SteamWorld Dig will be released for the Wii U in North America and Europe tomorrow, August 28th, and developer Image & Form have some troubling news for North American Wii U owners.
In an e-mail sent out to the press this morning, Image & Form stated that SteamWorld Dig will be available at a discounted rate to those that already own the Nintendo 3DS version of the game in Europe. The game costs €8.99 / £6.99 on Wii U, but if you already own the 3DS version, you can knock 25% off that price.
Regarding North America, Image & Form made the following statement:
NOA (Nintendo of America) does not have this mechanism in place yet, so a cross-buy like this isn’t available to our American customers. We’ve tried hard, and it’s taken some time to get this in place… Half a victory, at least!
Image & Form are repeating exactly what another developer, The Game Bakers, said to Siliconera earlier in the year. The Game Bakers released an RPG called Squids Odyssey for both 3DS and Wii U, and while a discount was offered to European gamers that bought both versions, this was not possible in North America.
At the time, The Gamer Bakers said to us that Nintendo of America “could not support this operation yet”. When we asked if they had approached NOA about a potential discount, we were told, “Yes we did ask, we really like this promotion and wished to make it happen for all gamers, but NOA could not support this kind of promotion.”
In North America, SteamWorld Dig will cost $9.99 on Wii U.
