That's not entirely true. There are some solid Wii U ports that haven't sold very well. I think there was a lack of a marketing push on the publishers' parts, so I think the blame doesn't belong to any one entity. It's hard to look at Wii U and say it needs third party support because I honestly don't think those games would see a lot of support anyway.

I'm not talking about ports only. 3rd party titles in general

The ports wouldn't be gimped if Nintendo hadn't gimped its own hardware.

Let's be honest. They could have done themselves a favor by at least making the architecture more in line with what developers wanted. I doubt any of the three had to necessarily sit down with devs like Sony did and outright ASK. They could have just made something simpler, something powerful, something devs wouldn't hate to work on.

As it stands, developers now have to create a completely different version of the game if they want it on Wii U, as opposed to PS4 and XB1. Those two, while not being exactly alike, themselves, are at least on familiar architectures.

While you can say they don't NEED third party support, I imagine they WANT it. Especially if it would help- and it would- the Wii U move more systems. They can't be happy with their console's current performance, even if they're happy with the sales of some of their games.

Based on what we've seen thus far, the Wii U will be a hard sell this generation; I wouldn't be surprised to see it bring up the rear in terms of total sales, when it's all said and done. A LOT of that will have to do with the fact that it won't get comparable versions of multiplats- if it gets them at all. And unlike last generation, there won't be the casual crowd to propel sales.

That will leave mostly the Nintendo faithful and the even less numerous platform agnostics to keep sales going... and there's just not enough of such individuals to make the Wii U competitive.

Don't get me wrong. There are games I'd play on it, like Bayonetta and Xenoblade. But if I wanted to play FF- and I do- then I'd need another console. If I wanted any of the big-named multiplats, I'd need another console. And I know I'm far from the only one.

That leaves the Wii U as a secondary purchase, and that's not gonna see them move many units this gen.

Same here.

Going by all of the disagrees everyone has been hit with since last night, though, I'd say that the Sony fanboys must have caught wind of this article and didn't like that they couldn't pile up negative instances that Nintendo is doomed without third party support.

Do you think that if you repeat the same thing over and over again that it will actually make it come true? I cannot find this horde of "gimped ports" that you claim to exist. How exactly was Batman: Arkham City a bad port? It had all of the content of the Game of the Year Edition, new armor for Batman, as well as full integration of the GamePad. How was Mass Effect 3 gimped with its special content for Wii U and use of the GamePad? You got more content with your copy of ME3 than I did when I bought it for the PS3. Darksiders 2 came with 5 DLC packs (everything not in the Season Pass) as well as utilizing the GamePad. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut did such a great job with the GamePad that some consider it the definitive way to play the game. Don't like the higher MSRP for a port? I don't recall anyone complaining about paying the same price for a port of Zelda: Windwaker. I also don't think you should expect other consoles to subsidize the price of game. You are paying the same price the first time it is available on the Wii U as those who bought it on XBox or PS3 did when it was first available on those consoles.

I do not find those or any of the other third party games on the Wii U gimped as you constantly drone on about. I do find that they put a lot more time and effort into utilizing the GamePad than Nintendo does with its games. Of the 3 main Nintendo games in 2014 - Donkey Kong Country, MK8, Smash Bros - none of them use the GamePad in a meaningful way. Is it ok to say that Nintendo is "gimping" their Wii U games, at least when it comes to GamePad support?

@Gameseeker_Frampt

Fair point that those ports were well done. However, I think in your assessment of why those ports did poorly you are ignoring some pretty important facts about the situation these games came out in and your average Wii U owner.

Most of the ports you listed were released on the Wii U well after they were released on the Xbox 360 or PS3. Dues Ex was released roughly 2 years later on the Wii U and Batman a year later. Also, even though the Wii U version of Mass Effect 3 was released only a couple months after the Xbox 360 and PS# release; it was released alongside the Mass Effect trilogy for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

That being said, these releases were still in the early part of the Wii Us lifetime. You think Wii U owners ONLY own a Wii U? You think in the 7 years of the previous generation people who owned a Wii U did not have an Xbox 360 and PS3? The releases of these games on the Wii U were well after the fact and anybody who had any interest in the game would have either bought it new, bought it used, or even rented it by the time these releases came out. As far as ME3 is concerned. Why would you by one (albeit a great) installment of the game when you could buy ALL of them for the same price?

As far as "gimped" or incomplete ports are concerned. Assassins Creed IV received none of the DLC on the Wii U, Zatanna and Martian Manhunter are not available for download in the Wii U version of Injustice, Batman Arkham Orgins had none of its dlc and no multiplayer (it was 10$ cheaper), Splintercell Blacklist had no offline co-op, Madden 2013 didn't use the infinity engine and didn't run very smoothly, and COD: Ghost had performance issues compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3 along with not getting the same amount of DLC support.

Also, multiple times I have walked in to Gamestop and found that all the other versions of the game have a preorder bonus except the one I was going to buy (Wii U).

All of these factors play in to why these games didn't do well. It can't be summed up to only, "Herp derp Nintendo fans are too busy dancing around on candy mountain with Reggie, Rosalina, and Mr. Prease Understand to buy third party games."

@ Timbalada

Your last paragraph describing Nintendrones cracked me up, especially since nowhere in my post was that tone even brought up. But still funny nonetheless.

Let's not pretend that all this "missing content" is hurting third party sales when Nintendo's own games are not selling on the Wii U. Pikmin 3, Donkey Kong, Wii Fit U, and Wonderful 101 are all selling poorly if one is trying to make the case that people buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games. The only Wii U games that are selling well are those are bundled with the console or the accessories. Almost 7 million Wii U's out there and only 800,000 Nintendo fans have bought Pikmin 3 - that's a damn shame right there.

When ports to the Wii U are missing features, it is either with DLC or with online play. Neither of that is surprising. Nintendo has been very open about its dislike for DLC so why would developers spend money putting something in the eshop that Nintendo won't promote? Nintendo still has a lot of work to do in developing their online community and infrastructure and until then developers are going to leave out online multiplayer when it doesn't hurt the main experience of the game. Do I think that is right? No. But I'm not going to just blame developers when Nintendo hasn't put the effort in themselves.

If some people want to think that Nintendo doesn't need third party games because those games will just be bought on other systems, then the Wii U will continue to sell as it currently is. People comparing the PS4, XBox One, and Wii U will continue to choose the other 2 platforms because they both have exclusives AND third party games. The Wii U will be a secondary choice, provided people have the time, money, and interest in another console. Not exactly a winning strategy.

its not the devs fault its nintendo for taking no input from the devs & keeping them in the dark unlike ms & sony https://www.youtube.com/wat...

i'd want that better than not having anything to play

Well there was that exclusive rayman for wii u... Oh no wait they shafted everyone on wii u and delayed it 6 months so everyone could play why they couldn't have just released the game as a wii u exclusive even if it was only for a few months if it was already made? It's that kind of 3rd party support I can deal with out I'll just make do with the nintendo games and any other exclusives, bayonetta 2 and stealth inc 2 amongst others. I didn't buy a wii u to play FIFA, call of duty battlefield assassins creed, got my ps4 if I get desperate for a yearly fix on one of them games, wii u is all about the fun and nintendo have enough of this in abundance. Wii u and the games are amazing hate all you want your probably one of those who won't watch the simpsons of Pixar because they are for the kids. Your loss, get back to call of duty it really does make you a better man!? Yea...

You keep tooting that horn and even Nintendo fans aren't buying it.

You and others like you boast about Trine and Deus Ex but complain about Arkham City as if that game is a poor port. Well it is the worst version of the game but not due to bugs or glitches. It's the fact that they used the game pad and it's gimmicky touch screen predominantly throughout the game and that is why it's meta score is 9 points lower than the others. Yes.....The touch screen that even Nintendo can't be bothered to properly implement.

You wanna talk poor ports, let's talk Bayonetta ps3. Is one of the all time worst ports ever seen. There were no timely patches or post launch support. It was Sony themselves that fixed the game which remained broken for half a year.

Skyrim remained unplayable for almost a year. Black Ops 2 is still washed out compared to the 360 and matchmaking lobbies were broken for 6 months.

The WiiU is hardly unique and bad ports happen. But you make it sound like every game is unplayable or missing features when it can think of at least 2 games that added content on the WiiU.

Also, do you think porting is free? In order to make some money back, they have to price the game to re coup the man hours spent porting the game and the game is new to that platform so it should be full price. Everyone else paid full price for the game when it launched so why should you be the exception?

Lastly, devs also have to account for the fact that WiiU gamers probably won't be buying their games anyway so why invest that much effort into a platform where there's no support?

Look at Deus Ex. Was that a bad port? That version was better than the ps3 and 360 version but sold only 50k copies compared to 1m+ on the others.

Why would any publisher push any core 3rd party title on the WiiU with sales like that? We just disproved the bad port theory and you have a solid reason why year later port cost more money so please explain how the 3rd party situation is anyone's but Nintendo's and wiiu gamer'so fault.

To be honest it's not okay for Wii U to not have more games but there is only so much Nintendo can do. Third party partnerships and indies are their best bet because the larger publishers are focused on the new consoles and are not even considering Wii U. I don't agree with the idea of attacking Nintendo fans that are satisfied with Nintendo, even if we disagree with them. Wii U could have been better but the hardware was finalized years ago and Nintendo is definitely learning a lesson from it. I'll be enjoying both Wii U and PS4 this gen and not judging others for making whatever choice they would like.

Who says fans aren't asking for those things?
The thing is, a lot of people that don't actually care for Nintendo's long-term interests, are asking these same fans to demand of Iwata that they drop the Wii U in favor of making a new console immediately that would support all of these things.

That would do more harm than good, so most fans are putting the requests towards Nintendo's next console instead.

But as far as completely catering to third parties, you've got to take into consideration the kind of environment that has been fostered for and by them on Nintendo consoles.

By that, I mean that even if they did go all-out on Nintendo's next system, it will be too little too late for them to gain any ground, because the fanbase on the system likely won't trust them to do anything better than they did with the Wii U.

When they had powerful consoles to put games onto, various issues like cartridges[which didn't seem to stop them with handheld titles, strangely] and small disks/different architectures stopped them from making more games on Nintendo's system despite the opportunity to capitalize on the chance.

And now that they've got a system that can handle PC ports with the flick of a switch[according to the Need for Speed developers] that is much easier to develop for than the Wii was, they're screwing up that chance with aforementioned bad ports.

Nintendo has extended an olive branch for the third parties with their move to allow third parties to make use of their first party franchises for collaborative titles.
This is a huge opportunity to get an inside lane with the fanbase that third parties think only enjoy Nintendo games.[as much a fallacy as that is, it is how some of them think]
If third parties take advantage of that and really reach out to Nintendo with brilliant ideas, they could gain the ground that they need, in consumer trust, to make their own games sell on the next console.

Good exclusives by them now, will make a name for them that Nintendo gamers will come to trust in the long run.
Ports aren't going to be enough to forge that trust as long as they're done wrong, so it pretty much HAS to be exclusives.

As far as the Wii U goes, though, it's not so much a stupid question as it is an admission of a course that's already been set; If third parties don't do something about their ports and don't step up for more exclusive collaborations, Nintendo won't have any choice: They'll HAVE to live without third party support[if you don't count indies, which we really should considering how great some of them are], and their own franchises and exclusives are more than capable of letting them thrive this gen.

If they pick up the release pace and variety of IP's they tap into, that is.

If you refer to their last financial report, you'll see that indeed it is.