Topic: Wii U: the first 6-8 months that might have been...

[Oblivion]

Toy Story looks gross compared to what PC can do today. Brave, on the other hand...

[alegoicoe]

i planned on buying DE: Human Revolutions, but i ended up getting free on PSN thanks to the delay.

[Ymeegod]

"If you really think these specs are going towards stuff like better artificial intelligence, you're just crazy and/or gullible."

LOL, not sure what you're talking about but developers are already adding tons of advance AI to next generation games.  Adaptablitity is going be an huge improvement.  For example if you keep taking shortcuts in racing game the AI wll adapt to your playstyle and either take the shortcut themselves or block you from taking it. In fighting games they Ai will counter you more often if you continue to do the same combos.

Interactions is going be another noticeable feature.  Not only will you have more objects in game but they are going have true to life physics.  One of my pet peeves in video gaming is the "disappearing bodies" or fading.  When I blast through a room and have to return later in the game I want the room the way I left it--bloody bodies and charred walls.    With more memory and CPU power you're not going have to deal with fading anymore.

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[Adrock]

They've been talking about all that for years. If any of that finally happens this upcoming generation, I'll buy you a coke.

Seriously, send me your address and I will literally mail you a can of Coca Cola if that happens regularly with PS4/One. Gladly, even. I want to see these kinds of advancements, but so far, it's all been empty promises.

[ShyGuy]

Fighting games have had adaptive AI before now I believe.

edit: heck most games haven't reached No One Lives Forever levels of AI yet.

[Adrock]

It's a shame that the IP has been MIA since 2002. I've heard good things about it.

Better AI and such have been possible for some time. I'm not claiming otherwise. Rather, they're not implemented with any regularity across the board. Developers can but aren't using specs to improve these aspects of games. I mean that generally if that needed to be clarified from my other posts. They're just making the same kinds of games except nicer looking.

[lolmonade]

Good job, Shyguy.  That's a nice list of "what happened?" neatly organized.
 
I think the real question is: if those games actually got pushed out when they were originally slated, do we believe the time period between now and winter would see more games being released?  I don't think so.  I think we'd see an influx of a variety of games in Q1 & Q2, and then just experience the drought from now leading into the holidays.
 
It's facinating watching the business decisions of Nintendo.  They're so incredibly risk averse in some ways (not hiring more talent so they can push out a larger volume of titles, releasing iterative versions of games such as NSMB U & Super Mario 3D World), while at the same time taking large gambles on unknown quantities (Wii Remote & Wii U Gamepad), that it's like there are two separate heads trying to move in opposite directions without making any meaningful movement.
 
The problem is I think their lack of direction business-wise is hurting their core consumers, especially ones who are long-time devotees.

[Ian Sane]

The specs thing is simple - the Wii missed out on practically every single third party game worth a damn last gen and it was because its hardware was too weak to be included in multiplatform development.  That's not about being a graphics whore it's about the games not showing up on the console.  Even if YOU don't think it matters every third party DOES and THEIR opinion matters, not yours.

[Adrock]

And I gave you an example of a major third party game (e.g. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain) that is using a scalable engine that allows the game to be on current and next generation hardware. It's the same game. The Wii was too weak for porting which I addressed. Wii U, on the other hand, is debatable. It may not handle the visuals as well, but it certainly seems like it can handle the game design which wasn't always true on Wii. That's the point. Developers so far seem to be using the extra power for better graphics as opposed to better AI and whatnot. They can, but they aren't for the most part. So when third parties claim Wii U isn't powerful enough or whatever the excuse of the week is, I have a hard time believing them. Until game design and AI exceeds what we have today because it's not possible on hardware we have today, they're talking out of their ass.

Part of me wants to see Nintendo compete on the hardware level again just to see what third parties say because I'm not buying the hardware excuse for a second. Not yet anyway since they keep talking about these things they can do except there's no consistency. Some games will have decent AI while others will not. As I said in another thread, I've yet to see one game on PS4/One that couldn't be done on current generation hardware (albeit it with lesser graphics). If all these companies are going to vaunt powerful hardware, it's on them to prove why it matters. Until then, they can get the **** out of my face with their excuses.

[Kytim89]

I am no expert on technology but I kind of figure that third parties will simply modify the engines they already have made for Xbox 360 and PS3 for the PS4 and Xbone. This will make it cheaper to develop games for the PS4 and XBone. It will also make it easier to port games over to the Wii U.

[Ceric]

PS3 engines are going to get ditched like a McDonald's Wrapper.  360 ones may migrate but, if what Cerny said about developing for the PS4 engine wise is true they might actually just go ahead and roll a new one.


To answer Adrock's question the only game I can think of we've seen that would probably fit the bill is Knack.  The main controlled character being made up of many modelled objects with their own physics and interactions while being player controlled.

[Ian Sane]

I heard all the same "well the hardware SHOULD be good enough to port the game if you put the proper effort into it" and "these next gen graphics don't look THAT much different to me" stuff with the Wii.  I'm sure SOME games can be ported but not all of them and we're not just talking about PS4 launch games but whatever titles are being made years from now.

But ultimately if it requires extra effort on the part of the third party then they have all the more incentive to not do it.  Nintendo is not making Wii U multiplatform support a no-brainer easy decision.  They're asking third parties to spend extra development time and money to scale the games down or, if that's not really feasible, to make exclusive Wii U software in order to have something on all three consoles.  Of course the easiest decision here is to just skip the Wii U entirely which is what they started doing on the Wii.  The whole approach is the same one as the Wii, which failed miserably in regards to attracting third party support.

Nintendo is approaching a group of companies that already don't support them and asking them to jump through hoops to support their console.  What the hell sort of delusional GALL does a company have to ask that from a position of weakness?  They should be bending over backwards to be accomodating because they have no clout whatsoever.  Yet they continue to act like King **** and everyone just ignores them.

I want to see what happens when third parties don't have an easy excuse.  Nintendo has been providing them since 1996 so who knows what would actually happen if Nintendo released something that followed the current industry conventions and didn't ask third parties or potential customers to make special concessions?  They haven't competed on equal footing since the Super Nintendo.  They show up to the race every time with their shoelaces tied together.  Show up in proper condition to run the race for a change and then you can complain about the refs.

[NWR_insanolord]

What was the easy excuse on the GameCube? Mostly traditional controller, hardware on par with the competition, why didn't they support it?

[Kytim89]

What was the easy excuse on the GameCube? Mostly traditional controller, hardware on par with the competition, why didn't they support it?

The discs held 1.5 GBs compared to the PS2 and Xbox's 8 GB discs.

[NWR_insanolord]

I thought the PS2 and Xbox discs were single layer, so they would only have been 4.7 GB. Outside of a few specific cases I don't think that was a real problem.

[Ceric]

What was the easy excuse on the GameCube? Mostly traditional controller, hardware on par with the competition, why didn't they support it?

[size=78%]The discs held 1.5 GBs compared to the PS2 and Xbox's 8 GB discs. [/size]

Ironically enough that was the excuse even though many games weren't that big.  Suffice it to say if its coming out for the PS3 and the 360 I don't really see an excuse for it to not come to the Wii  U on Tech Specs.

[Kytim89]

Rockstar was going to put Max Payne and GTA 3 on the Gamecube but cancelled because it had less RAM memory than the PS2.

[Ian Sane]

What was the easy excuse on the GameCube? Mostly traditional controller, hardware on par with the competition, why didn't they support it?

The Gamecube actually did REALLY well on third party support compared to the Wii and Wii U.  Multiplatform games were not the industry standard yet but when they occured the Cube was often included (and probably excluded for seemingly no reason a similar amount of time; that used to drive me nuts).  The Cube's third party support was weak because it didn't get many exclusives and the ones it did get were later ported to the PS2.  Exclusives were the way third parties worked then (Japanese devs tended to favour the market leading PS2 while American devs favoured the Xbox because it had PC-style architecture that they were used to).  I would be thrilled if the Wii U got Cube level support.  It had the best third party support of all the post-SNES Nintendo consoles and that's because it was the most conventional.  It was attracting about the amount of support I would expect from a follow-up to a console that didn't lead the market and the support got weaker as the console failed to sell.

But Nintendo still showed up to the race with their shoelaced tied together.  Not going online when everyone else is?  Okay so you've already not matched up to the competition and now your race results are completely tainted.  They also had smaller discs, a less flexible controller, small memory cards that cost the same as PS2 cards that were 16 times the size, no demo discs, no DVD support, a discounted "hits" label that was more expensive than the competition's, a purple purse design that made the console look kiddy in America, Nintendo taking their most respected franchise in Zelda and turning it in a "kiddy" cartoon (not really but that's what it looked like to).  Those are all minor but when you add them up the Cube just was not appealling to gamers that had written Nintendo off with the N64.  Nintendo needed to win the public back but compared to the other two consoles the Cube wasn't the best at anything and was often the worst.  It gave no indication that things were going to be different this time.  It was Nintendo assuming they could just release a console with a bare-minimum effort and everyone would love it as if the N64 years never happened.

The Wii U is in a similar position in regards to core gamers.  We ask "show me things will be different this time" and Nintendo releases the most by-the-book Wii sequel you could possibly come up with.

[Adrock]

I'm sure SOME games can be ported but not all of them and we're not just talking about PS4 launch games but whatever titles are being made years from now.

That still doesn't explain what the issue is today and for the last eight months. Third parties ported a few old games and expected Wii U owners to just take what was given. If you went to the grocery store for cookies and the only box left was half-crushed and a year past the expiration date, would you buy that box of cookies? Would you?

And I'm still not convinced game design is really going to advance to the point where these new consoles are doing things we never dreamed was possible the past eight years. Ceric brought up Knack. The physics are impressive, but is the gameplay not possible on PS3? I've seen the footage and I'll reserve final judgment for when the games releases, but I think it is possible. If all companies are doing is scaling graphics on engines designed to do just that, I'm having a hard time believing that specs are really a roadblock here.

Honestly, I want that to happen. I want game design to advance and justify the existence of these new consoles past "Well, it's been seven to eight years, might as well launch a new one." I want to, for example, play a Resident Evil game that makes me feel the way I did when I first tried the Resident Evil 4 demo. Seven and a half years and a new console later, Resident Evil 6 was the best Capcom could do? How the **** is that advancement? Try again.

But ultimately if it requires extra effort on the part of the third party then they have all the more incentive to not do it.  Nintendo is not making Wii U multiplatform support a no-brainer easy decision.

I agree that there's less incentive to support a platform when asked to do extra, except they already have to do that. PC is already more powerful than PS4 and One; the gap is only getting larger. Third parties are going to have to do some work at some point. If the rumors are true and PS4 is 40% more powerful than One, that's even more work they have to do so I don't want to hear it. What they're really saying is, "We'll do the work. We're just not doing it for Nintendo consoles." Blaming the specs doesn't work when current generation content that is clearly more than possible still isn't being brought over.

Hypothetically, say in the sideways world Wii U was between PS4 and One in terms of specs. Would that change anything? We've already heard the silly "The controller is too unique!" line. Ugh, fine. You keep bringing up the hardware and it's just seems like the excuse third parties picked out of a hat that day.

What the hell sort of delusional GALL does a company have to ask that from a position of weakness?  They should be bending over backwards to be accomodating because they have no clout whatsoever.  Yet they continue to act like King **** and everyone just ignores them.

Nintendo gave publishers an alternative. Wii was dominating for YEARS yet third parties kept insisting on spending boatloads of money on HD development then deeming those games failures for selling a measly six million copies. "Ugh, Wii was a fad." Maybe, but it was a pretty aggressive fad that could have made more than just Nintendo a lot of money. It seemed like publishers wanted it to fail and well, everyone loses. And who was really in a worse position? Nintendo, who was raking in cash, or third parties that were slogging through the HD era.

I'm not absolving Nintendo of all responsibility. They've certainly made their mistakes. I simply disagree that they should be bending over backwards for these companies. Why? Third parties have just as much to gain. Perhaps Nintendo should extend their hand further and be more proactive, but publishers have to meet them in the middle. And they're not based on their own words. It's like publishers want Nintendo to grovel the entire way, but Nintendo is too proud for that (rightfully so, groveling is for suckers). Unstoppable force meet immovable object.

It's this ridiculous vicious cycle. Now, third parties want Nintendo to sell more consoles and when (not if) Nintendo does with their own major releases, they'll just say Wii U owners only buy Nintendo games. That's a "**** you" in disguise. Nintendo is perpetually in a lose-lose situation. It's a shame really because no one really wins.

[Ian Sane]

I can see one or two companies refusing to support Nintendo for bizarre personal reasons.  That would demonstrate poor business sense but some companies will crash and burn on stupid stuff.  "That's stupid" is not a good enough logic to rule something out.  But EVERY third party just hating Nintendo?  The odds of that happening independently are too great to be possible.  A more likely possibility would be collusion but what is the obvious benefit of colluding against Nintendo?  It could be incompetence but they wouldn't ALL be incompetent.  Some, yes, but not all of them.

We're talking business so it's all about money.  If the third parties felt they could make money on Nintendo consoles they would go for it.  Obviously they don't feel that they can.  Maybe it's hardware or market share or the feeling that only Nintendo games sell or maybe there is some element of Nintendo's third party agreement that we don't know about that is so undesirable to the third party that it would kill off support (Nintendo's NES licence was so ridiculously restricted that if it was selling like the Wii U no one would ever agree to those terms).  Third parties don't feel they can make money on a Nintendo console and Nintendo needs to address that.  They need to be as accomodating and friendly as realistically possible from a financial perspective.  That's what I mean by making third parties jump through hoops.  Just because of the hardware alone Nintendo is not even being neutral, let alone accomodating.  How will they ever win any support when they insist on playing hardball and demanding this exception and that compromise the whole time?  The hell with bending over backwards, how about showing up to the table with the appearance of striking a fair deal for a change?

[Ymeegod]

Have you looked at sales data?  Hardcore sales on a Nintendo system have always been the low ball with a few exceptions like Soul Calibur 2 and a few others. 

Publishers need to make a profit (and one large enough) to justicfield porting an game.  It can cost up to 1-2 million just to port an game (modern games anyhow, indie games are a lot less).  To make an 2 million for publisher the game would have to sell over 100k to retailers.  Sales data has most WII U ports have been less than 50K meaning most publishers are going be losing money just to make a few fans happy?  While you'll at it why not cry for some Mac support or Vita?

[ShyGuy]

When I make videos games they will only come out for Nintendo consoles and Linux.

[broodwars]

What was the easy excuse on the GameCube? Mostly traditional controller, hardware on par with the competition, why didn't they support it?

Because the GameCube was run over by that bus with the PS2 license plates.

[Kytim89]

I appears that the Strider remake is not coming to the Wii U. 

[Adrock]

We're talking business so it's all about money.  If the third parties felt they could make money on Nintendo consoles they would go for it.  Obviously they don't feel that they can.

I agree though that's only half the story. These are the same companies who stumbled through the HD era with inflated budgets and underperforming software. They left a lot of money on the table practically disregarding Wii. If they were really so business savvy, this thread wouldn't exist.

The hell with bending over backwards, how about showing up to the table with the appearance of striking a fair deal for a change?

Accommodating is not the same as groveling so this I agree with too. I've been saying the same for years except it shouldn't be just for appearances. I mean, actually strike fair deals. The expectations have to be leveled on both sides. If third parties want handouts, they can get the hell out of here with that noise. At the same time, Nintendo can't impose ridiculous restrictions and policies (pick one, there are many). They're getting better at it even if they shouldn't have been issues to begin with.

At this point, I think it starts with Nintendo. While I don't believe specs are really an issue, just about everything else about Wii U is either a mess or kind of a mess. They really need to take care of the basics (e.g. system level stuff, voice chat, releasing games in a timely manner etc.) which stands to benefit them first and foremost so, you know, figure that out already. Once it starts looking like a console people want to support, work on getting that support.