Well Call of Duty, Batman, AC4, and Watch Dogs *must* sell on the Wii U this holiday season. No excuses, it's time to put up or shut up, Nintendo fans.

Because if those games under perform (again) this holiday on the Wii U, you can't really fault those developers for ditching the console in the future.

Lets wait for the results. I get the feeling the excuse if those games don't perform is going to shift to "b, bu, but the PS4/XB1 versions were better, it wasn't fair, third parties should've tried harder".

You can argue with me but you can't argue with sales.  People aren't buying it. Period.

This will take a little while to find. Stay tuned...

I hope so. I love my WiiU.

Here is Nintendo's 2011 E3 presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1JJPkd4Q28

Be sure to check out

57:00 for the first Wii U game ever announced: Not Mario, Not Zelda, Not Pokemon, but LEGO City, a game from a developer that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros, despite Nintendo's publishing their game.

58:10 begins a reel of third party devs talking about the Wii U. First off is Peter Moore of EA. He's not the only EA executive shown praising the system.  Executives from Western publishers like THQ, Ubisoft, Disney, and Warner Bros are also shown praising the system. One of these guys was working on Bioshock Infinite.

59:20 shows some 3rd party game announcements. These include hardcore games from THQ, Namco Bandai, Warner Bros, Ubisoft... including the never released Ghost Recon Online

59:50 "Nintendo seemed to hear the voices of the hardcore gamer"

59:54 Blatant lies from EA

Then a bunch of footage/trailers get shown

1:04:10 The CEO of EA steps onto the stage to talk about a breakthrough in their relationship with Nintendo.

1:04:50 "Imagine playing football with an innovative controller..."

1:05:09 "Imagine a shooter like Battlefield..."

1:06:17 "Thank you. We can't wait to see EA games on this new system"

So in total, Nintendo spent about 10 minutes out of their 70 available talking about third party games on a platform that wouldn't come out for over a year. And they spent NO time showing off their own Wii U games, save for a mention of Smash Bros and a Mario cameo. That sounds like a focus on 3rd parties to me.

I do value your opinion, but have a look at this

This chart clearly demonstrates that generally speaking, WiiU owners have little interest in 3rd party games. Furthermore, they never show up in any European weekly chart. You may support 3rd party games on WiiU, but that's not what the majority is doing : facts are heavily stacked against you. And WiiU is current-gen : it has current-gen tech and is preceived as such by a vast majority of gamers who are looking forward PS4 and X1. If like you say "many people feel that the Wii U is the best next-gen platform for innovative multiplatform experiences", it wouldn't be selling 30K a week worldwide, being outsold by 7-year old systems on the top of that. As for your estimate, please bear in mind that even big AAA games barely reach those figures on either PS3 and X360. Therefore, predicting 500K for WiiU multiplats, games that will mostly be bought for PS3/X360/PS4/X1 is daydreaming. They would be lucky to reach even 100K.

Batman, CoD did almost 200k. Why they would sell less?

There are more wii Us in market, and will be twice at end of year, puxed by nintendo games that sells a lot of consoles.

I think will be proportional to base.

i expect 300~500 mil.

That graph is honestly not fair. One is a pack in bundle and the other is a title that is regularly one of the best selling game series on EVERY Nintendo platform. What that chart "clearly demonstrates" is that most of the 3rd party games that at launch had released months prior on competing platforms and the only people who purchased those games there those who hadn't already done so. That has absolutely nothing to do with Wii U owner interest. Other's are widely deemed as inferior to their last gen counterparts due to missing features and lack of DLC. That is evidence of a lack of quality more than it is a lack of interest in the titles.

And the Wii U isn't current gen. It's undeniably next gen. It has been proven so at nausium, so I won't even argue that.

New systems are regularly outsold by their older and cheaper bretherin. The Wii U's drop in sales are due to a severe lack of software amd marketing, not a lack in hardware. That is being remedied this holiday in spades, and I have no doubt that this holiday will have more successful software sales than the last. What I'm not sure of is by how much and will it be enough. ZombiU was an embarasingly niche title, but the fact that it was heavily advertized and actually used the gamepad in cool and innovative ways has made it the best selling 3rd party game on the platform. There is no doubt in my mind that it would have sold worse if it was an XBO or PS4 exclusive.

This holiday has titles that use the gamepad in cool ways like Watch_Dogs, and Splinter Cell. Games that use the Wii Remote like Call of Duty. Games can still be enjoyably played using the Pro Controller like Assassin's Creed IV. If these features are showcased more and if Wii U owners can be confident that they won't be burned again with crappy ports and no support, the games will sell very well.

If Call of Duty: Ghosts was announed for the Wii U on the same day that it was announced for other platforms and if DLC support was a guarantee, because it's not at this point, and if a gameplay trailer featuring the non-split screen gamepad local co-op and Wii Remote gameplay, preorders for that game would be much higher right now. If Watch_Dogs released a trailer or at least some footage showing off the gamepad features and companion app features that Ubisoft has been bragging about, preorders for that game would be higher. If Assassin's Creed released a trailer actually showing Wii U footage (instead of only showing PS4 footage) so Wii U owners could be assured that they are getting an equal experiencem much like we are with Splinter Cell Blacklist, preorders would much higher.

There is value in these 3rd party Wii U games. We just need to be shown that. For example, I wasn't planning on buying Splinter Cell. I'm not really into stealth games. Then I saw this:

http://youtu.be/1He-qPQaQ8M

I just downloaded it, because the gamepad features look cool. Why would they release this two days before the game's release? And if I decide that I hate the gamepad in this game so much, I can simply switch to the Pro Controller.

While I know that the Wii U is powerful, I am obviously aware that the PS4 and XBO will be more powerful. That being said, I prefer gameplay over graphics anyday and a lot of people will agree with me. The Wii U will still have gorgeous HD visuals, so I have no trouble trading graphics so good you can see your character's indivisual eyelash strands for innovative and different gameplay, especially when it's completely optional. AC4 doesn't look like it will use the gamepad interestingly at all. (though I do feel that the companion app features will be used on the gamepad during co-op) I'm perfectly fine the with using the Pro controller in this case, which is in my opinion the best controller around, with the Gamecube controller at second and the 360 controller at a close 3rd.

"No excuses, it's time to put up or shut up, Nintendo fans. "

Activision said the same exact thing to the Nintendo community about COD. 

I watched that video and EA never lied about anything except for alluding to the potential of the Wii U for Battlefield 3 downported playability. At that time, yes the Wii U was boasting better graphics than the current gen and no one was talking about the steps Microsoft and Sony were taking. EA applauded Nintendo for finally reaching out to EA's market and Levine from Irrational Games said Nintendo is finally focusing on the hardcore gamer. The leap in graphics they were alluding to was being slightly above current gen so they could finally get the current gen multiplats they missed on during the Wii era. Nintendo did a good service to their community by swallowing their pride and allowing themselves and their fanbase to play great first party games with current gen third party experiences. What people were talking about when they were praising the Wii U was really the possibilities of the controller, not exactly the power. None of the videos shown of the ports were anything above current gen...absolutely none of them. PC is the bar for the multiplats so when you gauge this, you can tell the scalable power of a console. 

The reason Battlefield got shelved on the Wii U was because of arguments between Nintendo and EA of the placement of origin. I guess everything was fixed and the Wii U is getting a downported version of Battlefield 4 just like the Xbox 360 and PS3. The next gen fully scalable versions will go to PS4, Xbox One and PC.

http://wiiudaily.com/2012/08/battlefield-3-on-wii-u/

Reggie Fils Aime (as much as I love the guy) boasted about how the Wii U (around that time) had dramatically superior versions graphically of COD. Later we found this was not true at all. Look up the video on CNN or if you want by your request I'll look for it when you respond. When questioned by the woman about the rumored dramatic graphics enhancement of the Wii U and power of the PS4 and Xbone Reggie tried to dodge the question and kept saying something like "well see".

When the media shit hit the fan about the Wii U being underpowered, this occured.

"The processing power of the hardware really doesn't matter. I say that with confidence looking at the most recent generation of home consoles where the Wii, which the broad industry looked at and said "boy, that seems to be underpowered" but sold 100 million units globally. And the consumer saw the innovation of the Wii Remote and the active gameplay we offered.

Even if you look at the generation before that, it was Sony's product that was underpowered compared to the other two home consoles and yet they won that generation. In the end it comes down to the games. The games drive the install base, the games excite the consumer."

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/reggie-filsaime-points-to-ps2-in-defense-of-wii-u-power-20195

While he's right generally speaking about the Wii U's being much weaker than the coming consoles, the problem most third parties will have with the next gen rather than the current gen is downporting so dramatically. PC multiplats were held back by the massive sales of the current gen consoles, however, the new consoles are coming with the promise of proper power fitting for the next gen so third parties can make their next gen games. The Wii U will be the only console that will have to be downported to current gen level. The chances are very, very high that they will be ignored because they did not prepare themselves. 

Did they not see the graphics capabilities of the Battlefield 3? It was their first glimpse of next gen, technically. As soon as the frostbite engine came out we all knew.

Anyway, thanks for listening. You've been the first person who has been able to give me any statement or speak in a civilized manner without getting defensive. I love Nintendo myself and I think Reggie is awesome but at some point we are faced with the way things are. The way I see it, who cares? I am getting my Wii U for exclusives anyway and if the Wii U sells it thats more exclusive games for them tailor made for the Nintendo fanbase.

Watch this video, this guy responds to Reggies comment very intelligently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oYgPliZBRg