EA Outlines Its Reasons for Lack of Wii U Support

Don't want my money, EA? Fine, more money for Ubisoft and Activision from me. Oh and "YES!" I would buy their games, I have 3 of the 4 they released already.

I still don't understand why they can't just port the PS3 version of Fifa. I don't need facebook integration or xBox adds. I don't get why developers think the HAVE to use the options Wii U has, There's a pro controller. Just copy paste, I'd be happy with that as long as you copy paste Fifa 14, not Fifa 12..

Origin ..... nuff said

@Sjoerd No copy and paste from either past gen consoles to the Wii U. The Wii U has a different architecture than they do. Besides, don't you think the fans would be upset if the gamepad wasn't utilized at all?! I know I would be. It's what it's there for!

Sure it wasn't the fault of the developer. C'mon, you didn't even have our star quarterback kaupernick in Madden, then you rehashed bargain bin games at an extreme price. 300% markup is not a reason to have the 'wii u' version. With the exception of NFS most wanted, thanks for nothing EA. Maybe next time you can put forth some effort.

Perfectly reasonable statement, not sure why they didn't say that at the start... If the gamers aren't there, then third parties won't publish, it's as simple as that. If Nintendo turn it around this year, then that changes. Shame that's how it works, but it is what it is

EA PP$R(&@#YHEI@R)#UYRHPRYH@IOHDC @PR)WUOJDF#RUIO!!!!
>.> stupid origins

@Rafie, Of course I don't mean that litteraly. And Why should Fifa fans be upset? Fifa is about soccer, not about gimmick Implimentation. I don't see any use for being able to switch players when the game is still being played, you'll have to pause it anyway. Being able to do those things on the gamepad just doesn't work. There's no need for things that don't work.

@Sjoerd Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying that the gamepad doesn't "work"? That's what I got from your last sentence.

Well they have a valid point, Nintendo since the N64 have been about doing whatever they want without caring about making an environment that is easy to develop for.

I understand the No buyers argument, its one many developers are using in reference to the Wii U. But the issue here is a catch 22, Nintendo can't sell systems because there is not enough games, and developers are refusing to work on a system that isn't selling. Its a shame, it seems big game developers only want a "sure thing", no one is wanting to take risks. Which taking risks and going outside the norm is what creates innovation. Which quite frankly the video game industry needs. How long before people get tired of FPS?

How many times do EA need to explain this? Each time they repeat themselves they just alienate Wii U owners even more.

Plus also I would point out the use of the gamepad in FIFA 13 to pass and send players on runs is actually really clever. It makes use of the screen during gameplay.

Im all for EA doing whats good for business and not caving to a vocal minority. If the risk/reward doesnt seem profitable they should have madr thier intentions clear from the start.

Hmm I have a 360 and I'll probably pick up a PS4 or an Xbone this year. Obviously this sucks for Nintendo Only dudes and sales come up so they can re-support the Wii U.

Makes enough sense to me. It's not your job to build up the Wii U, so if it's not profitable don't do it.

Makes logical business sense to me, even if EA are scum.

EA Sucks a Fat Donkey Squid!!!!! May they and there Squidtacular Company... Go to Hell

Frankly, I don't know why anyone would develop for a console that has sold only 3.5 million units in seven months. There is no money to be made on Wii U right now unless, perhaps, you're creating a budget indie title.
What doesn't make sense is how he can say EA goes where the gamers are but then says they're working on games for PS4 and XBone, which have zero gamers at the moment.

Is it just me, or are developers like EA here almost trying to convince everyone the Wii U isn't worthwhile by not developing games for it in the first place? The Wii U is being singled out for no good reason, as if these companies WANT it to fail and are trying to handcraft a situation where that happens.

Dear EA,

Just stop digging.. I know you like that shovel in your hand, but you are making the backlash worse.. Just stop. We don't want your games. You already shot yourself in the foot, I wont buy any of your products not on my playstation, not on my PC, and even if you had games for Wii U, I wouldn't purchase your products for it anyways.

Signed,
Fed Up With Dudebro Games.

@ Rafie What? No . What I mean is that certain things don't work with the gamepad. changing your team on the fly doesn't work on the gamepad, since the game just continues, also, holding up the gamepad to aim doesn't work, and they don't have to put work in those sort of things. Unfortunately, no, the gamepad doesn't work for everything. Doing things because you think you have to as a developer only brings the experience down if the implemented gimmicks don't add or just plain annoy players.

EA has been cough lying ... again. Any game avalible on ps360 can be put on wiiu with updated features.

I'm sick of EA, too. "Our job as game creators and executives is to be where the money is. Frankly, it's as simple as that." is what he meant to say EA is a is scum indeed, they use to be awesome back in the Genesis days, but their absolute sell outs now. Only game series I'll miss is the Need For Speed franchise.

@Kaboom absolutely does feel like that, but guess what, I'm still supporting Nintendo's Wii U, so suck it up and support it EA or continue being PS/Xbox sellouts, their choice.

the only EA title I care about is FIFA. And that works just fine on PC.

@Burning_Spear PS4 and the One will have the target audience. Pre-order number also do represent a user base for the system on launch day. They gave Wii U a chance when it was launching, it didn't work and now they are putting games on PS4 and the One. Both systems also have similar architechure and it won't much costs to put a game on both system while Wii U takes a lot more effort and money to port a game to.

"What doesn't make sense is how he can say EA goes where the gamers are but then says they're working on games for PS4 and XBone, which have zero gamers at the moment." Exactly my point with risks, the gaming industry is no longer wanting to do original things, everything is money centric now. Do we need go back to the "games are art" debate!

Apple use different hardware architecture to other manufacturers......EA wouldn't dare not support them!!!
Money lovers....not gamers...

@ferthepoet I love when people who don't understand computer software development pretend they do.

Sorry nothing in the Wii U is exotic. Its a PowerPC based CPU and Radeon HD Based GPU.... 2 gb of DDR3, is pretty standard, and 32mb EDRAM has been used in x360 and will be used in xBone.

there is absolutely nothing exotic about the Wii U. The Gamepad has two analog sticks, 2 triggers, 2 bumpers, 4 face buttons and a D-Pad.... as far as the touch screen, there is nothing difficult to do here. With 10 lines or less of code, any developer can have the touch screen mirror whats on the big screen.... We have small 2 man developer teams creating fantastic titles like Toki Tori 2, and you are going to tell me the big dawg publishers can't hire anyone to develop for the system? Its a load of shiite.... it sounds much better for PR purposes to say the Wii U is difficult to develop for.

PR wise it looks very very very bad to say "We don't think we would break even if we attempted to port anything over because of low sales" ... For some reason motives of profit is a bad thing when it comes to PR.... so say the hardware sucks, its too slow, or too hard to develop for, but anything other than saying that we wont make a profit so we are not even going to bother.

PS4 and X1 don't have any install base yet theirs is better than Wii U's? Um...What?

@Sjoerd Ahhh okay. I haven't played any EA titles on the Wii U.

@element187

I know I don't know much about software development, but everybody that does seems to agree that porting from PS4 to XBONE or from PS3 to 360 can be done for peanuts while porting the same thing to Wii U requires effort and time and money

@AyeHaley They are already more popular than the Wii U though. Also keep in mind that EA titles sold way more on the previous consoles than they ever have on a Nintendo console.

I game on Wii U and PS3 and the last EA game I bought was Need for Speed most wanted U.
That will be the last EA game I buy on any format until they release on my main console. I've nothing against EA but while they don't support my console, I don't support them.

No point of bashing on EA guys, they're absolutely right.

They aren't insulting the Wii U hardware, but the problem is exactly how Nintendo has already explained it: lack of great first-party titles = lack of consumers = lack of third-party supporters. It's that simple.

A prime example of a company that only cares about cash rather than giving people an amazing experience within a game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_yxUHDZTq0

@Warruz This, it's all about origin people nothing more nothing less.

Of course, they go where the money's at. Which is what they should do.

I love people that blame them for not wasting money on a non-profitable product.

I don't care about EA, but I think their lack of supports creates a legitimate PERCEPTION that the U is not worth buying because its already being ignored by publishers. THAT is the problem in my estimation. Which is why N ought to cut their losses on this console and immediately introduce an upgraded U2 with a new supercharged v10 engine that can hang with the new competition. Don't have to redesign the entire product, just rev it up with higher flop/s.

@theadrock13 Talk about a drastic measure. lol. That would probably be the most shocking move in the history of the industry. Not that it wouldn't be beneficial in the long run, but there would certainly be a lot of pissed off Wii U owners.

Also best avatar on the site, hands down. lol

To the people saying EA "took a chance with the Wii U" or something to that nature. If you consider the ports that they have done "taking a chance," with the exception of NFS, to each their own I suppose.

That said if this is EA's stance that's fine.

But if Wii U sales do pick up and all we get from them, or any third party company for that matter, is a bunch of lazily made, shoddy ports like most of EA's titles for the console have been, and they don't sell because of that, then we get third party companies refusing to make games for Wii U because "only first party games sell on Nintendo consoles," that will be incredibly telling.

As of right now, only time will tell.

@Imagine23 said "A prime example of a company that only cares about cash rather than giving people an amazing experience within a game."

Hello? A company is in business to make money. Everything else comes second to that.

I haven't fooled with EA in a long time. It does stink for gamers that do like their games. EA with software could help boost the value of the Wii U, but ubisoft and activision seem to be onboard.

I don't sink my money into EA's games any longer. So I could care less about there support for Nintendo products

Thx for finally telling the truth EA -o-. I'm still broken that Battlefield 4 isn't coming to Wii U. Well atleast Call of Duty: Ghosts may come to Wii U. ¦þ

I'm really starting to think that EA is just making up excuses now.

@HappyHappy Yes, seemingly good excuses.

Their engine not running well on the platform, the lack of an audience, and the fractioning up of dev teams required to maintain Wii U support are all very good excuses. lol

The largest problem with the Wii U and it's poor sales is the lack of games. With a lack of games how is the Wii U going to succeed?

It seems EA has already locked the door even if the Wii U becomes a sudden wild success will they pretend this statement never happened?

Talk about burning bridges. I think NFS will be my last game I buy from them. COD BLOPs 2 was also great fun and hope more can come from Activision but once the mighty dictator of games turns it back on Nintendo, I feel that the Wii U will be short lived with only Ubisoft having faith with the system and I will support them.

On the other hand though, Nintendo and what few other companies support the Wii U. Gamers on the Wii U only will be starved of many great games. Once again the Nintendo hardware will become a "companion console" to one of the others.

Sad as it seems, it's quickly becoming a reality.

Nintendo should have dropped the PPC architecture and gone with X86.

So they're not going to take focus away from ps and xbox and pc to do what they were originally saying they were going to do? Make up your mind EA!

@ungibbed Everybody is saying that!!!! You don't have to as well because everybody knows that.

And the same old cycle continues: if you want to play Nintendo titles, you buy N's console, and for all the other titles you buy the X/PS. Nintendo was supposed to have smartened up and make the U appealing to ALL developers so that gamers wouldn't need to buy two consoles, but clearly not. Now we get to wait another 7-8 years for the next N console to see if they can get it right... that is, if N is even still in business...

I've only ever purchased two games from EA,Dead Space Extraction and Need For Speed wii U.

@Yorumi Most people with the Wii either A) never bought games or B) only bought Nintendo games.
The attach rate was horrible.

Also other platforms are seeing just as much, if not more indie support. So your whole 'I'm glad I'm not seeing these games' stance is interesting, nicely put.

@Imagine23 All businesses are designed for only one thing and thats profit. If they provide what the market wants, then they profit and stay around. As of now the U is not what the market wants, clearly. Perhaps the U is what the market wanted 4 years ago (which is my contention) or perhaps the market will desire it a year from now, but so far the U has not resonated with consumers and that's not really EA's fault. EDIT: it should be noted that a console has two markets to appeal to: consumers AND developers. If it doesn't strike both chords at the same time then it will stuggle and/or fail.

Wanna start out by saying "greetings to all." This is my first time posting and I am a new member to Nintendo Life. While I think EA games would be great on the Wii U. I honestly don't think it is going to make or break the console. Nintendo has always had great first party games, that with Ubisoft support and Capcom has been doing well on the Wii U as well. I believe over time the Wii U will sell better and more games will follow that success.

Unfortunately the Wii U like others have stated may follow the path of the Wii and become a companion system next to PC, XBOX One, and PS4. While I also have the Wii U and my PC for gaming. I bought the Wii U and other Nintendo consoles because they offer games and experiences I can't get anywhere else. 96% of PS3, PS4, 360, and XBOX One games are available on PC anyway. Nintendo offers something different which is why my console of choice has always been Nintendo.

Anyway, that is just my opinion. This website seems great and I hope to become a regular here.

So apparantly the 4 million Wii U owners out there aren't considered gamers by EA. Cool. I'd love to see Star Wars games on Wii U, and BioWare games, but other than that, EA's games are crap imo. I wish they didnt own BioWare and Star Wars, but it is what it is i guess.

Meh never liked EA and there poopydingdongdoodly games. I have both wii u and xbox 360 and never supported their products, well except mass effect til they doodoopooped on 3s ending.

I would just like to see EA and some of these other companies help drive Wii U sales, like Ubisoft is doing. Maybe develop new IPs that drive sales for the system and make yourself profitable. Instead of sending port after port down the pipeline give something that is new and unique to the Wii U that takes advantage of its features.

I hate that the whole gaming industry has become a sequel and port overloaded mess. I understand that they need to make a profit and there is more risk with new IPs but the whole gaming landscape is becoming stale with sequel after sequel and sloppy ports across all the systems.

@uberluigi So you never supported them, you just purchased all three games of their largest non-sports franchise

That is very admirable of you.

i buy nintendo consoles for nintendo games, so not having EA support it isnt really a big deal for me

After their whole PR mishap with twitter and the comment left by EA senior employee, I write off all their reasons as lame excuses with a undertone.

"One game with poor sales can ruin a company as seen hundreds of times last gen."

lol. I think you meant thousands, maybe even millions or gazillions.

This explains it all!

http://youtu.be/e-LE0ycgkBQ

@triforcepower73

Who is @Everybody? Forgive me for realizing the truth of it all and simply sharing my first thoughts about the situation on this website.

sigh

@HarveyManback Hi and welcome!

@Burning_Spear Thank You!

@GazPlant It's a perfectly logical reason, but the problem is that the lack of gamers stems, mainly, from the lack of games. It goes in loop, publishers won't publish games on a console that isn't supported by gamers, but gamers won't support a console unless publishers put out games they want on that console. If the first titles released on a console don't bring in a large enough crowd the whole system kind of falls flat with publishers.

Everyone buy Ubisoft's games so they won't drop the Wii U as well.

well no support from just about any 3rd party publisher is a shame, & not just lack of support from EA... i would buy a few EA games on my wii u too like mass effect trilogy, mirror's edge 2, star wars battlefront 3 & battlefield 4 as well as other future titles if it would interest me.

I honestly dislike the bipolar behavior people have with EA and Nintendo.
It's either "AAAAAARHIHGEEFHGALE THEY'RE TERRIBLY IMMATURE WHO NEEDS THEM WHATEVER"
or
"Guys, they're just doing business."

Yet, I'm seeing a noticeably few that acknowledges both sides.
Seriously, NOW all the people who are saying "they're just doing business" are speaking out and defending their posts because of this most recent outline.
But when individuals from EA were making several biased comments against the Wii U, as well as EA as a whole making terrible decisions for the Wii U's launch while throwing excuses out there: The "just doing business" crowd was at an all-time quiet.

I understand. EA is a company. I understand they will make decisions according to profit and spending and market and shares.
That's obvious.
I also understand the Wii U isn't that appealing even at its current state.

I agree. EA is just doing business.

But I can't ignore what it had done in the past either.
It seems that the "just doing business" crowd wants to ignore what it had done in the past despite its promises of being unprecedented in its support.
You can say that they made these decisions due to how the Wii U turned out - but you can also say that the Wii U turned out that way because of EA.

You make new audiences.
You make gambles.
You don't put a 3rd entry to a series into a console, give it no access to new DLC, while the trilogy collection is in other consoles and claim that there's no audience for the series in a Nintendo platform (why would new audiences pick up the 3rd gimped entry if they haven't even played the first?).
You don't say that you can't give them any support at the moment when you supported the Wii, the PS3, and the 360 all at once in the previous generation, with the Wii having exclusives (that used its lower power but unique controls effectively) - and most audiences (the ones who just bought Wii for Wii Sports) in the Wii not even aware of the EA support during that time.

You can't just make up these reasons, even as reasonable as they currently are, when your previous reasons and evidences counter your current state of mind.
It's an excuse at this point.

I understand EA is a business, one that me and my wife have respected for a long time (we love their franchises and have bought several of their limited editions)... but I'm not going to pretend that their treatment of the Wii U has been specifically for the reasons they've entailed above, when they've said and done other things that entail something else entirely previously.

It's one thing of being understanding for a renewed response.
It's another thing of accepting to become ignorant just because they did damage control.

If youre mainly going where the gamers go then where are the 3ds games?

obviously you a support is clearly for Microsoft and Sony I also think that if the ps3 and xbox 360 can run some of these games I don't know why in the hell,the wii '' U'' cannot lies lies and more lies.... Too many contradicting reports about the graphical capabilities of wii U, what are they trying to say is it the RAM or is it the AMD Radeon card what is it GPU CPU I mean what exactly is it and then nintendo is not helping the cause by keeping all the specifications of the Machine quietly under wraps very suspect on all aspects between the EA and also Nintendo

@3Daniel A 3DS would require fragmenting their dev teams. Its not like console games are easily ported to handheld hardware. They would have to separate their devs into separate teams for every game, which is not an efficient way of developing games.

Same goes for the Wii U. If it were architecturally similar to the other consoles, ports would be considerably easier. Instead, much more work has to go into a Wii U port, than a PS4 to X1 port. Therefore its not feasible unless the game will be a guaranteed success, which isn't much of a promise on either Nintendo platform at the moment. As stated in this article.

Now I just wish they would make up their mind on what excuse they want to stick with.. the problem is.. they pretty much said if the Wii U were to sell 15 million units overnight all of a sudden they would be there.. and damn their Frostbite Engine.. and all the lack of their work teams etc.. now they say because they have limited resources they can't afford to make games for the Wii U.. and before it was I believe the same excuse as the second one.. How about you just say Nintendo sucks.. you don't want to support them until they sell a trillion units.. and even then you will only do it with cheap ports.. and ripoff games with no DLC.. maybe releasing one really great title every once in awhile.. we are adults.. EA.. we can handle truth... just come out and admit it.. and no I don't want to hear anymore excuses about hardware and underpowered.. because you already admitted if enough units sold you would make games for it.. so apparently Underpowered is not an issue..the Engine your using is not an issue.. nor is the work teams you have.. (And I am going to be nice.. and not bring up what every developer.. and heck even Sony and Microsoft said about the power needed to make triple A titles.)

EA is lying... EA has always supported all consoles, no matter the sales... think Game cube for example... this is about something else... they are not the only ones to blame though for this mess... Nintendo is doing a horrible job with WiiU. I hope things get together with the new software line-up, but honestly i don't think there's enough there for everybody. Hope i'm worng... anyway, what EA has been saying all this time is a LIE and that's why they keep winning the worst company ever prize

Blah blah blah, more bull-crap excuses from the big boys at EA. I hope they don't have a diaper rash from all of this horse feces. The poor sales is a horrid excuse because of their evident support for the Gamecube in its darkest hour. Clearly this is another lie.

Sales thus far:
Wii U = about 5 million
PS4 = 0
Xbox One = 0
We'll see what happens...

Also, I still don't know why people defend EA.

I suppose you're defending EA's point, while at the same time attacking the Wii U's poor points...
But, honestly, EA's practices shouldn't be supported.
My wife and I may have loved their franchises, but they didn't make the franchises, they just published them... in fact, many of those franchises were ruined by EA's decisions of rushed dates, marketing hype mismanagement, obsessions with DLC management, and making once-exclusive games non-exclusive to certain consoles that ruins the design philosophy behind them in the coming sequels.

EA's a business. But their standards are terrible.
Think twice before you defend them.

@Kiokothepirate Yep, and that's why this Xmas is more important than ever for Nintendo, and probably explains why we got 3D World and DKC over a Galaxy sequel and Metroid - need to shift units!

@Koto
"Everyone buy Ubisoft's games"
I'm not too sure about that. I'm honestly not that interested in Assassin's Creed or a game Like Watch_Dogs. Rayman seems ok, but again, I'm not sure.
As crazy as this sounds alot of games Wii U isn't getting from 3rd parties isn't reallythat big of a deal. I understand people have their own opinions, but it just seems like people are trying to tell others that they should care about supporting a game when they really don't care.
When Ubisoft makes another game as good as they used to, I'll buy it. Until then, I ain't buying crappy 3rd party games like everyone seems to want people to do.
I just wanted to make it known that people don't buy 3rd just because it's 3rd party. There's more to it than, "It's not Nintendo".

all of these developer scare of the wii u

So you saw lackluster sales on releasing poor ports of games on other consoles (not figuring that most people may have owned those consoles), then you whien that you are not seeing enough sales.

Then you whine about the development difficulties, although I am led to believe by others that it is just an expansion of the Wii which you did develop for....

Then you whine about dividing up your teams, yet you still put work in Wii and PS2 ports of games. Exactly how many sales did you clear there that justified a dividing of teams.

Not buying it.

The lack of support from just about every third party disgusts me. It's hard for me to even see the Wii U as a game console right now and that's a damn shame.

Nintendo made huge mistakes with the Wii U, such as the lack of Wii Sports, the high price, and the cumbersome Gamepad. Now they're paying for those mistakes. Don't blame EA, blame Nintendo.

Everyone knows EA does do some crappy stuff. But, they also make the only NFL game, and some of the top sports games in every other sport too. They also have some of the all-time best series/franchises. So, even if you hate them, you probably like a few of their games.

EA is making smart business decisions. If Nintendo makes it hard to make games and hard to support DLC, hard to implement online gaming, compared to the other 2 next gen systems, then they have to skip games to force Nintendo to wake up and catch up to the technology everyone else seems to easily make available to customers and developers.

Its not only EA by the way, 75% of 3rd parties are ignoring the Wii U, so the common denominator is Nintendo that is messing up for 3rd parties.

@Tasuki I agree their marketing is nonexistent but they don't really have any first party/exclusives to advertise and when they had lego city and monster hunter they still did nothing to really advertise those games. The way Nintendo has handled the wii u launch has been mind boggling.

@AyeHaley Pre-orders are insane for both compared to what Wii U had.

I got my Wii U at the #1 selling toys R us(has most sales in the USA each year) and Best buys and I was 1st in line to get it at the toys R us and only 12 people showed up before the store opened. Most launches have hundreds there overnight that I went to in the past for 360/ps3, etc.

So EA im not a gamer? Funny cause I've been gaming for almost 20 years..but why can't they make a version of their fancypanted engine and make it run on the WiiU? If it's so underpowered and all that what's stopping them. But oh we can still make games for the 360 AND PS3 but oh their focused on the "next gen". Hmmm I figured generations went by when systems are released not on the specs, guess I was wrong right EA? Nintendo was around before EA was even thought about yet they have the stones to openly respect a so called business partner.. I'll never by another EA again knowingly.

@Yorumi This is because the Wii U severely lacks in content. Come holiday season Nintendo will have their games out, but there's next to nothing filling the gap between now and then. At the moment we don't even have an idea whether Ubisoft has anything planned for Wii U in 2014 let alone something akin to a ZombiU or Red Steel sequel.

I'm certain we're looking at a second 3DS situation. The 3DS didn't do so well until Zelda, Mario, and Mario Kart finally came around. Here we are again. There's a nice library of good (and even great) games available along with the Wii library, but no sales because "They're ports of games I already own/can get on another console/can get cheaper..." Once Mario Kart 8 hits, the Wii U will jump in sales. Wind Waker is only going to help with anticipation for Zelda U. Bayonetta 2 is going to help attract the "hardcore" crowd. And we're bound to get other games that have the same allure as Fire Emblem Awakening, Kid Icarus Uprising, and Animal Crossing New Leaf.

In short, sure it looks as though the Wii U is going to get left behind this generation, but I'm still going to have a lot of games I'll be able to play on the Wii U with experiences that cannot be matched without the GamePad or Nintendo's own flair.

No EA is harmful to the system, but losing one developer doesn't doom a system to gaming damnation.

"...let's not take away the focus from the PlayStations and the Xboxes and the PCs.." goes to show that Nintendo is yet again (like always) the unique one of the bunch. The rest are just clones of each other, offering nothing different from the next system. "If we could press a button to move it over to Wii U.." lol, well if life were that easy, where for everything there was a button...hmm. It's called work, something EA hasn't been doing lately. You gotta put some effort in your job.

I can see where they are coming from business wise but it still sucks. Not that I really play any EA games anyways...

logical, these guys aint games fanatics, they like coins only. also imagine when ea would make downgraded versions of their games on the wiiu, i would not be intrested. 1 thing i like from ea, its need for speed, but you can play it on any system so,. NP

Gods I hope they get bit in the donkey for this.
Sometimes I wonder if Nintendo's demand to be unique isn't a quiet demanding studios work to be creative again. You know, since they can't push a button to bring it over.

I think it's great that they're not considering shoveling XBox 360 onto the WII U, the hardware is unique with the gamepad and they should be making games when it's appropriate to allocate enough game developers to make awesome games tuned to the platform.

XBox One and PS4 appear to be identical platforms in terms of controls, and even hardware capabilities. PC games has shown that the range of scaling can be pretty wide, but when the controls are different the game needs to be designed for the platform (Just like Civilization V cannot be exactly the same on PC and XBox).

There is no emotional attachment or conspiracy, its all about the bottom line and that's all matter's to big businesses like EA.

You know what? Get bent, EA. Screw you. I was marginally interested in Mass Effect, but no more. I will not buy any of your games in the future. I will not buy add-ons for your social games. You want to be this backhanded to Nintendo gamers? Here's /my/ backhanding you right off of my game shelf. And no, I won't be back.

EA: so when nintendo says they need to sell more systems the fans agree, but when we say it we get bashed.wtf

Dear EA,
The gamers are here and you are not. There is a reason you are the worst company in America and with an approach like this it is easy to see. We know you are out for money because that is what a business does and what a business also does is provide good-great customer service. By porting over to the WiiU games people already have but worse will not help you. That is just being lazy and I honestly hope to see your company go down in flames.
From,
The real gamers

@Strongo9 Hear hear!

Whatever... I did not buy a Wii U for EA games. I have it for the 10+ awesome Nintendo games over the next 3-4 years. Simple as that! A few good 3rd party games is a bonus.
On another note, I do not hear Nintendo asking them to make games for the Wii U... I only hear reporters asking. Find a new story lazy reporters.

It goes to show how EA follows the almighty dollar; with them, it's a big popularity contest. None of the games listed are "hard core" It would be great if some other developer successfully used the Frostbite 3 engine, just to prove them wrong...

@SCAR392
Guess it's more of "Buy Ubisoft's games if it interests you!"
Though judging by the current Nintendo fanbase, I'm not sure many will be buying those games. I just fear that even if Wii U starts selling very well again, third parties will drop support again if they find that the "AAA" games they bring to the console just aren't finding a big enough audience with the Wii U crowd, even if they finally start putting the same amount of effort and content as the other versions.

@Williaint

This is just a rumour and I do not have any evidence of it but I have read somewhere that some people in EA got Frostbite 2 running on the Wii U but EA hushed it up as they were not interested in supporting the console. Might be true looking how EA is supporting the Wii and NOT the Wii U. They are even supporting the PS2!

The only game i will miss from all the upcomming EA titles is Mirror's Edge 2.
I could get that on the PC but i refuse to buy games that require Origin after i had some hands on with it while playing BF3.
I still hope the WiiU will get a good boost over the holidays and after MK8 is released. I gues that could entice them to bring these games (or in my case just ME2) to the WiiU.

I don't care if EA does not make any games for Wii U. I hate them anyway. Nintendo is the best gaming company the way I see it. EA is "evil".

I could care less about EA. Whatever.

So in translating that blurb of smoldering turd they're basically singling out Nintendo entirely and breaking the general pattern and rule of how system launches from established hardware makers go. They won't release a steady stream of games for the system until it can prove itself versus we're readying a heap of titles for other existing and upcoming new systems instead. Yeah that makes perfect sense. Launch window a few titles, then make nothing more, then point fingers and say a system is floundering (no sh*t, they do that with no steady third party releases) and say the only fix is to have more games but not supply any yourself. That makes complete sense.

@tanookisuit
Yea it makes complete sense!
Especially considering the fact that EA said that it is very proud of their 4 games on Wii U and due to low sales is not developing further on Wii U till sales of the console rise. This makes sense mainly because 3 out of 4 of those titles were botched up ports or released too late with features missing.

EA does have a total different way of making sense.

It's a hardware issue ok then why is Need 4 Speed Most Wanted on it and it runs BETTER then on PS3/360 version. If it's SUCH hardware issue how come you were able put Madden 13 and Mass Effect 3 on RELEASE!!

This guy is just another EA corporate drone that's full of $#%@ and STILL won't give the REAL reasons behind the lack of support.

@Tasuki the thing is they avoided the Wii U from the beginning because no console takes off on 1st party titles alone (well Nintendo is partially an exception but still) so the whole point is to bring out the support early on and see how sales go based on good early support to then determine whether u continue that support, however EA along with other developers have totally dodged the Wii U in terms of support which definitely resulted less sales

I'm bored of these articles about how no one is supporting the Wii U here is my list of games I plan on getting for the Wii U.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist* - 23rd August 2013
Rayman Legends* - 30st August 2013
Batman: Arkham Origins* - 25th October 2013
Watch Dogs* - 22nd November 2013
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - November 2013
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag* - 1st November 2013
Super Mario 3D World - December 2013
Sonic Lost World* - TBA
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut* - TBA
Mario Kart 8 - Spring 2014
Bayonetta 2 - 2014
Monolith Soft X - 2014

It's going to be a busy 2013 & 2014 & I still have games to get which have already been released & I want to play like Resident Evil & Injustice.

He went on a bit didn't he? he could of easily shortend his whole explanation of lack support to ' We just couldn't be bothered'... which He did say in a long winded way. 'If we could of press a button'... like they do on every cross platform game.. the enter key on Convert to <insert platform> option.

@Koto
I think 3rd party games will pick up once Xbox One and PS4 launch. Those are the systems those companies are aiming for, so we aren't going to get 3rd party games without those systems.
That's fine, but when games like Destiny, GTA V, Madden, etc. start showing up on all consoles, people are going to wonder why they didn't show up, IF they don't. It's not Nintendo's decision what 3rd parties do.
Early assumptions and blatantly false claims are to blame here.

Three syllables: Three. Dee. Ess. It's the same situation all over again!

They come off just as insecure as many of the 'bros' who buy their games.

@Koto
Thats the real kicker here. Wether or not we like the company or their games doesn't matter, cause there are plenty of people who do that won't buy a console that doesn't have those games and those that do probably already have a console or PC that does.

CONSOLES are not PC's. EA is pushing consoles to PC arch which is INSANE. Wii U is very different because it's console!!!!! where EA want to develop only for PC's (XBOX, PC, PS4) what is happening with Consoles these days? -.-

This is really bad for the Wii U.

@Tasuki Actually that is a major misconception about business. EA. is notin the business to make money, they are in the business to entertain. If they do a good job of entertaining then they will make a profit. When businesses become about money first, that is when they collapse.

EA... lol... listen: So if I take that point of view from you guys, then you're saying if the Wii U was more popular, then you'd spare no expense to "make" it work for the Wii U, though without any substantial effort, your frostbite engine won't run on the Wii U to bring those games over? Yep. That's business talk. I feel for your developers... I'm sure many of them would accept the challenge if your red tape didn't stop them. And, you go where the gamers are huh? The gamers are EVERYWHERE, on ALL systems and PC. Neglect at your own peril.

@Burning_Spear I understand what you mean, but if a company shows that it's too focused on being where the money's at, they may lose touch with consumers. They have to balance both thier income and their impression
If you only help those who will give you a huge reward as a thanks(8th gen) , and leave those who don't seem profitable (wiiu) to rot on the floor, you look like a first-class, greedy donkeyhole.
Probably not the best analogy, but i'm sure you get what i'm trying to say

1. Frostbite won't run on any system unless it is optimized for it. Frostbite 3 should actually run better on Wii U than Frostbite 2 would, so to say that it didn't run very well is obvious as it wasn't designed to.

2. EA's launch titles were total garbage. Why would anyone buy a rebranded FIFA 12 or Madden when FIFA 13 was on 360/PS3. EA seems to think that they can rip people off and are shocked when their garbage doesn't sell.

3. All of their excuses are BS (even the install base as that wasn't an issue at launch). They were just butt-hurt over Nintendo turning down their Origin demands.

I have vowed never to buy an EA game new again on any system (I own Wii U, PS3, 360 and 3DS). If they release something good then I'll pick it up used so the greedy douchebags won't get a single cent out of me. I just wish that others would do the same, then maybe EA would stop their dispicable practices.

Gotta love how people actually seem happy about less games on the shelf for Wii U.
I hate fanboy nonsense, and it stinks in here....

If they do good games then I'll buy one, but with Battlefield 4 or the same 3 that I never got the chance to play!!

Look how many comments in here and how many comments for Kokuga.
As a 25 year old gamer that started with a SNES i now really feel like i don't belong in this gaming world anymore...

Honestly, why would we want EA games anyway?
They're always going to put out the same crappy games with "major updates" yearly that are never really anything but a new texture on some wall with a number on the title.

The Wii U is better without AAA titles because gaming is about... well, playing the game not watching the game or letting the game play itself
I can't believe how many people forgot what gaming is all about over the years.

I hope the situation changes to the point where they will start actively publishing for Nintendo systems again. Even though there hasn't been many EA published games that have appealed to me lately, I still would like to see a healthy variety of games from a variety of publishers

stupid EA is stupid >.>

You might want to fix this line, "Many EA games use the Frostbite 3 engine, which has apparently tested poorly on the Wii U,". They never even tested Frostbite 3, just Frostbite 2 which doesn't make use of cache (the one thing the Wii U has lots of).

They forgot, "we have a partnership with Microsoft and we're being paid off to avoid the Wii U."

@Lasermaster123
I've heard Something along those lines as well, but as you said, it's just a rumour. What isn't a rumour, though, is that Wii U was built to be more compatible... that is what they said in 2012...

I use to have ALOT of respect for EA but not anymore, this is really getting annoying about EA. I'll stick with Ubisoft.

@Williant

Well whatever the case may be, when the Wii U sales will hit the roof with the great upcoming IPs (especially in 2014) EA will then miraculously be able to run Frostbite 3 flawlessly on the Wii U as if the whole Frostbite 2 fiasco never happened! You can EA to change its colours pretty quick.

@GazPlant This is typical business smarts in an industry that has been in a 10-13% decline for years now, year after year. Game engines are very complex and it would take a decent sized team quite a long time to configure the Frozenbite 3 engine for the Wii U. With the console only having a few million units on the market for an extended period of time - why spend the money to do this, when you know as good as I do, that the majority of the Wii U owners will not purchase these titles on the console. Yes, the readers here will, but they are in the minority - Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 sales on the Wii U are atrocious, in comparison to competing consoles, and the Wii U version had exclusive content.

PS3 and Xbox One are just a continuation what we already have with current generation consoles - it is just a console refresh to draw in interest. These consoles will also sell very well at first, but your going to see the current generation consoles outperform them for the first year in software sales.

Nintendo should have never entered the HD market if it wasn't going to push a competitive and fully functional online features. Keeping high profile titles like Super Mario 3D World offline is just baffling.

Lord.....EA has been all over the map.....we get it WiiU sales suck to much for your liking and despite being the largest 3RD party publisher you can't find resources? First all this about engines and difficulty....why is crytek got cryengine up and running quickly and it is being used for Shadows of the Eternals which looks great. NFSMW was ported in moths and upgraded with PC. The company that made SniperV2 said the had no problem getting their Asure engine up quickly, Unreal 3 was ported swiftly and used for launch games.....Nintendo has been accomodating supporting things like Unity and HTML5 for Indies.....The WiiU architecture is not that exotic....PowerPC has been around for 20 years and used in many consoles and the GPU is AMD who makes GPUs for everyone.....In modern development you get your engine running and all your resources like textures, music, audio, speech all get scaled and put in the engine. Essentially PS4 and XBone went with highly PC centric designs...which will make it easier to move software between systems, but it will also make it very likely that everything non 1st party makes it to PC.

to be honest i think this is just EA lying like they usually do, it has nothing to do with detracting from the ps4 or xbox one. the wii u uses similar parts manufactured by AMD and intel and have been used in PC's. also you can if you give any programming make these thing run, its just the don't wont to as EA has a good thing with PS3 and XBOX 360, it is all to do with making money nothing else.

they only thing they ever do right is those stupid FPS game and football games wow what a pile of rubbish. also EA excuse for the new simcity game is laughable. i am sick to death with EA.

then there is the lack of DLC, oh our games arnt selling why is this happening
1. you take away half the content that you give the other platforms
2. you put out games that have been around for the past 2 years
3. you do a half assed job of porting them
4. masseffect uses the frostbite engine so look anther lie from the company that make lieing a pastime.

EA just has no consideration for its customers they never listen and have a idea the know what they the customer needs. its a joke you need to listen to the customer instead of just say well its our artistic integrity. what is it there artistic integrity to make game that anger people to do the opposite to what there customer wants. they make a product they need to deliver a product that the customer wants.

blaming poor sales of there games on the hardware sale is a poor excuse it is the lack of respect for the customer that has put EA game sales down for the Wii U. if they made a good game they could sell more but like so many things EA does is lacking.
this is just like a load of children having a temper tantrum, they need to listen to their customers instead of thinking the know whats best for their customer.