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Nintendo, on the other hand, is all about exclusive content.

Few people have picked up a Wii U thinking about playing multiplatform blockbusters like Call of Duty: Ghosts, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, or Battlefield 4.That last one, along with pretty much every other EA game released this year, isn’t even available for Wii U. Ditto for Grand Theft Auto V, far and away the most popular game of the year.

Instead, they purchased it for games that can only be played on Nintendo machines. The latest Mario and Luigi platformers. Link’s ongoing quests to save Zelda. Those cute little armies of plant-like Pikmin.

These iconic and exclusive licenses – and plenty of others, including Donkey Kong, Pokemon, and Metroid, to name just a few – produce the games that top Nintendo’s software sales charts year after year.

The upshot is that Nintendo can survive even if virtually all of its third-party software partners abandon them – as pretty much happened during the final years of the Wii.

Imagine, on the other hand, what would happen to Xbox or PlayStation’s fortunes if EA or Activision stopped working with them. It would mean their death.

The crux is this: The reason to buy a Nintendo console is to play Nintendo games. It’s that simple.

Getting back to the Wii U specifically, Nintendo’s latest console had a rough first year. Until recently there were only two or three covet-worthy Wii U exclusives, and none of them were essential.

New Super Mario Bros. U is a fun but mostly predictable update on the plumber’s side-scrolling formula, and Nintendo Land is a quirky and curious collection of mini-games that serves as a nice introduction to the GamePad but not much else. March’s Lego City Undercover was a refreshingly original take on the Lego game recipe, but with lots of other Lego adventures readily available for every other platform it was unlikely to make many fence-sitters rush out and pick up a Wii U.