Electronic Arts has been selective about what it’s willing to put out for Nintendo’s Wii U. The twin titans of EA Sports – Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer – were a must, but little else form EA is guaranteed to be released on the new console. Mass Effect 3 was released as a launch title, but similarly adult-oriented action games like Dead Space 3 are not eligible, according to the publisher. That has left games that fall between the two (in terms of violence), games like Crysis 3, in uncertain waters. Crytek openly stated that it was working with the hardware, but when it finally announced concrete release plans for the sequel it said Nintendo and EA backed away. What happened?
“We did have Crysis running on the Wii U,” Crytek’s outspoken CEO Cevat Yerli told Venture Beat, “We were very close to launching it. But there was a lack of business support between Nintendo and EA on that. Since we as a company couldn’t launch on the Wii U ourselves—we don’t have a publishing license—Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.”
Back in July, Yerli originally said that the release wasn’t likely, but the studio and Nintendo were working together to make it happen. “I can definitely say that we are working with Nintendo, and that’s about all I can say on that front,” said Yerli, “I wouldn’t rule [Crysis 3 Wii U] out, but there’s been no official release associated with the Wii U yet, and given that we’re releasing Crysis in an eight month time period in February of 2013, we can’t play off of what their schedules are.”
Shortly afterwards, Yerli said that EA and Nintendo couldn’t come to an agreement about the game. “There have been business discussions between Nintendo and EA and Crytek, but the bottom line is that there’s not enough business drive in it,” said the CEO in January, “I’d love to see it on Wii U, but what I love and what gets done at the end of the day are two different things.”
It’s only now though that Yerli has confirmed that Crytek actually had the game up and running on Nintendo’s hardware.
Based on the console’s sales and especially shooter sales on the platform, EA made the right decision to keep Crysis 3 on healthier platforms. Hopefully Crytek will release a Wii U project at some point in the future, if only to see how the technologically capable studio pushes the hardware.
