One can never see where the next break-out blockbuster game is going to come from. However, we can determine its probability.
Probability of break out hit games can be increased in several ways. The most obvious is to have as much third party software as possible. The larger number of games that are published on a system, the greater is the increase in probability of break out hits.
An example of this would be the PlayStation 1 and 2. Sony flooded the console with software. Most of it was junk. Much of it were ports from bland PC games. One of them happened to be Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2. So when it came time for Grand Theft Auto 3 to appear, it appeared on the PlayStation 2 and catapulted the system’s sales as it turned into a hit.
Nintendo has dramatically altered its strategy to make sure to release its console at the same time (not a year later) as Sony. With the Wii and DS, Nintendo pushed out third party software. While the DS and Wii were filled with ‘shovelware’, some breakout hits did occur such as Just Dance.
There is another way to increase probability. It is to make development costs cheaper, easier, and simpler. The most attractive thing about making handheld games is that they are so much cheaper to make than a console game. The Wii also tried to make development costs cheaper, easier, and simpler.
To those who have been playing games for decades, you remember gigantic libraries of games. How many games were there for the Commodore 64? Thousands? How many games for the Atari 2600? They cannot be counted. For the NES, the number is around 800 and that was even with the licensing. During the 8-bit era, game companies were so annoyed that Nintendo limited their game output to 5 games per year on the system that they created new companies to get around it (Konami made the company Ultra so it could make more games).
From the beginning, development costs have only gone up, up, up. In the credits, only eight people are listed for The Legend of Zelda and only eight for Zelda II. There were three Mario games for the NES, two Zelda games, and a ton of other Nintendo games that didn’t get turned into a franchise from Kid Icarus to Star Tropics. For other companies, Capcom somehow managed to create six (!) Mega Man games for the NES. Konami was able to make three Castlevania games and even three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games.
[This is why playing modern consoles, there never seems like there are any games and the ones that are out feel too bloated.]
During the 16-bit generation, development costs went up. Fewer games were made overall. The generation after, less games could be produced by the same number of people. And the one after that, even less.
The big problem I have with 3d or obsession with 3d is that it kills a video game’s library. Compare 3d Mario and 2d Mario. Which is more expensive to make? Mario Galaxy’s orchestras cannot have come cheap. Look how a simpler, cheaper game like 2d Mario has more sales power and hardware selling power than 3d Mario. It used to be you could expect a blockbuster Nintendo game multiple times a year. Now, they appear to come once every two years for a system. If you look at the release dates for the NES an compare them to today, you’ll be seeing how games like Zelda, Mario, and Metroid (plus Kid Icarus, Nintendo’s arcade ports like Punch-Out, novel new games like Dr. Mario, etc.) were all coming out at the same time.
By transforming the handheld into a 3d device, Nintendo has dramatically reduced the probability of break out hits on the system. It simply is much more expensive and much harder to make games on the 3DS. The 3DS will not be growing game companies but driving them out of business.
“But what about the online shop?” you ask. There is no evidence whatsoever of an online shop game selling hardware. For all we’ve seen, they have been used as little more than as ports for cell phone games and old games on previous consoles.
One of the reasons why the DS was able to turn itself around was because, unlike the PSP, it had simple development costs that increased the probability of break out hits. Many of the early ‘popular’ DS games were GBA games spruced up (like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow). But with the radical shift to 3d, it is impossible to sell a spruced up DS game on the 3DS. It is either 3d or a waste of time.
And why was the DS in trouble in the first place? Could it have been the focus on 3d with Mario 64 and Metroid Prime Hunters demo? The turn-around with the DS came from software not embracing the 3d philosophy. Even Mario Kart DS was designed specifically to recapture the SNES Mario Kart’s gameplay skeleton.
When the DS launched, people referred to it as a portable N64. But at the apex of DS’s popularity, people referred to it as a portable SNES. This shift in perspectives tells you all you need to know about the trajectory of the console’s software and where it is going. At the beginning, DS felt like a N64. But years later, DS felt like a SNES (perhaps due to all the adventure and RPG games out for it).
The 3DS will never succeed following a N64 or Gamecube direction. The best hope for the system is to attempt to rebrand it and return to the NES, SNES direction that powered the DS and Wii.