Penny Arcade Adventures is developed using the Torque Game Engine. Seeing as Torque does run on Wii (Torque for Wii) many fans have been hoping for a WiiWare release. In fact, we asked Mike Krahulik (Gabe) last year during our Child's Play interview, and his response sounded positive.
MK: It's definitely something that we're investigating. I don't think I can say anything more than that... I'll say I would love to, I would love to do it, man. I hope we can.
It turns out there may have been a specific reason Mr. Krahulik was only hoping. In a recent post in the official forum for the game at Penny Arcade, Hothead Games member Vlad Ceraldi has revealed that the current size restriction put on WiiWare titles could prevent Penny Arcade Adventures from ever coming to WiiWare. "Until the size restriction is increased, the game will not be going to WiiWare. Sorry."
So, unless Nintendo changes that limitation, Wii owning Penny Arcade fans are going to have to look at one of the other platforms before they can play the title. Nintendo World Report has learned that Hothead Games is a licensed Wii developers and all parties involved (including Nintendo) wanted to see the title make it to the console. In fact, the studio would most likely revisit the situation if the size requirements ever change.
Considering the limited size of Wii's internal memory (512 MB minus system files, game saves, and installed channels) and comparing it with the current Xbox Live Arcade limitation of 150 MB, you can begin to see why there would be a problem. Mr. Ceraldi also pointed out that he had to engineer a special compression technique for the Live Arcade release, and even then, Hothead Games was required to get special permission from Microsoft to break the limit. Also, the PC/Mac/Linux versions of the game require 350 MB of available hard drive space. This is all for the first part of an ongoing episodic series.
It's clear that Penny Arcade Adventures will include a lot of content. If fans are still hoping to see the game on Wii, the only two options are a retail release, as with Sam & Max, or a new storage solution of some sort for the system followed by changes to the WiiWare file size restrictions.
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?
This article is a DISGRACE TO PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM, PALE YOU ARE A FAILURE AND SO IS NINTENDO WORLD REPORT
Release it on disc for $30.
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
I'd rather be a little bloated than have to clean out the fridge.
Even with an optional hard drive, it'd still be in developers' best interest to minimize file sizes to reach the largest possible audience (i.e., to not exclude those who haven't purchased a hard drive).Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
Hmm what's the Nintendumb thing to do here..
Nintendo will sell a proprietary hard drive and update the wii so only nintendo-brand h-drives are recognized. Of course the hard drive will last 1000 years so it'll be a trade-off.
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
I'd rather be a little bloated than have to clean out the fridge.
Set a size requirement? With possible exceptions?
Best of both worlds right there...
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
I'd rather be a little bloated than have to clean out the fridge.
Set a size requirement? With possible exceptions?
Best of both worlds right there...
How so? My game is bigger than yours, give me more?
Can Wii have a hard drive now, please?But then why would developers ever bother to optimize their titles? We'd end up with the same bloatware that modern games, even the episodic ones, have become.
If the Wii had a hard-drive from the start developers would have flooded it with bloated games and patches - the usual garbage.
Release it on disc for $30.
I do want to know this. Since this is episodic content why not just split it up a little and lower the price?
I do want to know this. Since this is episodic content why not just split it up a little and lower the price?
Episodes still have beginnings and endings. You can't just chop it up. Although it feels like they did that with LostWinds...
Let's hope the storage solution Iwata and the other guy were talking about is more than just talk
Hell part of this whole storage issue is that Nintendo couldn't even do SD cards in a normal fashion. They had to do it differently.
1. It's a Nintendo f*ck up and Nintendo is pretty damn stubborn about admitting mistakes. Fixing the issue admits that their original design was stupid and short-sighted. Uh oh. Can't have that.
Anti-piracy measures always just end up as annoyances for paying customers.
The encryption process, the reason it takes so long to copy something to the SD card, is the reason you can't play something directly off the SD card and the reason you can't copy someone else's game onto your Wii. Nintendo would have to change the way things work in this regard (a firmware update, and a major one, also probably requiring everyone to download new, updated copies of all their VC games and in the process make me lose my Balloon Fight high score) to change that. I'd love to see it happen, but it would be a major undertaking and I think it's much more likely that we'll see a hard drive or a bigger external flash drive.
This is an annoyance, but unlike most anti-piracy measures this one seems to be effective, I haven't heard of anyone successfully pirating VC games.
Couldn't the Wii just set aside 400 blocks permanently for an SD channel that would be used as a temporary space to load VC or WiiWare games into? Then when you exit, the SD channel would free up that space again...?
