Topic: Details Emerge About Project H.A.M.M.E.R

[Shaymin]

Unseen64 digs deep into the cancelled Wii project and the findings are troubling.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/40687/details-emerge-about-project-hammer

A new video has been produced and posted by Unseen64 that examines in great detail the cancelled Wii game Project H.A.M.M.E.R and the issues that led to the game being sacked.

Project H.A.M.M.E.R was in development at Nintendo Software Technology beginning in late 2003, with the aim of being developed for a new console (which would become the Wii) and development headed by many veterans of 1080 Avalanche and Wave Race: Blue Storm for the Gamecube. The game was allegedly 75% complete in 2005, but concerns about the game's quality emerged. Tensions between the developers and NST management were raised as there was a dispute over how to make the game more appealing - the developers wanted to change the core gameplay, while the management felt the gameplay concept was solid and ordered the developers to enhance the environments.

The playable demo at E3 2006 was presented as Project H.A.M.M.E.R, but the game was being referred to as MACHINEX internally by this time. As rumors of the title's cancellation began to spread, the management at NST elected to restart the game with an artstyle more reminiscent of the Wii Sports games, the new working title "Wii Crush", and replacing the cyborg main character shown at E3 2006 with a "cartoon character".

In 2009, with still no progress on making the game ready to ship, Nintendo Company Limited pulled funding and cancelled the project. By this time, the chief game designer had been fired, and his replacement was disciplined due to the money lost on the project. No members of NST management were implicated, despite a Nintendo of America internal review showing record low levels of employee morale at NST because of the harsh management style. To this day, NST has been focused on developing the Mario v Donkey Kong series of games and smaller applications such as the Wii U Panorama View, while the senior designers have left the company and in some cases, the game industry itself.

The full video from Unseen64:

[ClexYoshi]

it suddenly makes sense as to why I have yet to play an NST game that I actually enjoy outside of maybe the Panel de Pon stuff.

Regardless, I feel for the devs there, having their potential limited by the same thing that potentially limits the rest of NoA. I have my suspicions that have been cooberated by a source who was relatively low on the NoA totem pole about what it's like to work over there in Redmond before they quit their jobs at the NoA offices.

[Compeau]

Who thought it was a good idea to use the IR pointer in a game about swinging the Wii Remote around wildly?  It's too bad they couldn't rework the game around the Wii Motion Plus.

[UncleBob]

The thing that kept sticking out to me with this video is "it wasn't fun".

Sounds like a good reason to cancel a game to me.

[Enner]

The video makes it seem as if NST was being overseen by NCL, not NoA. That makes sense given its status as a development studio.


This is such a sad state of affairs that is also probably a poster child of larger problems at Nintendo. Cancelling a boring game is expected, but not at the cost of burning out a subsidiary.

[broodwars]

The thing that kept sticking out to me with this video is "it wasn't fun".

Sounds like a good reason to cancel a game to me.

And the Western Devs wanted to fix the gameplay so it WAS fun. However, the Japanese overlords at NST were more interested in focusing on Wii-era waggle instead.  That video is quintessential Wii-era Nintendo on display, and it really makes me wonder if anything's really changed at all all these years later. It would certainly partially explain why no 3rd parties want to deal with Nintendo's bullshit anymore.

[UncleBob]

You mean the western developers wanted to change the game they'd been working on for years already to finally make it fun?

Good plan.

[Enner]

You mean the western developers wanted to change the game they'd been working on for years already to finally make it fun?

Good plan.

Credit where credit is due, the western development team at NST is reported in the video to wanting to change the play of game early in the cycle (2005/2006, I think?). The overriding Japanese administrative team felt it was the art that needed to be improved on.

[broodwars]

You mean the western developers wanted to change the game they'd been working on for years already to finally make it fun?

Good plan.

If you actually watched the video, you'd have seen that the Western devs wanted to change the design very early on, but Nintendo's Japanese side was laser-focused on their casual-centric waggle-fest shovelware and so overruled them.  After all, since when did Wii-era Nintendo care about quality so long as they could broadcast misleading commercials showing grandma swinging a Wii remote?

[Soren]

After all, since when did Wii-era Nintendo care about quality so long as they could broadcast misleading commercials showing grandma swinging a Wii remote?

Ummm...Project HAMMER?

Or is this example of Nintendo mercy-killing a product because it doesn't meet their quality standards of "being fun" not apply? Was it better to keep throwing money at it and hope it gets better?

Oh wait, something something shovelware waggle casual...

[broodwars]

After all, since when did Wii-era Nintendo care about quality so long as they could broadcast misleading commercials showing grandma swinging a Wii remote?

Ummm...Project HAMMER?

The state of which was Nintendo's fault, and which they canned basically because all the developers left for better pastures after being fed up with being set up to fail. It's a project they got to can without taking any responsibility for the state they put it in.

[Enner]

Obligatory "But Donkey Kong Barrel Blast made it through" low blow.

[Mythtendo]

I laugh at those who blame management instead of the development team. The game looked mediocre, that is on the development team. And the game was nearly done (75% complete) before the team realized it sucked and wanted to change it. It was not "early on" like broodwars claims.

There is a reason Nintendo doesn't trust NST with big games, HAMMER was the last time they did and the team couldn't make a fun game.

BTW, most of those early Wii games had good controls.

[Soren]

The state of which was Nintendo's fault, and which they canned basically because all the developers left for better pastures after being fed up with being set up to fail. It's a project they got to can without taking any responsibility for the state they put it in.

Management was indeed out to lunch, but the developers still made a bad game. Everyone came out of this looking bad.

[UncleBob]

What games have these former NST employees gone on to make since?

Look, I'm not saying this isn't any percentage management's fault - I'm simply saying NST worked on the game for over a year before it seems management got involved in making decisions.  "It wasn't fun."  NST continued to spend resources in secret as a side project.  "It wasn't fun".

Accusations of racisim aside, it seems NST spent a lot of time and effort developing a game that "wasn't fun"

[Shaymin]

If you ask the boss, one of them is making chairs for a living now.

[Luigi Dude]

I'm not a fan of how the video says the management of NST got off without any punishment.  The fact they've become nothing more then a Mario vs Donkey Kong factory shows NCL clearly doesn't trust the people running it to make major titles anymore.  Before they used to be allowed to make sequels to fucking EAD titles like Wave Race and 1080, then were allowed to make a Metroid Prime spinoff which was actually pretty heavily advertised when the DS was first released and even had a demo included with the early system as well.  Then they were given a multi-million dollar budget to create a new IP and given more then enough time to work on it and it still fell apart.

People have to remember in Japan, they don't just outright fire high level employee's but instead take away their power by window seating them on lessor projects.  Retro has lost much of the staff that created the Prime games, but Nintendo still keeps hiring new employees constantly and gives them budgets to make games that surpass what many of the EAD studio's are doing.  In comparison, after Project HAMMER, NST isn't allowed to make anything beyond something that could easily be an online Flash game.

So the part about how Nintendo was racist and didn't punish the managment of NST because they were also Japanese is clearly false since Iwata literally windowed seated the management of NST by condemning them to nothing more then the low budget Mario vs Donkey Kong studio after what happened.

[broodwars]

So the part about how Nintendo was racist and didn't punish the managment of NST because they were also Japanese is clearly false since Iwata literally windowed seated the management of NST by condemning them to nothing more then the low budget Mario vs Donkey Kong studio after what happened.

IIRC, the "racism"/nationalism accusations in the video were mainly regarding how the Japanese heads of NST wouldn't allow the Western developers to retool the gameplay to actually make it fun. When asked why they couldn't change it, they were told "You're not Japanese. You wouldn't understand."