People are not going to buy a new system to play games on systems they already own. And if they wanted that type of game enough to buy a platform to play it they would have already brought a platform that has that type of game. When a publisher brings a multiplatform game to a new system it is not to create a new market on that system, it is to access the market that exists on the system. And it's totally up to the platform holder to create and foster that market to create an installbase. It is not in publishers best interest to split the market up ether, they ideally want the market as consentrated as possible like it was on the PS2, they only support multiple platforms because they have to to address the audience on the multiple platforms, 3rd parties would be more than happy to see one of the big three drop out (2 can be good as they can get kickbacks and it keeps licensing costs down) if that means that they had to support less platforms.

In simple terms, publishers support a platform for the audience it has (or at launch they expect to be) not to make the audience invest in the platform. And in publishers eyes the less platforms they need to support the better.

Also I am not Mazty

Admittedly, I didn't read beyond the relevant part, the part where you misinterpreted what I said.

As for what you've said in this post, you're actually wrong. I mean, your initial observations are right, but your conclusions are incorrect due to a failure to factor something important into the equation.

The vast majority of the gaming audience doesn't want to own multiple consoles unless they have to. While multiple-system ownership isn't uncommon, there's a large portion of the audience that own just one console, or at least want to. And therefore, so long as there are top-quality exclusives on platforms, the market will be fractured. In the case of the PS2, that wasn't too big a deal, as the other systems represented a far smaller fraction of the market, and thus only a relatively small fraction of the market would be missed by targetting the PS2 more. Note, however, that many developers still put their games on more than just the PS2, even in that lopsided case.

When the market shares are a lot closer, such as in the seventh generation, splitting development is the smarter plan, as people are unlikely to choose a platform based on one game when there are exclusives on each system.

It's different if the game is an exclusive to begin with. In that case, you're building a fanbase on a specific system, and are likely to draw people to that system. But if your game is multiplatform, spreading it across all of the available platforms (or all of the appropriate ones - meaning, those that can run the game as it was intended - no point putting a game designed around touch on the Xbox 360, for instance) is better than having it across only some of them. Why? Because if your game isn't going to be the deciding factor in which platform to get (and multiplatforms won't make that decision for a person unless one version is far better than the others), then you want to make sure that people who own all systems experience it, in order to maximise the exposure and to build fanbases.

When you've grown a large fanbase, you can consider going the exclusive route, and draw all of your fans to the same system. THAT would make sense, and would serve to minimise costs. But if it's already multiplatform, it can't do that.

So, bringing it back to Metro, here's the question to ask: what is the benefit of skipping the Wii U, given that it's capable of running the game (perhaps with some minor modifications to shift work from CPU to GPU)? It does reduce development costs, but only by a fractional amount - the majority of development costs go to art assets, game logic, etc, not to porting, and that's stuff that doesn't get duplicated on additional systems. It might delay the game's release a little, but when you're targetting early in the year, a bit of a delay doesn't do any harm at all (as opposed to releasing in November vs delaying to December or January). The concern about splitting the fanbase isn't a concern, because fanbases go where the game goes - if it became a PS4 exclusive, the fans would go to that platform.

It might sound like I'm making as much of an assumption as you. But here's the thing - if your assumptions were consistent, and your conclusion sound, then multiplatform games would be the exception, not the rule. Now, tell me - what is the biggest criticism that the Xbox 360 and PS3 get in terms of criticisms of both simultaneously? That's right - that they're too similar. That they're the "HD Twins". That they pretty much get 90% of the same games. If your reasoning were valid, and your conclusions sound, developers and publishers would have chosen one of the two, and focused everything on that platform. The failure to include the Wii in many games was somewhat reasonable - the Wii couldn't handle various things that could be done on the other platforms (an example being Dead Rising's number of foes on screen at once - as demonstrated by Chop til you Drop). My criticism on that front was always failure to do anything solid for the Wii, not failure to include it in multiplatform releases. But that reasoning cannot apply to the Wii U when it comes to 360/PS3 titles, as the Wii U is entirely capable of doing what those platforms do, and then some.

Oh, and I knew full well that you aren't Matzy. Hence why I referred to Matzy by name when replying to you, and spoke in third person about him (or her, I guess, I honestly don't care enough to check).

Admittedly, I didn't read beyond the relevant part, the part where you misinterpreted what I said.

As for what you've said in this post, you're actually wrong. I mean, your initial observations are right, but your conclusions are incorrect due to a failure to factor something important into the equation.

The vast majority of the gaming audience doesn't want to own multiple consoles unless they have to. While multiple-system ownership isn't uncommon, there's a large portion of the audience that own just one console, or at least want to. And therefore, so long as there are top-quality exclusives on platforms, the market will be fractured. In the case of the PS2, that wasn't too big a deal, as the other systems represented a far smaller fraction of the market, and thus only a relatively small fraction of the market would be missed by targetting the PS2 more. Note, however, that many developers still put their games on more than just the PS2, even in that lopsided case.

This doesn't conflict with what I said at all. With the PS2 controling that majority of the market lots of third partie developers developed for the system exclusively. The games that did span all systems were the ones that could afford to split their effort without negatively impacting the game or where contractually obligated to such as licensed and sports titles. The titles that were exclusive to the other systems from third parties were much less common and mostly due to deals from MS and Nintendo or thanks to the PC like API and architecture of the XBOX making it easy to bring titles over, and games like Halo established that there was an audience for more PC like games on the system. 

But none of that conflicts with my point that publishers don't inherently want to be multiplatform unless they have too. While the market share of Xbox and Gamecube were small they still established their own market niches that were big enough that they were worth supporting for some titles. They weren't supported because publishers wanted the market to be split up, but because the audience was already split up. 

When the market shares are a lot closer, such as in the seventh generation, splitting development is the smarter plan, as people are unlikely to choose a platform based on one game when there are exclusives on each system.

It's different if the game is an exclusive to begin with. In that case, you're building a fanbase on a specific system, and are likely to draw people to that system. But if your game is multiplatform, spreading it across all of the available platforms (or all of the appropriate ones - meaning, those that can run the game as it was intended - no point putting a game designed around touch on the Xbox 360, for instance) is better than having it across only some of them. Why? Because if your game isn't going to be the deciding factor in which platform to get (and multiplatforms won't make that decision for a person unless one version is far better than the others), then you want to make sure that people who own all systems experience it, in order to maximise the exposure and to build fanbases.

Again it's not up to third parties to build a userbase on any system, but to find the ecosystems where there is an audience for the game. 

When you've grown a large fanbase, you can consider going the exclusive route, and draw all of your fans to the same system. THAT would make sense, and would serve to minimise costs. But if it's already multiplatform, it can't do that.

So, bringing it back to Metro, here's the question to ask: what is the benefit of skipping the Wii U, given that it's capable of running the game (perhaps with some minor modifications to shift work from CPU to GPU)? It does reduce development costs, but only by a fractional amount - the majority of development costs go to art assets, game logic, etc, not to porting, and that's stuff that doesn't get duplicated on additional systems. It might delay the game's release a little, but when you're targetting early in the year, a bit of a delay doesn't do any harm at all (as opposed to releasing in November vs delaying to December or January). The concern about splitting the fanbase isn't a concern, because fanbases go where the game goes - if it became a PS4 exclusive, the fans would go to that platform.

The benifit is that you reserve the limited resources of a small dev team that is already stretched thin, and the dev team (or at least the engine lead) thought that the Wii U version would be inferior and show the teams work in a poor light. Add to the fact that the Wii U has yet to prove that it can build an audience for that type of game big enough to support the port there is very little incentive. 

It might sound like I'm making as much of an assumption as you. But here's the thing - if your assumptions were consistent, and your conclusion sound, then multiplatform games would be the exception, not the rule. Now, tell me - what is the biggest criticism that the Xbox 360 and PS3 get in terms of criticisms of both simultaneously? That's right - that they're too similar. That they're the "HD Twins". That they pretty much get 90% of the same games. If your reasoning were valid, and your conclusions sound, developers and publishers would have chosen one of the two, and focused everything on that platform. The failure to include the Wii in many games was somewhat reasonable - the Wii couldn't handle various things that could be done on the other platforms (an example being Dead Rising's number of foes on screen at once - as demonstrated by Chop til you Drop). My criticism on that front was always failure to do anything solid for the Wii, not failure to include it in multiplatform releases. But that reasoning cannot apply to the Wii U when it comes to 360/PS3 titles, as the Wii U is entirely capable of doing what those platforms do, and then some.

The PS3 and X360 both managed to foster very similar audiences which meant that the audience was esentially split so devs had to serve both platforms. Publishers didn't support both because they wanted the audience to be on both but because the audience supported both. That and they were very similar in terms of capablities. As you yourself say 3rd party games don't (usually) decide the platforms the audience picks up, the 1st partys are the ones that decide that, 3rd parties just follow the crowd. My reasoning is consistant if there is a viable market for the types of games on a system then publishers will support that audience, but the audience has to be there (or at least they have to belive that the audience will be there). 

Oh, and I knew full well that you aren't Matzy. Hence why I referred to Matzy by name when replying to you, and spoke in third person about him (or her, I guess, I honestly don't care enough to check).

But none of that conflicts with my point that publishers don't inherently want to be multiplatform unless they have too. While the market share of Xbox and Gamecube were small they still established their own market niches that were big enough that they were worth supporting for some titles. They weren't supported because publishers wanted the market to be split up, but because the audience was already split up. 

Again it's not up to third parties to build a userbase on any system, but to find the ecosystems where there is an audience for the game. 

The benifit is that you reserve the limited resources of a small dev team that is already stretched thin, and the dev team (or at least the engine lead) thought that the Wii U version would be inferior and show the teams work in a poor light. Add to the fact that the Wii U has yet to prove that it can build an audience for that type of game big enough to support the port there is very little incentive. 

The PS3 and X360 both managed to foster very similar audiences which meant that the audience was esentially split so devs had to serve both platforms. Publishers didn't support both because they wanted the audience to be on both but because the audience supported both. That and they were very similar in terms of capablities. As you yourself say 3rd party games don't (usually) decide the platforms the audience picks up, the 1st partys are the ones that decide that, 3rd parties just follow the crowd. My reasoning is consistant if there is a viable market for the types of games on a system then publishers will support that audience, but the audience has to be there (or at least they have to belive that the audience will be there). 

Regarding PS2, you seem to have skipped the main point of what I said, and focused on the "also note that", which purely noted that you still saw multiplatform games despite the lopsided sales. If you want to respond to the actual argument, rather than the side note, I'll happily debate that with you.

And it's up to third parties to build a fanbase on systems. And yes, to build a userbase, to some degree. If the only games you could get at all on a Nintendo system were Nintendo titles, it wouldn't sell anywhere near as well. Third party games build the userbase, by increasing the perceived value of the system (a person buys a system when its perceived value to them is greater than the cost of buying the system). As for the "Ecosystems" part, I'm sorry, but ecosystems are set up by the third parties just as much as the hardware maker. And by the way, the biggest argument developers and publishers have used in the past is "you can't compete with Nintendo on their console" - if Nintendo had focused on making more FPSes, third parties would have said "We can't compete with Nintendo in FPSes, so why bother making FPSes for the system?" Basically, Nintendo is damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

THQ is not a small dev team. If 4A Games wasn't big enough to handle both development and porting, they wouldn't have initially claimed that the game was coming to the Wii U... but more importantly, THQ could easily arrange for another company to handle porting duties. It happens all the time, even with IPs that aren't owned by the publisher. THQ could easily have organised it. As for the "dev team thought it would be inferior", that was rumour (in the form of a non-quote attribution of an opinion as stated by some site, can't remember which one now), and has since been contradicted by people in both THQ and 4A Games. And again, you invoke the classic chicken-and-egg problem, in that the system has to magically prove that it has an audience for a game before having that game put on there, even though, to prove it, it has to have such a game on there.

I'm really sick and tired of this circular argument being put forward, so I'll emphasise it yet again, by spelling it out in stages:

1. If Nintendo makes a strong enough game in the genre to prove the audience is there (or to create the audience), third parties go "Can't compete with Nintendo on their own hardware". So Nintendo doesn't expand into genres that they don't already dominate.
2. Nintendo doesn't make such a game, and now developers and publishers declare that they need proof that there's an audience for such a game on the system.
3. System owners make their desire for such a game explicitly known, and so developers and publishers make a quick, lower quality spinoff game as a "test game" for the system.
4. System owners buy the test game in relatively large numbers, compared with the quality of the game, and so developers and publishers decide that such a game is what owners want.
5. Developers and publishers flood the system with more spinoffs and low quality titles... many of which then flop... rather than releasing a real game.
6. Developers and publishers declare that this proves there's no market for the games on the system, and proceed to ignore it completely.

In the rare cases that developers have actually put quality titles on Nintendo systems, either in genres where they compete with Nintendo or in uncontested genres, they've seen great results. But the same stages I just listed above happen over and over again, and I'm fed up with people like you playing along with it. It is the developers' and publishers' jobs to establish markets on the systems. Nintendo's (and MS's and Sony's) job is to build an install base that can act as the seed for such markets.

As for the 360 and PS3 split point - again, my point is that, if it's already a multiplatform game, it should be on all suitable platforms. Otherwise, it should be exclusive. If you're already spending money to port the game to a second platform, the costs to port it to a third platform are relatively minimal. Especially when all information from developers to date have said that it's easy to port games to the Wii U, that in many cases it has taken no more than a couple of weeks to get it running properly. And again, the audience can only be there if the game is there FIRST. If you can't recognise this obvious fact - that the audience comes to the game, not the other way around, then there's no point continuing to debate the rest of it. It's such an elementary point that just about everything else rests on it. And you've even agreed with it in a previous post, just not in this context (in that post, it was "games sell systems, not the other way around").

I've kind of moved on, which is why I haven't responded, but I thought I'd respond to this part, anyway.

THQ is broke now. It wasn't yet broke when they made the decision. THQ decided it was important to publish Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune for Wii U, but felt that Metro: Last Light wasn't worth porting?

Mind you, I don't actually think it's a problem in terms of result, I think it's a massive failure of forethought. Being on the system close to launch with a franchise that has otherwise been struggling would have been a boon for THQ. The Wii U is a fresh market, with little competition on it. Releasing Metro: Last Light on the 360 and PS3 means that it's up against the whole back-catalogue of FPSes and survival horror games, including numerous FPS survival horror titles.

It has been my assertion from the beginning that the problem is THQ's thought process, not this particular game.