Publisher EA Games (Electronic Arts) has announced that a number of its titles – including this year’s addition to the popular footy franchise FIFA 14 will remain on the bench this season, missing release on the Nintendo Wii U home console.
FIFA 14 is set to kick off in September featuring a number of new features as well as revamped career mode and is currently confirmed for release on Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and Windows PC – but it will not be making an appearance on Wii U after last year’s FIFA 13 performed poorly on sales for the console once heralded as the ‘Living Room Revolution’.
EA Games broke the news to Nintendo players in a statement to Eurogamer which in part read: “Six months ago FIFA 13 was a launch title on Wii U. Although the game featured FIFA’s award-winning HD gameplay and innovative new ways to play, the commercial results were disappointing. We have decided not to develop FIFA 14 on Wii U.”
Added to the list of other red-carded titles are future sports releases in the NFL, NHL and Tiger Woods PGA Tour series, all published by EA which states it has no further plans to develop games for Nintendo.
This news deals another blow to Nintendo which will also suffer the loss of any future Star Wars games following unsuccessful testing of the Frostbite 2 engine used by Disney and EA Games development partner DICE who will be creating the new Battlefront 3 game as well as other Star Wars saga titles to be announced.
Prices of the Wii U have dramatically dropped from the original £300 price tag down to half of that at £150 in some stores as Nintendo seeks to bring in some of those elusive shiny gold coins which after three decades in the console business have only recently started to show signs of rust.