Now if only we can get the customers to stop relying on just Nintendo for the games. I am getting sick of hearing people complain that Nintendo hasn't been releasing enough games. That Nintendo hasn't been catering to their needs.

Not everything has to be about Nintendo. When was the last time you heard anyone complain that Sony isn't releasing enough games for the PS3 or that Microsoft isn't releasing enough games for the 360? Never. Because they don't expect Sony or Microsoft to make all the games for their respective consoles. So why do they expect Nintendo to make all the games for the Wii?

Stop driving me nuts.

Heh, the problem with Sony is they're the only ones TRYING to release games for the PS3. Everyone else groans when you mention porting something to the PS3... that is unless Sony says "We'll pay you money to do it".

What I would like to see from Nintendo is more indie friendly stuff for the DSi like they have for the Wii. I guess it's in the works, but I don't see any details on it.

If they're looking for "creativity", they don't have to look further than the indie scene.

"You saw the install base," says Kaigler. "We have a 100 million DS worldwide install base with 50 million shipped Wiis. That's an incredible silver platter that we're handing to the development community. Have at it. Here you are. We're giving you, between Wii and DS, a 150 million install base."

Except the install base is likely far less than 150 million due to the overlap of people who own both. Come on Nintendo, I'd expect better of you.

Sean, Kaigler is referring to the install base, not the user base. If she had said there was a 150 million user base, you'd be right in complaining, but she definitely said install base. The distinction is important for helping a developer to determine possible unit sales.

For example, if I was trying to sell "CCRoguelike" on both Wii and DS, and the DS version was just a port of the Wii version (or vice versa), then the user base is more important to me because it's unlikely that a user would both games, since one is basically the same as the other.

But if my Wii and DS versions are, say, different games from the same franchise (let's say "CCRoguelike-MMO" and "CCRoguelike-EpicSinglePlayer"), the install base is more important, as there are some people who may own both, but even those people may want to own both versions (one obvious example would be the hundreds of thousands of Wii+DS owners who own both a DS Pokemon game and Wii's Pokemon Battle Revolution).

@Carl: Huh, I guess I should have done some terminology research before I spouted that off. Good catch, and thank you for the followup.

Well, I'm not a Nintendo fan and never have been, but I do own a DS Lite. To be honest, it doesn't seem fair to make a generalization that developers complain about Nintendo's platforms, or that consumers complain about Nintendo not releasing enough titles. For example, Atlus doesn't seem to have any problems nor do their customers. Perhaps this issue is more of a case of a vocal minority creating a perception amongst the general audience. It happens in every field, after all.

By the way, I'm not sure I'd agree that most people don't own both a DS and Wii (if they own either). Many people own multiple consoles because of different software, different capabilities, and different needs in different contexts of their lives. The DS is particularly apt for differences between a console version and one for the DS system due to the use of the touch screen. Same with the Wii versus other consoles. Even if a game doesn't need to use the unique interface, developers will usually try to do something unique with it to help brand the version as "different" and "superior" for that specific system. By the same token, the portables do not have the sheer power of the consoles so they often have differences due to technical limitations (fewer cut scenes, fewer voices or even no voices, lower resolution, etc). If someone likes a particular title, it's likely that they'll pick up both versions because the differences suit different needs for different contexts. Also, researchers who analyze content will want to be able to do comparison and contrast between different versions.

The same thing happens with hardware, of course. How many people own more than one DS version? PSP? PS2? Etc. I think the numbers are higher than many people think.

@Ephriam Knight:

The thing is, the costumers can ONLY rely on Nintendo for quality products. Third parties, since the PSX days, barely provided quality support to Nintendo platforms. You can only get their AAA products on other platforms, while Nintendo has to provide all the quality content.

Look at the Wii. There is absolutely NO game with the same level of attention, polish, and/or production as RE 5. Or Gears of War. Or GTA 4. Or Dead Rising. Or Mass Effect. Or many other third party games on the other current platforms. How can costumers rely on third party games when they dont bother to release their best content, on the best selling console this gen - with half the total console user base -, the fastest selling home console ever, and the cheapest console, by far (this gen), to develop for? Two years and a half, and publishers are still cautious to release quality content on Wii.

We, fans, expect Nintendo to release all the games simply because third parties had a HUGE window to release content (since the launch of Wii Fit, in the middle of last year, after two years of proven success, which gave enough time to produce quality titles), and we got almost NOTHING A-quality to play. Third parties DON'T CARE about the huge Wii install base, so why should we care about their low quality crappy efforts? Would you buy a crappy/mediocre third party game simply because Nintendo isn't releasing a steady flow of quality games? I thought so.

Razien,

I think you almost have my point. We are so close I can taste it.

Basically what you said was my point. Customers are expecting Nintendo to do it all. But really 3rd party developers/publishers can create quality products. Customers need to be complaining to them about it not Nintendo.

Nintendo has given us some amazing products. Things that really show what the Wii is capable of. But other devs and publishers don't want to follow their example. Yes, Wii Sports and Wii Play are popular products, but that is not all Nintendo has done. Unfortunately that seems to be all that 3rd parties see. They haven't learned anything from Mario Galaxy, SSB, Zelda, Metroid etc. But they need to.

The Wii has some great potential and as consumers we have a responsibility to hold 3rd party devs to task on their lack of support. I try to find those great 3rd party products out there. I look forward to The Conduit to name one. There are a few others, but I don't really have time to look them up. The Wii is capable of many games on the same level (although not graphically) to the ones you named. It just takes a Developer willing to follow through with it.

There has been a couple superb 3rd party games. Most recently, MadWorld is high production values and excellent gameplay.

I guess it's just a matter of less developers are putting solid products on the Wii compared to how many devs are doing the same for other consoles.

The fact is not that publishers do not want to capitalize on the Nintendo install base. It is that few non-Nintendo games have been commercially successful other than the huge AAA multi-SKU titles (CoD, etc.) or the hugely successful peripheral based music games (GH/RB). Because success has been so elusive in their perception (flawed or not) it seems more risky for them to focus on those areas. I admit that few publishers focus exclusively on the uniqueness of the Wii / DS input for unique mechanics that can stand out from anything else on any console and I think it likely that breakout success will continue to elude them until they do so and realize they need to evolve beyond simple, shallow ports.

It would help if 3rd party developers actually stepped up to the plate and stopped releasing shovelware titles for the Wii. The DS certainly has seen better 3rd-party support, but on the Wii most devs seem content with releasing cheap (not in price) minigame collections and calling it a day.

AAA games require years to be built. Nintendo has been building Wii games since years before it was launched, while most third parties started much later, 2006 or 2007. It is just a matter of understanding that if a company decided to go Wii in 2008, there is no way they will be able to launch quality titles until 2010.

@Ephriam Knight

'They haven't learned anything from Mario Galaxy, SSB, Zelda, Metroid etc. But they need to.'

I think the perspective in general from 3rd party Wii/DS developers regarding this point is: "Yeah, we'd love to, if we had the budget."

I can't answer for the huge dev houses with huge budgets, but for the smaller guys, it's definitely a case of, we can see what goes into a Mario or a Zelda, and we can see that at Nintendo they honestly do strive for innovation and the highest level of polish, but it's less a case of us not having learned those lessons - more that the budget simply doesn't cater for those hefty prototyping and polish phases.

Regarding the bigger developers, we're starting to see the results of them spending some big effort on Wii/DS, such as EA with Deadspace: Extraction and Sega's The Conduit, not to mention GTA: Chinatown Wars. I would be very surprised if we didn't hear about quite a few more of these projects on Nintendo systems by bigger devs at E3, to be released Christmas '09.

I can't and won't be specific, but some of Nintendo's development policies are set up to specifically disadvantage third parties. Their treatment of third parties honestly makes me believe that they don't care if they're the only people making software on the Wii or not. Here we have an exec saying otherwise. Perhaps it's a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, but actions speak louder than press releases.

@Razien Bordello

Firstly, as someone else pointed out above, there absolutely are 'AAA' 3rd party Wii games. Mad World, House of The Dead, Umbrella Chronicles, No More Heroes, Guitar Hero has a Wii version... there's plenty.

But the Wii is not the best selling console of the current gen: the Wii is not part of the current gen. Part of this problem is the semantics of 'current/next gen' - yes, in terms of space/time the Wii is of the same generation as 360/PS3, but when we talk about generations we're talking about the relative capabilities of the hardware when compared to previous/other existing hardware. The Wii stands alone - comparing it to 360/PS3 is like comparing a mobile phone to a DS, or a set-top box to a PC. Yes you can play similar games on them, but the crossover is distinctly limited and the audience is different.

I kind of thought everyone understood that these days. The 50 bazillion Wii users are not 50 bazillion potential 360/PS3 owners waiting to be converted, nor are they 50 bazillion people who want to purchase 8 AAA titles for their console. They want shovelware; just let them have it and ffs move on!

I'm not sure about this, but when a third party developer creates a game for the Wii, isn't it very hard to get Nintendo to approve it? They seem to be a little narrow minded in what they consider, worthy of their Wii console. That in itself may be causing the lack of 3rd party games for the Wii.

Has anyone here tried to develop for the Wii and dealt with the approval process?

There doesn't seem to be a shortage of 3rd party games for the Wii. There's a shortage of creative games with well-executed control schemes, but I doubt Nintendo is intentionally blocking the well-made games that get submitted.