DICE Says Tests on Wii U "Not Too Promising"

[Andy Chalk]

DICE Says Tests on Wii U "Not Too Promising"

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/repi/status/331549012022927360]​

The odds of EA's future Star Wars games (and a whole bunch of other stuff) coming to the Wii U appear to be growing very long indeed.

It seems that former Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello might have been on to something when he said [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/02/04/ea-ceo-doesnt-think-wii-u-is-a-next-gen-console/] earlier this year that Nintendo's Wii U lacks the stones to be a true "next gen" console. In a comment posted on Twitter yesterday, Johan Andersson, the Frostbite technical director at DICE - the studio best known for the Battlefield games - denied a claim that the latest iteration of the engine had at one point been running on the Wii U before development efforts were stopped.

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

"FB2" would of course be the older Frostbite 2, which DICE rolled out in 2011 with Battlefield 3 and that has since been used in games including Need for Speed: The Run, Medal of Honor: Warfighter and Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel. It's been EA's go-to engine and Frostbite 3 is set to fill the same role, which would seem to exclude the console from EA's future plans. That perception is reinforced by EA's recent announcement that the 25th anniversary of the Madden NFL franchise would also skip [http://mynintendonews.com/2013/05/02/ea-confirms-madden-is-skipping-wii-u-in-2013/] the system. It may not matter - Nintendo's never been big on third-party developers anyway - but in the arms race of the coming console generation, it doesn't look good.

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/repi/status/331549012022927360]


Permalink

 

[josemlopes]

Where did FB3 come from? Even Battlefield 4 uses FB2

 

[spartandude]

Where did FB3 come from? Even Battlefield 4 uses FB2

im running on a theory that hes from the future, although that isnt confirmed yet

 

[RA92]

Well for all those Wii-U owners, this news really... bites

Looks like DICE is giving them the cold shoulder.

 

[devotedsniper]

I'd love to say I told you so but I won't, is this really surprising for anyone? Really? Us nay sayers have been saying once the new xbox/PS4 come out the Wii U third party support would soon drop, it just doesn't have the grunt to compete with them, it's going to be in the exact same position as the original Wii.

 

[rasputin0009]

Where did FB3 come from? Even Battlefield 4 uses FB2

im running on a theory that hes from the future, although that isnt confirmed yet

BF4 is running on FB3, not FB2.

OT: What architecture is the Wii U running that everybody's scared of developing for? Can't be worse than PS3's Cell, can it?

 

[Jumwa]

OT: What architecture is the Wii U running that everybody's scared of developing for? Can't be worse than PS3's Cell, can it?

Indies seem to be having no trouble, and saying how easy it is to develop for.

I think a lot of the big western developers just decided ahead of time that Nintendo would fail so never gave any serious attempts at working with it. They figured it wasn't worth the investment trying to get into it seriously.

 

[devotedsniper]

OT: What architecture is the Wii U running that everybody's scared of developing for? Can't be worse than PS3's Cell, can it?

Indies seem to be having no trouble, and saying how easy it is to develop for.

I think a lot of the big western developers just decided ahead of time that Nintendo would fail so never gave any serious attempts at working with it. They figured it wasn't worth the investment trying to get into it seriously.

That could be it's downfall, by making it easier to develop for indie dev's you could be excluding the AAA dev's. Look at it the same way as programming languages, some are incredibly easy to learn (e.g. Visual Basic) but they lack the lower end power of something such as C++.

 

[Frost27]

I would pay them twice for an FB3 Star Wars Battlefield. Sucks about the Wii-U but honestly I would have been more surprised if it HAD run on the system.

 

[The Funslinger]

Well for all those Wii-U owners, this news really... bites

Looks like DICE is giving them the cold shoulder.

Nintendo fans will probably give this news a Frosty reception.

 

[VinLAURiA]

And yet CryEngine 3 and Unreal 4 can run on Wii U. And even the PS3/360 can handle Frostbite 3.

Looks like the "unprecedented partnership" continues. Still bitter about the Origin deal falling through, eh, EA?

 

[MiskWisk]

Well for all those Wii-U owners, this news really... bites

Looks like DICE is giving them the cold shoulder.

Nintendo fans will probably give this news a Frosty reception.

I get the feeling that they'll be rather chilled about this.

Edit: God damn ninjas.

Fine.
I don't expect this news will freeze anyone in their tracks.

 

[Eri]

I would like to think this would teach Nintendo a lesson about constantly releasing underpowered hardware but I know they won't learn from it.

[inb4 someone tries to claim the U isn't underpowered despite using 7 year old tech]

 

[RA92]

Well for all those Wii-U owners, this news really... bites

Looks like DICE is giving them the cold shoulder.

Nintendo fans will probably give this news a Frosty reception.

I get the feeling that they'll be rather chilled about this.

Edit: God damn ninjas.

Fine.
I don't expect this news will freeze anyone in their tracks.

But the speed at which games are coming out for the WiiU has been positively glacial.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

OT: What architecture is the Wii U running that everybody's scared of developing for? Can't be worse than PS3's Cell, can it?

Indies seem to be having no trouble, and saying how easy it is to develop for.

I think a lot of the big western developers just decided ahead of time that Nintendo would fail so never gave any serious attempts at working with it. They figured it wasn't worth the investment trying to get into it seriously.

That could be it's downfall, by making it easier to develop for indie dev's you could be excluding the AAA dev's. Look at it the same way as programming languages, some are incredibly easy to learn (e.g. Visual Basic) but they lack the lower end power of something such as C++.

Bare in mind, many indies are already made to support a touch screen, so the Wii U controller is much less of a hurtle than it would be for a AAA title

Also, smaller teams & smaller budgets adjust to new/unique platforms a lot quicker & easier. Taking the time to teach a large scale dev team to work on a platform that's not only new but fundamentally different from what they're used to working with (again, control interface) is an expensive endeavor

Us nay sayers have been saying once the new xbox/PS4 come out the Wii U third party support would soon drop

the Wii U has third party support to drop?

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

It can run just fine. EA and Nintendo have been shitty with each other just like EA was shitty with Sega. Frostbite 2 runs on lesser hardware, and I'm sure that "we chose not to go down that path" is a business related statement. Probably Nintendo's third-party conditions or whatever. Ooh, it's because Nintendo didn't let them jam Origin into their online infrastructure or whatever.

Alright console war battlers, go ahead and proceed.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Well for all those Wii-U owners, this news really... bites

Looks like DICE is giving them the cold shoulder.

Nintendo fans will probably give this news a Frosty reception.

I get the feeling that they'll be rather chilled about this.

Edit: God damn ninjas.

Fine.
I don't expect this news will freeze anyone in their tracks.

But the speed at which games are coming out for the WiiU has been positively glacial.

And because of this, many gamers plans to buy the Wii U have been put on ice