Well, look at this!
Amazing how Epic has the tenacity to put Unreal Engine 3 onto a cell phone but not the tenacity to put it out for the best selling console.
We all know why this is occurring. Epic is joined to the hip with Microsoft and there has been much effort by Microsoft to split third parties away from Nintendo. Madden could have even become a Microsoft exclusive console game if the NFL contract didn’t demand the game for all consoles. Back then, PS2 couldn’t be ignored by third parties due to its huge install base. PS3 also cannot be ignored because games cost too much to put them all on one console. Not even Microsoft has enough money to make make exclusive third party HD games.
People are going to be taking away the wrong message from this post. This isn’t about Nintendo in and of itself. This is about the “Industry” being a fraud. Instead of journalists researching and telling us why Epic was acting the way it was, why Mark Rein was saying crazy things that company presidents are not supposed to say, the game journalists just act like willing sternographers and jot down their marketing points with no questions asked. What we get as ‘news’ is marketing points such as “UE 3 cannot run on anything less than the powerful 360 and PS3” to “Core Gaming is in good health even though its companies face financial disaster” to “Nintendo needs to do more for third parties.”
Console agnostic my ass. Gaming does not revolve around third parties as has been the conventional wisdom since, at least, the PlayStation 1. Gaming revolves around the customers.
This generation shows just who is the boss of gaming. Sony is not the boss. Microsoft is not the boss. Nintendo is not the boss. Third parties are not the boss. Who is the boss? I am the boss. And you, the reader, and all other customers and non-customers are the bosses of gaming. We decide which games live and die, which consoles sell and which ones do not.
Journalists should remember that customers (and non-customers) are the true boss. Instead of playing Console Opera with “Console War” and “Third Party Flings and Romances” by inciting conflict, they should remember that customers (and non-customers) are the true boss of even the journalists even if they don’t get their money from us.
This generation is revealing what a giant fraud the “Game Industry” is.