Question about 3rd party games and harnessing Neo Geo's power

[KeroKero]

Ever since being a fan of SNK and the NeoGeo I always wondered howcome SNK's games look so great, whereas third party games (Alpha Denshi etc's); lack graphical prowess?

Is it because they didn't know how to harness the power of the NeoGeo's graphics capability, or if it was released to early in the life of the NeoGeo?

What I mean is compare a game like Ninja Combat to a game SNK would make, you could tell the difference in graphics...

So my question is howcome first party games look better than third party games on this system?

[stardust]

One could say the same of Nintendo's first party titles for the Wii, as well as past systems. Nintendo has had a history of maxing out the power of their systems, especially towards the end of it's life cycle. I guess it was the same scenario with Sega, SNK, Sony, and all of the other developers. I am not into fighters and many of the other popular Neo genres, but I know Nintendo, and their situation is similar.

Like, we'll probably never see a non-Nintendo platformer for the Wii with even half the brilliance or grandeur of a game like Super Mario Galaxy. It is probably likewise with SNK's Neogeo fighters, NEC's Turbografx shooters, etc.

When a 1st party company makes a game for their own console, they are laying their reputation on the line. When a 3rd party company releases a game, they are just seeking to turn a profit. As long as a game returns more money in sales than the company invested in developing said game, then from a fiscal perspective, the game is a success, whether said title is any good or not. So some 3rd parties make descent games, and some don't, but it is rare that the game actually exceeds the caliber of the 1st party titles.

[Relavant Latrommi]

It's mainly to do with the technology they already have and the knowledge of using it.

Basically, when a first party developer creates their games, they first need to make a console that can require their specific needs for those games, it has to be in their own style (Patents are needed here) and it has to be technology that won't be used by another 1st party (SEGA and Nintendo tend to have different recommendations which is why they both play differently).

First Party games are simply better than 3rd Party games is because as Stardust said, they have reputation on the line and that means having to know the coding like the back of their hand to achieve everything in the game to become a mega selling game. Secondly, 3rd Party developers aren't normally told by 1st Party developers to experiment with their technology to create a good game, this is why (normally) that 3rd Party games don't sell as well, they make a game ad hope it's as good as it should be, but 3rd Parties have an advantage in other ways, such as the freedom of porting their games to other 1st party consoles and arcades if they want to. Both have an advantage and disadvantage when it comes to making a profit and quality.

Lately, Nintendo has given 3rd parties a chance to use their technolgy to make their games look better on the Wii, which is why Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft) is better on the Wii than on the 260 or PS3. This isn't new however, Sony gave this opportunity to Konami as well, which is why Metal Gear Solid is a major success.

I do agree though, 1st party titles have a much better gameplay and quality over the 3rd party games, although the reasons for this lie more in the past, such as the Video Game crash of 1983, where there were too many 3rd Parties creating so much rubbish that the value of consoles went down as well as most 1st party games. 1st Party publishers now tend to control the 3rd parties so they don't do the same thing again, which maybe a reason why we don't really get to see a very good 3rd party title (or at least we used to).

Whichever way you look at it, 1st party publishers are much richer then 3rd party titles so they can take a greater risk in creating high quality games (Whether it sells or not doesn't matter, they took the risk), SEGA is an example, they still make good Sonic games, it's just that people are getting fed up of them changing the core gameplay all the time, which maybe the reason why the Saturn and Dreamcast didn't sell well (Dreamcasts reason being the upcoming PS2's capabilities).

The Neo Geo in general couldn't get hardly any 3rd party developers because:

1) Not many people could buy the consoles and the games
2) Not many were interested with participating with them
3) SNK wasn't really a 1st party publisher in the first place (SS went onto other consoles as well as Fatal Fury, Magical Drop and later...Metal Slug)
4) The risk was too high for many, it meant if they lost out, they would have lost loads of money and even had the potential to go into the red

Sorry if I am going on like this, but this is why I think the Neo Geo had very few 3rd Party titles (if they did then they weren't as good)

For the ones who did, they didn't do a very bad job with them (A couple of them looked better than the SNES/Mega Drive (Genesis).

[Tull]

The easy answer: ****ty designers draw ****. With ****ty devs in the mix the **** art behaves ****ty.


Edit: hehe ref South Park: It Hits the Fan

[KeroKero]

Ahh I see now it's all about how much resources that the 1st party company gives to the 3rd party companies on how good a game will be, I read awhile back that 3rd party games on the Wii have trouble utilizing the Wii remote well, compare a 3rd party game to a Nintendo game, Nintendo has superior controls with the Wii remote wereas a 3rd party's game is kinda meh on the controls...