Nintendo's struggling console has experienced another setback. EA has announced that it currently has no future plans for releasing games on the Wii U console.
This is a surprising development considering EA was a launch partner for the Wii U when it was released in November 2012. An 2011's E3 event, EA took the stage promising an "unprecedented partnership."
This news is doubly inconvenient for Nintendo, as it comes right on the heels of their latest Nintendo Direct presentation.
EA's plans were revealed in an interview with Kotaku, where they state that they will no longer pursue Wii U ports of their titles.
EA spokesperson Jeff Brown flatly stated, "We have no games in development for the Wii U currently."
In the past, EA has produced versions of Mass Effect 3, Madden, FIFA 13, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted for the Nintendo console.
Nintendo has been struggling to get the Wii U off the ground in recent months. The company's latest financial results revealed that sales on the next-gen console had fallen significantly short of their goals. Nintendo had hoped to sell approximately 4 million consoles, but has to date only sold about 3.45 million.
Consumer reception to the new platform has been lukewarm as well, with many gamers not even realizing that the Wii U was an entirely new console.
While this is certainly not going to kill the Wii U outright, it should be noted that a similar incident occurred in the past. Back in 1999, EA decided to stop publishing its sports titles on the SEGA Dreamcast, a decision that many link to SEGA's eventual failure and departure from console production.
The Wii U launched in 2012 as the first entry in the eighth generation of console development. The Wii U is the first Nintendo console to feature high-definition graphics in 1080p.
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