The current mammoth success of Nintendo’s machines has been turning the collective head of the industry for some time now, and the latest of the company’s paramours seems to be Take 2.
Responding to a question from the Bank of America in regards to the publisher’s strategy, chairman Strauss Zelnick has explained that Nintendo’s vast installed user-base is something that they cannot ignore.
“To be perfectly frank, I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to realize what’s going on with Wii and DS. I will tell you that very quickly we turned to both 2K and to Rockstar and said guys, we need a DS strategy and a Wii strategy and we are working on it. As we get into the next quarter and into budget season for 2008, everybody in this company is completely focused on it.”
Zelnick was vague about specifics (Aren’t they always?), but gave the impression that the new outlook will comprise a combination of Nintendo releases for their sports range and all-new dedicated titles.
“Sports aren’t as good as games developed for specific platforms but we are looking at all of them across the board for Wii and DS. I will tell you that Carnival Games that we’ve announced for the Wii have gotten a lot of attention in the marketplace, as well as with our first-party partners. So we are pretty excited about that.
“We have some — some have been announced, some Wii titles have been announced and we are working to put more out on the Wii and DS.”
Hopefully that sentiment means a healthy increase in third-party games making use of both platforms’ strengths over the next year or so, rather than the innapproriate “release everything on everything” strategy we’ve seen from other publishers all too often. The mention of Rockstar is definitely very heartening in itself, certainly more so than the reference to Carnival Games, so let’s hope Manhunt 2 is successful enough to give things a kick away from the insidious realm of mini-games we’ve been forced to endure from too many third-parties up until now.
[Via Next Generation]
