Today, Nintendo streamed another Nintendo Direct, which gave updates on titles for the Wii U and 3DS. And while the 3DS has many promising third-party titles on the horizon, the Wii U seems to be falling beneath the crevices again.
Assassin’s Creed 4 is coming and so is Batman: Arkham Origins but it is almost certain the Wii U version will get little to no attention.
It was truly horrible timing.
Nintendo really tried this time. The unveiling of the Wii U showed many third-party titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Finally, we all believed, Nintendo would be a house for hardcore gamers again.
Except it hasn’t.
The Black Ops II port sold only 200,000 copies in all. This is marginally smaller than the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions, each selling over 10 million copies. The same goes for many other titles like Assassin’s Creed 3, being outsold by its console counterparts.
Many other developers are now avoiding the console. Rockstar games recently released its newest blockbuster, Grand Theft Auto V. A Wii U version hasn’t even been mentioned .
Even Ubisoft has been pulling the plug a bit. Rayman Legends, previously a Wii-U exclusive, was then ported to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Ironically, Nintendo must be thanking Sega a whole bunch. Bayonetta 2 and Sonic: Lost World are exclusive to Nintendo consoles, providing at the very least a little incentive to buy the neglected hardware.
The problem is the console. The Wii U made one huge fatal error in its unveiling: it’s too much like the current-gen systems. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are not graphically outdated by the Wii U’s standards. Not to mention the massive third-party support the platforms had upon the Wii U’s release.
Luckily, the Wii U has strong first party support that will hopefully bring the console from its current depths. Yet, it is still being outsold by the original Wii.
Oh well, maybe when Smash Bros. gets released.
