EA: "We're currently not making any games for the WiiU"

[rob_simple]

Well I certain that there will be motion pads(touch pads are already being used)so people who don't want to flail around can use them to play the game.

Naturally people hate change and will fight it tooth and nail until the change becomes natural to them,so in time people who hate motion controls will be used to them.

I don't think motion/touch controls are the future of gaming but I do think they will be a key part of it whether people like it or not.You are right trying different ideas does'nt meant they are good, but in a industry that is extremely lacking in creativity and innovation, it's nice to see Nintendo try to re-invent the wheel even if it does'nt work some of the time.

You're right that both change can be good and that the industry in general is lacking creativity, but I don't think changing the input method is the answer to revitalising it, and I especially don't see a company like Nintendo --infamous for wanking the life out of their famous brands-- as a leader in creativity, anymore.

I have a lot more faith in the indie market to bring us out of this grey period in gaming, a lot of the games I've enjoyed most this console generation have come from PSN and Xbox Live, and when I finally get a computer than can handle more than Solitaire I can't wait to sink my teeth into everything Steam has to offer.

At the end of the day, I think gaming should be about the games, pure and simple. It doesn't matter if you have the best graphics in the world or a completely novel way of controlling them, if the games aren't fun to play, or engaging to look at, then all you're really doing is pouring petrol on a housefire that will eventually collapse the mainstream gaming industry as we know it.

That, however, is a change I will welcome with open arms.

 

[rob_simple]

You have a point... as a Sonic fan I've had to endure really shit Sonic games like Sonic 06(I fucking hate that game).But Sonic can bounce back from that and return to being the best platformer in gaming.

The thing I love about games, and any creative medium in general I suppose, is that nothing has to stay dead forever; a series can always bounce back.

I still have faith in Sonic --he was my introduction to gaming, now over twenty years ago-- but it's going to take more than a few hits to restore my faith, and it definitely isn't enough to make me want to buy a WiiU for the exclusives.

 

[rob_simple]

Right... so rather than focus on the fact that the last three Sonic games have gotten a great reception, and that Sega themselves have said they're going to focus on making Sonic a quality series again, you're going to focus on the fact that the games before them were shit?

Well I guess that just about does it for any good franchise going forwards. Bioshock? Infinite may have been great, but 2 was rubbish, so best not get invested in that. Metal Gear Solid? Twin Snakes wasn't all that good, better not get excited for 5. Devil May Cry? Number 2 was crap, I bet all the rest of the future games will be as well.

And as for 'retarded concepts'... you do know what a Kart racer is, don't you? Mario Kart? Diddy Kong Racing? Crash Team Racing? It's actually a pretty established game concept, having been around since the SNES days. And pretty much every reviewer has agreed that All Star is a phenomenal entry into the kart racing genre.

Sonic And The Secret Rings? Came out pre-Colours. It's irrelevant to the discussion.

Colours and Generations were great. All Star was great. Therefore, going by Sega's recent track record, there's no reason to assume this new game won't also be great.

You're logic is so broken I don't even know if there's a point in debating this any further.

None of the series you mentioned have been fucking abused the way Sonic the Hedgehog has. One bad game shouldn't kill a series, of course it shouldn't, but for every good Sonic game you can name, I can give you three or four that were complete horseshit.

Hell even Nintendo, a company notorious for pimping out their mascots, actually have the decency to make sure that the games are good before they release them; for years Sonic was just getting slapped on absolutely anything because it was the only way Sega could be sure of making it sell at least a few copies.

Sonic And The Secret Rings? Came out pre-Colours. It's irrelevant to the discussion.

Bullshit. It is absolutely relevant: you don't suddenly put all your trust in someone to catch you because they do it a couple of times if they've spent years letting you fall to the ground.

And yes I'm fully aware of what a kart racer is, but given that Sonic's entire schtick is that he can run faster than cars it makes putting him in one a laughably backwards concept. If it's a good racing game, fair enough, Sega should have made up some new characters and made it a different franchise instead of using their one mascot whose entire persona revolves around being really fucking fast.

As I said to the other guy, who actually has reasonable and rational discussions and valid points, I am open to Sonic making a comeback, but if you genuinely believe the WiiU getting a Sonic exclusive is something that should make the console appealing to anyone who isn't a fanboy, given the overall track record, you are delusional.

 

[rob_simple]

Snip

You do realise all that spiel about developers forgetting and remembering how to make good games is bollocks, right? And that the 'no developer sets out to make a bad game on purpose' thing supports my argument more than yours?

Sega never forgot how to make good Sonic games, they didn't set out to make Sonic 2006 the trainwreck that it was, they deliberately tried to do a lot of different things with the series and a lot of them didn't work; there is nothing to say that they won't try to do something unique with the WiiU titles that will end up crashing and burning just like Secret Rings did.

There is no magic book of instructions for how to make good games, so I will never assume that just because a company has a few hits after a lot of misses they are now back on track and everything is going to be hunky dory. Maybe Sega are back to making good Sonic games now, but there is absolutely no way on this Earth you can say with complete certainty they will continue on that path, just like I can't say they won't.

Maybe, as I say, they'll decide to try something unique with the WiiU's touchpad controller for these exclusives and it will fall flat on it's face; maybe it will be innovative and amazing and a runaway success. You have absolutely no way of knowing what these games are going to be like, so just saying 'hey everyone, it's okay, Sonic doesn't suck again!' because of three games is utterly meaningless.

All of this is missing the point, though: why would anyone buy a WiiU for three exclusive titles that might be good when there is practically nothing else available for the console? Saying that these Sonic games are a big selling point for the WiiU is still false in light of the bigger picture which is that the WiiU's game library is shockingly weak, and doesn't look to be notably improving any time soon.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Also, I found something really professional by the fine folk at EA:

... Which was later turned into...

... While the WiiU is hurting because of the lack of support, and the WiiU is hurting because big name EA isn't going to do anything for them, it certainly looks like EA wants to hurt the WiiU...

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Which is why they're making a big hullabaloo about Disney Infinity, their answer to the billion-dollar Skylanders franchise, right? I mean, taking every single Disney film ever and chucking them all into one sandbox is hardly a big deal or anything.

They have closed down most of their production houses over the past several years and games developed internally at Are currently known to be Disney Infinity. Given their previous effort, the facts of the moment and previous statements by the company are more than sufficient to back the assertion that Disney is not currently interested in direct participation in the games industry. The move with EA is perfectly in line with that as it allows a different company to assume all financial risk of development while still allowing for the possibility of getting money out of various franchises.

If they had a regular contract, it would have demanded all major platforms.

No it wouldn't. The phrase "all major platforms" is itself ambiguous - something that you tend to see lawyers avoid in such circumstances. EA has carte blanche to develop - something they likely paid a great deal of money for. Having the license does not automatically mean the license holder gets to demand specifics like platform, method of distribution and so forth. These are things they can ask for within the contract, but again the length of this contract is such that being terribly specific about platforms would lead to constant need to renegotiate (an expensive endeavor for both sides) and being abstract (such as saying "all major platforms) would simply not be acceptable to EA.

Disney is not going to legally give EA the power to just release on any platform they fancy at the time. That would be nonsense given the amount of money involved, and the risk.

IT is EA's money and EA's risk. Disney stands to lose nothing if EA makes poor strategic choices.

If Disney want a return on investment, they would have demanded EA release on every major gaming platform.

Disney has plenty of other ways to get money out of the franchise - movies, television, books, toys, gadgets, etc. Disney is excellent at making money in such endeavors; they have been remarkably less successful when it comes to making money developing games.

Before they shut down, Lucasarts were releasing Star Wars games on everything from the HD twins to DS to smartphones.

First, most of their products they developed in house were fairly specific to major platforms. Second, Lucas Arts wasn't exactly notable for being a rousing success. Can you name the last Lucas Arts developed game that actually both sold well and was critically acclaimed?

I very much doubt Disney have turned that round and given EA the freedom to just develop Star Wars games for Sony and Microsoft. That would be financial stupidity.

Actually, it would be financial stupidity to pursue investment in platforms where there is no evidence your game will do well. That seems to be the part you're missing. If EA thought they could make money on the WiiU, they would develop for the Wii U.

You are aware that the 3DS is tracking better than the DS, right? It's sold 35 million units in two years.
That is not marginal success, that is out and out blockbuster sales. And they've still not released Pokemon yet, the game that always ends up spurring on sales of their handhelds. That game alone will be huge. With the rest of the lineup this year as well, the 3DS is going to dominate. It's already doing better than every other hardware platform this year in terms of sales and growth.

The company has lost money for two consecutive years. The belated success of the 3DS isn't sufficient to cover - something obvious by net financial losses.

The Wii U is about where you'd expect a new console to be 7 months into its life- 3.5 million. Now sales have slowed down the last few months, but they also rocketed out the gate the first two months.

retailers, and developers (no link necessary given we are discussing EA in this case) have a far less optimistic take on the situation than you do.

http://www.geek.com/games/wii-u-sales-so-poor-retailers-considering-scaling-back-support-1543745/
To spin that around though: how many 'core' gamers ended up making the switch from consoles to Steam this generation. You talk about the casuals leaving Nintendo to play games elsewhere. Surely that could be just as applicable to the 'core' market, given Steam's massively expanding user numbers on PC compared to console/software sales that are drastically receding. Sales of consoles and software have been down year-on-year for a while, indicating a declining interest in 'core' games. Yet Steam's business is thriving, suggesting that those core gamers are just moving over to PC. What does EA have to benefit from marrying itself to a platform which seems to be losing consumers to their own biggest PC rival?[/quote] Steam is a retail platform and as such isn't really a rival save in the most tangential sense. Also, the question is not about the success of the new consoles in general but rather if it makes sense for EA to dump money into development of WiiU titles which you've largely evaded.

http://www.geek.com/games/wii-u-sales-so-poor-retailers-considering-scaling-back-support-1543745/
You are aware how much companies conceal, obfuscate and outright lie to their own investors, right? Sure, EA's a publicly traded company, but you think companies like that aren't above massaging the truth when it comes to investor meetings. Example- Sony spent $400 million developing the CELL processor for the PS3 alone. When it came to an investors meeting to talk finances, rather than just talk straight, Ken Katarugi decided to hide CELL R&D costs in a completely different non-gaming electronics division in order to try and make it look like Sony hadn't just haemorraged hundreds of millions on their gaming department. [/quote] I like that you think a petty grudge is going to get in the way of a company trying to make money. Hell, the lying and cheating you point to are all part of attempts to make more money.

http://www.geek.com/games/wii-u-sales-so-poor-retailers-considering-scaling-back-support-1543745/
If EA wanted to spite Nintendo, then they could easily do so by lying or 'massaging the truth' to investors. Example- EA have been releasing Vita and Madden games on the Vita despite it performing worse than the Wii U. The Wii U has had slow sales, but the Vita has outright tanked. If profitability was the concern you make it, then EA wouldn't be developing for either platform, and yet they're supporting one which has done demonstrably worse than the other. Where is the financial logic there?[/quote] You have not demonstrated what EA has to gain by trying to spite a platform holder. Your argument is based on supposition predicated upon a pettiness capable of overriding the fundamental conceit of the corporation - that is, you posit that a personal grudge is sufficient cause for EA to intentionally not make money.

Tell me, does that actually sound reasonable?

 

[PeterMerkin69]

The Wii U may have had a bad launch but I bet Microsoft and Sony will try to copy it just like they copied the Wii.

I guess it depends on how you define copy. I wouldn't be surprised if some similar functionality shows up, but they didn't copy the Wii so much as they were attempting to copy Nintendo's success, and since everybody and their grandma aren't rushing out to purchase Wii Us, there's little incentive for them to do that this time. And even if they do, Nintendo hasn't set the bar particularly high so there's a good chance Sony and Microsoft could steal their thunder if they do go that route.

I wish Sony and Microsoft would copy the Wii going into this generation. The Wiimote was the best thing to happen to console gaming in a long time; my performance in shooters was even better than with a computer mouse. That's nothing to scoff at, even if you do have to use one extra muscle group to make it rain blood. Or rainbows, since it was on the Wii. But you know what I mean.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Nothing outside of Nintendo's games really sold well on the Wii. There are obviously a few exceptions but none of the major publishers really had much success with it. As stated in the article Ubisoft is really the only one with Just Dance.

Number of games that sold over 1 million copies:

PS3
25 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

Xbox 360
~54 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games

Wii
103 Wii games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games

You really want to tell me that out of those 103 games, almost all non are 3rd party games? The Wii did ridiculously good in software sales.

OT: Doesn't really affect me. I stopped buying EA games quite some time ago.

Spoiler: And their unprofessional Senior engineer isn't helping either.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Nothing outside of Nintendo's games really sold well on the Wii. There are obviously a few exceptions but none of the major publishers really had much success with it. As stated in the article Ubisoft is really the only one with Just Dance.

Number of games that sold over 1 million copies:

PS3
25 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

Xbox 360
~54 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games

Wii
103 Wii games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games

You really want to tell me that out of those 103 games, almost all non are 3rd party games? The Wii did ridiculously good in software sales.

Just trolling through the list outside of just dance the highest selling non nintendo game is Michael jackson the experience .... or big brain wii degree idk if thats nintendo or not. The wii software list is essentially 1st party or party games(at least in the wiki link)

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Nothing outside of Nintendo's games really sold well on the Wii. There are obviously a few exceptions but none of the major publishers really had much success with it. As stated in the article Ubisoft is really the only one with Just Dance.

Number of games that sold over 1 million copies:

PS3
25 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

Xbox 360
~54 different games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_360_video_games

Wii
103 Wii games sold over 1 million copies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games

You really want to tell me that out of those 103 games, almost all non are 3rd party games? The Wii did ridiculously good in software sales.

Just trolling through the list outside of just dance the highest selling non nintendo game is Michael jackson the experience .... or big brain wii degree idk if thats nintendo or not. The wii software list is essentially 1st party or party games(at least in the wiki link)

I didn't read the page when I posted the link. I had those 3 links bookmarked from another discussion.
Now that I look at it, someone had deleted a huge part of the Wii list. Last time I checked it, pretty much every game was listed, not just the "few" games there are there.
Even the games that are listed there have missing information.

Welp, my point is kinda moot now since I can't prove shit with a page that is mostly deleted.

 

[Couch Radish]

Okay, before all of you board the EA Hate Train, if you had actually read the article you'd see that their reasons for not developing on the Wii U are completely reasonable.

1. The Wii U does not support the Frostbite 3 engine, which many of EA's future games will run on.

2. Due to their focus on Sony and Microsoft's next consoles, they would have to reverse-engineer games to have it fit the Wii U.

And my other ideas are:

- The controller would make it much more difficult to port a game over. If they ported a game and didn't use the Wii U tablet all of you would be having a major hissy fit.

- They don't think their games will sell well on the Wii U.

- They find it to be a better choice to support the PS4 and Xbox 720 (whatever it's called).

So seriously, don't get on the EA hate train bandwagon until you actually know what's going on.

 

[Couch Radish]

And yet they've got the engine running on smartphones. I think it's less an issue of the Wii U being able to run an eminently scalable game engine, and more an issue of EA couldn't be arsed to put in the work.

To be specific, it's a miniature version of their engine called Frostbite Go. And the mobile platform is becoming incredibly huge, so Ea is able to publish games to the handheld market and sell engine rights for other developers. Epic Games is doing the exact same thing with the Unreal Engine.

And why would you create a version of your engine to run on a system you don't believe will succeed? The EA games that they ported already were obligations from the 2011 E3 conference.

Nope. If they're making PC games, they would have to make a minimum-spec build of the game for everyone not running an eight-core CPU bastard of a rig. If the Wii U really is so underpowered compared to next-gen, they could just take that minimum spec build and port that across instead.

You're simplifying the process of porting. Not only do they have to get the game running on the Wii U, they also have to:

- Remap controls to not only the Wii U controller but also the motion controls
- Include the use of the Wii U Tablet screen
- Do all of these things right, lest they face the wrath of people like us

Actually, there's a very valid reason for not doing anything with the Gamepad- it makes Off Screen play much easier to handle. If you require the touchscreen for a fundamental game mechanic, then you can't have the game itself running on that screen. Keep the screen clear, and you've got all you need to have an Off Screen mode, which would be a marketing sell in itself.

Then the Wii U Tablet is only a giant box for a controller if they don't use the built-in screen. And as I mentioned, not utilizing the screen hurts both the Wii U (for not proving the strengths of the console) and EA (for the complaints of not properly porting the game).

And yet the latter kind of conflict with the former. The PS4 and Nextbox aren't going to fly off shelves out of the gate. They're still going to have small userbases starting out, meaning EA is going to have a small next-gen audience to sell to no matter what. It seems ludicrous to single EA out for something that's going to affect all the consoles.

No console will ever launch flying off the shelves. But EA is most likely expecting the consoles to sell well in the weeks/months afterwards. Also including owner retention and owner demographics.