Home Gaming Can the Wii U claw back?

Can the Wii U claw back?

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WiiClaw

It’s starting to look pretty grim for Nintendo’s Wii U. While the company’s systems thrived on third-party support in the past (The NES and SNES are home to some of the best games ever made), Nintendo consoles have increasingly become reliant on first-party software. The problem is that without third party support, only die-hards end up buying your hardware – and third party support for the Wii U is dwindling at a rate of knots.

We already know that EA’s future, Frostbite-powered games won’t make it to the Wii U, and that Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche’s Wii U devkits are “gathering dust.” Activision’s now also said it’s going to be very cautious when it comes to supporting the Wii U, which they say has generated just 2% of their income for 2013. Epic’s also said it won’t officially be porting its Unreal Engine 4 to the console, though the other engine that’ll power half of next-gen, Crytek’s CryEngine 3 is reportedly “beautiful” in the Wii U. According to a recent survey at GDC, fewer than 5% of developers in attendance were working on Wii U games.

New rumours suggest things are getting even worse. New rumours originating from 4Chan (hardly a reliable source – but there’s some solid info here). It says:

“There’s no plans to ever bring a WWE game to the Wii U anytime in the distant future. I know this information because a 3D Animator on the project. I am working directly with people like Jeff Godfrey who is the art director on the project. Visual Concepts and 2K Sports is working with Yukes on the project.

You may remember that Wii U never received WWE ’13 at launch while 360/PS3 did. Yukes has no interest in Wii U when they were working with THQ, and they still don’t now that they’re working with 2K Sports.
Also word around the offices is that Take Two and Rockstar have no plans to bring Grand Theft Auto or any of Rockstar’s major M rated games to the Wii U” 

That’s yet another publisher that’s potentially skipping the Wii U. Of the major publishers, it seems it’s really just Ubisoft who’s keen on bringing their games to Wii U, with a dash of aide from Capcom, who’d likely not exist without Nintendo’s early support.

It all starts painting a pretty dreary for the future of the Wii U, and once again pegs a Nintendo system as being a “first party machine.” There’s a new 3D Mario game that’ll apparently be released in October, and there’s Pikmin 3 coming soon, followed by an inevitable new Zelda and perhaps a new Metroid. but is that enough?

Can a platform survive on first party support alone?

Last Updated: May 10, 2013

13 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief Combat Engineer

    May 10, 2013 at 15:35

    I hope so

    Reply

  2. umar bastra

    May 10, 2013 at 15:41

    …….

    Reply

  3. OVG OfflineVideoGamer

    May 10, 2013 at 15:54

    NOPE!!! Its a kiddie tablet.
    The VITA is also DOOMED.

    Mobile gaming and Tablets are to big. We all called this shit out before the VITA came to SA.

    Reply

  4. blaster man

    May 10, 2013 at 20:45

    You mention THQ but fail to mention the product that sunk the company. Does this look familiar? I love the fact that “U” is in it’s name.

    http://www.amazon.com/uDraw-Game-tablet-Studio-Xbox-360/dp/B0053BQN34/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368211534&sr=8-1&keywords=u+draw

    Reply

  5. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    May 10, 2013 at 23:23

    I genuinely hope so. I still want to get a Wii-U, if only for metroid and the new Zelda game, but with most things this year, it’ll have to wait till after I get my PS4.

    I think Nintendo may have overplayed their hand, they might even have banked too much on their dwindling casual fans, and perhaps not being it IMPLICITLY clear (from the beginning) in their “marketing to the masses” that the Wii-U and the Wii are two different devices may have caused them more grief than necessary.

    I just hope that if they do decide to drop the Wii-U, that it won’t force them to bow out of the hardware race, while it might be something to play Zelda on a PS4 or the next box, I’d rather have Nintendo be Nintendo.

    Reply

  6. Armand Rock

    May 12, 2013 at 01:30

    “Nintendo consoles have increasingly become reliant on first-party software”? Huh? There is a VERY small percentage of first party titles on the original Wii so that statement is incorrect.

    Reply

  7. TiMsTeR1033

    May 13, 2013 at 08:45

    Anyone Remember the Gamecube…………nuff said. lol

    Reply

  8. Wyzak

    May 13, 2013 at 09:01

    The lack of 3rd party support for the Wii U is probably not such a bad thing. The best games on the Wii U by far are the Mario etc games. The other games were just quick ports of the Xbox or PS3 versions of the game – never worth buying.

    Reply

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