For once, it’d be nice to hear a big-name developer give the Wii U a much-needed compliment. Nintendo’s latest console hasn’t exactly been getting the love from third parties and people not making actual Nintendo products, and a recent interview with Swedish studio Avalanche only continues to paint a disastrous picture of a console looking for a serious sign of life.
Now, I’m not exactly fluent in Norwegian, but my best friend, Google Translate, did provide some deciphered information from PressFire’s interview with Avalanche Studios, who’s developed popular titles like Just Cause and Renegade Ops in the past. In it, the developer states that it has no plans for a Wii U game, and will instead use the spark of inspiration that the next-generation has provided to push the company forward. Although the team sees the Wii U as an interesting concept, the install base is just too small to cater to.
“We actually had some development consoles that just collected dust,” said Christofer Sundberg, founder of the Swedish studio. “It's a little sad, because we wanted to do something. We want our games to release as widely as possible.”
At this time, Avalanche sees the Wii U as too big a risk. There’s no guarantee that people will purchase your game after spending both time and money on developing it, and unless a greater number of users begin to appear on Nintendo’s hardware, it just makes more sense to push content elsewhere. And it looks like that “elsewhere” will be when Just Cause 3 eventually makes it to next-gen consoles.