Sometimes, the strangest news comes from the confluence of two separate news items. That may be the case with a double shot of news about the Wii U, one slightly old, the other comparatively new, and both adding up to make what looks like a potentially unpleasant situation for the beleaguered console.
We've noted here on more than one occasion that the Wii U's biggest problem is its comparative dearth of games. While the 3DS doesn't have such a problem, nor does the Wii, the Wii U is simply lacking on the game front, bad news for a console in the neighborhood of its first anniversary. This puts Nintendo into something of a Catch-22 situation; third party developers aren't in too big a rush to make Wii U games when Wii U consoles aren't selling, but where's the motive to buy Wii U consoles if there aren't games for it?
This was driven home by the recent move on the part of British supermarket chain Asda to no longer stock Wii U consoles at the 555 locations that comprise the chain. Only limited stocks will be available for both system and game alike on the Asda Direct website. This is something of a blow, though really only something given the sheer number of places that will stock the device worldwide. But with conditions being what they were, it wasn't a surprise that Asda would drop the Wii U, and instead make room for more popular items. While the exact impact of this move likely wouldn't break Nintendo on its own, another piece of news didn't help.
Recently, a report emerged that suggested that Bethesda—maker of several big-name titles—wasn't exactly in a hurry to develop for the Wii U. None of the major titles Bethesda has in line, from “The Elder Scrolls Online” to “Wolfenstein: The New Order” to “The Evil Within” is looking to land, and that alone would be bad news. But when Bethesda's Pete Hines, vice president of PR and marketing, said: “Will any future ones come out? I can't say for sure, in our near-term focus it's not on our radar.”
That's a real blow. The Catch-22 facing Nintendo is that systems aren't selling for lack of games and a lack of sales is keeping designers out of the picture. About the best thing that Nintendo could do here is ramp up the first party train like no tomorrow; Nintendo, your system needs games and it needs them badly. There was a nice focus opening up the floor to indie gamer developers that would love the credibility of having developed for Nintendo in play, but that needs to step up too. The key point is titles, titles, and more titles.
The better job that Nintendo can do to get titles in play, the better chance it has to make the system truly successful. It's going to be a tough road for Nintendo, especially with the upcoming releases of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to come, but the more games it can get in place, the more likely it will be to survive into the next stage of the console wars and bypass the fate of former rival Sega.
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