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CVG: "Nintendo was dead to us very quickly" after the Wii U, says EA source

Seik

Banned
Cinematic experiences. AAA game studios. Huge sports titles. Getting you laid. Balls-deep FPS shooters. Big boy racing.
EA, it's in the game.

Don't forget the ads!

Sometimes I think of how much of a manlier man I would be if there was some Toyota and Doritos ads in Mario 3D World.

Hell they even missed the mark with Wondeful 101 where there was tons of opportunity to slam some ads here and there. Game would've felt more mature. :p
 
What a complete load of horse shit. They're basically implying that if they can't release half-assed ports at $60 and still make boat loads of money just from the size of the install base they don't want to bother, and then they act like they just had no choice.

Also I actually consider games like Dead Space 3 and Army of Two that focus on putting as much violence as possible to be more kid-oriented (or at least prepubescent boy oriented) than even Mario, and let's not forget this is the company that makes an extremely large slice of its income from The Sims and its overpriced expansions that prey on kids need to have the next toy set
 
I think some of the 3rd party publishers are quietly happy to see Nintendo flail. It is expensive for them to spread development costs around on 3 consoles. And on the Nintendo platforms, it is no secret that the Nintendo first party software sales always crushed the third party software sales.
 
wefwefhrd08.png

The difference between those two charts is the bar on the right of this one is expected to rise rather dramatically while the Wii U is actually slowing down in terms of sales. It has stalled.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Really? So I had a dream that Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite were released for the PS360. Engines are pretty scalable this days.

Picture the situation in 2015 when cross-gen has finally died.

In addition, engines are not inherently scalable, they are, based on 7 years of experience, first and foremost heavily optimized towards the intricacies of the PS3 and 360. Those experiences don't transfer effortlessly over to the Wii U where the processor has entirely different characteristics. Code that has been optimized to avoid load-hit-store stalls on the PS3/360s PPC core is pretty worthless on the WiiU's OoO-PPC.

And even with that in mind, we read in the current AC3 thread that even those engines, like AnvilNext, are starting to drop the focus on current-gen and don't perform there as well as they could.
 

First of all both graphs should not WiiU/PS4 since those consoles just came out lol and secondly this graph has no scale. Why?

Oh yes its becuase if it did the crisis on Nintendo's console market will become even more apparent.

PS1-PS3 was 100 million - 80+ million (depending how well PS3 does from now)

Meanwhile:

nintendo went form 66 million to 22 million (66% drop) and horrible in non relative terms as well.
 

-COOLIO-

The Everyman
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

fair point, but i think most would agree that the look of the console and gamepad, the systems ui, and nintendos advertising themes all project a sort of early childhood aesthetic. i think the ui looks nice personally but it definitely adds to the 'kiddy' image.
 

wildfire

Banned
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

And that was the launch window which makes that comment all the more baffling.
 

Kimawolf

Member
Why do EA people keep throwing fuel on this fire? I literally can't understand this. It seems to be at the very least unprofessional.
EA feels it will never need to sell on Nintendo platforms so they dont care is the honest answer. There are some devs who would sooner go bankrupt than work on a Nintendo console i bet.
 

Zornack

Member
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

Didn't every one of these sell like complete dog shit?
 
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

How many of these games sold over 200k? In a year?
 
Whoops, I meant that they started trying to shake the label off in the late Gamecube/early Wii era. I know the label started in 1994, that's why I said it was the label "that Sega gave them."
The "label" started with Mortal Kombat being censored on the SNES back in 1993. Nintendo did a full reversal and allowed all blood and gore the next year with Mortal Kombat 2 and Doom, which censored nothing. From that point on censorship wasn't an issue. The N64 was full of extremely dark and gory games such as Doom 64, Turok 2, Killer Instinct, MK Trilogy and so on.
 

Rajack

Member
Creating a AAA Wii U game from the ground up costs just as much as making a PS360 game, with a fraction of the intended audience.

PS4/Xbone development costs 8 to 9 times as much as Wii U development would. Don't ignore something obvious to make your point valid and relevant.
 

Terrell

Member
I'd like everyone who told me there is absolutely no 3rd party biases that influence decisions among 3rd parties to take back their derision now.
 

Forceatowulf

G***n S**n*bi
Gamers sure do love to shit on EA at every opportunity, you'd think they'd stop buying their games by now.... nope.

If you still buy EA games at this point you have no right to dump on them. None. You are just as much of a problem as they are to this industry.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I know the story left wii out to make a point but it fell short of any smart analysis on the lowering sales. Any company would experience the same things in this market if they had been around as long as Nintendo. Heck sony had it happen on their third console.

Look at the changing competitive landscape for each if those systems. You will see increasing levels of stronger and stronger competition. So the graph would always look like that as new companies enter and leave the market. The graph proves nothing other than the facts that a; Nintendo faces more competition now than ever whether the admit it or not and b; they have failed to secure the same # of users/consoles sold but what about their percentage if the market place. We also have to include the handheld systems in this too.
but still sold what? 80million?
out of all the them Sony is the only company that has been consistent, yeah PS3 was no PS2 but 80million is the worse Sony cann do?
Nintendo hasn't had real success since the SNES, Sega pulled out, MS fail the first time round & blew their ever so generous lead with 360.
it's a shame Nintendo can't put the same ingredients they put in their DS/3DS into their home consoles, I would actually like another SNES but it's obviously not gonna be from Nintendo, in fact we had one, it was the PSX.
 
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

Yes, it did. The above games sold very few copies and hence support dried up.
 
Wii captured a casual market that is gone now.

People say this like they want it to be true. The casual market was 'gone' before someone made a system to appeal to them, too.

And the idea that the 'casual' audience is gone for good wouldn't be just Nintendo's problem, anyway. The console core base is slowly shrinking and aging, new blood is needed.
 
If releasing a half arsed port at full retail price WHEN you also release a trilogy box set of the same game series for the same or less on every other platform is support i'd hate to see what they consider setting something up to fail is

Stay classy (soon to be) winner of the worst company 3 years running


that said even as wiiu owner and supporter its a dead console, but writing off their handhelds is included in writing off Nintendo and that's just stupid....they must be supporting Vita loads then....
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
Can't blame EA here. They did a solid port of Mass Effect and NFS Most Wanted and both flopped. Sports games (like half of EA's lineup) don't sell well on Nintendo platforms either.
Sports games didn't sell on the Wii because they were largely either a) lazy ports of PS2 games at full $50 asking price or b) intentionally and explicitly dumbed-down versions made in a misguided bid to reach the family friendly market. It's not surprising that the market has been trained to be wary of sports games on Nintendo platforms. If they keep putting out ports on the WiiU that are at parity with the 360/PS3 versions, they can retrain people to trust their product again, but they can't expect to reverse the negative conditioning they did all throughout last gen overnight.

Same goes for ports in general, really. The market was trained all last gen that "Wii port" was a dirty word. That ship ain't gonna turn around on the back of one single bumper crop of decent ports, and it certainly wasn't going to do so when most of them were also incredibly late ports. A sustained volley of good ports released in tandem with other platforms' versions was clearly the only thing that could right the Wii U's third party heading over time, but here goes everyone being shocked and jumping ship when they don't see immediate results.

Is it just me or are companies way, way quicker to write off support for hardware platforms with games that should be ubiquitous? I mean, PSP and Wii had NBA 2K13 ports, well after they could have easily been written off as sales dinosaurs. WiiU and Vita are comparative newborns and they've already been kicked to the curb by the franchise. It really seems like there's an active push from the industry's major players to help hasten the deaths of any platforms that don't catch fire immediately.
 

D-e-f-

Banned
It became a kids IP platform...

Assassin’s Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
ZombiU

Well, you know what they say:


Maybe that's what they mean? :)

I don't really have a problem with anything that "EA Source" said. Maybe he was a little blunt, but ever since the Pokemon craze, Nintendo has been too focused on making things kid-friendly.

No, more like ever since ever. Even in the NES era, Nintendo forbade depictions of blood or the like on their systems.

I guess that's why they're publishing various Fatal Frame games, Bayonetta 2 and fucking Ninja Gaiden 3:RE? lol
 
PS4/Xbone development costs 8 to 9 times as much as Wii U development would. Don't ignore something obvious to make your point valid and relevant.

The difference is development costs doesn't matter if the platform isn't viable. Clearly developers see more than 8-9 times the profit from XB1/PS4 development or else they would make games for the Wii U instead.

That said, I find your 8-9 times number to be questionable. Do you have a source for that?
 

Jonm1010

Banned
PS4/Xbone development costs 8 to 9 times as much as Wii U development would. Don't ignore something obvious to make your point valid and relevant.
Got a source for this? Cause it sounds like you're claiming budgets rose 8-9 times from last gen to now. I haven't heard that number by any serious developer yet.

Also return on investment, opportunity costs etc. it makes pretty much zero sense to invest a huge budget to a wiiU lead platform or exclusive game.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Ofcourse did EA fuck Nintendo over. They sent ME3 out to die and coming up with a Trilogy during the same release window was sort of pushing it. Soon after they sort of abandoned the Wii U altogether.

The launch line up wasn't kiddy. But those game soon started to sell like shit. It was also apparent that the Wii U wasn't all that powerful and their online wasn't fleshed out. I remember some things about lacklustre support from Nintendo too, in the case of devkits etc. And the Wii U marketing was rather shitty.

I think these are reasons EA backed away. On top of that Sony and MS probably presented their roadmaps around that time and EA liked that better.
 

Zornack

Member
EVERYTHING sold very few copies, regardless of content, so I don't see that being relevant.

Nintendoland, New Super Mario Bros. U and 3D World all have good attach rates.

Everything sold like shit because the console sold like shit, but when you compare attach rates you find that third parties did terrible while Nintendo stuff did good.
 

RayMaker

Banned
EA should just say the truth

''Why the hell should we make our games for the WiiU, not only do Nintendo make hardware vastly different to the 360/ps3, but the tools are not as good either and its no where near the tech level of the X1/PS4. We dont want the headache, waste of time,resources and money WiiU development would result in. Come to us with a console that is not vastly different to the competition and a platform which are games will sell on and then we will take you seriously''
 

jdforge

Banned
I think this is dumb. You might not need EA, but Nintendo needs EA if they want to expand their user base. If Nintendo can't offer an annual FIFA, they'll lose out on those consumers. They aren't better off without EA. In fact, Nintendo were quite a bit better off right now if they enjoyed support that matches Sony or MS. More support is more sales and vice versa, and that results in a better experience for hardcore Nintendo fans as well.


Makes no difference to me at all. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
 

Rajack

Member
So do you think the Wii U is losing third party support out of spite?

No I think Wii U lost EA's support because EA's leadership left no money in the bank to fund Wii U games when they went all-in on PS4/Xbone development.The Wii U is simply the victim of high next gen development costs.
 

Majmun

Member
Gamers sure do love to shit on EA at every opportunity, you'd think they'd stop buying their games by now.... nope.

If you still buy EA games at this point you have no right to dump on them. None. You are just as much of a problem as they are to this industry.

But they do release some awesome games that you can't find in other developers.

As much as I dislike their business part, I still like me some Need for Speed or Mass Effect,
 
Even the Mass Effect title on Wii U, which was a solid effort, could never do big business, and EA like Activision is only focused on games that can be big franchises".

Oh for gods sake EA. Saying BS like this only solidifies that you're going to win worst company in america for a 3rd year in a row.

Your phoned in late port didn't sell when you released the complete trilogy on other platforms at the same time. Who would have guessed?
 

Kimawolf

Member
The difference between those two charts is the bar on the right of this one is expected to rise rather dramatically while the Wii U is actually slowing down in terms of sales. It has stalled.
But it wont meet the PS1 or PS3 numbers. Publishers have gone on record saying this gen wont last 8 years so it too will be on a downward trend.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
A really dumb excuse, but it does point out a valid complaint about Nintendo's approach. While Mario, Pokemon, Zelda etc. can all be enjoyed by people of all ages (and are more than just "kids IPs" as this source so dismissively put it), they haven't cultivated an audience that would be into stuff like Battlefield etc. Nintendo does need more variety in what it offers consumers. I mean Disney puts out children's shows, family films, and stuff now like the Marvel movies and Star Wars, and still had a hand in putting out stuff as adult-oriented as Kill Bill. Zelda doesn't need to be dark and gritty, they don't need to get EAD making shooters, but if they went back to greenlighting multiple projects with outside studios that were more M-rated (not to say this means "mature content" or anything), that could broaden their portfolio and simultaneously help create an environment where more games of that type could perform better. Bayonetta 2 is maybe in that vein, though it is a decidedly niche game. Maybe the HumanHead project is similar?


But whatever, this is still EA of all companies who put out two busted-ass games this holiday, had to put out apologies for both, and are potentially fucking over those studios' future projects by having to clean up the mess they made with these releases...
 

CCIE

Banned
I'm actually interested in the Wii U - must be the kid in me. Cannot handle how big and ungainly the controller is though. Come on price drop!
 
Makes no difference to me at all. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Ummm, there aren't plenty of others, hence the disastrous sales numbers for the platform.

No I think Wii U lost EA's support because EA's leadership left no money in the bank to fund Wii U games when they went all-in on PS4/Xbone development.The Wii U is simply the victim of high next gen development costs.

I could not possibly disagree more with this assertion. EA has enough money to fund development of any title on any platform on which it would expect to generate a profit. Companies simply don't see that potential on the Wii U, as it has failed to garner any acceptance in the marketplace.
 

GRW810

Member
Nintendo desperately need to do more to appeal to third parties, and should have already worked harder in the past. The combination of Wii's huge hardware sales and the better specs of Wii U should have been a catalyst for better third party sales and relationships but once again Nintendo let a good opportunity pass them by.

However, I'm not going to accept EA criticising Nintendo and Wii U when they dumped a ME3 port on the console and then promptly buried it by selling the entire trilogy for a similar price on PS3 and 360.
 

Cess007

Member
I would never understand that kind of logic that make people say "Nintendo is better without EA anyway". Any console needs as much as 3rd Party support as they can get; in this case, the WiiU needs as much support they can get.

I don't agree that Nintendo only makes kid's game; however, it's a common (mis)conception regarding Nintendo and their consoles (EA are not the first to say the same); regardless if true or not, Nintendo should make something about it.
 

Rajack

Member
The difference is development costs doesn't matter if the platform isn't viable. Clearly developers see more than 8-9 times the profit from XB1/PS4 development or else they would make games for the Wii U instead.

That said, I find your 8-9 times number to be questionable. Do you have a source for that?

Got a source for this? Cause it sounds like you're claiming budgets rose 8-9 times from last gen to now. I haven't heard that number by any serious developer yet.

Also return on investment, opportunity costs etc. it makes pretty much zero sense to invest a huge budget to a wiiU lead platform or exclusive game.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...n-development-is-eight-to-ten-times-more-work

Costs will rise proportionately to the amount of work needed to make next gen games possible, so my claim is correct and true
 

Jonm1010

Banned
EA should just say the truth

''Why the hell should we make our games for the WiiU, not only do Nintendo make hardware vastly different to the 360/ps3, but the tools are not as good either and its no where near the tech level of the X1/PS4. We dont want the headache, waste of time,resources and money WiiU development would result in. Come to us with a console that is not vastly different to the competition and a platform which are games will sell on and then we will take you seriously''

And frankly this is probably closer to the truth.

EA isn't going to burn bridges in public.

I'm sure EA was never excited about the prospect of wiiU when they found out about it but didn't want to be in the cold if by chance it became another wii. When it didn't there is pretty much no reason to sink money into it when that money can garner a better return elsewhere.
 

Exile20

Member
Aren't Square charging full price for Tomb Raider:DE? Isn't Konami charging a $10 premium for the next gen versions of MGS5? I really doubt either of those games will sell as poorly as Wii U Mass Effect, Tekken Tag, CoD, or Assassin's Creed.


Creating a AAA Wii U game from the ground up costs just as much as making a PS360 game, with a fraction of the intended audience.

If they were up to three TRs, put a trilogy out with dlc on the PS3, X360 and PC and release TR 3 on Ps4 and Xbone for full price with no DLC. Lots of value there, right.

Why would anyone buy that?
 

SmokyDave

Member
If they were up to three TRs, put a trilogy out with dlc on the PS3, X360 and PC and release TR 3 on Ps4 and Xbone for full price with no DLC. Lots of value there, right.

Why would anyone buy that?
Because the PS4 fucking rocks and people want to play games on an awesome system.

Bear in mind that the PS4 would have a considerably better version of the game, whereas the Wii U can't even attain parity with the previous gen consoles.
 
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