They're not taking it, it's that Wii U that is taking heat and everyone besides fanboys understands why EA does not support it.

However I don't think it will stay that way : how much does it cost to produce and distribute and game on Wii U? When the Wii U reached a decent user base it will certainly be less than the sales you can make on big IPs for any platform.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Cost of an HD game is around $20 million for all 3 SKUs (PS3, 360 & PC).

(Focussing solely on console platforms for this first point due to lack of licensing fees and the digital versions being the more sucessful; cuts out the retailer. I'll talk a little about PC in point 2.)

If a game has only broken 1 million when all versions are taken into consideration, it's usually considered a failure (see Enslaved or Bayonetta). For a AAA budget game to be considered sucessful it needs to sell 1 million per console platform, so you can double your revenue and profit totals based on that alone.

2. Both HD consoles and PC (especially PC) have been moving towards a digital distribution model. Sales from these versions will give more profit per unit sold as they're usually sold at RRP but cut out the retailer completely (which is a significant cut based on your pie chart). This is especially true of the PC versions where digital distribution is huge and equates to the majority of sales.

3. Ubisoft in 2008 said that a Wii game costs them around 5-6 million euros which is around $7.8-9 million.

Release games inconsistantly  and then releasing stuff like old Fifa labeled as new Fifa for  Vita and Wii  qualifies EA for being the target of haters.

Ea constantly makes mistakes (they would fare better if they would support Nintendo consoles with the same passion they have when it comes to making mistakes)

"reason I don't buy 3rd party games on Nintendo consoles is because they are better on Sony/MSFT consoles, plain and simple.  Whether it be because of graphics or Online capabilities."  
There you have your reason  third party could make games better on WiiU compared to PS360 versions  but they dont want to and when they do it they release old games like NEED FOR SPEED which is the best console version but its simply OLD. And wonder why noone wants them (especially when they announce MassEffect trilogy before ME3 on WiiU is even out  which was UBER-FAIL!!!!!!)


I blame ea not for being cautious  but for being lazy and dumb and for lying. They make wrong decisions like the ME3/Trilogy thing  and then whine about people not buying their "crap". I would have bought the Mass Effect trilogy   I certainly dont buy a 20$ game for 60 when everyone else gets 3x the value for the money.
(And believe it or not Nintendo "hardcore" gamers know almost better than anyone what VALUE is since they kept getting complete games without DLC years after PS360 owners started to be plaqued with that shit.)

And after all this  YOU ARE SHIT BECAUSE YOU DONT BUY OUR GAMES. When the reason for this is SHITTY games or  just every 10th game hitting the system. You cant blame Nintendo gamers.

I mean if you are dissapointed all the time its just normal that you hesitate.  And a company cant use the same reason as excuse when it's solely up to them to change that.

The biggest mistake third party makes is this:  THEY expect WiiU or Nintendo console owners in general to be the same group of people that buy PS360 games.  But this has 2 problems!

If WiiU owners are the same people that play games on PS360.
They ignore that WiiU owners might already have a ps360 and that they buy multiplat titles on those consoles because of friends etc!

IF WiiU owners are a completely different group of gamers.
They expect them to buy all their games anyway and totally forget that noone on PS360 bought games like COD. They started to buy them after enough games came out and afterthey were able to establish the series on that console and after that console had a big enough fanbase  for  word-of-mouth advertising to start. Thats why games like COD are big now. 

Publishers had to put alot of effort into making those games BIG! They had to invest alot of money to do this. They kept "brainwashing" people that they had to buy those games with tons of commercials  etc.  and then it paid of.

On Nintendo consoles (where Wii versions are constantly missing from Multiplat commercials as if publishers are ashamed of their own mediocre ports) they release  game 1  and maybe 2 of series XY then  wont release part 3 and 4   and maybe release part 5 and then whine that noone buys part 5. How could anyone buy the game if they missed the other 2 and then were "foreced" to buy a PS360 to keep playing the series?


Third party is the only reason for third party failing.  Thats simple logic.   Why does third party fail on Vita? because third party is stupid. And because there simply is no real third party support for the system either.    Look at Mario Galaxy 2  no more than 10% of Wii owners bought that game and thats one of the most known franchises in gaming!  How can third party whine about not having success on Nintendo systems when their games are basically unknown there?

They became lazy after all those years on PS360 and they were used to easy money with all the DLC crap and sequel after sequel after sequel  etc...

They forgot the #1 rule of any industry.  To make sure you have success you have to accept short term loss to make long term profit. MS did that and it paid of and made XBOX a huge brand. Thats the way to go. If it doesnt work  make it work.   Publishers etc did that and established all their IPs on PS2/Xbox1/PS3/360 etc    they forgot that one acutally has to work.

And its in their own interest (in the long turn) to shape the Nintendo userbase  so that they will finally buy all the third party games.  Abandoning it and coming back just to abandon it   makes no sense and you have to start from scratch in bulding your userbase everytime you abandon it.  Third party wasted more money by abandoning the Nintendo consoles then they would have wasted by supporting it.

I grew up with Snes Gameboy and N64 etc. And third party releasing mediocre games and abandoning Nintendo consoles forced me to buy other consoles. But not for third party games since they already damaged my perception of them as company. I just buy exclusives and Sony/MS/Nintendo games.

What third party did with their crappy policy was  making me avoid Activision EA and Ubisoft games completely  on every system I own. Because I can easily pick a random   Nintendo made or Sony made game and it is almost 100% a great game. Whereas picking a random  third party game can burn me! So its an easy choice to make. 

I buy third party games   but mostly discounted  or when they are something special like most LEVEL5 games are etc.  Or when you can  clearly see that they put effort into making the game  (like Goldeneye Wii  which sold best on Wii and btw was one of the only games to get proper marketing!!!)

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The only problem with Nintendo gamers is that they might not  browse the web to find out what games are out there resulting in lower sales. And that they hesitate in giving third party a 100th chance since they got burned 99x before.

But third party  with burning them  and having almost no advertising for Wii games  is the real problem here. And 90% of the problem are third party publishers/devs.  They expect the games to sell without creating a fanbase who could buy the games. Thats just dumb.

Who cares if they're taking heat?

It's not like it matters to EA or anyone who didn't get a Wii U ;)

you do realize aliens CM sold 1.3 million in about 2 months units right? that pretty much shows that even if us, the core gamers know whats going on. doesnt mean the mass market does. look at CoD vita. .71 million sold.  AC vita. .6 million units sold. that is more than 10 times the games i listed. you pretty much killed your point when you brought up aliens CM

no they wouldnt have bought it on the WiiU. you are just assuming they would. ME3 does have multiplayer, and people that do playmultiplayer would have bought it on the console there friends have, which is mostly either the ps3 or 360. people are also fixated that the off screen play is a killer feature, but it really isnt. they cant accept that a lot of people dont care for it. is it a cool feature, yes. do most people care about it? no, not really. another thing is DLC, while this may effect few it still could effect people already have money in their PSN wallets or MS points, they could buy the game accoridng to which account they have money already stored on

"I wish people on here would use their brain more often."

you are replying to me directly so even if you didnt call me out we both know who that "stealth" insult is directed to. another comment like that and i will report you in a heart beat. there are forum rules repsect them and have a debate without trying to insult me or others. i didnt insult you or try to so no need to get things personal. you are not fooling anyone with generalizing that comment.

Im not ignoring anybody's arguments including yours.  I have to go so im not going to be able to make any long posts right now but I will respond to your last comment.  Im not ignoring numbers, I know how the numbers has worked on the Wii, X360, PS3 very well.  Click on that link i told you about and you will see TONS of numbers in that thread.  Nintendo struggled with 3rd party games on the wii as well outside of the Misc genre which they excelled in.

Also I want to point out I did not ignore what he said but he was ignoring what I said.  Not really sure why you are blaming that on me.

I ended up ignoring what you said because you were taking me in circles. I can't make that more clear than in my last reply to you. You're not committed to sticking to your goalposts so it's hard for me to tango.

You must be referring to the average numbers you offered for multiplats. Ultimately we don't know how much profit that translates into because we don't know the costs for those games and what cuts are made out of them. Many games have sold many units and are known to not have made enough money (Tomb Raider, RE, L.A. Noire, etc.) so sales are not the right number when it comes to cutting edge games.

If you disagree, then you have to say what part of that principle you don't agree with. Maybe you think EA games are cheaper to make than games like TR, RE, LA Noire, etc. But you have to address my points and stick to your goalposts otherwise you become impossible to deal with and I quit.

should we really use vgc s/w numbers in arguing

are they not going to release disney star war games on nintendo consoles?,they have released games on the WiiU haven't they?

Yes I'm referring to the average numbers.  And yes EA made money off of the Wii.  But I was never (including the OP) was just talking about the WiiU or just the Wii.  I've been saying Nintendon Console(s).  And I even mention that I understand some of the complaints but from a business standpoint I understand them not releasing games like Crysis 3 on the WiiU.  For one FPS games don't do well on nintendo consoles.  2 the WiiU doesn't have a big enough userbase to really justify taking the chance with them (yet).  In time EA will bring more games but Nintendo needs to give them reasons to first.

And yeas some games like L.A. Noire failed at making money.  That is a game that sunk the developers.  Yes I am a person who agrees with profits rather than just sales.  The problem is we don't know the profits of each game.  And as I said above, is it worth chancing on games like Crysis 3? 

Now while I agree with some of your points I am not just talking about the Wii or just the WiiU, but both and have been the entire time.  

My point is still valid, the Wii U has only sold about 3million units. There is real no mass market. It is early adopters who are most likely Nintendo gamers and know what is going on.

Assuming the 1.3 million is right (VGChartz has half this), that is nothing of a 150million base which has a mass market component to it. This is like 0.87% of total install base. 

Now using Wii U numbers from VGchartz to find % sold against 3million Wii Us sold:

The ratios are no so bad considering they do not include digital sales.

Notice how the games that had effort put in are topping that list?.

As for the my comment about people would buy it on Wii U, well I was refering to people who this gen had no choice but to get a second console to experience 3rd party games. If Wii U had excellent support, I am sure those people would love to go back to one console users, and therefore would indeed buy the trilogy on the new system, assuming they owned a Wii U already an liked the fatures the Wii U offered.