They will because Nintendo fans DON'T support third party AAA games.

ME 3 has shifted less than 100,000 units on the Wii U, there's no excuse for that. At all.  Look at the superior need for speed port, NO SALES. Black Ops II? NO SALES. 

Need I say more?

to convince yourself i think you've said enough but to convince others, well, keep on trying.

no excuse for mass effect? i'm sure mass effect trilogy releasing on other consoles for the same price had nothing to do with that. need for speed? the porting job was good but it was months late. black ops? 200k on 3M install base = good sales.

Yup, you've also got to remember that Black Ops 2 was also later than the others, albeit by only a couple of weeks here in the UK.

And one other important thing to remember is that the dev kits are cheap, someone on Gaf mentioned $3000 each which is great value even before you think about the software and middleware thrown in with it for free. It wouldn't surprise me if the PS4 and 720 dev kits are around $15-20,000 each. The PS3 dev kits around launch set publishers and developers back £18,000 each.

It's less of a gamble releasing a Wii U SKU of a multiplatform title than a PS4 or 720 SKU just because of the installed userbases involved.

You are assuming the Wii U can handle next gen games, you are also assuming it will sell 8M by december without third party support:

"EA is going to skip the Wii U for 15 of its upcoming titles - including Mass Effect 4, Dragon Age 3 and its unannounced Star Wars games - due to the console's incompatibilities with DICE's Frostbite Engine 3.

DICE technical director Johan Andersson explained on Twitter that the Frostbite 2 engine wasn't running well on the Wii U, so it decided to abandon efforts to get its successor on Nintendo's latest console. "FB3 has never been running on WiiU. We did some tests with not too promising results with FB2 & chose not to go down that path," he wrote.

Elsewhere, Frostbite technical director Stefan Boberg noted that 15 games are currently in development at EA using Frostbite Engine 3 including Battlefield 4, Mass Effect 4, Dragon Age 3, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, Need For Speed 2013 and its unannounced Star Wars titles from Visceral and DICE."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-05-08-wii-u-to-miss-out-on-15-ea-games-using-frostbite-engine-3

"You're not going to see publishers leaving money on the table"

EA one of the biggest money hungry publishers will be. Oh yea right the big EA conspiracy still butthurt about Origins thing, I'm sure thats the reason.

All I know is that those franchises aren't going to grab the attention of the core gamers who are waiting for the real next gen consoles/ graphics. Off course the die hard Nintendo fans will buy any Mario game and it will do well. However, those are the people who probably bought the console already. The big task for Nintendo is luring in a bigger audience and the casual gamers don't seem to be biting this time around. Do you truly believe they can persuade ps3, 360 gamers to switch to their platform? 

Like I said before, the Wii U isn't even in the next gen console race. That doesn't mean it will fail by definition though, it just means that it's competing with the ps3 and 360 (mini) untill developers stop supporting them. By the time that happens the Wii U might have build a good install base for more Mario, Party and Sport games, but it will never get more then 5% of the core gaming market. At E3 we will probably see a lot of new next gen franchises and I am willing to bet my entire Pokemon collection that none of them will come to the Wii U (or ps3, 360).  

Even mickey mouse engines these days are scalable. We're years away from seeing games that aren't cross-generation, and even further away from seeing games on a scale that won't be portable to the Wii U.

As for the sales of the Wii U they'll easily be able to sell at least another 5m between now and the end of the year given the software on the way. What are you thinking..? The releases of 3D Mario and Mario Kart 8 combined with Black Friday and Christmas shopping isn't going to sell at least 5m consoles between now and the end of the year..? Erm...good luck with that lol.

With regards to Frostbite 3 the fact that CryEngine 3 runs 'beautifully' and that Unreal Engine 3 runs well would suggest that the problem lies with the developer in question and not the hardware. They probably ported a Frostbite 2 game straight to the Wii U game without optimising it.

And you'll find EA changing their tune early next year with regards to Wii U support otherwise we'll end up seeing shareholders lighting torches and sharpening pitchforks. Whether it's Origin or not that's the cause of EA dropping all Wii U support in a hissy fit we'll probably never know, but SOMETHING has definitely soured the relationship between the two companies.

You keep believing that the ps4/ Nextbox graphics aren't going to take a leap compared to this gen. I hope this is not true and most gamers will probably like to see the next step in graphics as well. One thing is for sure though, the Wii U isn't going to do that. So even if your right, then why would you want that? Your defending the Wii U like it's your little sister, but it's not our fault that Nintendo decided to slap weak sauce hardware in the thing that prevents it from running next gen engines.

As I said, at E3 you will probably be shocked as all major developers will show off next gen stuff that will make your eyeballs explode, while Nintendo will show more cartoony games for the younger/ casual audience. Nothing wrong with that mind you, but please stop defending the Wii U's hardware lol. Either all developers are Nintendo haters or they truly can't support it with the engines they have in store for us for the next gen consoles.

I think what Snowdog is trying to say is this.  If Wii U first party software can help out the hardware sales, then the installed base of the Wii U will be hard to ignore (for 3rd parties) late this year or next. 

I don't think he is suggesting that scaling back an engine would not be necessary.  He is simply suggesting that once the installed base is big enough, 3rd parties will be able to justify the return on investment [of porting over their engines].

And before you say, what about the original Wii, I think he is also suggesting that porting from the PS4 to the Wii U would be easier than porting from the PS3 to Wii was.

@snowdog

Wii U unable to run Frosbite 2.0 is bullshit indeed BUT excuses or not EA will not be supporting the Wii U with some major titles. About Wii U selling 5M by december I could be wrong but I just don't see the U selling that much, you say black friday week and christmash sales but you are also forgetting that the Wii U is not selling in a vacuum it has strong competition by current hardware with triple AAA titles still coming this year and next gen hardware launching this hollyday.

"Even mickey mouse engines these days are scalable"

I'm sure developers can downport Killzone: Shadowfall to a PS2 if they want to but at what cost? it would not be the same experience nor the same original vision the developers wanted. Look at Dead Rising Wii it had 6 zombies per level and it was far from the original xbox title.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Wii U will definitely place last this time. I have a feeling that this will be a GameCube like time for Nintendo. They make a ton of profit after they release their games. I think the Wii U will perform better than the GameCube but it just won't be that success that the Wii was. But who cares? Really, who cares? What matters to a company is who is making the profit and I assure you, after this year Nintendo will be posting profits out of this world. Pokemon X and Y should be enough for Nintendo. Anything else will probably be overkill. I'll have fun with the Wii U era. HD Nintendo games are good enough for me.