| RolStoppable said: Sure, but the N64 and GC eras weren't exactly rosy times for Nintendo. The main problem is that, despite the Wii, Nintendo subscribed to the myth that every console needs third party games to succeed. In reality, all it takes is a steady flow of good games. Whether they are first or third party games doesn't matter. Instead of expanding their own workforce during the last few years, Nintendo chose to appease the industry, so now Nintendo is once again left with software droughts, because third parties don't want to get on board. The Wii didn't get ports of 360/PS3 games due to its lack of power and controller? Well, the Wii U fixed those issues, so the goalposts were moved by third parties. EA is the prime example of this. The quote you mentioned led straight into a backhanded compliment. EA basically said: "You should never count Nintendo out, but that's exactly what we'll do, so don't expect our games to come to the Wii U." |
The goalposts were moved by third parties... but not by all of them. That's the point - Nintendo just needs to get some more third party support from a few, and then the visible difference between them in terms of profits, etc, will become the selling point. Nintendo has gotten on board, amongst others, Team Ninja (yes, NG3 is being ported back to the PS3 and 360, but Team Ninja are also going to add all new content back into the Wii U version via an update), Atlus, some of Square Enix (see: Dragon Quest), some of Capcom (see: Monster Hunter), and at least some developers within Ubisoft (see: Michel Ancel).
It's a start. And as for EA, the point is that, even in saying they weren't really supporting the platform, they felt they needed to emphasise that you should never count Nintendo out. It's basically them hedging their bets by saying "If the Wii U starts to sell better, we'll support it".
