Despite coming out of the blocks fast, sales have not been that strong; and both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had sales numbers in January that topped the Wii U. This, of course, has not gone unnoticed by publishers and developers alike.
As one source told us, “While planning for the platforms that our next titles would be released on, it was obvious that our titles for this year and at least the first half of next year would be primarily focused on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with several titles for the next-generation systems. Talk of Wii U ports for any these projects was met with a negative reaction, saying there just was not enough sales to warrant the development cost associated with it.”
Another source said to us, “We are only planning the couple of Wii U releases that we are already committed to doing and we might do one or two ports, but right now there just does not seem to be a demand. Our thinking is that the safe bet is to focus on the 2013 releases for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and a couple of those will be converted to the new next-gen systems. In 2014, however, we expect our titles that come out after mid-year to be focused on the next-gen consoles, with only a few those being released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well, unless sales of the next-gen consoles don’t go well. The Wii U would have to make very significant gains to figure into our 2014 and 2015 planning at this point.”
Nintendo needs something to happen to help get the Wii U flying off the shelf again; but many are now waiting to see what the Next-Generation Microsoft and Sony systems are going to offer and at what price before trying to choose which one to buy or if they will ride it out. If cost is the main factor, we could see a lot of gamers waiting, as long as they continue to get ample software flowing to their current systems, which is no real help to sales of the Wii U.