Tiger Woods games have sold more on Wii than the other two together, yet the new version is not on Wii U

I give up.

EA shareholders and Board of Execs are all Nintendo haters who have a fanboy complex that stems back decades. They have made it their goal to do whatever is necessary to make Nintendo fail, regardless of what else happens. They are butthurt because of Origin and are a bunch of whiney babies who need to man up and be fair, honest and display some integrity for the good of the industry.


*Looking back at what I just wrote, I now find this line of argument even more ridiculous. :/

Madden and Fifa sold like crap. Try to make it a solid 1 out of 3 in sports titles?

The truth is that if you bought a WiiU, you don't care much about third party games to begin with, so why make it such a big deal?

Courtesy of VGChartz

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (XBox360) - 0.42M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (PS3) - 0.35M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (Wii) - ??

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (PS3) - 0.80M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (XBox360) - 0.56M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters (Wii) - 0.31M

TIger Woods PGA Tour 11 (PS3) - 0.79M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (Wii) - 0.51M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (XBox360) - 0.48M

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is the last time the Wii version has ever outsold either of the other (2).

Sigh. EA isn't a fanboy. But there is some emotion invovled, and there is definitely an alternative motive beyond simple profits. I've explained this in other threads, but there are several here that are obviously unfamiliar with it so I'll give a quick version here.

Nintendo is the world's largest games maker. EA wants to be the worlds largest games maker. Nintendo only makes games for Nintendo platforms. EA thus does not want Nintendo platforms to be successful.

Further, Nintendo controls its platforms in terms of hardware and software. Somewhat now but much more in the past. Nintendo's games are the dominant games and Nintendo (naturally) likes to make money on its hardware. EA prefers a world where the hardware makers are irrelevant and the publishers control the industry. If EA told Nintendo to include 8 gig of ram in Wii U and eat the costs, Iwata: laughs. If EA says that to Sony or MS, they will do their best because they need EA's software support.

EA wants a platform where they control what's going on. In fact, their ultimate goal is basically a nameless box that is placed under your TV and publishers release software for it as they see fit with no influence from the box maker. They envision a world like say... CD's, where companies make a CD player and then that's it. Music publishers don't pay anyting to CD makers to have their music play on their machines.

EA has taken steps towards this since inception. They have openly bragged that they supported Sega Genesis not SNES because they could control Sega. They view Nintendo as an evil empire. Those naive among you may think that a corporation does not have "emotions", but the individuals running corporations do. And they have goals. Business goals and personal goals.

Stating EA would bring a game to Wii U if it made financial sense is not true. Almost any game port would make money by itself. However, if the profit is small but not bringing it to Wii U would hurt EA's rival Nintendo, then it fits EA's corporate strategy better to not port the game even if it would make money. EA doesn't support Nintendo not because it doesn't make financial sense, but because they feel it is in their long-term corporate benefit if Nintendo was not in the industry, or at least not a dominant presence.

Below is some links about EA founder Trip Hawkins, the man he later chose to run his company - Larry Probst, and EA in general. There is much, much more out there that I'm too lasy to find right now, but suffice to say that EA does not enjoy the world of Nintendo. Nintendo machines are the exact opposite of their vision for the future, and Nintendo's software the biggest rival for EA's.

http://gamepolitics.com/2011/07/13/trip-hawkins-we-don039t-own-land-we-are-tilling

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130129/we_see_farther__a_history_of_.php?print=1

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news180504larryprobst

one thing yo are forgetting OP is, just because EA has to have a version on a platform doesn't mean it has to be good.

Look at all the EA Sports games on Wii. Tried to target casuals instead of the core base.

Then Wii U Madden 13. is actually Madden 12 enhanced aka 12.5.

EA didn't manage to run the Frostbite Engine well on the WiiU? Shocking...they didn't manage it on the PS360 either :P

O_O This . . . makes so much sense! This must be what's going on!

To those of you who ignorantly think EA is not supporting Wii U due to low sales of its four games released thus far.

EA at two previous E3s (2011 and 2012) stated on stage that they were going all in with Wii U with unprecedented support. (Ubisoft said similar)

PS3 got a late ME2 port. It was heavily advertised. Sold well.
WiiU got a late ME3 port. It was never advertised. It had to compete with a METrilogy compilation on PS360 at the same price point that was actively advertised by EA.

Madden13 and FIFA13 on all other consoles launched on same date with same upgraded features for 2013.
Madden13 and FIFA13 on WiiU launched months later (this is biggest kicker for these types of games) with NONE of the newer 2013 features. In fact that lack of 2013 features is the only "advertising" Wii U variants received.

NFSMW on all other consoels same date with marketing.
NFSMW at least this one matched the content/features of the others. It was a late port. It received zero marketing. It sold accordingly.

Special note. All four of EAs games on WiiU were late ports with ZERO extra content. No other publisher did that with their late ports for WiiUs launch. They all provided free DLC or exclusive features.

EA in early 2013 has blatantly stated (this was even before NFSMW released) that WiiU will not be getting future support from them.

Now lets compare the other publishers/games

Ubisoft released:
ZombiU - exclusive title really utilizing gampad. Crazy marketing and even special bundle world-wide.
AC3 - nearly identical experience as the more mature consoles. heavily marketed as being on all the platforms, including WiiU.
Just Dance 4 - same game everywhere with same marketing support.
Marvel Avengers - same game everywhere with same marketing support.
Rabbids Land - exclusive with marketing.
yourshape - exclusive with marketing.
Sports connection - exclusive with marketing.

Ubisoft said they had hoped Wii U (the console) would have sold more, but the sales of the games were as expected based on the console's sell through. The only negative to come of this was the obvious timed-exclusive Rayman was delayed to match its Ps360 release. Yet, Wii U still has exclusive features and even a badass online portion for free out now.

Ubisoft 2013 support is strong with same next-gen titles and already same marketing.

How about BatmanAC?

Was a normal late port launch which actually included improvements of the older version (unlike any late ports from EA). Full DLC content along with a few new special features including solid marketing.

WB is obviously happy with WiiU overall as we got Injustice on same day. Sure its lacking DLC at first, but that is obviously tied to other timing issues as they probably were barely able to get the game itself caught up to speed with others. DLC will come later.

Then WB is still having same date and support for all its future games as well.

Activision.
COD is really the same as EAs madden/fifa and other yearly titles. BLOPS2 is great and guess what... there were a few other games already out from Activision as well. They have also stated that they will show plans for Ghosts for "next-gen consoles" at a later time. So anyone thinking that did not include WiiU when BLOPS2 already built that code base... you're delusional.

Additionally, other Activision games with future releases all have WiiU support as well.



So yes, many launch games, including Nintendo ones, did not sell millions yet. But every publisher except EA has strong future support or even publically stated they know its due to Wii U's slower hardware sell through. They are all betting on the next iterations of games to be profitable as Wii U hardware rebounds with the release of plentiful software during 2nd half of year.

Anyone who can look at the stark contrasts between EA and every other publisher and still say its not EA just being a rabid fanboy towards Nintendo... is clearly good at ignoring blatant facts. Now, this does not mean Nintendo didn't break a promise to EA to cause all this... but I think that by 2014 it will be solely EAs loss and they'll return as a result.