Shouldn't it be Sony, not Nintendo that goes 3rd Party?

I never understood this push for Nintendo to go 3rd party. Sure, people love their franchises and that's usually about it on their platforms, but at least their hardware offers something unique.

Sony is in just as dire a financial situation as them if not worse, and their hardware offers little to nothing over a good home theater PC setup or the XBox for games. (Notice i said hardware, not online services) Microsoft offers almost nothing in the way of first party development these days but at least they're successful.

Is it because Sony doesn't have the same appeal of first party studios and titles? Or simply because third parties tend to publish most everything for their system as well? Or the illusion that because they're a large electronics corporation outside of games that they're immune to poor financials?

I honestly believe Sony will hang up their hat and call it a day for gaming long before Nintendo will, simply by the ability for Nintendo to leverage their franchises into people buying their hardware. The fact that this "nintendo should go 3rd party" thing has gone on for so long is proof of that. I don't see threads of people crying for Killzone to get ported to xbox so they don't have to buy a playstation for it.

Actually, the gaming branch of Sony is doing extremely well. It's the rest of the company not tied to the Playstation brand that's in a financial situation.

Sony relied on new IP's to carry them through this generation. Nintendo made some more Mario, Metroid, and Zelda games. Plus, the Playstation part of Sony is pretty profitable; Nintendo doesn't have anything beyond games unless I'm mistaken.

Also, Nintendo's business practices and misguided reliance on gimmicks seems to push away the majority of third parties.

No. For one thing Sony is a hardware company. It makes more sense for them to produce a console. It's also an entertainment giant in the movie and music industry on top of gaming and having their own multimedia hub for the living room is a lot more important than it is for Nintendo.

PS3 and 360 are roughly tied worldwide even with a 1 year head start for the 360. Sure the software attach rate is lower but I wouldn't call the PS3 a failure.

The WiiU, on the other hand is set on a crash tragectory toward Sega land. 3DS might save the hardware branch of the company but they won't last in the console market for another 5 years.

@believer258: Nintendo made one of the most unique and disruptive products of the generation in Wii Sports - Alongside Call of Duty 4, nothing else influenced the direction of gaming as much between 2005 and 2012. I also really enjoyed a lot of games from them that were not mario, zelda, and metroid games - They took risks in Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven Fever, Xenoblade, Bringing over the Dragon Quest games to the west, etc. Whether those games interest you or not Nintendo takes plenty of risks and funds plenty of unique projects nobody else would do. Sony does this as well.

And Sony isn't as successful as everyone thinks - The company is saddled by massive debt and most divisions other than gaming are not profitable. In the same way that Nintendo relies on gaming for all of their profit, Sony relies on their profits from games to carry other businesses that cost a lot of money.

Nintendo just doesn't have "it" anymore. They're close minded when it comes to hardware and rely on stagnant Mario games to carry them.

And this speculation is based on 3 months of sales evidence? Two of which were fine?

People really are overreacting to the sales numbers of the Wii U. They made the 3DS relevant again and I'm confident they can do the same with the Wii U. I fucking love mine, it's a great system.

Sony is a hardware company. They only make software/media to push their hardware(games for the PS, movies for blu-ray, tvs, and video equipment ect). If Sony got out of games they would likely get out of it fully. That said there is a long list of things they'd get out of prior to gaming.

Sony makes better consoles than Nintendo. It would suck to be stuck with Nintendo's backward standards and online. Imagine a console with no region locking and a relatively open system and good online with Nintendo games AND all the third party games. It would be awesome, and that's where the sentiment stems from. Obviously Nintendo won't go third party and everyone knows Sony is fucked, but gamers gotta have a dream.

Things to take note of for this thread:

1. The Playstation branch is a part of Sony, but might as well be entirely separate. Not having Sony brand TVs sell has no immediate effect on pushing PS3 sales.
2. Creativity doesn't make people buy consoles. Proving that a console is worth your time with games that show just what the console is capable of, whether it be good graphics or a whole new gaming experience, does. So far Nintendo hasn't had anything on the WiiU other than "hey you can play the game on the controller," or "now you have a map in your hands," neither which people are too excited about.
3. The DS was also considered a failure for the first year that came out. Look where that got us.

tl;dr: Sony isn't less successful just because they don't have first party games. And that doesn't make Nintendo more successful either. It's all sales numbers in the end and how game companies go about getting those sales numbers is different strokes for different folks.

they just stopped selling the ps2. and they're still selling ps3s. that would indicate there's healthy demand. so no, i don't think they should stop making and selling hardware.

... which is why it would not make sense for Sony to get out of the console market. The majority of their gaming revenue comes from licensing fees they get when anyone sells their game on their platform.

I don't think it's in Nintendo's best interest to get out of the console market either. A lot of gamers who like for them to go third party though simply due to their unhappiness with how Nintendo acts as a platform holder. It's something you don't really notice when you own multiple consoles, but it's much more obvious when you are a single console owner.

Since the N64 Nintendo has done a terrible job of garnering third party support. This only intensified when the Wii's hardware restrictions made porting much harder compared to the 360 and PS3. Then their is Nintendo's handling of online gaming. They have since gotten out of the clusterfuck that was user ID codes, but the online component on their systems does not match how robust Xbox Live and PSN are.

So the question then becomes, "What are the strengths of Nintendo as a platform holder?" Microsoft and Sony have kept up with what most people would consider vital to being a console maker: 3rd party support and a full online service. Nintendo is weak on both of these accounts, but they do offer motion control gaming on the Wii and now a unique gamepad with an LCD screen. I don't think it's a stretch to say that most gamers would want the former rather than the latter.

If Nintendo is good at one thing, it's rebounding. As it has been stated before, the DS and 3DS started off sluggish yet the DS became the PS2 of handhelds and the 3DS has made a successful comeback. If Nintendo gives up on hardware, software won't be far behind and the industry needs Nintendo to be successful. Also, Nintendo is really stubborn about these things and can still make a profit if they want to.

Oh... this is about Sony, right?

Sony has no reason to bow out anytime soon even with every other branch of Sony spinning out of control. The Playstation brand is still one of the best-known brands in the world and all it takes is a few killer apps and a Microsoft blunder or two and Sony is back on top. If anything, Microsoft is the company most likely to leave the console wars in the future, but who knows when that will be. At least Microsoft can always rely on PC gaming as a crutch if the whole Xbox thing blows up in their face in 10 years or so.

@morbid_coffee said:

Yep.

Sony 3D TVs

Since the consumers who bought a wii last time around don't even know the wiiU exists or wouldn't care if they did and considering all the attention will be focused on Sony and microsoft who will want to buy a WiiU in 6 months? Saying the WiiU will be a less succesful gamecube isn't crazy and I'm sure that the shareholders wouldn't be happy with that kind of performance.

I can easily see Nintendo outliving sony if the Vita doesn't get games.

Sony hit a few walls this gen. I don't think they will have Ps2 success again. Nintendo survived the game cube, N64 and wii eras, they can live on with Wii U.

Despite what people think Nintendo continues to live on because they DO change their franchises. But Sony's marquee titles get stale by the 3rd entry. Also many Nintendo games would stand the test of time as long as they were in 1080P. There would be few games that would look better than Mario Galaxy if that was in HD.

Jak, Ratchet and Clank, spyro, Crash, God of War, Resistance, Killzone, Sly Cooper, have all peaked. Not to mention their games that came out in the past year haven't done great have they? Twisted Metal, Starhawk, Sly, Sony Allstars, they had hardly any marketing right?

Thinking on it, most of my favorite PS3 exclusives have little to do with Sony itself. I'm weird and I like Sega games... So if they went 3rd party I wouldn't actually care for much of their output. I can almost say the same for modern Nintendo, I find them very hit or miss. Then again, iPhone Pokémon and Advance Wars would be pretty awesome, and don't even get me started on the potential of Warioware.

Yes, nintendo's franchises have longer lifespent than sony's but they pretty much all peeked too. Zelda, mario platformers, mario kart, metroid, donkey kong, etc. Fantastic franchises but what outstanding games from these franchises have come out on a nintendo console resently? None. And without much third party support, what will sell their console when all the cool kids are playing all the hot games on shinier machines? Besides, I would expect that sony would come up with a bunch of exciting, ambitious, new IP for next gen. Something that Nintendo doesn't seem interested in doing at all.

Which means Sony desperately needs to hit a homerun with the PS4. They can't fuck this up on Wednesday.

What? From all accounts, microsoft has won this console generation. Most games sold were on 360 and by a good margin. What makes you think they're in a weaker state than the company that sold less of its 3 month old console last month than the worst the 360 or PS3 has ever sold?

Also, microsoft doesn't get a cent from PC game sales unless they sell the game themselves. They're pretty weak game publisher nowadays and I don't see them doing any buisness with valve so you can forget that whole MS going back to PC gaming plan.

Probably because Sony is worth 10x the amount Nintendo is. Nintendo is worth less then EA right now and if I was a major stock holder in Nintendo I would look at that and say we should be worth at least that and we could get their by scrapping hardware and opening up our IP's and publishing titles on all devises including mobile.

I think what some people are missing is the idea of nintendo making games for everything else. Screw the wiiU, think of the money that could be made if nintendo just pumped out a mario or zelda game every year and sold it on every platform. I would love to play a new mario game, but I'm not spending $400 to do so.

The thing is Nintendo has Valve like Pacing when it comes to when they release game. Nintendo usually takes their time with Zelda so Skyward Sword was the last game in that series, I didn't really think it was a bad as people say, though I agree I would like to see them get away from the hand holding stuff, tonally every Zelda game is different from the last and even mechanically they evolve quite a bit.

The New Super Mario Bros games are ironically never that new, but 64, Sun Shine and the Galaxy games are all very different. Mario 3d land was supposed to be pretty fantastic too. Sadly I think the side scrolling stuff sells better than the more clever and interestingly designed games. You play though either Galaxy game though and you are always doing something new, those games were refreshing.

The Metroid games are all fantastic but they don't put those out every year. Metroid has existed since the 80's but there was not a Metroid game between 1994 and 2002. Also I bought Other M 4 weeks ago, I liked it despite what other people say.

I'm excited to see what sony has next, I'd love to play the Last of Us, and the Last Guardian it just seems strange to me that Nintendo is accused of coming out with the same games over and over when Sony has probably ended more franchises because they made sequels every other year to make money off the hype.

It wasn't until very recently that I turned on my Wii for the first time in a year, it made me realize pretty and shiny only lasts so long, God of War 3 can have the most impressive neck ripping tech available, but in time, Wind Waker will look better.

But really though, you are right, Sony is capable of making something incredibly ambitious like Little Big Planet. There are dozens of other PS3 games I adore. Do we know what exclusives Microsoft has? Halo, Forza, Fable and Gears? I like Halo and Gears, but I feel like Microsoft has no real reason to be on top other than making a decent online community early on. If we are talking about making innovative games, I don't think Microsoft has you covered.

The playstation 3 allows me to replace the harddrive with any generic laptop drive, plug in a keyboard or mouse and be able use them no problem, it used to be able to install linux. The system itself was well made in that there was not an abnormal amount of system failures. I like that option, and I would like to avoid having to pay for online, no matter how good it is (personal opinion). And lets face it, Nintendo is not competing directly with microsoft. This creates a pho-monopoly. If sony is not there to compete with them, I can only imagine the horror Microsoft can unleash on its closed system. For example, price drops would not occur as much, especially if microsoft starts to market the xbox as "the mature premium" option. Sony, is the only thing holding back insanity.

I just want everything to be available on PC at this point.

Not being able to directly reply to people because I'm on my phone at work (night shift) is KILLING ME. Screw it, I'll save my responses for when I get home.

Either way both Sony and Nintendo have awesome first party content that they could concentrate on if they weren't manufacturing and managing consoles.

That's more rational speculation, though I still think it's a little early to say that this will be the console that puts Nintendo out of the console business.

you seem to be grossly missinformed

I'm not going to play armchair industry analyst, but based entirely on my experiences with the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, I don't see how consumers benefit from the continued existence of the Playstation if the best argument in its favor is exclusive games. I'd like all my games to be in the same place ideally. Hopefully, the next generation of consoles brings about some meaningful improvement of services and the systems focus their competition with one another on that front.

The best Nintendo games would be better on another system that had more horsepower, better online functionality and no controller gimmicks.

Let me clarify. I was on a phone and didn't really think much.

To boil it down to basics, I and many others would like Nintendo games on different platforms because Nintendo's own platform is riddled with baffling online decisions, very low technology, and frankly dumb design all around. Just terrible ideas, most especially tying your purchases to a console instead of a retrievable account. No other console has these issues. Toss in the fact that when you buy a Nintendo console, you're doing it mostly for the occasional Nintendo game, and you've got a really hefty investment for something that's only going to be used a handful of times a year. Don't kid yourself - the Wii had some flawed but original niche titles but most people don't really give a damn about those games. That's why they're "niche", No More Heroes and Madworld and whatever wouldn't have made it on other consoles because people had better things to play. It also had Nintendo games, and that's kinda it. If we could get Nintendo games on the PC, PS3, and 360, then many people would be happy campers indeed.

For me, personally, I didn't like the Wii mostly because it was built around a gimmick. The Wii mote, as far as I'm concerned, is a terrible input device.

I don't really think that dalai is right, but I agree with him in spirit. I don't see Microsoft leaving the console business entirely (even if the Xbox Live Marketplace is pushing non-game shit more than gaming shit), because it continues to be easier to sell a gaming console to ravenous gamers than a multimedia center like Roku or whatever. However, I think Microsoft is the mostly likely to completely fuck up their transition from this generation to the next one. Nottle partially touched on why:

I frankly think that Microsoft pretty much blundered their way to first place this console generation. Maybe it's like that every generation. But the 360 did well because it got out ahead of the competition, and when the competition did come out, they managed to make some boneheaded decisions.

Nintendo courted an entirely different market than the usual with the Wii, and got even less multiplatform games than the Gamecube and N64 because even if the dev is willing to downgrade all the visuals, there often were enough buttons on the controller. Nintendo also wildly underestimated how relevant online multiplayer is to every non-Japanese market in the world. Nintendo got those casual bucks while they lasted, but those never last forever (unless you're Angry Birds?), and once the casual bucks dried up (2009/2010?) everything about the Wii was already antithetical to what existing/traditional gamers expect from a system. The second the casual market dropped out, the Wii was in trouble because they didn't really have the traditional gamer market at all; in today's market, it's nearly impossible to keep both.

Sony, on the other hand, coming out of the reign of the PS1 and PS2, had the hubris to think they could price their system very high and still maintain consumer interest, because the PS3 had better specs (in some respects) and clearly people just love the Playstation that much. It was a gamble that just didn't work out, especially when there were even fewer platform exclusives this generation than ever, and most of them looked the same or worse on PS3, due to initial difficulties with its different processor architecture. Their online was a decent start, but having barely tested the waters on the PS2, they hadn't learned many of the lessons that Microsoft already knew from the original Xbox. Between pricing and having few differences from the 360 (and less featured online), the PS3 didn't do as well as the 360.

Microsoft just lucked out, and happened to be the only console to put together a passable online community/multiplayer system that has been sluggish to improve (it's certainly no Steam), and by releasing early at a reasonable price, they had a huge install base compared to the PS3. And because being able to play online with your friends matters, it means every multiplayer game is nearly dead on PS3 relative to 360, because so many people got 360s early on and they want to play with their friends. Nintendo and Sony fucked up so bad that people still accept the 360 despite the fact that Microsoft is a bunch of greedy fuckers that still charge a yearly fee for basic online features AND their new UI constantly assaults you with ads and barely even tries to show you games anymore.

My thinking is that the Microsoft of 2013 is comparable to the Sony of 2006. They know they're the hottest shit around. They could have the same hubris that Sony had, where they think people will buy their console no matter what, just because it's the next Xbox. If anyone is going to do something fucking insane like make a console that effectively won't play used or second-hand games, or charge even more for basic fucking online multiplayer, or subsidize their console in such a way that you actually pay considerably more for it than if you just bought the console by itself, or something unimaginably cocky that I can't even think of, it's Microsoft. They'd be the ones to think they have the brand loyalty to get away with it. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

They don't really have much in the games department, and one way they've kept ahead of Sony is by just throwing money at people to get timed exclusivity. But if theirs is suddenly the bullshit console that has either some retarded price or horrible inconvenience, and presumably the PS4 plays 99% of the same games just as well and isn't a huge drag, a lot of people will get the PS4 instead. It's really not going to make up the difference that Microsoft gets timed exclusivity on DLC map packs, and downloadable games, because those are small potatoes compared to the retail games that come out same-day everywhere. Halo and Gears will sell a lot, but Fable and Forza aren't in quite the same tier. They won't be enough to put Microsoft's console ahead, anymore than MGS4 or Gran Turismo 5 did for the PS3.

I don't know if Microsoft is arrogant enough to do something really crazy, but I really hope they are, just to see the chaos that ensues when they announce whatever it is.

They should all go third party and make games solely on the PC.

Looking from a consumer point, I only buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games. When I buy Sony consoles, I can play all the newest games. PC exclusives notwithstanding I can't do that on Nintendo's consoles. It would be easier on me to just buy one console and play all the games. It's pretty simple. I buy a console for games. I can understand your point through a financial perspective, though.

Unique? Yes. Disruptive? meh. It wasn't an industry changer like Call of Duty 4 was, it made a new genre. Aside from that, has anybody cared about Wii Sports or motion controlled sports games since 2007?.

Did everyone forget that the Wii U has been garnering much more 3rd party attention? Cuz it sure seems like it.

Nintendo hasn't made very fun games for awhile IMO. I'd like to see a 3rd party's fresh attempt at a Nintendo game.

That always happens. Nintendo goes "Oh yeah! We've got third party support!" and then third parties leave it in the dust a few months later. Like Rayman, for instance, which was delayed and announced for other platforms. You don't do that unless you don't have faith in the platform that you originally pledged an exclusive to.

What do you want it to do? Give you fellatio while playing 1080P content just as well as any other device can?

Jesus Christ, get your expectations in line. There's very little difference between set top boxes aside from their interfaces and the content they have access to. The PS3 is a fantastic box for media, unlike the 360 which has piss poor media streaming options and doesn't even have a good Netflix app anymore.

As for it offering little to nothing over the Xbox for games, again, not true, there's more PS3 exclusives out there, free online play and PS+. That's a few nice little checkboxes if you ask me. (and AGAIN, what do you expect? they are both of the same generation, of course there's not major differences)

A) PlayStaytion is a very profitable entity for Sony, even the PS3 which has been their least successful system has sold on par worldwide with the 360.

B) Sony has never been anonymous with strong first party games, this gen they had some great amazing games, unfortunately no matter how good Uncharted 2 was none of their franchises has ever reached peak popularity like Halo, Gears, Mario, Zelda etc. Moreover the home console market since PS1 has been dominated by consoles that have strong 3rd party support. So as sales have indicated for this gen of consoles, consumers care way more about services and best playing experience in the long run rather than strong first party support. For the last 10 years the best selling games have almost been exclusively third party games (GTA and Madden in ps2 era and MW for this current era).

C) The best thing that Nintendo has is that they make great game and have franchises that people care about either due to the quality of their games or nostalgia. Imagine instead of Nintendo wasting so much time, money and effort on making gimmick based inferior hardware, they spend that resource just making games. Of course they can always make something like the Wii and completely shut people like me up, but that scenario has becoming increasingly unlikely.

So the argument for sony just does not make any sort of sense. We can debate the Nintendo case all day long, but in reality I don't think any of us have the require information and knowledge to concretely say what they should do. They are far smarter people at Nintendo trying to figure out what the next move for the company will be, and they are probably way more qualified than any of us in making that decision.

The Xbox 360 is a worst package of hardware than the PS3. The launch version was particularly worst.

It would make more sense for Nintendo to get out of the console business and just focus on releasing games for Microsofts and Sonys consoles... of course this will never happen but I can dream.

Does that always happen?

I think what happened here is that Rayman had the option to make more money, and were like "ok, let's do that".

That wouldn't make any sense for Sony, they make entertainment products, Nintendo on the other hand only makes consoles, consoles which are lagging behind Sony and Microsoft, only thing Nintendo gets a few notches for in it's stick is for creativity but even that is gearing down over the years, after the gimmick that was the Wii and what I believe to be the tombstone that is the Wii-U I don't think it has a real future outside of making video-games but even then..... What can we really expect from nintendo if they went that route? A new Zelda game every 2-3 years maybe a mario game every year, they need to think about making new IP, creating a new image for itself, Sega has done remarkably well for itself and broadening it's horizon.

wow, I didn't check back on this thread - just to be clear I don't actually want sony to go 3rd party, I'm just saying that there's just as many dumb arguments for it as there are stupid arguments that nintendo should go 3rd party.