Iwata: Nintendo going third party is bad in the long term

Iwata would only consider it if he stopped caring for the company

Nintendo should go third party, they say. “Nintendo should have their IP on every platform,” they say. No matter how many times CEO Satoru Iwata or anybody in Nintendo management have repeated themselves, there’s always some new chucklehead with the brilliant idea that putting Nintendo games on other consoles will result i♛n a massive in♈flux of revenue.

You should be happy to know that Satoru Iwata agrees with you! Nintendo would make a lot of money… in the short term, that is.

In a discussion with , Iwata made himself as clear as possible: “If I was to take responsibility for the company for just the next one or two years, and if I was not concerned about the long-term future of Nintendo at all, it might make sense for us to provide our important franchises for other platforms, and then we might be able to gain some short-term profit. However, I’m really responsible for the long-term future of Nintendo as well, so I would never think about providing our precious resources for other platforms at all.”

B-b-b-but iOS! But the Wii U’s flagging sales!

B-b-b-but NOTHING!

“What I believe is that Nintendo is a very unique company, because it does its business by designing and introducing people to hardware and software — by integrating them, we can be unique. And because we have hardware and software developers in the same building, they stimulate each other. And those kinds of conditions have enabled us to create something that no other companies can create.”

Some people just refuse to accept the truth. The reason Nintendo has been as successful as it has in the past is because of its level of control over every production phase, from the hardware itself to the games. Just because its current home console is doing less than stellar and might never achieve the kind of success Nintendo would like doesn’t mean it should do something drastic like give up its valuable stable of properties.

Imagine if Nintendo had gone third party following the GameCube. Does anybody here honestly believe the company would have done better financially publishing on the PS3 and 360 instead of going forward with the Wii? If you do, please check yourself into a nearby clinic, because you’ve lost touch with reality.

There is no logical reason why Nintendo should jump out of the hardware business or, even worse, simultaneously publish games on other platforms and its own. I’d love to keep hearing what people come up with, though. It makes for great entertainment!

[CVG]