Anyone still think Wii U will "win" "next gen"?

[Deleted member 13524]

Crysis 3 was running in the Wii U but EA refused to publish it due to "lack of business support".

http://www.destructoid.com/wii-u-version-of-crysis-3-canceled-due-to-lack-of-support-247565.phtml

We did have Crysis 3 running on the Wii U. We were very close to launching it. But there was a lack of business support between Nintendo and EA on that. Since we as a company couldn’t launch on the Wii U ourselves — we don’t have a publishing license — Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.

First it's sub-par hardware, then it's publisher boycott.Things seem to be getting worse by the minute for Nintendo.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I imagine Nintendo won't let EA implement EA's online services. Might be wrong on that, but that's my guess.

 

[Arwin]

It's the CoD sales for sure. They are so bad, that before they pick up, few other publishers will be able to tell themselves there is a market for this on Wii U. And with next-gen around the corner resources are tight anyway. If the CryEngine was used for more current gen games that could appeal to the Wii U audience then it might have been worth the investment regardless, but there are no titles I know of so that now seems unlikely.

 

[BRiT]

Crysis 3 was running in the Wii U but EA refused to publish it due to "lack of business support".

http://www.destructoid.com/wii-u-version-of-crysis-3-canceled-due-to-lack-of-support-247565.phtml



First it's sub-par hardware, then it's publisher boycott.Things seem to be getting worse by the minute for Nintendo.

First its sub-par hardware, then its sub-par software sales, then it's publishers following business 101. It makes no business sense to publish new games on a platform where your best selling title of all times fails to sell even 100K. Only 4 titles have managed to sell over 100K on the WiiU. There is no market opportunity there. This lack of future EA titles on the WiiU comes as no surprise to me given the sales data.

 

[Rodéric]

First its sub-par hardware, then its sub-par software sales, then it's publishers following business 101. It makes no business sense to publish new games on a platform where your best selling title of all times fails to sell even 100K. Only 4 titles have managed to sell over 100K on the WiiU. There is no market opportunity there. This lack of future EA titles on the WiiU comes as no surprise to me given the sales data.

It's unfortunate that those people will judge it based on the amount of low quality third party titles sold...
There's no hit game sofar, and none of the third party are really appealing, except if you were living under a rock and didn't have any other gaming platform than the Wii, which is unlikely.
(Even then the title would likely not appeal to you...)

 

[AlphaWolf]

Low Quality titles that sell millions on other platforms.

 

[RobertR1]

It's unfortunate that those people will judge it based on the amount of low quality third party titles sold...
There's no hit game sofar, and none of the third party are really appealing, except if you were living under a rock and didn't have any other gaming platform than the Wii, which is unlikely.
(Even then the title would likely not appeal to you...)

Quality can be very subjective unless we're comparing metacritic averages.

However, sales numbers are what they are and for the WiiU, they are pitiful.

When PS4/Durango come around, it's lights out from a 3rd party perspective.

As I said before a few times, buy a WiiU because you love Nintendo 1st part games. That's really all you'll be getting.

 

[BRiT]

Low Quality titles that sell millions on other platforms.

In the first week alone CoD: Black Ops 2 sold over 11 Million, and brought in Over 1 billion dollars in the first 15 days and yet it struggles to hit over 100K on the WiiU.

Perhaps Rodéric is right, the Wii U isn't for the core gamers at all despite Nintendo claiming to aim for them; it's a hardware platform only for Nintendo's own games.

 

[rockaman]

Aren't those charts mostly in favour of 360 and Ps3 compared to WiiU? Both these consoles launched at higher price points, and much higher in the PS3's case. Additionally the WiiU has had 'next-gen' to itself, though it is not stealing attention away from the last generation consoles.

I think the Wii in retrospect will be labeled an outlier in the end. The success was, in my opinion, a soft sell and it's ability to generate excitement over an innovative idea.

WiiU has simply not generated the same excitement. The virtues of the WiiPad are not easily communicated in the slightest. I think this is the main problem and I think Nintendo made the mistake of attributing the feature of 'being different' as the reason of the Wii's success, rather than what was truly, in my opinion, the fortune of being characterised as a new way to play games, a wave of motion control excitement and the soft sell appeal of being associated with fitness.

WiiU has neither of these things and I think taking away the Wiimote as the center of the WiiU future might have not been a good business idea, even if it is a cool design idea.

 

[Orion]

I think the Wii in retrospect will be labeled an outlier in the end. The success was, in my opinion, a soft sell and it's ability to generate excitement over an innovative idea.

Innovative it might be, but in my opinion it was nothing more than a gimmick.

 

[wco81]

I think Nintendo has been hit more by mobile gaming, which is undermining the $60 shrinked wrap games business model, because a lot of those casual gamers that the Wii attracted have either moved on to phones and tablets for casual games or maybe stopped gaming.

Lot of Wii gamers bought few games or mostly played Wii Sports. So these kinds of gamers will have an affinity for cheap or free mobile games.

Sony and MS may be more insulated because their installed base were drawn to their consoles for performance reasons and they will better differentiate their next-gen products on that basis.

But they won't be completely immune from the allure of cheap and free games either.

 

[Squilliam]

To sum up the Wii U marketplace for developers, it is exactly like the Wii marketplace in terms of how it functions essentially but without the overwhelmingly large install base. The Wii marketplace created problems for developers due to the nature of the people who bought the console, I.E. games didn't sell for full price, they sold over extended periods which meant greater shipping and distribution costs and the marketplace was both unpredictable and Nintendo centric. Because the Wii was such a terrible market for development I can see how publishers may see it as being in their best interests to semi sabotage the platform in favour of platforms which better suit their interests.

 

[rockaman]

I think Nintendo has been hit more by mobile gaming, which is undermining the $60 shrinked wrap games business model, because a lot of those casual gamers that the Wii attracted have either moved on to phones and tablets for casual games or maybe stopped gaming.

Lot of Wii gamers bought few games or mostly played Wii Sports. So these kinds of gamers will have an affinity for cheap or free mobile games.

Sony and MS may be more insulated because their installed base were drawn to their consoles for performance reasons and they will better differentiate their next-gen products on that basis.

But they won't be completely immune from the allure of cheap and free games either.

I think this might be a good part of it as well. Maybe the children's appeal of Mario is hurt when the same adults can entertain their kids with an iPad.

Of course that doesn't account for the huge group of adult Nintendo fans or gamers who are just generally willing to spend for exclusive experiences.

I would definitely say I think that mobile markets have taken a bite into Nintendo though, and maybe a big one too.

Maybe even PlayStation and Xbox won't be so immune unless they make sure to differentiate themselves enough from all of these new devices. People need to be shown a reason to own both, so the others better do something to convince people there is a legitimate reason to own a console.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying WiiU is not unique, but maybe the popular opinion and buying habits might say that consumers aren't seeing that difference enough... In their eyes only... Or just aren't willing to spend on the difference they see.

Maybe even the market is saying to Nintendo 'Now is the time to wow us with more than a sequel to pikmin and NSMB.' But I wonder how Nintendo can wow people now. I feel their gaming output has been stagnant for a long time. Solid quality games, but maybe stagnating ideas and tropes. Too toy company? Maybe. Sometimes I feel Nintendo would do better as a third party publisher the way they develop games. I understand they have huge cash reserves and pride in their hardware, but to me it seems like they would grow exponentially to get outside of their own console box. Keep the DS line though, that mama sells bonkers.

 

[dagamer]

Looking back, the real reason the Wii U has suffered was because it didn't have any games nearly as amazing as Wii Sports, Super Smash Bros Melee or Super Mario 64. The longevity and popularity of those games is shown by the fact that the best selling game for each of those consoles was a launch window game.

 

[Billy Idol]

What I do not understand: why did crytek in this case even border with a port, just to find out that they are not allowed to ship? This makes little sense imo: why even invest in porting the game to WiiU when they know that EA/Nintendo won't work together and game is not going to be published? I guess that such things are being sorted out before investing the money/resources. The whole story seems a bit weird to me...

 

[Brad Grenz]

Crytek has a business licensing their engine. Whether a WiiU version was going to be published by EA or not, they probably felt it was a good idea to have a working WiiU version of the CryEngine for licensing purposes.

 

[Pressure]

I also believe some heavy spin have been going around.

I think the reason Crysis is not going on the Wii U is because EA wanted something like Origin for the Wii U. Nintendo said no, EA closes the war chest full of game studios ready to release games for the Wii U and blame it on Nintendo for being hard to "do business" with.

Although I do believe Nintendo can salvage a lot by doing a price cut and making it a very friendly indie-game-developer environment with lax publishing rules and pricing. That, or they release the next Legend of Zelda.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Nintendo's whole network strategy has been to let publishers do whatever the fuck they want. The idea that Nintendo blocked EA from using Origin log-ins is a ludicrous conspiracy theory. More likely EA took a look at their WiiU software sales and that January NPD and made the only sensible decision.

 

[Pressure]

Ok, "ludicrous conspiracy theory"-aside, so if the game was ready for release, why not just release it and stop future development for the platform.

50-100k sold copies would still bring in some money, especially if the game was ready.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Because you'd lose money printing and shipping that many copies around. Printing and shipping any copies would lose them money. It's doubtful it would be worth the cost to QA and submit the game for certification even if it was going to be a digital only release. CoD is supposed to have sold like 10-20K on WiiU. Assassin's Creed supposedly did similar numbers.