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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Are third party devs really going to support X1/PS4 much more than WiiU?

For most people on the web this seems to be a given. but the same persons also thought that the support for the Sony and MS consoles will be much better than the WiiU one from day one. Well it seems that's not the case at all as WiiU has a much better launch third parties line up than its competitors:

 

WiiU
Assassin’s Creed III - Ubisoft
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition - Warner Bros. Interactive
Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Activision
Darksiders II - THQ
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two - Disney Interactive
FIFA Soccer 13- EA Sports
ESPN Sports Connection -Ubisoft
Game Party Champions - Warner Bros. Interactive
Just Dance 4 - Ubisoft
Madden NFL 13 - EA
Mass Effect 3 - EA
NBA 2K13 - 2K Sports
New Super Mario Bros. U - Nintendo
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge - Nintendo
Nintendo Land - Nintendo
Rabbids Land - Ubisoft
Scribblenauts Unlimited Warner Bros. Interactive
Sing Party - Nintendo
Skylanders Giants - Activision
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed - SEGA
Tank! Tank! Tank! - Namco Bandai
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition - Namco Bandai
Transformers - Prime 2K
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013 - Ubisoft
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper - Tecmo Koei
Wipeout: The Game 3 - Activision
ZombiU - Ubisoft

PS4
NBA 2K14 (Visual Concepts, 2K Sports)
Call of Duty: Ghosts (Infinity Ward, Activision)
Skylanders Swap Force (Vicarious Visions, Activision)
Need for Speed: Rivals (Ghost Games/Criterion Games, EA)
Battlefield 4 (EA DICE, EA)
Madden 25 (EA Tiburon, EA)
FIFA 14 (EA Canada, EA)
NBA Live 14 (EA Tiburon, EA)
Killzone: Shadown Fall (Guerilla Games, Sony)
Driveclub (Evolution Studios, Sony)
Knack (SCE Japan, Sony)
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
Watch Dogs (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (TT Games, Warner Bros. Interactive)

Xbox one
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ubisoft
Battlefield 4 - EA/DICE
Call of Duty: Ghosts - Activision
Dead Rising 3 - Capcom
FIFA 14 - EA Sports
Fighter Within - Ubisoft
Forza Motorsport 5 - Turn 10
Just Dance 2014 - Ubisoft
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes - TT Games
Madden NFL 25 - EA Sports
NBA 2K14 - 2K
NBA Live 14 - EA Sports
Need for Speed: Rivals - EA
Ryse: Son of Rome - Crytek
Skylanders: Swap Force - Activision
Watch Dogs - Ubisoft
Zoo Tycoon - Frontier Developments
Zumba Fitness: World Party - Majesco

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Of course you can add all the digital titles to these line ups but in terms of investments retail games are a much better proof of support than those other games. Also this fall if WiiU doesn't have some of the games released at launch on its rivals (EA games almost exclusively) there are also WiiU games that could have been ported on PS4/X1 but are not like SC, Rayman, Batman, Disney Infinity, DE... Sonic LW is also a WiiU exclusive while PS4 has 0 third party exclusive this fall and X1 has only one really : DR3. So this fall it is safe to say that despite what most predicted the third party support for X1/PS4 is at the very least not much better at all than the WiiU one.

 

Of course it could be different in the future and there are some 2014 games which are announced on PS4/X1 and not on the WiiU. But how many of them will really don't end up being released on WiiU too? The Division, Destiny or The Crew could very well be announced on the platform later like WD, COD:G or SC were. With the WiiU installed base being at least very similar to its competitors for easily one year it seems very doubtful that third party developpers will totally abandoned it as quickly as many seem to think. In fact it looks much more likely that the support will keep getting better and better for the platform. And this shows again that the WiiU is far from being as doomed as many pretend it to be.



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They'll Support where the money is.

The thing is if just the xbox 1 or PS4 is a huge success, it's easier to port the game across to the other platform even if it's struggling. With the Wii-U it is more difficult depending on the scalability of the engine, because it is significantly weaker.

I do agree though, at launch the Wii-U has more good 3rd party games. Pretty much all the 3rd Party Games are cross generational, with all the platforms. Wii-U was the only one with 3rd party exclusives as far as I can tell.



Look at the preorder chart. Not a single game on there is for Wii U. You can throw as much garbage fitness games on the launch line up as you want, none of that matters to a third party developer if it won't sell on the Wii U.



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Yes. Most third party games from the Wii U list are overpriced late ports, or half assed ones that lacked content like the EA games, meanwhile several games on the X1/PS4 list run on new graphic engines not even the PC is getting in some cases. New engines aren't cheap so it's clear that third parties have decided to support them for a long time no matter what, even if that means losing money.



Player2 said:

Yes. Most third party games from the Wii U list are overpriced late ports, or half assed ones that lacked content like the EA games, meanwhile several games on the X1/PS4 list run on new graphic engines not even the PC is getting in some cases. New engines aren't cheap so it's clear that third parties have decided to support them for a long time no matter what, even if that means losing money.


These are bad "excuses" : You can remove all the late ports or the Fitness games even if you do that the PS4/X1 launch line-up is at best still equal to the WiiU one with really almost all the same series one year later. So these late ports or casual games are just extras that PS4/X1 even don't get even titles like Batman or Rayman. Also WiiU multiplats games also had extra work that took advantage of its features. There is no way to say that the PS4/X1 third party line up are significantly better than the WiiU one at the very least.

Those so called new engines are also not that "new" either as almost all those games are cross generational and this proves that future games using such engines can easily be ported on WiiU later too.



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The Wii U had a great launch line up even if 60-70% of the games on there were ports. The problem with the Wii U, is that even if it sold well after launch, it still wouldn't have got as much third party support as the PS4/Xbox One.

Sure it's getting games like Assassin's Creed 4, Watch Dogs, etc, but so is the PS360. What about games like Mirror's Edge 2, The Division, Destiny, etc? Games that are in the future being released for the PS4 and Xbox One. Where is the Wii U version for those? It's going to be the exact same with the Wii U as it has been with the Wii, since they're making money off two fanbases having to do little else other than directly port it to the other machine. The Wii U, like the Wii before it, will mostly continue to get third party support through PS360/Wii U multiconsole games that are still released for the next couple of years.  After the PS360 are no longer a viable source of income for publishers and sales are minimal, you expect them to develop a game exclusively for the Wii U when they could make more money on the PS4 and Xbox One?



gum said:
Player2 said:

Yes. Most third party games from the Wii U list are overpriced late ports, or half assed ones that lacked content like the EA games, meanwhile several games on the X1/PS4 list run on new graphic engines not even the PC is getting in some cases. New engines aren't cheap so it's clear that third parties have decided to support them for a long time no matter what, even if that means losing money.


These are bad "excuses" : You can remove all the late ports or the Fitness games even if you do that the PS4/X1 launch line-up is at best still equal to the WiiU one with the really almost all the same series one year later so these late ports or casual games are just extras that PS4/X1 even don't get. And they even also don't get easy ports of games like Batman or Rayman as already stated. Also WiiU multiplats games also had extra work that took advantage of its features. There is no way to say that the PS4/X1 third party line up are significantly better than the WiiU one at the very least.

Those so called new engines are also not that "new" either as almost all those games are cross generational and this proves that future games using such engines can easily be ported on WiiU later too.

I'm not giving excuses. I'm trying to analyze the effort put in launch games to predict long-term support for each system, which is the topic at hand.

New engines cost money. Developers don't build a new engine for a single game (because $$$), so this means that they want to make more games for the system. It doesn't matter if it's going to be available on older systems.

Meanwhile Wii U struggle to get equal treatment from third parties (Injustice, NFS, sport games...).



So basically you're saying it has all this support and is still struggling to sell.....



Looks that way, yeah. But I can see it changing if the system starts to sell well. They'll go where the money is, and right now it ain't with the U.



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

Yes, they are. EA is not going to give the Wii U as much support as they will give the X1 and PS4 -- that is, if they ever give it any support at all.

The Wii U is most likely not getting Final Fantasy XV or Kingdom Hearts 3, so we can rule out Square-Enix as a source of even third-party support.

Konami? Pfffhahahahaha. No.

Support from Capcom, Activision, and Ubisoft is up in the air. I'd say a lot of that is riding on sales this Holiday.

Namco-Bandai is an odd case. They've been surprisingly buddy-buddy with Nintendo lately, and yet no SoulCalibur II for Wii U. We'll see how that plays out, though. Like Capcom, they have few upcoming games announced --basically some exclusives and remakes, and Dark Souls II, a game not being developed internally.

But really, the Wii U will get 50% of the third-party support the X1 and PS4 will get at best. It already has much more than the Wii got, though.