The Wii U hasn’t had the best start in life, it has struggled to win over the mass market and Nintendo have had the industry equivalent wake up call as the Wii U fails to meet their expectations. Now I’m not going to say the console it rubbish and isn’t selling well, simply because both of those things would be a lie.
The Wii U is selling steady, the hardware performs really well too and while some articles will tell you otherwise, the graphics are pretty top notch too, but there is one thing missing from the Wii U and it’s as blatantly obvious as a giant pink elephant, GAMES! Nintendo is really slacking on the big first party releases, the consoles sellers, the ones that are the only reason you should buy Nintendo, Zelda, Mario, Smash Bros, Star Fox, Zelda, more Zelda, more Mario, you get the idea, but there are certain games you can only play on Nintendo and well… there aren’t exactly a lot out there right now.
To make matters go from bad to worse, not only for Nintendo, but also for anyone who actually owns a Wii U, or of course anyone that intends to buy ones, EA has all but abandoned the Wii U and when someone as big as EA walks away, you can bet others will follow suit. After trying and failing to get the Frostbite 2 engine running on Wii U EA didn’t even bother trying to get Frostbite 3 running and performance just wasn’t good for their current and next-gen engine. EA has 15 games in development that use Frostbite game engine, Army of Two, Battlefield, Mass Effect, Dragon’s Age, Need for Speed and more are all in development and unless something incredible happens (not likely) then none of these games are coming to Wii U… ever.
It’s not a high priority for EA to scale down their graphics, change an entire engine for the Wii U and push their games to the platform either, as its for the most part cheaper to buy a console like the Xbox or Playstation 3 and have the game run better and the Wii U is already having a hard time, so it’s a financial uncertainty for EA. In short, Nintendo is in big trouble.
Did they TRY to talk to nintendo about making it work? No, I have done some developing of my own games and this is stupid. i think EA is just being lazy and doesn’t wanna go the extra step. They will lose more profit this way and EA already is having issues. I think this is a bad move on their not just cause I like nintendo. ( Granted I like all systems but thats besides the point). I am saddened by this and all the other stuff.
Everyday you read about some company planning to release a new console to the market. Every man and his parrot wants a piece of the action in the gaming market. Something’s got to give.
Is that right? Care to point me in the direction of say… 1 years worth of said companies? I’d love to read about 365 potential new consoles.
WoW… I never saw a Console die that fast.
If EA really won’t publish any of its next games for it (Those that are hyped already!) then the Wii U just lost every point of interest for Gamers.. Casual Gamers may stay and Nostalgia-Fans that hope for games like a new Metroid (What I hope for!) or some new Zelda… Mario is just getting old… it feels like the same Side-Scroller over and over..
They should consider a Sunshine 2 or atleast Galaxy’s 3…
Hell even Luigi’s Mansion 2 as a Wii U release would be awesome..
But Nintendo really lost a big piece of consumers with EA turning theyr back on them.
It’s a blow no doubt but not as big as is being claimed. Let’s be honest, multi-platform EA titles (which most people think of as being in the Sony/Microsoft domain) are not what really shifts Nintendo consoles and wins them acclaim. It’s their top tier titles which do that, but yes, they’ve been slow off the mark (by their own admission, see Iwata’s recent comments). However we do know that the following have been officially confirmed to be in development and importantly are all exclusive to Wii U:
3D Mario
New Zelda
Wind Waker HD
Monolith JRPG
Fire Emblem x SMT
New Yoshi
Mario Kart
Smash Bros. U/3DS
Pikmin 3
Bayonetta 2
Retro Studios title (TBA)
Most of them will probably be released over the next 18-24 months, meaning that it will coincide nicely with Sony/Microsoft just beginning to establish their latest offerings (many of which will not be exclusive). Lastly, don’t forget that even an initial disappointment with Wii U sales can be dealt with by Nintendo due to the continued success of the DS/3DS (especially in Japan). Something worth bearing in mind to those all to keen to make parallels to Sega/Dreamcast.
I don’t think it’s as simple as they couldn’t do it. Remember when EA showed up at Nintendo’s press conference pre- Wii U? There was alot of talk about Origins being THE online for the Wii U. I’m assuming something behind the scenes broke apart because EA was suppose to be a huge Wii U backer. All EA had was Mass Effect 3… WOW!!