17 Years Ago, Nintendo Called The Death Of Exclusive Games, And The Collapse Of The AAA Market

Collapse of the mid tier?!?

You are sayign that as the mid tier went through a renaissance a few years ago due to superior distribution, rise of social media and kickstarter.

Edit: I see you are talking about consoles.

Maybe someone already addressed it but you do have to factor in recession and way more competition.

Thats actually pretty shit compared to the DS sales (ironically I like the 3ds more than the ds), which were what over 150 million, that's a 60% in drop sales. Don't get me wrong I love the 3DS and I love HH's but they dropped the ball with the 3DS cause we get maybe 3 or 4 decent-good games a year if we're lucky while the rest is shovelware .

If you look at the top 5 sold consoles guess who knows their shit (answer: Sony)

1. PS2
2. PS1
3. Wii
4. 360
5. PS3

How manly. And cool.

Why thank you, sweetie

• The death of the exclusive due to escalating costs- for most third parties it is no longer cost effective to create exclusives, and the only exclusives come from first parties, or first party funded games. This has led to further commoditization of hardware. Some consoles, with minimal exclusives, have found themselves on the wrong end of this commoditization, and have struggled to keep up with the competition

Nintendo predicted their own future!!

YEAH MISTER SAYONARA YOU KEEP TALKING WHILE I PLAY DUTY CALLS 23 ON MY GAMESTATIONBOX 6.75, NOW WITH 9% FASTER RAM!

Every single Nintendo release is AAA in monetary terms. This new Zelda, Breath of the Wild, has probably been on the drawing board for 10 or 15 years.

Doesn't even make sense.... nothing to do with what Char is saying.

yeah. Skyrim? in the same league as Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty as "Formulaic" or a "Template"?

"The effort to produce machines with better technology has reached its limit. If things continue, they may lead to the decline of the entire game industry. We're reaching the limits of how far we can appeal to consumers by boosting the machine's performance or providing more compelling graphics or sound."

-Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, August 2002

I know that sheep worship him but is was way off on a lot of points.

I don't get this argument. Who cares if it didn't sell as much as the gargantuan BEAST that was original DS.

That's like saying "hey this movie didn't have the highest box office gross in history, it's trash!" Not everything is going to outdo and rewrite history people...

Yes, game development is too expensive. Fewer get made, most studios shut down, and big studios take fewer chances on new IPs or weird styles of gaming. The industry has become homogenized. If I was EA or Activision I'd be seriously considering putting as many games on the switch as I can. Why? Cheaper to develop for, a return to AA gaming that doesn't require the budget of a small country to create. Third parties need to sell more games beyond the two platforms, enter the switch. Even if you only sell 500k copies on the switch, that adds to the overall total. The industry needs the switch and bad. Otherwise it will consume itself trying to keep up with resolution and graphics trends. They're too expensive. It can't be supported much longer. Look how poorly the Pro is selling. Scorpio is headed in the same direction.

The industry needs the Switch. Devs, don't listen to these supposed gamers telling you what they want. Do what's best for your business, put games on the switch. Sony and Microsoft are going to destroy you and you don't even know it.

You know Nintendo is on the right track when "gamers" like this are so easily triggered and threatened.

Nintendo...still in business, sitting on mountains of cash, and able to survive a wii u sales disaster. Sony and Microsoft could not survive if such a thing happened to them, with their business models. Poor sales of PSVR, PS PRo, and Vita are killing Sony. PS4 sales are only recouping all those losses. Microsoft is slowly coming back from their horrible xbox one launch.

Meanwhile, Nintendo selling tons of amiibos, 3DS units, and killing it in the mobile gaming sector. But yeah...don't listen to them...what do they know...

Nintendo can't win. They either blow the top off and it's a gimmick or they sell well and can't outsell themselves.

Nintendo gets so much irrational hate these trolls manage to compliment and bash Nintendo all at the same time. Look how successful they were! Look how semi-successful they are now!

@Bread_or_Decide: I look forward to playing all those great Nintendo games on my PlayStation 5.

Nowadays I don't need realism or highest graphics.I'd even take 720p if there's no lag to hamper immersion, a good story, good cast of characters, and a good challenge

Well be playing Playstation games on Nintendo devices before that ever happens. I can already play most of them on my PC.

???

I'm not criticizing Skyrim. I'm saying it became obscenely successful and caused a lot of other developers and publishers to chase its success. Is this something you disagree with?

The death of the mid-tier (A and AA titles) is what we feel the most. The days of the 8bit and 16bit mid-tier is long gone, the N64 only had a few.

It's sad. In many ways I miss the game renting roulette I went through as a kid of games I didn't know/never heard of.

Game development is just going to get more costly as consoles become more powerful. I suspect that this situation is going to get far worse with more developers closing shop or merging with larger companies.

To be quite honest, this doesn't make any sense to me. Many vita games found their way to the PS4, and there isn't going to be a single Switch game that cannot run on a PS4 or X1. What can the Switch offer graphically that PS4 and X1 can't do?

Doesn't matter if it's an A, AA or AAA. A fun game will still be fun no matter which controller you're holding in your hands.

Nothing new to me. Platforms have been going bust, developers have come and go since I started gaming. I've been a platform survivor two times over.

Developers too have had fame and then crashed and burned. Seems normal to me.

Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose, Sierra, Psygnosis, etc. All I remember in their heyday. Now? Gone.

Yet, I'm enjoying myself as good as ever. What I learned in all these is that where there's a void, someone will fill it. Some of them are bound to develop exclusives.

Nah, Ninty's got one foot in the past is all. It doesn't help that half their fans are like bomb worshippers, devoutly praying for the next games market crash. :P

Something like Nintendo VR studios, co-bankrolled by one of the big VR players, could be an awesome platform for Nintendo's talents - a win-win for gamers and the industry, but after the promise of Pokemon Go, all it seems we're getting is more of the same. Shame, because I love Nintendo games, but their conservative approach to content control in general is the main reason I can't justify buying their hardware any more.

Games generally aren't fun anymore. Hyper realistic graphics being the norm was cool for a while but i've realy began to notice that its come at the cost of innovation and genuinely fun gameplay. Lately if i play or watch anything new i think to myself "Do people actually enjoy playing this?" It looks like nintendo was able to see this and designed their systems accordingly. Unfortunately the majority of gamers and developers are not on that same page.

Well I guess its a first for SW then. I explained myself to char already.

Talk about triggered LMAO

I make one post and how many are butthurt because I segmented one statement by Nintendo? LOL Get a fukin life

Triggered gamer still triggered.

Same to you

Indie games existed, they were called shareware back then though. On PC that is.

There were a lot of indie games for the nintendo to from what i recall. it started a little tech war in the console era, nintendo and sega didn't want these developers making games without their aprproval so they tried to hardware lock the cartridges so they must be genuine. The work around was a game that slotted another game onto it etc. kind of clever I thought.

you want more A and AA games that were the norm 20 years ago, you end up with the junk shovelware the Wii had....

If gaming was left to Nintendo we will suffer a mass stagnation in gaming. I am glad for the existence of multiplatform games and gamers have spoken with the success of the PS4 and the Xbox One. The Switch is going to be like Pokemon Go, a temporary fad that will be forgotten by most. Multiplatform games are the future. Gimmicky methods of playing the same game has done more harm than good and when Nintendo crashes and burn from trying to flood the market with gimmicky shit, the industry can finally move on. :)

What handheld franchise games will be released on the Switch? Serious question. I don't know but you seem to do with claims like that. Will there be Professor Layton games? Phoenix Wright? Mario & Luigi? I haven't read a single hint that Nintendo will actually treat the Switch like a handheld.

A new main Pokemon title. So far, Pokemon Stars is rumored to be in development for the Switch.

Yeah, the indie scene was always around. Hell, indie devs and modders have more or less been dominating innovation in PC gaming for the past few decades.

Eventually the biggest companies will have to put effort into the games so they are good, instead of wasting more than the development costs in marketing and a large chunk of development on graphics, churning out OK looking but shallow visual novels and collectathons.

The best marketing is everyone saying your game is good and it being good to back it up.

Sales are doing better in hardware and software. Even Ratchet & Clanl sold better than it did on Ps2. The gaming industry is more heathy than it's ever been.

I would argue Sony games a just as creative if not more than Nintendo's. They also take more risk than Nintendo in terms of software while Nintendo is struggling with New IP's that bring in new audiences.

Sony is a liitle bit of Nintendo and Microsoft all in one wich is why studies show gamers are buying Playstion as a family console. It's one of the driving forces behind Sony's sales.

Fire Emblem and Pokemon seem to be the big ones so far. Of the three you named, two are third party games, so Nintendo couldn't possibly answer for them.

Foreemblem as well.

Also its common friggin sense for a start. Since the 3DS will be discontinued....

I mean... why the hell does it need a list when the thing is only now coming out? Its obvious.

Nintendo should drop out of the console market. focus on making handhelds and software. make games for mobile, 3ds, and PS4/XB1. Imagine the sales zelda would get if it was available to the 80 million PS4/XB1 owners. Not only that but the Xb1/PS4 lack games for kids really (outside of lego games and skylanders and such) having nintendos library of IPs on them would be huge

@darkangel115: Well, the Switch is effectively a handheld and not a console, so they did exactly that.

@charizard1605: I mean that's cool and all, and it's nice that they knew about all that and had some foresight...but..........................what actual, legitimate choice did they give gamers? Wii+WiiU, outside of Nintendo first party, weren't exactly anything to write home about.

They did very well on the handheld front, even when they had some okay-ish opposition from the PSP for a while.

@Desmonic: Well, as I say in the OP, they did a shit ton of things wrong.

DS, 3DS, and hopefully Switch, though? Great

@charizard1605: Yeah, the Switch definitely needs a lot more DS/3DS mojo than Wii/WiiU :P

So while it was nice that they knew all that, it just shows they didn't know what to do with their own convictions about the industry.

To be fair to them, they were on the right track with the Wii. Then they just lost sight of the big picture, and yeah. That got us the second half of the Wii's life, and the Wii U.

Ahh don't do that, dude. DS, 3DS=great. Switch is an unknown as of yet. That's a writing mechanic to include it in with the 2 aforementioned great Nintendo products.

I have a hard time caring whether they were right or wrong when they don't make any attempt to make a viable, well rounded product for the average consumer in the home console market. Crying about multiplatform games rather than adapting to the changing times was fail.

I guess at the end of the day, this place is filled with us, passionate gamers. So we talk about these things like the disappearance of the AA market and such. But you know what? I still have a backlog. If I have a backlog that means there is more games I want to play than time I have to play them. So where is the problem for me in all reality?

@charizard1605: Yeah, that thing fell off a cliff after some crazy 3-4 years. Which was odd, but nothing that could actively prepare us to what was the WiiU :P

I think they got it right with the Switch, but of course only time will tell :)

Well, that's why I said 'hopefully Switch' :P But yes, Switch is an unknown. There is a great first year of games lined up. So I am excited for it. But yes, Nintendo could drop the ball on it. Again. I don't expect them to this time. But they absolutely could.

And yes, sure, there are more games to play right now than most of us can play- but you know what? That ultimately does come down to us being passionate and caring gamers. For the average gamer, a lot of the games they used to play, such as the shitty movie tie ins, simply don't exist on consoles anymore. An entire segment of the market just disappeared.

I think the handheld side of Nintendo will save the Switch, if nothing else.

@charizard1605: I know you put the qualifier "hopefully" before Switch. That's how it is a writing mechanic.

The line up of great games is subjective, like entertainment, period. I certainly will not feel I missed out because I don't play Mario. The only one I ever played to completion was SMG, anyway. Zelda is all they have this year for me so its a weak line up.

The point still stands. Many of us have back logs. More games than we can play upon timely release, so why cry about things? When games like Green Lantern and Iron Man were getting released, we shit on them.