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Nintendo Delayed First Party Wii U Games Due To Third Party Support

Nintendo has revealed that it delayed a number of first party titles at the Wii U launch due to solid third-party support. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors that third-party support for Wii U has been as promising as they anticipated, so a number of first party titles have been delayed as they look to spread out the releases for the console.

“If you look at how pre-orders are doing at the moment, it is not an exaggeration to say that Wii U is sure to sell well in this holiday season, as many of you are probably thinking. But we realise the biggest challenge is to make sure that Wii U sells well even in the next year after the holiday season, and we are working on that too.”

“Nintendo tends to release too many titles at the launch of a hardware system and as a result suffers a drop in new games for quite some time after launch, and for the Wii U launch, we are being very careful not to let it happen.”

“Fortunately, third-party publishers overseas are launching many titles for us this time, and we were able to push back the release of some of the titles that we had originally intended to release as launch titles until next year.”

84 thoughts on “Nintendo Delayed First Party Wii U Games Due To Third Party Support”

    1. Well, you don’t exactly want to overload on like 5 great games and then go a whole year with literally nothing major.

    2. The problem with too many games at the same time is that you don’t play them to the fullest before you go to the next game.
      I’ve experienced this and I don’t recommend it.

    3. Its so 3rd party companies will want to support Wii U… Because if all the Nintendo games were out on release day then there would be less sales for third party games due to people buying Nintendo’s games… Seems pretty logical.

    4. An excuse for what? The Wii U already has a pretty big launch lineup. I’ve already preordered a ton of games and I’ve never done that before at launch.
      I think what they’re doing is smart, but it does sound bad on paper. However, for example, would you prefer Nintendo to release 12 games that you’re interested in all on the same day (total of $720 by the way), or 1 a month?

    1. Or hopefully they’re getting touched up in the extra time they have.
      Also hopefully this includes some games we haven’t heard of yet.

        1. I 100% Batman, twice xD so i wont be getting that. Do want Ninja Gaiden 3 though, co-op with my bro would be a fine way to spend my christmas.

          1. I’m roughly 30% overall through Batman and roughly 50% through the story. I’m not sure whether to get the Wii U version and selling the PS3 version. I would lean towards getting it if it’s 1080p. What do you think?

            1. *shrug*
              I duno xD way i see it, if you own the game, no point paying for it again, unless its got a significant amount of content on it, or changed, or remade.

              1. It’s got the DLC already on Disc and some Wii U specific control methods. And armored suits but that’s just an attempt to add to the list of upgrades.

  1. Depending on a couple reviews and opinions, im getting around 10 games before march 31. Ive never done that with a console ever.

    Good move by nintendo, i say.

  2. That’s very good news. You don’t want to have a drought next year. And you have to save some of your big guns for when the competitors announce their next gen consoles. If at E3 Sony and/or MS unveil their new consoles that would be the perfect time to unveil Retro’s new game or Monolith’s new game. Leave luck to heaven.

    1. Yea black ops 2 that there is a atleast 4 months of multyplayer gameplay same has ac3 and tekken tag 2 some ppl will squish even more time from the day 1 releases ,i even find tank tank tank a solid multyplayer game

  3. Thats…actually pretty clever. Third party developers are “taking a risk” by putting their games on the WiiU, but if you have stuff like Rayman, Pikmin at launch, some of the smaller games wont sell as well. It doesnt mean theyre bad games, that tey just want to make money off, it happens all the time. Dishonored was fairly ignored, as well as Darksiders 2, and i bet if all the games were available at launch, ZombiU, Ninja Gaiden, Batman, Tekken, Scribblenaughts, and even NSMBU wouldnt sell as well.

        1. Nonlethal playthrough is so very rewarding. I’m playing it with pure lethality right now, and I can say that lethal playthrough totally sucks by comparison. With lethal, you have the option to disintegrate the bodies, therefore having less bodies found, but with nonlethal, you obviously can’t even do that, so that makes it even harder and thus you gotta get creative. Love it.

          Don’t want to meet the guards? Just blink to the pipe outside and just bypass them all. Problem solved.

    1. That’s true. Nintendo doesn’t want their first party games to outshine the 3rd party offerings. The 3rd party offerings on Wii U are spectacular. I’m going for Darksiders II and Ninja Gaiden 3.

    1. Mike, not really… After te 3rd party games were released, there was no 1st party follow-up games. It was a huge software drought, and eShop sucked at launch as well.

      I think they are trying to avoid this by having 1st party games READY to followup after the 3rd party game sales slow down.

      Just my guess sir!

    2. Not exactly. They didn’t have any headlining titles at the 3DS launch, AKA Mario/Zelda/Metroid. And third party support wasn’t anything awesome either. This time around the Wii U has quality FIRST and THIRD party support. There’s several 3rd party ones I want to supplement my first party titles.

    1. No. They delayed their First Party games as they weren’t needed, since the Wii U has a a strong lineup of 3rd party titles, and they don’t want them to be overshadowed. 1st party games will come next year.

  4. Well i’ve made my Mind up for launch :) – AC3 , ZombiU (bundle) and NSMBU. That’s like £450 – that will do for launch day. And then Gunna pick up titles slowly but surely in the following weeks and months. I’m glad Nintendo is spreading their games out. Imagine NSMBU , Pikmin 3 , AC3 , ZombiU , Rayman legends all on the same day………. overwhelming.

  5. Won’t be anything major- just Mario sports or Wii U Fit or something. If it was Metroid or something we would know, though I fully expect loads of first party reveals next E3, especially a 3D Mario reveal.

    1. It’s pretty easy to tell which they are. Pikmin 3. Wonderful 101. Wii Fit U. Might be another 1 or 2 that I missed. That’s why it’s only NSMB U, Nintendo Land, Sing at launch.

  6. It’ll force some to explore 3rd party games- if these devs are ignored, it won’t be good for Wii U. Also on Wii they released SMGalaxy like a month before Brawl; good to hear we won’t have to make any agonizing choices due to poor planning.

  7. Well its coming Late Nov. Early Dec. time will fly by pretty quick then we get the pikmin3,rayman,101,Aliens,Injustice and hopefully a lot of good stuff we don’t know about yet after the launch window

  8. I said this Months ago, and we still havn’t learn of all the 3rd party games that are coming AC3, CODBO2, NFS, are enuff to sell the System without 1st party but till what they announce in the next coming weeks……Tomb Raider and GTA5 if this happens which I believe will then Nintendo could hold off 1st Party til 2nd Quarter of the yr

  9. Im personally getting Black Ops 2, still have decided on my second game. Sometimes I ponder ZombiU but COD has zombies and a beast multiplayer for it too (Not comparing the two games, I know they are entirely different). I wish Monster Hunter was at launch but gotta wait till March :( Dont know what other game I’ll get yet :/ I’ll just have to see reviews.

  10. I think everyone hit on it nintendo has basically hit us with 2 games from them and they have high quality third party games. I for one done have a system I ended up selling them with out playing 99 percent of the games coming. So here’s my choices.

    Zombie u, darkstalkers, batman, madden, scribblenaughts, and tekken and eshop games. To top it off I pre ordered zombi

  11. They did this with the 3ds as well. I don’t mind this especially since we are getting nsmbu at launch and I’m like about half way done with skyward sword and have a couple 3ds/ds games to catch up on.

      1. I am working on a new idea for the legend of zelda but i won’t say yet. I hope i can get the message out to nintendo. I would be happy to give them my idea. No charge. That is how much i love them. Grew up playing red version blue-, stadium 1, 2. And so on.

  12. Yayyy, encouraging news!

    I notice people keep listing The Wonderful 101 as one of those soon-to-be released titles. While that is certainly true, keep in mind that’s not first party, which means the games Nintendo are referring to are games they haven’t even announced yet…haha!

  13. Pingback: Dragon Quest VII Remake confirmado para 3DS. Primer scan donde apreciar el gran lavado de cara | www.nextn.net

  14. We all remember what happened last time Nintendo relied on TPS? That’s right, the failing 3ds launch line up…

    1. But the difference is that these titles are better, AND there’s quality first party. Not just minor IPS like Nintendogs or Pilotwings. I think most agree that ZombiU, Assassin’s Creed 3 > Street Fighter, Ghost Recon.

    2. I get so sick of people saying the 3DS launch line-up was crap when EVERY HANDHELD EXCEPT TWO (Gameboy and Gameboy Advance) had a crap launch. For the love of god man.

  15. Pingback: Nintenderos.com – Wii U, 3DS, Wii, DS, Videojuegos y Consolas Nintendo | Nintendo retrasó sus juegos para WiiU por el alto apoyo de las ‘third-parties’

  16. And there it is.[if it was even needed at this point]
    The final nail in the coffin against people who were convinced that the Wii U wasn’t getting good third-party support.
    Not only is it getting grand third-party support, it’s getting so much of it that Nintendo is catering to them by holding back their own first-party titles a bit just to make room for the third parties to shine and sell.

    Bravo, Nintendo.
    Bravo.

  17. Nintendo president Iwata have made a great move of delaying some first party titles and balance both first and third party titles for the U at launch. At least there will be more Nintendo titles the month after the launch and beyond.

  18. Games that I’m getting on launch day for the Wii U (excluding Nintendo eShop-only games):

    – Assassin’s Creed III
    – New Super Mario Bros. U
    – Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge
    – Nintendo Land
    – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
    – ZombiU

    Games that I’m getting after launch for my Nintendo 3DS this year (also excluding the Nintendo eShop-only games):

    – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
    – Star Fox 64 3D
    – Super Mario 3D Land
    – Mario Kart 7
    – Resident Evil: Revelations
    – Kid Icarus: Uprising
    – New Super Mario Bros. 2
    – Paper Mario: Sticker Star

    I know…it’s a lot. I have some catch up to do with the Nintendo 3DS because I never bought any games for it yet (despite the fact that I’ve had one since launch…lol). I can’t believe how large my Wii U’s library is gonna be by the end of March–its launch library alone is the SAME size as my Wii’s library. If that isn’t a good sign, I don’t know what is! XD

    With the Nintendo 3DS, this is BY FAR the largest collection of games I’ve ever had on a list to get for a portable system. The Game Boy Advance is closest to it with seven games I had total.

    I love this Nintendo generation sooooo much. It’s making me cry tears of joy just looking at the beauty of these lists. :’)

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