If that is true, then they are just plain stupid. I knew 3rd parties were going to piss on Wii U the moment I saw it. I couldn't stand Reggie talking crap about "being the most powerful on the market", that now "3rd parties have the hardware to work with". As if console gaming was supposed to stop in that moment in time and PS4/XO were never to be released.

To me Nintendo didn't give a damn about 3rd parties. They just wanted to release another cheap console with a gimmick to cover up for it, so that they can earn sick cash out of it without having to do the normal dirty work that the competition has to go through. You can tell they didn't care about 3rd parties when they said that low electricy consumption was more important for them than better performance. They were sure they had a winner on their hands from the start, now matter what. Somehow almost everyone outside of Nintendo thought and still thinks differently...

The Wii U wasn't designed for third parties.

No third party asked for another PS3/360 level machine to be their go to console for the next 5-6 years, after already sapping that market for the last seven years. No third party asked for that game pad either. 

That would be like saying third parties for clamouring for another SNES level system by the late 1990s.

The Wii U as a hardware system was yet again designed for Nintendo's own needs. They are the ones who over fetishize the concept of a tiny home console and lower electricity consumption, no one else cares. But the entire hardware itself is basically hamstrung by those restrictions and probably made more expensive as a result because it requires a lot of R&D to create such a custom, power efficient chip.

If you gave basically any major third party a choice of what the Wii U is versus say "Option 2" which is 3x-4x more powerful but with a Wiimote/nunchaku and Pro Controller and bigger console casing, they'd all choose option 2. The Wii/nunchaku combo still has a fair number of buttons to run any AC/COD/Resident Evil/Final Fantasy/Need For Speed/etc. game and the Pro Controller would also let them bring over their direct control schemes. 

It's not a double standard, Nintendo simply keeps making hardware that third parties don't care for or flat out can't work with. 

Their best bet was the GameCube but Nintendo self sabotaged that console by shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly and crippling the poor console before it had a chance. No one put a gun to Nintendo's head and forced them to make it a purple lunchbox and make bizarre development choices with virtually all their core franchises or conceed the FPS market to Microsoft when they had a good thing going on the N64. For every good decision they made with the GameCube, they inexplibly decided to make 1-2 bad ones. 

If Sony made the Playstation 4 into what the Wii U is (same chip, same emphasis on controller) third parties would pretty much uniformily embrace XBox One as their go to console and drop Sony support after a few years. 

The Wii U isn't powerful to anyone but Nintendo which is living in a time warp 7 years behind everyone else, the main difference now is the "casual" audience is no longer blue ocean either, it's a red ocean where their thunder has been stolen by other, faster moving and more sophisticated (marketing wise) corporations. 

Why? When I saw Wii U it was obvious to me that they'll ignore Wii U and not for a single moment did I believe that Wii U is gonna get the support Reggie was bullshitting about. It had everything going against it and nothing going for it. Just one more time Nintendo decided to stay a gen behind - such a decision has its consequences. Don't put the blame on 3rd parties for Nintendo's decisions.

Why is the console expensive? Ask Nintendo why they did such a lousy job. It's barely more powerful than a PS3 and yet is over twice as expensive to manufacture. They messed up. It shouldn't cost more than $249 day 1.

The analog sticks are probably the only change made for the third parties (and it's a bloody good one!), but Wii U already got its fair share of CoDs, ACs, Darksiders, Zombi Us, Batmans and Splinter Cells and Watchdogs to more than justify this one change. And it's not a proof of Nintendo making a 3rd party friendly console, but rather showing just how out of touch with the gaming reality they were while designing it. They had to be reminded of what true analogs should work like.

The actual sales of 3rd party games have all to do with what you have now and why you won't be getting more ports for it. There is no market and there never will be any, cause the console is too underpowered and it's all Nintendo's fault. 3rd parties aren't the ones who should risk their money in order to make a system work. Neither in the case of Wii U, nor Vita.

The Wii U is as anti-3rd party as it gets. Porting games is totally pointless, as they will be massively inferior and nobody will be willing to pick them up over a PS4One version. The only thing that can have any sense is making exclusive games, but then you take a look at the instal base and throw that idea out of the window as soon as possible. It's not 3rd parties fault. Nintendo is responsible for this situation, nobody else.

Name a game that absolutely needs analog sticks.   And if you now tell me "racing games need them" I will tell you that every SHOOTER needs a mouse and keyboard combo.

If the PS4 was the Wii U, it would bomb. Developers would support it for a couple of years sure because Sony has 15 years of built-in credibility to hardcore gamers, which is the audience third parties mostly try to appeal to (Assassin's Creed and COD allign with the same audience Sony markets to). 

Eventually they would all shift to XBox One. Or vice versa if XBox One was the Wii U, lol, we would be seeing bigger than PS2 level domination this generation for the PS4. 

iDevices don't have to replace Wii Sports. Wii Sports was something popular seven years ago. iDevices have Candy Crush, and Angry Birds, and Plants Vs. Zombies and actual social networking functionality that fit into people's lives. The Wii U is a toy by comparision and Wii Sports is yesterday's news. 

Just because I bought a Nelly Furtado album in 2006, doesn't mean I'm a Nelly Furtado fan for life or will buy every album that she ever makes. This is what some Nintendo fans have a hard time wrapping their head around, just because I liked Wii Sports in 2006 doesn't mean I'm beholden to enjoy it forever or will continually upgrade hardware at $300+ a pop to plat that. 

The Wii U has Wii Sports. No one cares. They've even done a fairly decent job of marketing it, I've seen that Andre Agassi Wii Sports commercial more than any other Wii U commercial from launch onwards. 

@Bold - that calls for a tin foil hat. The 3rd parties have no secret policy or master plan. They just want to earn money and not share the fate of THQ.

The blue ocean no longer exists, it has been devoured by smart devices. Casuals are gone and they are not coming back.

Saying Nintendo went after third parties this generation is like saying a guy who hasn't shaved in 2 months, or showered in 2 months, got "dressed up" because he spritzed some colonge on himself, lol. 

They made virtually no effort with third parties. All the system is is a PS3/360 to third parties ... with a userbase of 0, seven years late to a party. 

What third party is supposed to be impressed by that? Oh wow, the analog sticks click, what incredible effort by Nintendo to court third parties, lol.

If that is Nintendo "courting third parties" it's literally the laziest, most laughable effort possible. 

I may have worded that badly, I mean what games truly show off what the gamepad is capable of and makes u go wow I cant imagine playing this with any other control scheme. Kinda like Mario 64 did for the analog stick and Wii Sports did for motion controls.

Nintendo Land shows off the game pad perfectly fine. It's just an idea that doesn't have mass market appeal.