Title is self explainatory but this isn't just about a bad Wii U launch. This is about an on-going trend now for like 10 years. Nintendo simply isn't able to support two hardware platforms simultaneously.

They couldn't even support the Wii properly down the stretch even though it was their best selling console ever, it's last two years aren't any better than the GameCube, probably worse actually. The 3DS went through some droughts also.

Third parties are never going to support Nintendo in a big way (Western devs especially).

Selling Rare and not replacing their software was a huge mistake also. Rare + Factor 5 + Left Field were like 1/2 the N64's output from Nintendo and Nintendo simply just cleaned house. Rare basically doubled Nintendo's software output for the N64 days.

When Nintendo makes a lot of 3DS content, the Wii/Wii U suffer. When they focus more on Wii U, they'll have to cut back on their 3DS output. Droughts are simply inevitable.

I hate to agree with you as I grew up with Nintendo. But they are simply too small to be able to provide the quantity of games that are expected from them now that it takes such massive teams and such a lot of resources to make games.

Even the handheld games now require as many resources as home consoles did 5 years ago. They've probably got as many staff working on 2-4 games a year now, as they had working on 10 games previously and I can understand why they'd be wary to expand. Even 3rd parties have stopped with the exclusives the same simply because they need to release across multiple systems to recoup their budgets. I think this has what has impacted Nintendo as well as now you really need to throw a lot of money at devs for exclusives that just the offer of distribution and marketing would have secured in previous generations.

I agree that they're software output has been severely lacking over the past couple years.

What they should have done over the 7th gen was invest some of those $$$$$$ they made into more studios or more acquisitions like Retro and Monolith Soft. They should have expanded their 1st party output.

Western devs especially are largely going to ignore the WiiU. Japanese devs will migrate more and more to handhelds.

These "contracts" with 3rd parties might end up harming Nintendo in the long run. Remember what happened to Other M? HD development is further going to slow down the software output of Nintendo's 1st parties, and I find that to be worrying.


Hopefully their next system doesn't suffer the same issues. The handheld and console departments combining seems to be a step in the right direction.

All major 3rd parties in Japan are onboard the 3DS train now, they should just focus on localizing those games and focus only on the development for WiiU titles.

Nintendo's first and second-party studios aren't the problem, it's their lack of being able to secure a steady flow of third-party support.  That's really the only glaring issue they have as far as software support goes.

Beside that, I'd stack Nintendo's first-party output up against Microsoft or Sony's any day.   I'll bet 1:1:1 they're damn close, if not faster at getting first-party games out there.

Well at least they are trying. Sony just abandoned the Vita.

I have to agree that they're to small to support 2 consoles by themselves; what they need is better 3rd party support.

Let's be more honest: they're better at it than Sony.

It`s not easy to support two consoles. It takes resources... a lot of them. And seeing as development times are getting bigger it`s only natural that the output can`t be as frequent as choices have to be made.
Also, that`s what 2nd party developers are for.
The lack of 1st party is more noticable due to the lack of 3rd parties.

Why shouldn`t 3rd parties support Nintendo in a big way? They did in the past. Xbox 360 got the support Xbox didn`t. Things change. It changed for Nintendo, Sega and Sony.

Soul Sacrifice, Killzone Mercs, Tearaway, Sly Cooper 4, Ratchet and Clank, plus digital releases from PSN due out in the next 6 months? Plus they're supporting 3 systems at the moment. Error does not compute.

Also what has Vita got to do with the decline in number of 1st party titles on Nintendo consoles over the console generations? Deflection like this suggests that you agree with the sentiment of the OP.

Nintendo needs to acquire a few more western developers, and court the indie developers. The AAA crowd is hard to persuade, however the indie developer crowd can be swayed. Unity and a lot of other indie game engines are already ported, so this is low hanging fruit. If WiiU/3DS not only had cross platform AAA games as well as Nintendo exclusives and a large healthy indie market, they would find themselves in a better position.