Sales of the Wii U have been lacking since it launched in November 2012. In the first five months it was in stores, the console only sold 1.1 million units. Its predecessor sold 2.1 million units in the same amount of time. To put this in perspective, the Xbox 360 sold over 800,000 units in the first three months of 2013. Satoru Iwata – the global CEO of Nintendo – said that Nintendo itself is to blame. He stated the lack of launch titles, the shift in the company’s focus during the holiday season of 2012, and the reduced marketing campaign in the recent months are the cause for the dwindling sales of the console.
Third Party Support
Many third-party developers like Electronic Arts have pulled their support for Nintendo’s flagship console. Others, including Ubisoft have decided to delay games that were intended to be exclusives so that they may be developed for more platforms. Their fears are worthy of mentioning, however there are other developers out there and Nintendo knows this.
New Blood
Because some of the bigger developers are pulling their support away from Nintendo, this leaves a grandiose opportunity for independent developers to show off. Astrogun plans to do just that with a new game in development known as Project Cider. The video above shows some gameplay footage from a prototype version of the game. The video makes an attempt at giving the game the moniker of ‘Zelda on Crack’. In its infancy, the game looks quite rough around the edges, however it does show promise. The official game page states the intention of making the game available for Playstation 4, Vita, Wii U, Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Funding
Astrogun is asking for donations to fund the game on the project homepage with a link to Paypal. There is no specific donation amount stated to be granted early access to the game, but early access is specified as a reward for doing so. If you donate you will also receive free updates for the length of the development. There is no time limit for funding – or for the game to be released – but one can only assume the more money thrown into the mix there will be that much more incentive for the game to be finished sooner.
Thoughts
I personally would like to see this game come to the PS Vita system with a slight modification. In the video you can see the tester using the right stick on the controller to move the camera. This causes a constant jarring of the screen, which gives me a headache. I realize this may not bother everyone, but why can’t the camera simply be backed out a bit to include a larger area of view? It may be intentional to add a layer of difficulty, but the option of zooming out the camera would be quite welcome. Let us not forget that Zelda did not have this issue. Would it have been so successful if it did?
Are you excited for this game, or others like it?
Do you think the Wii U is dead?
