Do Nintendo actually NEED Third Party Developers?

The Wii U is failing, not only failing but borderline a complete failure all together. If it doesn't pick up steam this year and get level in sales at least with the other next-gen consoles, it's going to have to go down as Nintendo's first real home console failure. Sure they've had the Virtual Boy in the past that was quickly forgotten but they've never had a high priority console be a failure, not a home console. One reason people have been claiming is that Nintendo is not getting the 3rd Party support it needs. This is true, the lack of third party titles on Wii U does at times look pretty astounding. But let's take a closer look at that.

There are third party developers on the Wii U, plenty of them in fact, a lot of big name games from Ubisoft have ended up on the console. Are some of the bigger name games like Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto or Dragon Age ending up on the console? No, they're not. But is this really a problem is the question. Let's go back and look at Nintendo's history with third parties. In the past their consoles since and including the N64 have lacked 3rd Party support quite significantly.

The NES and SNES both had very strong third party line ups and are naturally considered the best line up of games in gaming. Of course back then, third party meant a very different thing to what it does today. Nowadays when a game is made on Playstation, Xbox and PC, it's practically the same throughout, with PC having a bit higher graphical fidelity. Back in the 8 and 16 bit eras, 3rd party games came out on say the SNES and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, but they were completely different games. There was always a clearly better version, not to mention controller preference was always key as the SNES and Mega Drive consoles had completely different and layouts. But look at these two versions of the Contra, a 3rd party game.

They're completely different from one another. Compare that today where you get comparison videos that literally go down to the most basic of textures on the games just to try and find a difference, when really there is none.

Also interesting of note is that these games lack the same title specifically. They're both Contra games made and released around the same time for competing consoles but they're completely different games. Which brings up the next point. Third party games were often basically exclusives, sure you had your Mortal Kombat, which had a cheat-code blood version (people always forget it was hidden in a cheat code) on Genesis, and the superior version of Street Fighter II on SNES, but generally speaking third party games were often akin to what is now considered an exclusive title.

Final Fantasy for example, released six games across the NES and SNES eras (no, I don't count Mystic Quest or the other spin-offs). They were released as exclusive titles on Nintendo consoles that eventually jumped ship to Sony's Playstation with Final Fantasy VII, a game that put Sony's console on the map. The games were a huge success and I'm almost certain the video game landscape would be a very different place today if Final Fantasy had remained on Nintendo consoles - as Final Fantasy and Square Enix kinda represent that ship jumping mentality that happened in the late 90s that Nintendo never really got back.

Nintendo would continue to have third party developers for their consoles up to the GameCube era or at least more so than they do today. It didn't work out well for them then, so who is to say it would work out well now. Let's go down to basic numbers...

Ubisoft and other companies have released stats of where the percentage of sales for their game came from, and usually games like Assassin's Creed take 2-3% from Wii U. That is a very small number, now granted the install base is also considerably smaller than the other consoles and a lot of people say that is partially due to a lack of third party support. Does that mean Nintendo is in a Catch-22 scenario here. Perhaps a little, yes. But not to the extent that people believe.

What sold the Wii, it wasn't a third party game, they barely got any of those. It was Wii Sports. What sold the original Xbox or the PlayStation 2, it was Halo and the DVD Player in the PS2. None of these are third party games, they're often a bonus not a reason to buy a console. There are some GREAT third party titles out there, but often the best seem to come from first and second party developers. Games like Wii Sports, Halo, GoldenEye, Super Mario World, Gran Turismo, The Last of Us, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Xenoblade Chronicles, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart e.t.c

The question in the eye of the average consumer, and make no doubt about it, the gaming industry is so insular and cliquey, that they've forgotten that most people who buy consoles, are actually averages joes not hardcore gamers. No-one outside of gamers really has loyalty to Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. They look at three devices and say "what does this one offer me that the other two don't". For Sony and Microsoft, they offer better graphical power than the Nintendo. Nintendo last generation offered motion controls and dominated that generation, now they offer the GamePad - which while a neat innovation has had little in the way of software that showed off why this GamePad is the reason to purchase a console over the others. The main reason the PS4 is selling so well right now is the strong price point over the Xbox One. These are essentially exclusive features, reasons to buy a specific console for the non-mainstream gamer.

Nintendo's problem isn't a lack of third party games. It's a lack of games in general. No-one has a reason to buy a Wii U and it's version of let's say "Tomb Raider" when they already own a PS3 or 360 that can play that version. The GamePad simple isn't enough. Wii Sports and it's motion controls were something entirely different and new that consumers couldn't get on other consoles. The GamePad is an interesting addition but not enough to purchase a whole new console. The 3DS had a similar issue at first, 3D gaming, while I stand by and support it, is not enough to make people buy a 3DS. But hopefully, hopefully, Nintendo can convince developers to release some exclusives on the console like they have with Sega on the Wii U. Their future line ups of games might help boost the console's sales. 

More and more I see comments on Kotaku, GameSpot and other gaming sites that people are starting to say "I'm finding less reasons not to buy a Wii U". Public opinion is changing and it's not cross-platform third party games that are going to sell it. It's the question of "what does this console offer me that the others don't". And the PS4 and Xbox One are going to be powerful competitors for Nintendo, visuals are an easy sell for people to upgrade their existing consoles. Nintendo has an uphill battle but that's nothing new for them, at the very least they hopefully can bring out enough solid software that is exclusive to Wii U in 2014 to change people's minds.

What I Would Have Changed: New Super Mario Bros. U

It's no secret that right now the Wii U is struggling in sales, and while I don't believe that to be the case forever, I do think that it's certainly got a bit of an uphill battle compared to it's easy-to-understand predecessor. One of the main reasons for this is that the Wii U has yet to really demonstrate what it's potential is. Sure we've got Nintendoland, that while a fun game, serves little to show how a full-fleshed out game might be on this new console and more like a demo of neat tricks. There's ZombiU, an admittedly excellent game that brings the survival horror genre to new heights by being one of the most intense horror experiences since the original Resident Evil, but sadly that game hasn't really got mass appeal in the same way Mario does. Now let's look at Mario for a second, he has made his appearance on the Wii U in the form of New Super Mario Bros. U - A game that is the best 2D Platformer since Super Mario World for the SNES. However, could it have been even better, could it have surpassed World, or even my personal favourite Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES? It wasn't helped that a handheld New Super Mario Bros. game came out precisely three months earlier for the Nintendo 3DS, a game that really until the cool new DLC packs came out was very lackluster compared to both it's Wii and Wii U cousins. Now while I don't think any massive improvements to NSMB. U are going to skyrocket the sales of the Wii U, I do think that in my Hindsight of 20:20, there are certain things I would have changed to at best, make the game a system seller.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE CHANGED"NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. U"

Rules:

As per usual with these blogs, here are the rules:

• I can only change things about New Super Mario Bros. U, I can't say "Don't release New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS, as that's unrelated to changing NSMB.U itself.
• The Game has to be recognizable as a NSMB game. I can't simply say "Make it 3D" which would change it completely

THE CHANGES

First and foremost in any game is the gameplay. 2D Mario gameplay is also great, so why mess with the formula...? Well, I'm not going to. The Gameplay in the game is pretty solid, but the problem with it is just that... It's the same. It's the same as NSMB. NSMB.Wii and NSMB.2 - it offers absolutely nothing new. If you were to show me the front covers and Standard Def stills of NSMB. Wii and NSMB. U; without any of the power-ups of specifically defining characteristics of either game. I wouldn't be able to tell you which was which. Except for Wii is a red game case, and U is a blue one. So how am I changing the gameplay without changing the gameplay? Well, I'm not changing the core of the gameplay, I'm adding to it. How to do this? New Characters!

Characters

Perhaps it's just me and my friends but if you get stuck as Toad or worse, Toad-Clone, you're the butt-monkey of the group. Really? Does anyone actually like Toad... well some people do I guess... but in the entirety of nearly thirty years of Mario games are there not a few more characters you can play as. And to make matters worse, all the characters play exactly the same. Now Nintendo's rationale behind this is so that everyone gets the same experience... Well what you call "same experience" I call "dull and lazy". Why shouldn't Luigi get to jump higher like in Super Mario Bros. 2, for that matter, why isn't Princess Peach a character, make her able to glide. The ability to choose your character will get people to stop being Mario and play around a little, make the game a varied experience, as there were no power-ups in Mario 2, maybe now is the time to experiment with them a little, what if Luigi can jump EVEN higher with the Flying Squirrel power-up, or Peach's descent is longer than the rest now. What if Toad can fire up to three fireball/iceballs at once? Why stop at the Mario 2 characters, why not bring Wario into the mix with his unique dash ability only he has from the Wario Land games. What kind of unique power-up enhancements might he receive?

Power Ups

On the matter of Power-Ups, is it just me or are Nintendo running out of new ideas... Ice Mario, that's nice in a 2D game but isn't that great and we've seen it a few times now, a Flying Squirrell? Really? Well, if there are no new ideas, what about old ones. We've got the item menu right? Let's put it to good use like Mario 3. Where's my P-Wing, the Hammer Bros Suit, Frog Suit, all those rare interesting power-ups that made the game so much fun. I mean let's face it, wouldn't you want to see a badass Princess Peach hurling hammers at Goombas?

World Map

Onto the world map. It was a nice change to return to the continuous world map of Mario World's style... however I think it can be made better. There's a few times you can go different routes, but what if there were multiple routes through many levels that took you to different routes on the world map like in Mario World itself, routes that allowed you to access special levels and maybe find warp zones. It played with this idea a little but I'd really like to see it some more. Why stop at eight worlds, defy the norm create, ten, or twelve. In the handheld Mario Games it seems like many of the worlds are skippable easily and you only do half, the same in this game, you seem to choose the path of the worlds you want to do, so why not add more worlds to choose from, give us secret worlds like Star Road, the more content that ships with the game the more it'll feel like this is a brand new game and not yet another NSMB game.

Technology - Level Editor

Last but by no means least, we've just been given this brand new piece of tech in the Wii U GamePad and all you can think of is Off-TV play and creating blocks for people to jump on? Surely there should be more uses of the GamePad than that. What about a level-creator, how many times have you wanted to create your own Super Mario Bros. level but the technology of a normal controller was just all kinds of awkward for designing stuff, but with the GamePad, it becomes nice and smooth, like doing it on a PC or a Tablet. For that matter, this is the first Nintendo Console with solid online gameplay. While it's awesome to play this game in the same room as people, they needed to get consoles out the door, and no way is there better than "Hey, play this round mine... did you know we don't have to socially interact to play this awesome game!? Fuck yeah! Online Play!" Combine this with level-creation and Miiverse and you've got a vibrant community that would shit all over Little Big Planet and make NSMB.U, THE hot product to buy and play for the next generation. It would actually become a system seller. There's still time for a Level Editor, make a DLC to download and watch the money roll in... or dare it say it... watch it... Print in?

This is certainly something we're not likely to see any time soon...

So there you have it, the Mario series in general has always been pretty simplistic and I would never want to deviate from that, just to bring something new and interesting to it. This is not to say that the current game isn't great, it's a whole lot of fun and has a decent difficulty level, especially in the challenges that'll really put you to the test. But for now, this these are the changes I would have made to New Super Mario Bros. U

Mobile Gaming: A Threat to Consoles?

Okay, I'm going to start this by saying that really, anyone with a brain can answer this but apparently it needs to be addressed. Mobile Gaming has become a huge part of the industry it cannot be denied. Now whilst many people out there think that mobile gaming is a big threat to the industry. That by having easy access via downloads from an App Store or Google Play or whatever Nokia is doing nowadays, the smartphone and tablet gaming companies have captured many gamers and it will drastically damage the industry forever. I'm here to say; no in fact it is the opposite, it's made it bigger and better than ever. 

Let's start by realising that the audience hasn't transferred, this current generation of Wii, PS3 and 360 has sold more console units than any of the previous generations including the previous where the PS2 became the best selling home console of all time. Now before anyone points out that smartphones have only been around this generation and just started gaining steam, I should point out that the first iPhone, the smartphone that kick-started this so-called "competition", was released less than a year after the Wii, the best selling home console of this generation. In addition as I write this the pre-orders for the Wii U are sold out practically everywhere and I can't find a damn single one to buy, which is really pissing me of and getting me so god-damn annoyed that I can't contain it anymore I'm gonna scr-- Sorry where was I? Ah yes; iPhones... 

The audience hasn't shifted, it's just grown. People are still looking at the gaming audience like it's 1985 and the NES has just been released, they fail to realise that gamers aren't just people who play these things for a giggle and a bit of fun to pass time. They play it for hours and hours, they try to be the best, they actually compete online like sports, sometimes even for money.  Now were this 1985 I'd say yeah, these smartphones are a competition because gamers back then were pretty casual. There weren't many games that took longer than five hours to complete tops if you were good at it and even those that did like Final Fantasy don't take anywhere near the kind of hours invested that their modern counterparts have... even if those games aren't quite my "personal favourites" shall we say? It's much the same as movies, people don't watch movies to pass time, they watch them to be truly entertained and for the art of it too; otherwise films like The Godfather wouldn't be so popular.

Let's compare the NES games of the 80s with the Smartphone games of today. Super Mario Bros. is not a game for the hardcore, it's something fun to play to pass a bit of time, you go from level to level in a linear fashion, take a few shortcuts here and there, find secrets and just enjoy a fun little game you can beat with easy in an hour or two even if you've never played it before. What is Angry Birds? A game where you go from level to level in a linear fashion, shooting birds at wooden beams and pigs, each level gets more difficult and you can easily pick up and play this game. Sure there were some more "hardcore" games out there, like The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. Well, the same Final Fantasy, with improved visuals from the original PSP port, is now out on iOS too but Final Fantasy XIII sure isn't. 

See back in the 80s, for the most part games had a pretty  much 90% casual audience. Just look at the controller at how simple it was. A directional pad that is easy to read, Up, Down, Left, Right, two buttons, A and B. And a Start and Select, which at the time, were literally used for just that, Starting the game and Selecting the mode you wanted to play. It was simple, it was easy to look at and hey, it was something to pass the time or have a little fun with; only a few games were there to be taken seriously and even those were very basic at the time. Final Fantasy wasn't the epic kind of storytelling that exists today and nor was Zelda the kind of complex game it is today really, it was a "kill bad guys, solve puzzles, save the princess" kind of game. Anyone could understand it, your Grandpa could play these games. The controls and the game itself were so damn simple...

Try giving this monstrocity to your G-Pa today! What is this, stick, there's like four buttons and.. a... an... another stick? Buttons on the back and what's this glowing X in the center... is it... is it radioactive? Why is it vibrating, Oh my god, oh Jesus, lordy help me!! What the fuuuuuu--?!!

No-one would know what the hell to make of this if it had been thrown into the market in 1985. People would lose patience and get angry with all the buttons and all the complexities. Nintendo kept it simple with their controller and then, did the same with the GameBoy when they went handheld to play on the go. It was simple, it was easy to use... not unlike a touch screen of a smart phone no?

Finally here come the 90s and everyone's used to these two buttons so... BAM! Two new buttons! Two shoulder buttons that, well weren't used much in those days but still... SUPER NINTENDO IS HERE MOTHERF***A!! This control was built in mind for people who had played the NES, they knew the basics of playing and game and now they were ready for those training wheels to be taken off and go wild with four face buttons, the games have now taken a leap up. Now admittedly as I write this I'm constantly hearing egoraptor's voice in my head a little from his Megaman X Sequelitis Episode. And he had point, everyone had played MegaMan, they were used to it, so it evolved into Megaman X, a true sequel, the training wheels are off bitch! Now you're playing with power... because it's so baaaad... and Super Nintendoes What Genesis Do--? I'm getting carried away here.

Point is, upgrades. The third Nintendo console ramped it up. Added an analog stick and... for some reason three handles... I dunno maybe Nintendo figured, eh, but the late 90s Nuclear War will have turned everyone into a mutant with three arms. Then when World War III didn't break out they just rolled with it anyway. Sony brought the rain with two analog sticks, the third of which, sorta wouldn't be used until like 2003 really, but it set a new Standard that Nintendo launched out with the C-Stick on the GameCube and Microsoft rolled out on their... well I certainly ain't gonna call that controller because it's nothing but a monstrosity designed for bigfoot to play video games.

See that's how video games have evolved. The market has shifted because well, the gaming companies had their peeps. They had gamers now, people who bought consoles for games to get invested in these two-sticked, four face buttoned, four shoulder buttoned, controller rumbling games. They had grown up with them and become gamers, it's own new culture. But that was kind of a problem in a way, no new people were getting brought into this industry unless it was to grab a cheap DVD player from a PS2. Gamers were the only people buying these consoles. And these consoles were only getting more and more expensive causing adults to go crazy and scream "shut up and stop taking my damn money!"... that's the meme right?

So in 2006 comes a whole new console for the home market... The Nintendo Wii. To this day, it's still the dumbest name I can think of. No wait, scratch that, Wii U is the dumbest name I think of. This console got hardcore gamers panties all in a bunch. "What is this game, there's no blood and violence in it?" and "This is for babies, I'm gonna go play my console with an X on it because it's X-Treme!!!" (which sorta plays into how I feel Microsoft are sort of the new Sega but more on that later). But Nintendo realising the state of the industry and their own dwindling sales as a gaming company realised what went wrong. People were looking at the controls, seeing them as too complex and thinking "SCREW THAT!" and moving on. I must admit, even as a long-time gamer, I was getting a bit exhausted too just like all the non-gamers out there. But not with the Wii they wouldn't be. The Wii was simple, it was easy to grasp and perhaps most importantly, it was cheap. Did this damage Nintendo's reputation, actually not as much as people think. Nintendo fanboys like myself stuck around and enjoyed the new control. And really by the time of the GameCube those gamers who wanted to stay with Nintendo were sorta stuck with them for life as fanboys, so their reputation wasn't as badly damaged as people seem to think, the people who would have left Nintendo's fanbase had... kinda already left with Sony and Microsoft taking what was once Sega's fans.


The Wii Remote was simple: you literally do what you're doing on the screen. You've seen tennis right? Swing the remote like a tennis racket. You've played golf right? Swing it like a golf club. You've shot alien monsters before right? Point at the screen and pull the trigger. It was genius, and it brought a whole new set of gamers to the industry along with the Nintendo DS, propelling Nintendo to new sales heights. But in addition to that, it was a simple button set up too, one big ass button on where the thumb is that basically means "YES" and turned on the side, you've got that classic NES controller once again. Suddenly people who'd never played games in the past were buying up Wii's like they were going to run out of stock, and well, they did for a time. It took me literally a year after launch before I finally managed to get one and even then I had to bribe a few people sell my soul go to extreme lengths to get one.

Casual gamers were back in the fold once again, they didn't have to deal with complex bullcrap and didn't have to read a frickin' tech manual to use it. This control was like their TV remote at home, hell I'm actually really surprised it never became one. Casual gamers had a place they could play games to pass some time, maybe they'd try out the nunchuck attachment, seemed easy enough; Play some Zelda or some thing with a bit more meat. Perhaps they'd even invest a little money into a Classic Controller and try out something bigger like Xenoblade Chronicles or Monster Hunter 3... maybe their foray by becoming gamers afterall.

Okay, time out from the gamer-tech-talk. What is a Smartphone exactly? It's a thin phone with a screen that is literally impossible to not know how to use. You touch the screen, any moron could learn how to use it. It's perhaps even simpler than the NES controller. The screen can create touch-pad controls for you to use with icons that indicate what they do rather than letters to make it even simpler. So of course, casual gamers flock to these devices. They pass the time on the go. But the days of the NES and Gameboy are long since gone. Companies have moved on and a subset of people known as gamers have been created. Casual gamers are being brought into the fold by smartphones just as they were by the Wii. They give people who have never even tried a video game before their first taste of the gaming world. Perhaps they'll buy a Wii U because they like the idea of the tablet, it's simple and easy to understand and has an even greater evolutionary bracket to turn them into hardcore gamers with the buttons that smartphones don't have. And see that's the problem with Smartphones, they don't have buttons and even if someone invented buttons, you can't replace a big 50" screen with a tiny 4" iPhone 5 screen. Nor can you just suddenly get gamers to give up what they've become accustomed to with those multiple-button controls by saying "hey look $0.99 games!" You just can't. Especially not with Nintendo's eShop, the PlayStation Store and XBox Live Arcade giving cheap games too in the near future. Can you integrate new functions like a touch screen, sure, the DS and soon to be Wii U are evidence of this. That adds something new to the formula whilst changing nothing from the old, it evolves it further. 

Smartphones have helped crack open much of the casual audience. But no self-respecting gamer is going to stop playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, throw away their controller and go say "Hell yeah, I want me some Plants Vs. Zombies, I'm gonna throw my time into this badboy!". In fact companies have even realised this. The upcoming launch of the Ouya, a console built on made-famous-by-smartphones Android OS, will be launched soon taking easy to program and cheap approach to the home market for a cost effective $99. The Wii U, a console with Nintendo's market in mind and the Smartphone audience evolving at the right time could make a killing and based on my frustrations of not being able to find one, it already is.

The point of all this is this: The Smartphone is not a threat to consoles, if anything it's helping to broaden their appeal. Smartphones are growing sure, and the fact that a new model is released each year with greater processing power is fantastic but without a big screen, without buttons, this doesn't even begin to hamper the market of the handheld console, let alone the home console. Handhelds like the 3DS (not really the Vita) are selling like hotcakes because they are essentially offering something Smartphones simply can't and never will without losing their sleak, held in the hand, easy to carry appeal and then would lose their primary reason people buy them. TO BE PHONES! Don't believe me? Google: Nokia N-Gage. In addition they'd lose their secondary reason people buy them, to be use-all devices for everything. If Smartphones became gaming devices then they'd be just that; gaming devices. They wouldn't be smartphones anymore. Home consoles have nothing to fear and everything to gain from the increase of casual players on the phones. Of course many gamers are complete morons and don't realise this yet and will continue to bash "casual games" and "casual gamers" because they just don't get the concept of a constantly evolving market but the figures don't lie... the world of gaming isn't going anywhere and it isn't headed for another crash.

If anything, we gamers are in for a golden age soon the likes of which hasn't been seen since we saw a little brown and red plumber jumping on fanged-walking-mushrooms and eating glowing flowers to shoot fireballs (yeah I realise it as I write it) run across our screens twenty-seven years ago, bringing us back from what could have been the end of video games as we know it.