Topic: 3rd Party Support Shrinking?

I've been thinking about 3DS' 2013 lineup, and something concerns me. Outside of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate, I can't think of any big 3rd party 3DS games that have been confirmed for a 2013 release.

Is it normal to have such little info about the next year's games at this point in time, or is the 3DS just not attracting the kind of 3rd party support that the DS got?

I know there are tons of Japanese games that don't have western release confirmations yet (such as Beyond the Labyrinth, Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland, Rocket Slime 3, Bravely Default, Soul Hackers, Etrian Oddesy IV, Culdecept, Rune Facory 4, Guild 01), and E.X. Troopers isn't getting a western release for sure. I know that not every game is brought over, but is it odd not to hear any information on so many games (some of which have been released for quite some time in Japan)?

Outside of Japan the 3DS still hasn't got the kind of install base that would have third parties falling over themselves to support it. Not when you could be developing for the massive install bases of the PS3 and Xbox (and thanks to the download services "small games" can sell as well on those consoles).

And don't forget, every small-to-medium indie is working on the iPhone and iPad these days. A lot of the support Nintendo had during the DS era just doesn't exist any more.

@RR529 So, is your question actually about the lack of third-party support? Or the lack of western third-party support? Or the lack of third-party games going outside of Japan.

@Tsuchinoko, the lack of 3rd party support we're seeing in the west. whether it be western devs seemingly not bothering with the system, or Japanese games (of which there are a lot of) not being localized.

Outside of Code of Princess, I can't think of any big 3rd party games hitting the 3DS over here, for the rest of the year (which is quite surprising, considering the upcoming Christmas season).

I'd say the Epic Mickey game is a pretty big release.

Off the top of my head, there's also Professor Layton, Sonic+Sega Racing and HarvestMoon, although I guess that's still not the kind of support which the other consoles see. I can't really think of too many western devs who specialise in handheld games and not ports, but that's a trend that's been around for a while

@RR529 I dunno. I honestly don't know what kind of games go out of Japan. I mean, there are some games that OBVIOUSLY wouldn't go outside of Japan. Usually those games are easy to spot. But other games I can never tell.

I feel like there's a lot of 3rd party games on the 3DS here. Like, sometimes all I see are 3rd party releases.

Okay, I forgot about Epic Mickey. Still, there's just that & Code of Princess.

Which Harvest Moon is coming out? The last one I heard about was Tale of Two Towns 3D, and that was released a long time ago.

I don't really see the SEGA racing thing as a big release (it'll likley be a watered down version of the console games, as these things tend to be). As for Layton, Nintendo's always been involved with their release over here, so I just kind of looked over it I guess (as far as it being 3rd party).

Still, it looks like there's more coming than I realized, but for some reason it just doesn't feel like the 3DS is getting as much attention as the DS did. Although I guess Cho's statement about smaller devs migrating to iOS makes sense.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, where were you when this site made articles about the absurdly cute plushies you would get as a pre-order bonus? If I remember right it comes out in November, on the 6th, Rune Factory 4 will probably come out in 2013, I would be willing to guess that we get one of (If not both.) the Dragon Quest games as well.