Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
I'm not surprised at Ward lashing out at Nintendo, but I'm surprised he's gone after EA too. It's rare to see such unfiltered honesty.
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Alex Ward (ex-Criterion) talks about the problems launching Need For Speed: MW Wii U
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
The Dreamcast didn't fail because EA weren't on board, Sega had Sega Sports and those 2K games were much better than the shit EA was releasing at the time. Unlike Nintendo, Sega covered more than just three genres.
Sega destroyed it's fan base with the Mega CD, 32X and Saturn. By the time they finally got it right with the Dreamcast, no one cared which is a shame because the Dreamcast was and still is one of the best systems around.
I think the Metal Gear Solid 2 E3 demo did more to kill the Dreamcast than EA did to be honest.
As for Nintendo, they fucking suck when it comes to reaching out to 3rd party developers. I remember meeting Ron Gilbert at a press event for The Cave and when I asked him about the Wii U version, he seemed confused and said Nintendo wasn't even making it clear to 3rd party developers what the system specs were.
Long story short, Nintendo takes an elitist approach when it comes to 3rd party developers. They should be chasing the developers, not the other way around.
RealDeadOne
Member
More evidence of this awful cycle the Wii U got stuck in.
People ddon't buy Wii Us, so publishers don't market or spend money on the release, so the game doesn't sell, so said publisher stops bothering to port all together, so the Wii U isn't getting games, so people aren't buying Wii Us.
IIt's a shit place to be stuck because the only way out of to throw amounts of money at the console and publishers that are ridiculous even by Nintendo war chest standards
People ddon't buy Wii Us, so publishers don't market or spend money on the release, so the game doesn't sell, so said publisher stops bothering to port all together, so the Wii U isn't getting games, so people aren't buying Wii Us.
IIt's a shit place to be stuck because the only way out of to throw amounts of money at the console and publishers that are ridiculous even by Nintendo war chest standards
By the time this came out, the next line of games would have been in production at EA without Nintendo versions in sight, and Nintendo would have been aware of that.
In other words, I suspect at that point the relationship was already broken, beyond repair.
Nintendo had to make the call whether to promote a franchise that would no longer be on their system for future instalments; EA had to make the call whether to promote a system that would no longer house their franchises for future instalments.
The question for me is: When and how did the relationship break down prior to that? I'm unwilling to apportion easy blame for the promotion catch-22 on both parties, but the real culprit would have been that breakdown, and that's what I want to know the circumstances of.
Just to point out a couple misnomers in the twitter posts, Mutant Mudds probably sold more on eShop because it was released on eShop much, much earlier than on Steam. It came out on Steam roughly five months after the Wii U release and almost two years after the 3DS release.
Sammy Samusu
Member
Why would Nintendo advertise a late NFS port? lol
opticalmace
Member
I feel bad for the developers. Hopefully he (they?) do well with their new company.
I'm pretty sure that it began to break down even before the launch of the console itself, but yeah, what exactly happened? We know that there was a lot of communication between them so they at least tried to work something out.
axisofweevils
Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
I do find the "lack of promotion" argument odd, since NFS was given space in the Nintendo Direct of that period. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJom45R8AuE
(The fact that the YT comments are moaning about the high price of said game is also noteworthy.)
(The fact that the YT comments are moaning about the high price of said game is also noteworthy.)
You're still dealing with smaller install bases on both versions of the eShop vs. Steam. Even with the head start on the 3DS release, and Wii U, what's just as important is that Nintendo was willing to feature it on the front page and keep it there vs. Steam not choosing too because they had in their opinion higher priority stuff.
Not to mention that Steam users are pre-conditioned on sales....
Ward probably wanted a traditional advertising campaign.
Gonzo The Great
Banned
This is much worse. I played Madden 1999 on my N64. The Wii U is only getting indie titles and licensed shovelware at this point.
Smiles and Cries
Member
When you raise the point about Wonderful 101 marketing you really made the point that Nintendo is stupid about marketing in general
Wii U marketing sucked balls and the sales prove it, still indie games seem to sell well on the eShop and Alex Ward's new company could have benefited from this instead of holding a grudge about what went on between EA and Nintendo he was in the worst spot he should understand this but hey it is his company I wish him the best.
nothing should sell well on Nintendo platforms if we look at Nintendo marketing
but we got JUST DANCE to thank for Ubisoft still willing to port to Nintendo
Nintendoom is alive and well but one company you should never bet against is Nintendo
eShop can only get better so any indie can still find money to be made there
Of course they have been. Sony's game division has been profitable every year since 2010 at least, and (I think) MS has been too.
It wasn't that Nintendo was stupid, they made a conscious decision to hoard their advertising and marketing dollars for the 2nd half of 2013 to try to promote their big budget 1st party titles the best way they can. Even if somebody at Nintendo was impressed at Most Wanted, it was released in March 2013, during the first half of the year when Nintendo wasn't doing any promoting at all for games.
Looking back at it, the only 3rd party game that did well on Wii U at the time was probably Monster Hunter 3U, and that's because Capcom kept expectations in check, got good word of mouth from fans of the series, and tried really hard to grow the sales organically. The one thing they did not do blanketed the airwaves with ads. It was very much a modern ad campaign done on the cheap, and that mostly worked.
opticalmace
Member
The co-driver idea sounds great. This is some of the stuff I was hoping would appear on the Wii U (clever new ways to play).
I don't have one (yet).. but this would be a good way for my girlfriend to play with me. She doesn't like to use the controller for things generally, but helping me out and following the story works for her.
It's too bad it turned out this way for them.
That's because they know a game like that would sell on Nintendo hardware
It isn't unthinkable that the 3DS sales have simply been better. From Beril's Gunman Clive sales thread:
Small update with the first two months of Steam sales:
Descent first few days but then it dropped of quickly. The 3DS legs continue to be ridiculous though, and sold more than the steam version in the same time even though it's been out for over a year (this chart doesn't include japanese sales):
What Nintendo's doing with indies right now seems pretty good; hopefully that's evidence that they've learned from their early Wii U days.
Smiles and Cries
Member
to be honest he really had me hyped about this game even when it was months late the PR tour he did for the game really helped spin that it was the best version even sold you on the PC textures used in the Wii U version
Alex Ward did a great job selling me on that game
I wish him the best now that he is away from EA and Nintendo
so hopefully you guys will buy his game on those other platforms
Yet Nintendo featured NFSMWU on Nintendo directs and the game is featured prominently on the eshop al the time, that's more support then EA ever gave it.
Yet it's Nintendo that is all to blame right?
shinra-bansho
Member
This thread is great.
Mod parade at the start.
Overly zealous distancing of the twitter ranter's Nintendo fan cred.
People still questioning Ward's platform decisions, when they're his savings and his livelihood on the line.
Blame for all (but mainly EA). Mixed with some "Good work, Nintendo, spurn those bastards." Rather than recognition that the only entity that can break this cycle is Nintendo themselves, because as highlighted nicely in charlequin's post third parties are the ones with leverage in the relationship.
Mod parade at the start.
Overly zealous distancing of the twitter ranter's Nintendo fan cred.
People still questioning Ward's platform decisions, when they're his savings and his livelihood on the line.
Blame for all (but mainly EA). Mixed with some "Good work, Nintendo, spurn those bastards." Rather than recognition that the only entity that can break this cycle is Nintendo themselves, because as highlighted nicely in charlequin's post third parties are the ones with leverage in the relationship.
ultratruman
Banned
Further confirmation, as if we needed it, that Nintendo never really cared about the Wii U.
To be honest, I wish he reconsiders his stance with Nintendo, and for NCL to get their act together. It'll be hard, no doubt, but still...
This
Smiles and Cries
Member
to be honest Need For Speed Most Wanted U had as much hype and word of mouth fans as Monster Hunter here on Neogaf the difference is NFS was on other platforms months before so prettier graphics was a harder sell to get people to double dip and some NFS fans did double dip
I still think Nintendo still needs an exclusive racer outside of Mario Kart and it would have not harmed them to put money behind NFSMWU at least for the month that Alex Ward was out praising the Wii U hardware they could have backed him up
They could have given his time Mario Peach and Yoshi to sit in those hidden Kart Cars in the game
they could have done so much more. As a Wii U owner I wanted them to do much more and fund the Airport DLC as well but when I look at EA and seeing this is an EA IP we are talking about I have to say I don't think they really could win here
oh yeah mang, a 30 second reel is really touting the game
Nintendo had a good opportunity to help advertise the game as the definitive version, but they threw it away.
Shame, Criterion was/is the only decent EA dev left.
GetemMa
Member
I swear to jebus, I don't think even Nintendo believed in the WiiU even back in early last year.
Not giving them a single marketing dollar to promote one of the few good 3rd party games on the system?
It just sounds like even Nintendo knew the system couldn't sell a 3rd party game.
Not giving them a single marketing dollar to promote one of the few good 3rd party games on the system?
It just sounds like even Nintendo knew the system couldn't sell a 3rd party game.
While there's a lot more Nintendo could do all around for third party support in general, in this instance it doesn't appear they could do much. Something happened between them and EA to basically cause EA to completely abandon the system without any actual commitment (certainly not an unpresented partnership.) Either way, its really unfortunate that Criterion got fucked over between this stupid feud.
SolidSnakex
Member
That's probably more up to Nintendo. It was mentioned earlier that initially Just Add Water (Oddworld) had no plans of releasing games on the Wii U, but Nintendo apparently approached them and changed their minds.
ambientmystic
Member
Excellent and incisive summation of the thread. Bravo.
I think the real issue is, Nintendo just hasn't had crappy third party relations recently, Nintendo has NEVER had great third party relations.
We like to think back to the NES and SNES eras when Nintendo actually had 3rd party support, but back then Nintendo's licencing policies were even worse. Publishers just had to put up with it because they needed Nintendo. Nintendo was still the king of the market generally speaking until the mid 90's. The real problem here is that Nintendo never actually learned how to complete for third party support to begin with.
I think since the Gamecube years Nintendo has done a little more to at least talk to third parties about their games, but it's almost always been Japanese third parties like Capcom, SEGA, Square Enix, and recently Platinum. Just look at the third party games Nintendo actually has promoted over the last few years. It's hard to say however how much of that is Nintendo coming forward to those publishers or those publishers choosing to develop on Nintendo hardware first, and Nintendo responding afterwards.
We know Nintendo didn't moneyhat Monster Hunter, but that Capcom chose to do Monster Hunter on 3DS because it was the best platform for it in the Japanese market. That seems to still be Nintendo's style -- build it (a successful platform) and they will come. Of course that didn't work with the Wii, but I think that goes more into the differing philosophies between Nintendo and most western game developers.
We like to think back to the NES and SNES eras when Nintendo actually had 3rd party support, but back then Nintendo's licencing policies were even worse. Publishers just had to put up with it because they needed Nintendo. Nintendo was still the king of the market generally speaking until the mid 90's. The real problem here is that Nintendo never actually learned how to complete for third party support to begin with.
I think since the Gamecube years Nintendo has done a little more to at least talk to third parties about their games, but it's almost always been Japanese third parties like Capcom, SEGA, Square Enix, and recently Platinum. Just look at the third party games Nintendo actually has promoted over the last few years. It's hard to say however how much of that is Nintendo coming forward to those publishers or those publishers choosing to develop on Nintendo hardware first, and Nintendo responding afterwards.
We know Nintendo didn't moneyhat Monster Hunter, but that Capcom chose to do Monster Hunter on 3DS because it was the best platform for it in the Japanese market. That seems to still be Nintendo's style -- build it (a successful platform) and they will come. Of course that didn't work with the Wii, but I think that goes more into the differing philosophies between Nintendo and most western game developers.
Yeah mang, and EA did something? you know, the actual publishers of the game and funders of Criterion?
Some of you are so fixated on blaming everything on Nintendo you even gloss over the fact that
the actual publisher didn't do anything themselves, as even Alex Ward himself stated.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Just for a moment, let's ignore the bumpy ride that was the PS3. You don't think that the PSX and PS2 were profitable endeavors for Sony?
LordBaztion
Member
you are right, it is technically EA's obligation to publish, distribute and promote their game, Nintendo could have not do anything against EA don't releasing on UE. Probably they already cover their expenses in the US release. It was up to Nintendo to secure a succesful launch everywhere and keep publishers interested.
Criterion is victim of EA's apathy which is caused by the lack of incentives provided by Nintendo. Nintendo is the most interested in releasing a console with wide support, if it requires they to make some reduce publishing cost, they should asume that specially if you know the launch is risky because that game is avaliable in other platforms.
Smiles and Cries
Member
I don't think he will reconsider his stance on Nintendo, he wanted something from Nintendo and it did not happen so Nintendo came out as the bad guys in his eyes
To be honest this is the same kind of presentation I would guess Platinum made for Bayonetta 2 at Nintendo
the difference being Bayonetta 2 is a Nintendo Wii U exclusive while Need For Speed Most Wanted U was a months late port owned by EA
so it was a very hard sell and he did not get the support he wanted from Nintendo
maybe he is also pissed at all the Wii U owners that did not buy his game so why port his new game to Wii U?
shinra-bansho
Member
I'm sorry but I remain relatively incredulous to the idea that some sort of "feud" exists and EA ceased Wii U development out of wholly irrational sentiment.
There's plentiful entirely rational cause for moving away from the platform, and, before one brings up the point: yes, there was even before it released.
Right? Anyone could tell there was no point in porting that game months later.
I was in the middle of adding in the 'Nintendo ahs to do their part' when Chrome died on me as I posted. But yeah, NCL needs to their part too.
I still say that NoA needs a good fucking shake up. Devs in the West probably need to wait on NCL, but I hope I'm bloody wrong on that part.
commonality with all those titles being that they are all platformers. Platformers selling well on Nintendo platforms is hardly a surprise, anyone into platformers in this day and age most likely is a Nintendo fan.
Fair enough, but didn't they piss almost all of that away with PS3?
ultratruman
Banned
Yes, okay. It sure was nice of Nintendo to feature the game in their
Read what Ward actually said though. EA didn't want to print the game because the Wii U's atrocious sales practically ensured they weren't going to make their money back, and Nintendo weren't willing to do anything about it.
Heh. It was the best console version of the game and was pretty much the only graphic heavy racer on the system (and probably still is).
If Nintendo showed they cared, then that would of have rippled on to EA.
Nintendo is responsible for creating a thriving environment for their console.