Eidos’ Merceron: third party publishers as Nintendo’s key to success

In an interview, Eidos Interactive chief technology officer Julien Merceron said Christmas will be a revelation for the Nintendo Wii. He stressed out the importance of third party publishers and how Nintendo’s success depends on sales of third party games. However, Merceron pointed out that the Wii is not too profitable for anybody but Nintendo, and less than spectacular sales from this Christmas can mean publishers won’t earn money from Wii games all year long.

We see plenty of games coming for the Nintendo Wii, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a good library available to gamers. “You can see with the figures is that it’s not too profitable for anybody but Nintendo,” said Eidos Interactive chief technology officer Julien Merceron. He believes third party publishers play a major role in the success of the Wii, yet there’s no insurance they’ll make money on Nintendo’s console. What Merceron could be certain about was that this Christmas will be the determining point.

“Either third party developers and publishers will make money on the Wii platform, or they won’t,” Merceron told Games Industry. If most titles coming this holiday season don’t sell well, he sees consequences hurting Nintendo and favoring the competing platforms from Sony and Microsoft.

Merceron thinks the success of the Wii this Christmas relies greatly on different publishers, and what happens as the year ends can reflect the future. “If you can’t make money at Christmas on the best platform out there, then you have no chance all year long,” he said.

Eidos’ CTO anticipates a good holiday season for Microsoft, while nothing dramatic for Sony is expected. For Nintendo, however, “it will be a revelation.” A quick look at the Wii’s December line up show us Atari’s Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and Sega‘s NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams as the only titles that stand out. Looks like the first party Super Mario Galaxy still takes the cake, leaving Wii owners something to spend New Year festivities with.