Sony: 3rd-Party Publishers Leaving Nintendo Wii
SCEA claims that 3rd-party publishers are heading back to Sony thanks to crappy sales on the Wii.
SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer recently told Industry Gamers that 3rd-party developers are heading back to the PlayStation 3 (and presumably the Xbox 360).
In a sense, the honeymoon is over: hype surrounding the Nintendo Wii and its innovative motion controller has died down to a dull roar. Additionally, Microsoft and Sony are set to hit the console scene this year with motion controller technology as well, taking some of the spotlight away from Nintendo's former "hot" product.
But Dyer paints another picture, another reason why the Wii has lost its luster: Nintendo games. Third-party developers have struggled to make revenue on a console dominated by first-party products like Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit, and even the pack-in game Wii Sports. Publishers no longer want to pour resources into a platform that doesn't return revenue, thus leaving the door wide open for Microsoft and Sony to take them back in with open arms.
"In the past, it was 'Look how hot the Wii is,' or 'Look how hot the DS is,' and 'We should put resources there,'" Dyer said regarding 3rd-party publishers. "They did that and realized, 'You know what, third-party product just doesn't sell on that platform.' So now they're taking those resources, coming back to us and saying, 'Sony we're going to be able to provide you with that exclusive content,' or 'We're going to put more engineers on it and figure out to maximize the Blu-ray and get more out of PS3.' That's what we're seeing now."
Dyer added that he doesn't have to convince publishers to develop for the PlayStation 3 platform, saying that all he had to do was show them the TRST data, show how many 3rd-party titles are listed in the Wii's top 10 titles compared to 1st-party Nintendo titles. He does the same for the Nintendo DS.Needless to say, it's not pretty for 3rd-party titles.
"It's not a hard story to sell, and they get that," he said. "Unless they've got a particular franchise that's worked well on the Wii, you don't see a lot of innovative new IP coming out on that platform.”
Sounds like the honeymoon is indeed over for the Wii.
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Good thing it's only the first party games that are worth playing. I won't miss the endless real of horrible 3rd party releases poorly thrown together with clunky motion control.
You can't design a game for the Xbox, PS3, and PC and then expect to be able to throw in some motion control and it be a hit for the Wii. The reason the first party Wii titles sell so well is because they are designed from the ground up for the Wii. The only 3rd party game I own for my Wii is Tiger Woods Golf. I've rented and tried plenty of other 3rd party games but the controls are all god-awful.
And there is the problem. It makes more sense economically to port a title to the Wii than it does to re-work the entire game for the motion controls. It's going to start getting harder for developers to go multi-platform when these controlling devices start to change. You'll have the Sony Wii controller rip off, the actual Wii controller, and then the Xbox Natal motion capturing. Just can't imagine any games going multi-platform to support all of those devices and it not being a pile of crap on all but one of them.
funny, they put their 3rd/4th string development teams on the Wii projects, and then wonder why their sub-par games don't sell on the Wii, and keep blaming it on Nintendo, whose only "fault" it to put 1st string development teams on their games.
Read this article and you'll understand why 3rd party crap is not selling well on the Wii : http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html
I heard a lot of articles stating this. Wii is like the girl you sleep with one nite. After that it is old.
Like many of you said so far... how do they expect their piss poor 3rd party titles to sell. How about you developers actually make proper wii games. At the end of the day, Wii consoles far out number PS3 or Xbox 360, so the Wii market is still the one to be on, however, it doesn't mean you're going to get away with making sub-par games; you're still going to have to work. How hard is that to figure out?
I heard idiots saying the honey-moon was over back in 2007....Then they said it again in 2008... and again in 2009...
Funny it's always the best selling console, month after month...
Let's face it: if the Wii dies TODAY, it would still be the best selling console of all time.
I guess it really doesn't need any 3rd party developer to be great...
Is it OK for me to say I miss the Game Cube here?
The Game Cube was the exact opposite of this. It hurt Nintendo and helped third party developers.
That Sony dude is so wrong there xD!
The above posters also see that: how the friggin hell a game will sell if it sucks?!
3rd Party developers (if they are actually sayin' that) are just plain greedy and lazy to the bone blaming the Wii on their miserable results.
Cheers!
Maybe the Wii doesn't have the appeal it had a launch but neither do the 360/ps3, the novelty of the motion controller may have worn off but the ps3/360 never had any novelty apart from being able to match gfx with the PC's of the day and now they have lost that ability. I bought my PS3 for the bluray and the network/internet media streaming
Read this article and you'll understand why 3rd party crap is not selling well on the Wii : http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html
Wow !!!
That is a fantastic article (even if I have not finished reading it ... I have to work too ).
This link should be put in all the discussion where people are bashing on "casual" games, "casual" games sales and Nintendo's strategy.
Thanks!
i knew this would happen.Just like Ive been saying this whole time.
The WII isnt going to last like the other consoles.Once again nintendo is once again now staying succesful because of the DS and now only first party WII titles.
I think several of the points regarding Ports are fairly accurate. We are seeing the same thing with PC games, except reversed. Xbox/PS3 use technology that is several years out of date in the PC world and new games simply are not taking advantage of the changes because they are developed to be compatible with the lesser consoles.
Gaming right now is on a 3 tier system with PC - Xbox &PS - Wii all requiring different specs so obviously the dominant systems win.
There's a few 3rd party that make decent games on wii but they are all large companies such as EA and Konami. I used to believe it was filled with shovelware but if you think about it, every console ever made is. Wii gets bad press for it for some reason. Maybe because ever since the N64, Nintendo consoles just have been packed with sh!t. But realistically, how many NES and SNES games were even any good? hardly any.
third party leaving nintendo isn't going to hurt anyone really.
when third party companies were making games on the wii, they weren't successful. what makes making games on the ps3/360 going to change anything? better graphics? better graphics doesn't work because old outdated graphic games like wii sport and new mario wii are selling very strong.
in the end, it doesn't matter that third party companies are leaving nintendo. these third party companies were meant to die eventually. third parties who strongly support the hardcore shows that they don't know how to make games for the casual market. what they think of casual market is mini games and puzzles. good luck with that.
the problem is not that the third party games don't sell cuz they're third party, they don't sell cuz they suck! If third parties would produce better games for the Wii, it would sell. But they come with things like: Kidz Sports, Cocoto Kart Racer, Purr Pals, EA Sports Active and other kinds of CRAP! That's what makes the sales so low.