Reggie Fils-Aime Talks Nintendo Third Party Woes

Reggie Fils-Aime Talks Nintendo Third Party Woes

Who needs Call of Duty when you have Mario and Zelda

Third party support has been one of Nintendo's biggest challenges since the launch of the Wii U. The console hasn't been able to attract developers and publishers with the same level of success as Sony and Microsoft. Over the last two years, there have been many games that could have been released on the system but weren't - a lack of profit being cited as the main reason.

Nintendo is fully aware of their dire situation. Speaking with re/code, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime feels that the company, while struggling, is making good progress on turning the Wii U into a much more viable console for third-parties:

In the end, what third-party companies want is a large install base to sell their games into a wide demographic footprint that they can target their games to. They also want a robust connected environment so that they themselves can explore downloadable content or digital sales. For the Wii U business, year-to-date versus last year, our install base is almost doubled. We're building that footprint for developers, with a range of games from Bayonetta 2 to Mario Kart. In the North American territory, just about every Wii U is connected to the Internet.

Reggie Fils-Aime

However, when it was brought up that the Wii U is missing out on the most recent Call Of Duty game, Files-Aime took a more defiant tone and even took a shot at their competitors for their lack of originality:

I would love to have Call of Duty on our platform. I would love to have any of the big blockbuster, multi-platform titles. But I have to say, more specifically, I want games that provide a differentiated consumer experience. If you look at the other two competitive platforms, fundamentally, what's the difference? ...when you look at either one, either by themselves doesn't have a lot of exclusive content. They have a lot of shared content. Look at it from the standpoint of, what don't they have? They don't have our games. They don't have Mario and Zelda. I'd much rather be where Nintendo is, with a differentiated platform, differentiated set-up experiences that we can provide uniquely to the consumer. Let those other guys battle it out over, you know, which visual representation of Call of Duty is most compelling. I like our chances of having a differentiated console and a differentiated series of experiences.

Reggie Fils-Aime

What do you think of Reggie's comments? Would you like to see more unique third-party support? Do you agree that the Wii U is the only unique system on the market? Let us know in the comments below.

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Joe Larrey

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Anonymous said:

The Wii U is certainly unique - no question about that.

Regarding third-party support, I'd make a distinction between the 'big' third-parties (like EA) whose support Nintendo could probably do without, and smaller third-parties (like say, Nordic Games), whose support, in my view, is too useful to neglect.

If I were Nintendo, I'd ignore the big firms, and cultivate the smaller, more niche developers. This would provide adequate 3rd party support, and wouldn't require many concessions on their part.

9 years ago

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