Day 18: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Part 3

Alright so this is the 3rd and final part of this series, for now. I was hoping to have three publishers in each list but my rants for two publishers are fairly long and my concerns with a couple others put them far out of the league of a certain two. I'll just make a couple of brief honorable mentions.

Namco Bandai: They don't know where the money is to be made. They make some good JRPGs but refuse to release them in North America where the otaku are starved for decent, console JRPGs. Instead, Namco publishes shitty, 'western' focused titles that are far below the par set by other western publishers. Then Namco gets aggravated at us for not buying their shitty, unadvertised products and says, "now you see why you get no JRPGs, you won't even buy the titles we make specifically for you!" The only thing good to come out of Namco for the west lately has been Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. When you're ready to start making money we'll be waiting Namco but you better bring your A game.

Sega: The thing that worries me about Sega is I never see many popular titles coming from them unless it has Sonic in the name. Even then the Sonic games have mostly been terrible but sell based on the name alone. First off, get Sonic straightened out and a lot more can be forgiven and overlooked. I haven't tried Sonic Colors but I did try the demo for Sonic Generations...I felt like I was being skull fucked. It's like they're deliberately trying to fail. I might be wrong but it seems like all of Sega's franchises, except Sonic, are dead and buried and I worry that without a solid lineup they'll fade away as the western publishers continue to dominate.

Now for the real beefs:

Square Enix: 

Who knows what’s going on over there but whatever it is it can’t be good. We understand that the Tsunami was a horrible disaster and financial loses are to be expected as a result. However, there’s no way SE can attribute their dire financial situation to the Tsunami, it’s a much bigger problem that’s finally snowballed out of control. SE just isn’t releasing any games and they’re hemorrhaging money away. Let’s take a little look back at their development history. 

The PS2 showed up and SE released Final Fantasy X, a grand piece of work in 2001. In 2006 they released Final Fantasy XII. Now, just looking at SE’s developed projects, because they serve as publisher for a lot of other studios home and abroad, between those two titles they released Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI Online (for three platforms), Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and Dirge of Cerberus among other things. That’s quite a lot of projects in 5 years and most of them were highly revered. 

Now, what has SE developed for this console generation? Besides a lot of handheld titles (which I prefer to exclude)…The Last Remnant, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV…that’s pretty much it. The first was an Xbox 360/PC exclusive that wasn't well liked, the second was popular but divisive, and the third is a turd. FF14 was so bad that as a sign of goodwill SE decided to make the game Free To Play for everyone who bought it until SE is done fixing the game and brings it up to an acceptable quality. I…don’t think that’s ever happened before and how embarrassing must that be? In fact it was so bad that most of the directors of the game got fired outright. As much as I liked FF13, the directors for that probably should have been fired long ago as well. 

Nowadays, SE has a bunch of broken, unfinished games that they won’t release and their pockets are full of holes. To me, this sounds like 3D Realms but much more dangerous because it’s not one game but many. The constant slew of portable titles and their lineup mostly consisting of games published for other studios makes a case that maybe SE should just bow out of the console market altogether if they can't figure out what's wrong. It’s very sad and I hope they can turn it around and deliver like they did in the PS2 era, if not the PS1 era when they were the kings of games and rightfully so.

Nintendo:

Nintendo isn't on this list just because of their focus on casual gaming. All in all Nintendo has been incredibly successful this generation and have climbed to heights they've never reached before. Good for them. However, the success is hallow and it's starting to come apart quickly. Due to Nintendo's practices and the challenges faced for Wii developers there's been no strong 3rd party lineup present on their flagship system the last five years. While the console sales are astronomical Nintendo has missed out on all the most significant titles of this generation, the titles that have been dominating critical and sales charts for years and will probably continue to do so for quite some time. BioShock, Assassin's Creed, a true Call of Duty, Fallout and Elder Scrolls, Left 4 Dead and Portal 2, the list goes on. I'd exclude Grand Theft Auto because while significant it's not a series that couldn't have made a splash on Nintendo's consoles in the past when graphical fidelity was neck and neck with the PS2. These are huge titles that perhaps won't ever see the sales of Wii Fit or New Super Mario Bros but they're culturally significant and affect game design going forward.

The thing that's worrisome about Nintendo is that they're far behind but they don't understand at all how to catch up. The Nintendo DS is the most successful console on the planet, and good for them, but the 3DS launch couldn't have been handled any worse. The price is too high, the games are too poor and the 3D gimmick isn't looking like it'll pay off any time soon, not like Nintendo is giving 3D any room to succeed in the first place though. Even the name, 3DS, was a terrible marketing choice given there's been no less than four versions of Nintendo DS on the market before it and there will probably be at least a revision or two to the 3DS on the market in the future.

So the 3DS isn't selling well at all, the only games coming out are remakes of old N64 titles, and the Wii sales are plummeting because it hasn't had a decent game on it, outside of the holidays, in years. What does Nintendo do to combat this? They announce a new console, the Wii U, and design the conference in such a way where absolutely no one knows exactly what Wii U is supposed to be. Is it a new handheld? Is it a revision of Wii? Is it a whole new thing we need to buy? You can't afford to use the E3 platform and have your audience leave with all those questions. As a bonus they didn't show any game play footage though Ubisoft had something cooked up later.

Seriously, if Nintendo wasn't so beloved in all our hearts they'd be in a world of shit right now. Hell, at the rate they're going it looks like they can only hold off on that inevitability for a little while. We all want you guys to turn it around but you need to understand your mistakes and apply learned knowledge rather than repeat the same mistakes. Do you know what the definition of 'insanity' is?