Bethesda Says Wii U Is "Not On Our Radar"

[loc978]

To anyone who takes "hardware issues" as "the Wii U is too slow for us to develop for", you're wrong. That's not the problem. Games that pushed the 360 and PS3 were de-rezzed and released on the Wii, which had a much larger gulf of processing power than the Wii U vs the XBone and PS4.

The problem is architecture. The XBone and PS4 are now running x86 processors designed by AMD, the Wii U is running a recent iteration of the IBM PowerPC processor. In layman's terms, Microsoft and Sony's consoles now speak the same language as PCs (including Macs), the Wii U still speaks the last generation's language, which is now almost entirely associated with mobile technology (RISC->ARM, et cetera).

Bethesda will now have a very, very easy time making triple-platform releases (so the two console releases should see no more bugs than the PC release, in theory. At the very least, it'll be a lot less than last gen's stuff)... but putting those games on the Wii U would require a rebuild almost from the ground up, for a much smaller audience than any one of the other three platforms. On top of that, switching architecture pretty much guarantees a repeat of the bugs they encountered as a result of that last gen. So they're not going to bother doing that with any of their major open-world games. Those things are a lot of work.

**edit**
This is also why they're waiting on the next generation's release to put anything else out. At this point, it makes sense to either develop for the PS3, 360 and Wii U... or the PS4, Xbone, and PC. Trying to cross over from one side to the other would be reliving the coding nightmare that was the past decade or so. When one has a viable option to choose between RISC or x86, only an idiot chooses both.

Additionally, this is why backwards compatibility for the PS4 and Xbone would be all but impossible. Same issue the PS3 ran into with PS2 compatibility... they had to actually integrate a PS2's processor into the thing to make it work (still glad I have one of those), which was ridiculously expensive to manufacture. Everyone learned this lesson from Sony's attempt: when you switch CPU architecture, axe your back catalog. Hell, in the Xbone's case, the CPU is not only a different architecture than the 360's, it's also running a much lower clock speed, just on more than twice as many cores. Even emulation would be impossible it its case.

 

[Dragonbums]

probably wouldn't make it past the first stage of Nintendo's quality assurance.

Seriously though, I think Nintendo looks at Bethesda like a doctor looks at a back-alley hooker. Good looking, maybe, but absolutely crawling with bugs. They seem to put a load of value on polish, and making sure a game works when it's released. Their QA guys would probably be summarily executed by Iwata himself if they pushed a game as buggy as Skyrim or Fallout 3 through the door.

Then again, Bethesda was always shit with ironing out their bugs. You put Nintendo's stance on high quality games, with Bethesdas "as long as it works" motto I have a feeling that those two wouldn't get along with each other anyway.
Unless of course Iwata gets a kick out of Wooly Mammoths hovering 35 feet in the air.

What universe do you people live in? Quality Assurance? From the company whose last console's great claim to fame was the sheer amount of Shovelware on it? The review show I watch has several teams, and the team that more often that not reviewed the Wii games were nick-named the "Crapateers" because all the games were shit.

And I don't know about you, but I'd trade a dozen shovelware wiggle-motion games for even one buggy bethesda game.

Shovel ware is just that- shovel ware.
And at the very least those shovel ware games WORK with minimal bugs to boot. I also do not think we should be putting the bar very high on the likes of ColdStone Ice Cream company to make good games. Yet alone go into a legal battle with the dozens of other big corporations that AREN'T game companies that have money to burn.

Bethesda however IS NOT an icecream company, a television company, or a cereal company. They are a video game company, and as a videogame company I expect the game to have the work and polish of a $60.00 not a game that cost $15.00 on console.
Knowing that it's a videogame company Nintendo expects that from them, but Bethesda don't expect that from themselves.

 

[Lightknight]

Bethesda is kind of an odd company to report on this. Has Bethesda ever released any games on a Nintendo platform? Bethesda has basically always been a computer software company at heard with a lot of difficulties porting to non-x86 environments. This generation is basically Christmas season for the next 5+ years for them and only the WiiU breaks that streak.

It's almost like saying that SCE studios have no interest in developing for the WiiU either.

What is important are companies that have released titles for Nintendo that are bowing out of the WiiU market.

Bethesda however IS NOT an icecream company, a television company, or a cereal company. They are a video game company, and as a videogame company I expect the game to have the work and polish of a $60.00 not a game that cost $15.00 on console.
Knowing that it's a videogame company Nintendo expects that from them, but Bethesda don't expect that from themselves.

What problems did you personally have with Skyrim. Did you play it and if so, on what system? I played it on the pc and on the ps3. On the pc I had absolutely 0 problems. On the ps3 I had a mountain of problems and the reason was moreso the ps3's handling of asset categories than the development itself.

 

[Dragonbums]

Has Bethesda ever released any games on a Nintendo platform?

They recently made one shovelware game for the Wii called Wheelspin, and the last game they made was for the NES(or was it SNES)
Either way I agree...this isn't really news...for anyone.

 

[Lightknight]

Has Bethesda ever released any games on a Nintendo platform?

They recently made one shovelware game for the Wii called Wheelspin, and the last game they made was for the NES(or was it SNES)
Either way I agree...this isn't really news...for anyone.

Sorry, you posted while I added a quote and reply to something you mentioned.

And yeah, shovelware doesn't count. I wasn't aware of wheelspin.

 

[Dragonbums]

Has Bethesda ever released any games on a Nintendo platform?

They recently made one shovelware game for the Wii called Wheelspin, and the last game they made was for the NES(or was it SNES)
Either way I agree...this isn't really news...for anyone.

Sorry, you posted while I added a quote and reply to something you mentioned.

And yeah, shovelware doesn't count. I wasn't aware of wheelspin.

So excluding Wheelspin that would be like....a really long time since Bethesda made anything for Nintendo. If only I could remember the name of that game they made. Oh well. I guess it's not all that important.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

playing a Bethesda game on a console.. no offense but you are just doing it wrong. This goes for all systems mind you not just the wii-u.

 

[BarkBarker]

I want to see someone go "FUCK IT ALL TO HIGH HEAVEN" and risk tremendous failure by giving the console a game that masters the console, no game on the wii mastered it's abilities like Super Mario Galaxy, it kicked down the door saying THIS IS WHO I AM, it kicked ass in droves, proving there is worth when there is skill behind the hands, THAT is what the Wii U needs, something to come along and blow everything outta the water, Smash isn't it, mario kart isnt it, and the next 3-D mario isn't it, maybe the zelda or metroid will be it, just right the fuck out of nowhere, BOOM! Give us your money, here is an array of pornstars for you enjoyment, YOU ARE WELCOME!

 

[Arrogancy]

Wow....I mean I had no personal interest in getting a WiiU. Hell, the last Nintendo system I owned was a frickin' N64. But is the WiiU really THAT bad? I haven't paid attention to it's specs or anything really relating to it, I just know that it's apparently going down in flames. Could anyone give me a brief summary of why NO ONE wants to make games for this thing and why customers have absolutely no desire to buy it?

No one wants to develop for it mostly because of awkward controls and radically different design specs. Developing for the Xbox One or the PS4 is relatively straightforward because both those systems are fundamentally similar. You have a controller, and a screen. If you're feeling ambitious, you have motion-control systems. With new Nintendo hardware the finicky motion-controls are part and parcel of the console. Ultimately, developing for the Wii U means developing in a much different manner that isn't easily portable onto other systems. That and weak graphics limitations and processing power make it difficult for third parties to rally behind the thing.

This feeds into a vicious cycle, because no one then wants to buy the console that has no games. This leads to weak sales aside from Nintendo die-hards who only want to play Nintendo first-party games like Mario, Metroid, and Zelda. Weak sales equates to a weaker consumer base for third-parties to tap into which further disincentivizes developing for the thing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[New Frontiersman]

Somewhat disappointing, but not entirely surprising. They've never really put any games on Nintendo systems before, it would be somewhat strange if they started now. On the other hand I really enjoy Bethesda's games, so it'd pretty cool to see one on the Wii U, hell now that they're releasing their anthology collection maybe they could rerelease Arena or Daggerfall onto the Wii U. I'd buy them at any rate.