xbone + wii u closing the gap with ps4!

[Zanten]

Why the heck is Wii U being included at all? I don't intend this to be as a 'lulNintendo' dig, because I do actually really enjoy their line of consoles, especially when it comes to the sheer joy of local multiplayer with my friends; bottom line, when it comes to social gaming with folks in the same room, my Wii (and eventually Wii U,) is going to be the top shelf item.

But that being said, the entire point (or so I thought, at least,) of monitoring the relative sales of the consoles was to try and determine the sort of leverage each company can exert on the market. Basically, 'If You Sell It, They (the publishers and developers) Will Come.'

But the reason the sales comparisons matter to the Xbox One and PS4 is because of how similar they are in most other respects. They even run on a similar architecture, and so the amount of Tender Loving Care a publisher gives one platform or the other, (whether it's taking advantage of unique hardware features, or simply pushing for a certain resolution or framerate,) will likely tie into how much profit they expect to extract from it. If the PS4 version of a game is selling in significantly higher numbers than the Xbox One version due to a gap in hardware numbers, then a publisher is going to inevitably keep that in mind when it comes time to decide whether they'll be doling any sort of exclusivity, how much they'll be charging, and if they reeeeally want to bother trying to get the Xbox One version of their game above 900p.

Nintendo is... well, it's Nintendo. It has its own little fiefdom in the market, and chances are it will rarely, if ever, be included in 8th generation third-party titles that are intended to push the limits of the PS4 and Xbox One. It doesn't matter, either, because it's pretty clear that they're quite happy being Nintendo, and to be honest, so am I. ^^ Still, their involvement in a sales comparison is a bit pointless, because when it comes to fighting tooth or nail for third party exclusive content, and the other concerns that Sony and Microsoft will be facing, the Wii U simply won't be in the equation.