It might have helped if ME3 on the WiiU wouldn't have been higher in price than the PS3 or 360 launch version over double the price of the trilogy bundle that launched around the same time.

Nintendo should change things, but I wouldn't take tips from EA if my life would depend on it.

Funny that they drag Activision into this who appears to still make WiiU games going by the releases last year without using the crap microtransaction system EA has to include in all of their games. We can all debat all day over them milking franchises, but they are still the lesser evil compared to EA who nickel and dimes the user for everything nowadays. Just look at the last Fifa version for Vita that was ONLY a roster update and didn't include any other updates and charge full price.

Once again; EA talking utter crap.

It's not that the system became a "kids IP platform"; that's pretty bogus, considering that most of it's library is far from the casual-stuff we saw on Wii.

I like it how we forgot to mention that while they did bring a solid of of ME3 to the system; they released it months behind the other versions (that was unavoidable - but) - they charged full price for it; while simultaneously releasing the Trilogy Edition on EVERY OTHER PLATFORM but Wii U.

Is it any mystery why it tanked?

Greedy pigs...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Its not that simple though, while Nintendo needs to change their image, it can't just go all-mature/teen games. That would be like disney/pixar all of sudden making rated R movies. The 8-13yr market is still very valuable to them. But again, they have to open themselves up mabye make a M game or two to show diversity. Not mention just completely revamp their online network(s).
Now EA giving business advice when it comes to quality is all little un-nerving especially with such wonderful releases like Battlefield 4 and NBA Live...

EA can suck it. They havent made a decent game in years.

That image is what saves this industry

Imagine bf3 & bf4 on WiiU with full and inventive game pad support.

The big wigs at Nintendo need to read this and get mad! get angry! Time to wake up and put on samurai suits and go to work.

There whole focus should be trying to make EA eat those words.

I picture a meeting like this, but instead of Ben Afflick it's Iwata.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

As long as EA and the like have stable and profitable markets in PlayStation and Xbox, Nintendo consoles will be viewed as second class citizens. Look at the Wii for a moment. EA and so many other Publishers rode the casual train, they saw the record breaking console numbers and tried to cash in with poor and mediocore games to make an easy profit, to the point only Nintendo was making high quality "core" games for their system.

While one could say the environment of the Wii (being low powered) discouraged innovative or ambitous development, the fact Nintendo was able to make memorable games again and again while still looking good tells me many 3rd parties were lazy and just didn't care.

The biggest difference between Nintendo consoles and their competition is Nintendo has to do everything for themselves, they can't rely on anyone but themselves. From the moment a Sony or MS console is known its a given 3rd parties will jump aboard with new IP's and great titles. But when it comes with Nintendo they release mostly ports and re-hashes with the hope they will cash in. I'd put Nintendo published titles against Sony and MS any day of the week, but since Sony and MS get the 3rd party dollars they automtically gain the edge.

They have no reason to try because they make profit off of two consoles, and when they do release a mediocore effort on Nintendo consoles they end with nothing. Nintendo is a casualty of both their own short-sightedness and 3rd parties unwillingness to challenge the status quo. The WiiU embraces gameplay innovation where EA embraces power, which is a shame .

Edit: double post

I just noticed the ps3 has more games coming out this year than the wii u!

(forgot to add this to my previous post above)

"It became a kids IP platform and we don’t really make games for kids. "

Move along! This is fake. Considering EA has multiple franchises aimed at kids that they themselves have developed or published, I doubt someone from EA would say that. The wording is also off and doesn't sound like something a representative from a large video game company would say.

The article also says they think of "Nintendo" as dead, not the the WiiU but Nintendo as a whole. That's pretty stange considering they have no problem supporting the 3DS. They even made a Madden game for it at launch.

You may not think you make games for kids, but if you took away all the kids that play your games, you would be missing all that money. But sure, stay on your high horse and get voted as the worst company again. Nintendo could definitely use some change, but EA is the last company that should be chiming in on it.

When a franchise as big as COD fails to sell 0.25 million copies your going to reconsider putting a less establish, potentially new IP on the platform. Whatever the reasons, game development is an expensive business, unless your likely to make a return, the cheques ain't getting signed.

As much as i hate the philosophies over at EA i have to admit that i see where they are coming from. It makes zero sense for a company to invest in a product that really isnt doing so well. Atleast not while there are other, more promising, products to support.

Nintendo needs to be aggressive especially when it comes to advertising

Hate EA all you wont but the Big N has had a history of having poor 3rd party support. If it was just the WiiU then you could say that they 3rd parties need to get their act together but this problem has been with Nintendo for the last 4 console so they need to fix something if they wont them to make games for their console.

the wiiu is a waste of everyones time thats why. No need to even research why.

Even the Vita is getting some kind of EA support.

EA being idiots again. Nothing new :/

Jesus Christ, Why are you people asking for EA's support, your trying to put a company that has been voted as the worst company in America TWICE and they screw up everything.

EA just spit in every little mario fanboys face.

Funny they say this, yet turn the page to Facebook and see what EA is pushing out. Turn the page to a few years ago when that casual "kids" market was thriving for Wii and look where EA focused.

Like anyone with a brain knew, that market was casual and it would dwindle, while the hardcore market will stay strong. EA "apologized" for it and came back to the hardcore market.

Its nothing to do with the market, its EA and Activision. They go where the money is and couldn't care less about the fanbase supporting them. If that "kid" market comes back strong, us hardcore gamers will once again get screwed for several years by EA with crap titles. Remember how terrible franchises like NFS were getting because EA didn't care?

They can fight with us and push Nintendo to release an actual next gen console, but they can't pretend like they never jumped on that ship.....

Ah more bridge burning from EA who rushes out unfinished products then abandons them like swtor. Well only a fool would think that if you make the same ports for 3 consoles (one new with 0 users and 2 old with a combined 170 million+ users) that you will sell more or even a fair amount of games on the new console barely anyone had. Not after a long while. Now had you offered those games as exclusives to the Wii U instead of to the tens of millions who already own consoles to play them on you might have something to actually complain about. That's all now go back to being a shitty company. Good day.

Heh stop acting cool EA, you are dead to me.

Ah the ruthlessness of capitalism.

EA really care about the medium don't they? No wait, they care about money and NOTHING else.

Though to be honest, I can see most game corporations doing this if they got to the position EA is at. This is what money does.

But all their sports games are for kids too right? 3 and up I believe.

So no word on being told NO to including Origin to the Wii U online then...

This is doubtful to me. Nintendo 1st party is family friendly, but I wouldn't call it childish. Nor would I expect EA to not consider a younger market, let alone a company that sold the most consoles. Seems too simple a comment not to come from a fanboy.

I think Nintendo has just made itself a non-factor, but not being on part with Sony or Xbox.

EA is free to do whatever it wants-

BUT
-I just haven't appreciated their currently shown
Two-facedness:

>Don't hug-up on Nintendo at E3 and promise support if you hate their platform.

>Don't bad mouth WiiU saying that multiple Next Gen engines won't run on it- when they do.

>Don't say that you have no plans on creating tools in your Next Gen. game Engines for WiiU.

>Don't bad mouth Nintendo in public and then when caught; walk it back.

BECAUSE

When you make it seem like you are dependable, people generally don't bother to make a back-up plan.
I mean why should they when there is going to be an "Unprecedented" Partnership (see E3 2010).

If Nintendo would have known they might have been able to enact a better plan by now.
-But they waited AaaaLL the way to 2014 to make their true feeling known.

Edit. All though most of the things I wrote stand, I apologize to EA because this was only a rumor and I did not see that until later. I read the article but not thoroughly. On a 2nd pass, I saw the whole truth- so my bad EA (even though EA still has done plenty of Bad to WiiU).

What I don't understand is how in the hell Nintendo plans on keeping fans with only 3 to 4 major titles and different versions. I wouldn't buy a xbox 1 or PS4 if all they had was there exclusives to play especially if they only had 4.

EA didn't support the Dreamcast either.

lol effort to port mass effect, if they really had an effort they would have ported the entire trilogy

If Nintendo made powerful consoles with great online people would flock back.

Nintendo games were great when I was 11. But now I want something more (Skyrim, Mass Effect, Fallout, Last of Us).
Nintendo refuses to grow up

A lot of publishers are pushing aside family games in favor of more mature content because that is were the money is. This is sad because in doing so they have denied a generation the chance to be raised with characters like Mario, Sonic, Kirby, and more.

A lot of us did not start gaming with 'Call of Duty,' it was games like 'Super Mario Bros.'introduced us to the culture and were a cornerstone of our childhood.

Dudebro games never have sold well on Nintendo consoles anyway.

Ohh, if only Nintendo could do something... Like... Reach out to EA, and perhaps SAY something instead of just assuming they want to make games on that platform.

ha-ha-ha very funny >_> you greedy ******** !

ME3 was a good effort???? Nobody was going to buy a year old game when the whole trilogy could have been purchased for cheaper in a few months after on other platforms.

They never tried.

As Angry Joe would say, its because "Fuck you, give me MONEY!!!!"

I bought the Wii U for its innovation and gimmicky control ideas they kept on promising us before console release.

Not the year old ported games I already owned on my last gen consoles. Face it Ninty launched a console too early that didnt have ANY games hoping devs would jump on the ninty "dev friendly bandwagon" but didnt!!! Even a year after release its library is crap!! I think even the VR boy did better in its short life span than this paperweight did so far!

That was Nintendo's downfall, promising all these unique and creative in game features. Just for us early adopters to buy the console to get 1 unique game and just a few old ports everybody already owned....

EA the Microsoft of publishers. instead of dissing other companies, fix your own

Can i just point out something that most on here are not aware.

The whole Mass Effect 3 "SPECIAL EDITION" on wiiu.

this was EAs toss an existing IP out there and see how it does. But Killed the IP before it was even release with a full price and announcing the full trilogy on the other system for cheap.

That's not worst of it.

ME3:SE is not even being patched or updated. So they really just sent it out to die. No Eshop downloads from EA, no MP DLC, no support for origin issues on the NN.

I remember all those interviews with EA on ME3SE, the gamepad this and that...but i don't think we ever thought it was odd for such a large scale company to only talk about ONE game from all their IPs.

We can't put the blame on EA really, Capcom, Konami and the whole lot have been taking the easy way out. I mean there are so many 3rd party games that can be just re-released on the system for nintendo fans that missed them from having the wii only. Even if 3rd parties did a directors cut release of their best AAA games, that would sell. Think EA did wrong with the ME3SE then release ME:trilogy (price was a factor between both titles also).
See we had RE5 and 6 release, but capcom goes and re-release a 3DS game upgraded...Idk but somewhere out there there is a bunch of BS floating around.

But then again it's all about the money.

Battlefield is my 10 year old nephews favorite game.

The EA issue aside, I agree with the point the article makes. Nintendo do need a major foundations shake-up. Sony have been adaptable to changing times because their business model is primarily about acquisitions (I can't remember the last truly in-house Sony-developed game I played). Nintendo need to look out into the wider world and at their competition to have any hope of recapturing their audience.

Wow. I'm surprised they are not aware Mass Effect 3 Wii U didn't sell poorly because it was on a "console for Kids IPs" but because Mass Effect 3 on Wii U was released on a console that barely had any install base, almost every Mass Effect fan and newcomers already played the game a year prior or half a year prior and Wii U was not better than the Xbox 360 or PC versions at all... and aside from that many avoided the game when they realised it had an awful ending, which can be seen on the sales numbers for PS360 I believe as they start off much quicker than ME2 but ended up with sales that were similar to it in totals because the negative fan-reception made people boycot it and so on so forth.

I don't know if EA expected people to react to this in the same way many reacted to Sony bashing MS, that by bashing the console everyone likes to make fun of people will get more respect or whatever that agenda is about.

If EA's strategy hadn't been so poor with what they released on the Wii U they'd be able to make it a more attractive console for sure. I don't know what they're talking about that they don't want "kid franchises"... isn't Pokemon what EVERYONE played in school? Why don't EA try to pursue something like that instead of playing it safe with guns blazing and violence. It's not the only thing that sells.

EA stopped because Nintendo consles dont sell 3rd party games.Its a waste of time and money for a developer to fool with the Wii U.Its dead has no games its a piece of garbage.I said from the get go that another gimmick wouldnt work again.Nintendo needs to leave he console hardware market and go software.It would be better for the market and healthier.So nintendo do the right thing and get out now your consoles are a joke

EA shouldn't criticize anyone. They're a mess. The promise a lot and then release horribly buggy games. It's kind of their MO now. If I see EA is involved with a game I generally know it will be at least 6 months before they work out the bugs, if ever.

Can anyone explain to me how the Mass Effect 3 port was a "solid effort"? It contained none of the extended content the other systems received and was completely overshadowed by the release of the Mass Effect Trilogy compilation a month later (which did not get a WiiU port).

Nintendo has enough problems/mistakes (big ones) as it is. Let's not shovel other companies' screw ups on top of them.