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

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I'm guessing you didn't read the article? They say that they can do so much more with the Wii U and aren't held back by the hardware limitations of the console. Compared to the PS4, Xbone and PC, it's nothing spectacular, but compared to all other consoles, it's a powerhouse and its hardware is good enough that devs can do pretty much whatever they want with it.

Frankly, with the PS4/Xbone, there's a lot of wasted power, unless unprofitable amounts of money are pumped into the development of the game, and then the advertising, there's literally no way developers can make ridiculously high end games bar for tech demonstrations.

I was gonna say, why give more than what's needed? People keep banging on about the PS4 and XB1, but ultimately there's no way any dev is actually going to use them to their fullest potential. I still maintain the PS3 and 360 are far from tapped out because it's obvious that devs didn't learn efficiency with them. And if they don't learn how to be efficient NOW then they're only going to suffer when they're forced to start being lateral instead of brute-forcing things.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Nintendo is kind of like that freind you have who can't see to get things started, we've got to the "Look Nintendo, we love you but You're a mess" stage.

There is so much wrong with the gaming industry right now, we are downing in a see of buggy £55 AAA release with 'freemium' DLC policies, belligerent gaming executives raping their beloved franchises and giant corporations attempting to stamp out consumer rights. Nintendo does not suffer from these new evils and it has made them look better of late but they do so much else wrong that i am starting to wonder if they don't so these things simply because they are so irreverent and outmoded they can't adapt at all; good or bad.

One thing is crystal clear though; the Wii was a fluke. As many long time gamers predicted Nintendo's new audience was fickle, software too sparse and the offerings too reminiscent of what Nintendo has been doing for decades.

Nintendo has quite a history in gaming; One that does not lend itself well to adapting to market trends.
Which includes the good and the bad trends.

And the Wii was a fluke; a fluke that fits Nintendo's persona perfectly: "We do what we want."
Whether that something is backwards, bizarre or gimmicky as sin.

 

[Nixou]

Frankly, with the PS4/Xbone, there's a lot of wasted power, unless unprofitable amounts of money are pumped into the development of the game, and then the advertising, there's literally no way developers can make ridiculously high end games bar for tech demonstrations.

Personally, I've become convinced that we'll soon reach the point were good big budget games are "prestige" projects: basically games that are not meant to be profitable by themselves (even if they sell 5 to 10 million copies) but to advertise the talent of its makers and push the public to associate their brand with quality products so they're pushed to buy their other, less expansive games.

 

[Ipsen]

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.

Is this really an issue, though?

I think you rightfully claimed that Retro's statement is a non sequitur, apparently that's not all, judging from the direction this thread (and really this type of thread always takes). It seems most here would rather equate technical ability to quality game design, and that's another argument, if not just silly and off-mark.

Retro's comment is plain silly; there should be more jokes than anything in this thread. But it can be just as silly to correlate what constitutes good game design and technical prowess (and the competitions it tends to breed).

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

So many angry comments.

This has been one of the few good move by the Nintendo PR. although Nintendo dev saying Nintendo are awesome isnt exactly big news, or enough to get units shifted

 

[RA92]

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.

Actually now, more than ever, AAA devs have a tendency to not form special relationships with specific consoles except for the occasional timed DLCs. With rising costs, everything has been going multiplatform. Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid, Armored Core, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, etc have been going from exclusives to multiplatform since last generation. Most of the good exclusives - Halo, Uncharted, God of War - are made by studios owned by the console manufacturers themselves.

Having a different architecture will certainly lower developers' will to make games for that system.

 

[Something Amyss]

Is this really an issue, though?

If people are replying to a mostly off-hand comment, I'd say it is.

I mean, I didn't pay much attention to the other comments. I'm used to spoiled PC gamers who think anything below 52,000 FPS is unplayable and games not catered explicitly to them are trash, as well as console players who insist on the shiniest new toys, but try and pretend that PC games aren't shinier. I've seen the hate over sub 1080p/60FPS games, though I do sort of see reason behind that because the console makers were all LOOK AT TEH GRAFFIX. So I expect a lot of crap on those lines. I also think the idea of the Wii U as a powerhouse that rivals the other consoles is kind of absurd. Maybe worthy of a little ridicule. I just don't care much about any of that. I say, let 'em rave. Mostly because I can't stop them.

 

[Something Amyss]

Actually now, more than ever, AAA devs have a tendency to not form special relationships with specific consoles except for the occasional timed DLCs. With rising costs, everything has been going multiplatform. Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid, Armored Core, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, etc have been going from exclusives to multiplatform since last generation. Most of the good exclusives - Halo, Uncharted, God of War - are made by studios owned by the console manufacturers themselves.

Having a different architecture will certainly lower developers' will to make games for that system.

Last gen, a lot of people were predicting the death of exclusivty. And they were largely right. And honestly, yeah. I don't see that as a bad thing.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Actually now, more than ever, AAA devs have a tendency to not form special relationships with specific consoles except for the occasional timed DLCs. With rising costs, everything has been going multiplatform. Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid, Armored Core, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, etc have been going from exclusives to multiplatform since last generation. Most of the good exclusives - Halo, Uncharted, God of War - are made by studios owned by the console manufacturers themselves.

Having a different architecture will certainly lower developers' will to make games for that system.

Okay, when you have rendered yourself incapable of doing a simple porting job and understanding non-homogenized hardware, that's not a problem with the hardware, that's a problem with all these 3rd parties. They have basically destroyed any semblance of flexibility or variety they once had because they've let idiotic auteur devs waste money on pointless bullshit. They need to get their damned finances in check because this kind of crap cannot sustain

 

[Ghostface2206]

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

Shigesato Itoi has stated that he doesn't want to make another game in the Mother series and the reason is because he feels the series is fine as it is, anything else would be unnecessary

But I honestly think they should build on the ideas they had for the original N64 version of Mother 3 and make a 3D Mother game, sadly it won't happen anytime soon

 

[Ieyke]

Actually, ARE there any great games on the Wii U so far? Shit that will be talked about in ten years time.

YES.
God yes.
There are more great games for Wii U than PS4 and Xbone currently have COMBINED.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Super Mario 3D World
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
New Super Mario Bros U (Good. Maybe not "great".)
Wonderful 101
Wind Waker HD
etc
etc

And then there are plenty of cross-platform games -
Arkham City
Assassin's Creed 4
etc
etc

And there are a load of awesome things coming soon in the pipeline (again, actually more interesting stuff than PS4 and Xbone combined) -
New Zelda
New Metroid
Yarn Yoshi
Hyrule Warriors
Smash Bros
Mario Kart 8
etc
etc

(I'm just listing off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'm missing stuff)

Anyhow
Suggesting the Wii U is powerful is ludicrous, but it IS massively underestimated. It's like half-way between last gen and current gen in power.
That's pretty good.
It seems like people think it's only as powerful as a Wii...
Nintendo really fucked up the marketing on this thing.

 

[Ieyke]

They've been wasted on Donkey Kong, in my opinion.

Nonsense. There are very few greater purposes than the creation of Donkey Kong Country games. Especially if they can bring them up to the level of DKC2.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The problem is that what Nintendo used to do was lead the industry. We shouldn't forget that in the 1990s they helped invent most of the archetypes of 3D aming we see today. Super Mario 64 pretty much singlehandedly brought us the 3D platformer. When technology moved on and a question was asked of Nintendo they used to answer with a resounding "Yes, we can do this".

It seems almost unbelievable if you look at Nintendo today but their games used to be, well.... innovative. Not just in gameplay, where they made huge strides, but in technology too. Nintendo really was able to do both and drive the industry forward with it. They used to actually make IPs to or re-invent them. Again look at the N64 era; they published Smash Bros, Banjo Kazooie, Concker's bad fur day (and pretty much everything by Rare in that period) They Re invented Mario in varied different genres with games like Mario Party and Paper Mario.

Look at the Wii generation (a much longer console cycle by the way) in comparison. We got re-hashes of all the ideas Ninendo invented in its past but almost zero new ones. Sure we saw slight refinements but there weren't even many games that re-invented characters in ways we hadn't seen before. They seem to have fully run out of original game ideas.

Aye. Though if there's one trend that Nintendo has latched onto, it's a sense of total complacency.
All of AAA started doing this around the end of the PS2/GC/Xbox generation.
The twin advents of the video game blockbuster and addiction models transformed the nature of big publisher gaming completely.
Even the most celebrated examples of AAA games I can think of are very derivative (to a very specific degree) of former works.

I don't think they've run out of new ideas, it's just they're stubbornly opposed to creating new ones.
"Because new and interesting" means invalidating their "old and functional" by-the-book blockbuster formulas.
Formulas that have worked so well; formulas that brought them the greatest proportion of wealth.

Especially for Nintendo.
Nintendo has some of the oldest persistent IPs in the business with timely installments, so they're especially conservative. (best I can tell, the only media company more conservative and less proactive with their IP than Nintendo is Disney. That's just scary.)
Since Super Mario Bros 1 on the NES, what's the longest period of time between Mario game release dates?
(I haven't crunched the numbers, but it can be any longer than 2 years)

 

[RA92]

Actually now, more than ever, AAA devs have a tendency to not form special relationships with specific consoles except for the occasional timed DLCs. With rising costs, everything has been going multiplatform. Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Metal Gear Solid, Armored Core, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, etc have been going from exclusives to multiplatform since last generation. Most of the good exclusives - Halo, Uncharted, God of War - are made by studios owned by the console manufacturers themselves.

Having a different architecture will certainly lower developers' will to make games for that system.

Okay, when you have rendered yourself incapable of doing a simple porting job and understanding non-homogenized hardware, that's not a problem with the hardware, that's a problem with all these 3rd parties. They have basically destroyed any semblance of flexibility or variety they once had because they've let idiotic auteur devs waste money on pointless bullshit. They need to get their damned finances in check because this kind of crap cannot sustain

But there is a problem with hardware. For instance, think of memory. All next gen games will probably require more than 4GB+ of RAM, because that's how much is available on the PS4, Xbone and your average gaming PCs. But to port to the WiiU, devs have to somehow lower the memory requirement to less than 2GB.

Look at how much the PS3 has suffered in terms of ports (Skyrim, Bayonetta) because of its different architecture. And the WiiU has a different architecture and it suffers from weaker hardware.

Don't get me wrong. As a primarily PC gamer, the WiiU seems to be the more attractive choice than the other two in terms of exclusives (Monster Hunter, Bayonetta 2, a new Xeno game from Monolith). And with almost 6 million sold, I don't think it's going to be a failure. Just a slow seller like the GameCube.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

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

Shigesato Itoi has stated that he doesn't want to make another game in the Mother series and the reason is because he feels the series is fine as it is, anything else would be unnecessary

But I honestly think they should build on the ideas they had for the original N64 version of Mother 3 and make a 3D Mother game, sadly it won't happen anytime soon

Too bad then Nintendo.

 

[oldtaku]

And you can make great games on the Wii U. But it is in no way a 'powerhouse' and it is not a powerful console unless you compare it to a Gamecube. That's the wrong tack to take in defending it.

I'm guessing you didn't read the article? They say that they can do so much more with the Wii U and aren't held back by the hardware limitations of the console. Compared to the PS4, Xbone and PC, it's nothing spectacular, but compared to all other consoles, it's a powerhouse ...

Frankly, with the PS4/Xbone, there's a lot of wasted power...

*slowclaps* So yes, like I said it's not a powerhouse, which you deny, then admit, then dismiss, and I did read the article where they said 'Wow this is powerful compared to a Wii', and like I said you can make great games with it. And like I said defending its power is a bad tactic.

On one hand you say XB1/PS4/PC are more powerful but that power is wasted, and on the other hand you're really upset that I would actually say it doesn't have that same power.

How about arguing instead that right now it has better games than either of them? That's defensible.

 

[Atmos Duality]

In terms of raw Blockbuster effects spectacle Nintendo has missed the boat entirely..

They missed the boat entirely because after the PS2 started stomping the Gamecube in sales, I think Nintendo realized that they had no real hope of competing with that kind of crowd.

But I have a bit of a mouthful to say on that yet (below).

The best AAA games have a tried and tested core but are built on with great original ideas; Bioshock and Bioshock infinite did this exceptionally well.

No joke, I actually had Bioshock specifically in mind when I wrote my previous response.
While it's a phenomenal game that's fairly distinguished from other shooters of its day, it also kinda cribbed 90% of its gameplay from System Shock 2. (though it more than made up for it with style and setting)

Still, it's one of the most interesting games of its generation, and one of the only games I'd call "artistic"; in that it had a theme beyond the usual tropes in entertainment (being a commentary on Objectivism).

I think the problem is that the AAA studios are using safe ideas from the last 5 years whereas Nintendo is using safe ideas from 20 years ago; say what you like about the stale state of the AAA market but they know how to switch fine-tine their releases to respond to the market; there is at least a slow turnover of ideas.

Well, AAA used to know how to switch, but they're becoming more and more shackled to formulas as time goes on.

Right now, I'm sensing great hesitation from them to even attempt; especially when companies openly claim that they're only interested in IP if it can be milked to death (as Ubisoft said last year).

But I concede, that's just AAA. Nintendo is, in some ways worse, because Nintendo is weird.

For one, Nintendo is unique for possessing what I call a "Disney Complex".
Nintendo's strongest sales cater to the family friendly game market; which works especially well because few others even bother with it (Skylanders is the only contemporary non-Nintendo game in this category that springs to mind; maybe Minecraft too).
And in their defense, I can respect Nintendo for giving kids quality games instead of half-assed shovelware.

Kids are an evergreen source of new gamers, and thus new revenue. I think that is part of why Nintendo leans so heavily on recycling old concepts with small refinements than creating new concepts; it's because it has worked for 20+ years.
Mainstream media trends come and go, but children's entertainment is positively glacial to adapt to change (in any medium).

Normally, "Game-Market-Disney" sounds like a great position to be in, but unfortunately Nintendo isn't just a game developer; they're also a console manufacturer.

Even though their primary market targets kids and families, Nintendo behaves as though they're in competition with the same prospective 3rd parties their system wants for mainstream appeal.
A fact that has given Nintendo a reputation among developers as being difficult to work with; much to their detriment.
(I remember the fallout with Squaresoft over Super Mario RPG in the 90s; a move that would cost Nintendo dearly vs the PS1. Today, mandating design for that silly tablet gimmick is only driving developers away.)

To make a long story short (too late): Nintendo is reliant on Nintendo to sell Nintendo systems.
When only their popular franchises keeps them in business, it's no mystery why they're so hesitant to change.

Naughty Dog for example isn't still making Crash Bandicoot games, or even Jak games. Something is lost from these transitions but more is gained. People still play old games; between GoG, XBLA, PSN, Steam and dedicated emulation platforms (ScummVM, Dos Box ect) you can get pretty much ANY old game. It would be nice to see another Crash Bandicoot game but if a feel the need i can just pop my original copy in my PS3 or download it from the store.

To use Sony's studios as an example again in the last 20 years they have created a large roster of ever changing original IPs. If they just made a Crash Bandicoot game, a Spyro game and a Wipeout games every 2-3 years people might be happy wallowing in their childhoods sure but we would have missed out on so many other great experiences and ideas to the determent of gaming.

Indeed.

I will add there's a definite element of "Careful what you wish for" in the market today.
Sometimes, demand for a game series can turn a project around (we wouldn't have XCOM Enemy Unknown if not for the vocal fandom; just The Bureau), but it can just as easily inspire exploitation (recent Dungeon Keeper) and tears.

We live in an era both blessed with and spoiled by nostalgia.
Nostalgia-exploitation is damn near the biggest thing in media right now, for games and films at least.

 

[Nixou]

Nintendo really fucked up the marketing on this thing.

Nintendo didn't fucked up marketing. The people who keep whining about the WiiU's hardware are a specific subset of the gaming population who are:
- Technologically literate enough to be turned on by specs porn
- Not wealthy enough to buy an expensive high-end PC nor skilled enough to assemble it themselves
Subset which makes the core of the gaming press' readership, hence its tendency to shamelessly pander to them by telling them what they want to hear.

What they did fuck up was remaining woefully understaffed which led to the WiiU being released with a subpar OS, incomplete online infrastructure and virtually no games: all problems which stem from the fact that Nintendo didn't have enough hireling to do all the work involved by the release of a new console in this day and age (something that had also happened during the 3DS launch). This is where the company well known "conservatism" harmed it.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

But there is a problem with hardware. For instance, think of memory. All next gen games will probably require more than 4GB+ of RAM, because that's how much is available on the PS4, Xbone and your average gaming PCs. But to port to the WiiU, devs have to somehow lower the memory requirement to less than 2GB.

Look at how much the PS3 has suffered in terms of ports (Skyrim, Bayonetta) because of its different architecture. And the WiiU has a different architecture and it suffers from weaker hardware.

Don't get me wrong. As a primarily PC gamer, the WiiU seems to be the more attractive choice than the other two in terms of exclusives (Monster Hunter, Bayonetta 2, a new Xeno game from Monolith). And with almost 6 million sold, I don't think it's going to be a failure. Just a slow seller like the GameCube.

Then freaking work around it. Furthermore, RAM is not some be-all, end-all. You're basically admitting that devs are too incompetent to find creative solutions to technological limitations. If they seriously have rendered themselves incapable of scaling engines then they need to go back to design school. This tech porn fetish that's hijacked the industry needs to be burned down.

 

[Roxas1359]

Nintendo really fucked up the marketing on this thing.

Nintendo didn't fucked up marketing.

Um actually yes Nintendo has completely messed up on marketing the Wii U this gen, in fact they've even admitted that they have dropped the ball on advertising. The amount of ads for the Wii U where I live are non-existent and from what I hear it's even worse in Europe. The Wii U ads that have come out mainly focus on the controller and don't even show the new console at all, and it has lead to many people thinking the Wii U is just the GamePad itself and is just an expensive peripheral for the Wii. If consumers think you product is something other than what it is, then marketing wise you have failed. I've even seen people return Wii U games because they tried to use them on their Wii's, because they didn't know that the Wii U was the newest console (naming it the Wii U has also proven to be a problem).