4 reasons Wii U won't lose third party support like Wii did

Over the internet people keep bringing up the same point over and over and over again. Third parties will leave Wii U the second the next Xbox and PS4 hit. Why? Because Wii didn't have the power to run HD games. It means all developers on earth will immediately jump on PS4 and 720 (or whatever you want to call them) because they will blow Wii U out of the water. Well I've thought about that claim over and over and over again EVERY TIME it is brought up and this is the conclusion I've come to. There is absolutely NO CHANCE of this happening. Why? Well here are four things to consider.

1. Core gamers accepted DS.

The Wii U is essentially a DS you play at home. Touch screen has proven to work well with core games and not "gimping" the game down like motion controls did. Yes it is a giant controller that looks funky but overall its the same idea as behind DS. And DS had amazing third party support, especially from Japan.

2. Wii U has a head start.

Lets be honest, regardless of what Iwata says, a head start helps. Especially a year head start. It helped PS1. It helped PS2. It helped DS. It helped 360. It helped 3DS. Over and over again the system which has gained the most third party support due to it becoming in a place of dominance. Yes price definitely helps. The lowest price usually wins people's cash. But the thing to note here is by the time the new systems come, Wii U will have a much bigger library than the next Xbox or PS4. They will be suffering the same problem that befalls all system launches (and will likely befall Wii U at the end of the year). There will be a lack of games and the price may be too expensive to justify the console. Remember: all that extra power will come at a price.

3. Nobody buys Xbox in Japan.

This is the biggest hole of all in the theory. If Wii had the power to run the likes of Tekken, Final Fantasy XIII and Resident Evil 5, would they have even come out on 360? I will point out something here that people seem to have forgotten. Xbox sucked for Japanese support. The games weren't selling enough because it doesn't even sell in their home turf. What did Tales of Symphonia come out on again? At first Xbox had some Japanese support but as it was being proven the thing just wasn't catching on in Japan, companies like Capcom, Namco and Sega jumped ship and developed their games on PS2 and Gamecube mainly. The only one that stayed in the long haul was Tecmo. There were some Japanese games weren't seeing release on 360 outside Japan. This is the most crucial part because Nintendo systems do well in Japan and contrary to popular belief, most of these companies have had great success on Nintendo systems. Its entirely possible these companies could migrate to Wii U and PS4 exclusively because they may not see enough benefit in porting to the next Xbox.

4. Max Payne 3 flopped.

Another one which is glaring is the development costs of these super consoles. And nothing highlights this point more than the recent tanking Max Payne 3 suffered. Despite the fact it shipped 3 million copies it still wasn't enough to get money back on the game. It makes you wonder what kind of budget this had. In normal circumstances 3 million (even shipped) is a good number. To sell below expectations shows how much goes into Rockstar's games. As systems get more powerful companies will keep building new engines to suit the hardware, thrust visuals like no tomorrow and have huge Hollywood style budgets. All that power not only comes at a price of the consumers, but the developers. Why would they willingly throw away all that money on two systems when they could use Wii U as a basis and just port to the others. True the others would likely have the superior versions, but if those budgets aren't going to be covered something needs to happen.

I have been thinking about this in my head time and time again. And when you look at the logical cards in front of you rather then saying "its what happened now, its what will happen next time" there is simply too much going against that theory. Some will no doubt jump ship, but it won't be on the scale a lot of you seem to think. You cannot possibly convince me that Japanese publishers will leave the Wii U for the next Xbox because it doesn't sell in Japan. They may develop for the next Xbox, but they won't abandon Wii U.

Before Wii came along Gamecube was stealing a lot of third party support in Japan from the Xbox. The GC wasn't the disaster for third party games people claim. It had a lot of great exclusives, besides Resident Evil it was notably JRPGs. And they were JRPGs the Xbox never saw. And there was more games besides that but its factors like these which scream that logically, this theory will never happen. When you look at the key differences Wii U is releasing to compared to when Wii launched, its not going to happen. 360 had it's time in the light to become the default system. Wii was seen as a toy and it remains to be seen how Wii U will go down. Also being more powerful likely means more expensive and that could put consumers off. Sorry, but third parties will stick around this time. How many stay or how long for remain to be seen, but there is no way third parties will leave Wii U the year 720 and PS4 come out.