Nintendo's quality output as a third-party developer

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=Sut]...create fitness products ala Wii Fit as that's where they see more profit rather than trying to compete with Sony and Microsoft in the console arena. It makes sense as a sideline but I can't see them making it their main focus. I'll try and post the link if I can remember where I read it. EDIT: It was Gamespot 'speculating' or Nintendo baiting depending on your point of view.[/QUOTE]
That's old news from way back well before E3, and they clarified that that was not the plan in any way. 

[Sut1]

Yeah I must have been lead there from another article that's why I edited my post.
Although old this sort of speculation helps hinder a already tough generation for Nintendo.
It's a strange one for me I sort of want to back Nintendo because they represent traditional gaming but their main IP's don't appeal to me and to be honest never really have.

[Segatarious1]

Well, look how much the game industry has changed since SEGA's hey day. Games require much more staff, and therefore require much better management, if you want content, originality, and quality.

Nintendo is far and away the best manged company, with the deepest and most talented teams, SEGA simply was not able to keep up and keep going. SEGA is hardly alone in this respect.

How much internal oversight and direction did the Sonic games on Wii U have, for consitent quality? Honestly, you cannot even really compare Mario and Sonic anymore.  Imagine the next mainline Mario game being given to Big Red Button for example?  Nintendo is still regrouping and reorganizing I would not worry about their third party, their vision is being built further into the future than that. If you build an army, you tend to use it.

[scotland171]

Good posts all, and good thread Banjo. You make a solid point on being controller centric, which is a two edged sword. Many consoles have been hampered by their controller, or by putting more value on novel and different over tweaking the tried and true. This means risk and reward. With the NES and Wii they hit big, but its hurting the WiiU, and arguably the N64 too. The SNES and Gamecube were more conservative choices. Sega, for all their innovation, was pretty conservative on controllers.

Any opinion on if Ninty level of quality is also too much? Given easy patches, and a more productive schedule, and gamers by and large okay with updates, then is Ninty doing too much? You need one level of quality for sending a man to the moon or heart surgery, but for a video game? Maybe its like buying a bicycle, where you ride it a bit then go back for adjustments in a week or two.

[Sut1]

[QUOTE=scotland17]
Any opinion on if Ninty level of quality is also too much? Given easy patches, and a more productive schedule, and gamers by and large okay with updates, then is Ninty doing too much? You need one level of quality for sending a man to the moon or heart surgery, but for a video game? Maybe its like buying a bicycle, where you ride it a bit then go back for adjustments in a week or two.[/QUOTE]

Great point Scotland, one of the big criticisms of Nintendo systems (the Wii U and N64 in particular) is/was the game droughts. Months and months between their big releases with no third party support in the middle to keep gamers happy. Quicker releases with (if needed) bug fixes, gameplay balancing and dare I say additional DLC content ? It could be in Nintendo's interest to follow the industry model.
Bizarrely Sony and Microsoft need this less than Nintendo because of both their first party and third party support, their game libraries will be much larger (and in turn more varied) than on the Wii U.

Food for thought indeed.

[QUOTE=Segatarious] Honestly, you cannot even really compare Mario and Sonic anymore. [/QUOTE]

Can't argue, the days of these two titles competing with differing styles but equal quality are long gone. As Banjo alluded Sega don't seem to take the care anymore and Sonic is nothing but a cash cow and a shadow of the Sonic we saw on Sega's consoles.

[Jon1]

I've totally been thinking the Wii U controller is hampering its success especially with 3rd party games. For the most popular genres it's unfathomably atrocious. The N64 controller was horrid too, and we may be seeing the same thing here. I feel for owners when there's such a big game drought. The N64 would go 6-9 months without a good title. And that was inexcusable. A real black mark in video game history. I remember a year going by when the best game was a terrible South Park game. 

[Segatarious1]

The irony about 'good' third party support is that PS4 and Xbox One do not have any either. They also have very little in the way of exclusives, period.

I think it is backwards to call out Nintendo on being too picky on quality, especially with what we have been seeing in terms of 'finished products' from Ubisoft and EA within the past year or so. Quality is what has kept Nintendo relevant for a long time. Wii U has underwhelming consoles sales, but Nintendo still has a very big footprint in the overall market and is bringing in a lot of revenue despite that. Amiibos will be a cash cow for them for sure this year. The console market itself is fragmenting and eroding and mutating into something else altogether, so their position may be stronger than you may think, if they were to tweak their own delivery systems and software pricing. The videogame industry is very volatile, and that volatility goes in unpredictable directions.

Why would Nintenod go thrid party, and presumably support Sony or MS, in this day and age? They have many more options than that. Sony and MS have both built consoles that behave like a standardized gaming PC with pay online services. If Nintendo wants to braoden their market, I would think they would or could launch their own mobile/console hybrid service, or their own brand of STEAM.

In any case, it is far more likely that if they 'went third party'  they would do so on STEAM or iOS than pay licensing fees to Sony and MS with their PC Console machines.

I predict Nintendo is preparing to launch a low entry price point gaming tablet to succeed the 3DS.

[BanjoPickles1]

[QUOTE=Segatarious]Well, look how much the game industry has changed since SEGA's hey day. Games require much more staff, and therefore require much better management, if you want content, originality, and quality.

Nintendo is far and away the best manged company, with the deepest and most talented teams, SEGA simply was not able to keep up and keep going. SEGA is hardly alone in this respect.

How much internal oversight and direction did the Sonic games on Wii U have, for consitent quality? Honestly, you cannot even really compare Mario and Sonic anymore.  Imagine the next mainline Mario game being given to Big Red Button for example?  Nintendo is still regrouping and reorganizing I would not worry about their third party, their vision is being built further into the future than that. If you build an army, you tend to use it.

[/QUOTE]

All good points.

Nintendo has farmed a few of their franchises out, but I can only think of one instance when it was to an unproven developer (Starfox Command), and the drop off in quality was obvious. Even the Capcom Zelda's weren't exactly up to the levels of Link to the Past or Link's Awakening. Nintendo would never give one of their big games to a company if they felt that said company wasn't up to the task.

I also agree with your army comment. Sega had a few big-name developers, but Nintendo has spent the last forty years nurturing some of the most brilliant, notable names in gaming. Miyamoto, Gunpei Yokoi, Yoshio Sakamoto (Metroid), Eiji Aonuma, etc.

Jon, I agree with you about the gamepad. It's sad that people haven't latched on, because it really is a brilliant controller! I love that I can play Mario Kart 8 while my girlfriend watches tv. It's that sort of forwards thinking that I'm worried about the industry losing. What incentive would Nintendo have to invest the time and energy into their R&D if all it would be for would be good for is bolstering Sony/MS's bottom line?

[Leo1]

[QUOTE=Jon]I've totally been thinking the Wii U controller is hampering its success especially with 3rd party games. For the most popular genres it's unfathomably atrocious. [/QUOTE]

Only in the sense that it's raising the price significantly for a feature that hasn't really justified the effort that has gone into it.

People since it was first unveiled keep missing the fact that this controller is a return to tradition. Look past that touch screen and you have a digital pad, twin analog sticks (Are they clickable for L3 and R3?), four face buttons, pairs of shoulder bumpers and triggers, etc. That's what most of us wanted to see happen. 

The only thing remotely unconventional here are the digital triggers. And short of simcade racers like Codemaster's Formula One line and the Forza and Gran Turismo series, I'd argue that it's a positive turning it into a digital button for most uses like pinball games, firing weapons in a first person shooter, etc. 

[QUOTE=Segatarious]Nintendo is far and away the best manged company, with the deepest and most talented teams
[/QUOTE]

If Nintendo was far and away the best managed company in this business today, there would be no videogame industry. Few companies could afford the bleeding that has gone on at Nintendo when they've screwed up. 

Their quality consistency where game development is concerned is largely unrivaled. Sadly though, they're quite lacking at times in other areas like adapting to change, marketing, their working relationships with 3rd parties, etc. Reasons such as these are why they've routinely struggled with their console line for the better part of 20 years, why they've lost a fortune in recent years, why their lucrative handheld business is a shadow of its former self despite top notch hardware and great 1st party exclusives, and why their sales are a fraction of what they should be across the board. 

It's all because they're routinely failing to complement their game making prowess. That's not a hallmark of the best managed company in this industry today when they're unable to even provide an environment that allows something like Super Mario 3D World to achieve the level of commercial success that it deserves.

If every component of Nintendo was as well managed as their internal development teams, everyone would be playing and developing for Nintendo hardware. Sadly, they're not and they're subsequently dragging down amazing projects like Mario Kart 8 with them.

[Tron1]

Nintendo also farmed out golf games to Camelot on the GBA & the 3DS. Unfortunately I think Nintendo should have done those games themselves as they would have been much better.