The tale of Satoru Iwata and third party titles

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 12:12am by Eugene

Satoru Iwata is the fourth president of Nintendo, and has seen the company through it’s highest highs, and now it’s lowest lows. For Nintendo to get back on top, it is going to take something special from Iwata, and in this months semi-annual financial results briefing he discusses just how the company plans to do so.

One of the key items on Iwata’s agenda is to gain support from third parties, and to help them as needed to bring games to their platforms.

I think one of the very important jobs of Nintendo is to identify the third-party software made in Japan which, we believe, will have a strong affinity with the tastes in the overseas markets and, thus, have a strong market potential there, and we will collaborate with them to make these titles into hits. So, with these different efforts, we would like to enrich the software lineup for the markets outside Japan as well from next year, which will become one of the contributing factors for our improved profitability in the next fiscal year.

As I have been echoing for awhile now, all Nintendo needs to be successful is games, games games. Oh and games. If they can not only get third parties to bring their titles to Nintendo platforms, but to be successful in doing so, it will go a long way towards earning back some of the goodwill that was lost from fans and developers alike.

With many heavy hitting franchises scheduled to appear on 3DS in the coming months and into 2012, I can only imagine that Nintendo will again gain much of the momentum that they had when Wii and DS were both on top of their game. I think the success of Wii U will be largely determined by it’s price point, and only time will tell how much it will be at launch.

As a long time Nintendo fan, it hurts to see the company I love in such a rut at the moment, but I have faith that they will turn things around. Regardless, it isn’t going to stop me from enjoying my most anticipated games of the year in Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land. I can hardly wait.

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THQ says to expect more de Blob following strong sales on Wii

Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 4:24pm by Jack

One of the games I was most pleased to see under the tree this past Christmas was de Blob. It’s a great game all-around, it’s third party, and apparently it did very well–even better than Nintendo’s Wario Land: Touch Shake It!, which released on the same day.

The game did so well, in fact, that THQ all but confirmed a sequel will be coming our way.

A sign of things to come from third parties on the Wii? We’ll see, but it’s a solid start.

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Free Radical up for sale

Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 2:03am by Jake


Things aren’t looking so good for the famed TimeSplitter series developer, Free Radical. It has been confirmed today that the game developer is officially up for sale. The situation began shortly after Free Radical’s latest title (Haze – PS3) bombed in both reviews and sales. Combine the aftershock of a sorry game with the current global economy and you get layoffs, cutbacks and now a for sale sign.
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Fils-Aime criticizes third-party Wii efforts

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 1:54pm by Derek

Some people just don’t get the Wii. According to Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo’s third-party partners aren’t getting it either.

In an interview with Forbes published yesterday, the intimidating Nintendo of America president had harsh words for third-party companies struggling to find a viable consumer market on Wii.

According to Fils-Aime, their games just need to be better.

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“Window of Opportunity” now open for third parties on Wii, DS

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 4:33pm by Jack

More evidence today that Nintendo’s allegedly sour press conference and subsequent lack of games in the remainder of 2008 is, as the Joker says, all part of the plan.

“I think Nintendo may be giving the software publishers a window of opportunity, probably a few quarters, where third-party games may be higher profile in stores. I also think part of it may be simply where we are in the development cycle for Nintendo first-party titles.” – Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian

More at Edge. There’s comments from third party developers who smell some blood in there, too.

This makes sense if you consider the mountain of money Nintendo sits on today, and goes hand-in-hand with previous Reggie comments about encouraging third party development on Nintendo systems. Of course, come early next year, with the arrival of Wii Sports Resort, MotionPlus and possibly Pikmin 3, all bets are off. It’s all about the money, in the end ;-)

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