favour of first party by opting for cartridge instead of CD.
Yes, very big mistake. They lost Square and Enix, and cartridges could not hold FMV or voice. Remember too that N64 was cartridge system because Nintendo had a deal with Sony that they reneged on. The SNES was supposed to have a Sony Disc drive.
So ever since the Snes they have failed to properly read the market. Fail to see that gamers are no longer 10 year olds.
Low third-party support on Nintendo consoles did not start with the Wii.