Well, it’s one of the first thoughts most people had in the past months, right after NX was announced (me included).
“Good! I hope they bring Wii U games to NX, games that could have better chances of success on a more successful console, or games that act like a service / have big online communities, and it would be bad to see them end with the Wii U, …or Zelda at least”.
And we got news on the matter. Or, better, rumours. From our good old Emily Rogers (who is used to leak infos for Nintendo, with a great track record, especially after the less-than-respectable reliability back in 2011) through Twitter: several ports coming, and among them four games: Zelda Wii U, Smash Bros., Super Mario Maker and Splatoon.
There are different reasons for these titles, and they’re all valid: Zelda is ported because it would see its sales potential strongly limited by Wii U’s small installed base, and it represents a great title for the “launch window” on NX; Smash Bros. has a living and kicking online community going on, which is something that can be said for Splatoon too (see those amazing Splatfest numbers for Japan I reported in my latest article). Also, both Splatoon and Mario Maker, even more than Smash Bros., are both games and services, due to all the free content released (and releasing). And the aforementioned periodical Splatfests for the former. Now, it’s important to highlight that, while both Zelda and Smash Bros. are (almost) 100% happening, Mario Maker is around…90% right now, I think, and Splatoon is the port which is characterised by the biggest uncertainty on its actual release; just to be fully honest on the matter. Ok, good, great, these ports can be good …But what about the others?
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