The kotaku article on Lucasarts is an excellent read. Very in depth on the stupidity of upper management and how they canceled basically finished games. 1313 was going to be something very special. Clearly that Xwing game looked fantastic. Such a shame Disney canceled everything.

travo said:

I did a Wii memory transfer to the U last night. Very seamless and cool.  Now that my Wii is officially a brick, I wonder if GameStop will give me enough to buy a U game?

Do me a favour and use your wii and see if you can redownload vc and wiiware games from the eshop and see if they run. Also, on your u, copy some save data for a vc game to the sd card, take it out and check if the save works on the wii.

travo said:

I'm working so it'll be later tonight before I can do that.

Thanks. Also see if you can copy wii game save data back from u to wii and see if it works.

Ubisoft threatening to pull Wii U support?

Whenever a company does that, it tells me the decision has already been made. So there is no point in rushing out to buy up every game they've decided to release on the platform. Nintendo has nobody to blame but themselves, as there is no excuse to not have more AAA must have system seller games on the console at this point. Zelda WW is great, but using a 10 year old Gamecube port of the least popular Zelda game as your #1 game on a new console this year is frankly a joke.

They should have had either a Mario Galaxy 3/ New Zelda this year, and something like a new Metroid to cover all demographics and audiences....on top of setting up more AAA exclusives from either 2nd or 3rd parties. They have kind of half assed their software plan on the console for SOME fucking odd reason, and its biting them in the ass. The Gamecube and Wii both had MUCH MUCH better 1st years.

The Wii U had a great launch period, but after that they had zero plan.

edgecrusher said:

Ubisoft threatening to pull Wii U support?

Whenever a company does that, it tells me the decision has already been made. So there is no point in rushing out to buy up every game they've decided to release on the platform. Nintendo has nobody to blame but themselves, as there is no excuse to not have more AAA must have system seller games on the console at this point. Zelda WW is great, but using a 10 year old Gamecube port of the least popular Zelda game as your #1 game on a new console this year is frankly a joke.

They should have had either a Mario Galaxy 3/ New Zelda this year, and something like a new Metroid to cover all demographics and audiences....on top of setting up more AAA exclusives from either 2nd or 3rd parties. They have kind of half assed their software plan on the console for SOME fucking odd reason, and its biting them in the ass. The Gamecube and Wii both had MUCH MUCH better 1st years.

The Wii U had a great launch period, but after that they had zero plan.

Totally agreed

And like Raven said last week, this kind of comment never goes over well with me, "Wii U owners need to buy Ubisofts games"

I think when I get Batman Origins, I'll buy the Wii U version.  Why not?  Ten dollars cheaper and no multiplayer mode that I really don't care about.  It may even be the best looking version.

aspro said:

The early release with the lower specs pretty much ensured lack of third-party support for next gen.  Low install base killed what could have been an advantage in the end of this gen (no reason why Wii U GTAV could not have been the best version for example).

Has it already been a year since release?

It has been about 10 months.

The lower specs mean nothing, it didn't even get current gen ports and the decisions not to make games for the system came way before the system even launched, regardless of current sales. Ubisoft and Warner Bros have shown that if a publisher wants to support it, they will support it. GTA V, Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite were never coming for Wii U regardless and that's not Nintendo's fault. Nintendo cannot snap their fingers and force a publisher to make a game for their system.

Other games like Watch Dogs and COD Ghosts were made as "their own thing" as the publishers have said, not current gen, not next. They just tailored the games to the machine. There was no way Nintendo could have predicted that both competitors would align with the same AMD CPU and GPU combo.

aspro said:

And like Raven said last week, this kind of comment never goes over well with me, "Wii U owners need to buy Ubisofts games"

As for this, did anybody even read the story? It's not Ubisoft declaring an official warning, it's a blogger speaking about what she heard and this "warning" was evident at E3 or did everyone just miss it? If it wasn't clear enough when Ubisoft didn't show Wii U The Crew and The Division at E3, an interview during the same period talking to a Ubisoft exec clearly stated that they were going to see how the system and games sales were over the Christmas period and decide after then whether to support it further. That's not a threat, that's a financial reality where they are going to analyse sales over a period. Ubisoft have supported the system better than any other 3rd party. Unfortunately having the majority of the industry sitting on the sidelines means your platform is marginalised. If everyone had jumped in, we wouldn't be in this situation. There werent any new Wii U games announced by 3rd parties at E3.

Ubisoft reduced plans for Wii U, expecting price cut Believes Nintendo did a soft launch

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=204870

Ubisoft likes Wii U, thinks sales will take off this Christmas "We'll review what happened again at the beginning of next year"

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-27-xbox-one-policy-changes-get-thumbs-up-from-Ubisoft

Dvader said:

edgecrusher said:

Ubisoft threatening to pull Wii U support?

Whenever a company does that, it tells me the decision has already been made. So there is no point in rushing out to buy up every game they've decided to release on the platform. Nintendo has nobody to blame but themselves, as there is no excuse to not have more AAA must have system seller games on the console at this point. Zelda WW is great, but using a 10 year old Gamecube port of the least popular Zelda game as your #1 game on a new console this year is frankly a joke.

They should have had either a Mario Galaxy 3/ New Zelda this year, and something like a new Metroid to cover all demographics and audiences....on top of setting up more AAA exclusives from either 2nd or 3rd parties. They have kind of half assed their software plan on the console for SOME fucking odd reason, and its biting them in the ass. The Gamecube and Wii both had MUCH MUCH better 1st years.

The Wii U had a great launch period, but after that they had zero plan.

Totally agreed

What I am reading? This is like hearing someone say "the earth is flat" and then another person agreeing with him.

Let me reply in a more objective way:

edgecrusher said:

Ubisoft threatening to pull Wii U support?

Whenever a company does that, it tells me the decision has already been made. So there is no point in rushing out to buy up every game they've decided to release on the platform.

Firstly Ubisoft haven't publically threatened anything with an ultimatum, the report is from a blogger tweeting.

The decision has not been made, it will be made early in 2014 when reviewing Christmas sales. We heard this at E3 this year months ago so this is not new news.

Ubisoft likes Wii U, thinks sales will take off this Christmas "We'll review what happened again at the beginning of next year"

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-27-xbox-one-policy-changes-get-thumbs-up-from-Ubisoft

Everything we have heard so far indicates that Nintendo were unhappy with the slow releases up to this point and thus purposely didn't step up the marketing, they are counting on spending mega bucks at Christmas to boost sales to healthier levels. We've heard this on several occasions and most recentely from the UK HQ as well as backroom chatter from an industry event where Nintendo met with UK retailers.

edgecrusher said:

Zelda WW is great, but using a 10 year old Gamecube port of the least popular Zelda game as your #1 game on a new console this year is frankly a joke.

This is objectively wrong, Nintendo have or are releasing this year, a new Mario, new Donkey Kong, a new Pikmin, a new Wario, shortly to be followed up by a new Mario Kart in the spring of next year. Wind Waker is just one of the few feathers in their bow for 2013.

edgecrusher said:

They should have had either a Mario Galaxy 3/ New Zelda this year, and something like a new Metroid to cover all demographics

Objectively unrealistic and partially wrong. You are getting a new 3D Mario by the Nintendo Tokyo Mario Galaxy team. Whether or not you like the look of 3DWorld is irrelevant, this is the Mario team with the new mario game this year.

And since when have we come to expect a new Zelda game in year one of a Nintendo consoles' life? Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, these games took 4 years or so of development, unless you are saying they should have delayed Wii Skyward Sword and released same day as Wii U, it makes no sense.

As for Metroid, I would love a new Metroid, but factually Retro wanted to work on more DKC and objectively the last DK game sold 4-5x more than the last Metroid game.

edgecrusher said:

on top of setting up more AAA exclusives from either 2nd or 3rd parties.

Lego City, Sonic Lost World, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, X, Yarn Yoshi and more?

Question: How many big IP Nintendo first party games do Nintendo typically release each year on a home console?

Answer: 2 to 4

Question: How many big IP Nintendo First Party games are Nintendo releasing in 2013?

Answer: 3 to 4

edgecrusher said:

They have kind of half assed their software plan on the console for SOME fucking odd reason, and its biting them in the ass.

There's no odd reason, making HD games has vastly different requirements, more money, more time, more people. I said this ages before Wii U ever relased and Miyamoto himself eventually admitted they were having problems with HD development. In unshocking news, most developers went through this period between 2005 - 07 when the HD switch began. Nintendo are having their period pain now. It's completely understandable.

"The Gamecube and Wii both had MUCH MUCH better 1st years."

Debateable I think probably not, but even if it were the case as stated above it's easier to make SD games than HD and Nintendo freezing time in development terms with Wii allowed them to power ahead with development without the usual new gen headaches.

"The Wii U had a great launch period, but after that they had zero plan."

They had a plan but game development was delayed, it was third parties without any plan post launch, as no new 3rd party games launched in 2013 until the end of July: leaving a 7 month gap that was only populated by a port of RE Revelations and a late port of NFS Most wanted. Nintendos' somewhat delayed plan was Pikmin 3, Lego City, Wii Fit U and Wonderful 101, only two of those arrived late whilst Lego City is not seen as a great game because its tainted by its heritage.

Lastly, lets not forget that they have to supply software to two separate platforms at once and so far are the only company to successfully do that.