where is the evidence of this?

"either one of them could reciprocate that investment a lot better than Sony can"

considering that microsoft has a weaker console at the same price and nintendo hasn't really supported the wii u any better than sony or microsoft have supported their consoles in the same timespan ( which feeds into a bigger problem of overall game support since they have failed at garnering third party support )

Titanfall was obviously set to be an Xbox exclusive well before either system was even announced. Prior to then nobody expected things to turn out like they have. I'm pretty sure a lot of people thought the XBO would handily win the U.S. & UK and be at a reasonably healthy second place in continental Europe. It's certainly a good explanation as to why the XBO got several third-party exclusives. But I think those will evaporate much more quickly than they did last generation. As for exclusives, neither the 360 nor PS3 were shining examples of awesome exclusive libraries. The only notable exclusives the 360 had in its first year were Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and PGR3 at launch and Dead or Alive 4, Saints Row, Dead Rising, and Gears of War later. The only notable exclusives the PS3 had in its first year were Resistance, Ridge Racer 7, Motorstorm, MLB 07, F1 Championship Edition, Heavenly Sword, and Ratchet & Clank Future (Uncharted came out just past the PS3's first birthday). Both systems probably had other exclusives as well, but they and even most of the listed games failed to light up the charts, and not many of them were games that were highly regarding with a lasting impact.

Looking at the XBO and PS4, neither one has anything to brag about in regards to exclusives. First-year PS4 "can't get them on another platform" exclusives include Killzone, Infamous, Knack, Driveclub, and possibly Guilty Gear Xrd, while for the XBO the list includes Forza 5, Ryse, Dead Rising 3, and Sunset Overdrive. I guess we could expand the list to include Titanfall, Forza Horizon 2, and the Master Chief Collection for the XBO, but we'd have to give FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, LBP3 (cross-gen, but preorders rankings are overwhelminingly in favor of the PS4 version), and The Last of Us Remastered to the PS4.

Of course, while exclusives are important I think you overestimate their impact. Few games give significant boosts to hardware sales, and those that do rarely provide boosts longer than a couple of weeks. The number of games that have had truly meaningful and lasting impacts on hardware sales can be counted on one hand: Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, FFVII, and Halo: CE are probably the only examples. Sunset Overdrive and the MCC aren't going to significantly change the XBO's fortunes, as the former isn't exactly tearing up the preorder charts and the latter is a compilation, which have historically never been system-sellers. No one game is going to change the XBO's fortune. It's already lost too much momentum, and the only thing that's going to rebuild it sufficiently to pass the XBO in the U.S. is for it to get below the PS4 in price, not merely getting it to parity by unbundling Kinect, and I doubt Sony will let that go without answering back with a price cut of their own.

The Wii U only had strong third-party support earlier on was because it was only marginally more powerful than the 360 & PS3. All that third-party support was for seventh-gen and cross-gen titles, and even in the case of the latter it's missing several notable and popular titles. Third parties released on the Wii U because "Hey, why not give 'em a cheap port and sell another 200,000 copies." But the reason third-party support for the Wii U is going away isn't because the Wii U has sold rather poorly. It simply lacked the power third parties wanted from an eighth-gen system. I could have told you back at the start of next year that third parties would be gradually reducing support to the system once the PS4 and XBO arrived. It's the same reason why the Wii did not have strong third-party support. That thing was the fastest-selling system in history and third parties still didn't want much of anything to do with it except maybe to dump party games and cheap shovelware on it. It's never been about hardware sales for third parties when it comes to Nintendo. For four generations straight it was the very nature of the hardware itself that resulted in Nintendo losing a lot of third-party support. First cartridges on the N64, then mini-DVDs on the GameCube, and then low specs on the Wii and Wii U. The Wii U could have sold over twice as many units to date as it has and third parties still wouldn't have bothered supporting it for longer than they felt was necessary. I guarantee you if Nintendo's next system is a standard console on par with the PS5 and Xbox 4 in specs, third parties will come flocking back.

Ok you're just pulling stuff out of your ass...  It's not even argumentative, you're just wrong.  Titanfall, the developers themselves said that they asked Sony if they wanted it, Sony didn't respond so it ended up as an exclusive.  

The Wii U started out with strong third party support because Ubisoft, Sega, and several other companies made a KILLING on the Wii.  Ubisoft had games like Zumba fitness, and other casual games which sold in the millions and had almost no development costs, same with Sega.  Sega had Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games.  Those games cost a lot less to develop than something like Assassin's Creed so of course they would support the Wii U.  Assassins Creed type games are a gamble whether they will even break even with them.  

I didn't read everything because you when I glossed through those two glaring errors killed my motivation to.  

overman1 said:

 Link to article about Titanfall...

Watch your tone. There's no reason to get all nasty. I wasn't aware of the exact circumstances as to why Titanfall specifically wasn't exclusive, but I was right in saying that its exclusive status was sealed prior to the official announcement of either system. I still stand by my claim that most third party developers are going to be more apprehensive about releasing solely on XBO as it's clear now that the PS4 is outselling the XBO 2:1 globally. Unless you want to argue that MS never moneyhatting any third parties and that every single third-party exclusive on the 360 and XBO got that way because Sony told them to get lost or whatever, then it's probably the case for most games that MS offered them a good deal for exclusivity rights. But you've already made your feelings about Sony abundantly clear, so I doubt you'll see anything about the PS4 in a positive light, so I won't spend any more time on that subject.

As for the Wii & Wii U, sure Ubisoft was one of the few third parties that did well on the Wii and gave it a good amount of support, but look at what kind of games they released on it. I never said the Wii or Wii U were devoid of third party games, only that they aren't getting the third party games they need. There were almost no third-party AAA titles released for the Wii. Sure, it got very poor ports of several COD games, but where was Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Elder Scrolls, Batman: Arkham, Resident Evil, BioShock, SoulCalibur, Final Fantasy XIII, Far Cry, Borderlands, Saints Row, Mortal Kombat, LA Noire, Burnout, The Orange Box, Portal 2, most Tom Clancy games, and countless other titles released for the 360 and PS3? They weren't there, because the Wii didn't cut the mustard in terms of power.

The Wii U is facing the same problem. Look at the third-party games it gets. All of them are also available on the 360 and PS3 at about the same quality. That's not the kind of third-party support it needs, as few gamers are going to buy a system for games that they can already play on their 360 or PS3. It was an eventuality that even the kind of third-party support the Wii U has wasn't going to last. As devs focus more and more on the PS4 and XBO, the less we'll see them bother with the Wii U. The only thing major Ubisoft has on tab with the Wii U right now is Watch Dogs. Assassin's Creed Unity is only on PS4 and XBO. Yes, the Wii U will still get some third-party support just like the Wii did, mostly from Ubisoft and Sega, but it's not going to be getting the support the PS4 and XBO are getting. Once there are no more cross-gen games it isn't likely going to be getting any major AAA titles aside from anything they footed the bill for themselves (e.g., Bayonetta 2). In addition to future Assassin's Creed games, it will not be getting Destiny, Battlefield, Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts III, Metal Gear Solid V, Evolve, Alien: Isolation, The Evil Within, The Crew, Far Cry 4, Dying Light, Mortal Kombat X, The Division, Arkham Knight, The Witcher 3, Star Wars: Battlefront, Cyberpunk 2077, Rise of the Tomb Raider, the Doom reboot, or the inevitable Grand Theft Auto 6, and countless other unannounced games that will come out in 2015 and beyond, to say nothing of games released in the past year that never were ported to Wii U. The reason the Wii U is bereft of all those big titles is because it isn't powerful enough.

All of Nintendo's third-party woes over the past 18 years has been solely because of hardware design decisions. Period. Had the Wii U had full parity with the PS4 and XBO, this wouldn't even be an issue. It's fortunate that Nintendo makes some of the best games in the industry, as such games make their hardware well worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, a lot of gamers don't feel the same way. Sure, they went gaga over the Wii because it was inexpensive, had an excellent gimmick, and was well-marketed, but the Wii U doesn't have as big of a price advantage this time, it was poorly marketing, and while motion controls had been a dream since the 80s, finally materialized in 2006, and had its time in the sun, the tablet, for all of its practical value, just didn't resonate with gamers like the Wiimote did. In fact, I think had the Wii been as powerful as the 360 and PS3 and had a robust online service and a standard gamepad to complement the Wiimote, it would have beaten the PS2 to become the best-selling system ever as it would have had the added value of all those major third-party AAA titles in addition to its strong first-party lineup and innovative motion control titles. I like Nintendo, they're my favorite game company, but I really wish they'd make a system that got every big third-party game, because I probably wouldn't even bother with PlayStation or Xbox until they were dirt cheap. A powerful Nintendo console that got all the big third-party games would take care of 95% of my gaming needs for the generation.

I'd call it an awful generation.  They are losing third party games left and right (Titanfall for starters), their developers are rehashing old games rather than making new games (The Last Of Us).  Their list of games is painfully small considering they are winning the generation.  Their also slow on the console updates, there was another thread that showed PS4 is woefully behind in adding support for various features.  

You need to summarize your arguments shorter.  I don't have the patience to read that many arguments which are pretty much "agree to disagree".  

TL;DR isn't a valid response, just saying

The third party problems aren't because of the hardware.  

Uh...yeah it is. Play Sonic Unleashed on the PS3 than go to Wii version. The PS3 one is a proper game minus the werehog, while the Wii version is an on rails joke. And the difference between the Xb1 and Wii U is much larger than the PS3 and Wii's difference.

Upscaling is hard, downscaling is easy.  Developers are making a bigger issue out of that than they should be.  The real reason is simply that Nintendo doesn't have a receptive audience for most third party games.  It's easier to blame it on Nintendo's hardware than to admit they can't tap the audience.  

Yeah says the guy whose never developed before. Upscaling means that the new platform has more resources, less optimization has to be done, even if assets have to be rescaled, its the same for downscaling, while there is the additonal limitation of less resources it must be highly optimized. However, a quality PC can easily handle buffering of 1080p textures and high fidelity models of a PS4, while put it in a Wii U and the game will crash in less then a couple of minutes

Third parties actually have no choice but to go out of their way customizing their games from scratch to try and draw in the Nintendo crowd.  That's a plus if anything not a minus.  Take "The Last of Us: Remastered" for instance.  The changes from the previous console are pretty much cosmetic with a few bells and whistles thrown on.  However, a third party game redone for the Wii U usually has dramatic changes to it.  Even if it's just a port, the added gamepad functionality alone is usually pretty impressive.  

Sure. Rayman Legends was designed for the Wii U, got outsold by the PS3 version. Pretty impressive indeed.

My initial argument was that fans would get more for their money if they supported Nintendo or Microsoft this generation.  That still stands.  I've given you half a dozen angles from which Sony has failed to capitalize on.  I've shown you that the other two are amped and ready to move in with huge results.  I stand by my argument that Sony is a dead horse who's crawling in the lead because fans are making up the slack.  

Wow, that is bullshit of the highest order. People play what they want, and my friends got excellent support on the Wii U, meanwhile I've through enjoyed my PS4 while only buying one 19.99 game. Its not even an argument, its just your biased opinion because the console that you don't like is in first place. Welcome to 2006, looks like you're going to have to deal with it.

You need to summarize your arguments shorter.  I don't have the patience to read that many arguments which are pretty much "agree to disagree".  

The third party problems aren't because of the hardware.  Upscaling is hard, downscaling is easy.  Developers are making a bigger issue out of that than they should be.  The real reason is simply that Nintendo doesn't have a receptive audience for most third party games.  It's easier to blame it on Nintendo's hardware than to admit they can't tap the audience.  

Third parties actually have no choice but to go out of their way customizing their games from scratch to try and draw in the Nintendo crowd.  That's a plus if anything not a minus.  Take "The Last of Us: Remastered" for instance.  The changes from the previous console are pretty much cosmetic with a few bells and whistles thrown on.  However, a third party game redone for the Wii U usually has dramatic changes to it.  Even if it's just a port, the added gamepad functionality alone is usually pretty impressive.  

My initial argument was that fans would get more for their money if they supported Nintendo or Microsoft this generation.  That still stands.  I've given you half a dozen angles from which Sony has failed to capitalize on.  I've shown you that the other two are amped and ready to move in with huge results.  I stand by my argument that Sony is a dead horse who's crawling in the lead because fans are making up the slack.  

Of course they would fail to garner third party support.  Their console didn't sell so third parties pulled out.  That much should have been implied in my previous post....  

Nintendo started out with a lot of third party support this generation, but they lost it all when no one bought the console.  Not just rehashes of old games either, original franchises that pushed the boundaries of their genre (ZombiU, Lego City, Wonderful 101), they also paid for sequels to games which were all but dead (Bayonetta 2)