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Kevin Knezevic
I don’t think anyone expected Rayman Legends to stay a Wii U exclusive for very long (what third party game these days doesn’t make its way to every platform it can?), but seeing Ubisoft delay the title just so it can be released simultaneously with the newly announced Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions was more than a little insulting to Nintendo fans, and illustrates just how little faith the studio has in the console. From what we’ve heard, the game was essentially complete by the time this decision was made, so rather than release an already-finished product, Ubisoft decided that the only fair course of action was to make Wii U owners wait another seven months to play it. (Of course, no such concessions were made for us when Assassin’s Creed III launched, but that would just be pointing out the hypocrisy behind this whole decision.)
You certainly can’t fault a publisher for wanting to eke as much profit out of a release as possible, but doing it this way effectively undermines the game’s chances of success on Wii U. The same thing happened with Resident Evil 4 on GameCube. Like Rayman, it too was supposed to be a Nintendo exclusive, but a few months before the game was even released, Capcom announced that it would be coming to PlayStation 2 as well. The title still fared well considering the system’s small install base (especially compared to Sony’s at the time), but I’d wager its sales would have been much higher had it stayed an exclusive and forced those who really wanted to play it to pick up a GameCube. Rayman doesn’t carry nearly as much weight as Resident Evil does these days, so it’s easy to imagine it performing even worse once it does finally make its way to store shelves later this year.
It’s deja vu all over again.
It certainly doesn’t help that this comes on the heels of a string of disappointing third party news, topped off by the announcement that EA would not be bringing Madden 25 to either Wii U or 3DS. I’m sure the Nintendo fanbase makes up only a small portion of Madden’s audience, so its absence shouldn’t have that much of an impact on either console’s fortunes, but symbolically, the news comes as a slap in the face to the Big N. EA releases Madden on every platform available, so to see it skip out on Wii U completely, especially when the system is more than capable of running the same engine as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, is just about the worst gesture I can think of, especially from a studio that, as Lewis said, once sang Wii U’s praises. Add to that the half-hearted port of Mass Effect 3 we received at launch (while Xbox and PlayStation owners were treated to a Mass Effect Trilogy compilation at around the same time), plus the news that Tiger Woods PGA World Tour is apparently skipping out on Wii U as well, and it’s clear the company doesn’t put much stock in Nintendo’s new console.
Still, while this news is frustrating to hear, I doubt it’ll have much of an effect on Nintendo in the long run; like Josh has said, this is something we Nintendo fans are used to by now, having lived through the great defection of the Nintendo 64 era, the gimped ports on GameCube, and most recently, the wait-and-see approach that studios took with Wii (which never amounted to anything substantial). Nintendo’s third party problem isn’t any worse than it’s ever been; in some cases it’s even better, with big-name franchises like Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest making their home on Nintendo systems. There’s no doubt the company will still turn the Wii U into a marginal success all on its own efforts, but it’s clear now more than ever that fans will have to pick up another console if they want to play the best non-Nintendo games on the market.
Adam Sorice
Oh Wii U, it hasn’t been a good week for you. First Ninja Gaiden 3 went multiplatform, then Rayman Legends did the same with a nasty release delay and now both Madden 25 and the new Tiger Woods won’t be making an appearance at all. As gut punches go, EA’s excuse for the non-appearance of Tiger was rather precious: “on the Xbox 360 and PS3 […] we have a great opportunity to connect fans to the real world of golf and each other.” To me, nothing quite screams “GOOOOOOLLLFFFFF” like the Xbox but that’s a story for another day.
While the expanding of platforms for Rayman and the reduction of platforms for Madden may seem unrelated, maybe they do have something in common: brand credibility. Already, some developers and gamers (and sunshine of the gaming criticism world; ass-hat Michael Pachter) are declaring the Wii U to be a lame egg and perhaps EA feel that releasing their coolest games on the console (again, I can not stress enough the innate hipness of golf as a sport for the young, lucrative male market here) will not only draw an economic loss but actually damage their brand in some respect? Marc’s already discussed how big a deal it appears for Nintendo to be losing out on Madden (which for the record, is only remotely popular in North America and nowhere else) and EA certainly aren’t thinking financially here; the drop in the ocean that multiplatform development for Wii U would cost is a minor risk compared to the potential hordes of profit that a successful Wii U iteration could potentially provide. The Tiger Woods franchise certainly reviewed well on Wii and sold pretty strongly as well, all thanks to the innovative control scheme that actually felt like golf (because moving a controller like a golf club is inherently un-golf like, according to EA). Clearly the company didn’t pay attention to the console’s launch trailer back at E3 (of which I’m fairly certain they were a part of) that demonstrated how the tablet could be placed on the floor and used in tandem with the Wii Remote to see the ball on the turf as you hit because that game *needs* to be made and one would think that EA would be best placed to make it and make it well.
It’s obvious that only Xbox and PlayStation owners would want to play something as physically demanding as a Tiger Woods game.
So that’s one side of the coin, EA wanting to sit at the cool kids’ table (again, golf) and exclude Nintendo. On the other side you have Rayman Legends, a fabulous looking game that represented a new wave of third-party creativity and commitment to Nintendo’s consoles. I’ve never been a particularly massive Rayman fan but Legends had definitely piqued my interest and I was planning on picking it up when I finally got a Wii U (the reasons for why this has yet to happen is, again, another story.) However, the company’s decision to both delay the game but half a year and then to ship it out to other consoles is just not cricket (or golf for that matter.) On one side, I can appreciate the share holder position that Wii U is growing to look ever more risky (just like the 3DS did this early into its life cycle, mais non?) and even risking a single-platform release to see how things pan out is utterly unthinkable but in objective terms, Ubisoft needs to stop thinking about short-term profit today and start building a sustainable future in terms of brand credibility.
I’m always careful in mapping my own personal experiences onto the millions of console owners out there but I sense I can’t be the only one who feels slightly rejected by this move and, as a result, far less likely to actually pick up Legends at anywhere near its full price-point, if at all. Just as Nintendo has been viewed by EA as a toxic brand, this move will do no favours to Ubisoft’s brand credibility amongst Nintendo’s own fans and that’s where this problem begins to loop very quickly; companies bemoan that third party software doesn’t do well on Nintendo’s consoles but simultaneously fail to realise that Nintendo’s consoles have singularly been kept alive by some of the most die-hard fans in popular culture. Nintendo fans are patient, often masochistic in our desires, willing to settle but, above all, incredibly loyal to those that support them. So when third-parties rock up with me-too (or even sub-par) variants of old games, or take our promised, shiny new games and give them to the other kids first, we’re not all that appreciative and the next time Ubisoft or EA brings out a new game, desperate for our money. We weigh up the intriguingness of what’s being offered to us, the risk of investing in a game which doesn’t have the iron-clad promise of quality we’ve come to learn from subsequent Zelda, Mario and Pokémon games and then we remember that last time, we kind of got screwed over for Rayman Legends. And Tiger Woods. And Madden. And Ninja Gaiden 3. And so we put our money back in our pocket and wait for Mario Kart Wii U instead.
After all in the world of high school popularity games, the nerds shall inherit the earth.
Kyle England
Funny how we’re talking about this just a short time after I wrote my article about Nintendo’s screw-ups. Everyone is going to think we’re screaming doom and gloom, but that’s not necessarily the case.
I think we should preface our complaints about Wii U’s lack of games with this: no modern console has had a perfect first act. It takes time to build up consumers and gather momentum to consistently push out great games. The first Wii benefited from a tremendous launch in 2006, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.
So, about those third party developers. Honestly, in the past 15 years Nintendo has never depended too much on the third parties. Third party exclusives were few and far between for N64, GameCube, and Wii. It’s true that Nintendo has extended an olive branch to publishers with Wii U, and we have already seen a couple results of this with games like ZombiU and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. So why do they keep getting snubbed?
Games like Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate prove that Nintendo’s third party situation isn’t as dire as many people make it out to be.
I don’t believe anybody like EA or Ubisoft has a vendetta against Wii U. These publishers are companies, and the goal of a company is to make money. There’s something looming across the horizon, and that’s the next generation of consoles. Sony and Microsoft’s next systems are going to be more powerful than Wii U, plain and simple. Also, the Wii U just doesn’t have the userbase to make a release profitable at this point in the console cycle. A publisher won’t bother printing and shipping copies of a game for Wii U when the profits are minimal, and soon their multiplatform games won’t have ports for the system. The games that are coming out this year are probably the last big push for systems running on 7th generation hardware.
Unfortunately, this is probably going to lead Wii U to a very similar situation that Wii had. Other platforms are going to get the big third party releases, and the Nintendo console will be left with first and second party titles, some technically lower ports, and a smattering of third party exclusives. But I believe this gap between Wii U and other consoles won’t be as large as the gap was with Wii.
Is this bad? Not at all. Nintendo doesn’t care about the most powerful games. Nintendo cares about the most innovation. Wii U is a console that has experiences that can’t be replicated on other systems. We are going to see great games made specifically for the hardware. Games ported from other systems are perfectly serviceable, but after a year or so that won’t really matter anymore. Personally, I think Wii U would be a great platform to port PC exclusive games to. These could be indie games, or current games scaled down. There really isn’t a console that does that right now. But to sum it up: the situation with third parties and Nintendo is nothing new. I’m not worried; I’m sure this will clear up and Nintendo will do just fine.
Now that you’ve read our thoughts, it’s your turn to weigh in. Do you think this string of news is a bad sign for Nintendo’s third party support, or is it no worse than it’s ever been? Moreover, should Nintendo fans be content to accept poor third party support, or can the Big N still make greater strides to improve it? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section!
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