NES Remix Skipped 3DS Because it Needed Wii U's "Power"

[StewShearerOld]

NES Remix Skipped 3DS Because it Needed Wii U's "Power"

Game director Koichi Hayashida believes that bringing NES Remix 1 an 2 to 3DS would have been "difficult."

NES Remix arguably looked like a game that would be perfect for a handheld device. Boasting a bevy of classic games that have been twisted and changed to provide players with new challenges, they're retro to the core and frequently employ visuals torn straight from the good old days of the NES.

That being the case, some have wondered why <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/10834-NES-Remix-Review-This-Cartridge-Blows>NES Remix and its impending sequel aren't coming to the 3DS. Speaking about the subject recently, NES Remix director Koichi Hayashida stated that Remix's absence on handhelds is a simple matter of power.

"It just would have been more difficult to do it for the 3DS," said Hayashida. "It's just that the Wii U had the machine power we were looking for in order for us to build the software we envisioned from the get go.'

Now, on the one hand, we don't want to be to those jerks that insist something that a developer says is silly. After all, for all we know NES Remix and its sequel were both really challenging games to make. That being said, we still can't help but feel it's a bit odd to be citing power issues when the game in question looks frequently looks like it could run on the now-ancient NES. Not to mention that, regardless of the potential challenges, you'd think the company's ultimate goal would be to sell more copies of the game. Granted, we're not fortune tellers, but somehow we suspect that NES Remix might have been a bigger hit on the well-selling 3DS than on the Wii U.

NES Remix 2 will release to the Wii U eShop on April 25th.

Source: <a href=http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/21/why-nes-remix-1-2-isnat-on-nintendo-3ds>IGN


Permalink

 

[Roxas1359]

Alright I have to call complete bull on this. NES Remix is nothing more than old NES games with small little "challenges" added into them to try and make them feel different, and links to the eShop inside them to get you to buy the actual NES games. Basically Wario Ware games but without the self parody or self awareness.

I'm pretty sure the 3DS could more than handle the games, they just don't wanna release them onto the 3DS. If he had said "I don't want to make it for the 3DS" then I'd accept that. But with his current wording it makes it sound like he doesn't think the 3DS can handle it, which is certainly not true. It's like when Sakurai said he wasn't gonna make another story mode for Smash Bros because the cutscenes would end up on YouTube. Terrible excuse given when there are plenty of legitimately better ones that you could have used instead...

 

[Covarr]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

 

[MazokuRanma]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

 

[Braedan]

Possibly... Exclusive to sell more wiiuiiuuuiiuuu's?
Doesn't seem so far fetched to me.

 

[Rellik San]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

This Ars Technica article should help with the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Approximate emulation is easy; I run a 4gig octa-core proc... and even I'd just about be able to accurately emulate a games console, the issue is it's all front loaded too the software, as a result it's telling hardware too do something it not only shouldn't do, but telling it too render sound, visual and input at the same time, specific hardware tricks used in cartridges too trigger certain in game events and some games just outright having non-functioning feature sets combine that with the various mods and changes and you have a ridiculously cpu intensive game.

A cheap and cheerful Snes/Nes emulator is easy too come by, accurate emulation however isn't.

 

[Doom972]

I bet that there's already a homebrew emulator that can do that on the 3DS. It's also not a matter of cartridge room, since NES game take very little space.

They are probably just desperate to sell more WiiUs.

 

[newwiseman]

This doesn't surprise me, the 3DS VC emulator is crap.

The 3DS XL can barely handle playing The Legend of Zelda: Link, without framerate drops, and the Megaman games are completely unplayable because of fps drop on the VC.

 

[Rellik San]

I bet that there's already a homebrew emulator that can do that on the 3DS. It's also not a matter of cartridge room, since NES game take very little space.

They are probably just desperate to sell more WiiUs.

I believe by "memory" he's referring too RAM not storage space... that's usually what most people (within the field) mean.

You should look up "accurate emulation" and then see if you think a 3DS could do it, given it takes a 3ghz 64bit processor to accurately emulate a Snes/Nes.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I honestly don't believe it. Maybe some SNES games would be hard for the 3DS to handle, because of the more advanced hardware and the fact that a good amount of cartridges had coprocessor chips in them that are hard to emulate. (Star Fox 2, Mega Man X2 and X3 come to mind.) The fact that Nintendo has been selling N64 games for 6 years on the Wii VC knowing many N64 games are fickle to emulate just makes me think they didn't want people just popping the game into the 3DS they already bought months-years ago.

The Gamecube Zelda Collection even admitted the N64 emulation wasn't perfect for Majora's Mask. It may have been a promo disc, but Nintendo willingly released and talked about quality issues on a game from one of their top franchises. They later put both N64 Zeldas on the Wii's(remember it's a Gamecube with motion controls and very little extra power) Virtual Console. They either worked out some kinks for that specific game or touched up the N64 emulation software as a whole for the VC. So Nintendo could work out fixes for specific games on the NES Remix to work on the 3DS. The only thing that I could imagine rarely slowing the 3DS with an optimised Rom and emulator down is a scene with the maximum amount of sprites the NES could handle.

It doesn't really matter, though. This "remix" series seems to be a phoned in cash grab anyways. I just read the review for the first one. Why can't Nintendo just sell the roms and allow them to be modded, with them maybe getting a hosting deal with the best hackers. I've seen some beautiful and creative ROM hacks out there. Nintendo just has to put disclaimers out for anyone trying this that they aren't responsible for what those modded roms contain or could do to a system.

 

[elvor0]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

This Ars Technica article should help with the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Approximate emulation is easy; I run a 4gig octa-core proc... and even I'd just about be able to accurately emulate a games console, the issue is it's all front loaded too the software, as a result it's telling hardware too do something it not only shouldn't do, but telling it too render sound, visual and input at the same time, specific hardware tricks used in cartridges too trigger certain in game events and some games just outright having non-functioning feature sets combine that with the various mods and changes and you have a ridiculously cpu intensive game.

A cheap and cheerful Snes/Nes emulator is easy too come by, accurate emulation however isn't.

I dunno about that to be honest, I struggle with some PS2 game emulation on my PC, but anything before that is golden, no issue whatsoever, and my laptop isn't exactly the bees knees, people have had emulators for NES/SNES games for GBA, DS and PSPs ages before now, Android phones are capable of doing it too as far as I'm aware, so I don't see why the 3DS wouldn't be able to run a NES/SNES era game, even if it is souped up a little.

 

[Rellik San]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

This Ars Technica article should help with the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Approximate emulation is easy; I run a 4gig octa-core proc... and even I'd just about be able to accurately emulate a games console, the issue is it's all front loaded too the software, as a result it's telling hardware too do something it not only shouldn't do, but telling it too render sound, visual and input at the same time, specific hardware tricks used in cartridges too trigger certain in game events and some games just outright having non-functioning feature sets combine that with the various mods and changes and you have a ridiculously cpu intensive game.

A cheap and cheerful Snes/Nes emulator is easy too come by, accurate emulation however isn't.

I dunno about that to be honest, I struggle with some PS2 game emulation on my PC, but anything before that is golden, no issue whatsoever, and my laptop isn't exactly the bees knees, people have had emulators for NES/SNES games for GBA, DS and PSPs ages before now, Android phones are capable of doing it too as far as I'm aware, so I don't see why the 3DS wouldn't be able to run a NES/SNES era game, even if it is souped up a little.

As was said, cheap and effective emulation is easy enough and is playable, it's 100% accurate emulation that isn't.

 

[Doom972]

I bet that there's already a homebrew emulator that can do that on the 3DS. It's also not a matter of cartridge room, since NES game take very little space.

They are probably just desperate to sell more WiiUs.

I believe by "memory" he's referring too RAM not storage space... that's usually what most people (within the field) mean.

You should look up "accurate emulation" and then see if you think a 3DS could do it, given it takes a 3ghz 64bit processor to accurately emulate a Snes/Nes.

I know that memory means RAM. When I said "I bet that there's already a homebrew emulator that can do that on the 3DS.", I was implying that the hardware is powerful enough to run a NES emulator. He didn't mention cartridge room at all, but it sounded another possible excuse not to do it.

With the standards of the gaming industry being what they are, I'm sure accurate emulation isn't something they aspire to do. Also, note that he said that it would be more difficult to do - not impossible.

 

[MazokuRanma]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

This Ars Technica article should help with the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Approximate emulation is easy; I run a 4gig octa-core proc... and even I'd just about be able to accurately emulate a games console, the issue is it's all front loaded too the software, as a result it's telling hardware too do something it not only shouldn't do, but telling it too render sound, visual and input at the same time, specific hardware tricks used in cartridges too trigger certain in game events and some games just outright having non-functioning feature sets combine that with the various mods and changes and you have a ridiculously cpu intensive game.

A cheap and cheerful Snes/Nes emulator is easy too come by, accurate emulation however isn't.

This is totally irrelevant though. Sure, maybe a perfect SNES emulator isn't feasible on the 3DS, but this is NES remix, not SNES remix. Only NES games are emulated, and on top of that the majority of those games are already available as complete copies for the 3DS Virtual Console. We can play the entirety of Donkey Kong on 3DS, but adding a 'Jump over 3 barrels' mini-version would break the system? Super Mario Bros. 3 can be fully emulated with perfect accuracy on the system, one of the most advanced games Nintendo released for the NES. This is not a hardware limitation. For SNES games, that may be true, but I don't buy it for these NES titles.

 

[elvor0]

Decent emulation with bizarre enhancements? I can absolutely see it being too much for the 3DS, even if only by a small amount. Virtually the whole thing is CPU-bound, so even though it might not look as pretty as games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's still more intensive to run. The 3DS can handle NES emulation, but I'd bet their NES emulator for VC is already close to maxing out the thing's CPU; they'd have to make accuracy sacrifices to get as good performance as they'd need in order to also handle all the fancy state monitoring and other weirdness that NES Remix offers.

P.S. Thanks

Sorry, I have to disagree on this. Back on my GBA there was a custom cart you could get that would let your load up NES ROMs and play them. The only game I ever couldn't play on that was Star Tropics, no idea why, but every other game I ever tried worked flawlessly, and there were many of them. Are you really suggesting that the hardware improvements of two more generations aren't sufficient to fully emulate any NES game, especially considering most of them are gimped versions that should take almost no memory in the first place? On top of that, a lot of the full games exist on the eShop anyway. No, there's no way this is related to power.

This Ars Technica article should help with the issue:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

Approximate emulation is easy; I run a 4gig octa-core proc... and even I'd just about be able to accurately emulate a games console, the issue is it's all front loaded too the software, as a result it's telling hardware too do something it not only shouldn't do, but telling it too render sound, visual and input at the same time, specific hardware tricks used in cartridges too trigger certain in game events and some games just outright having non-functioning feature sets combine that with the various mods and changes and you have a ridiculously cpu intensive game.

A cheap and cheerful Snes/Nes emulator is easy too come by, accurate emulation however isn't.

I dunno about that to be honest, I struggle with some PS2 game emulation on my PC, but anything before that is golden, no issue whatsoever, and my laptop isn't exactly the bees knees, people have had emulators for NES/SNES games for GBA, DS and PSPs ages before now, Android phones are capable of doing it too as far as I'm aware, so I don't see why the 3DS wouldn't be able to run a NES/SNES era game, even if it is souped up a little.

As was said, cheap and effective emulation is easy enough and is playable, it's 100% accurate emulation that isn't.

Yeah I realise now that I didn't realise what "accurate emulation" meant, I thought you meant that it would have difficulties running, now that I know well...I guess it depends. The NES/SNES were before my time, so my only experience is with emulators or re-releases, so I have no point of reference, most games seem to function as close as possible though, after reading about it, there obviously are some games that would have a hissy fit if you cant get accurate emulation, but I didn't see any of the most popular ones mentioned. I mean if you have a /lot/ of experience playing the orignals then innacuracies may be offputting, but I'd say for the most part, people just want to play them on the 3DS, regardless of them being /exact/ to the original version.

It just seems odd that they've said they don't want to put it on the 3DS when there are already NES games on the 3DS Virtual Console, and I haven't heard any complaints so I'm guessing people arn't that bothered about it being 100% perfect.