Anonymous Dev Claims Nintendo Unfamiliar with PSN and Xbox Live

[Alex Co]

Anonymous Dev Claims Nintendo Unfamiliar with PSN and Xbox Live

An anonymous developer claims nobody in Nintendo's Wii U "development teams" have used PSN or Xbox Live.

If you ever wondered why Nintendo's online infrastructure is nowhere near as robust as the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live, that's because "nobody" in Nintendo's development teams have used them. This was revealed in a detailed tell-all piece by Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story], where an anonymous developer spills the beans on how Nintendo presented the Wii U initially to studios and what the process was like to develop a third-party title for the console.


The discussion started off well enough and covered off our experiences with the hardware and (slow) toolchain and then we steered them towards discussing when the online features might be available. We were told that the features, and the OS updates to support them, would be available before the hardware launch, but only just. There were apparently issues with setting up a large networking infrastructure to rival Sony and Microsoft that they hadn't envisaged.

This was surprising to hear, as we would have thought that they had plenty of time to work on these features as it had been announced months before, so we probed a little deeper and asked how certain scenarios might work with the Mii friends and networking, all the time referencing how Xbox Live and PSN achieve the same thing. At some point in this conversation we were informed that it was no good referencing Live and PSN as nobody in their development teams used those systems (!) so could we provide more detailed explanations for them? My only thought after this call was that they were struggling - badly - with the networking side as it was far more complicated than they anticipated. They were trying to play catch-up with the rival systems, but without the years of experience to back it up.

It's a rather revealing read where it also talks about the hardships in communicating with Nintendo's Japanese headquarters, how he knew then that the Wii U would be under-powered, and even lists his reasons why most third-party games don't see Wii U releases. Given it's been a while since the Wii U's conception and release, let's hope Nintendo's development teams have now started looking at what their competition does right. Otherwise, the next Nintendo console might see another third-party drought.

Is it surprising that Nintendo's development teams aren't familiar with PSN or Xbox Live? If you had to hazard a guess, which third-party studio is the anonymous dev from and at which publisher?

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story]

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[RandV80]

Sounds like a load of nonsense to me, trying to create some sensationalism out of the obvious. An 'Xbox Live' like environment takes a hell of a lot of development and expertise. This sort of thing is Microsoft's bread & butter, and they had it nearly from the start. Sony has caught up but it's taken them nearly 2 console generations to do so.

Nintendo just doesn't really have the horses to play copy cat here, and it would be foolish for them to try. They're better off doing their own them and coming up with less elegant but more practical solutions to an online environment.

I mean whats next, are devs going to start wondering why Nintendo doesn't have massive server farms already to host cloud computing for their games?

 

[Elithraradril]

Nintendo just doesn't really have the horses to play copy cat here, and it would be foolish for them to try. They're better off doing their own them and coming up with less elegant but more practical solutions to an online environment.

Don't be ridiculous, please. It's not about being a copy cat, it's about entering XXI century. No one expects full xbox live or Steam functionality on day1, but proper online distribution service is not that much of a challenge for company this size and yet Ninny has probably the worst out there. Even freaking Desura is miles ahead of Nintendo's eStore last time I've checked and it's community driven FFS.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

So this story is basically "I read a story about a guy that was talking to another guy and they said that..."

With no sources, at all, they only way to verify this allegation is for Nintendo to come out and say "we are one of the oldest, most successful, most profitable, and most experienced games companies in the world and if you honestly believe that no one in this company has ever used our competitors services, even once purely for a frame of reference you are wrong."

I don't doubt that they had more work than they thought going into the process, but really? We are expected to take at face value what appears to be a reposting of a troll story with the tag #derpynintendo?

 

[gigastar]

If i had to guess where this story came from, id say its a dev working on a multiplayer-focused game for all major platforms.

Going by that logic, the source is most likely from one of the Call of Duty studios.

That is, of course, assuming a writer at Eurogamer didnt pull something out of his/her ass in order to garner ad revenue.

Edit: Having actually read the article, the anon dev said that their game was "generally well received", and was a launch title.

Therefore it seems more likely that he was on the team responsible for ZombiU.

 

[nodlimax]

Are there so few news that you have to rely on anonymous sources again?

I think I saw a critical miss comic a few months back related to this kind of news....

 

[masticina]

Okay no sources is a problem for the story.

But come on.. someone in the team there must have experience with xbox live or Playstation Network. That simply is how it is done in a world with different brands in the same market. I am certain that BMW keeps research on other german brand cars. They have to stay informed in what will drive the next buyers market.

If audi comes out with a model with a certain elan, lets say a luxury car that also has some off road capabilities expect that BMW within the year has a model that does it to. And of course if BMW comes out with a model with a certain elan audi guess what has a car for that piece of the market to within a year.

Still we are talking about Nintendo. And lets be fair about that they are a bit odd. Lovable odd yes! But odd! They might actually not understand online at all. We already seen it with the friendcodes! Enough reason for game developers to make an online system that did go around the rotten friendcode system.

Nintendo indeed might be utterly lacking any insight in what is working in the western world. Wouldn't that be a shame..
Personally I don't require Nintendo to have services as good as Xbox Live or PSN. But what they have now isn't really up to any standards.

 

[major_chaos]

Normally I don't trust "anonymous sources", but this story being true would certainly help explain Nintendo's godfuckingawful online offerings.

 

[OManoghue]

Considering that their network was crushed over the holidays and their Pokemon Bank is three weeks late they seem unfamiliar with their own network as well.

Nintendo can't internet

 

[Nergui]

Even if they were familiar with competing systems, there's no guarantee they would it would be up to par on release. EA's Origin was abysmal on launch, hasn't improved much and they had a somewhat decent example to copy.

 

[Dragonbums]

I've said it in other forums, and I'll say it again- I really don't trust claims from sources that are "anonymous" from an unknown development team with no background history. Why do they want to keep themselves unknown? Every company under the sun took a shit on the Wii U publicly. Why are they so under wraps about their identity? What have they possibly got to lose?

The whole thing is fishy, especially when I never heard this complaint from any dev this gen or last gen.

 

[Alex Co]

Considering that their network was crushed over the holidays and their Pokemon Bank is three weeks late they seem unfamiliar with their own network as well.

Nintendo can't internet

That "Nintendo can't internet" line cracked me up.

I've said it in other forums, and I'll say it again- I really don't trust claims from sources that are "anonymous" from an unknown development team with no background history. Why do they want to keep themselves unknown? Every company under the sun took a shit on the Wii U publicly. Why are they so under wraps about their identity? What have they possibly got to lose?

The whole thing is fishy, especially when I never heard this complaint from any dev this gen or last gen.

Reason they want to remain anonymous is simple: they prefer to keep their jobs. Lots of developers sign NDAs and even if they didn't, crapping on a major platform holder is something you never want to do. People know people and more often than not, you end up working/interacting with the same people around the videogame industry. Would you risk your livelihood just to gain internet fame? Personally, I wouldn't.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I've said it in other forums, and I'll say it again- I really don't trust claims from sources that are "anonymous" from an unknown development team with no background history. Why do they want to keep themselves unknown? Every company under the sun took a shit on the Wii U publicly. Why are they so under wraps about their identity? What have they possibly got to lose?

The whole thing is fishy, especially when I never heard this complaint from any dev this gen or last gen.

Y'know, putting aside the anonymous bit, there is still one gigantic problem with this article that makes its validity extremely dubious: it's one guy. Not a team, not even multiple members of a team, but just ONE GUY. I believe there's a word for this kind of information: anecdotal. It's not even close to being "tell-all", it might as well be some random dude's Live Journal entry. If this article had multiple instances of this MAYBE it would hold more wait, but for now let's just call it how it is: next to worthless. One instance is not indicative of a pattern. I just find it funny how Eurogamer thought this was some big, dramatic piece...and next to no one cared because it was so flimsy it took all of five minutes to get dismantled.

 

[Dragonbums]

Reason they want to remain anonymous is simple: they prefer to keep their jobs. Lots of developers sign NDAs and even if they didn't, crapping on a major platform holder is something you never want to do. People know people and more often than not, you end up working/interacting with the same people around the videogame industry. Would you risk your livelihood just to gain internet fame? Personally, I wouldn't.

Regardless if they kept themselves anonymous or not, they can still be found out by Nintendo themselves and get in trouble. They gave enough supposed "information" about their interactions with them that Nintendo can deduce who the heck it was. Providing of course that the entire thing wasn't a complete lie in the first place.
If they don't want to risk their gaming livelihood, why would they go out with this story in the first place? Especially now that it blew up all over the internet.
This whole article is a joke, and I'm a bit ashamed that Escapist decided to publish articles on unverified stories, from unverified sources about a company supposedly doing a thing.

Any clown can write that and claim they are a dev and state it's true.

 

[Dragonbums]

I've said it in other forums, and I'll say it again- I really don't trust claims from sources that are "anonymous" from an unknown development team with no background history. Why do they want to keep themselves unknown? Every company under the sun took a shit on the Wii U publicly. Why are they so under wraps about their identity? What have they possibly got to lose?

The whole thing is fishy, especially when I never heard this complaint from any dev this gen or last gen.

Y'know, putting aside the anonymous bit, there is still one gigantic problem with this article that makes its validity extremely dubious: it's one guy. Not a team, not even multiple members of a team, but just ONE GUY. I believe there's a word for this kind of information: anecdotal. It's not even close to being "tell-all", it might as well be some random dude's Live Journal entry. If this article had multiple instances of this MAYBE it would hold more wait, but for now let's just call it how it is: next to worthless. One instance is not indicative of a pattern. I just find it funny how Eurogamer thought this was some big, dramatic piece...and next to no one cared because it was so flimsy it took all of five minutes to get dismantled.

It's not just Eurogamer. It's the entire damn gaming sphere that's buying into this bullshit. For every 30 comments of people patting themselves on the back because Nintendo once again is "out of touch with the 21st century" because some random guy who claims to be a dev says so, you have 1-2 people legitimately question the validity of not only the source of the article, but the wording. One person in this thread even noted that the person ended said "inside scoop" with #derpynintendo. Yeah, that's some real valid shit right here guys.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

It's not just Eurogamer. It's the entire damn gaming sphere that's buying into this bullshit. For every 30 comments of people patting themselves on the back because Nintendo once again is "out of touch with the 21st century" because some random guy who claims to be a dev says so, you have 1-2 people legitimately question the validity of not only the source of the article, but the wording. One person in this thread even noted that the person ended said "inside scoop" with #derpynintendo. Yeah, that's some real valid shit right here guys.

Actually the article itself hasn't gained a lot of traction on the net. A few sites have reported it, but it was quickly forgotten after you had a lot of people realize the problems with it. Sure, anti-Nintendo zealots will gobble it up, but it doesn't take a whole lot to rile up that crowd. Seriously, when the Gamefaqs message boards aren't milking this, you KNOW it's a crap article. Best to just move on and forget it even existed.

 

[Lightknight]

I also find it hard to believe that this is true. Maybe as Nintendo employees they felt an allegiance to not purchase other products? It's still pretty weird even then. That's pretty basic business 101. Look at what's being done right and emulate or improve on that while avoiding the things that are being done badly.

But that article is huge and detailed. This point is a small point made in what seems like an extremely knowledgeable article. It's fairly likely that it contains a decent amount of truth.

Also, this may explain why the Nintendo store was so backwards. I mean, you have to admit, it's one of Nintendo's worst features.

So, I'm going to fall on the side of this being true until explained otherwise. All of the elements are there for this to be true except the name of the person talking. The topic of this thread is only one of many points in the article.

The main point of the article is the gulf in power between the WiiU and the next gen. The WiiU is basically just a 360 with twice as much RAM available for games (1gb available for gaming). That will be a problem whether we acknowledge it now or not. That this article here seperated out their experience with other businesses handling of online networks is really just a small part of the big picture. Nintendo went into the 8th generation unprepared. It worked fine for them to ignore the competition in the 7th generation. The WiiMote was practically a secret weapon that had them playing by different rules. But now, everyone has motion control. So they have to compete if they can't innovate beyond the competion. Even with the gamepad it looks like Sony is doing it better. But, to be fair, how could they have seen multiple years into the future when they released a year earlier? Launching first has its advantages and disadvantages. This is one of them.

 

[Elithraradril]

For every 30 comments of people patting themselves on the back because Nintendo once again is "out of touch with the 21st century" because some random guy who claims to be a dev says so

Nope it's the other way around. People give this guy some credit, because Nintendo IS OUT OF TOUCH with 21st century, so his story sounds valid.