Wii U losing all upcoming EA games

[Greg2600]

http://www.gamespot.com//news/ea-not-developing-anything-for-wii-u-6408481?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-08-wii-u-to-miss-out-on-15-ea-games-using-frostbite-engine-3

I wouldn't think this is good news for a console nobody is buying.

EA Sr. Engineer calls Wii U crap.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/17/ea-senior-engineer-the-wii-u-is-crap?utm_campaign=fbposts&utm_source=facebook

[Tupin]

Huh. Well, this certainly complicates things.

[kupomogli]

I see Nintendo developing Mario Football and another Mario Soccer in the near future.

[Rickstilwell1]

Not having EA on board actually gives me more faith in the Wii U being a quality console because of their absence LOL

[Tanooki]

EA just showing their true colors again for another generation. There's clearly something more here than we all know. Back in the late 90s/00 they pulled this same shit on Sega throwing the Dreamcast under the bus, but there was some bad blood between the two from the previous system to cause the problem. I'm going to go with thinking something with the Wii pissed EA off pretty well enough to want to act like babies again tossing away an easy revenue stream. I know some of their games didn't perform well so they had to re-release them in HD like Goldeneye or just bitched and moaned about their waggle sports not doing as well for the lazy couch sportsman as your normal button pusher play off the Wii.

[Greg2600]

Not really the same as the Dreamcast situation. EA didn't have faith in SEGA, after the failure of the Saturn. Turns out they were the wise ones. In this instance, it's a matter of technology. EA has no interest it appears wedging their games onto the underpowered Wii U. In the case of Frostbite, I heard on Destructoid that they tried the Frostbite 2 engine, I guess to have FB3 run on that, and it was still too advanced for the console.

[kupomogli]

EA just showing their true colors again for another generation.

:roll:


There's clearly something more here than we all know.

It's pretty clear actually. Every one of their games sold extremely poorly on the Wii U so they're going to wait until the console sales pick up for releasing any more games for it. Who knows, maybe since they're getting no profit from their titles, EA feels they're getting screwed by supporting Nintendo with no additional funding from them, while Nintendo is paying off developers left and right "per game."


I know some of their games didn't perform well so they had to re-release them in HD like Goldeneye

Goldeneye was Activision.

[Aussie2B]

And nothing of value was lost to this gamer.

[Bubble_Man]

I can see that this is bad for the console, but I don't care on a personal level since I've never bought any console for the sake of playing an EA title.

[Gregger]

Something tells me EA is in cahoots with Microsoft. They also didn't show up at Sony's PS4 press conference which was out of character.

[RCM]

This isn't as big a blow to Nintendo as it was to Sega. A lot has changed since the Dreamcast era, and EA has lost a lot of faith in the traditional market.

[treismac]

And nothing of value was lost to this gamer.

Word. In 3-4 years, if I decide to buy a Wii U providing there are enough worthwhile titles to justify the purchase, I won't roll a single tear down my cheek because EA doesn't have a game for the system.

[Griking]

This isn't as big a blow to Nintendo as it was to Sega. A lot has changed since the Dreamcast era, and EA has lost a lot of faith in the traditional market.

I'm curious, what's changed since the Dreamcast era that makes this less of a blow to Nintendo today?

[Greg2600]

I think it's worse. The Dreamcast was not all that harmed by not having EA. At the time, their Sega Sports games were far better than EA Sports anyway! EA wasn't doing all that many non-sports titles. Nowadays, EA owns so many major properties, it's a far bigger loss.

[cholkavich]

Does this mean Nintendo has to do more HD releases of N64 and gc games to make up for the loss :roll:

[Kitsune Sniper]

I'm curious, what's changed since the Dreamcast era that makes this less of a blow to Nintendo today?

Sega didn't have dozens of publishers who'd work with them just because of their brand name.

[Red Warrior]

I don't really consider this a huge loss for Nintendo. If anyone wants to play Mass Effect, Need for Speed, FIFA, or Madden, they already own a 360 or PS3 and will therefore purchase those games on those consoles. People buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games... which is why the Wii U hasn't sold well. The only decent Nintendo game available for it at the moment is New Super Mario Bros U, and that's not a good enough reason for most people to plunk down $350.

A $50-$100 price drop, however, would definitely make the Wii U a more attractive purchase... and a better name...

[Rickstilwell1]

Yeah since everybody only wants New Super Mario Bros. U they decided to make New Super Luigi U... This is proof that our money talks. Maybe the new Sonic exclusive will help. A lot of Sonic fans are now talking about finally "having to buy" the console. Mario has a lot of fans but they aren't as crazy as Sonic's fanbase.

[Greg2600]

I don't really consider this a huge loss for Nintendo. If anyone wants to play Mass Effect, Need for Speed, FIFA, or Madden, they already own a 360 or PS3 and will therefore purchase those games on those consoles. People buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games... which is why the Wii U hasn't sold well. The only decent Nintendo game available for it at the moment is New Super Mario Bros U, and that's not a good enough reason for most people to plunk down $350.

A $50-$100 price drop, however, would definitely make the Wii U a more attractive purchase... and a better name...

The price is low as it is, which is the problem. They didn't beef it up enough, in order to keep it lower. Also, are you suggested that Nintendo's business model is simply to provide hardware to play 1st party games? That is not going to work.

[Red Warrior]

The price is low as it is, which is the problem. They didn't beef it up enough, in order to keep it lower. Also, are you suggested that Nintendo's business model is simply to provide hardware to play 1st party games? That is not going to work.

That's not their business model, but that's how things usually work out for them from my perspective. I have a Wii, Wii U, and PS3 for the first party exclusives, and an Xbox 360 for everything else. I'm not saying everybody does it this way, but I'm willing to bet that the majority of gamers are not purchasing Nintendo consoles in order to play the next Mass Effect or Madden title.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

This is going to sound fucked up since i loved nintendo growing up and still believe that they are one of the best developers in the world but personally...lol im fucking glad this is happening, its fucking justice, nintendo put themselves here from years of running their shit like a mafia in the 90s and ignoring or fucking over third parties.


I kno it shouldnt but it really almost makes me laugh how the developers who they couldnt give a fuck less about in the past, ea in particular are the same ones who they desparately need to survive now but have turned their backs on them for whatever reason



Sweet delicious beautiful irony.

[Nebagram]

You know, at first I thought 'shit, here we go again with Nintendo's Dreamcast' but then I thought 'actually, do I actually own any EA games on the Wii'? And the answer is: yes, but only 3 and none of them are what I'd call essential. I then looked back and asked the same question of the Gamecube, and got exactly the same answer. Outside of sports games I picked up dirt-cheap and can't be bothered to flog, I don't own any other EA games for any Nintendo system. EA not supporting the Wii U won't hurt Nintendo as much as it did Sega because EA barely supported the Wii beyond the usual annual re-releaseathons.

[bigbacon]

i agree it is a kick in the pants for Nintendo. the biggest publisher of games just dropped you, that is not good for them anyway you put it. Like EA games or not, enthusiasts don't make up the majority of sales, the casual gamer does. Nintendo screwed up IMO with the Wii U. too little to late, People learned with the Wii that it wsa under powered and that the fun wore off rather quickly. How many people do you know with a Wii that just sits there and never gets used? I bet a lot.

People learned from that so why does a Wii U? People don't understand the difference, they see another gimmicky controller with the Wii name slapped on it and equate it to the previous Wii experiences.

I honestly think Nintendo should get out of the main console game, stick with handhelds where they've excelled and continue to. They could make SO much more money just making games using thier powerful in the market IPs.

Again, like EA or not, HUGE hit to Nintendo and you can't deny that.

you stil need to look at it from EAs perspective as well. Why waste time and money on trying to get your games to work on an under powered system when they have 2 other great systems that their games can port between, and they know how to do it well. They will lose more a lot more money spending it to develop and then not getting the sales. The games that sell are going to sell boat loads on xbox and ps3 anyway, they don't need the Wii and its abysmal user base.

[kainemaxwell]

Less sports titles clogging up used game bins now.

[joshnickerson]

Because EA put so much effort into their launch titles...

[sloan]

The longer lasting effects of this decision remain to be seen. Despite the comparisons to Sega's Dreamcast console, it should also be noted that Nintendo is rife with cash, whereas Sega was not in such an advantageous position when Dreamcast went down. As has been stated, EA is a big player, and even though the few on these forums may be fine without their games, casual buyers ultimately buy the majority of consoles and games. Some father who is thinking of buying a system for his kid may well turn away from Wii U if it does not have games he may like playing (i.e. Madden). Still, my feeling is that if Nintendo plays it right, this may well work to its advantage overall.

[The 1 2 P]

I'm going to go with thinking something with the Wii pissed EA off pretty well enough to want to act like babies again tossing away an easy revenue stream.

Thats the thing, it isn't an easy revenue stream for EA or most other third party publishers if reports are to be believed. EA has supported the Wii U with 4 games since launch and I believe that all of them have underperformed by a wide margin. Thus it isn't worth the time and money to continue making games for them. This was actually a very smart business decision on EA's part.


Something tells me EA is in cahoots with Microsoft. They also didn't show up at Sony's PS4 press conference which was out of character.

Thats definitely not true. EA makes a good majority of their money on Sony's consoles. They have also supported the PS3 with exclusive content on several multiplatform games(Dante's Inferno, Medal of Honor, etc), including timed exclusive Battlefield 3 content.


A $50-$100 price drop, however, would definitely make the Wii U a more attractive purchase... and a better name...

If the Wii U does become a failure(and we really won't know for atleast a few more years) I think it will be safe to say that the name of the system was one of the major problems Nintendo had. There are alot of people that don't even know the Wii U exist and even more people that do know it exist but because of the name think its just some kind of Wii accessory.

I know a lot of people don't think this is a big deal because they don't like or play EA's games. But this may be the start of a much bigger exodus. EA may be the first publisher to pull all future support(for the time being) but they are certainly not the first to pull titles, as several have already been canceled. Perhaps things will be much different in a year or two but for the moment I don't see any positives from this announcement

[TonyTheTiger]

"Multiplatform" doesn't mean the same thing today as it did pre-Wii. The way Nintendo has been doing things lately makes going fully multiplatform a sucker bet. We saw it on the Wii. You'd have a game that was clearly designed for the PS3/360 take a visual hit and get tacked on motion control support that didn't add any value to the experience. And the reviews were consistent. "Stay away from the Wii port." EA probably sees the Wii U falling into the same trap. With Nintendo's machines you're stuck between "make a really good game designed specifically for that console" or "make a multiplatform game that is shittiest on that console."

[Press_Start]

. As has been stated, EA is a big player, and even though the few on these forums may be fine without their games, casual buyers ultimately buy the majority of consoles and games. Some father who is thinking of buying a system for his kid may well turn away from Wii U if it does not have games he may like playing (i.e. Madden).

Between the Mass Effect 3 fiasco, the SimCity DRM debacle, voted #1 Worst "video game" Company in USA, Day-One DLC, Microtransactions, Nickel n Diming out of the butt and not to mention all the lies, double-talk, and hypocrisy they spewed in the last two years, EA been sh!tting on non-Nintendo fans and Nintendo fans alike. This latest move is another nail in the coffin to that irrecoverable backlash they're inflicting on themselves. What they don't seem to realize is some Nintendo fans like me also own PS3/360 and may cost them sales not only with Big-N but Sony and MS platforms as well.


"Multiplatform" doesn't mean the same thing today as it did pre-Wii. The way Nintendo has been doing things lately makes going fully multiplatform a sucker bet. We saw it on the Wii. You'd have a game that was clearly designed for the PS3/360 take a visual hit and get tacked on motion control support that didn't add any value to the experience. And the reviews were consistent. "Stay away from the Wii port." EA probably sees the Wii U falling into the same trap. With Nintendo's machines you're stuck between "make a really good game designed specifically for that console" or "make a multiplatform game that is shittiest on that console."

I think PS4 and 720 will be in a similar situation except: it's either "Make a big budget AAA-title and take a huge loss from lower than expected sales" or "Make a cheaper version and just upscale it."

[Griking]

Sega didn't have dozens of publishers who'd work with them just because of their brand name.

It seems like Nintendo is in pretty much the same boat. EA, Ubisoft.. who's next?

[Griking]

Less sports titles clogging up used game bins now.

Time will tell if the Wii U follows suit but I didn't get into the Wii because I'm personally sick of Nintendo franchises and every time I'd visit a game store the shelves would be filled with stuff like dancing and and singing games, fitness titles and Imagine: Party Babyz

[eskobar]

Because EA put so much effort into their launch titles...

The same effort as any developer ... hell, even Nintendo didn't put much effort in the console ... yes, I'm talking about the 1gb update and the slooooooow menus :roll:

[kupomogli]

EA this, EA that. Blah blah blah blah blah.

The Mass Effect 3 fiasco was because entitled douchebag who played through what according to them was a great 40+ hour game and then complained about how the ending ruined it and cried to Amazon and other places until they were given refunds. SimCity was patched and working fine within four days from the release date, unlike Silent Hill HD Collection and Downpour not getting an announcement of a patch until six months after release, and then the 360 version of the HD Collection patch was cancelled, and that's only one example game(video of games framerate below.) Capcom has day one DLC, on disc content that's sold as DLC at a later date. Rarely does this happen, but several developers have released near unplayable ports of games on the PS3 or 360, with massive framerate drops, noticeable screen tear issues or sometimes both(on the PS3 more than the 360,) while EA has actually always released quality ports between both consoles.

Most complaints about EA can be said of any developer and usually even more so. It's obvious why you're bitching about it, and we all know if this happened to the PS4 or Next Box at launch and not the Wii U you'd be praising it. It sucks that the Wii U lost EA's support, sure, but they lost support for good reason. They've released several games and have made nothing from it. They've probably lost millions due to how much printing and shipping costs are and the only return they're going to get is a small portion of the inevitable $20 price cut for all remaining copies. But sure. They should keep releasing games that don't sell.

Here are some EA games that offered you a complete title without the purchase of any DLC, and what was released was nothing more than fluff.

Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted, Shift, Shift 2, The Run, Crysis 2, Crysis($15 when it launched on consoles wasn't it?,) Dead Space, Dead Space 2, Fight Night series, Alice, SSX, Army of Two series, and I'd assume sports games.

The only games that they've released that have had major DLC releases were the Bioware games, their FPS games, and Kingdoms of Amalur(which was a second party title only being partially funded and published by EA.) Atleast with their day one DLC and DLC that they're working on to release in the future, they announced it as such. They didn't include it on the disc and then sold it to you. They didn't withhold it back off the disc and then people found out that half the characters on Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 were already on the vanilla disc just not playable a hacked 360. Instead of bullshitting the customer about what's on the disc, EA usually has told customers what they would get when purchasing the game and what has been developed afterwards. Now Dead Space 3 DLC being announced two weeks later is different from what usually happens and Visceral Stated they started it once the game was already printed. Who knows. But it's clear that it's not on disc DLC, so we know there's the possibility that it was developed after printing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amu1h8JwVxY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHNA_PIemtc
^Silent Hill Downpour. The first video it drops to 0fps atleast 10 times in a span of four minutes and is constantly dropping frames. The second video is how certain PS3 models run the game, which make it literally unplayable. Just remember though. These issues weren't fixed by Konami until well past six months after release.

*edit*

Why is there no bitching about 2K games or other developers? They release NBA 2K13 on the Wii U last year, but MLB2K this year didn't get a Wii U release and now they're announcing no WWE 2K14 for the Wii U. EA actually released more than one game before they dropped system support.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-14-wwe-2k14-release-date-punched-up

[CDiablo]

Its just business but I dont think EA understands the Wii market. Most Wii U owners are gamers and have at least an XBOX or PS3 available to them. EA feels that they could just throw late and or shit ports out on the market and make money off the suckers that only own a Wii U and never had the chance to experience these games otherwise. They were wrong. The amount of people that only own a Wii U are probably less than 5% of owners. Just like the Wii publishers are throwing scraps at the Wii U and hoping that there will be an easy buck out of it. Once that easy buck comes in only then will there be a discussion of real ports or original titles. Publishing games is big business, and EA wants no part in taking the risk of testing the market for anything but late and or crappy ports. The only way more games are going to get on the system is having more systems sold and more games sold. Its pretty hard to see if that will happen without anyone making games for the system.

[Daltone]

Its just business but I dont think EA understands the Wii market. Most Wii U owners are gamers and have at least an XBOX or PS3 available to them. EA feels that they could just throw late and or shit ports out on the market and make money off the suckers that only own a Wii U and never had the chance to experience these games otherwise. They were wrong. The amount of people that only own a Wii U are probably less than 5% of owners. Just like the Wii publishers are throwing scraps at the Wii U and hoping that there will be an easy buck out of it. Once that easy buck comes in only then will there be a discussion of real ports or original titles. Publishing games is big business, and EA wants no part in taking the risk of testing the market for anything but late and or crappy ports. The only way more games are going to get on the system is having more systems sold and more games sold. Its pretty hard to see if that will happen without anyone making games for the system.

I'd go the other way and say that EA knows exactly what it is doing with the Wii market.

Drop a few quick ports in at first - are they profitable, how difficult are they to port? Your foot is in the door publisher wise. The big question is: is it worth developing games for this system? Slow sales, other publishers jumping ship. Probably not worth putting effort in to developing things exclusively. Not going to sell enough port-wise because your main user base already has a PS3/Xbox and Nintendo aren't doing anything to attract them over. Bottom line - drop it.

[Bojay1997]

Its just business but I dont think EA understands the Wii market. Most Wii U owners are gamers and have at least an XBOX or PS3 available to them. EA feels that they could just throw late and or shit ports out on the market and make money off the suckers that only own a Wii U and never had the chance to experience these games otherwise. They were wrong. The amount of people that only own a Wii U are probably less than 5% of owners. Just like the Wii publishers are throwing scraps at the Wii U and hoping that there will be an easy buck out of it. Once that easy buck comes in only then will there be a discussion of real ports or original titles. Publishing games is big business, and EA wants no part in taking the risk of testing the market for anything but late and or crappy ports. The only way more games are going to get on the system is having more systems sold and more games sold. Its pretty hard to see if that will happen without anyone making games for the system.

I strongly disagree with your premise about most WiiU owners having an Xbox 360 or PS3 available to them. While that may be true of the WiiU owners here, I seriously doubt that's the case for most WiiU owners. I suspect many WiiU owners have a 3DS or DS or Wii available to them. I can't imagine many WiiU owners this early on had 360s and PS3s and decided to pick up the WiiU simply for the handful of Nintendo first party games released to date. That may change once the major flood of Nintendo first party stuff starts hitting, but I just think that younger gamers and families don't play sports games or EA games with the same interest that teenage and twenty something men do. Those guys are never going to be the primary audience for the WiiU just like they weren't for the Wii. The only thing that saved the Wii for EA was there were so many hardware units out there that EA couldn't help but sell copies of whatever they put out there including reskins and shovelware.

[kupomogli]

EA feels that they could just throw late and or shit ports

I agree. Damn EA. Damn them for giving Nintendo fanboys the shittiest versioin of Most Wanted. The version with 30fps, no frame drops, PC textures, and the best use of the touch pad compared to every other third party developer. /s

360

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NQub6_gLXH4/USMrKbvDPAI/AAAAAAAAFV4/frHuGDPwU8Q/s1600/Desktop_2013_02_18_21_56_22_883.bmp

Wii U

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q3WfKg9SO10/USMrLC3P6FI/AAAAAAAAFWA/C88JGrWCutQ/s1600/Desktop_2013_02_18_21_55_39_587.bmp

[TonyTheTiger]

What EA knows is that the Wii U's existence is at odds with the financial realities of the industry. Exclusives don't pay the bills anymore. And the Wii U is more or less built for them. The original Wii was too, but at least the Wii was in enough homes that there were enough people buying the inferior ports to justify producing them. But the Wii U doesn't even have that on its side. So EA, and any third party for that matter, has to decide between releasing inferior ports of their multiplatform titles on a console that has seen only lukewarm success or making very good games on the Wii U that pretty much have to be exclusive. When the console isn't selling enough to make producing inferior ports worthwhile (at least worthwhile enough to tolerate the negative response to said ports) and exclusives aren't worthwhile period, total abandonment is probably the best option.

This event is just more evidence that the industry needs to reevaluate its spending practices. We need to reel it in enough so that "exclusive" isn't a dirty word. So the Wii U can get its system sellers without it being financial suicide for the publisher.

[kupomogli]

^Here's an idea that would work in getting exclusives for the Wii U while also work in the developer or publishers favor. The developer/publisher would pay for the dev kit, the printing and shipping costs, and would make 100% of the profit for a limited time that would otherwise be split between Nintendo and the publisher.

This would benefit Nintendo as they wouldn't lose any money and get exclusives for the console. It would also benefit the publisher who would be making around the same amount as if they sold two copies on either Microsoft or Sony's console.

Why don't console publishers do this to get exclusives. It's not like they're funding the developer/publishers to create exclusives for them by doing this, so if the game flops there's still an exclusive and no loss for the console developer.

[Griking]

I agree. Damn EA. Damn them for giving Nintendo fanboys the shittiest versioin of Most Wanted. The version with 30fps, no frame drops, PC textures, and the best use of the touch pad compared to every other third party developer.


You're comparing the graphics of a game on the 360, a console that's 8 years old now to the graphics of a "next gen" console that came out less than a year ago? I'd sure as hell hope that the Wii U looked better.

[kupomogli]

Yeah, it's a new console versus a seven and eight year old console, but everyone is saying the ports are poor, when the game has 30fps with little to no frame drops and pc textures. How is it a poor port in comparison to the other consoles when it's better?

I'd say if you were to compare all the other bad ports you've heard of, with poor framerate, texture loading issues(Batman Arkham City,) etc, to the EA releases, the EA releases are the best ports aside from the NFL one where it's missing a mode. EA's ports have been good.

[BetaWolf47]

I don't care either way. After how EA has been lately, I'd go out of my way to not buy any of their titles even if they were on Wii U.

[Tanooki]

I've got ME3 but I regret it, 50/50 because of EA's attitude problem this early into the game and also due to lack of time to put into finishing it for the time being.

Yes some WiiU ports were running poorer, CODBO2 being the notable one. But you also have to look into what real effort went into a port. Was it recoded to work for the strengths of the hardware, or was it dirty, minimal and least effort made possible to get it just to run (which it was.) If you take the halfass approach, you get halfass capabilities and that's true even between the PS2/GC/XB stuff out a decade ago too. Recently that WiiU firmware upgrade people have been reporting not just faster menus for the OS, but also better performance in games in certain areas where drag was notable too. I haven't seen if that has been solidly proven yet (as I don't care enough to look) but if it's not a placebo effect there future titles will benefit from increased CPU and GPU speed boosts whatever they were. I recall someone saying the CPU was up nearly 3x over and the GPU got a few hundred mhz boost(which I'd call a wild fantasy and truly realistic between the two as AMD video chips are highly overclockable without added cooling or stability problems.)

Either way going into EA all they can look at is a system that sold well out of the gate, partly due to predatory pieces of shit trying to scam people on ebay, and other services and then when it bombed a lot went back to the store, and others bought it nice though 2012 and then it dried up due to no new games worth buying other than a couple(if you're into the series/genre.) TO have EA cry like a bitch saying there's no money in it, on a system with a few million units in peoples houses that has stalled on sales isn't entirely fair to just cut ties and run mouthing off like a petulant brat about it in the press. They pulled this shit back in 1999 on Sega and it did the Dreamcast no favors, but Sega also was hemmoraging cash then, Nintendo isn't by any means with their savings and IPs that can carry them far better than anything Sega had to offer.

I think EA will come around in time, others will too, but it will take a steady flow of games in the back half of this year, E3 being critical for exposing things, to do it and probably as I hate to say it, a $50 price drop would get the ball going too WITH GAMES, without would do nothing. When Nintendo finally turns it around and they get like another few million systems in peoples home versus like 50k/mo being moved and a nice steady supply of games out every week or two it will get better. Until they solve the releases issue, and the fact systems aren't moving (lacking games, price probably too) I think EA and others will come back. It's just shitty claiming no money in it this early along when there's little to base no money on.

NIntendo also isn't doing themselves a favor in two other respects. Wii confusion, and advertising. Wii needs to be pulled from the shelf, kill the damned thing, or at least completely stop advertising it as it's confusing to the random buyer who isn't a core gamer in the know. Secondly they need to fire their shit for brains advertising company and get a constant flow of ads for systems and games going at prime time slots on anything from network tv to cartoon network like they did for the Wii, GC, N64, SNES and NES. WiiU runs no ads. It has been out since last year and I've seen 3 ads total which is sickening and all three for hardware, not games.

[Buyatari]

Also, are you suggested that Nintendo's business model is simply to provide hardware to play 1st party games? That is not going to work.

It had better work or they are sunk. The NES and SNES had solid 3rd party software support but no other Nintendo system since then would have survived without the strong 1st party titles provided by Nintendo.

[Rob2600]

It had better work or they are sunk. The NES and SNES had solid 3rd party software support but no other Nintendo system since then would have survived without the strong 1st party titles provided by Nintendo.

Every Nintendo console ever, 1st party games have been the highest sellers. So while I agree that good, popular 3rd party games are important, history has shown that good, popular 1st party Nintendo games are even more important.

[Greg2600]

What EA knows is that the Wii U's existence is at odds with the financial realities of the industry. Exclusives don't pay the bills anymore. And the Wii U is more or less built for them. The original Wii was too, but at least the Wii was in enough homes that there were enough people buying the inferior ports to justify producing them. But the Wii U doesn't even have that on its side. So EA, and any third party for that matter, has to decide between releasing inferior ports of their multiplatform titles on a console that has seen only lukewarm success or making very good games on the Wii U that pretty much have to be exclusive. When the console isn't selling enough to make producing inferior ports worthwhile (at least worthwhile enough to tolerate the negative response to said ports) and exclusives aren't worthwhile period, total abandonment is probably the best option.

This event is just more evidence that the industry needs to reevaluate its spending practices. We need to reel it in enough so that "exclusive" isn't a dirty word. So the Wii U can get its system sellers without it being financial suicide for the publisher.

Wii also capitalized on its VERY low price vs. Sony/MS, and the motion-controller novelty which seems to have faded. My takeaway is why release a system that isn't even as powerful as the outgoing PS3 and 360 (if that EA Engineer is accurate)? I mean, it's like Atari selling the 2600 past the release of the NES, SMS, 7800, TG-16, Genesis AND SNES.


Every Nintendo console ever, 1st party games have been the highest sellers. So while I agree that good, popular 3rd party games are important, history has shown that good, popular 1st party Nintendo games are even more important.

I think the question people have is, where are they? Heck the Dreamcast (which everyone is comparing Wii U to) at least has a ton of SEGA titles at launch (mostly arcade ports).

[Daltone]

Every Nintendo console ever, 1st party games have been the highest sellers. So while I agree that good, popular 3rd party games are important, history has shown that good, popular 1st party Nintendo games are even more important.

Is another salvo of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros etc (which we have seen before) enough to drag people to the console on their own though? For people that just like Nintendo stuff I agree that it is great, but if your interest is 3D platformers, action RPGs and button mashers you can probably get that elsewhere these days.

Saying first party games are always the highest sellers seems a bit dodgy to me. For the NES and the SNES, yes, Nintendo put out the best stuff. For the N64 you had Rare and.. well.. Nintendo turning out decent games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_64_video_games) (list of all games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_64_games)). For the Gamecube you had Nintendo, a couple of big Capcom games and Retro Studios. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_GameCube_video_games). Apart from maybe Eternal Darkness there is nothing that jumps off the complete list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_GameCube_games)as being missing.

When you've got little decent third party support and make unusual choices for the primary controller (yes GC I am including you) then having the first party games as the top sellers isn't a huge surprise.

[CDiablo]

I agree. Damn EA. Damn them for giving Nintendo fanboys the shittiest versioin of Most Wanted. The version with 30fps, no frame drops, PC textures, and the best use of the touch pad compared to every other third party developer. /s

5&1/2 months after the other releases. Nice try though.


I strongly disagree with your premise about most WiiU owners having an Xbox 360 or PS3 available to them. While that may be true of the WiiU owners here, I seriously doubt that's the case for most WiiU owners. I suspect many WiiU owners have a 3DS or DS or Wii available to them. I can't imagine many WiiU owners this early on had 360s and PS3s and decided to pick up the WiiU simply for the handful of Nintendo first party games released to date. That may change once the major flood of Nintendo first party stuff starts hitting, but I just think that younger gamers and families don't play sports games or EA games with the same interest that teenage and twenty something men do. Those guys are never going to be the primary audience for the WiiU just like they weren't for the Wii. The only thing that saved the Wii for EA was there were so many hardware units out there that EA couldn't help but sell copies of whatever they put out there including reskins and shovelware.

I dont really believe that Nintendo consoles are the "family" console as much as they are painted to be. The Wii U seems to be a poorly marketed machine, so I dont think the head in the clouds families that are referred to know about it that much. The people who know about it(and are most likely to drop $300+ on it) are the gaming community. I suspect most are those that still enjoy the Nintendo 1st party games and HAVE to have the new hardware no matter what. What are the best selling games for the Wii U? 1)Nintendo Land(mostly due to bundle) 2)Mario(2/3 of owners own this) 3)Zombi U(1/6 attach rate) 4)Monster Hunter Tri(1/9 attach rate). The 3rd best selling title for the system is 3rd party exclusive mature game. As for sports not being for the "Wii U crowd" The best selling Wii Madden was 08, the first and only true madden released for Wii. Once they decided to make Madden a family friendly("All Play") party game the sales of the series degraded with the least sales coming to the most recent version of Madden. I loved madden 08 for Wii but I wasnt going to give my money to some shit party game version of Madden after that. The Need for speed games as well as Fifa for Wii sold well over 1 million initially then degraded as they gimped the games(some had less features/more bugs than their PS2 counterparts).

[Bojay1997]

5&1/2 months after the other releases. Nice try though.



I dont really believe that Nintendo consoles are the "family" console as much as they are painted to be. The Wii U seems to be a poorly marketed machine, so I dont think the head in the clouds families that are referred to know about it that much. The people who know about it(and are most likely to drop $300+ on it) are the gaming community. I suspect most are those that still enjoy the Nintendo 1st party games and HAVE to have the new hardware no matter what. What are the best selling games for the Wii U? 1)Nintendo Land(mostly due to bundle) 2)Mario(2/3 of owners own this) 3)Zombi U(1/6 attach rate) 4)Monster Hunter Tri(1/9 attach rate). The 3rd best selling title for the system is 3rd party exclusive mature game. As for sports not being for the "Wii U crowd" The best selling Wii Madden was 08, the first and only true madden released for Wii. Once they decided to make Madden a family friendly("All Play") party game the sales of the series degraded with the least sales coming to the most recent version of Madden. I loved madden 08 for Wii but I wasnt going to give my money to some shit party game version of Madden after that. The Need for speed games as well as Fifa for Wii sold well over 1 million initially then degraded as they gimped the games(some had less features/more bugs than their PS2 counterparts).

Your own stats just made my point. 4/6 of WiiU owners have Mario. Only 1/6 have ZombiiU. That's a 4:1 ratio. I would agree with you that the 1/6 represent more traditional gamers/early adopters. As for knowing about WiiU, I have two different co-workers who aren't exactly gamers and they bought the WiiU for their kids because their kids were huge Mario fans and wanted the newest game. They also liked the whole tablet thing. People beyond gamers know about WiiU. Heck, it has its own display in every Target store which isn't exactly some obscure chain. People just don't care very much about it right now and certainly not like they did about the Wii.

[TonyTheTiger]

The Wii U really is like the Dreamcast in that it's caught between generations, running in a race it shouldn't be. The Dreamcast was squaring off with (and arguably losing to) the PS1. But the Wii U might be in an even worse position since it seems to want us to be impressed that it can handle Mass Effect 3. It doesn't have the same launch vibe as other consoles, Dreamcast included. With other launches and within the early adoption period, you're supposed to be impressed that the console is doing things the previous gen couldn't, not that it's doing things the previous gen did a year prior. I've never seen a next gen system come out where the initial goal seems to be to match the previous generation. Imagine if the Genesis launched with an exact replica of Castlevania II.


I think the question people have is, where are they? Heck the Dreamcast (which everyone is comparing Wii U to) at least has a ton of SEGA titles at launch (mostly arcade ports).

Exactly. They aren't hitting hard enough with their own titles to make up for the dearth of quality multiplatform support that they'll most likely suffer once the new consoles launch. Where's the urgency?

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

It would probably help to some small degree if Nintendo would actually put PLAYABLE demos on the Wii-U kiosks at Gamestop, Toys R Us, Best Buy, etc.

I've only ever seen the software lineup with Rayman as a playable demo. All the other games listed just allow you to watch a trailer.

I really don't get their reluctance to put a few playable games on there that show off what the system can do with the tablet controller.

At least with the 3DS kiosks they've put the most current 1st party games on there.

[The 1 2 P]

^ Thats just one more example of how poorly Nintendo has marketed the Wii U so far.

[Greg2600]

Good Lord they STILL haven't replaced the games in the kiosks? One of the previews was for Aliens Colonial Marines, and that was canceled!

[Rob2600]

I think the question people have is, where are they? Heck the Dreamcast (which everyone is comparing Wii U to) at least has a ton of SEGA titles at launch (mostly arcade ports).

I agree, Nintendo should've launched with stronger 1st party games- a new Smash Bros., Pikmin, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid, Pokemon, or 3D Super Mario game, or a new Wii Sports or Wii Fit. Even a new F-Zero, Star Fox, or Wave Race would've been nice.


Good Lord they STILL haven't replaced the games in the kiosks? One of the previews was for Aliens Colonial Marines, and that was canceled!

GameStop at Willowbrook has New Super Mario Bros Wii U running for people to play. Maybe other stores do, too. But yeah, Nintendo really needs to ramp up its demo stations and overall marketing strategy.

Remember all those cool "Wii would like to play" commercials in 2006-2007? Those were on TV constantly. Where are the Wii U commercials?

[Gameguy]

But yeah, Nintendo really needs to ramp up its demo stations and overall marketing strategy.
I still haven't played a 3DS yet, the only kiosk I've seen was at a Best Buy right after it came out and I didn't play it because the line was too long. I never saw a kiosk at a Wal-Mart or Gamestop, or any other store. I really don't shop at Best Buy and was only there by chance, I haven't gone back yet and really don't plan to. I remember PS2 kiosks were everywhere for years when once it came out, why aren't these current consoles as accessible?

[InsaneDavid]

At least with the 3DS kiosks they've put the most current 1st party games on there.

Then barely replenish the stores with actual inventory of featured games.

[Ed Oscuro]

I thought Tanooki might have nailed this one, but I see this:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4351844/ea-developing-wii-u-games

What's going on?

[Gameguy]

I thought Tanooki might have nailed this one, but I see this:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4351844/ea-developing-wii-u-games

What's going on?
In a way it clears things up. EA doesn't know what it's doing, something people suspected for years is now confirmed.

[Rob2600]

I thought Tanooki might have nailed this one, but I see this:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/21/4351844/ea-developing-wii-u-games

What's going on?


In a way it clears things up. EA doesn't know what it's doing, something people suspected for years is now confirmed.

"Electronic Arts is developing games for the Wii U, but not as many as the company is developing for Sony and Microsoft's consoles, EA's chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said today during the Stifel Nicolaus 2013 Internet, Media and Communications Conference. Jorgensen's statement seems to contradict a statement last week from EA spokesman Jeff Brown, who said last week that the company has no games in development for the Wii U currently.

'I think what the consumer will find is a lot more powerful gameplay with the new boxes that are coming out, and a lot of excitement, but it'll remain to be seen as to the services associated with those as to how consumers decide which direction they might want to go.'"


EA is confused and confusing. So EA games *are* coming to the Wii U, but not as many as the Xbox One and PS4, unless consumers want them...then they *will* come to the Wii U.

It's interesting how EA's new Wii U announcement comes after Microsoft's Xbox One announcement. Maybe now that all the evil rumors have been confirmed, the Wii U looks good by comparison.

[Bojay1997]

"Electronic Arts is developing games for the Wii U, but not as many as the company is developing for Sony and Microsoft's consoles, EA's chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said today during the Stifel Nicolaus 2013 Internet, Media and Communications Conference. Jorgensen's statement seems to contradict a statement last week from EA spokesman Jeff Brown, who said last week that the company has no games in development for the Wii U currently.

'I think what the consumer will find is a lot more powerful gameplay with the new boxes that are coming out, and a lot of excitement, but it'll remain to be seen as to the services associated with those as to how consumers decide which direction they might want to go.'"


EA is confused and confusing. So EA games *are* coming to the Wii U, but not as many as the Xbox One and PS4, unless consumers want them...then they *will* come to the Wii U.

It's interesting how EA's new Wii U announcement comes after Microsoft's Xbox One announcement. Maybe now that all the evil rumors have been confirmed, the Wii U looks good by comparison.

You couldn't be more wrong. To EA and other large publishers, the Xbox One is the most exciting news they have ever had. It essentially projects the same PC licensing model that they love onto the console world. They can soften their position all they want and appear to be consumer friendly, but ultimately it's about money for them and they will go wherever the most can be made with the least amount of effort.

[Tanooki]

Well Ed that is interesting, but it's still at this rate PR talk. We have games, ok what games? You canned a couple, and list nothing. I'm curious to see what they have floating around. If it's Wii like shovelware to make a few bucks off chumps, they can keep it. I think as it was said, they have no idea what they're doing.

The one thing is clear, is that 'The One' is the model they want and I think Rob is dead wrong on that. Nintendo isn't looking better at all, it's looking worse in respect to third party greed. The One requires being online to windows like authenticate once every 24hrs, and they'll have some fee to make used games work but they will (gee no wonder they canned EA Pass conveniently just before this news came out.) PS4 could go this route too, we'll know in weeks from now, but it would be no surprise. Perhaps this is the ultimate WHY the WiiU is having a problem with third parties. They're control freaks and out of character for once Nintendo isn't the control freak in the room as they're not locking and hitting people with fees in such a manner. Imagine game stores having fewer USED games for MS/Sony and then the prices being higher or even with WiiU used on the shelf because they pad the fee into the cost, but the stocks being small as used stores will pay X dollars (to cover the relicensing fee) less to get such titles. In that retarded way Nintendo could have the benefit of a lot of stock on the shelf used and new(if they get their shit together on releases) and look like the more plentiful and least restrictive machine. It's all a grab bag of greed and mystery at this point.

[Rob2600]

You couldn't be more wrong. To EA and other large publishers, the Xbox One is the most exciting news they have ever had. It essentially projects the same PC licensing model that they love onto the console world. They can soften their position all they want and appear to be consumer friendly, but ultimately it's about money for them and they will go wherever the most can be made with the least amount of effort.


The one thing is clear, is that 'The One' is the model they want and I think Rob is dead wrong on that. Nintendo isn't looking better at all, it's looking worse in respect to third party greed. ... Perhaps this is the ultimate WHY the WiiU is having a problem with third parties. They're control freaks and out of character for once Nintendo isn't the control freak in the room as they're not locking and hitting people with fees in such a manner. Imagine game stores having fewer USED games for MS/Sony... Nintendo could have the benefit of a lot of stock on the shelf used and new(if they get their shit together on releases) and look like the more plentiful and least restrictive machine.

Good points. I under-estimated third-party publisher greed. One thing is sure- this console generation, third-parties will show their *true* colors, like EA is already doing. Some third-parties will go the super-greedy, anti-consumer route and others will go the less restrictive, more consumer-friendly route.

I imagine at least a few gamers out there who were expecting Microsoft to hit a homerun with the new Xbox are feeling betrayed and rethinking the more consumer-friendly Wii U.

[Bojay1997]

Good points. I under-estimated third-party publisher greed. One thing is sure- this console generation, third-parties will show their *true* colors, like EA is already doing. Some third-parties will go the super-greedy, anti-consumer route and others will go the less restrictive, more consumer-friendly route.

I imagine at least a few gamers out there who were expecting Microsoft to hit a homerun with the new Xbox are feeling betrayed and rethinking the more consumer-friendly Wii U.

Unlikely. Assming the PS4 is fairly consumer friendly, I think many former Xbox gamers will simply switch to that platform.

[Greg2600]

I have not seen a Wii U commercial either, although I don't watch kiddie channels all day/night either, so maybe I missed one.

[Tanooki]

I keep cartoon network, boomerang, and disney stuff on daily due to circumstances (and interests too) and I've never seen an ad. It's not just people missing channels or other such bad luck, they're just really not running ads and when they do it's likely specific markets and few and far between too. Like I've said before between two states just pre-launch to now I've seen just two ads, maybe three at most.

[Greg2600]

Well you wonder if Nintendo is just scraping up whatever pennies it can find? The 3DS is selling well, but the Wii U has slowed to a pretty bad crawl, especially in Japan.

[Opti]

Well Im not a huge EA fan, I dont play the sports titles, and after the great reviews of NFS: Most wanted I bought it and hated it. Forza has ruined me and the physics in NFS are horrid, not quite an arcade racer (which I can have fun with) and not quite a sim, kinda stuck in the middle, pretty much been par for NFS since Carbon (although I have memories of a single NFS game a friend had that I thoroughly enjoyed, maybe shift).

I loved the 360, i bought a Wii and had fun for awhile, til the good games came few and far between, so I bought the 360, and now have a huge library (and backlog) for the console. I loved XBL, the controller, the games, pretty much everything, and expected great things from its successor, but now I have no intention of getting one, and its gonna take alot for me to skip Forza 5. All the guys I work with play with me on XBL, and we were talking about it today. They said MS could pretty much release anything and we would have been for it, but they were all pretty offended by the reveal. We now all went from absolutely yes, to being split between absolutely no and on the fence.

A small percentage of gamers care about a reveal, not many of the casual gamers care to follow it, and the reveal seems to have offended a big part of the people it is aimed at, seems counter productive to me.

I was on the fence with buying a Wii U, going back and forth from week to week, but after the Xbox One reveal, Im buying a Wii U on my next day off. If only to put my money were my mouth is and support Nintendo for their direction. Ill probably buy up all the great wii games i missed at the end and just play them.

I probably wont play any EA games on the Wii U but I do kinda hope they come back to the U, because so many people do buy their games, and Id like for the U to become a successful console, partly because I have always loved Nintendo, and partly because I hate what MS has done.

Now eagerly waiting for Sonys announcements. The PS2 was one of my favorite consoles and if I made a list of my top 10 favorite RPGs I bet a good chunk of them would be from the PS1 and PS2. I have always liked Sonys console, so i hope they pull through, and then I can have my Wii U and then a PS4 but Sony will have to earn my money.

[homerhomer]

I'm fine with EA not making games for Nintendo, there absence will hopefully bring in some new talent

What I don't like is EA owning exclusive rights to make games with the FIFA franchise ( as example ) and then they skip Nintendo. It's not that I want an EA game, but it would be cool for someone, like Sega to step in and show them how to make a sports game.

[Tanooki]

Nothing is stopping others from doing sports, just won't be licensed unless they can edge in between contract renewals. Sometimes the best sports titles are not licensed because they can stay fresh and require more work to stand out so it isn't just a yearly rerun with stat upgrades.

EA also has clarified their shady ramblings they are making them, just less games than the others will get.

Opti did raise some good points on Nintendo and this One shamble of a reveal. If you're really going to get it, might I suggest while pricy, Metroid Prime Trilogy. Three solid games, two made far more solid and playable since you can aim right using the pointer versus the broken way the GC handled it. Indiana Jones Staff of Kings is a great one, also for free has a full second game the SCUMM engine Indy and the Fate of Atlantis noted by many as the characters best game. Sky Crawlers is great too, made by Ace Combat developers it is a solid flight game.

[Griking]

Looks like the Wii U is losing out on Ubisoft games now as well until sales improve.

Link (http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/another-snub-for-nintendo-as-ubisoft-nixes-wii-u-exclusives-until-sales-pick-up-1158926)

[bigbacon]

Nothing is stopping others from doing sports, just won't be licensed unless they can edge in between contract renewals. Sometimes the best sports titles are not licensed because they can stay fresh and require more work to stand out so it isn't just a yearly rerun with stat upgrades.

EA also has clarified their shady ramblings they are making them, just less games than the others will get.

Opti did raise some good points on Nintendo and this One shamble of a reveal. If you're really going to get it, might I suggest while pricy, Metroid Prime Trilogy. Three solid games, two made far more solid and playable since you can aim right using the pointer versus the broken way the GC handled it. Indiana Jones Staff of Kings is a great one, also for free has a full second game the SCUMM engine Indy and the Fate of Atlantis noted by many as the characters best game. Sky Crawlers is great too, made by Ace Combat developers it is a solid flight game.

this is really backwards. Why spend money on the Wii U just to suggest old games to play on it? Obviously another reason why it is failing.

[The 1 2 P]

Looks like the Wii U is losing out on Ubisoft games now as well until sales improve.

Link (http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/another-snub-for-nintendo-as-ubisoft-nixes-wii-u-exclusives-until-sales-pick-up-1158926)

Can't really blame them. Ubisoft has very strongly supported both the Wii and Wii U from their very beginning. But at the end of the day they still need to make money so games and systems need to be sold.