3rd March 2004, 7:49 PM
:hammer: :hammer: :hammer:
Morons... it's not that complex...
Nintendo did well last year. Yes, the price cut probably was more important than the game lineup and I shouldn't have forgotten that in that first post, but the fact remains -- last year they did well. They overcame having a weak first 9 months lineup and finished very strong (game lineup as well as sales of course). Now of course as I said all companies these days backload their schedules and christmas is overloaded with games. However, I was trying to say that Sony and MS both have third parties to help fill in those gaps. They still release fair numbers of games even in spring because of the vastly larger game schedules. Nintendo doesn't have that so their already sparse lineup looks even barer without that third party support. So we got like four games last month. Did Sony produce far more first-party-published titles? I don't know but I bet it's not dramatic. But because of all those third party games...
Nintendo only seems to be able to compete by ignoring some parts of the year. They can produce plenty of games to at least equal the opponents' christmas lineups, but the rest of the year suffers... given how long Nintendo takes to make games I don't see a solution to that, but it's a fact and I was saying that it's intersting that despite the very weak Nintendo lineup at this time of year Nintendo continues to sell big. I wonder when people notice the lack of big new games and it slows down like it was for most of last year until it was ignited by the price drop...
Despite Nintendo's efforts for change it's clear that the third parties are not bringing enough support to mask Nintendo's inability to completely fill two consoles' schedules all by themselves (something no one could do of course).
Now this is something I see as interesting -- look at the N64. Most all the big third parties were American -- plenty of games from Midway, Acclaim, 3D0, etc... but (excepting the now-dead 3do) most of those have abandoned the Cube. Acclaim and Midway have pretty much stopped Cube development... which makes me sad especially for Midway because they make a lot of games I like (SpyHunter, maybe Rush 4, the next Gauntlet, maybe another Hydro Thunder, etc) and none of that now is coming for Cube... :( And for Acclaim they've been cutting back and we were lucky we got XGRA. They don't make as many good games as Midway of course but they do matter too -- they make All Star Baseball for instance...
Of course Japanese companies have stepped it up a bit with all the added support from Capcom, Namco, etc. and we do have more third party support than before so far but I am seeing SO many games especially from American third parties not coming to Cube that I think that in not too long it won't be better off than N64 just with some Japanese developers instead of some American ones... and maybe having those games go multiconsole as well...
Bleak picture I know but ... I don't see those companies (that said they were quitting Cube development) announcing new Cube games... and remember Midway and Acclaim were two of the N64's strongest supporters...
Morons... it's not that complex...
Nintendo did well last year. Yes, the price cut probably was more important than the game lineup and I shouldn't have forgotten that in that first post, but the fact remains -- last year they did well. They overcame having a weak first 9 months lineup and finished very strong (game lineup as well as sales of course). Now of course as I said all companies these days backload their schedules and christmas is overloaded with games. However, I was trying to say that Sony and MS both have third parties to help fill in those gaps. They still release fair numbers of games even in spring because of the vastly larger game schedules. Nintendo doesn't have that so their already sparse lineup looks even barer without that third party support. So we got like four games last month. Did Sony produce far more first-party-published titles? I don't know but I bet it's not dramatic. But because of all those third party games...
Nintendo only seems to be able to compete by ignoring some parts of the year. They can produce plenty of games to at least equal the opponents' christmas lineups, but the rest of the year suffers... given how long Nintendo takes to make games I don't see a solution to that, but it's a fact and I was saying that it's intersting that despite the very weak Nintendo lineup at this time of year Nintendo continues to sell big. I wonder when people notice the lack of big new games and it slows down like it was for most of last year until it was ignited by the price drop...
Despite Nintendo's efforts for change it's clear that the third parties are not bringing enough support to mask Nintendo's inability to completely fill two consoles' schedules all by themselves (something no one could do of course).
Now this is something I see as interesting -- look at the N64. Most all the big third parties were American -- plenty of games from Midway, Acclaim, 3D0, etc... but (excepting the now-dead 3do) most of those have abandoned the Cube. Acclaim and Midway have pretty much stopped Cube development... which makes me sad especially for Midway because they make a lot of games I like (SpyHunter, maybe Rush 4, the next Gauntlet, maybe another Hydro Thunder, etc) and none of that now is coming for Cube... :( And for Acclaim they've been cutting back and we were lucky we got XGRA. They don't make as many good games as Midway of course but they do matter too -- they make All Star Baseball for instance...
Of course Japanese companies have stepped it up a bit with all the added support from Capcom, Namco, etc. and we do have more third party support than before so far but I am seeing SO many games especially from American third parties not coming to Cube that I think that in not too long it won't be better off than N64 just with some Japanese developers instead of some American ones... and maybe having those games go multiconsole as well...
Bleak picture I know but ... I don't see those companies (that said they were quitting Cube development) announcing new Cube games... and remember Midway and Acclaim were two of the N64's strongest supporters...