Silicon Knights and Nintendo split

[cthellis42]

Re-read Johhny's post and then mine, he was specifically talking about GC losing developer support recently. GC has not lost Rockstar's support because they never had it in the first place.

I know what he was specifically stating and it was specifically wrong, but generally it still points to a bad thing for developers that prominant.

And offhand I'm not sure how much "Xbox from the start" there was. They obviously remained Playstation-exclusive for a while--whatever deal they have with Sony--but since they have a PC history and it's not a far jump from the PC to Xbox... they've basically brought anything they did on the PC to Xbox. (Not sure how much "port" they are versus "redo," but they don't seem hella different.)

Rockstar's support of Nintendo isn't too thrilling (they seem to have published about one game per recent system), so no they haven't "lost" much... but how is this a "defence" of some sort? "Oh, well it's ok because they never really did anything anyway?"

Like it or not, GTA is a franchise it would be good for Nintendo to have, and good for Rockstar to spread all over the map. Their reluctance to isn't a good thing by any stretch, regardless of whether someone counts it as a "loss" or not.

 

[cybamerc]

They also have Turrican, but that's pretty old now.

Factor 5 doesn't own the Turrican license and I kinda doubt those games sold anywhere near the Star Wars titles F5 has worked on (perhaps with the exception of Rebel Assault II).

I think there's a good chance F5 will finish Thornado for PSP though. It's basically supposed to be a 3d Turrican.

 

[Teasy]

Rockstar's support of Nintendo isn't too thrilling (they seem to have published about one game per recent system), so no they haven't "lost" much... but how is this a "defence" of some sort?

Because I'm not talking about general support that's why. I was replying to someone who was using Rockstar as an example of developers leaving GC recently. So the very fact the Rockstar have never given GC support is a defence against someone claiming GC has 'lost' there support. You can't then bring up a different agument (lack of support in general) and expect my original comments to apply to it. Because its a different argument, related but still very much different. If the agument had originally been about lack of some developer support on GC with Rockstar as an example then I wouldn't have made the same comment... get it?

 

[Qroach]

Like it or not, GTA is a franchise it would be good for Nintendo to have, and good for Rockstar to spread all over the map. Their reluctance to isn't a good thing by any stretch, regardless of whether someone counts it as a "loss" or not.

That makes logical sense to me.

However there's always going to be someone getting defensive of thier choice, and chances are they will make comments based on emotion, so there probably isn't much need to argue about what one said or didn't say.

 

[cthellis42]

Because I'm not talking about general support that's why. I was replying to someone who was using Rockstar as an example of developers leaving GC recently. So the very fact the Rockstar have never given GC support is a defence against someone claiming GC has 'lost' there support. You can't then bring up a different agument (lack of support in general) and expect my original comments to apply to it. Because its a different argument, related but still very much different. If the agument had originally been about lack of some developer support on GC with Rockstar as an example then I wouldn't have made the same comment... get it?

Hence why I was re-phrasing it in terms of the larger, overall "different and yet related" arguement, and not defending his specific words. I basically said "yeah, but..." get it?

It is not a snipe or a troll... it is simply examining the overall situation.

 

[I.S.T.]

Rockstar were never a GC developer... how can you lose what you've never had?

Rockstar published Smuggler's Run Warzones for the GameCube which is a slightly updated version of Hostile Territory for PS2. The Cube version came out almost a year after the PS2 original.

One game? Not much of a developer or publisher.

 

[cybamerc]

IST:

> One game? Not much of a developer or publisher.

Take 2 which owns the Rockstar brand has always been biased against Nintendo. The only reason why GameCube got Smuggler's Run from Rockstar is because the game was done by Angel Studios before it was acquired by Take 2 and turned into Rockstar San Diego. Angel Studios and Nintendo had pretty good relations.

 

[I.S.T.]

IST:

> One game? Not much of a developer or publisher.

Take 2 which owns the Rockstar brand has always been biased against Nintendo. The only reason why GameCube got Smuggler's Run from Rockstar is because the game was done by Angel Studios before it was acquired by Take 2 and turned into Rockstar San Diego. Angel Studios and Nintendo had pretty good relations.

First I've heard of Take 2's bias against Nintendo. Mind mentioning other cases, or places to look that up? I'm curious.

 

[Qroach]

There's isn't any bias regarding take 2 and nintendo. Cybermerc is just simply blinded by un dying faith. What he calls bias, I'd call business sense.

The only thing that got in take 2's way was console age demographics. So called T- teen titles haven't sold well on the game cube at all. As we all know by now the gamecube has the larger percentage of younger gamers (Only if you compare it directly to xbox. PS2 is in a different world), as nintendo has always tried to sell products to that portion of the market from the time of release. Many publishers took the fact nintendo was still trying to sell to younger players as a sign that more mature themed products wouldn't sell well, and they were totally correct in that assumption.

Also, 3rd party titles barely sell on the last few nintendo platforms, as the majority of nintendo fans by thier conislle for nintendo's games.

As I'm sure you can see, it goes far beyond "console bias" as cybermerc claimed. It all comes down to dollars and sense (yes I spelled it that way on purpose).

 

[I.S.T.]

I didn't believe him, that's why I asked for links.

I do believe Nintendo needs to get it's head out of it's ass if it wants to keep going. Another two or so generations with the same mindset of 90% "kiddie" games(Regardless of the quality.) will kill them. They need to market to a different demographic ASAP. Maybe then publishers like Take 2 will put more games on the system.

 

[Fox5]

There's isn't any bias regarding take 2 and nintendo. Cybermerc is just simply blinded by un dying faith. What he calls bias, I'd call business sense.

The only thing that got in take 2's way was console age demographics. So called T- teen titles haven't sold well on the game cube at all. As we all know by now the gamecube has the larger percentage of younger gamers (Only if you compare it directly to xbox. PS2 is in a different world), as nintendo has always tried to sell products to that portion of the market from the time of release. Many publishers took the fact nintendo was still trying to sell to younger players as a sign that more mature themed products wouldn't sell well, and they were totally correct in that assumption.

Also, 3rd party titles barely sell on the last few nintendo platforms, as the majority of nintendo fans by thier conislle for nintendo's games.

As I'm sure you can see, it goes far beyond "console bias" as cybermerc claimed. It all comes down to dollars and sense (yes I spelled it that way on purpose).

GTA had 2 releases on gameboy color, and was in production for GBA, and those were probably more kid targetted(and had like 1 mature rated game in total) than gamecube.

 

[Qroach]

GTA had 2 releases on gameboy color, and was in production for GBA, and those were probably more kid targetted(and had like 1 mature rated game in total) than gamecube.

Yes, and they had horrible reviews and didn't sell well on gameboy color. The GBA version isn't out yet, but I could certainly see more older gamers having GBA's compared to the percentage of gamecubes as they have sold a silly amount of GBA's to the public.

 

[cybamerc]

First I've heard of Take 2's bias against Nintendo. Mind mentioning other cases, or places to look that up? I'm curious.

It's not something you will find on public record but take a look at Take 2's release list and you'll see that the company has traditionally been a weak supporter of Nintendo systems. It has nothing to do with GameCube specifically as the clueless Quincy would like you to think.

 

[Fox5]

First I've heard of Take 2's bias against Nintendo. Mind mentioning other cases, or places to look that up? I'm curious.

It's not something you will find on public record but take a look at Take 2's release list and you'll see that the company has traditionally been a weak supporter of Nintendo systems. It has nothing to do with GameCube specifically as the clueless Quincy would like you to think.

Namco was a traditionally weak supporter of nintendo until gamecube...

 

[I.S.T.]

*Bangs head against the wall.*

Maybe there's a good reason why they haven't many games on Nintendo's systems, like possibly not having much confidence in them(Which last gen would have been a bullshit reason, but it would be a good one this gen.). Or perhaps they didn't like the way you have to program for it. Or maybe they thought their games wouldn't sell as well on Nintendo's systems, which have been stereotyped as "kiddie".

And don't you pull the you're a Nintendo hater line on me. I've owned all of their consoles that were released in the USA and still have three of them. Edit: I was replying to cybamerc.

 

[cybamerc]

Namco was a traditionally weak supporter of nintendo until gamecube...

Indeed. Because for a long time Namco was biased against Nintendo. Namco people will freely admit this and has done so many times in interviews.

 

[Fox5]

Namco was a traditionally weak supporter of nintendo until gamecube...

Indeed. Because for a long time Namco was biased against Nintendo. Namco people will freely admit this and has done so many times in interviews.

Woah, well if you're going to say that, can you produce one of these interviews? It'd be interesting to see "I hated Nintendo because Mario killed Pacman, but I like them now because they allow me to release numerous crappy Pacman games on their system! Kawaii~!"

 

[cybamerc]

Maybe there's a good reason why they haven't many games on Nintendo's systems

Yes, bias.

 

[cybamerc]

Woah, well if you're going to say that, can you produce one of these interviews?

Of course. Here's a recent one:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/506/506237p2.html

"We have a very good relationship with Nintendo," says Tanaka. "At one time, we had a hard time when it changed from Family Computer to Super Famicom. But at this time we have a good relationship with Nintendo.

 

[Fox5]

Woah, well if you're going to say that, can you produce one of these interviews?

Of course. Here's a recent one:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/506/506237p2.html

"We have a very good relationship with Nintendo," says Tanaka. "At one time, we had a hard time when it changed from Family Computer to Super Famicom. But at this time we have a good relationship with Nintendo.

That doesn't mean bias, sounds more like licensing disagreements or something to me, a lot of companies didn't like nintendo's business practices of the time. It also doesn't mention the n64, which namco showed even less support for.