Once Japan comes online fullyband those developers start embracing the Wii U, Nintendo will have nothing to worry about. All those great Japanies games will be exclusive to Wii U beacuse of its bigger installed base.

Then once PS4 & 720 come out, their smaller installed base and high R&D costs will force developers to make games for Wii U as well.

I think Wii U will be OK.

why would you think this if it didn't even happen with the wii?

LOL I cant wait to see your face when the next consoles launch. The Wii opened up casuals to gaming because it made gaming simple for casuals, the Wii U is a horse of a totally different color and I think casuals would rather buy an Ipad than a Wii U.

Again, people don't realize how the 'next-gen' will cost for developers. Many have been bankrupt by this gen alone. Imagine the transition from this gen to the next and how much it will cost. I see most third parties sticking with the current gen for a while before PS4 720 due to big costs associated with that, only some with the available capital will be able to do so. Which is why Nintendo, in my opinion, is in a better position than PS4 and 720 as only slightly superior to the current gen, the transition won't be too costly.

If developers are only motivated to work on the largest projects for the most advanced hardware available than why are there so many games produced for the iPhone/iPod or Nintendo DS/3DS?

The reality is that there are (maybe) a few developers at the top couple dozen studios in the world that truly get to pick and choose the projects they work on, for everyone else it is a job where you're told what to do, when to do it and for what price. Certainly, it is a cool job for those who have it but the average developer gets joy out of trying to get that extra "ounce of power" or producing the most detailed artwork on the platform they're working on; which (more often than not) is on mobile phones, handheld systems, previous generation systems, underpowered systems, or for low budget games.




The question of whether "next generation development" will hurt or help the Wii U largely depends on what publishers decide is the best strategy. I don't doubt that the studios that produced the top 50 best selling multi-platform games for the PS3 and XBox 360 will probably be directed to big budget games; but I also expect that the typical Wii developer will be pushed towards the Wii U, with the typical HD console developer (who didn't see 1+ million in sales) will receive a similar budget to what they had with the HD consoles and (probably) focus on games being released to the XBox 360, PS3, Wii U, PS4 and XBox 720.

You are right about one thing, Sony is ignoring the Japanese side a bit these days, with most of their biggest franchises being completely skewed for Western Audience. Yet your original comment has a lot of things that are just incorrect. The reason everyone is pretty much forgetting JP games looking forward is because for the last Decade games sell more in US and EU than in Japan. If I am not mistaken, the Wii and all of its top games actually sell more in the western regions than Japan. Its because they are just outnumbered. Japan is the size of a single state in comparison to much larger territories. Too many of their developers have no clue how to make a current gen game work. Its really puzzling to me what happened but somehow they fell behind technology wise big time from last gen to this one.

Another tid bit of info is that in this day and age, developers are quite savy with 3D modeling, its becoming much easier to create games that are 3D than ones that are 2D. The problem lies only with the consoles them selves RUNNING those 3D models. There has to be constant comprimises and optimizations to get it to show properly on finite hardware specs. The greater the hardware specs, the easier it should become to put games on it because it requires much less reworking. What I'm getting at is that the fact the PS4 will undoubtedly be more powerful than the last, it will also be using off the shelf specs so development should come far easier.

I also do not like the complete pandering towards graphics going on, yet I cannot deny when playing something like FF or Uncharted that the visual appeal really creates the experience. In retrospect, the fact that Nathan Drake's shirt gets wet when he jumps in water does absolutely nothing for gameplay, it does immerse you a tad more tho. I still appreciate games that do not completely go for realism and just try to create a cohesive art style, NiNoKuni for instance, beautiful game.

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As for the main topic. WiiU is in an awkward position. Once again it is place between generations, only this time it is in 2 ways. With hardware, and release. WiiU feels like Nintendo catching up to what PS360 buyers have already had for 7 years now. Most of the games releasing on it are ports from the HD Twins, systems the general public who wants such things would actually already own those systems and even if they didn't they could get one of them for less than what a WiiU costs. This is the price they pay for not making a competitively powerful console. The Wii's charm eventually died a horrible death after the allure of something new and different wore off. The HD Twins would have been fine for another year or two, if not for the media edging on the console war again simply because NINTY released theres(which has started effecting their sales). WiiU might suffer the same fate most first to release consoles due that many people seem to forget. Being first means you might suffer through mediocre sales as many consumers are waiting to be able to compare there options once we are closer to the other releases. In that time they could recieve horrible press that starts to adversly effect buyer potential (Ala what the PS3 and Vita went through). What is going to happen when Orbis and NextBox release? The WiiU might be left behind like the PS360 seeing as they are pretty similar in power and then once again Nintendo will be the only person putting out any games for that console which will only attract the most NINTY faithful.

Who knows, maybe they will turn it around in a month or so and everything will be fine. Maybe it will be a repeat of the Wii. I doubt it tho...

ok... so??

how many games were released on ps2 AND ps3, GC and wii?? or xbox and 360?? the fact that wiiu lacks of ports from this gen, doesnt mean anything

sure i can be wrong but see it like this, porting a game is expensive and the wii u has more or less 1m units sold, devs cant expend money on a game that will sell  100k on a console. its like releasing the  ps4 now  it can be 1223543523 times better than the wii u and be the next ps2 (sales wise) but in the beginning it will sell units based on stock so making a port for that consoles is also useless...

sorry for the english lol

1) Hence why I said I don't think it matters how powerful the console is.

2) I agree. But you can't tell me that Wii was not interesting. There was many posibilities that could have been done with motion controls if executed correctly. So much potential in new ways to play games, however it really never developed into anything apart from a few great games.

Instead most developers went down the path of nice looking graphics in greyish colour schemes instead of invitative controls.

IMHO, It did not happen last time because the PS2 crushed everyone world wide and everyone was expecting the PS3 to do it again, so every developer was getting ready to support the safer bet and that means developing assets and textures in HD, working with complex architecture and large amounts of data, when the Wii won the higher install base it was just too late to come back, some big companies did make some adjustments (DQ X, Monster Hunter 3, Tales of Graces, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, etc) and some small ones made the effort (Muramasa, No More Heroes, Little's King Story) but the tides were turned way before that.

i know they come next year and i dont want to sound rude or something but people tend to forget the past and gamers the most!! i know there was a vast difference between the ps2 and ps3 in power, but none of the ps2 games where made for the ps3  and the sames goes por GC-wii, xbox-360 except for cod2 or zelda TP. i mean suree is a bad thing that almost all cool next year games are skipping the wii u, but this doesnt mean next gen will also skip the wii u. we have to wait and see...

all this games can easly be made for the wii u.