hulk

That PD Zero thread got me thinking about how the console makers treat thier third parties. What came to mind first, obviously, was Microsoft's sabotage of Rare and it's properties (as far as I can tell). They seem intent on grabbing as many names as they can, just for the sheer hell of it, as far as I can see. Nintendo, on the other hand, have terminated contracts with Factor 5 and Silicon Knights, purely because the devs said they wanted to make games for other consoles.

I dunno about you lot, but it seems to me that the big N is actually giving a damn about the gamers...

Thoughts?

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Rdr4evr

This is why the only console I own is a Gamecube. Not because I am some fanboy who hates other systems, but because I believe Nintendo truly believes in quality over quantity as they have proved over the years. Not only that, it seems that Nintendo always comes up with the innovation while other companies "borrow" their idea. Things that come to mind immediately are the analog on the N64, the rumble feature, the four controller slots, the wireless control and even some blatant game rip-offs like Mario Kart and Crash Bandicoots kart game, and a few others that I don't currently remember. ( I could be wrong about some of the features, just correct me if I am) I'm not saying it is bad to copy others' ideas as long as you add to it or make it better, I'm just saying Nintendo seems to put the gamer first. That said, PS2 and Xbox have some decent games, but when it comes to console gaming, I have always gone the Nintendo route. As for other games, that’s what I use the PC for.

Echodork

Nintendo is far too experimental for me to drop money on their console. They produce one accessory after another (from R.O.B. the robot all the way through the Donkey Konga bongos) which only work for a very small handful of games before becoming obsolete. For several of the more "innovative" GC games, you need a GBA and a link cable to fully enjoy the game (Four Swords, FF: Crystal Chronicles, etc). Yet, the Gamecube has no online capability, unlike the other two systems. In the end, Nintendo is just as money hungry as the other producers, they just get you by making you buy hordes of useless shit in order to enjoy their games rather than gobbling up developing companies.

Rdr4evr

Actually the Gamecube does have online capability, just with two games though.

hulk

Echo, how can they expect to create much of a profit from 'useless shit'? The gimmicks are there for people who want something special, not as a money-making device. The revenues for Factor 5's titles probably beat all gimmick sales combined. And need I remind you that without Nintendo's 'experimenting', we probably wouldn't have seen analogue sticks, vibrating controllers or the Sony Playstation?

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Rdr4evr

I don't think most people know that Playstation was a Nintendo idea.

Lasereth

Well, you could look at it two different ways. Rare was doing horribly and Microsoft bought them. This kept Rare (one of the most hailed game developers of all time) from failing.

Secondly, Nintendo not dealing with Silicon Knights because they chose to go cross-platform isn't "cool" or "caring about the gamers." Nintendo simply wanted to make a bigger profit from exclusive games. If a company isn't gonna help them do that then screw it! Silicon Knights produced Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, easily one of the top 5 Gamecube titles. Halting relationships with SK is a bad idea no matter how you look at it.

You are correct about Nintendo caring about the <B>gamers</B>. Nintendo doesn't want their console to be a computer, be a DVD player, or even a jukebox. They want it to play games for a low price and that's what it does extremely well.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

hulk

So, Las, how is releasing a dedicated developer helping Nintendo get a bigger profit from their games? Letting a talented group of developers go isn't good business sense.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Lasereth

Reread my post, you're obviously confused.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Echodork

You tell me, how CAN they expect to make a profit? Nintendo's market share is third out of three when it comes to the major console wars (GBA sales notwithstanding, since the GBA is in a market with no competition). That's just it, they AREN'T making a profit the same way that Sony and Microsoft are.

The Playstation was a Nintendo concept at the outset, but CD-based gaming was a Sega idea originally (hello, Sega CD). Nintendo had the plans for a prototype Playstation, sure, but they scrapped the project to remain cartridge-based. Was it a good decision? Well, the PS1 outsold the N64 almost ten to one, what do you think? Every major developer that Nintendo had agreed to license games to the PS1, and some (like Square) agreed to do so exclusively while giving Nintendo the middle finger.

Yes, Nintendo pioneered analog sticks and vibrating controllers, which turned out to be successful ideas. They also pioneered Virtual Boy, the Mario Teaches Piano keyboard, R.O.B. the Robot, the Mario Paint mouse, the GBA E-Reader, the Super Scope, the Power Pad, the Power Glove, and a bizarre collection of somewhat-necessary N64 accessories like the Expansion Pak and the Memory Card (do games save to the cartridge or not?). How many of those do we still have around? For every one idea that stuck, Nintendo has had ten ideas that SUCK.

oblar

Echodork, if my memory serves me correctly, Nintendo didn't scrap the idea to remain cartridge-based. Sony had a deal with Nintendo then decided to make their own system (The PSX) and in doing so basically became Nintendo's competition.

this sort of betrayal (since Sony was to provide nintendo with the CD-roms etc for the new system) made Nintendo a little irritated and that kept them on the cartridge route. I believe if Sony hadn't decided to make the PSX and just continue with Nintendo then Nintendo would have gone CD long ago.

btw, mario paint mouse rocked For at least the one game it was for. As far as the expansion on N64 and the memory cards. They were used quite a bit. The memory cards were mainly for extra saves on games, where the cartridge space wasn't enough. Granted, the Virtual Boy was a failure, and I really disliked the super scope as well.

irateplatypus

rdr4evr and i are in complete agreement. those who post in TFP Politics know... this is among the rarest of occassions.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

hulk

To Echodork:

Dude, I never said there'd be no CD-based consoles. I said there'd be no Sony Playstation. And then Nintendo wouldn't have been outsold 10 to one and they'd still be king of the shits today. And let's see here, there's a HD addon for the PS2 (Memory expansion, much like the expansion pack) and all the consoles use memory cards in one form or another. Granted, some of their ideas have failed horribly, I never said they didn't, but with a company that innovates it's to be expected. I'm sure they're quite well aware that a new idea may fail spectacularly, but their successes outweigh their failures by far.


To Lasereth:

No, I understood your post (I think), if Silicon Knights are under contract with Nintendo then they're generally liable to make games. They didn't demand to be released, they asked. There's quite a difference - I'm sure if Nintendo held on to them they'd still make awesome games.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Echodork

If my sister had a dick, she'd be my brother. IF is a very big word, and you can't sit behind your computer and predict with any accuracy what would have happened 12 years ago IF Nintendo had made different choices.

Memory cards are not useless accessories. I get daily use out of my PS2 memory card. I do not get daily use out of the Super Scope I bought in 1988 which only worked with 3 games.

The HD addition for the PS2 allows users to play Final Fantasy XI, the only full MMORPG available on any console to date. FFXI is a massive title with over a million subscribers worldwide, with play value amounting to hundreds of hours. I see a real difference between the HD addition, and the Power Pad which let you play two crappy games and was never seen again.

Nintendo's successes outweighed their failures when they had no competition, 15 years ago. Sony began dominating Nintendo in the console market in 1994, they're still dominating Nintendo today, and even the Xbox has a larger market share than the 'Cube. If Nintendo didn't have exclusive rights to Shigeru Miyamoto's franchises (Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and all associated products and spinoffs), they'd have nothing at all besides Pokemon.

Nintendo's only "success" is in the handheld market, and only because they still have no competition (the N-Gage? Please.) And next year, Sony is going to dominate THAT market too with the release of the PSP, which is going to crush the silly, gimmicky Nintendo DS into yesteryear. Oh, you have two screens? That's cute... we have Grand Theft Auto and mp3 support. Game, set, match?

oblar

was going to leave this one alone until this paragraph. I don't believe the Sony PSP is going to crush Nintendo's handheld market. I actually believe Sony will have to fight every step of the way. People just don't really want what the PSP has to offer. Too many other devices do what they claim to be able to do and they have better screen sizes and battery life.

however, I dont believe the DS will be a huge success either. To me the GBA SP is an absolute pinnacle of a brilliant evolution so far. The games on there are very entertaining, but the DS will have access to all of these games as well (if my knowledge of it is correct). Sony will be starting with a base of 0 games, whereas the DS will start with a huge arsenal of games that people wish to play.

when comparing the DS and the PSP I just think the PSP is too much of a gimmick to try and grab a small slice of the market, not an actual attempt at a decent handheld device. Many other companies have tried to grab some of nintendo's handheld market (with decidedly better hardware and even some great games), but nintendo's hold is a bit too firm.. I don't think even Sony can shake that. When Playstation entered the console market they were competing against the N64, and we can all pretty much say that many of the games on that system weren't all that great.

the gba is a whole different beast.

Slayer

betrayal!? You got it wrong. It was the other way around. Sony decided to make the PS after Nintendo pulled the plug on the deal. If you read EGM(issue 186 with MGS3 cover), theres a article about it. If you don't have it heres what it said.

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"the key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering"

hulk

Actually, you mentioned


Sure I can. I looked at what happened, and made an educated guess. If the PS wasn't being engineered to work with the SNES, it would have been vastly different. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.

And I'm sure, with nearly every announced title for DS using it, gamers will get daily use out of the touch-screen.

So, the HD is used for, what, one game? That, once it goes down, will never come back up? MMO's don't last forever. Oh, and there's been twice as many pre-orders for the DS than there are players on FFXI.

Interestingly enough, even with a 'smaller marketshare' (which I'm yet to see anyone back up with decent evidence), the GameCube is profitable. The X-Box is not. Go figure.

And how popular would the PS2 be without it's exclusives? Would the X-Box have gone anywhere without Halo? Would your computer run without it's CPU? No?

Oh, hey, look, GTA and MP3 on the GBA. Congratulations for coming second place again.

I haven't seen a device in a long time that's gotten developers as excited as the DS has. People are enthusiastic to see what can be done with two screens, as opposed to people who know exactly what the PSP is capable of. A couple of hours of sub-PS2 quality games. Whoopee.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

seretogis

I have to laugh every time I see someone claim that Nintendo "cares" about their customers. Nintendo is notorious for price-fixing and intimidating their retailers to follow through. If anything, Nintendo are the fascists of the console gaming industry, though Microsoft and Sony are giving them a run for that title.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

hulk

Dude, I don't think Nintendo have ever bought a company just for the purpose of killing their lisence. Granted, not everything they do is squeaky clean, but name one (any!) large company that is.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Lasereth

You said that Nintendo cares about gamers because they let go of SK due to SK wanting to make cross-platform games. Then I said that letting go of SK for that reason is a bad idea no matter which way you look at it. Then you asked me to explain how letting to SK is a good idea business-profit-wise. ??? I never said letting go of SK was profitable, I said the exact opposite.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Echodork

Most of your information is wrong, some of it laughably so.

Nintendo's launch day shipment is 300,000 units. There are more than 500,000 FFXI players, and that number refers to data taken before the release of the expansion. 300,000 is not "twice as many" as 500,000+.

Forbes reports the PS2's market share at "just under 50%", while the Xbox enjoys about 26%. That puts the Gamecube at 24%. There are two very important factors to consider when looking at the numbers presented.

1. The article was also published on 11/7/04, before the release of Halo 2. Add almost 3 million copies sold for just one title to that market share figure.
2. The Gamecube got a HUGE upswing in market share when Nintendo lowered the price to $99. The NGC is still selling for $50 less than both of its competitors. Even with a 50% advantage in price point, the NGC is still trailing the PS2 about two to one for weekly units sold, and four to one for total units sold.

If you consider worldwide sales, then the Gamecube is selling more than the Xbox, because of Microsoft's absolute absence from the Japanese market (7% market share at last estimation, up from 2% last year). Of course, the PS2 dominates the Japanese market even more than it does the American market.

Finally, the Xbox console unit sells for less than the cost of the parts, this is true. And so, the statement "The Xbox is not profitable" is literally true. The games, however, are profitable, as is the Xbox live service. Microsoft's Xbox department is very profitable on the whole. Halo 2 had over 1.5 million pre-orders in the United States alone, and has sold almost that many copies since release.

That's a retarded question. How popular would the PS2 be without its exclusives? Uh, yeah, how popular would the Gamecube be without controllers? The PS2 has twice as many titles available as the Gamecube, and consistantly sells cross-platform titles BETTER than the Nintendo counterpart. Go have a look around the web, I'm tired of linking articles you probably won't read... consensus is that the PS2 has sold four consoles for every Gamecube sold. Sony outsells Nintendo on just the multi-platform titles alone, and PS2 exclusives (GTA: San Andreas, Metal Gear Solid 3, Star Ocean 3, Smackdown vs. Raw) are fucking DOMINATING Nintendo exclusives (Metroid Prime 2, Mario Power Tennis, Donkey Konga, Pikmin 2). It's Muhammad Ali vs. Pee Wee Herman in the console war.

Would the Xbox have gone anywhere without Halo? Yes. See also: Fable, Morrowind, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Ninja Gaiden, Crimson Skies, Dead or Alive, and Otogi. And those are just the exclusives. And how about we talk about Xbox Live, a system which knows no equal in the console wars (least of all from Nintendo and their two online-compatible games).

The only exclusive game Nintendo is putting out this quarter that's even worth talking about is Metroid Prime 2, and it's laughably buried under the pre-order totals for GTA and Halo 2. Gamestop took 260k pre-orders for GTA and 500k for Halo 2. Metroid isn't even on the map. Nintendo estimates 60k pre-orders. Lol?

Sure hope the DS can save Nintendo. They're getting pwnt everywhere else. Sure can't wait for the next game in the Put-Mario-In-An-Otherwise-Horrible-Game series.

YaWhateva

of course they are. Look at the N64. Fuck. Anyone remember the days of $80 for damn game? that was ridiculous. Nintendo are definitely money grubbing assholes and the only reason I own a Gamecube is because of 3 simple words: Link, Samus, Mario. If those titles became multiplatform, bye bye Nintendo. The handheld market for Nintendo is amazing though, the GBA SP is a fantastic system, but in my opinion the DS could be their downfall. And to whoever said anything about the PSP having sub-par PS2 graphics, what about the DS having sub-par N64 graphics? Nintendo should have stuck with the GBA. Handhelds don't need to have games in 3-D, they need to have games that are just plain fun.

dont get me wrong, I love my gamecube, but Nintendo does not love their customers. But like I said there are very few reasons to own a gamecube.

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

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Echodork

Well, the Nintendo DS launched fairly well today, as expected. Nintendo continues its grip on the already-dominated handheld market by releasing a bunch of rehashed games... Spiderman 2, Madden 2005, Super Mario DS (a clone of SM64 with some new features), and The Urbs (a Sims game). Also on the plate were a no-name racing title (Asphalt GT) and an unknown dating sim. The rest of the "we've seen this before" lineup is due out later this year, including the obligatory Mario Kart and Metroid money farms.

All is not love and roses, of course. The DS doesn't play Game Boy Color games, cutting out 60% of Nintendo's Pokemon library, among other things. The DS also isn't compatible with Gamecube "GBA Enabled" games, such as Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. The DS is only available in silver, although Nintendo has already announced their plans to "round two" customers by releasing colored versions in six months. Of course, we're all used to that already, after seeing colored versions of the Game Boy Color, GB Advance, GBA SP, and Gamecube released six months after the regular versions.

Finally, a little personal experience. I manage a Gamestop, and we did system inventory tonight. We have zero PS2 and Xbox units (no new, no refurbished, no used), with waiting lists for both systems. We have 13 new Gamecube systems of varying colors and packages (Metroid bundle, Mario Kart bundle, non-bundle colors, etc), and 29 used Gamecubes of varying colors. We have more used Gamecubes traded in on a weekly basis than any other system, we have more used Gamecubes in stock than all other systems combined (N64 and PS1 included), and we get more Gamecubes traded in than we sell during an average month (Gamecube sales are actually negative in this district). Soo... there you go, think about that.