Topic: Was this E3 the final nail in the coffin for the Wii U?

There are people who post far too much to the Wii U board given they have no Wii U or any interest in the system. Generally speaking that either means they have far too much time on their hands and really need to find something more productive to do with their lives or they're just trolling, but the same thing applies. Mostly it's just sad, but it's definitely not interesting or useful or intelligent discussion.

You are missing out. The Wii U version of Smash is SO much better- don't get me wrong, I love to play my 3ds version too. It's just a much richer experience on the Wii U. Plus, you are missing out on Splatoon, MK8 (what's not to love about 48 tracks in HD?), Bayonetta, Super Mario 3d World (again, much better than Land), DKTF, Toad, Kirby, and several others.

If you want 3rd party games on Nintendo systems, buy them. It's really as simple as that. The Wii U launched will literally all of the AAA western publisher support. All of the shooters, all of the sports games, all of the yearly franchises, and nobody bought a one of them.

Instead, 3 million people bought Wii Party U, and here we are.

Really? That piece of complete shovelware got 3 million sales?

No, I was being hyperbolic. It actually sold about half that.

But still, all 10 of the top 10 selling Wii U games are 1st party. It's just really easy to go on the internet and lament the lack of games that nobody buys on Nintendo consoles anyway.

Therein lies the problem. Think about this from a buyer's perspective. Ok, MULTIPLE buyer's perspectives. Let's start with the broke one. You had enough money for ONE console. You chose a Wii U. Why? Probably because you enjoy Nintendo games, as recent history has shown that Nintendo rarely gets good 3rd party support on the Wii U, and if you wanted 3rd parties, you'd go with a PS4, X One, or PC, anyways. (Probably PC, as that's the cheapest option of the three, though what factors into THAT decision is far more complex than just price point.) So now that we've established that you're a Nintendo fan, otherwise you likely wouldn't have bought a Nintendo console, you go to the store to buy a game. On the shelf sits Batman Arkham City Armored Edition, ZombiU, Call of Duty, New Super Mario Bros U, and Nintendoland (which you probably already have, but let's assume you were tight on cash and bought the 8 gig version.) Total no brainer. If you like Nintendo games, odds are that you're gonna pick up Mario. If you have it in your head that the NSMB series is awful and shouldn't be supported, you'll still probably pick up Nintendoland, and even if that doesn't do it, you'll probably get ZombiU, as it uses the Gamepad far more than the other two games.

Now someone who actually has a pretty decent amount of money. They eventually get all of the systems. Now they go to the store and have a similar scenario, but now it's Assassin's Creed IV, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Wind Waker HD, and Call of Duty. This person owns all systems, so if he wanted 3rd parties, being that he's at least vaguely aware of system power specs, he's gonna grab copies for PS4 or Xbox One or PC. He has money to get all of these games, but rather than spend it all on Wii U titles, he decides that he'd be better off getting the 3rd party ones on PC, as he might be able to nab a deal from Steam.

We act like this is some kind of unjustified behavior. If I have money for all these games, I probably have another system, too. If I don't, I'm probably going to pick up the Nintendo games, as those are the reason I got the console in the first place. And you know what doesn't help the situation? 3rd parties shafting Nintendo users. Giving us the short end of the stick on ports. With very few exceptions, the Wii U version is typically one of the worst ports, usually with features missing and other stuff. People tend to blame that on Nintendo, but typically, it's just because of a cheap porting job. I'm not necessarily shaming 3rd parties for this practice, as it makes the most sense to make the cheapest port for the system you think you may not get your money back on, but it certainly doesn't make us wanna buy their games any more than we did before.

Yeah, I support third parties when they deliver something I want to play. Zombi U I just found frustrating to play because of the melee combat and two-stick controls - I had actually planned that as a day one purchase, but the demo changed my mind. Rayman Legends would have been a day-one, but Ubisoft decided to delay for months so instead I ended up with New Super Mario Bros. U, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Super Mario 3D World. By the time Rayman hit the system I just didn't care any more. Mass Effect was a game I would have gone for, but the fact that only part 3 was released in light of a full trilogy being released at the same time on other systems turned me off as did Activision and their initial disc-only approach to software releases.

Need for Speed U is probably the biggest third party release I own; otherwise it's a couple of titles from Koei-Tecmo and indies. If big Western publishers didn't treat the system like a stepchild I might have given it more support; as it stands I ended up buying Nintendo games I might have skipped otherwise because third parties failed to deliver. Oh and I own Wii Party U - it's a fun family-friendly title, but guess what, I have a family and mine and my partner's kids are under 16 and they like to play games and it's fun to play games with them. 18-rated games aren't the end-all and be-all of "proper gaming"; if someone thinks family-friendly=death of gaming, I'd say they're more of a problem than the "casuals" for limiting what is regarded as a saleable product.

This sentence is... too perfect, lol. Lotsa free-rider benefits all around.

Here's the trouble with 3rd party game sales on Nintendo systems.

1. A significant number of people who own Nintendo consoles are children. They are not going to buy ZombiU or CoD, because, well, they are rated M games.

2. There are also gaming adults on Nintendo systems, but after years of no 3rd party support on Nintendo systems, many of them own other platforms.

3. When Nintendo's entire mature 3rd party audience also owns other platforms, there is basically no value to putting those games on Nintendo systems, because they can get a purchase from people in that audience on their XBOX, PS, or PC.

What matters to 3rd parties is Nintendo's "exclusive base", as in people who just own a Nintendo console and not the other systems that could support the game.

Which falls under the same problem I'd previously pointed out. Nintendo's exclusive base tends to prefer Nintendo games, and money is a limited resource. Even the ones with a good amount of money wouldn't likely be buying many 3rd party titles. The Wii U and likely all Nintendo consoles from N64 on into the future look like a bad place for 3rd parties to be. They'll always be getting the leftovers, as the first thing you're gonna buy when you get a Wii U is going to be Mario, Donkey Kong, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Splatoon, or really anything Nintendo made. Heck, even Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta, and Wonderful 101 seem a more likely purchase and they're not even 1st party. 3rd party companies face an extreme disadvantage on Nintendo consoles. That's just a fact.

Yep. I fall into #2. I mean, no offense to my Wii U, but even if Black Ops III were to come out on it, you can bet I'm buying it for PS4 or Xbox instead.

But I don't think it can't be changed. There is a reason Nintendo's exclusive base tends to go with 1st Party games. A big part of it is the fact that there are a lot of kids. Games like Rayman and Sonic do do well on Nintendo platforms because they are still attractive to that demographic.

The other big reason is that some people who are part of Nintendo's exclusive base are people who have grown up with Nintendo and haven't been exposed to many 3rd party franchises.

Naturally, the solution to these problems is to create more mature first party offerings and to artificially introduce third party games to their system. This would reverse the problem over a few years.

Nintendo dug themselves into this third party hole ever since the N64 stuck with cartridges and they lost one of the most popular games of all time to the Playstation for their own stubbornness (FF7 was made for Playstation due to the higher capacity that discs offered. FFX was on PS2 for the same reason, I believe.).

However, I don't think it's irreversible. It would just take lots and lots of money and partnerships and time. I hope Nintendo's next console doesn't continue the downward trend of their hardware sales.

Maybe if that's all they did, but we all know it won't go that smoothly. It'd be bumpy and require risks I'm not sure Nintendo would willingly take. It'd probably cost them big time in the short run with long-term pay off, if they kept it up. It would also make development very expensive. Perhaps too expensive.

Having a system that's easy to port games to could help too. If it costs 50 cents to make a game available on Wii U too, there isn't much point in not trying to take advantage (that's of course an exaggeration)

Definitely, and that was an excellent point about Nintendo sticking with cartridges back in the day and losing the valuable Final Fantasy franchise. I mean, geez...I read somewhere that the FF7 remake trailer is now the most-viewed trailer from E3 this year? That's crazy. And Nintendo lost FF (on home consoles for the most part... wasn't there that cartoony one for Gamecube or something?) after having all of those entries on NES and SNES. I remember when I got my NES and all the people that recommended FF to me as an awesome game. The franchise pulls A LOT of weight.

Yes, just think, Nintendo missed out on 13^3 and two MMOs...

@Haru17

Yea
The first MMO was AWESOME. Man, I put so many hours into that game. And the one that's out now seems to be doing pretty well, too.

But to miss out on FFVII, IX, X, X-2... that sucked. I ended up getting a PS2 just to play some of those games, actually. And FF Tactics, which is still one of my favorite games of all time.

It does, but as it's coming to PC, I wouldn't have likely gotten it on a console, unless I was desperate to make my U library look full.

Also, for all the hate the cartridge decision gets and all the damage it did, I really enjoyed not having load times.

@UGXwolf: Oh yea, I didn't mind the cartridges at all. And this was also "back in the day" when my friends and I didn't know what the heck an internet forum was was (if they were even really around), so we just enjoyed consoles/games for what they were: fun (most, lol). We didn't give a hoot if PS1 had CDs and N64 had cartridges - both systems had great games, positives and negatives, etc.

Funny how the "gamer" community seems to have lost sight of that simple truth, huh? The whole "play for fun" thing, you know? Nowadays, it seems playing games is almost something that needs to be "shown off" or the key to some sort of "gamer" clique. Bah, I don't even know how to describe it, really. Like...the whole Twitch thing...what the heck is that?? It baffles me. People spends HOURS, HOURS watching Twitch instead of actually playing a game! And then they call themselves "gamers"? More like "watchers," lol.

Ok, I got off topic. Apologies.