TOKYO, June 7 — If there is a secret to the smash success of Nintendo’s Wii video game console, it may be this: even the creative loner can benefit from having friends. Nintendo is known for turning out hits with memorable characters like Donkey Kong and the Super Mario Bros., but it has had a reputation for cold-shouldering game software developers because it preferred to make both its hardware and software internally. The company, based in Kyoto, Japan, certainly produced innovative designs like the GameCube or the touch-screen on the portable Nintendo DS, but it was perennially outclassed and outsold by the more powerful Sony game machines. Sony’s PlayStation 2 outsold the GameCube six to one. Contrast that with the success of the Wii. The Wii and Sony’s technology-packed PlayStation 3 went on sale in the United States in November, a year after Microsoft rolled out its Xbox 360. As of the end of April, Nintendo has sold 2.5 million Wii consoles in the United States, almost double PlayStation 3’s sales of 1.3 million and closing in on Xbox 360’s 5.4 million sales, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. What changed? The secretive company is coming out of its shell. It has made a concerted effort to woo other makers of game software as part of a broader change in strategy to dominate the newest generation of video game consoles. The new Nintendo surprised employees at the software maker Namco Bandai Games when during a routine meeting at Namco Bandai’s Tokyo headquarters a year and a half ago, Nintendo’s usually aloof executives made a sudden appeal for their support. The Nintendo group had come to demonstrate a prototype of the Wii, which had not then been released. They handed Namco Bandai employees the unique wand-like controllers and as the developers tested a fly fishing game, the Nintendo team urged them to build game software for the console, listing arguments about why Wii would be a chance for both companies to make money. “I had not seen that attitude from them before,” said Namco Bandai’s chief operating officer, Shin Unozawa, who was at the meeting. “Nintendo was suddenly reaching out to independent developers.” With its new approach, Nintendo hopes to avoid the disappointments of its previous home game console, GameCube, which placed a distant third in the United States against Sony’s PlayStation 2 and the Xbox of Microsoft, say analysts and game developers. It also promises to change the famously secretive corporate culture of Nintendo, though only slightly; Nintendo refused repeated requests for interviews with its executives. Nintendo’s new strategy is two-pronged. Making the Wii cheaper and easier to play than its rivals attracts a broader range of new customers, including people who never bought a game machine before. With Wii, Nintendo has avoided one mistake it made with GameCube, which was competing with its wealthier rivals on expensive technology-driven performance. While Wii lacks the speed and graphics of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Wii sets itself apart with novel ideas like its wireless motion-sensor controller that gets game players off the couch and jumping around. The other thrust of Nintendo’s new strategy is to enlist software developers like Namco Bandai to write more games for Wii than they did for previous Nintendo machines. Nintendo’s hope is that this will help erase one of Sony’s biggest past advantages: the far greater number of game titles available for its machines. The more games a machine has, the industry theory holds, the more gamers want to play it. In March, Nintendo’s star game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, even goaded software companies to devote their top people to developing games for Wii. That is a big change from Nintendo’s previous strategy, which was to write most of its own software. Game developers say Nintendo has been more forthcoming with providing the permissions and codes needed to write games for its consoles. “The relationship is warmer and more active than before,” said Jeff Brown, the spokesman for Electronic Arts, the giant game developer based in Redwood City, Calif. The push appears to be bringing results. Analysts say one reason for Wii’s popularity has been its larger number of available game titles. At present, there are 58 games on sale in the United States for Wii, versus 46 for PlayStation 3, according to the Sony and Nintendo Web sites. That is a huge contrast with the previous generation of game consoles: to date, PlayStation 2 has 1,467 titles, overwhelming GameCube’s 271 titles. More in NY Times Link Nintendo is going out of its way to bring in third party developers and they are responding by providing more support for the Wii. What do you fanboys say now?
The situation on the Wii, as with all recent Nintendo consoles, is that you must always compete with Nintendo themselves. What fighting game can go head-to-head with Brawl? What adventure game beats Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime? What can you release to compete with Wii Sports? What platformer best Mario Galaxy?
The Wii has been the first Nintendo console in a long time supported by non-Nintendo fans, people who will buy other types of games, and Nintendo has responded to that, in large part, by doing what they did in the NES era - releasing a plethora of games that appeal to casuals.
I personally feel that developers approach the Wii from mixed perspectives - with a high budget FPS, for example, it's safer to bet on PC / PS3 / 360 development, which is why we see a lot of games like Haze winding up there. I see Wii developers as really making sure their games will hit the "non-gamer / casual" segment that has been picking up the Wii, fearing competing with Nintendo's own ****c franchises. That's become a bad thing - we shouldn't be getting games like Dragon Quest Swords on the Wii, but it's left out of Dragon Quest 9, a more hardcore title, because hardcore games sell better on the DS.
Will that change? I don't know - maybe? A great deal of that depends on the core Nintendo fans seeking out these titles, as I feel that many of the hardcore gamers who own both a Wii and another system will prefer these titles on their other systems, preferring Wii games that utilize the Wii's strengths.
From a developer point of view, I'd frankly be confused, and that's just what I've seen from their press releases - some third parties are peachy keen, others are talking about lackluster sales and apologizing for mediocre titles, we'll just have to wait and see. Hardware sales aren't the issue with the Wii, what matters are the games that Wii owners buy - so - if Wii owners aren't buying third party titles, or only buying certain genres (minigames, party games, social games) on the Wii, well, those will be the titles that get made.
you guys also have to realize games are not made over night. alot of games take years to make thats why we see so many games being announced for ps3 and 360. alot of these games on ps3 and 360 have been in development for 2 years or more and are just being announced now.
This is exactly what they need to do because I think 3rd parties are a little anxious after what happened with the GC. Nintendo need to reel in as many big 3rd party titles as they can, and they have a shot at winning the console war, in my view anyway.
Log in to comment