Thomas Mahler of Moon Studios, developers of the stylish adventure platformer Ori and the Blind Forest, is saying that Nintendo is keeping the NX a secret and keeping information away from third-Party developers. Mahler wasn’t afraid to call out Nintendo in his post on their lack of communication with thrid party developers, not even releasing so much as the hardware specs for the system. He says this is one of the most annoying thing you could do to a developer, and they’re not the only studio to experience this. As Mahler says “it’s not just Nintendo, every hardware manufacturer is treating their devkits and their unreleased consoles like they’re the second coming and are insanely secretive about it to a stupid degree in today’s times.” When companies like Nintendo don’t give enough time for devs to make good games they have to rush lower quality games for the consoles release.
Mahler went on to write that early information is also essential for engine support. “Get Unity and Epic to support these consoles WAAAAY ahead of relase. By the time the cosole launches, it should be EASY for developers to develop games for these, things shouldn’t just only start at this point.” Mahler explained that developers need hardware information at least 2 years before launch for developers to really build a proper network to effectively work with the system and company.
Mahler brings up an interesting dilemma between Nintendo and third party developers. Lack of third-party software is one of the big factors that’s hurting the Wii U’s sales, and the third party titles at its launch were mostly ports and unimpressive ones at that. However, the Wii had huge success even with a sub-par launch library. Rayman Raving Rabbids was a big hit for Ubisoft and led to a well selling franchise on the Wii. Of course, over time the Wii had less third-party developers making quality games, but the Wii had a decent library and a low price point to help with its success.
I can also understand Nintendo’s secrecy about the NX. Nintendo has some very dedicated fans, and there are many moments in the past when Nintendo information was leaked ahead of time. Maybe Nintendo doesn’t want to ruin the surprise for the NX in case it got leaked, or maybe Nintendo is putting more of it’s time into first party titles and not even bothering with third party developers this time around. Either way, keeping developers out of the loop does lead to a lot of missed opportunities with third party titles. It can only help a console have as many good games as it can.