artur-fernand said: Third-party support is dying alongside the multi-generation games. Once we really go full 8th gen, it's over for the Wii U - it's not worth it make a vastly inferior version of your game, regardless of install base (just look at the Wii). Absolutely nothing can change that, the Wii U's fate is already sealed. |
I'm glad you have a crystal ball. Perhaps you wouldn't mind helping me out with some lotto numbers sometime?
Seriously, first off, Wii had fantastic third party support compared to Wii U right now. Yes, it did miss out on certain multi-plat games that it argubly should have gotten, considering the install base. BUT, on the other hand, it also got quite a few rather good third party exclusives, as well as ports from series like Call of Duty, etc. Companies like EA and Activision certainly supported the hell out of it, and even a company like Capcom threw it some bones, with the RE: Chronicles games, or MH3, or Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. That support is far better than what Wii U is getting right at the moment.
But to think that, if Wii U were selling a lot better, that third parties wouldn't bother giving it another shot? That's a bit absurd. The power gap between Wii U and PS4, while still significant, is also significantly smaller than it was with Wii vs. PS3. With Wii being an SD console, developers usually had to make a whole seperate, new build of games just to port them to Wii. With Wii U, while the processing power isn't on par, the GPU is still rather strong, and in general, it's more a matter of scalability now, than it is having to make whole seperate builds. These facts have been discussed to death on these forums over the last year+. Most games that come out on PS3/XBone could be done on Wii U as well, it would just have to be scaled back. And yes, developers are going to have to want to bother taking the time to do that, but it's much less time, effort, or money involved that it was with Wii. You've got to think that if Wii U suddenly started doing a lot better, that yes, publishers like money, and at least some of them would get back on board. Hell, most of the big ones were all in at launch, because they obviously assumed that Wii U would take off just like Wii did, and they were happy it was finally an HD console. The support dried up after that, because initial sales for many of their games weren't so hot. That's it, it's just simple economics.
And even still, companies like Ubisoft, Activision and WB (with the exception of the next Batman game), are still supporting the system.