I'm sure people will just ignore this post :-/
I'm pretty sure the 3DS was selling horribly its first six months.
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Might 3rd Party Wii U Hate Be an Effort to Push Gamers to DRM-Locked Platforms?
- Thread starter Unison
- Start date
I'm sure people will just ignore this post :-/
I'm pretty sure the 3DS was selling horribly its first six months.
Uncle Rupee
Banned
The answer is clearly "no".
As with the latest outburst from that EA software engineer made clear, the feeling that 3rd party games do not sell well on Nintendo's platforms is a pervasive one. That, when mixed with the Wii U's pathetic LTD sales, would make it a waste of money to allocate a team to porting to Wii U.
As with the latest outburst from that EA software engineer made clear, the feeling that 3rd party games do not sell well on Nintendo's platforms is a pervasive one. That, when mixed with the Wii U's pathetic LTD sales, would make it a waste of money to allocate a team to porting to Wii U.
I see the half ass support the Wii got in the first year as shafting. Hell the Wii U got better quality ports than the Wii did from most third parties at launch . The Wii got games ported at launch and sequels to those games skipped the console just like what's happening to the Wii U now. Damn the Wii even lost exclusives like the Wii U did now that I think about it.
If you played NBA2k13 on the Wii U, the connected career mode was broken as hell as the game could not connect to servers and 2kSports just never acknowledged the issue.
In addition to the game releasing a month later than the 360/ps3, Like Sony said, you could technically play the game offline, but you miss out on features that require you to be online. This was a common complaint on Miiverse and pretty much killed interest as 2k sports never announced a fix on their sloppy netcode for the game.Could be possible that 2k14 and on will require online single player mode?
Trevelyan9999
Banned
I agree with you that this is of course true right now. Tell the same thing to the 30 million + owners of Mario Kart Wii......a good example of one game breaking the bounds of casual mass market and mainstream gamer. Nintendo games sell Nintendo systems regardless of whatever a current perception of their product is. Does the general consumer "hate" the Wii U? I doubt they even know about it yet, lol. It's really the 3rd Parties choosing the hands-off approach until Nintendo makes things right themselves. Nintendo definitely deserves what they got themselves into since they made their own mistakes and they shouldn't expect help. The DS started slow, the 3DS started slow but wherever the best games are people will buy the system for them. If Nintendo just focuses on making the best games like they always have with a competitively priced console, they will continue to be successful. The other companies will follow later on like they always do.
The Real Napsta
Member
because you can't kill established platforms? Try to follow along.
this makes way too much sense.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Those don't tell the whole story. Ps3 was $599 and 360 was supply constrained during that time. The depths Wii U has sunk to in the last few months are pathetic. Even with no games and at $600 ps3 never fell off that bad.
And no 3DS was not selling horrible. Not Wii u horrible. 3DS also essentially had a market entirely to itself, an franchises that were proven to sell to the handheld gamer market. Nintendo has no such advantage in consoles. The Wii u is not only selling poorly, it has no buzz, no word of mouth, no perception, no presence, nothing. It might as well not exist. Honestly have you heard any mainstream consumers even mention it, let alone consider buying the thing?
Support was weak before the console even launched though.
Ninja Scooter
Member
How many of those 30 million Mario Kart Wii buyers were people that bought the system for Wii Sports? Those people aren't coming back. They are not loyal. They have no allegiance to Nintendo. Nintendo cannot bank on them anymore. They weren't Nintendo fans, they were casuals who recognized Mario and wanted a fun 4p game. They are willing to spend $40-50 for that, but they aren't dropping $300 for a whole new system, especially when it's not a cross over cultural success that is being mentioned on tv and all over the Internet on "non gaming shows and sites" the way the Wii was. That ship has sAiled.
The PS3 is an awful example of a bomb made successful because it cost Sony about $3bn to steer the ship back on course.
PS3 is the worst example of a console industry "success" anyone could ever point to.
The problem is that we don't know exactly;
a) Which games are are actually coming for the holidays and which will slip into 2014,
b) Whether their Q4 software will slip like all of their launch window titles did,
c) Whether these games will actually move units. New Super Mario Bros. was heavy hitting on the DS and Wii, but hasn't gained much traction on the 3DS and outright failed to move Wii U consoles.
Essentially, you're asking publishers to bankroll 8-digit development budgets to support something that Nintendo might potentially do. They might drop the price, they might have 3D Mario ready for Christmas, they might relaunch. But at the same time they might not.
The thing really working against Nintendo is that they utterly fucked up the launch. They over-priced, they confused consumers, they have no gimmick-justifying software, they had just two games ready for launch, every other launch window game slipped into Q2-3, some like Wii Fit U are still MIA.
We can't just presume that Nintendo are going to hit it out of the park at this E3 and for the next 12 months because we presumed that they'd do the same thing last year and they totally screwed up. Unfortunately Wii U game budgets are the same as PS360 game budgets - this isn't the Wii - you can't just throw a few million dollars at a game to see what works. You're asking publishers to make a significant investment in a platform that has been mishandled from the start and may, or may not, sell well this holiday off of the back of games that may, or may not, be released for the holidays that consumers may, or may not, be tired of.
Q
qizah
Unconfirmed Member
I'm willing to buy games on the Wii U from third parties. It's just too bad that a lot of them are poor efforts or they're just too late at this point.
Let's be honest here. The launch line up had a lot of big names but most were throwaways except for a couple - ACIII, BO2, Scribblenauts Unlimited, ZombiU. Why would I buy a Mass Effect 3 port when the trilogy is out everywhere else for the same price? Why would I buy poor ports of sports titles? Everyone who wanted Need for Speed MW got it six months ago. No one cares about Batman AC, they cared months ago.
I don't doubt that there are people out there who didn't own another console besides the Wii, so it's awesome to get these games - but ports are not going to sell all that well at a console launch. Especially since the Wii U was trying to appeal to the core consumer. We're not stupid.
The worst part of all this are the publishers using poor sales as the reason why their next title for X or Y franchise isn't coming to the Wii U now. Really? It's your own fault though ...
I supported developers who put forth a good effort on the Wii U. I bought ACIII for it because hell, it's a new console I bought so I'll play ACIII there. I bought BO2 for it, ZombiU, NFS MWU, Sonic & All-Star Racing, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I likely bought more than the average user would - but stuff like NFS MWU is not going to sell well because the market that wanted that game have already bought it on other platforms.
Saying you can't make money on a Nintendo platform sounds like a cop out to me. The install base is low and that is Nintendo's fault for not pushing out more first party titles, but even if they did, I don't think the situation would be all that different.
NoirVisage
Banned
And we're done here, its weird the lengths Nintendo fans will go to try to sell a WiiU to ambivalent gamers.
I agree with most here that it is probably because of Nintendo's sales right now that they are not getting any 3rd Party support, but at the same time, there has to be a little bit of No DRM being apart of it as well. EA's lack of games for the Nintendo, after saying they will have an "Unprecedented Relationship" at E3 just two years ago, shows us that there was a fallout of some sort that caused EA to pull all their games from the Wii U. IMO, it was the fact that Nintendo said No to Origin as an online store for the Wii U and also No to DRM on the console. This may also be the case with other Publishers, hopefully we find out soon why EA has absolutely no games on the horizon for the Wii U.
I actually thought about it being a reason EA isn't supporting it, and is focusing on the other 2 systems moving forward.
Could EA have wanted Nintendo to allow them to put some kind of ridiculous DRM check and Nintendo said no? Sony could say it's optional, while Microsoft is making it mandatory. Out of all third parties, EA would be the one wanting to push always online rather not.
Not supporting the console now would be an attempt to kill it on the market before an audience was built. Since the audience is already on PS360, they can support those systems because it will make them money and they want those gamers to move onto PS4/XB1 rather than Wii U.
It's a business tactic in order to gain more shares of a pie they think can't grow much larger. How many more people can they get to consistently buy sports titles every year? I don't think they're going to see that pie grow, so they're finding other sources of income through limiting used titles. I could see EA going as far as giving you a 1 year license for the game, not really doing much for updating it, and making you pay for an updated roster on DLC after a year was up. Both PS4/XB1 would allow it, but Wii U wouldn't. No reason to build a Wii U version every year.
Could EA have wanted Nintendo to allow them to put some kind of ridiculous DRM check and Nintendo said no? Sony could say it's optional, while Microsoft is making it mandatory. Out of all third parties, EA would be the one wanting to push always online rather not.
Not supporting the console now would be an attempt to kill it on the market before an audience was built. Since the audience is already on PS360, they can support those systems because it will make them money and they want those gamers to move onto PS4/XB1 rather than Wii U.
It's a business tactic in order to gain more shares of a pie they think can't grow much larger. How many more people can they get to consistently buy sports titles every year? I don't think they're going to see that pie grow, so they're finding other sources of income through limiting used titles. I could see EA going as far as giving you a 1 year license for the game, not really doing much for updating it, and making you pay for an updated roster on DLC after a year was up. Both PS4/XB1 would allow it, but Wii U wouldn't. No reason to build a Wii U version every year.
Yeah that's why people deny it, they're haters. Nevermind the fact that it's a silly conspiracy theory.
Duckhuntdog
Member
But even then, third-parties will find an excuse not to support it. I mean it could have 360 like attach rates for third-party games and you would get excuses like "putting a map on the gamepad is hard, so we won't support it."
Trevelyan9999
Banned
It's true that everyone who bought Mario Kart Wii isn't going to go buy a Wii U for a sequel this holiday, but my point is that the Mario Kart series kills it for Nintendo and that can't be ignored. Besides, why wouldn't the people that bought Wii Sports and then bought Mario Kart Wii not come back for a new and possibly better game on Wii U?
There were a lot of games on the Wii but everyone knows that people bought it mainly for Wii Sports........so why did they bother with Mario Kart Wii? It would make no sense to buy Mario Kart Wii if they only bought the system for Wii Sports. There were tons and tons of family orientated games on the Wii so why didn't they sell better or similar to Mario Kart? How do we know that those new casuals who only bought the Wii for Wii Sports didn't fall in love with Mario Kart and want to buy the next one now? In my opinion, the audience is still right there for the taking.
metalslimer
Member
No they wouldn't. Publishers like money. If there is a shit ton of money to be made they will go after it. People forget Wii had the most games easily from 3rd parties. It was just shitware that people here don't want.
Hown about the 360 then? same applies (below gamecube after 6 months)
shinra-bansho
Member
Take-Two Interactive isn't making games for the Wii U because they see no monetary incentive. They were supposedly surprised at any measures Microsoft is taking to restrict used games.
You can make copies of those CDs.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I'm not quoting you to single you out, just calling attention to this (constant) mentality. Which is a core forum mentality.
You're not looking at the bigger picture and the strategy of the Wii u launch.
Nintendo had the biggest single userbase in the industry. It made them lots of money. Nintendo loves Nintendo, that is the world they live in. If you look at that, nearly 100mm homes to re-engage and convert. They do research. Let's say they see a 40% overlap with at least one HD console. That's 60mm Wii owners who never played a single HD franchise. Couldnt play mass effect, assassins creed. So, put out an HD console, offer your audience access to dozens of franchises they didn't play. Offer s game pad and a new way to experience these things. Look at tablet trends and DD trends and social and add that too. Now, Nintendo has no experience in allocating reseouces for HD development. Oops, all our games slip. Let's work to bring in all those franchises our 60mm audience never played. Let's cut those deals, encourage that - cheaper for our partners, brings MAJOR BRANDS into our fold. Ups the age of our next wave. Everyone wins, while we take time to being our guns.
Wii u had nearly every major brand in gaming at launch. That's huge. The lineup was not weak at in their eyes. Very few consoles can claim that. Problem is? It didn't work. They didn't up convert their lapsed audience. Millions didn't care. The faithful, which has dwindled over the years as Nintendo was culling their own console output. So you have only the hardest of core Nintendo fans purchasing, look at that nsmbu attach rate! It's all they want. Nintendo needs to get their big guns out asap and start repositioning this system and spend some cash outside their core (for now, they've opted for a double down strategy instead) to builds a market third parties can also monetize.
Some are betting they can do that and are betting engines and teams ready, some are not. Investments vs. ROI Focused?
So, there's that, and I can't keep saying it anymore haha
Pretty sure NBA2K sold less than 25,000 copies. That's abysmal and must be painful for anyone who worked on that port.
The Wii has sold like 450k more units since last Christmas, and it'd be lucky if it sells another 1.5 million before November.
In other words, I don't really blame a lot of third party publishers. If Nintendo can get their 1st party ducks in order and turn things around, I think it might get some of the ports again in 2014. Will that happen? Only time will tell....
The Wii has sold like 450k more units since last Christmas, and it'd be lucky if it sells another 1.5 million before November.
In other words, I don't really blame a lot of third party publishers. If Nintendo can get their 1st party ducks in order and turn things around, I think it might get some of the ports again in 2014. Will that happen? Only time will tell....
But at the same time it's a hardware launch. What did you expect? Developers only had six months with the final hardware before launch and Nintendo's documentation and support has been referred to in pretty negative terms by many developers. All launch games on any console are, by necessity, rushed and, if ported from a game that originally launched before the console, late. Games that have been developed for consoles that have been on the market for seven years and with mature development tools, engines and middleware are never going to be as good on a brand new platform.
Supply constrained due to awful CPU yields.
Why not use New Super Mario Bros. as an example? 30 million units sold on DS, 26 million units sold on Wii. It's the second best selling Wii game behind Mario Kart Wii and the best selling DS game.
So why is New Super Mario Bros. U not selling Wii U consoles?
Trevelyan9999
Banned
Probably because it looks exactly the same as NSMB Wii only in HD and those 26 million aren't going to just buy the same game twice for no reason. I like NSMBU but in looking back it wasn't something that I could truly get excited for and it looking so much like the Wii version has a lot to do with that. The Wii U version of Mario Kart could easily not have any of those issues and I think it is unlikely that it will just look like Mario Kart Wii in HD (I hope not at least haha).
That was the excuse at 3 months , no way its the case at 6.
do you people expect ps4 / xbone to sell more in 6 months than Gamecube , ps3, 360 or wii u? or what will be the excuses then ?
exactly. 360 had a weaker launch compared to GC due to supply issues but regularly sold ~200k/month units after launch and quickly outpaced it. the worrying thing for wii u is that ~50k/month... that's just bad. not even ps3 dipped that low when it was duking it out with the gba. it needs momentum. the 360 had... mediocre momentum (it certainly was a very very slow burner) going into its first full holiday but it's certainly more than the Wii U has going for it.
MoGamesXNA
Unconfirmed Member
This reflects my thoughts on the sudden change of heart from developers/publishers towards the WiiU as well.
I think that once the second sales policies were locked down and in place by MS and Sony, the writing was on the wall for Nintendo.
It's a shame because I really like the controller and the system has some great features. The current MS policy has only cemented my intent to include the WiiU in my gaming cabinet for the next generation. We can only hope that publishers turn their attention back to the platform when the other two struggle to convince the buying public to jump through hoops to play their purchased games.
I think that once the second sales policies were locked down and in place by MS and Sony, the writing was on the wall for Nintendo.
It's a shame because I really like the controller and the system has some great features. The current MS policy has only cemented my intent to include the WiiU in my gaming cabinet for the next generation. We can only hope that publishers turn their attention back to the platform when the other two struggle to convince the buying public to jump through hoops to play their purchased games.
Justzisguyukno
Member
Some people love to see the world burn?
I don't think anyone excuses PS3 for it's poor launch. it had a poor launch and a terrible first year. 360 had a poor launch and a mediocre first year. Wii U's half year has been pretty terrible and shows no signs of improving. of course, it's a bit more difficult to make these kinds of judgments when we get so little NPD numbers these days but still... the numbers don't look good by any metric.
I mean, comparing the launches in general is kind of a pointless endeavor as there's a certain group of people (the hardcore of the hardcore... i"d guesstimate... 400, 500k?) that will get a new console when it releases no matter what. It's how it does after that that's a bit more telling. and new consoles are almost always supply constrained. it's kind of a crapshoot in general.
another thing to consider: 360 sold quite a bit of software in that first year. Wii U has not. is it too late to turn around? I have no idea... but a price cut didn't save the GC. nintendo needs to be aggressive if they do plan on fixing their current situation. I think there are plenty of signs for concern in the present though.
Wii Sports sold consoles, not NSMB Wii.
NSMB U has sold to over 50% of Wii U owners. That's remarkable. No other product on the market has that kind of attach rate.
Regardless, it will take more than 1 game to convince a consumer to buy a system, any system. Unless we're talking about something historical and pivotal, like Super Mario 64 or Final Fantasy VII.
PS3 and 360 took years to reach peak sales. It was the combination of mass market price AND a large library of attractive games to do that. Wii U will be the same. It needs not just one game, but a wide variety of quality games to attract many different kinds of buyers. 3DS was the same way. It took 2 years for it to really take off, and it took more than Mario 3D Land and Kid Icarus Uprising.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
What silly logic. You're being deliberately obtuse. I was about to elaborate but I see that Ninjascooter already did here
Publishers have access to forecasts, data and trends that none of us could have and they saw that the Wii U had no hype whatsoever, no mind share, for a full year, and made the decision to skip it. It doesn't matter if some cancellations were pre-launch. They have data, trend info, professional projections and forecasts, surveys, all kinds of foresight available to them.
^^He said it better than me.
Chinpoko_Master
Member
At least the 360 and PS3 had "excuses" like $599 and supply constraints. What excuse does the Wii U have?
Game drought due to delays.
shinra-bansho
Member
Why are you still pretending the sales are remotely comparable.
With the exception of Dec it's weekly average sales in the US are less than half those of the $599 system and even worse when compared to the 360, they have been worse than the Vita's, which didn't exactly have a glut of games for it.
*Vita is March-July, rather than Dec-Apr.
Also, try doing a 7 month comparison between the 360 and the GCN.
metalslimer
Member
Why are you still pretending the sales are remotely comparable.
With the exception of Dec it's weekly average sales in the US are less than half those of the $599 system and even worse when compared to the 360, they have been worse than the Vita's, which didn't exactly have a glut of games for it.
*Vita is March-July, rather than Dec-Apr.
Also, try doing a 7 month comparison between the 360 and the GCN.
Just like Vita before it, people don't seem to realize how awful Wii U's sales are post December. Although the December numbers were pretty mediocre for what they were. May NPD is going to be brutal, but at least there will be more of insight into the strategy going forward unless the system drops into the 20k range than it might as well not even be released.
It had four games in March (including one console exclusive, and one completely exclusive) and sales weren't any better than in February where it had no games.
The games it has got since launch haven't had meaningful effect on the sales of the console, as John Harker says people only want it for the Nintendo games.
Skull Leader
Banned
We still have no specifics about Sony's plans for used games that outright states they are following MS' footsteps. We will find out hopefully next week. Admittedly I am not getting my hopes up too high, but that they've come out and said that always online is not a thing, the camera is optional, and that it will be up to third party publishers to handle DRM of their own accord has come across as significantly less hostile than MS's policies appear to be right now.
The reason the Wii U is 'hated' by all third parties is that the system is selling like garbage. It is selling like garbage because it has no system sellers and does not have the same appeal that its predecessor has. It more expensive than consoles that are available RIGHT NOW, consoles that are still seeing some amazing looking and playing games come out for them.
It is not the sole burden of third parties to carry any system through launch. Nintendo should have been better prepared for the Wii U's launch, after telling us year and year that they learned that launching a system with shit for games to buy is not a good thing. For all the times they've claimed to say they've learned their lesson about this, they've done a magnificently shitty job at showing it.
It does not help that the marketing for the system is some of the worst ever seen (or in this case, hardly seen) in the industry since Sega tried to stealth launch the Saturn. Think about that for a minute. The Gamepad clearly does not hold the same intrinsic draw that the Wiimote did, and it's also pretty clear that the market Nintendo captured with the Wii has seen no reason to take the next step up. These are things that are all the result of Nintendo's past decisions. At this point, it's up to Nintendo to prove that the Wii U is a platform with life in it. Is is not up to anyone else.
I wonder if all 5000 Japanese Xbox fans complain on their message boards about how third parties all hate their system of choice, and everyone else reminds them that their system is not and has never sold well despite trying to money hat a variety of exclusives or paid for a game to go multiplatform.
Chinpoko_Master
Member
A post-launch game drought? So basically, the same problem that practically every console has had to deal with?
It was absolutely the case at six months. IBM's Xbox 360 CPU roadmap was wildly optimistic at best and a downright lie at worst.
And that second paragraph really is being incredibly obtuse. "Why can't we discuss the bombs that haven't happened yet?" Really?
Who's making excuses for Sony? Their arrogance and incompetence nearly sunk the entire company. Microsoft get a free pass because they were promised parts from a supplier that either never materialised or were below standard.
A game drought would be a great excuse if Nintendo weren't contributing to it. This isn't a third party error. Again, you're being very obtuse here.
And what exactly are you expecting Mario Kart in HD to look like? Unless they go for some crazy art style, it's going to look like Mario Kart 7 in HD with better lighting and shaders just like how NSMBU looks like NSMBW in HD with better lighting and shaders.
Well Rayman: Legends and Aliens were "promised from a supplier that never materialised"
metalslimer
Member
Because they are comparable
Nintendo with the massive amount of Wii U stock coming off the Wii is comparable to the supply constrained 360 coming off the Xbox? Also notice how the Wii U's momentum completely dies.
smh how this in any way comparable to not having systems on the shelves. Even if you do want to continue down this bad PS3/360 comparison it only will make Wii U start to look even deader than it already does as the months go on.