id Boss: Third-party Wii Development "Not Really Justified"

April 12th, 2009, 20:17 Posted By: wraggster

id CEO Todd Hollenshead remains unconvinced that there's a good reason for "independent, Wii-centric" development. He's willing to hear someone out, he just hasn't heard a good argument for it yet.

Hollenshead, in an interview with GameSpot, was asked if the Wii's meteoric sales and success inevitably meant a shift in resources toward third-party development more suited for that platform. Putting it gently, Hollenshead said no.


If you look at the data, the Wii is Nintendo—and then everybody else. And then among everybody else, it's licensed properties - and then stuff that people lose money on. So, for a really original, game-centric IP, if you're a third-party developer, I would say, "Show me what makes such a compelling case for the Wii.

That's not to say he ridicules Nintendo or the platform. Actually, he brings up a point I think we'd all do well to keep in mind: "Sometimes people lose sight of the fact that almost every company doesn't try to be all things to all people. Nintendo isn't trying to be all things to all people either.

Of course, this will be the year The Conduit finally releases, published by Sega. But Madworld (also Sega) despite a generous run-up of hype and reasonably good reviews, hasn't made the kind of splash on Wii analagous to a typical multiplatform drop on the 360 and PS3. That underlines another point Hollenshead made:


Even if we make an awesome game, there's still a question as to whether we're going to justify our investment. And also, I mean, if you look at the market, the type of games we traditionally make, those games are selling record numbers on non-Wii platforms

http://kotaku.com/5208835/id-boss-th...ally-justified

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