A console war bash-fest just isn’t complete until each of the big three is involved.
Following up on Sony’s bash of Microsoft yesterday, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer evidently also had a few words to say about Nintendo’s current offerings. Dyer believes that the domination of first-party videogame sales on the Wii turns third-parties off to the system and has brought them over to Sony’s PlayStation 3 instead.
“What publishers have said is they’re not going to spend the resources on Wii,” he asserts. “In the past, it was ‘Look how hot the Wii is,’ or ‘Look how hot the DS is,’ and ‘We should put resources there.’ They did that and realized, ‘You know what, third-party product just doesn’t sell on that platform.”
This realization is only a boon to the PlayStation 3, according to Dyer. “So now they’re taking those resources, coming back to us and saying, ‘Sony we’re going to be able to provide you with that exclusive content,’ or ‘We’re going to put more engineers on it and figure out to maximize the Blu-ray and get more out of PS3.’ That’s what we’re seeing now.” I like how Dyer is basically saying that third-parties tell Sony: “Well, nobody buys third-party games on the Wii, so I guess we’ll try your complicated-ass system and see how that works.” PlayStation 3 games must require at least 50% more engineers than Wii games.
In Dyer’s opinion, “Unless [third-party developers have] a particular franchise that’s worked well on the Wii, you don’t see a lot of innovative new IP coming out on that platform.” He’s right, thought I’m not sure Nintendo can do anything to fix the problem. People buy Nintendo games because they are the easy casual buy when walking into a store, and they are also fun for the hardcore. When any gamer looks at a wall of Wii games, finding something good is like searching for a needle in a mountain of poop. Nobody can stop publishers from cloning mini-game collections, or from naming and packaging them in a way that makes them look fun, when in reality they are the blights of the current videogame industry. The Wii has a reputation for crap, so even if a good game comes out on the system, it’s associated with the same crap as everything else.
Source: IndustryGamers
Published: Feb 18, 2010 10:40 pm