Nintendo needs to make fewer games.
As far as I’m concerned, Nintendo is on the right track to proving that the Nintendo Wii can be a huge success. Let’s face it, so far it already is. Despite having sold millions of them since launch two months ago, they still can’t keep them on shelves for any length of time. Let’s have a look at where Nintendo’s gone wrong in the past, and think about whether they’re looking at the same problem this generation.
The first issue Nintendo’s faced historically is gaming droughts, if you read any gaming news site. The big Nintendo games are too few, and too far between, right? But this is really only an issue with a lack of third party support, which is, in my opinion, a result of Nintendo’s loyal base (that’s me) buying only Nintendo-published games. This all but punishes third party efforts, because it makes it harder for them to make money. The attempt to expand the gaming market, which is something that cannot really be quantified, is critical to their success. Expand the market, and the people who only buy Nintendo games become a smaller piece of the pie, leaving room for the other guys, like Konami. Konami’s only real contribution to the Gamecube was the excellent Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, which bombed. Aside from that, all I recall seeing was Yu-Gi-Oh!.
With stronger third party support, Nintendo can back off on making the first party games, perhaps encouraging their loyals to buy some third party titles. When I look at my DS library, it’s more than half first-party games, but a higher percentage of the games are third party than were on the Cube. And looking at my Wii library, there’s only one first-party game, not counting the bundled Wii Sports. Neither of my VC games are Nintendo games.
Once again, it looks to me as though Nintendo knows, above all things, how to make money. If making cheap games and selling millions of copies is profitable, so is spending more energy on bigger-impact titles like Zelda and Metroid, and leaving the slack for eager third parties to produce games like Dragon Quest IX on DS and Crystal Chronicles for Wii. Let developers like Tecmo put Solomon’s Key on the VC and make some money that way, so they can see their games have a market on the system with minimal effort.
Indeed, Nintendo needs to keep the games coming. But even more, for console longevity, they need to leave room on the sales charts for other titans like Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami and Namco.
4 Comments »
Leave a comment!
I have to say when I saw the headline, I about fainted, WHAT?!
But, with the points you make, it really is true. At least that they need to leave room for third parties. They certainly need to encourage third parties to improve their offerings.
Speaking of Twin Snakes bombing, I mean cmon developers! What do you expect? Toss a remake at a system and expect it to sell like original IP? I felt bad for the cube for this reason. Sure, twin snake was a good game and it didn’t sell well, but geez, give the cube a chance. Make some good original content and THEN judge the system.
Don’t toss the system just because a lazy port like FarCry vengeance doesn’t sell well. Its not fair to any system whether it be Nintendo or MS or Sony.
I somewhat agree with your premise but are you saying that if Konami, Square and Namco had put out good titles on the Gamecube that Gamecube owners would have shunned them and focused only on Nintendo titles? Notice how I didn’t list Capcom in there. Capcom actually supported the Gamecube and as far as I know they did pretty well. They put out RE Zero, RE RE Remake, RE4, Viewtiful Joe 1&2 and Killer 7 (also the RE2&3 and Code Veronica ports). I supported Capcom well because they put out some good games. What good games did any of the other three put out? Chrystal Chronicles and a Metal Gear remake (I don’t even know if Namco put anything out on the Gamecube)?
The bottom line is that I think gamers will buy good games no matter the publisher. Sure, if I look at my Gamecube library it is about 75% Nintendo titles but that is not my fault it’s Square’s, Konami’s and Namco’s. I am slightly encouraged by prospects on the Wii. Konami put out Elebits which I have and it is a solid game. They just need to keep it up.
Um, buying ONLY games from one company is basically the definition of fanboy. That’s really narrow-minded of you to only buy Nintendo games on Nintendo consoles, and it’s also sad because you’re missing out on some great titles.
Namco did release Tales of Symphonia and Soul Calibur 2 for the Gamecube. Tales of Symphonia sold fairly well while the PS2 port of it never made it out of Japan.