Metroid Prime Dev: Wii U is a Powerhouse, We're Making a New Game For it

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Nixou

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We don't want to have to learn a new controll scheme every time to release a console
My arms are slighty more outstretched with the WiiU controller! My brain can't handle the change!
 

Roxas1359

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Andy Shandy said:
So yeah, excuse me if I don't take the "Nintendo-owned company compliments Nintendo hardware" seriously. Still, I'd love a new Metroid if that's what they are working on. They've been wasted on Donkey Kong, in my opinion.
Just to note, Retro isn't actually owned by Nintendo, but they pretty much should be at this point, and them saying positive things about Nintendo consoles is like Naughty Dog saying positive things about Playstation systems. Heck, all of Retro's games have only been on Nintendo's consoles, they've never done a game for another system or company. I think it's more worrying how they note how there was a "steep learning curve from the Wii to Wii U" which shows that Nintendo really didn't bother to do any research on making an HD game despite HD games being a thing for about 6 or 7 years.

Honestly I like my Wii U, but Nintendo has screwed themselves so much because of how they didn't pay any attention to their competition or how tech was advancing, and they hoped that the same audience that bought the Wii would buy the Wii U and that's obviously not the case now.
 

Ghostface2206

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I get incredibly annoyed when people think "game has colourful graphics, therefore is not good graphics"
There is a difference between graphical style and graphical quality, if the former is excellent, then the latter does not matter.
People don't appreciate that the same amount of work goes into the graphics of a colourful game like DKCTF and the graphics of the latest CoD game, except DKC actually has imagination in its graphical design rather than just trying to make a massive muddy brown-greyish battlefield.
 

Andy Shandy

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Neronium said:
Andy Shandy said:
So yeah, excuse me if I don't take the "Nintendo-owned company compliments Nintendo hardware" seriously. Still, I'd love a new Metroid if that's what they are working on. They've been wasted on Donkey Kong, in my opinion.
Just to note, Retro isn't actually owned by Nintendo, but they pretty much should be at this point, and them saying positive things about Nintendo consoles is like Naughty Dog saying positive things about Playstation systems. Heck, all of Retro's games have only been on Nintendo's consoles, they've never done a game for another system or company. I think it's more worrying how they note how there was a "steep learning curve from the Wii to Wii U" which shows that Nintendo really didn't bother to do any research on making an HD game despite HD games being a thing for about 6 or 7 years.

Honestly I like my Wii U, but Nintendo has screwed themselves so much because of how they didn't pay any attention to their competition or how tech was advancing, and they hoped that the same audience that bought the Wii would buy the Wii U and that's obviously not the case now.
Huh, I'd always assumed Nintendo owned them. Probably in part due to all their games coming from big(ish, depending on people's personal views) Nintendo franchises. Learn something new every day =P

And I agree on everything after too. I do really want to like the Wii U, but some of Nintendo's decisions can make it difficult.
 

Roxas1359

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Andy Shandy said:
Huh, I'd always assumed Nintendo owned them. Probably in part due to all their games coming from big(ish, depending on people's personal views) Nintendo franchises. Learn something new every day =P

And I agree on everything after too. I do really want to like the Wii U, but some of Nintendo's decisions can make it difficult.
The last company Nintendo fully bought was Monolith Soft back in I think 2007 or so, everything else is second party that they've just not bought. That includes Hal Laboratories, as they are actually not first party at all, but are second party like Retro Studios.

And for Nintendo's decisions, they honestly needed this humility more than anything. It's the same thing that happened with the PS2 going to the PS3. Sony got so big for their britches that they made very bad mistakes that ruined a lot of their image and good will, and now Nintendo has done the same thing since the Wii and DS were huge successes. Heck this isn't the first time Nintendo has made bad decisions because of getting a huge head. The N64, as Yamauchi said, was purposely made difficult to develop for because after the success of the SNES he only wanted "talented" 3rd parties to develop for it. The results, a system that many 3rd parties ignore because of it's price, difficulty to develop for, and not very good storage space when compared to the PS1. It also resulted in a lot of bad games being developed for the N64 as well because while something may be difficult to develop for, doesn't mean that it's impossible to develop for it.
 
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Neronium said:
Andy Shandy said:
Huh, I'd always assumed Nintendo owned them. Probably in part due to all their games coming from big(ish, depending on people's personal views) Nintendo franchises. Learn something new every day =P

And I agree on everything after too. I do really want to like the Wii U, but some of Nintendo's decisions can make it difficult.
The last company Nintendo fully bought was Monolith Soft back in I think 2007 or so, everything else is second party that they've just not bought. That includes Hal Laboratories, as they are actually not first party at all, but are second party like Retro Studios.

And for Nintendo's decisions, they honestly needed this humility more than anything. It's the same thing that happened with the PS2 going to the PS3. Sony got so big for their britches that they made very bad mistakes that ruined a lot of their image and good will, and now Nintendo has done the same thing since the Wii and DS were huge successes. Heck this isn't the first time Nintendo has made bad decisions because of getting a huge head. The N64, as Yamauchi said, was purposely made difficult to develop for because after the success of the SNES he only wanted "talented" 3rd parties to develop for it. The results, a system that many 3rd parties ignore because of it's price, difficulty to develop for, and not very good storage space when compared to the PS1. It also resulted in a lot of bad games being developed for the N64 as well because while something may be difficult to develop for, doesn't mean that it's impossible to develop for it.
That's actually a very apt, and well thought out comparison. Especially since the PS3 didn't "bomb" so much as have a rather poor showing the first year, then playing catch-up once they got some good solid games. Hopefully, the Wii U will do the same. Even if you aren't a fan of Nintendo, they have enough of a name and franchises to have a serious impact if they step out of the console race.
 

Roxas1359

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thebobmaster said:
That's actually a very apt, and well thought out comparison. Especially since the PS3 didn't "bomb" so much as have a rather poor showing the first year, then playing catch-up once they got some good solid games. Hopefully, the Wii U will do the same. Even if you aren't a fan of Nintendo, they have enough of a name and franchises to have a serious impact if they step out of the console race.
While the PS3 didn't bomb per say, one cannot say that it didn't have very bad consequences for Sony. It helped put them in a financial hole since the actual development costs were lied about by Ken Kutaragi (the 20GB model cost $900 to make, and only sold for $499 and the 60GB model cost $1100 to make and sold for only $600) and when Sony found out about that they weren't too happy. But after that was revealed, Sony suddenly went out on a huge marketing and ad campaign, started dropping the price of the PS3 (that's why the backwards compatibility was taken out, because launch PS3's had an actual PS2 inside them), and suddenly a lot of games started coming out. Sony didn't really start selling more units until around 2009, and by 2010 they had finally started profiting on the PS3 in general.

The Wii U is currently facing similar problems, but while Nintendo has acknowledged many problems, they still aren't really doing anything out it. Advertisement wise, they aren't even trying. I keep my TV on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon for white noise all day, and as of now I've only seen 2 Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze ads. This is sad, especially since last generation Nintendo had the Wii Would Like to Play ads which were amazing. The Wii U ads on the other hand almost never show the actual Wii U, as they just show the tablet controller which has lead to many believing that the Wii U is just an expensive add-on for the Nintendo Wii.

Then there is the Wii Mini, otherwise known as the most useless device to ever exist. Nintendo is still selling the Wii Mini's and I've seen them in stores everywhere, and given how many consumers are confused that the Wii U is a new console what would look better when a mother was gonna buy a new system for their kids: a Wii Mini that is only $99 (terrible price for that considering the Wii Mini can't connect online nor use component cables) or the $299 Wii U in which the other thinks it's just an expensive tablet.

Then there is another fault they have, the fact that the Nintendo Directs generally have more content about the 3DS than the Wii U, and that not everyone knows when the next Nintendo Directs are. Some people I've seen claim that "oh Nintendo doesn't need to advertise as word of mouth is good enough" (I wish I was joking, there are some on this site that have said that) and that sentiment is completely false. Word of mouth only is good if the consumers actually know what the product is, and even then word of mouth didn't save the Wonderful 101 which flopped hard in the market.

I've seen Nintendo and know that they can do better, but from how they constantly still promote the 3DS and 2DS more than their home console, you get the feeling that they honestly don't care and don't wanna try. It's like seeing someone who has a doctorate in psychology working at a McDonalds not wanting to leave that McDonalds at all. We all know Nintendo can do better, we've seen it, but as of now it seems like they don't really care.
 

BoredRolePlayer

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I'm waiting for the day we moved out of the non-sense that was the "bit wars" from the 90's, because it seems we are still stuck in that mindset after all these years.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Of course the Wii U is a powerhouse, in the same way that the 360 is a powerhouse. Or should I say, WAS a powerhouse. Now there's much better hardware. The Wii U is a generation behind, hardware wise, just like the Wii during its release. And may I remind everyone that better hardware means much more than just better graphics. It means the potential for better AI, more open worlds, more gameplay features, and etc.

I don't think the Wii U will get many devs on it at all. As I said time and time again, everyone's done with the seventh generation. They want to move on to the next. Unfortunately, Nintendo just wants to stagnate in yesterdays party.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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of course the Wii U is a powerhouse; however, due to 3rd parties constantly throwing tantrums and trying to make everything homogenized, they've rendered themselves incapable of working on custom hardware. I thought the old adage was that if you wanted something to work right you had to put in effort. Thinking otherwise is both naive and stupid.
 

EvilRoy

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the hidden eagle said:
Aiddon said:
of course the Wii U is a powerhouse; however, due to 3rd parties constantly throwing tantrums and trying to make everything homogenized, they've rendered themselves incapable of working on custom hardware. I thought the old adage was that if you wanted something to work right you had to put in effort. Thinking otherwise is both naive and stupid.
Agreed,I'll be the first to say that many AAA game devs and publsihers have gotten extremely lazy.
I've never really understood that point of view. I mean, consider it from the perspective of a customer. There are three phones on the market that you could buy and use. Two of them are fairly similar, and very familiar in terms of how they operate to phones that you have used in the past. They are just upgrades of your old phone, with new features unique to each. The third phone is a good phone, and when in proper use comparable to the other phones with its own unique features. However, in order to use the third phone, you have to learn Esperanto.

If you don't already speak Esperanto, why would you ever pick the third phone? The only reason would be if the unique features are ones that you really want. So if you don't think the features are that great, and choose one of the other two phones, are you a lazy consumer or a smart one?

And that's the thing - third party devs do not work for the console companies, nor do they owe them anything. Third party developers are consumers of consoles just as much as players are, and make the same kind of value judgments that a player would when choosing which consoles to develop for. Lazy implies that the console somehow deserves patronage, and choosing not to patronize is somehow skirting or avoiding your duties, but that is not an apt description of the relationship in play.
 

Nixou

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due to 3rd parties constantly throwing tantrums and trying to make everything homogenized, they've rendered themselves incapable of working on custom hardware

It's not that AAA devs want to "homogenize" everything, it's that their leadrships deluded themselves into thinking that increase in processing power will make craftmanship redundant
 

'Record Stops.'

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Sees Nintendo Thread on the Escapist, aptly predicts that PC Master Race, Rael Gaymers, and Nintendo H8ers will clog up the thread with a miasma of loathing and disgust for a company that isn't nearly half the devil that EA is. Gets proven right yet again.

Is there any point to everyone here crapping on Nintendo at this point? We just seem to be breaking out tired old arguments and circle jerking hatred for a company that by all honesty isn't evil, doesn't do blatantly dickish things like Capcom, Ubisoft, and EA have and still do. And is more or less trying to adapt to the times, it's like every-time someone, even someone well respected for making games people REALLY liked has anything remotely kind to say to Nintendo, the Escapist Thought Police are on the screen with propaganda against the company.

Then there's the Glorious Escapist N.D.F who usually arrive on the scene with facts and arguments that just annoy the thread posters, then a few people get warnings for their posts, the arguments begin again, and the cycle of hatred continues.

Can't we just have one thread, just one, complimenting Nintendo without an instant Flame-storm coming towards it to just clog the forums up with more hate? From what I observed, a lot of long time Escapist users have actually left the forums due to the sheer unrelenting cynicism and hatred.

Last I checked, we're not Something Awful, although I'm fairly certain a good chunk of the users here have come from there.


OT: Well if Retro Studios are making another Metroid game, all I have to say is this. About frakin' time guys, you let the idiot who turned Metroid into his personal fanfiction screw around with Samus to such a degree that effectively turned her into a shell of her former self, and have been pissing around with Donkey Kong games during that time. It's about, fuckin', time you get back to making Metroid games.
 

EvilRoy

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the hidden eagle said:
EvilRoy said:
the hidden eagle said:
Aiddon said:
of course the Wii U is a powerhouse; however, due to 3rd parties constantly throwing tantrums and trying to make everything homogenized, they've rendered themselves incapable of working on custom hardware. I thought the old adage was that if you wanted something to work right you had to put in effort. Thinking otherwise is both naive and stupid.
Agreed,I'll be the first to say that many AAA game devs and publsihers have gotten extremely lazy.
I've never really understood that point of view. I mean, consider it from the perspective of a customer. There are three phones on the market that you could buy and use. Two of them are fairly similar, and very familiar in terms of how they operate to phones that you have used in the past. They are just upgrades of your old phone, with new features unique to each. The third phone is a good phone, and when in proper use comparable to the other phones with its own unique features. However, in order to use the third phone, you have to learn Esperanto.

If you don't already speak Esperanto, why would you ever pick the third phone? The only reason would be if the unique features are ones that you really want. So if you don't think the features are that great, and choose one of the other two phones, are you a lazy consumer or a smart one?

And that's the thing - third party devs do not work for the console companies, nor do they owe them anything. Third party developers are consumers of consoles just as much as players are, and make the same kind of value judgments that a player would when choosing which consoles to develop for. Lazy implies that the console somehow deserves patronage, and choosing not to patronize is somehow skirting or avoiding your duties, but that is not an apt description of the relationship in play.
If that was the case then there would'nt be special partnerships with many game devs/publishers and a console company.If AAA game devs are bitching about how Nintendo consoles are too restricting YET at the same time have no problem making games for a console like the XBONE then their priorities are skewed.

Most AAA game devs have shown a tendency to half ass everything and blame it on someone else.
Sure there would, the logic is still consistent, special partnerships are functionally similar to loyalty rewards.

Imagine if every phone you owned up to now was an HTC and the three new phones are by HTC, Sony and Samsung. Why not just get the HTC? You already know and like HTC phones, the only reason to change would be if you were unsatisfied with your last HTC. It doesn't matter if HTC has particular limits or quirks, because you already know them, and anyway you would have to learn a whole new language just to pick up the weird one of the other two, despite the only minor difference in utility.
 

SUPA FRANKY

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I don't want a Wii U ( and neither a Xbox One or PS4, but adamant against Wii U the most) mostly because I have my PC for games, and lately a whole bunch of Japanese games have been coming, so I'll be safe.

Not to mention, I need a computer for school anyway, so it makes more sense to have one multipurpose system.

and there are only so many times I can play Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon SPinoffs etc. Sure, they incorporate new ideas each entry, but seriously I am sick of those characters lol.

And no, I don't buy Call of Duty or Madden, in response to the argument ( Call of Duty and Madden do it! I bet you like those games, right?)

There are games that I want to play, Bayonetta 2, A New Zelda, X, etc, but at the same time, there will always be other games to play, and many of those other games AREN'T coming to Nintendo's system.

Wii was a dissapointment. I stopped using it after a year of play ( Course the year after I started itching for a PC)

But...a new Mother and you have a sale.
 

Something Amyss

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That's just not true. It's a powerhouse. It's more than adequate to make great games on.
That's a non-sequitur. Of course it's more than adequate to make great games on. So's the SNES. Doesn't mean it's a technological rival to current consoles.
 

Something Amyss

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the hidden eagle said:
And it does'nt need to be.Fancy hardware does'nt equal good games,you can make a game that's entirely fun with 8 bit graphics and it would still be superior to a game that only has photo realism going for it.
I know....That's exactly what I just said.

The issue was their claim that the Wii U was a powerhouse, and their justification being you could make good games on it.
 

EvilRoy

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the hidden eagle said:
EvilRoy said:
Except Nintendo consoles aren't alien technology that no game dev can understand.On the contrary since their hardware is usually simple yet designed for making games,so there should be no excuses for why third party devs are whining about their hardware.

It all comes down to laziness for which most of the AAA game industry has has reveled in for quite some time.
Actually, in the very article this thread is based on there is a quote from a developer who has only ever worked on Nintendo systems stating that there was a steep learning curve going from the Wii to the Wii U, so it would seem that the new console is not as easy to develop for as others have claimed up to this point. If a group that has only ever worked with Nintendo products had a harder than normal time getting into the Wii U, what would it be like for a group that has only ever worked with their products tangentially?

It is entirely possible that this is an issue of competence of the given developer here, but at the same time the Wii U hardware is actually becoming steadily alien. They were already quite different from the other consoles last generation, and this generation the difference has only become more obvious as Nintendo remains using unique architecture, while the other two move towards the more standardized x86 architecture.

Once again, consider it from a customers point of view. Why should I have to learn a whole new language just to use your phone, when there are two other phones that are just as nice right over here that I can use out of the box. What can your phone offer me in return for spending the time, effort and cash just to learn how to operate it? Its not being lazy, its being a smart consumer.
 

st0pnsw0p

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the hidden eagle said:
When was the last time a next gen game had improved on any of things you described?The only thing next gen console hardware does is try to push the graphical ceiling.Also not everyone is jumping on the next gen bandwagon considering there are plenty of games still being made for the 360/PS3.
I hear that Shadow Fall's levels are more open than those of previous games in the series, and CD Projekt said that The Witcher 3 couldn't be done on the PS3 or 360. The guys developing Evolve said the same about their game, too. And yes, there are still games coming out for PS3 and 360, just like there were still games coming out for the PS2 after PS3 released, for the PS1 after PS2 released, for the NES after SNES released, and for pretty much every single console ever once their successor was released. It's nothing new, and certainly not indicative of anything particular to the 8th gen. Devs will move on from the 7th gen soon, like they moved on from all the other gens.
 

Hutzpah Chicken

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If they can make a new Metroid that is more open world and less needless narration and quick-time events, that could persuade me to spend money on a Wii U.