MS has been moneyhatting since the gen started. GTA, timed exclusives, thats what working with 3rd party means, SONY has done that to a lesser extent as well and it helps that games are easily ported between PS360. Ninty didnt do any of those things and you cant port games easily from PS360 to WII, hell sometimes you cant even port at all (Just Cause2, Fallout, ElderScrolls, etc.) Thats two against Ninty right there, and you cant really fault third parties for that.

the dev-kits, no one but them for sure knows when they got them or even if they got them. And i think we are forgetting the gorilla in the room, that is Square Enix, lets not forget Eidos works for THEM. For all we know, SE did get dev kits, but they are witholding them, because they want Eidos to be on time and finish what they started. Hell, im willing to bet that Eidos does not have that much decisions to make when it comes to this as is to be believed.

Your 2nd interests me, lets be real, you cannot release a late port of a game with NO added features, its not a good look. That crap only flys for small DL games. Look at the past late ports. Bioshock PS3, extra missions. ME2 PS3 all DLC added, hell even GE Reloaded got a whole nother mode and update multiplayer. Bully Wii/360 more missions. People arent going to buy a late port of a game with no added features, they are going to wonder why it was not released with the original one. TR is worst off, as it will release to a huge PS360 install base versus the relatively much smaller Wii U one with no added features??  yes, that doesnt mean using the unique controls, but lets be real, most people are interested in Wii U for its contoller, just like Wii before it.

3rd point, not buying it, as I have said before they are under SE heels so we dont know what policies they have for something like this and your flagship statement is completly wrong. There have been two games realeased on Wii in the TR series. Anniversary and Underworld, there have been no new games released in the TR series since Underworld. I still believe there will be a port, but they probably havent even started work on it, or will not start work until the game is actually finished. We still havent gotten a real reveal on Wii U and no one knows the price hell no one even knows when the release month is. Its just all too early, if we never see a TR port on Wii U, it will be because the game sucked or flopped. Either way ill eat crow and you can say I was wrong.

Since N wasn't there on the multi-plat side of the home console front this gen, you're right they were in essence MIA. I get it. No moneyhatting much, no asking for big names or even equal treatment, due to disparity. Understood.

This is a good point, and in essence supports my POV. Nice catch.

@bold. Is that really true? Are there really no late ports this gen that provided no added features from one console to the other? I doubt it. Why are added features so important? That's not the point of porting the game, it can be the same accross platforms. Why when it's late must it have added features. I think that policy in the industry is silly tbh. If Ninty wanted it, they could just get a vanilla port of it. I think this even happened to Anniversary, which first released on Wii, then was ported straight up (no extras) to the HD twins a little later. This part of your post I'll take with a grain of salt.

I know about the TRs on the Wii, but I still think 1) Anniversary is a remake, does not satisfy the flagship segment and 2) Underworld got a lesser version on the Wii. Even then the face of their latest game was on the Wii so I'll concede this to ya.

I think you're mostly right about it coming to the Wii U ultimately, and I don't think you'll be wrong, but it still doesn't disprove the slowness to respond to Nintendo's new platform, different from what I think would've happened had it been 720 sdks, but that's just my perception from what I see in general in the industry. Hopefully all that will change very soon, I just didn't get a good feel out of this article, but you're probably right it's still too early to call wolf. If this happens nearing the Wii U's launch, I'll start reacting.

I probably worded it, wrong. I appreaciate that you might not care, but people dont like getting late ports of games and have no added features. Its really a buisness think, IMHO. What would be the incentive to buy a game released a year later at full price?? Late ports dont usually sell as well anyway so releasing a late one with no incentives to buy it would be suicide IMHO. Anniversary wasnt a vanilla port though. There were bonus minigames that utilizied the motion controls. So it actually was an enchanced port. Anniversary was released around the same time as the PS2 versions for xbox360. PS3 didnt get a port of the game until last year and that was part of a collection, so it doesnt really count. There are games that are ported later. RE4 Wii, but even that was released at budget price.  Lets put it this way. If TR was released next year for WIi U at full price  and barebones, you really think Ninty fans for the most part would be happy with that?? Especially since by that time it would be available for the others a year and cheaper?? I doubt it.

Wii got a lesser version because its hardware power is LESSER. Again you cant fault Eidos for that, thats like I asked you to fit a monster truck in a two door garage. Good to see we're on the same page mostly

Oni, it all depends on whether the owner is multi-plat or not. Many customers only own one console, hence the huge discrepancy between say PS2 sales and GC+Xbox sales. That's a normal generation. The current one was fragmented, so it was a little odd, but normally there is one main console. The worst case gap is PS2 to peers is 153.68Mil - 24.65 (XB) -21.74 (GC) = roughly 107Mil. There were 107Mil purchases that were single-console, unless they were re-purchases by the same customer (which probably happened quite a bit due to remodel and whatever other reason, like 2 dvd-players per home).To be nice, let's say 50Mil are single-plat buyers against another 40 some Mil which were multi-plat, let's say.

If someone owns only one console and needs a game, he won't care whether it has extra features or not, wouldn't you think so too? For the multi-plat owners what you're saying is true, but bare-bones there is a market even for a vanilla port imho. Then if they want to add extra features, all the power to them. But in terms of business strategizing, a vanilla port is completely feasible, imho.

If they never owned an HD console and are part of a good possible percentage of people who only owned a Wii, portables or older consoles like the DC or the PS2, then yeah, that customer would be very happy. A bare-bone port should be priced a tad higher than its counterparts, simply for retail reasons (you don't want it to look cheap since it's a new release) and not because it cost much more to release, especially with what we know about porting 360 games to the Wii U (apparently one of the features in the sdk featureset, can't find the source though ... I looked for it).

You might want to think this one through.

@RE4-Wii, it was, most likely released at budget price since the studio had probably already capitalised much on the title already.

Me too :) I agree about the Wii having lesser power thing, I've always agreed with you on that. It was Nintendo's decision and theirs to own. It didn't fly by 3rd parties and that is an unshakeable fact. Now I want to know the rest of the story. I just hope the resentment doesn't carry over to Nintendo's next offering. Seriously, the fans have had enough.

Gonna disagree with the bolded, respectfully. The thing with PS2 is it DOMINATED, totally. YOu be hard pressed to find a game that sold better on GC/Xbox than PS2, no matter how much worst the PS2 version was. Hell RE4 was released later and destoyed the GC version. Freaking Sonic Heroes got the worst reviews on PS2 and its still sold better. Etc. Now look at Wii. Muliplat games do worst across the board on Wii than the other two, unless its a dance or exercise game, or someting geared to children. (Lego, Zumba, JD, etc.) But PS360 versions trounce Wii's repeatedly. Now some would say, that only happened in the last few years, bullshit. Its always been like this. The only difference is that the PS3 versions have passed up the WIis, but the 360 versions have always done better. So that leads me too either two scenarios;  A the Wii is really a casual/family console and people dont care about those "core" games  B there are alot of Wii owners with another console or PC and they are simply buying games for one of those.

Why should late ports be priced higher?? That makes no sense to me, people arent stupid and they dont want to feel like they are being gyped. If game a was released last year for 50 dollars and now it is realesed on on system b for 50 dollars, game a on system a now cost 25 dollars, how is one not supposed to feel like they arent getting raped. See heres my thing. game a is NOT a new release, whether a person owns the system it was originally on or not is not relevant, it is not a new game and trying to sell it much later as a new game, to me is an insult to the consumers intelligence and looking at sales of most late ports, they dont like being made to look stupid

@bold. Fair enough. The best indicator would be COD, where 13 + 11 mil sold on HD twins, and some 1 Mil on the Wii. But it tells us how many may be interested in COD Wii-only, it doesn't tell us how many Wii-only buyers there are, and even less how many may be interested in TR. Think about this one for a sec. This could mean the single-plat Wii owners out there is not known, it is probably much greater than 1 million, not realistically less than 1 million, but in my view there are many Wii-only owners out there who are growing, and their parents may be interested in the Wii U for them. It will be important that it has games that cater to that group for their purchase decision. I have zero facts to offer a number of Wii-only owners, but my wild guess would be a conservative 20 million homes. This takes into consideration the total amount of Wiis sold, the fact that the HD twins have both had redesigns, the total sales of the HD twins, and the possible repurchase of Wiis, and the fact that one home may have more than one of the same console.

Then you have the thought that maybe some people will not want two next-gen consoles, remember the Wii U is HD but it's next gen. The fact that this kind of game is not released on it is not a good thing. It casts doubt and single-plat owners will shun it even more, so direct and significant effect on conversion rates (HD twins to Wii U), and could even affect the upgrade sentiment (Wii to Wii U), but that one is probably less bad. Keep in mind I'm talking from a single-plat perspective.

You got me wrong here, I was unclear sorry. I meant higher than the current price of the counterpart. In other words, cheaper than the original sku but a little more expensive than the current ones, since it's a late port. Then again even here you may be right. I'll concede this one to you. Good thing this wasn't my main point :)

See im not sure i agree with the bolded, if that many people are interested in COD WIi, why are the NOT buying COD WII?? There is nothing stopping them from doing so. MW3 has done 13 and 11 mil on 360/PS3 respectively. the Wii version has not even gone gold. That is a HUGE discrepancy.  Yes that is not going to tell us how much WIi only owners there are out there and I actually agree with your number, could be even 30 mil. But here is my question, how much of those Wii only owners actually give a damn?! Lets be real here you have your soccer moms, your grandparents, girlfriends who only bought Wii to play WiiSports, dance or get in "shape". How much of these people make up the Wii only owners?? Im gonna guess alot more than anyone would care to admit, going by sales of JD and fitness games versus the core games like COD or hell just anything. There are 3 kinds of WIi owners IMO. mulitplat owners, core only Wii owners, and the soccer. Unfortunatly the core only Wii owners are the smallest of the three. Now the WIi U could turn it around and im sure it will, when it actually gets games that will be on par with the other versions and thats what the problem was with WII. Consumers again are not stupid, they know when something is fishy, they know that multiplats for the most part suck on WIi, which is why they buy these HD consoles or PCs. Again, not the fault of 3rd parties, they didnt make the hardware.

SIngle plat perspective, I think WIi especially the soccer moms and maybe young uns will go to WIi U. THe HD twins, not seeing it. The Wii U is not going to be that much powerful than either of the two, it wont be Wii to PS3 thats for damn sure. ANd another gorilla which people seem to forget is online, people have invested time and money into LIVE and PSN. especially LIVE. I dont see people jumping ship from LIVE and PSN to WII U. Lets not forget that WiiWare sucks, so there is a trust issue there. MS has two gens of experience. ANd Sony started ruff but are in a good place now. WIiWare?? still sucks, probably worst since they barely support VC. Ninty has an uphill battle if they are going to try to take people away from PS360

All very good points oni. It'll be interesting to see how Nintendo can scale this hill, this never-ending hill, and find a way to mend the broken bridges with 3rd parties, so that cases like this happen less and less, and we less and less have to doubt the intents of devs from here on out. It's really no longer necessary, hopefully Nintendo has grown up enough it's annoying to be a child for so long.

*Builds game for 3 platforms*

*Chooses not to port to most powerful platform*

*Says that this is due to Wii U being a special snowflake*

Why don't they just throw the minimap down there? Would that really cost so much?

Last years E3 trailer was amazing. Looking forward to see more of this game.
I've never played a Tomb Raider game, so an HD reboot is perfect.