Black Dragon37
Newcomer
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter tells Next-Gen.Biz that he doubts third-party publishers outside of Sega and Ubisoft are well-positioned to take advantage of any early Wii success.
Third Parties Failing Wii Opportunity
- Thread starter Black Dragon37
- Start date
I think for once this analyst is right. 3rd party publishers are typically so bound by their standard derivative formulas and sequel-itis (for fear of a title that is too different will bomb financially), it will be tough for them to come up with original ideas to make into viable games. They need more time to brainstorm methinks, probably need Nintendo to show them the way initially.
But since Wii will be cheaper to develop for than other nextgen platforms, I fully expect their courage to pick up. Besides, there's always those unexpected successes amongst an otherwise luke-warm 3rd-party lineup...
But since Wii will be cheaper to develop for than other nextgen platforms, I fully expect their courage to pick up. Besides, there's always those unexpected successes amongst an otherwise luke-warm 3rd-party lineup...
Actually I thought the situation was going to be a lot worse. EA is offering a real effort with Madden 07 (?). Capcom is developing a Resident Evil. We're seeing some support from SquareEnix with FF:CC and DQ-SpinOff.
Anyway, given the lower development costs I hope there's going to be more activity from smaller studios.
Anyway, given the lower development costs I hope there's going to be more activity from smaller studios.
hupfinsgack said:
The analyst clearly has US and European devs in his mind. Japanese devs like SE and Capcom have different types of franchises that are accepted in all territories wether its Europe, US or Japan and are usually accepted by a different kind of gamers.
EA games for example or THQ dont make games that are accepted in Japan, and they arent the type of games that if changed beyond some degree will continue to sell in Europe or the US.
EA's effort on madden didnt get much praise either. And I dont think Fifa, Need for Speed, Madden etc fanatics will choose the Wii versions over the others. They are simply not the type of gamers that like changes and neither to they see games the same way as RE/FF,/MGS/etc fans do.
So these US or European devs wont see this as an opportunity. Their type of games wont sell on Wii no matter how well they may implement Wii's unique features and no matter how much success Wii will gain thanks to other third party developes like Square Enix. The gamers that will buy Wii are different.
Wii kind of seperates the type of gamers that love games for creativity from the ones that dont care about creativity but play games just for mindless fan. The first type are the gamers will choose Wii. Others will choose the other consoles.
I ve noticed that the PS brand usually gets a mix of these two types, 360 mostly gets the second type and Wii will mostly get the first type. Something similar is what happened with the 128bit generation too.
Most gamers that chose the PS2 chose it for the popular games and for specific exclusives usually with a strong sense of Art direction or Japanese influenced gameplay from developers like Polyphony Digital, SE, Konami, Capcom, Namco, Naughty Dog, Insomnia and the likes.
XBOX owners chose it mostly for its better performance in graphics and better versions of multiplatform games as well as PC to XBOX only ports like Doom3 and HL2 which were clearly very unlikely and hard to be ported over to PS2 due to technical limitations.
Gamecube owners mostly consisted of gamers that are faithful to Nintendo and love Nintendo's different approach in games usually trying to offer a variety of different gameplay experiences. These arent the ones that are very fond of popular games directed to the masses and they certaintly wont buy a Wii for these games either. They will buy Wii for a different experience and different games. And neither will the casual gamers buy Wii to play their favourite games like Fifa on it. They want to stick with the original gameplay
There isnt much room for a lot of US and European third party developers
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DudeMiester
Regular
Actually, I think it's the other way around. People who have games to have fun will buy the Wii, and those who play games for an escape/ego boost will buy other consoles. I think this is apparent in the fact that the first group will play a game on anything anywhere, but the latter group demands extreme realism and performance. Without great realism, you can't escape reality. Kind of ironic.
Freak'n Big Panda
Regular
I don't know, truthfully the only reason I play games if for an escape and I don't think insane realism is necessary to draw you into an alternate world. In some situations, yes, it helps but I think Wii as a platform is just as viable to produce games that allows for escape as any other platform. Recently the games I've been most draw into have been anything but realistic. I recently played rez for the first time and killer 7 both of which I completely loved and both of which provided an definite escape. Anyways I don't think it's so simple as Wii = people who play games for fun and ps3/xbox360 = everyone else. Wii has a certain image right now of being creative and 'different' but so does apple.... haha. So yeah the games are what is going to make or break this system, like any other system ever.
mckmas8808
Legend
DudeMiester said:
Why is it that you think people will buy the PS3 and 360 for an ego boost?
Guden Oden said:
Just wondering if you think it will be cheaper to develop for. I mean granted maybe compared to the PS3 and maybe Xbox 360 but I would think that development kits play a big part. (Developers working with new controller scheme etc.) Do you have any links or
info on the expected costs and what stage the development tools are at?
As for the early adopters they could turn out to be in a very good position if the momentum shifts to the Wii.
It depends. You can have fun with a Wii and a PS3 and a 360. I didnt say that people that want to have fun will prefer a 360/PS3 instead of a Wii. In the contrary I pointed out they all want to have fun and they all do. The difference is that people have fan for different reasons so they choose a console based on these. But they ALL do. Check my post again. People do have fan wih a WiiDudeMiester said:
The thing about the ego boost you mentioned doesnt belong to the major reasons people buy a console. But even if it is, if you take into consideration that people can have fun with all consoles, it actually supports even more my arguement that many people will feel worse off with a Wii since the kind of people that buy a console for an ego boost dont belong to the type that play games because they love creativity. They are the ones that play popularly accepted games with beautiful graphics (something I am totally against of).
So basically we are saying the same thing
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Black Dragon37
Newcomer
Isn't the main point of buying a console is to play games? Isn't the main reason to play games is to have fun?
IF I think? Didn't I just state it will be cheaper?jpr27 said:
If you'd like some reasoning to back that assessment up, sure, I'll gladly play ball! For starters, Wii will have a straight-forward and typical main CPU, with standard (if unspectacular) out-of-order execution ability. It's nice and conventional. On the other hand, Cell and Xenon are both weird multi-cored beasts, and complicated to handle and difficult get to perform really well. Programming will be more complicated and time-consuming. Time is also money, as we all know.Then there's the matter of memory. Wii is said to have less than 100MB of available RAM, while both other contenders have more than *edit:HALF
a gigabyte each. Stands to reason it takes more work to fill up 5x more memory. More work = more time, more artists etc, and again = bigger costs.Nintendo's tools are said to actually be very good.
Not really.
I'm not even sure the hard facts are public knowledge, I think most devs would like to keep their expenses a secret. They do speak out in general from time to time though, and the general consensus have been PS3 and 360 will be extremely expensive to develop cutting-edge games for. It's been said 10x more money than last generation, and even that could run up into tens of millions of $ for a big title.Iron Tiger
Regular
After trying Sonic the Hedgehog on the Xbox 360 and seeing Sonic Wildfire on the Wii, I realized that it's perfectly possible to use existing IPs in familiar ways on the Wii, that work even BETTER than they do on other consoles with traditional controls. I got frustrated with Sonic the Hedgehog because he moves too fast to control accurately with the analog stick. You want to jump on a rail to grind, but you end up overjumping and falling into an abyss. Wildfire uses an over the shoulder perspective and has you tilt the controller to control Sonic, and there's nothing awkward or jerky about it, unlike in the other 3D Sonic games.Guden Oden said:
The great thing about the Wii is that it's just so damned versatile. You can use existing IPs with traditional controls, or update the controls with tilting and pointing. A lot of the stuff that was shown was old IPs with new controls. Zelda, Mario, Madden, Tony Hawk, Sonic, Monkey Ball, and DBZ are all established IPs that took little imagination to be made to function with the Wii controllers.
mckmas8808
Legend
Iron Tiger said:
Well taking Sony's 6 degrees of movement would the Wii's Sonic gameplay be able to be used similarly on the PS3 if Sega chose too in the future?
