I daresay this issue between 3rd parties and Nintendo may actually be unsolvable. The best solution I see is a solution that is the best for both 3rd parties AND Nintendo. Too many of you guys are ready to steamroll Nintendo for not doing everything in their power to lure 3rd Parties, some of you even suggesting that Nintendo start making crap games so that 3rd parties get comfortable with their crappiness. On the flipside, Too many guys suggest Nintendo get elitist with their 3rd Parties. "Who needs them?" Sorta stuff. Nintendo kinda needs them. They need them in a "I can't do it all by myself" way.
One thing I don't understand is why 3rd parties are just leaving the GC? Are they just not affected by their piss-poor performance on the Xbox? Of course they aren't. Microsoft is subsidizing their failure. Nintendo could do that. Ensure they make a profit whether or not their games fail. 2 problems. If it DOES fail, that doesn't do much to help out that there "image" thing everybody's talking about. And without the worry of failure on the developers, why should they even worry about quality? And even if they did "buy" their support, They could never compete with Microsoft on that. They would outbid them everytime. So that's out.
They could become all ruthless and iron fisted. "Hey, you cancelled your GC games? Alright WE cancelled your GBA games. Isn't that great!?" This would have been really effective in 2k1 and 2k2, but since the PSP is another option, they can't play that monopoly card. AND there's that pesky image popping up again. This would make them look difficult and unamiable to work with. Though it would be a great schadenfreude feeling to help failing developers on their way to bankruptcy, it isn't right, both ecomonically and possibly morally. Now if they used the GBA in the opposite direction, possibly halivng Licensing fees for devs making GBA games to make GC games, and if that game is exclusive, well, how does a buck sound? That could be a great short term solution. But if Nintendo should increase the licensing fess later, that could lead to another fallout. That seems pretty good to me.
The problem with uber-pandering and bidding aggresively is, as my father says, "They sure would be fighting over a really small biscuit." For some of these 3rd parties, it just would not be worth the effort. They would bid aggressively and get the support, even front the marketing money and publish it themselves, only to have the game fail and the third party in question reach the same conclusion as before, except this time Nintendo has thrown money away. Image isn't worth that. Now some 3rd parties might BE worth it. Like some whose games are viable in all 3 markets instead of just two. I hate to make a value judgement, but companies like Acclaim and Midway are pretty medium-sized fishes in this lake compared to Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sqaure Enix, etc. Their games are marketable to other territories as well as their own, while Midway's and Acclaim have a history of poor performance in Japan. To continue this fish analogy, because I just ate some, I think the best selection of third parties would come from hooking the big fish and netting the little ones to grow at home until they grow big. Not only are the medium sized ones too big for your net, the game warden will make you throw them back anyway, so it's not worth it.
I think the problem here is that people are trying to find somebody to blame. Some of you guys blame Nintendo for not pandering to 3rd parties at the expense of their own game quality. And some of you guys blame the 3rd parties for being crap and their crap selling like crap (I admit deservingly), but that's really not fair. There is a solution out there, but it's not apparent, and bitching about it makes my head hurt.
Topic: Editorial: Don't Leave Me Now (Read 25871 times)
