In November of last year, Activision and Treyarch Games released the latest Call of Duty installment, Black Ops 2. The game currently has positive reception for all systems and is among one of the fastest selling titles of 2012. Even though gamers around the world are currently enjoying Black Ops 2, the employees at Activision have reportedly been upset with the low number of sales for the Wii U version of the game.
According to numerous sources, Calvin Hall, Game Analysist, went around at the D.I.C.E Summit and went around asking some developers some questions. Hall, who ended up speaking to an employee of a studio who makes games for Activision, has reportedly said that the latest consensus is that Activision is "soured" by the sales of the Wii U version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. It's unknown if this employee is part of Treyarch and it's very possible that he could simply be pulling off a joke, but what he stated in the interview was interesting. According to Hall's blog, the employee stated the following:
“Activision didn’t expect much from Wii U sales of Black Ops 2, but they sure didn’t expect it to be that abysmal. Activision gave Wii U owners the best version of Blops 2 with Off TV features, and Nintendo fans didn’t support it. It’s easy for Nintendo fans to trash publishers for not giving them ports, but publishers have wisened up. They realize Nintendo fans are all talk. Nintendo fans are vocal with their mouths, but when it’s time to open their wallets, they’ll spend that $60 on New Super Mario Bros instead. There’s just no enthusiasm for it. The only reason publishers are still going to bring games to Wii U is because they don’t want to damage their relationship with Nintendo.”
Basically, this supposed employee is saying that even though Wii U owners received the best version of Black Ops 2, they believe that Nintendo fans didn't support it. Even though the sales were low, Activision and it's studios will continue to support Nintendo anyways to avoid damaging their relationship with each other. Now, as I stated earlier, this whole situation could just be some individual making all of this up, but it's unlikely. Even outside the Developer community, Gamers see that Wii U software and hardware sales are extremely low. It's not that Gamers aren't supporting third-party titles, it's that nobody is going to dish out $350 for a new console when most Call of Duty players have an Xbox 360 that's 8 years old.
Once more Wii U units ship by the end of 2013, Activision will notice a dramatic surge in sales. The main issue is that there isn't enough titles for the system as of right now. It's the most expensive console on the market and the games don't convince people to purchase one yet. Once titles like 'Wind Waker HD' and 'Smash Bros.' hit the shelves, more people will buy third-party games and developers will hopefully be a little more satisfied.
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