Topic: Nintendo should give some developers the option of letting Nintendo incur the upfront cost of the port to Wii U.

Nintendo should take respoonsibility of porting 3rd party games themselves - it will lesser the burden of porting the game for the developer.

1) Why not let Nintendo add your game to its console?
**Con- Nintendos porting costs will mean that they will have to give the developer a smaller share of the profits. And then if the consumer buys the Wii U version the developer will make less money on the game.
**Pro- If the majority of people are going to buy it on the mainstream consoles then why not let Nintendo make a port of it for their console and get some extra revenue for no extra cost. Wii U owners may not bother purchasing the game otherwise.

To address the con: They could implement later release schedules to encourage people to buy the mainstream versions of the game, so that the developer will get more profits. And then when the marketing has died down and the game no longer sells for top dollar, Nintendo will port your game for free, give you a smaller margin due to the extra port costs, resulting in the developer earning money that they would otherwise not of had.

Alternatively the developer may consider porting it themselves or creating it for the Wii U's architecture - but if they have the option to give the Wii U version a 'spin' at no extra cost it will be great for all involved.

...Umm...that's not how publishing and porting works.

EDIT: See my below post for clarification and also please don't take this post as my current opinion.

Please explain how so;
intellectual property rights issues?
complexity of different engines and required experience of the team?

Here's an idea buy the other systems than you dont have to worry about ports.

If the machines were simple gaming devices then this would be more viable - however consoles are trying to do more and more entertainment facilities and are gradually getting more expensive over time that having more than one system is not a preferable option for most people.

I think people would prefer to have one machine that does everything that they want it to do than have to get another one because its missing something.

Admittedly, I should have read the entirety of your post. However, I am in the belief that game companies wouldn't hand over their projects for Nintendo to work on.

It seems to me that Nintendo is always 'riding the backs' of the developers. "Sure, you can port the game to us - but its your risk."

I think its time that Nintendo starting taking the calculated risk themselves - and give the developers a little faith.

Okay...this title is much better. Nintendo Handling all the ports would just be insane.

lol i have changed the title a few times... eek.

i think i got it now.

I can also see the flip side of this.

Given the later release schedule Nintendo will still need to maintain the new release price of the game and so will suffer from the competition having the same game for a really cheap price. However we all know that the Batman Arkum Asylum game did exactly this.
It would be interesting to see the figures of how well this game did on the Wii U.

Good point. Well then what if the developer got paid for their efforts to port the game. Mind you this is not for everyone - just the select that Nintendo chooses to make this offer to.

Please mind also the point i made about how this cost would mean less profits to the developer from sales and the later realease date to prevent a reduction in initial mainstream console sales.

In the long run i guess you may be thinking that this will just lead to a system which is more expensive to maintain and has all of the old games. However this is just the 3rd party department of what the console has to offer.

"You want the occasional 3rd party gems? Sure we've got those covered."

"Now stay for the main course and enjoy games from the greatest software developer in the world."

Absolutely not. Nintendo has taken steps to fund projects by third parties to make them exclusive to their systems but paying companies to do ports that are already destined for other platforms would be aping Atari at the end of it's last console cycle and we're not that desperate thanks. Now if someone else wants to start a company like Aspyr did for the Mac and build an entire business around doing Wii U ports, fine, I wish them luck, but Nintendo should not be doing this. Nintendo should be making Nintendo games or they should just exit the console business entirely.

What is your reasoning for this?
Is it if they do start to do this then they may give less attention for Nintendo software?
Is it purely a Brand Pride matter? - Being 'desperate?'

Tell me why you think no.

Because Nintendo doing third party ports would take away efforts from developing first party games, yes. Porting isn't as easy as running a disc through a conveyor and having a finished product for your system pop-out the other side. It's potentially less work depending upon the debugging required, but not insignificant. And why would they even do it? People don't generally buy Nintendo systems so they can play games released on other platforms first-and-foremost. 3rd party support is gravy - they do need it to maintain a diverse library of games, but given Gamecube was about as grim as it's gotten for Nintendo I cannot see why they would take this step for the Wii U when they didn't for the Gamecube.

Paying EA so they can port some Bioware game would be just pathetic. If Nintendo starts doing that then you know the company and the system are finished.

Sean said pretty much what I wanted to say. Multiplatform games aren't going to convince people to buy the Wii U so any resources spent by Nintendo porting multiplatform games would be better spent developing first part content, which is exclusive and will sell the Wii U to the public.

However it might not be a bad idea for Nintendo to support a studio like Straight Right and try to get publishers to work with them to bring games to Wii U. All three parties would benefit that.

If Nintendo were to allocate its not-insignificant marketing budget to encourage Activision to a timed-exclusive for Call of Duty DLC maps then it would to a better job for Nintendo marketing than any TV as campaign would ever achieve.

I think Microsoft already has that contract so I'm not sure they even had the chance. However Nintendo should be trying to get exclusive stuff for the games they are getting and there shouldn't be situations like Injustice where the Wii U version is missing out on all the pre-order bonuses.