UPDATE: Nintendo will publish The Conduit…?
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 3:03pm by Jack
Nintendo announced today that it will be publishing The Conduit. Not only is this great for the guys and gals at High Voltage, whose hard work has finally paid off, this is a ringing endorsement for the game’s chances (that is, should Nintendo’s notorious and well-known quality control standards come to bear on this title).
That is all.
UPDATE: Hold the phone. Conflicting messages out of San Fran this afternoon. It appears Cammie may have f’d up once again. She meant to say “first person shooter” not first party, as was reported by GamePro. We’re awaiting official confirmation
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Not much of a FPS fan myself but I hope the game plays great and sells a million!
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
This is terrible news! What this basically says is that not a SINGLE publisher was willing to give this any real attention AGAIN, and worse, should the game succeed then they’ll blame the Nintendo effect AGAIN, and should it fail, they’ll declare that shooters can’t work on the Wii AGAIN. This is a lose lose lose situation from the perspective of 3rd party investment and publishing on the Wii. Of course there’s probably no alternative, but it simply indicates that the industry really does have it in for we, the Wii faithful. Fail. Once again, almost all my purchases will be published by one company.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
high voltage will now have the secret nintendo knowledge. expect the game to use wii motion plus and the graphics polished up even more
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Whoa, whoa, elmer. Pull back on the reigns.
This is good and bad news. Good news because Nintend-published games always sell well, and are of the highest quality. Bad news because this all but confirms that online will be a chore, and not even close to what High Voltage had dreamed. Friend Codes need to go away. I know it’s been said countless times, but I don’t know how else to say it.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I’m pretty sure this is wrong. Cammie said “first-party” intead of “first-person”.
Score another one for her…
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
@Instant_Awesome
Not to say it will happen again, or that Nintendo are incapable of marketing a mature skewing title, but the last two console Metroid Prime games were mis-marketed fairly poorly and as a result, failed to hit a particularly wide audience despite their quality. Some smarter hype could have stolen some Halo customers, and it should never have been used as a bridge to hardcorify the mainstream as Nintendo attempted to wrangle it. Fortunately the Conduit has some excellent hype following it, but so did Metroid, and at least that was something we knew was good. This remains an unknown.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Very good Nintendo, you did the right move!
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Um, ATTN elmer:
If you’re High Voltage, having Nintendo as your publisher is the greatest thing imaginable. I’m pretty sure by the sound of your attitude, you’re not in the industry nor do you have any actual experience with console game development. From a business stand point, High Voltage has officially hit the jackpot by becoming a first party developer with Nintendo. This game has a been a special case all along and by being willing to publish it themselves, Nintendo is telling the world how impressed they are with The Conduit and securing the rights to the game as a future franchise. This is actually a win/win situation for Nintendo, High Voltage, and the consumers.
And BTW everyone, do any of you actually use your Wii for online gaming? Let’s face it, Microsoft almost has a monopoly on that front and even if all of High Voltage’s online plans actually see the light of day, the online play would suck even if it were twice as good as Mario Kart or Smash Bros. simply because of Nintendo’s general lack of support or interest in serious online game development.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
….and would Nintendo just fire Cammie’s sorry ass already?
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I think it would be great if Nintendo picked it up. The game needs to come out and I would like to see it secured as a Nintendo only franchise. That may be what Nintendo is thinking, if this news is true.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Been saying for months Nintendo would be the best publisher. But if Cammie f’d this up she needs to go, even though I always wanted to see her succeed.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
@ Kale
Your observation of the state of the industry is sad in and of itself. You’re saying that High Voltage should be ecstatic that they found a decent publishing partner. If this industry were any kind of reasonable then they would have found decent publishers lining up trying to sign deals for their game and more importantly their engine months ago. I mean, these guys were funding their own development pretty much to completion. There actually isn’t a better opportunity for a publisher: they don’t have to spend a single dollar, you know, actually making the game. You heard what they said. Sure there was interest and they were weighing up their bountiful options, but they were the ones telling us about publishers asking them to “crap the game out” with a quick release in time for Chritsmas. In the end no one else offered a better deal. Not even EA, who’ve been buying up IP and talent every which way (and they solved Nintendo’s online issues).
No. I’m not in the industry and I don’t share their attitude. I believe that Nintendo is the only truly viable platform right now. I believe that having 8/10 of your products be >$20 million action shooter productions for Xbox360/PS3/PC and 2/10 of your products being $2~3 million minigame compilations is simply ludicrous. I believe losing money five straight quarters is bad. I believe abandoning development in your country to compete with the rest of the world because you refuse to develop for 68% of your market is insulting to the market.
Now this deal is certainly good for High Voltage. We’ll definitely get a promising game out of it. Nintendo will certainly make even more money for it. But once again, 3rd parties will have lost another opportunity on the platform, and generated another self fulfilling reason to bemoan their situation on the Wii.
As for online, well it depends on your opinion. You’ve obviously never looked at Microsoft’s bottom line, because all that online monopolising cost them $1 billion on the first Xbox alone. The platform is hardly an inclusive affair, hardly diverse in its user mix, hardly reliably profitable for publishers, hardly cheap for consumers, hardly afforded design and development freedom and is hardly something everyone uses. It’s hardly a role model at all. Nintendo’s system is broken, sure, but at least it’s safe, for consumers, developers and Nintendo.
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I think some of you have it wrong. I have been following High Voltge fairly closely. They have said several times that there are many publishers interested in The Conduit, but they when they choose one, they want to make sure it is the right one. It’s not a lack of interest, but High Voltage being smart. They said they have enough resources to finish the game so they can be picky about choosing the publisher. I think Cammie misspoke though. A publisher other than Nintendo will probably be announced. Hey. Maybe Cammie is Perrin in disguise with all of this misinformation lol.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Nintendo did a good thing to publish this promising title. Now actually PROMOTE it. Don’t let it flounder like they did with Metroid Prime 3.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
There was plenty of publisher interest. I just don’t think there was the right publisher interest, and Nintendo must have offered them the best deal. I think a 3rd party or two could have stepped up to the plate and matched Nintendo’s deal for the benefits of having a strong position on the Wii, both with hype, a new IP and tech.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
If it really WAS Cammie’s fault… we need to get her some iron shoes to keep her foot from entering her mouth.
As long as these guys have a publisher and get the game out ASAP, all is good, though I would be pleasantly surprised if indeed Nintendo did it.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
First person shooters, adventure, platformer, gimme more Nintendo, anticipating this game.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I actually think that she was giving us a subtle hint maybe. Could it be possible that High Voltage doesn’t want to reveal something cool. Let’s say they have dedicated servers that let you play online without the use of friend codes. That would be High Voltages expenditure, not Nintendo’s. But if Nintendo does publish this game, that means they believe it will push the envelope on the wii and sell very well. That means even more money for Nintendo for publishing and shipping, and advertising the game. Plus we all know that The Conduit is going to sell well, considering it has damn good graphics, and it has fully customizable controls. So that’s a good thing.