By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
freebs2 on 12 February 2013
Edit Thread
Aielyn said:
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".

I don't think EA will ever support the WiiU, and that's because they have a long term strategy too. I don't belive they don't know development costs will rise next-gen, on the contrary it's part of their strategy. Since they can count on strong franchises to use as cash cows (FIFA and Need For Speed for example), they can and want to set the bar for game development higher in order to push smaller competitors (THQ for example) out of business.

At the same time, by acquiring more and more key studios and IPs, they will gain also bargaining power to console makers. You know for sure there are rumors about anti used measures in Ps4 and Nextbox. I guess they are the ones pulling the wires behind this, I don't think Sony or Microsoft would like to add a feature that could potentially restrain hardware sales.