User blog:NOS Sterling/Opinion: Is Nintendo's Agreement with SEGA helping the Wii U Sales?

Back at the spring of 2013, SEGA announced a partnership with Nintendo to offer 3 exclusive Sonic game on Nintendo's consoles (which included the Wii U and 3DS) and those games included Sonic Lost World, Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and Sonic Boom. Although the 3DS is gaing better sales, the Wii U isn't and the deal is not perspectively working. So is this deal not working or is it just gaining some speed for Nintendo? Those answers are explained right here...

Background
The Wii U, released in Late 2012, was the first console of the 8th Gen consoles. Then it was the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Since it ever been revealed, many critics are still upset about the Wii U regarding to the Wii U gamepad, the standards used in other consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox as of today, and also many others. Despite all of this, many do like the gamepad but still, it was a complete major failure to Nintendo. Sales are very slow, though the Holiday 2013 sales went up, at launch, there was not a lot of Good titles to start with, and also there hasn't been a good amount of third party Support as well. Much of it includes Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and many others.

After the Wii U, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 which became a game changer thanks to the controller, good hardware, and many others. Months later, Microsoft showed off the Xbox One which was a major failure due to its excessive Digital Rights Management (DRM) towards owns and others, which was later removed after the E3 in 2013. As the Holiday season came in last year, Sales for both consoles were good. Both the PS4 and XB1 sold up to a million dollars in under a day. Later on, the PS4's sales were skyrocket despite of low stocks in just a few months.

Because of the poor sales with the Wii U, Nintendo and SEGA decided to partner up with both companies to start up an exclusive partnership, and they have decided to bring three exclusive Sonic games to the Wii U and 3DS (except for one game) and those games include the aforementioned Sonic Lost World, Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and Sonic Boom. What was also crazy is that SEGA had more games on the Wii U than any other 8th-Gen console! And this is not a good thing to a company making games on a console doing poor on sale. In fact, there has been 7 SEGA games on the Wii U (if counting SLW being published by Nintendo in the PAL Regions). And towards the XB1 and PS4, only ONE game (and that is Ailen: Isolation) though PS4 has two games, there only one is available in Japan only.

The Games
Now... Let's look at how the games did at their release. M&S Sochi is not included since it can be actually a Nintendo Exclusive if not part of that deal.

Sonic Lost World
The game ended up to mixed reviews controls for the most part, along with issues on the two-player races and co-ops. Eventual, there is many issues with critics and many others. Though the Wii U sales in Europe are great, they were poor in North America since it was released last and late and it cause sales to get less than 100K as of now. Despite being perfect for beginners and those new to Sonic since it's slowed down a bit, the Wii U version  has issues with the Controls and many others.

Sonic Boom
Although it is too early to talk about Sonic Boom, still how those effect their competators are similar towards how Titanfall (an Online FPS game from EA on Windows PCs, XB360 and XB1) is not released on the PS3 and/or PS4 (And yes, many are still upset on being an Xbox/Windows Exclusive and EA even stated that that game could have done better on the PS4/PS3 than the XB360/XB1). If the reviews are good, there is a possible chance that a sequel may come towards that game or not... But that depends on the fan demands and others. Although making it on the Wii U and 3DS isn't enough, putting it to the XB1 and PS4 shows that is could be better to make Sonic Boom available to everyone to play.

Was it a mistake to do it?
In this process, it is not only a major mistake to SEGA but also a major failure since due to the poor Wii U sales, it isn't helping boosting the sales on the Wii U. Having to make two of the three games (Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom) multiplatform will help but having it a Nintendo Exclusive isn't helping. Though it's fine to make it exclusive towards Handheld gaming (since the 3DS and 2DS is doing better), the home consoles isn't just worth it. Look at the Wii U sales, along with the lack of third-party support Although the sales on the game were well enough, it's not even a good way do such deal on a console poor in sales.

If this never happened, they could have developed Sonic Lost World in a later date since some development on the hedgehog Engine and possibly the Havok Engine for the PS4. Also, having the controls on the PS4's Dualshock 4 will be similar towards how its played in the Wii U gamepad, except that the Screen if your TV, not in front of your face. Despite that, some reviews may get a little better but that will vary on how Sonic Team does the job.

What SEGA Must Do during/after Sonic Boom
With Sonic Boom on the way, Sonic Team must get going with the Hedgehog Engine on the PS4 and XB1. Both of the consoles will have similar hardware (especially with the AMD Processors used, and the x86 architecture used) take less time than what it had to face with the Consoles. However it will take time to work on. As mentioned on my last Opinion article, we don't know what the next Sonic game will look like and stuff. All we can tell is that Sonic Team must work on getting the games developed and ready for PS4 and XB1. Although they may be ready for the Wii U, they're not done for the other consoles to be there.

Footnote
Despite this, it was a major problem for SEGA to make such decision. If those games were on multiconsole, it would have done better job there and gained better sales. As I normally speak, the Wii U may end up being discontinued early due to the poor sales but SEGA along with Sonic Team must get started on getting to know those Consoles as the Xbox One hits to Japan by September of 2014. That's all for now on my Opinion article... So any thoughts on it?