Topic: Why are Western Devs ignoring the 3DS?

I can understand the Wii U. Sales are abysmal. But the 3DS is dominating all over the world. It's not super difficult to develop for either, and 3rd Party games are selling well. So why do companies like Ubisoft and EA ignore the system? Japan sees the system's potential, and it has great Japanese 3rd Party support, but I swear even the Vita gets more Western support than the 3DS.

The ones I have seen have generally been completely unacceptable (The Ubisoft Rayman games managed to follow in the footsteps of Rayman DS quite well).

Hard to say! A lot of western developers have lost interest in Nintendo in general. I think a part of it is because Nintendo have always prioritised their own games above all else. I've heard speculative stories that suggest the because Nintendo still control production of the physical prints of games, they deliberately manipulate it to set 3rd parties at a disadvantage. Just a rumour though.

All day long the answer is mobile platforms. If 25 or 50 million people had bought the 3DS within the launch timeframe it might have caught more western attention there. It's a numbers game and in the portable game development arena the biggest mobile games outsell the biggest 3DS games and you always chase the leader

Probably cuz the developers made games on the Wii U and sold so poorly, that they don't want to make another game for them.

Because they are morons who assume their game will automatically do as well as COD or Candy Crush if they try something similar on the same platforms. Because selling less than 6 million copies for a game is unacceptable.

This is actually a thing. I'm not even joking somehow.

Meanwhile Level 5 laughs and laughs and laughs

Why does Nintendo even need 3rd party developers? Nintendo is the best at making 1st party games we all know for a fact.

Because there are really good games and series out there that are not made by Nintendo, and it'd be nice to play them on Nintendo's platforms.

Eh. Atlus has been pulling its weight this gen just fine.

1. Because it's the most obvious way to have consistent releases and thus consistent interest in your console/handheld system.
2. Because there's a billion games other than Nintendo.
3. Nintendo being the best at first party means nothing as they literally would have 2 other companies for competition.
4. While Nintendo's quality levels are insanely high more often than not, I refer to my 2nd point as why there are people who have in fact improved on what Nintendo did. Little Kings Story being the most blatant example, which mastered the Pikmin-like gameplay.
5. Ace Attorney

Because it seems a lot of Western developers seem to be ignoring handhelds in general because of the smartphone/app store fad.

And hey, they also often hate Nintendo. That too.

Because westerners don't care as much about portables. Most of what we saw on the GBA/DS were either Japanese or crap with the occasional exception that usually didn't have nearly as much effort put into it as a console game but was still fun enough as is.

I'm just happy for the western Indie support we get like from Yacht Club and Mojo Bones and Zen Studios and Shin'en and image&Form. The lower competition has seemed to mean that we don't get as much stuff thats just "pumped out".

As already said, the rise of mobile IOS and Android gaming is the main reason, no doubt about that, the fact that the 3DS has done so well in a market that is so much smaller than what it was 10 years ago is a huge testament to Nintendo.

The stuff that is pumped out by Renegade Kid and Shin'en is always nice, and it helps fill in the gaps......I think the major knock from the lack of traditional third party western support is the lack of genres.......the 3DS is very much platformer and JRPG heavy. Mobile racing and sports games would be nice.

Stuff by Renegade Kid is rubbish. There is 50 Mobile Games I would rather play than any of his junk.

Mutant Mudds and Moon Chronicles are both some of the better offerings in the EShop.

The Wii technology platformers (At 30fps) I am not interested in.

Problem with sports is the exact same version of Fifa constantly outsold PES which was improving year by year. (To the point where 13 was brilliant).

Not a chance. Mutant Mudds is dire and Moon Chronicles is still the same mediocre DS game it always was.

If you read the Wii U review of Mutant Mudds that is about right. It is the same game. (It doesn't become better or worse according to what platform it is on).

But again the Vita's getting better Western support. Maybe it is because of PS4 Remote Play, but if they can port a game to Vita I don't see why they couldn't port to 3DS.

But I agree the smartphone craze is a problem, and the funny thing is that it's not even paying off that much. The best selling games are made by relative no-names like Rovio, Halfbrick, King, and Lima Sky. The only other real winners by major gaming companies are Plants Vs. Zombies and Infinity Blade. And PvZ was made before EA acquired PopCap and ruined the series.