Since the GameCube days, Nintendo’s executives shared the opinion that multiplatform third party titles do not really benefit Nintendo’s business. Why? Because Nintendo’s business is about creating an experience that competitors can’t duplicate, and all three executives believed third party multiplatform titles on GameCube should offer something unique from the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions. From Nintendo’s perspective, straight ports of multiplatform titles was a contradiction to the “Nintendo Difference” message that Nintendo was promoting at the time.

On February 7th, 2001, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi strongly criticized the industry for creating one game and then porting it to all three consoles.

“Now software companies are going multi-platform, running one game on lots of consoles, just to sell that little bit more. Even Sega. I can understand why the industry’s flowing this way, but, speaking for Nintendo, I can hardly welcome it,” said Yamauchi. ”When a user chooses a game, he always searches for something new and fun in a way he’s never seen before. If games on Nintendo machines are do-able on other companies’ consoles, then we’ll lose those users’ support. If we can’t succeed in separating ourselves, then we won’t win this battle. And that’s the reason why I’m not overjoyed about multi-platform tactics.”

On May 16, 2001, the week of GameCube’s big debut at E3, Satoru Iwata criticized third party publishers for porting AAA blockbuster titles to multiple consoles.

Satoru Iwata said, “If that (keeps happening), the console business becomes a commodity business. There is no reason to choose one console over another, except price,” he said. “Then it doesn’t matter which machine you choose–they all play the same games.”

Just like Satoru Iwata and Hiroshi Yamauchi, Shigeru Miyamoto was also not a fan of third party developers creating a game and porting it to multiple consoles.

“If you are just simply comparing the 3 hardware consoles in terms of functionality, you can make similar games and many people are now trying to introduce multiplatform games. It may be good for game users but when it comes to some kind of unique interactions with the hardware I don’t think multiplatform games are contributing a lot. Whilst I think it is good to have many different titles for the platforms, I think that only Nintendo can provide certain experiences,” said Miaymoto.

Most Japanese publishers (during the early 2000′s) concentrated all of their development on the best selling platform, but rising development costs were interfering with that strategy.

Yoshihiro Maruyama, general manager of Xbox’s Japanese division, told 1Up.com in 2002, ”The business model is different. You see companies in the U.S. using a multiplatform strategy, developing games for several consoles at once, with Electronic Arts leading the way. However, Japan concentrates all its development on the top platform alone, so it’s easy to run into dead ends. Of course, I’m not saying we should all be like EA. If Japanese games lose their workmanship, their quality… Before the PlayStation, there were lots of games made with this ‘Hey, this is neat, let’s try this’ attitude that sold way beyond expectations. Now it’s more, like, ‘How many copies will this sell? If it won’t sell, we can’t do it’, and it’s getting harder to make new games.”

M.Pachter: В этом году Nintendo сможет продать лишь 3 миллиона WiiU.

Как и в этом году?! Если так будет, то это последний год для вии ю, а в следующем некстген!

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

Это что?