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We’ve already heard that DICE’s Frostbite Engine 3 will not be compatible with Wii U given its “not too promising” test results with Frostbite 2, but the consequences of this could be much graver than they initially appeared; according to Frostbite technical director Stefan Boberg, 15 EA games are currently in development using Frostbite 3, which may skip Wii U entirely due to its alleged incompatibility with the engine.
Among the games that the console could be missing out on are BioWare’s RPGs Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age 3, DICE’s own Battlefield 4, Need for Speed 2013, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, and EA’s unannounced Star Wars games. Those are some pretty big releases from the company, so seeing them skip out on Wii U altogether would be quite a blow for the console regardless of how you slice it.
What do you think this news? Were you looking forward to any of these titles? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Source: Eurogamer
Bah. EA can take the Frostbite engine and shove it. It’s interesting how there’s never any positive news about the company. Perhaps the worst company in America is doing Nintendo a favor by not releasing franchises they have driven into the ground on Wii U. But I bet they will still release Madden games on Nintendo systems. It’s strange because some of those Frostbite games run fine on Xbox 360 and PS3, systems that Wii U has proven to be just as capable as, if not more.
Nintendo ought to just tell EA they can take a hike, no more access to their platforms at all. I know that’s a terrible business move but it would be a great statement that would catch a lot of attention.
Sorry, I just don’t care for EA. They only games I’ve ever paid for by them was the Mass Effect Trilogy; Those games were good despite EA, not because of them.
I bet Nintendo could get Frostbite to work on Wii U, and anybody else who put in some effort.
I bet this is not a news story. What this guy kevin did was take a statement about one thing and extrapolate it to 15 future titles like corporate decisions are based on some idiotic idea of technology and not dollars and cents/sense. This rampant abuse of “journalism” lately is just stupid. Nothing on Frostbite 3 has been announced for any other next gen console either. Now this doesn’t mean it won’t be but the fact is if we are going to keep extrapolating this data to spell nintendooomed then maybe we should do the same for the competition which is in the same predicament. The reality is Frostbite 3 isn’t here because the market isn’t large enough. They are, and have specifically stated that they are, focusing on the consoles like 360 and PS3 which have a significant userbase. This is a money based decision. This modern version of “journalism” that tries to turn it into a conspiracy theory is just stupid. The WiiU will also have a larger userbase than MS or SONYs machine come november as well so they are certain to get the same support as those machines from companies with a focus on profit. Which I assure you includes EA. EA is just playing it safe so they don’t continue bleeding money and for now that means supporting the existing consoles in the market and not harming those future sales by convincing some of you to wait for the next generation version of TITLE A on any other platform.
Fact A: EA has stated they are not working on porting Frostbite 3 because of the tests they did with Frostbite 2 on Wii U.
Fact B: The games that Kevin listed all run off of the Frostbite 3 engine.
Conclusion: Those games are not coming to Wii U.
How is this bad journalism? Sounds like pretty sound logic based off of what industry officials are syaing.
If those were facts that’d be something. They aren’t though.
The quotes are being placed out of context. They tried to port an engine to WiiU directly in the hopes that it’d just work so that costs to deliver the titles multiplatform would be small and therefore something worth considering for a system with a userbase significantly smaller than PS3 or 360 (the only systems any FB3 games are actually announced for right now). This means they will have to re-engineer the engine for new consoles like the WiiU and will do so as time passes and userbases grow. You guys continue to blow this up into some weird conspiracy where EA is saying “SCREW YOU NINTENDO”. Read the actual statements.
Frostbite:
“Sometimes, at least for us, it’s focusing on what you do well and what you know well, and ensuring that you deliver something good than trying a bit too much, stretching yourself too thin and risking it.
“I’d rather play it safe, deliver something really good and then look at the future and what could possibly be done than trying a bit too hard and [failing].”
Madden:
“We will not be releasing a Wii U version of Madden NFL in 2013. However, we have a strong partnership with Nintendo and will continue to evaluate opportunities for delivering additional Madden NFL products for Nintendo fans in the future.”
If you read these without your jump to instant conspiracy theory then you’d realize they are talking about business decisions. Why focus on WiiU, or even PS4/720, when your technology works as is on current technology like the 360 and PS3 (The only consoles with FB3 games actually announced)? You guys continue to assume they are talking about games that won’t be done for 2 years from now. This is plain stupidity. The market does not work like this. Yes if by 2014 year-end, Nintendo doesn’t have as many units sold of WiiU as PS4 and 720 then maybe there would be cause for concern but this isn’t what EA is saying in these statements. They are talking about this year and where the profit actually is for this year. Nintendojo, as a Nintendo fan site, is responsible for proliferating this misinformation and the constant use of pseudo-journalism which relies on applying different (and beneficial) rules to MS and SONY but then acting like EA won’t apply any business sense to MS or SONYs new consoles in the future (despite the fact that they are doing so right now). What I am saying is stop this practice. If something isn’t announced for WiiU and is also not announced for PS4 and 720 then stop acting like this means Nintendo is doing something wrong. This isn’t a conspiracy. It is a business. EA is currently bleeding money and will do what is required to sustain their business. They are doing so. Stop twisting this to something that it is not.
I added the rumors tag and changed the headline slightly, which I admittedly should have done in the first place. But I did not extrapolate anything; I saw the news story posted on Eurogamer, which is one of the most respectable gaming outlets around, and sourced it as such. It may very well be that EA will release these games further down the line, but considering that DICE isn’t even thinking about bringing Frostbite 3 to Wii U (which company itself admitted– no extrapolation there), it’s incredibly unlikely.
As for our rampant abuse of “journalism,” I can assure you that none of us here make any pretense about being journalists (I certainly don’t). Nintendojo is foremost a fan site (just check the About section at the bottom if you need a reminder of that), and as such we’re run entirely by volunteers, who do not have the time nor the resources to follow up on every news story. That being said, we do our absolute best to maintain a standard of professionalism with everything we post, which is why I took the news story from an actual, reputable gaming site. Likewise, I did not embellish it with any of my own theories. If it’s disproved, I will update it as such. But as it stands (from EA’s halfhearted support of Wii U to DICE’s own comments yesterday), it looks like Nintendo won’t be getting any of these games.
(Now whether or not that actually matters is up for debate– Wii certainly did fine without them. But that’s another thing entirely.)
No. No, he actually has every right to call out your journalism. This isn’t a news story based on any fact other then its coming from a company is who butthurt they couldn’t sucker the most profitable and rich gaming company into using an online service wildly panned. If Frostbyte can be easily used on PS3 and 360, why not WiiU? Are they that technically incompetent or are the publisher exectives trying to guilt Nintendo into bowing down to them?
All in all, you are ignoring facts just to gather them internet hits. WiiU is supposedly in trouble despite it outdoing PS3 and 360’s first years on the market in only a matter of months? EA has laid off thousands of employees and closed dozen of studios but Nintendo not getting their shitty games is a bad thing?
…Though considering your sites pedigree since 2001 (hey folks, google search Nintendojo Bad Japanese and you will see what I mean!), this honestly doesn’t surprise me.
The insinuations that we’re posting these deliberate attempts to “get hits” are, quite frankly, tiring, as are the constant attempts to discredit us. I’ve already explained where I read the story and why I thought it was pertinent enough to run. I have nothing more to say about this.
If you guys read the original Eurogamer post, you’ll find this:
“Elsewhere, Frostbite technical director Stefan Boberg noted that 15 games are currently in development at EA using Frostbite Engine 3 including Battlefield 4, Mass Effect 4, Dragon Age 3, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, Need For Speed 2013 and its unannounced Star Wars titles from Visceral and DICE.”
Hence Kevin’s statement about how these are also unlikely to come to Wii U given Frostbite Engine 3 isn’t compatible with the console. End of discussion.
Again it is an extrapolation based on nonsense. Yes if the WiiU sits forever at 4 million users and never budges as time moves forward then certainly EA and other publishers will abandon the console and we will never see any effort to port any future engines to the console. However, EA wants to make money and will be on consoles with sales. I’m not unrealistic.
I do think fansites that extrapolate this data to mean that Nintendo will miss out on games not set to be released until well into or well after 2014 is a problem though. There is no real basis for this article. Yes today DICE is not focused on working on systems with small userbases when they can primarily focus on 360 and PS3 which are established. This is what they’ve actually done and this is what they’ve actually said. Don’t turn it into a conspiracy until you have some real evidence.
I’ll be blunt. The only thing this article does is stop users from wanting the WiiU which is the way that Nintendo will actually lose out on support. This doesn’t mean treat every piece of bad news as good news but do be realistic. EA is playing it safe and this hurts us as gamers but it’s also not some hate campaign against Nintendo. They’ll do the same with PS4 and 720. EA released 4 games on WiiU. 3 of which were here on day one. The launch had the most titles ever (tied with PS2). Acting like this is no 3rd party support only hurts yourself. If the article was based on anything but a conspiracy theory then it’d have some merit but as is. It just takes a business reason for not focusing more games to a console that already has 4 EA games and two few users to adequately support them and says that in the future EA will not make a wise business decision and port any games 2 years later because they haven’t specifically named the WiiU in their announcement (none of them announce any next gen console by name either)
Give it a rest, nobody’s making “conspiracy theory” claims. (You keep using that term, I do not think it means what you think it means.)
Yes yes, big-business conservative capitalism bla bla bla.
It’s valid journalism to put two and two together. Nobody’s talking about future, bigger-install-base, next-fiscal-year decisions, this is stuff currently in the works, currently tied to an engine that currently DICE can’t be bothered to tune for Wii U. That is all.
Nobody here is trying to drum up sensationalism or cry doomsday or imply that Wii U isn’t a kickass fun machine. Relax, play today’s Rayman challenge, stop looking for malice where there is none.
It’d be valid if it was applied fairly. It’s not the putting two and two together but the fact that you guys act like everyone of these games specifically names any consoles other than PS3/360. They name “next-gen” which Nintendo is definitely part of is what is used. I do play my WiiU. This Nintendo console has more games than any Nintendo launch prior. 3 EA games were launched on day one. It actually ties for the most games at a console launch…. but somehow this has become “no games” to the modern “fan”.
I hope things quickly turn around. I would LOVE to have Electronic Arts bring all of their best work on the Wii U.
I can’t stand EA not releasing games for Wii U.