Activision confirms that the release of Elite on the Wii U is dated for some time after the release of Black Ops 2 as both Nintendo and Activision are still working out the final details of the deal.
The day and age of publisher providing only a product are over as many studios are now focusing on complimenting their games with value added services. One such example is Call of Duty: Elite, which is based on the concept of a social network set around the Call of Duty-verse.
Players who sign up for the service gain access to a wide range of statistics and features that non-Elite members do not. At the same time any DLC that is released for the game is made available to Elite members before they make their way into the hands of everyone else, and most of the times the Elite members are also given a bit of a discount as well.
Over 1-million users subscribed to the service when it launched and EA retaliated with Battlelog, which was a free service similar to Elite. However, after the success of Elite, EA publicly stated their intentions of one day releasing a premium, subscription based service as well.
It is an interesting time to be following the video game industry as the console market is set to enter another phase with the release of the first next-gen console, the Nintendo Wii U. Black Ops 2 will be releasing on Nintendo’s console, albeit without the Elite feature.
A spokesperson for Activision explained, “We are currently evaluating options for Call of Duty Elite to support Nintendo’s Wii U game system, however Call of Duty Elite for Call of Duty: Black Ops II will not support this platform when the game launches on November 13.”
With that done and dusted, the spokesperson went on to assure everyone that the studio and Nintendo were in talks on how the Elite service and DLC packs would be distributed. The statement emphasized the fact that the studio was “working with Nintendo on the possibility of releasing the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 DLC Map Packs and the DLC Season Pass for this new gaming platform.”
No specific date was given but one can expect it to launch next year rather than in 2012. The most notable change in the Elite dynamic this year is the fact that it is now completely free, as opposed to previous iterations where subscriptions were required.
Whether or not Black Ops 2 can bring the core gamer to the Wii U remains to be seen but Nintendo seems to be doing everything it can to ensure that it can cater to the needs of every gamer segment this time around.
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