Nintendo and Third Party Developers
Nintendo and Third Party Developers
Has there ever been that one thing whether it would an event, a person, or a certain company that has changed your life? For me, it was about twelve years ago when I was 8 years old when my dad handed me a magazine with cartoon characters on it. As I was surprised as to what these figures were, I asked my dad “what are these things?” He had then looked back at me and smiled while pointing out which character is which and what game they were from. Realizing it now, it turns out that they came from a gaming company that is still active today called Nintendo. Ever since then, I have been interested by Nintendo until present day because of their phenomenal games and awesome artwork alongside them. I believe that the Nintendo Company will continue their longevity in the gaming industry and continue to grow as they have been doing. However, as Nintendo continues forward unto the unforeseen future, how long will they last when third party developers cease to support their newer consoles?
Nintendo has always been a big impact on the gaming community. Fusajiro Yamauchi created the product line currently known as Nintendo, which began in Japan in 1889. In 1963 they became known as Nintendo and started making games alongside cards. In the 1980s, Nintendo created the first ever portable handheld videogame. The reason Nintendo keeps evolving is to bring their fan support the best gaming visual needs For example: Mario started off in 8bit and is now running in a full 3D animation. This is some of the evolution of Nintendo products ranging from the Super NES and Nintendo 64 to the current generation of Nintendo consoles such as the Wii and Wii U. All these evolutions were necessary to make Nintendo the way they are today. The current CEO of Nintendo is Shigeru Miyamoto is well known for making many of the great games that Nintendo is well known for. Here is a quote that Mr. Miyamoto said himself, “When I’m making video games today, I want people to be entertained. I am always thinking, how are people going to enjoy playing the games we are making today? And as long as I can enjoy something other people can enjoy it, too.” (Miyamoto, 2010, Para. 37) In this quote he is saying he wants people to enjoy the game that he has created and to not be disappointed with the game. He wonders why the people play his games and how their reactions are whether they like the games or not.
In addition, Miyamoto had stated in 2005 that “Nintendo’s philosophy is never to go the easy path; it’s always to challenge ourselves and try to do something new.”(Miyamoto, 2005, Para. 10) I believe he was trying to say that they try to make changes every time and not to stick with the same things over and over again. That is why people have always seen a change in many of Nintendo’s console each time a new one is released. Due to them doing this, it is probably the reason many people say that their consoles are behind in tech compared to the current-gen consoles today. In addition to them changing and experimenting with new things to do with their games and consoles, this has lead third party developers to stop supporting them.
There are a couple of reasons for third party developers not supporting Nintendo’s current consoles-the Wii and Wii U. One of the main reasons is due to the expenses of porting a third party game to the Wii consoles. In which, the prices can be quite high in numbers as it takes a considerable amount of time, depending on the game, and making it compatible to a specific console. An example of such third party games that stopped supporting the Wii U would be Activision’s most popular game Call of Duty (CoD). The last game in the series that supported the console was CoD Ghosts, after that, no other CoD titles have made it to the console. In addition, another issue that contributes to the high cost of porting games to the Wii U is due to the specific formatting