Topic: The Wii U is Getting **** Upon When It Comes to Third Party Games

[Kytim89]

I was not sure where to put this opinion piece where it could be done with justice, so I opted for a new thread. I came across a video earlier today that revealed that Crysis 3 will not be making it to the Wii U. When you factor in the rather bare forecast that many quality third party titles of 2013 may not become Wii U games does not bode very well for the future of the Wii U.  To add insult to injury, Metal Gear Revengeance will not make to the Wii U either according to its producers. It appears that Konami may avoid the Wii U all together.


 http://mynintendonews.com/2012/12/18/no-metal-gear-rising-planned-for-wii-u/


http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/01/crysis_3_not_coming_to_wii_u_due_to_a_lack_of_business_drive




The Wii U sales so far are good, but it needs to sell more to justify ports of good games. Here are two things that Nintendo needs to do:

• Discontinue the basic (8 GB) model of the Wii U.
• Lower the price of the 32 GB model to $299.99.
• Start striking deals with more third parties.

[ThePerm]

Crysis 3 news is not new. Metal Gear not on a Nintendo console....no surprise.

Is Ubisoft making a new Splinter Cell?

[UncleBob]

Discontinue the basic (8 GB) model of the Wii U.

Why would third parties care about that?

Lower the price of the 32 GB model to $299.99.

Meh.  Maybe.  I doubt there's many folks who are interested in the Wii U that would bite at this point *just* because of a price drop.

Start striking deals with more third parties.

Not Nintendo's style.  Regardless of who thinks this should happen, Nintendo would rather date the plain chick than pay for a hooker.

[alegoicoe]

U read my mind dude, i been wondering what the hell is going on, only today i heard of two games not coming to wii u, crisis i dont give a damn about, but castlevania, bioshok and metal gear is uncalled for, i mean what the fu*k is nintendo doing in terms of getting third party support. I know third parties have a thing when it comes to nintendo platforms but its about time for nintendo to open up the piggy bank and stop worrying about the investors or is gonna be 3ds all over again.

[Soren]

3rd parties not supporting Nintendo. Oh my! What a surprise?


Also, two(three?) things:
-Can we at least wait 5 months(3ds launch to cut) before we seriously start talking about price cuts?
-The first cheaper model PS3 lasted 5 months before it was mercy killed, and back then the official explanation was that the 60gig version was being preferred 90/10 over the 20gig. Right now it looks like 75/25 in favor of the deluxe version. And yes, why would 3rd parties care about this?

[Kytim89]

Price cuts = More units sold = bigger install base to justify ports to Wii U = More third party support equals closing profit gap loss per Wii U unit sold.

[UncleBob]

The question was why would third parties care if Nintendo killed the basic?

[ymeegod]

Sounds like it was more EA decision and not Cryteks which could mean just about all EA games as well like Dead Space 3 for example.

The only thing that sells SYSTEM is the exclusives, and NIntendo should focus on it's own games.  Vita has plenty of multiplatform games yet it's still failing?  Why, the exclusive games ended up flopping. 

By limiting the software to only a few titles per month right now is the best move possible for nintnedo because it'll ensure those titles get the best possible sales.  Nintendo's launch (23+ titles) was so much overkill that alot of titles didn't even break 50K (just about all EA ones sold less than that if you discount FIFA).

[ShyGuy]

EA needs to get over itself.

[Caterkiller]

With the way things started, I have no doubt Nintendo is at least trying to get 3rd party games on Wii U, its just clear more than ever that there is an industry wide conspiracy against them.

I don't even know if I'm joking.

[alegoicoe]

With the way things started, I have no doubt Nintendo is at least trying to get 3rd party games on Wii U, its just clear more than ever that there is an industry wide conspiracy against them.

I don't even know if I'm joking.

Am with you on that, the western developers have some sort of code among them to either not to make games for nintendo systems or worse make shitty ports which sell like crap and use it as a justification for the most blatant lie in the video game industry in this side of the world which is "third party games don't fair well on nintendo platforms"

[Adrock]

Nintendo should discontinue the Basic set or at the very least drop the price because it's a shitty deal with the Deluxe Set only $50 more. If the Basic Set was $250, consumers could put that $50 savings towards a game or external hard drive, making the model a better choice for some people.

[shingi_70]

To be completely honest were people really expecting Nintendo to get any type of third party support. Even with all of Nintendo claims and developer videos I'm not sure how people didn't see this coming.

Really wonder what Nintendo's game plan is. I'm expecting their usual evergreen/blue ocean title in Wii fit U too massively underpreform. I'm not so sure about about pikmin or wonder 102 either. As good as the game will be bayonetta 2 will probably do poorly as well.

[NWR_insanolord]

Silly me, I expected real support when developers talked about how much they liked the system. Stuff like Crysis and Dead Space not coming were clearly decided before we had any kind of sales numbers on the Wii U. EA's obviously still pissed about the whole Origin fiasco, though I don't know what's going on with Konami.

[Ceric]

And this brings me back to why in the world was Snake ever included in Smash Bros.

On the Vita the cost of ownership is just too high for my taste at the moment.

When WiiU starts getting 3rd party releases that have price and feature parity with the rest of the versions then I'll bite.  I'm not going to buy a game when I can get the whole series for half the price on steam.

[DigitalGreenTea]

Third parties: It needs a bigger fanbase until we make (more) games for it.


Consumers: We won't buy it until more games are released.


>Logic.


In all honestly Wii U is doing really good with the sales right now, it's just behind the Wii. And that with being $100 more! It looks to me that Third parties are just finding excuses again to not bring their games on Wii U. Even though Nintendo fixed everything they cried for...

[broodwars]

I'm kind of surprised that the Japanese companies aren't rallying behind the Wii U, but I'm not surprised by Western Devs' support for the thing so far.  The Wii U launch was packed w/ Western Developed 3rd party games like ZombiU; Black Ops 2; Assassin's Creed 3; etc. and has anyone gotten the impression that they've sold well? The most damning thing I've heard is that anecdotal report I heard on a podcast (Giant Bomb, I think) of 400K+ online players each on Black Ops 2 PS3 & 360, 400 total on Wii U.

3rd parties are still burned on Nintendo from the Wii years, and for better or worse (justified or not) Nintendo seems to have burned their bridges with EA.  Until the Wii U starts selling consoles, I can understand the Western Devs not wanting to waste their time and expensive manpower on Wii U ports they have good reason to think won't sell well.  They also could flat out not have gotten final dev kits until shortly before the Wii U launch, so they're slow to get set-up for Wii U development.

Like it or not, the Wii U's underwhelming launch numbers and total lack of hype aren't helping Nintendo's case with 3rd parties right now.  And unless Nintendo can get a game out there soon that really gets people excited to play Wii U, I don't see their situation improving.

Is it right that 3rd parties are giving Nintendo the cold shoulder despite the Wii U now being on-par with the other 6-7 year old consoles?  Probably not, and there's certainly a business opportunity to be had from being the biggest fish in a tiny pond.  However, this is likely Nintendo reaping what they had sewn with the Wii years.

[ShyGuy]

3rd parties had Nintendo "burned" issues way before the Wii, Broodwars.

[Ian Sane]

My expectation of lousy third party support is the very reason I've been putting off a Wii U purchase.

There was concern that the Wii U would be underpowered.  Nintendo made no effort to suggest that that was not the case.  The whole marketing campaign was very similar to the Wii, thus there is the natural assumption, right or wrong, that this will just a continuation of the Wii.

Aside from meaning that this is likely last gen hardware yet again (so why learn the ropes of a system that will obsolete in a year), it also suggests the same userbase.  The aftermath of the Wii is that Nintendo's userbase is now strictly kids, casuals and diehard Nintendo nuts.  The sort of gamer that would buy the sort of third party titles we're talking about lost interest in the Wii.  The assumption would be that regardless of how well the Wii U sells, it is not selling to the market the third parties want to sell games to.  So why should they bother?

It does not help that there is ZERO incentive thus far (though some exclusives are on the way) for anyone to buy a Wii U for third party games.  So I'm going to buy a Wii U to play the same games that were on the PS360 months before?  Hell, even with a simultaneous release, the Wii U gets the same games as the "last gen" systems.  If you own an Xbox 360, why would you ever buy a Wii U to get a third party game that is released on the system you already own?  Only a Wii U exclusive would influence a purchase.  The good exclusives are Nintendo games - that look like the same type of games that were released on the Wii.  So why would anyone who isn't already a big Wii fan assume that the Wii U will be anything different?

Last gen Nintendo split the market.  Nintendo did just fine without much third party support or without credibility with core gamers.  But at the same time core gamers and third parties found out that they don't NEED Nintendo.  Nintendo pretty much set up this new casual market for videogames and the rest of the industry chugged along with the old core market.  We saw a lot of devs go broke but the ones still around are the ones that survived and they figure they'll continue to do so with the status quo.

[Kytim89]

If DMC, Metal Gear Rising, Tomb Raider, and Dead Space 3 were announced for the Wii U right now then I would buy a Wii U ASAP, but until some good games come out for it in the next sixth months then I am going to take my time.

[SixthAngel]

Looking at what Nintendo can do now to win over third parties is the wrong way to go about it.  Decisions to develop for the Wii U were made ages ago.  No developer was"holding off" until they saw how it sold, game development takes too long.
Many publishers didn't learn a damn thing from the Wii, which is that you can't wait or you will miss the boat.  While some ports won't be worth it most of them should be put on the Wii U just to build up a user base for their games even if they think the port will barely make any money.  With costs set to rise again having even a small user base on the sequel to last gens biggest seller is common (business) sense.

I expect good support from Ubisoft because of ZombiU and the fact that they have ported most of their other stuff.  Other than that I expect a bunch of Japanese third parties,all the EA Sports games and Call of Duty stuff from Activision because they will stuff them on anything.  Some of the other titles will slip through occasionally for one reason or another.

[shingi_70]

Its yet to be seen if the Wii U is going to be a boat that they shouldn't miss. This spring will tell with pikmin' Wii fit u, monster hinter, and aliens.

[regin]

It's the same scenario as the Wii. The console will be a generation behind in raw power, and that means you'd have to go out of your way to make a special, downgraded Wii U version of your game. I guess people wanted PS3/360 ports as well, but most developers are done with those consoles and many are about to ship their final game before they shift completely over to the next Xbox and Playstation. Who's gonna take the time to learn a brand new system just to get a single port out there before it's time to throw it in the garbage?

[Ian Sane]

Many publishers didn't learn a damn thing from the Wii, which is that you can't wait or you will miss the boat. 

Except that missing the boat last time didn't matter as any third party that didn't go broke was just fine supporting the other systems, regardless of how many consoles Nintendo sold.  Missing one boat means squat when there are three other boats in the port going to the same destination.

[Luigi Dude]

Except that missing the boat last time didn't matter as any third party that didn't go broke was just fine supporting the other systems, regardless of how many consoles Nintendo sold.  Missing one boat means squat when there are three other boats in the port going to the same destination.

Only a lot of those third parties that didn't shut down, still lost a lot of money because of their lack of Nintendo support.  If the 720/PS4 are huge power increases over the 360/PS3, they're just going to make dev cost rise even higher then they currently are and the current dev cost are already way to high for many third parties.  If current 360/PS3 cost are enough to make these studio's still lose money, then what will 720/PS4 cost do to them?

In other words, they might have still been able to survive last gen by not supporting Nintendo, but if dev cost rise even higher, they might not end up so lucky this gen.