Ayato Kanzaki
Member
I wonder if the recent rebound of sales will convince third-party developpers to rethink their position about Wii U versions for their AAA titles.
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Time: 13 Reasons Id Still Pick Nintendos Wii U Over the PS4 and Xbox One
- Thread starter DAREALGUMMY
- Start date
Aquamarine
Member
The biggest problem with third-party developers on the Wii U is that hardcore third-party games sell really, really poorly on it.
They're not going to make games for the Wii U if the install-base only buys Mario + Mario Kart + Super Smash Bros.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
Have Fanboys took over Journalism?
Stealthcobra
Member
#7 must be a joke. You cant take the wii u tablet controller to your basement to play games and for sure not out the house. Ps vita kills the wii u there
SpecialAgentZ
Member
Worse controls + input lag + 30fps cap + need to use your home network/internet to work.
Two different beasts.
VirtualBoy still holds that crown.
Nope the Wii U is on life support even with games I bought the system for like smash. I don't have any faith nintendo will keep it up with releases.
Maybe third parties will return to the next system but even than I think it's doubtul.
A ZombiU2 would probably sell fairly well given its status as an under-appreciated gem.
But I wouldn't say it so clear cut since the console has seen, what, one (?) actual timely launch of a multiplatform game and it performed terribly (in both sales and in gameplay)... and was a dudebro shooter and the worst CoD of recent memory. Rayman would have probably done better if not for the huge middle finger Ubisoft gave the install base.
In terms of third party stuff selling, though, the eshop seems to sell games well enough, doesn't it? Obviously not everything there is Mario + Mario Kart + Super Smash Bros. Shin'en does just fine with its releases and they've cultivated a good base and support from Nintendo as an ur-example.
Do we have any numbers on how well or badly CoL sold on WiiU vs. other platforms? That'd be another data point to add to the "timely releases".
Yeah I'm wondering why so many are deriding this. I think it's fairly impressive what the machine can do within it's fairly constrained limits. People talk about Sony being wizards with what they've done with the ps4, yet shit on Nintendo's achievements with the Wii u.
Nintendojitsu
Banned
Doubt it. It was never about sales entirely. The 3rd party publishers can't control Nintendo and it's platforms as easily as they can Sony and Microsoft's. So rather than make some money, they choose to cut ties completely. It would take nothing short of a miracle for this to happen.
Actually ZombiU - the most hardcore game last + current gen (yes, I said that, ZombiU is more hardcore than Demon's/Dark Souls) - was the best selling 3rd party game, wasn't it?
Late + shit ports don't sell well. And I consider that a good thing.
To be fair WW is a decade or so old while GTA V, LoU, Tomb Raider and Diablo III are under or around a year old. At least Halo is 4 games one of witch is a decade at least old like WW was.
Katana_Strikes
Member
Yes, that they'll cancel any AAA game they have in development for it. And what rebound in sales? Selling less than 80k a month in the US as opposed to less than 40k?
Aquamarine
Member
ZombiU only sold 49K launch month in the USA. It's still much lower than where it needs to be...aka. there's a reason why ZombiU 2 was cancelled.
Uhh okay? Because?
Thirteen reasons, let's see....
Bayonetta 2
Wonderful 101
Super Mario 3D World
New Super Mario Bros U
Pikmin 3
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
Mario Kart 8
Super Smash Bros U
Nintendoland
Captain Toad
--------
Xenoblade Chronicles X
The legend of Zelda
Splatoon (?)
Seems like it'll be a few more months for me.
Bayonetta 2
Wonderful 101
Super Mario 3D World
New Super Mario Bros U
Pikmin 3
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
Mario Kart 8
Super Smash Bros U
Nintendoland
Captain Toad
--------
Xenoblade Chronicles X
The legend of Zelda
Splatoon (?)
Seems like it'll be a few more months for me.
It sold way more in the meantime.
And of course it sold badly back then. First of all because it's extremely hardcore and it's a new IP. Demon's Souls only sold that well over time because of word of mouth. Second: back then ZombiU had all sorts of glitches including game breaking ones. For such a hardcore game, that is simply unacceptable. And it was also a launch title. Even if I would have bought a Wii U at launch and even if I would have known that ZombiU was such a great game, I wouldn't have bought it simply because I would have heard of all those glitches. And that's simply Ubisoft's fault.
Ubisoft would be insane to just judge it on launch month. And in fact they didn't. They just expected it to sell even more, which is insane on Ubisoft's part, because like I said - it's extremely hardcore. The audience for that is limited in any case. That's like FROM expecting Dark Souls to sell at Skyrim level. The game also has long legs, like I said - it's nowadays the best selling 3rd party game (at least if I remember right).
But what about a Vita taped to a WiiU?
Aquamarine
Member
You'd be surprised how much the Wii U's performance in November 2012 + December 2012 + January 2013 + February 2013 really influenced publisher views on it.
A lot of hardcore video game publishers (like EA + Take-Two) looked at the horrible software sales of the Wii U at launch and decided to ditch their plans to support the console right then and there.
Now if Wii U third-party games sold like PS4 third-party games did at launch, that would be a different story.
Good summary. Nintendo is doing their best to keep the WiiU alive, but they can't satisfy everyone, no one can.
JordanN
Banned
Wii U's only hope of third party games is dying off (PS3/360). There's little chance it can run any PS4/XBO ports next year.
It also lacks the installbase of Wii, so I don't see spinoffs happening either.
The Wii also had PS2 era dev costs. Wii U games cost the same as PS3/360, making it a significant barrier to third party
So I could play Zombi U and then flip it over and play Minecraft when shit got too intense?
Yeah, I'd be up for that.
I'll send you the tape.
That's nice and all, but you said that hardcore games would sell very very poorly. And that's simply not the case when you look at exactly that game especially nowadays.
EA + Take Two are hardcore publishers? Haha.
What do you consider hardcore?
What did Take-Two back then when the Wii sold gangbusters for years and years? Exactly. Nothing. Oh wait, sure they released hardcore titles like for example "Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom" and "Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess". It's a shame. I would really like to get such hardcore titles on Wii U.
Did they at least release a GTA trilogy port on Wii, the engine was already running (Bully)? Nope, of course not. I guess Wii simply didn't sell well enough.
As if those 3rd party publishers gave a shit back then.
And if PS3 would have sold like Wii especially during launch months, then PS3 would have gotten lots and lots of Take-Two titles including GTA and such. Oh wait a moment.
I'm pretty sure that even if Wii U sold like gangbusters like the Wii, exactly those publishers wouldn't have done a thing ... again ...
Didn't the Wii have a terrible software pick-up rate? Even if it sold gangbuster, it was to a mostly casual crowd for Wii Sports and the occasional Mario title. Other software did less than stellar, no?
Aquamarine
Member
1) ZombiU didn't really sell all that well. The CEO of Ubisoft even admitted that the game was a sales failure.
2) EA publishes Dead Space, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, Battlefield, Madden, and other hardcore franchises.
3) Take-Two publishes GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands, NBA 2K, and other hardcore franchises.
4) Take-Two didn't bother with hardcore games on Wii because games from other publishers simply didn't sell well enough + PS3 / 360 games couldn't be directly ported to Wii. EA gave it a good try, but abandoned it after a while.
5) Ubisoft was one of the Wii U's biggest hardcore supporters and inked all sorts of deals with Nintendo. Now they've abandoned the Wii U as well.
6) Hardcore games STILL sell poorly on the Wii U. That hasn't changed throughout its entire lifespan. It doesn't matter whether or not it's a quality port...the Wii U install-base is oriented towards children and people who buy 1st-party Nintendo games.
7) What matters to hardcore publishers is how HARDCORE games sell on the console. That's it. Hardcore publishers will test the market and respond accordingly. And launch sales is a very important gauge about how future sales will go. Look at the PS4. Hardcore third-party games sold great on the PS4 right from the outset, unlike the Wii U.
JordanN
Banned
I don't think 3rd parties get enough credit. They still had to support 6 systems last gen (PS3/360/Wii/DS/PSP/PC). Resources gets spread thin so it's matter of funding what you think will make you the most money at the end of the day.
GTA was never on a Nintendo home console. It was on PS2/Xbox/PC and it saw massive sales. There was no guarantee releasing a GTA on Wii would not have been suicide. It was certainly up to Nintendo that gen to convince Publishers if they wanted those games.
speculawyer
Member
I'm cringing just reading that sad piece.
Do genuine hardcore games sell well anywhere at this point? Alien Isolation? Sunset? Either of the driving sims, even the working one? (I know TEW and Mordor actually did well but how did they do per console?) Of recent memory the most that did, did so because of: massive software drought and hype (W_D), and Bungie hype. The games that lacked millions of dollars in advertising don't seem to be really doing all that great... its mostly just CoDs, FIFAs, and other established brands selling.
The quick abandonment of the WiiU, in my opinion as uninformed as it is, was set in stone before the system launched barring a miracle that never occurred, and then it fell into a Catch-22.
(Admittedly, I'm curious, on a per-console-basis, by how much have some of the recent "hardcore games" that lacked marketting blitzes outsold Bayo2?)
No, it didn't. Wii had almost the same attach rate as PS3+360. Considering that quite a few Wii people bought just the Wii + Wii Sports and nothing else means that the attach rate of everyone else was higher than on PS3+360.
Yves Guillemot said that mid 2013. He said that it was not "profitable". I don't know what they expected. Releasing a super hardcore game on Wii U with game breaking bugs and that even at launch. That's as if FROM would have sold Demon's Souls as launch title on PS3 (and not Demon's Souls, but a broken version of Demon's Souls) and then complained about it not being "profitable".
ZombiU is still the best selling 3rd party game, despite it being the most hardcore 3rd party game on Wii U. That's saying something. Not being profitable makes sense of course. They are selling the game for 5-10pounds for quite some time now. But I'm pretty sure that another title like that, that isn't broken at launch, would sell quite a few copies for full price. I know that I would buy it in that case on release day. Especially because such games are rare nowadays. Everything needs to be auto-win.
I don't consider most of those hardcore franchises. If they were, they wouldn't sell that much. Some of those are rated "mature", but that's it. And you shoot things in plenty of them. Those are mainstream casual titles to me. GTA was never hardcore. The PS2 ones were fun of course, but they were easy games.
ZombiU on the other hand needs a focused player. Beating it requires skill and patience. Overcoming the odds against the player. That's old school and hardcore. And it's satisfying. You don't auto-win. Same goes for games like Demon's/Dark Souls.
That's factually wrong. Ubisoft said that they wouldn't release "mature" rated games on Wii U anymore. They never said they wouldn't release any games at all anymore.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/19/watch-dogs-is-the-last-mature-game-ubisoft-will-make-for-wii-u/
ZombiU is the most hardcore game last + current generation. And it's the best selling 3rd party game on Wii U. What you are writing makes no sense.
The only quality ports, that I can think of - and there aren't many, most of the ports are simply crap, were all late ports and almost all of them received almost no marketing.
Just take a look at Ubisoft's last "mature" game on Wii U - Watch Dogs. Actually a quite impressive port (although gamepad isn't used in a great manner), BUT very very late and literally no marketing. No screenshots. No footage. Nothing. The first real screenshots were created by GAFfers. What the hell does anyone expect such a port to sell? I would expect such a port to sell 0 copies.
Will I buy Watch Dogs at some point? Probably. But for full price? Ubisoft gives a shit, so why should I?
Ahh that I didn't know, thanks for the bread.
Aquamarine
Member
Posts in bold. And I'm done with this argument.
CaptainGyro
Banned
pretty surprised to see that the wii u has over 7 million sold. I thought it was about 5 million sold. I know 7 million is still bad but in a prediction thread I said the wii u wouldn't end up with more than 12 million sold after 4 years. Maybe I will be wrong, which is really weird because I am always right about everything
The attach rate (or rather, tie ratio) argument is silly.
The top 30 Wii games, the vast majority of which being Nintendo games, represent well over a third of total Wii SW sales. Exclude the top 10, and tie ratio drops by 3 points.
The top 30 PS2 games represent about 1/10th of total sales.
The tie ratio figure is basically useless without any sort of context and looking at what actually sold.
Here's a quick graph of the top 30 selling games for the Wii and PS2 (data from wikipedia).
It shows you two things: the incredible sales inequality between the top 10 and the rest for the Wii, compared to PS2. That tells you how much these very few games sold an insane amount and skewed the tie ratio. Also, the insane domination of Nintendo titles. I was even kind and counted the Mario and Sonic games as 3rd party (they are the top 2 3rd party games on that chart).
justsomeguy
Member
Do I need a Premium? Or is a Basic fine if I want to just play some MarioKart , Bayo, etc.?
Q
qizah
Unconfirmed Member
Some of those points are plain stupid, but a lot of what's said isn't. Nintendo does need third party support but it also doesn't need to rely on it as much as Sony and MS do.
People don't buy Nintendo hardware for third party content, they buy it for Nintendo games. It's been this way for a long ass time now.
That doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have third party content on the platform, but that's definitely not something I consider when buying a Nintendo platform. I look elsewhere for those experiences.
People don't buy Nintendo hardware for third party content, they buy it for Nintendo games. It's been this way for a long ass time now.
That doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have third party content on the platform, but that's definitely not something I consider when buying a Nintendo platform. I look elsewhere for those experiences.
Pyramid head
Banned
Pretty silly list. The only reasons I needed were:
1. Bayonetta 2
2. I have a PC
Currently, there's just nothing drawing me towards either the PS4 or Xbox One.
1. Bayonetta 2
2. I have a PC
Currently, there's just nothing drawing me towards either the PS4 or Xbox One.
Didn't work too well for the Wii.
"I know it's sold 100million, but only Nintendo software sells on it"
Hey big spender
oh well don't be shy about it. please enlighten us.
What am I reading here.
dragonfart28
Banned
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