Electronic Arts currently has no games for the Wii U planned, EA spokesperson Jeff Brown told Kotaku. However, he does not rule out the possibility that this could change in the future.
Since the launch of the Wii U, EA has published several games for Nintendo’s troubled console. These include Fifa 13, Madden NFL 13, Mass Effect 3: Special Edition and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but their biggest game so far in 2013 Dead Space 3, skipped the Wii U.
Earlier this month, EA DICE‘s technical director Johan Andersson also killed off all hopes of Battlefield 4 for the Wii U. In a tweet he posted, he explained that after some tests on the Wii U with Frostbite 2, they were not satisfied with the results. Thus they have no intention of ever running Frostbite 3 on the Wii U. This would also mean that all upcoming Star Wars titles from DICE and Visceral Games would not see a Wii U release as they would be running on Frostbite 3 as well.
EA is not the only 3rd party development house which is giving Wii U a miss. There are currently no signs of major forthcoming games for the Wii U from Take-Two, whose Grand Theft Auto V is currently announced only for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The next Call of Duty from Activision is also not announced for the Wii U.
On the other hand, Ubisoft has planned major Rayman and Assassin’s Creed games for the Wii U this year as well as the highly ambitious Watch Dogs. Warner Brothers also has the console exclusive Scribblenauts Unlimited and the upcoming Batman: Arkam Origins for the Wii U.
As much as I hate to be sad about EA not developing for Wii U, I must be because of the trouble it could mean for Nintendo. It only took one failed console for SEGA to go down, let’s hope Nintendo can make to the next gen with a truly high-tech device. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy what they offer on Wii U and 3DS. Because their games are great, regardless of graphical prowess.
Don’t worry. Nintendo has a stockpile of money right now and it will take them a long time to go the way of Sega.
That, and part of Sega’s demise was its abysmal management in the past, combined with abandoning the Saturn, infighting between regional divisions, etc. There was a lot more to it than the Dreamcast.