Does porting games to next gen make last gen consoles/games less desirable?

[telly]

Yeah honestly, I've wanted to buy a Wii U but I've found it harder and harder to justify owning one. The ports are justified from a buisness stand point of course and I'm glad more people will get to experience the stuff, but it ends up leaving the poor thing with almost nothing unique to experience on it

This.

I'm a big fan of the WiiU.  I had a lot of fun with it and there were some damn good games for the system.  It's hard to tell someone they're missing out though.  If it was a good game, It's coming to the Switch.  There's just not much left that hasn't been ported. New Super Mario U?  Mario Maker? Super Mario 3D World?  They're all good games, but not worth the whole system.

Agreed.  The Wii U is kind of the fringe case here.  The library was so comparatively small that all of these ports (which I totally get from a business standpoint) are making it even more of a niche system than it was before.  The 360 and PS3 ports aren't affecting those consoles that much because the rest of the non-ported libraries are still pretty massive.

Also agreed. If we're talking about this generation the Wii U is easily at the bottom of the list for me now. It's still a fun system, and I also got it because I don't have a Wii, but because half of it's games are now gutted and enhanced on the Switch, it makes the Wii U almost pointless to own IMO.

The only games that I think are still worth buying the console for at this point is Pikmin 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X and "maybe" Paper Mario depending on how I feel about it when I play it.

[shfan]

It does when the re-releases represent a significant portion of the original machine's exclusives, as is the case with the Wii U. TBH, if it wasn't for a few titles like Project Zero 5 and Pikmin 3, I'd have my Wii U boxed up and traded in like now.

I don't blame them re-releasing them, so few will have had the chance to play what are quality games just because the Wii U was such a lame duck.

[dharmajones93]

The only games that I think are still worth buying the console for at this point is Pikmin 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X and "maybe" Paper Mario depending on how I feel about it when I play it.

I am contemplating buying a Wii U for these exact games, and these only! I will get one, just to round out my Nintendo home console collection (I was broke when it came out), but it is getting harder to justify. The only thing keeping me from grabbing one on the way home today is the notion that the ports of these will come to Switch. If they do, then there is no hurry. I can wait a few years and grab one from a flea market or craigslist for peanuts.

In terms of Ports hindering development of new games, this isn't the case. Logically it seems like it would, but the original dev teams aren't the ones working on "ports". These cheap outsourced ports are what fund massive AAA games. Big games are fewer and father between, so offering new adoptees opportunities to enjoy old games for the first time, and giving die hard fans opportunities to enjoy them again (at full retail price), bank rolls big expensive games. This is especially true of games from the Wii U, which probably barely recouped their development costs, let alone funded the next big game.

I'm torn, but excited. A good port example would be the precedent set by The World Ends With You. There are TONS of DS and 3DS games that I would love to have on Switch/big screen.

[brianthelion]

I think it's perfectly fine. Making good games available in stores multiple times is always a good thing. I feel like there should be way more budget releases of old games just so the kids of today can play them. It's only a bummer when the conversion to the new system causes some sort of bug, or when remasters feel the need to change too much.