Is Nintendo in GameCube Mode or just plain ol' Nintendo Mode?

After last week's comments from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata about third party support on Wii U, some Nintendo World Report staff members got into a rousing discussion about how all of us (save Carmine) are pretty annoyed with it all. Let us know what you think about the situation in the comments.

Neal Ronaghan: Nintendo’s last investor Q&A featured a question focused around the dismal third party support on Wii U. How do you feel about Iwata’s response and the potential for third party support on Wii U to improve?

Justin Baker: We can all see that the Wii U has been struggling with third parties, but his solution just seems backwards. To get more third parties they're going to release more first party games? I see what they're doing, but we're too far along for the "make it look good and third parties will flock to it" stage.

I think Nintendo is just shrinking back into its shell and going into GameCube Mode: get some great first party games rolling and float your platform with it. They seem to forget that what made the Wii so attractive to third parties -- and shovelware developers -- wasn't that it had great first party support, it was that it was flying into homes at a breakneck pace due to the Wii Sports phenomenon.

As a Nintendo gamer, I'm excited that they're dedicated to pumping out those first party games I love. As just a gamer in general, I'm frustrated that they're pretty much telling me I'll need to own more than one console if I want to play anything not developed by them. There's no shame in welcoming (and encouraging) multiplatform games as long as they're not totally inept.

Neal: Totally. The mentality still seems to be “we’ll do our thing and publishers will come to us.” While companies like EA and Activision will never overtly say “Nintendo isn’t our focus,” Nintendo isn’t their focus. Just recently, an EA Sports representative lumped Wii U in with lagging Facebook games. That’s not an EA rep being a jerk; that’s an EA rep laying out a harsh reality.

The Wii U, unfortunately, isn’t a viable platform for a lot of third party games right now, especially since the install bases for its current competition (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) are astronomical in comparison. The only way I see the Wii U’s third party support kicking into high gear is if the system sells extremely well this holiday and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both tank. I guess that does support Iwata’s strategy of just pushing first party games, but it doesn’t seem like something I’d bet much money on.

Carmine Red: I think you guys need to take a step back and look at what Iwata’s actually saying. He never said that he wouldn’t welcome third-party multiplatform games, Justin; in fact, he calls it very much desirable. And I don’t know why you discount Nintendo’s first-party Wii focus when in fact you go on to point towards first-party game Wii Sports as a major reason for that platform’s success.

In fact, the only thing Iwata nixes outright is a policy of money-hatting games (laying out large amounts of cash for exclusive projects or time-exclusivity). The reason for this is that Nintendo would essentially get less games that way, that money could’ve been spent on developing the next Metroid, the next Star Fox, or even a new IP. Instead, Iwata wants games that come naturally to the Wii U, not games that he’d have to bribe into existence by sacrificing his company’s own development efforts.

Is that naive? Maybe so. But I think that sort of naiveté is not new to any long-time Nintendo watchers. Nintendo wants natural growth, but their cultural, philosophical, and technological heritage sets them apart from where many of today’s developers seem to be “naturally” growing towards. I’m not about to say that Nintendo exceptionalism is a bad thing, but I do believe it’s a reason that this has been a recurring issue for Nintendo that has been so difficult to solve.

So while I definitely believe that Nintendo would welcome more third-party Wii U support, I don’t believe there’s much that Iwata can do in the short term to address the persistent causes behind that. The only further short-term strategy I could envision beyond what Iwata lays out is a price-cut/value-proposition this fall in an attempt to motivate hardware sales, similar to what they did with the 3DS. However, with Nintendo’s current fiscal goals and situation, I’m not sure that’s a fiscally viable move.

Does this mean the Wii U will have a rocky generation ahead of it for third-party support? I believe that key titles in the Wii U’s third-party library make it better than the Nintendo 64 or GameCube, but I do think it’s useful to start making those comparisons. That sort of history just goes to show that this isn’t some new problem for the company, nor is it one easily solved.

Justin Baker: I see what you're saying, Carmine, but let's be clear: this is business. Whether the games come naturally or not the fact remains that right now they simply aren't coming at all. If Nintendo wants to have business success with the Wii U, they need to go out there and make that happen. I love Nintendo, and I want them to continue to be the creative powerhouse I know they can be, but that means they need to engage in some hard business with third parties to ensure that future.

Yes, first party games are their strength, but right now the Wii U is in dire need of those as well. Yes, in comparison to past efforts, the Wii U may look appealing, but gaming has grown a lot in recent years, and just having a few good games isn't enough to float a major platform anymore. The goofy, creative Nintendo we all know and love was built on the back of the hardcore, strong-arming, lawyer-slinging Nintendo of the early 90s, and right now they could use some of that old mojo.

I'm certainly not discounting the power of Nintendo's first party titles, I'm just frustrated with their release schedule. Wii Sports was big because it came with the system at launch and put it on many more shelves than it would have been otherwise. I would say it was successful not only because it was fun an innovative, but because it was planned, released, and marketed well. Nintendo doesn't have very many major first party titles ready for release, and they need to push for third parties to fill that gap. Being welcoming isn't enough right now, they need to be competitive.

Michael “TYP” Cole: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Justin hit the nail right on the head: Nintendo is in full-blown GameCube Mode. Nintendo is and always has been a very risk-averse company. They took an uncharacteristically big chance with Wii and Wii Sports, knowing they had something special, and it paid out big, but the company has become increasingly gun-shy after Wii’s momentum petered out and their soft 3DS and Wii U launches.

I agree with Iwata’s sentiments that successful first party titles have to lead the way. The problem is, I really don’t think Nintendo’s current lineup will convince western publishers of anything. Their big GamePad title, Nintendo Land, failed to make big waves, and instead of doubling down on the GamePad’s unique features Nintendo is falling back on its predictable, familiar franchises to build a safety net with their base. But those iterative releases are known quantities, and Mario Kart 8 or Super Mario 3D World selling a million-plus units aren’t going to resonate with third parties. If Nintendo wants to impress western third parties, Nintendo needs to market its wild-card titles more heavily in the hopes of something like Bayonetta 2 or (later) X becoming a breakout hit. It also wouldn’t hurt if they actively marketed what makes the Wii U version of multiplatform releases best, instead of assuming consumers will somehow come to that conclusion on their own with the PS4 and Xbox One dangling in front of them. Finally, Nintendo needs to fund and actively participate in the development of at least one high-profile, brand new Nintendo-published title that appeals to western but not necessarily Japanese tastes. Nintendo needs another GoldenEye. Badly.

Neal: Oh man, they totally need a new GoldenEye! Even their premier Western developers are working on very Japanese games. I won’t complain much about the proven/apparent quality of Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon or the newer Donkey Kong Country games, but those are both examples of Western developers making more Eastern games, or more accurately, Western developers making games that Nintendo’s Japanese staff could likely make if they had the time (which they clearly don’t).

To Carmine’s point about the Wii U third-party lineup already being stronger than some of Nintendo’s past ones, I agree. The third-party launch lineup was pretty solid, despite being filled with enhanced ports of preexisting games. What concerns me is the future. Ubisoft is supporting the Wii U this year with ports of all their major titles. However, Ubisoft’s CEO just said they’re lukewarm with the Wii U and if it doesn’t work out for them this year, their support will be cut even more.

After that, what major third-parties are out there? I’m sure Warner Bros.’ disastrous and non-communicative handling of DLC for Injustice won’t engender more people to buy their titles on Nintendo platforms. EA is in a wait-and-see holding pattern, and Activision is likely only supporting it with Skylanders and low-budget licensed titles. And while Nintendo won’t do moneyhats, they did their version of it with Sega and Sonic (as far as we know, no money exchanged hands, but Nintendo did do a “Sega Direct” for it). The main reason that happened? Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed sold really well on Wii U.

That’s why I don’t think Nintendo games selling well will make third-parties flock back. And that might be impossible because it seems no company realizes that when you release a game on a new platform a few weeks after it comes out on platforms a lot of people own, no one outside of a small group cares. Why did Sonic Racing sell well? The Wii U version was out at the same time as everything else. Why did Skylanders, Call of Duty, Madden, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, FIFA, Assassin’s Creed, Batman, etc. sell poorly? Because you could buy it cheaper on nearly every other platform at the same time it was available on Wii U. Apparently that’s a foreign concept to everybody that they’ll probably learn when PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launch with an oddly parallel third-party launch lineup of “games that came out weeks and months before on 360, PS3 and PC.”

Zach Miller:Nintendo games selling well aren’t going to restore the faith of third parties because it’s never worked in the past. Wait, am I wrong? Didn’t third parties start eagerly bombarding the N64 and GameCube with original titles once Nintendo got the ball rolling on them? No? Wait, how about the Wii? No? Shit. Okay, definitely the 3DS, though...hmmm. The fact of the matter is, this is just something we’re gonna have to live with from now on. Nintendo always talks a big game of having great third party support OUT OF THE GATE, but that support instantly dries up. Every time.

What’s really disappointing to me is that Iwata seems to genuinely believe that they’ll come back, hat in hand, begging forgiveness, once New Super Mario Bros. 3D World U come out and becomes the system’s top seller...among Nintendo fans. No, dude, developers have clearly gotten into comfort zones on Sony and Microsoft’s platforms, and if there was money to be made on the Wii U, they’d develop for it. It’s as simple as that! A new Mario Kart might tempt Jon Lindemann to buy a Wii U (in 2014--good job, guys), and probably a lot of other people, but are the numbers going to be so good that Activision springs into action on a Wii U-specific Call of Duty game? No, don’t be STUPID. That’s not how it works.

In these troubled times, Nintendo has to be willing to do what Iwata clearly isn’t willing to do: pay somebody to make some games for them. He calls it “subsidizing.” I call it “something you’re going to have to live with,” but Nintendo is a proud company and unwilling to publicly admit that their strategy isn’t working. Jesus, throw some dough at one of the big-name third party developers like Activision Blizzard or Ubisoft and get an exclusive game that people actually want, from a popular franchise. An exclusive Assassin’s Creed or...uh...what does Activision have besides Call of Duty and Skylanders? Throw a giant bag of cash at EA to make that Tiger Woods game we all wanted after you revealed the GamePad. Give us a Madden game where you can create plays on the GamePad--something it seems to have been designed specifically around.

Here’s another brilliant idea: market your goddamn console. We’re eight or nine months into this system’s underwhelming life, and I’ve seen exactly ONE magazine ad for it in Entertainment Weekly, of all places. No ads in gaming magazines, which is where I’d expect to see them. You’ve gotta give up on the Oprah crowd, Nintendo. Your success with the Wii was a fluke, nothing more, nothing you can repeat. But hey, you must know that because you’re not even trying.

Alex Culafi:Sometimes it’s hard to be a Nintendo fanboy, man. The Wii U is in horrible shape right now even in considering its somewhat-recent launch, Nintendo is doing a bad job of marketing its console, and the company is doing an even worse job of putting games on it. In reality, yes, if you spend too much money on exclusivity rights, your business could be put into bad shape. However, I have to wonder if Iwata is stupid, lying, delusional, or all three to think that doing none of it and letting your first-party support be JUST good enough for emaciated to not be the word associated with that paltry lineup is the way to keep your system going. How insane does this man have to be to think that doing nothing is the way to go?

The other thing about the news story that is making me particularly angry is the quote that "other big publishers have made all of their main titles available for the platform". Congratulations, Iwata. You got Batman: Arkham City and a cancelled port of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Whoop-de-doo. He sounds like a child making excuses about why he didn’t do his homework, and it is a little sickening. I want to like Wii U and use mine more than I have been, but Nintendo’s inaction and their bizarre level of pride and excuses is making me a little jealous of the people who had the ability to wait until the platform had more interesting and appealing games released on it (and I don’t even disagree that it will EVENTUALLY have those games). In other words, Nintendo needs to make a case this holiday season about why I should spend my consumer dollars on a Wii U (hypothetically) instead of a PS4 or Xbox One. If they can’t make that case and decide to kick their feet up, decide against rolling up their sleeves, point to what almost amounts to a port of Wind Waker, and say “checkmate” to the competition, Nintendo will deserve 100% of the indifference it gets this holiday season and more.

And yet, despite my anger, I still continue to argue that the phrase “Never give up on Nintendo” still rings true. I just want them to prove it to me.

Carmine: @Justin: Yes, this is a business. And Nintendo’s in the business of developing their own video games, not having other people develop video games for them. This is what I mean about “Nintendo Exceptionalism.” Nintendo is unique in that they don’t want to “win” the console war. They’d like to, but to them the ends (becoming #1 console) simply don’t justify the means (drastically changing their company culture and philosophy). Make no mistake about it, Nintendo wants to make money, but they want to make money by making Nintendo games, not by becoming Microsoft Game Studios.

@Zach: That means you’re right, one way for Nintendo to seriously attack the third-party support problem is to do what Iwata isn’t keen on: spending money. Now, Iwata knows that you need to spend money to make money, but the company has just posted two consecutive annual operating losses, and Iwata has made a commitment to returning to profitability. Read between the lines and this is how that should read: Iwata doesn’t want to dig himself an even deeper hole. Why do you think he took the time to crow about the Streetpass DLC numbers? He wanted to specifically point out that Nintendo was making money on it WITHOUT any advertising. So if you’re expecting Nintendo to all of a sudden go deep with an expensive advertising campaign, think again. They’ll spend money, sure, but I doubt they’ll spend anything game-changing.

@TYP: You say that Nintendo’s in “full-blown GameCube Mode.” I disagree. I think they’re in full-blown “Nintendo mode.” Basically, Iwata’s game plan (drive momentum with good first-party titles) has always been Nintendo’s modus operandi. In truth, that’s never really varied that much, the only thing that’s varied is the particulars of how successful the strategy was in any one generation. Wii Sports set the world on fire, Nintendo Land did not. Pikmin didn’t make the GameCube fly off shelves, but Nintendogs really revitalized the DS. Animal Crossing couldn’t save either the N64 or GC, but it seems to have really boosted the 3DS. Nintendo has only one strategy throughout the ages: make what they think are good Nintendo games. As for the results? Well, it’s been said that the Japanese characters for “Nintendo” can roughly be translated to “a corporation whose fortune or prosperity should be left to the mercy of heaven.”

@ Alex: Consider this: Iwata isn’t insane. He would just rather Nintendo return to profitability sooner rather than later, and if that means he’s not going to make any big bets in order to supercharge the Wii U, well then so be it. Like I mentioned earlier, this is Nintendo Exceptionalism: a billion-dollar global entertainment powerhouse and trailblazer... with a “Type B Personality.” So what if the Wii U doesn’t fulfill the promise of a second Nintendo imperial dynasty? To Nintendo, the important thing is that they survive to keep making the games that they want to make. For that they need operational profits, not marketshare.

In conclusion: consider the Akira Kurosawa film Kagemusha. In it, a Japanese Clan’s lord dies and his retainers secretly substitute a thief with an uncanny resemblance so their enemies don’t suspect weakness. At a crucial point in the film, the thief, who everyone believes to be the feudal lord, is asked for a strategy for an impending battle. Since he doesn’t know any combat strategy, he simply spouts the clan’s motto, something which roughly translates to “the mountain does not move.” The clan wins the battle, as they are virtually unbeatable on their own land, and when fighting defensively.

The moral of the story? That clan may never control all of Japan, and Nintendo may never truly win the console war. But they’ll survive, and they’ll survive by doing what they do best and by avoiding over-extending themselves. That’s the mindset Nintendo has. That’s why they’ve never conclusively solved the third-party problem. And that’s why Iwata’s third-party plan seems unexciting and unambitious. Nintendo is a mountain, and the mountain does not move. It simply endures.

This is why it’s so hard to be a Nintendo fan. You going into this thinking you’ve picked a winner. But the simple fact is that Nintendo’s not a winner. Nintendo’s a survivor.