Industry analyst Michael Pachter doesn't believe that third-party publishers will support Nintendo's next home console unless development costs are kept to a minimum.
"The problem is I think they [Nintendo] did a bad job with third parties with the Wii and they've done an abysmal job with third parties with the Wii U," Pachter said in an interview with Game Informer, "so I don't think third parties would come back for a new console.
"If they come out with a new console and it is essentially identical programming language with the Xbox so the cost to port a game is zero, I'm still skeptical that third parties would support it. They possibly would, but only if the cost was so low."
Pachter points to Activision's decision not to develop Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare for the console as an example of third-parties backing away from Nintendo.
"Ubisoft got really burned on the Wii U making dedicated titles like ZombiU," he continued. "Activision stopped making Call of Duty for the Wii U, and EA hasn't ever made a game for the Wii U. I don't think they come back."
Most major third-party publishers appear to have abandoned support for Wii U, with only a handful of AAA third-party titles (including Project Cars and two LEGO titles) still confirmed to be in development for the console.
Watch Dogs, one of last year's biggest third-party titles, missed the game's initial launch in May, landing on Wii U six months later. Unsurprisingly, sales of the Wii U version failed to take off. Pachter also blames Nintendo for failing to "do their homework" when naming Wii U, pointing the finger at CEO Satoru Iwata for making "a lot of bad decisions".
"I think he surrounds himself with people who allow him to make these bad decisions. It starts at the top. I think he is not a good leader," Pachter continued.
"I think the Wii was a dumb name and it's still a dumb name. I remember when the North American guys called me. It was April 1st and they said, 'Before we tell you why we're calling you this is not an April Fool's joke – we promise. We've decided on the official name of the Revolution. It's the Wii.' I said you have to be kidding me.
"Wii 2 would have been a good name. [With] Wii U, people thought they were buying the GamePad for their Wii. Who didn't do their homework?"
