| the_dengle said:
The problem here is not the Wii U, it is clearly Activision. THPS 2-4 were all released on many platforms, no fewer than 7 for any of them counting PC and Mac as separate. Forget the Wii U. Where's the PC version? How about the Vita version? Those two at the very least should be braindead-easy ports considering the platforms already being supported. Activision put real work into the older games, tasking a separate developer with creating faithful and high-quality renditions of the THPS 2-4 for GameBoy Advance. A 3DS version surely wouldn't be as difficult as all that. Activision has decided to release this game for only four platforms. They could easily -- very easily -- release it on seven or more platforms without breaking their backs from the effort. What they are demonstrating to me is that they have less confidence in this franchise now than they had when it was a brand-new IP back in the late 90s -- or perhaps they only lack confidence in this particular installment. Not a good sign for the quality of the game. |
Market has changed. Western publishers don't want the small profits from porting their games everywhere anymore. Same reason we don't get Need for Speed on Vita/WiiU (beside the cursory Criterion ports before they were pulled off the franchise altogether) despite that being a franchise that appeared everywhere in the past (and sold surprisingly well on PSP). Same reason we don't get WWE games on every platform anymore.
I'd imagine mobile is a big part of it. Since it's become such a decisive player in the market, why put 10 people on porting it to a console to get moderate sales when you can put those 10 people towards making the next Simpsons Tapped Out? Might not work out that way, but equally, it might.
PC is an odd omission though. I'd imagine it probably will come to PC at some point or another.
It's a rubbish business model, anyway, and why I find the Japanese market so interesting (because you still get devs like Koei Tecmo who port their games everywhere and still make a profit; or Bandai Namco who can make 30 games which sell 30k each and make money from each of them).
