‘Mass Effect Andromeda’ Will Not Launch On Wii U, Adding To The Long List Of Third-Party Games Not On Wii U

The next installment in the wildly popular Mass Effect franchise, Mass Effect Andromeda, will apparently not launch on the Wii U, per a Twitter conversation with the MEA producer.

When asked on Twitter whether the next Mass Effect title will launch on Nintendo’s current console, Michael Gamble, producer on the Mass Effect series, responded “next-gen console and PC”

@dukemon13 next gen consoles and PC

— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) August 16, 2015

The Wii U has struggled since its inception to score massive, big-budget third party games, and a lot of the reasoning can be pointed back to hardware that struggles to run high fidelity and complex game engines. This is no shock, as the upcoming Star Wars games from DICE will also not be on Wii U because of the hardware.

@MutedPenguin FB3 has never been running on WiiU. We did some tests with not too promising results with FB2 & chose not to go down that path

— Johan Andersson ??? (@repi) May 6, 2013

The industry seems to be moving away from the Wii U, mainly due to its inability to play games the Xbox One, PS4, and PC can. Mass Effect Andromeda, Project Cars, and Star Wars Battlefront are just recent examples of this, but the more games that start to come out using robust graphics engines, the more studios that will leave the Wii U in the dust.

However, because Gamble didn’t come right out and say it is coming to just the Xbox and PlayStation specifically, Nintendo fans are speculating that Mass Effect Andromeda could be coming to the Wii U’s successor, the Nintendo NX. The Nintendo NX is rumored to be unveiled at some point next year, and already there are titles being rumored to exist on the Nintendo console.

Regardless of the upcoming Nintendo NX’s power, what the trend continues to prove is that developers aren’t as confident in the Wii U anymore. Early launch titles included many third-party games, but as the years go on, fewer and fewer big budget titles have found their way onto the Wii U platform. Maybe the absence of Mass Effect Andromeda will help drive home that Nintendo needs to build a system capable of competing at least with the current console line-up, but preferably with the PC for longevity’s sake. Mass Effect Andromeda is speculated to launch in Q4 2016, so fans will have to wait and see which exact platforms in the end the title will hit, but one thing is clear: Nintendo fans wanting to play the next installment of Mass Effect may do well to put down their Wii U gamepad and grab a mouse and keyboard or DualShock 4, as it may be the only way they’ll experience the game.

[Image via EA]