Everyone seems to assume that the lack of support of Nintendo hardware from western game companies is due to some bad relationships along with Nintendo's recent hardware itself. I've started to wonder if it's in fact from a lack of any relationships at all. Just look at how many important developers today have had almost zero interaction with Nintendo throughout their history.
When it comes to Nintendo and third party people seem to think back to the transition from SNES to N64 where people jumped ship to Sony as sort of the origin of all the problems. When you look at the developers and publishers involved at the time though -- Square, Capcom, Konami, Namco, etc., they more or less patched things up with Nintendo during the Gamecube era. They don't ignore Nintendo completely like many western companies do.
On the flipside, look at the companies who are completely ignoring Nintendo. A lot of them weren't even making console games in the middle of the 90's. Many of them only stepped into the console space within the last decade and they primarily did so under Microsoft's wing.
From what I can gather from looking at game libraries on Wiki:
Epic has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardwware.
BioWare has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware (excluding the outsourced Mass Effect 3 port).
Since Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley on the N64, Rockstar has only done a handful of Wii ports.
2K Games has only ever done a handful of Wii ports.
Irrational has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware.
Criterion has only shipped Burnout, Burnout 2, and Most Wanted on Nintendo consoles.
Bethesda developed a couple NES games, but hasn't shipped anything on Nintendo hardware since.
The Cave is the first game Tim Schaefer has ever released on Nintendo hardware.
To me this looks like an entire world of game developers and publishers that has never had to interact with Nintendo. They weren't in the console games business at any time when Nintendo was dominant in it. So, of course they see no reason to interact with Nintendo now.
The only western companies to seem to even think about trying to support Nintendo in any fashion are the big guys who actually have been in the console business since before Nintendo's fall from its throne. Guys like EA, Ubisoft, and Activision still have those relationships and honor them in some capacity as a matter of course. The smaller western guys who used to sort of round out Nintendo's western support: companies like Midway, Acclaim, and THQ, basically no longer exist.
In light of this, I'd conclude that the fault is probably Nintendo's for not explicitly reaching out to all those "new" game companies and finding out what they want, or at least trying to sell them on the Nintendo vision. However, I also wonder if the problem is just lack of awareness. Are the real decision-makers at Nintendo like Iwata even really ware of Schaefer, Irrational, Bethesda, Bioware, Epic, and any of their games? It's a known issue how the current console generation caught Japan by surprise with the aforementioned developers grabbing the console market away from Japan, but has Nintendo shown any indication of addressing this problem?
Meanwhile, you've got Nintendo building all kinds of bridges with the big Japanese publishers. On Iwata Asks you can see that the main is clearly aware games third parties were making on PlayStation going all the way back to the PS1. They're getting in fairly deep with these guys. However, have you heard Iwata or anyone else from NCL make any indication that they are even aware of Unreal Engine, CryEngine, and Frostbite?
Basically, has there been ANY communication at all between Nintendo and the world of western console game development that has appeared in the last decade?
I mean, Reggie almost definitely knows this stuff, but how much can he do really? How much control does he really have over Nintendo's communications with third parties? Should NoA and NoE simply have more autonomy in that area?
tl;dr: It's not that western developers are abandoning Nintendo, but that a lot of the most important ones today have never done anything with Nintendo, and Nintendo doesn't seem to be doing anything about that. Are the guys at NCL just not aware they exist?
When it comes to Nintendo and third party people seem to think back to the transition from SNES to N64 where people jumped ship to Sony as sort of the origin of all the problems. When you look at the developers and publishers involved at the time though -- Square, Capcom, Konami, Namco, etc., they more or less patched things up with Nintendo during the Gamecube era. They don't ignore Nintendo completely like many western companies do.
On the flipside, look at the companies who are completely ignoring Nintendo. A lot of them weren't even making console games in the middle of the 90's. Many of them only stepped into the console space within the last decade and they primarily did so under Microsoft's wing.
From what I can gather from looking at game libraries on Wiki:
Epic has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardwware.
BioWare has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware (excluding the outsourced Mass Effect 3 port).
Since Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley on the N64, Rockstar has only done a handful of Wii ports.
2K Games has only ever done a handful of Wii ports.
Irrational has never shipped a game for Nintendo hardware.
Criterion has only shipped Burnout, Burnout 2, and Most Wanted on Nintendo consoles.
Bethesda developed a couple NES games, but hasn't shipped anything on Nintendo hardware since.
The Cave is the first game Tim Schaefer has ever released on Nintendo hardware.
To me this looks like an entire world of game developers and publishers that has never had to interact with Nintendo. They weren't in the console games business at any time when Nintendo was dominant in it. So, of course they see no reason to interact with Nintendo now.
The only western companies to seem to even think about trying to support Nintendo in any fashion are the big guys who actually have been in the console business since before Nintendo's fall from its throne. Guys like EA, Ubisoft, and Activision still have those relationships and honor them in some capacity as a matter of course. The smaller western guys who used to sort of round out Nintendo's western support: companies like Midway, Acclaim, and THQ, basically no longer exist.
In light of this, I'd conclude that the fault is probably Nintendo's for not explicitly reaching out to all those "new" game companies and finding out what they want, or at least trying to sell them on the Nintendo vision. However, I also wonder if the problem is just lack of awareness. Are the real decision-makers at Nintendo like Iwata even really ware of Schaefer, Irrational, Bethesda, Bioware, Epic, and any of their games? It's a known issue how the current console generation caught Japan by surprise with the aforementioned developers grabbing the console market away from Japan, but has Nintendo shown any indication of addressing this problem?
Meanwhile, you've got Nintendo building all kinds of bridges with the big Japanese publishers. On Iwata Asks you can see that the main is clearly aware games third parties were making on PlayStation going all the way back to the PS1. They're getting in fairly deep with these guys. However, have you heard Iwata or anyone else from NCL make any indication that they are even aware of Unreal Engine, CryEngine, and Frostbite?
Basically, has there been ANY communication at all between Nintendo and the world of western console game development that has appeared in the last decade?
I mean, Reggie almost definitely knows this stuff, but how much can he do really? How much control does he really have over Nintendo's communications with third parties? Should NoA and NoE simply have more autonomy in that area?
tl;dr: It's not that western developers are abandoning Nintendo, but that a lot of the most important ones today have never done anything with Nintendo, and Nintendo doesn't seem to be doing anything about that. Are the guys at NCL just not aware they exist?
