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Forums - Sales Discussion - Why should activision and EA bother with the Wii U for 2013?

This is for the U.S only but you can expand it out to the western market in general.

When the Xbox 360 was released in November 2005, Activition and EA came out with ports of their popular ps2 titles Call of Duty 2 and Madden 06. Despite the PS2 versions of the games selling millions, the X360 versions were able to sell respectable amounts with COD2 having a close to 90% attachment ratio for the new X360, madden with over 50% .  At the end of the year the X360 sold about 563K units in the US and had 18 games in the top 100 most 3rd party (call of duty was at 500k for the 360, 264k for madden 06).

Fast forward 6 years and EA and Activision again came out with their big titles this time for Wii U; Madden 13 and COD BO2.  The attachment ratios for both games are atrocious despite the Wii U having twice the userbase of the X360. 1 million Wii U (for end of year 12) vs 563K X360.  And only 2 games show up in the top 100 at the end of the year for the Wii U no 3rd parties (no games except 2 in the top 100 for 4 weeks and counting)

Looking into 2013, why would either company commit any resource to the Wii U versions of their high selling games?  I mean, the PS360 versions will out sell them, do they make the games on the PS360 platform to try to save money and alienate Wii U customers or do they build on the next gen platforms and waste money they will not receive back since the development cost will be so high?



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I frankly don't care if Activision or EA support Nintendo. I don't buy any of their games.  Madden on Wii U was rushed and lacked a lot of features from the PS3/360 versions.  I'd rather see NBA 2K do better in sales on Wii U than worry about Madden sales.



Maybe the userbase is happy with just NL and NSMBU. Too bad for third party games sales, althought, Madden and COD were released on Wii despite lower sales.



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Pavolink said:
Maybe the userbase is happy with just NL and NSMBU. Too bad for third party games sales, althought, Madden and COD were released on Wii despite lower sales.

I think I addressed that arguement.  Most of the past posts when those games came out were under the guise of "well its free money for activition" and other cost efficiencies.  Do you think the same arguement will be made for the Wii U? i mean it wants to be treated like next gen right?  Im sure the higher dev cost will come along with it.



sethnintendo said:

I frankly don't care if Activision or EA support Nintendo. I don't buy any of their games.  Madden on Wii U was rushed and lacked a lot of features from the PS3/360 versions.  I'd rather see NBA 2K do better in sales on Wii U than worry about Madden sales.

I was reading the Walls for of the Wii games for Call of Duty...

sethnintendo (on 11 November 2011)
Think I pretty much retired this game
after around 400 hours of play. Looks
like I'll end up in the top 150 for
HCHQ. I am pretty sure I am in th top
150 or 200 for regular HC mode all time
also. HCHQ is obviously the best option
to play since regular mode is for
pussies.

So you went from playing 400 hours playing one of their games to not caring.  Thats a drastic change.



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Train wreck said:
sethnintendo said:

I frankly don't care if Activision or EA support Nintendo. I don't buy any of their games.  Madden on Wii U was rushed and lacked a lot of features from the PS3/360 versions.  I'd rather see NBA 2K do better in sales on Wii U than worry about Madden sales.

I was reading the Walls for of the Wii games for Call of Duty...

sethnintendo (on 11 November 2011)
Think I pretty much retired this game
after around 400 hours of play. Looks
like I'll end up in the top 150 for
HCHQ. I am pretty sure I am in th top
150 or 200 for regular HC mode all time
also. HCHQ is obviously the best option
to play since regular mode is for
pussies.

So you went from playing 400 hours playing one of their games to not caring.  Thats a drastic change.

The extreme mood swings when I play FPS online isn't good for my health.  I ride a high while wrecking shop and then go into rage mode when doing poorly.  I pushed myself to the breaking limit after putting in about 700-800 hours combined on WaW and BO (Wii versions).  I need to learn not to be a sore loser.  Games like Mario Kart I can accept defeat because I just blame it on the items or something else (lack of skill).  The third parties I want to support the most would be Capcom, Ubisoft, and Take Two. 



EA has been pretty good at making me skip buying their PC games, even at deep discount.
I don't see why they wouldn't continue to erode that into other platforms.



3rd party just isn't nintendo, but 3rd party will go there anyway.



Train wreck said:
Fast forward 6 years and EA and Activision again came out with their big titles this time for Wii U; Madden 13 and COD BO2.  The attachment ratios for both games are atrocious despite the Wii U having twice the userbase of the X360. 1 million Wii U (for end of year 12) vs 563K X360.  And only 2 games show up in the top 100 at the end of the year for the Wii U no 3rd parties (no games except 2 in the top 100 for 4 weeks and counting)

The Madden Wii U data on VGChartz is incomplete (having only week 3 onwards, and thus missing launch numbers), the Wii U version released a couple of months late, lacked the new physics engine of the PS3/360 versions (due to insufficient time to port, according to EA - they claim it'll be on the next version), and had to compete directly with completely new experiences of games like NintendoLand and ZombiU.

CoD BO2 is doing fairly well for a launch release; in the USA, BO2 sold 52k in its first week, despite its competition - and I mean "competition" both in terms of PS3/360 versions of the game and other Wii U launch titles. It was also delayed by a few days relative to the other versions, as the system launched after the game.

And because the vast majority of CoD gamers play casually, few were going to buy a Wii U at launch for one game. However, many more are likely to consider it at some point during 2013.

In short, it's just not a fair comparison, just yet. Also note that CoD3 sold fewer copies in the US at launch on the Wii than BO2 did on the Wii U, yet CoD3 on the Wii broke the 2 million mark. Nintendo consoles have always had much less front-loaded sales than Sony and MS consoles.



Train wreck said:

This is for the U.S only but you can expand it out to the western market in general.

When the Xbox 360 was released in November 2005, Activition and EA came out with ports of their popular ps2 titles Call of Duty 2 and Madden 06. Despite the PS2 versions of the games selling millions, the X360 versions were able to sell respectable amounts with COD2 having a close to 90% attachment ratio for the new X360, madden with over 50% .  At the end of the year the X360 sold about 563K units in the US and had 18 games in the top 100 most 3rd party (call of duty was at 500k for the 360, 264k for madden 06).

Fast forward 6 years and EA and Activision again came out with their big titles this time for Wii U; Madden 13 and COD BO2.  The attachment ratios for both games are atrocious despite the Wii U having twice the userbase of the X360. 1 million Wii U (for end of year 12) vs 563K X360.  And only 2 games show up in the top 100 at the end of the year for the Wii U no 3rd parties (no games except 2 in the top 100 for 4 weeks and counting)

Looking into 2013, why would either company commit any resource to the Wii U versions of their high selling games?  I mean, the PS360 versions will out sell them, do they make the games on the PS360 platform to try to save money and alienate Wii U customers or do they build on the next gen platforms and waste money they will not receive back since the development cost will be so high?

How much do you think it costs to port a game to the Wii U.  All reprts say that it is pretty cheap to do. Also, and this has been mentioned before, it is worth giving the teams experience with the Wii U so that if they do decide to make an exclusive, the engine will aready be ready for the task.  think about it this way 100k X $50 = $5 million.  Do you really think it takes more than that to make a port, especially now that they DO have the experience to do it easily.  Put it this way, as long as the multiplats will come on the PS360 (and they will for quite a long time) they will definitely come on the Wii U.  And depending on how it grows from there, it may even continue after they stop making for the multiplats.