By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Former Ratchet and Clank, Skylanders dev confirms early Wii U development problems

every beta should get over it



Around the Network
Roma said:

why do we care what problems devs had in the early devkits? why are they even discussed to this day when we are more than one year past this?


Because perhaps these problems are also a reason to current problems? Even ambitioned teams perhaps were frustrated with this and so their bosses decided to not develop more games on a system that is perhaps not worth coding a new and own engine for because next-gen engines for ps4/xbone can't be run on wii u.



That Eurogamer article only maintains relevance if the problems still exist as many in the initial thread were trying to suggest.

We have numerous sources now saying that development is no harder than any other system. It's time for the mountain to become a molehill again.



So what you're saying is, none of the problems brought up in the Eurogamer article are currently plaguing Wii U developers, and complaining about them (or pointing to them as a reason for lack of third-party support) is as constructive as complaining about Nintendo's strict policies during the NES era?

That, as with indie developers shunning the eShop after feeling slighted by WiiWare, the only reason not to develop for Wii U is pure spite? Interesting interpretation.



hsrob said:
That Eurogamer article only maintains relevance if the problems still exist as many in the initial thread were trying to suggest.

We have numerous sources now saying that development is no harder than any other system. It's time for the mountain to become a molehill again.

The problem that this early inadequate SDK caused was a lack of quality ports & a complete lack of some 3rd party games (& the delay of at least one high profile 1st party game), this caused a game drought, causing low Wii U sales, resulting in a small install base, an install base that has provin itself to not buy 3rd party games.  Some of the initial issues with Wii U development may no longer exist but the problems & perceptions those issues ended up causing do persist.

 

impertinence said:

Nice try but the tweet confirms nothing.

Care to explain?  It states straight up that the issues did exist at one time.



Around the Network
chris_wing said:
hsrob said:
That Eurogamer article only maintains relevance if the problems still exist as many in the initial thread were trying to suggest.

We have numerous sources now saying that development is no harder than any other system. It's time for the mountain to become a molehill again.

The problem that this early inadequate SDK caused was a lack of quality ports & a complete lack of some 3rd party games (& the delay of at least one high profile 1st party game), this caused a game drought, causing low Wii U sales, resulting in a small install base, an install base that has provin itself to not buy 3rd party games.  Some of the initial issues with Wii U development may no longer exist but the problems & perceptions those issues ended up causing do persist.

 

impertinence said:

Nice try but the tweet confirms nothing.

Care to explain?  It states straight up that the issues did exist at one time.

If I recall corretly, there were mixed reports about the WiiU and its SDK issues.  Some said they were able to get demos up-and-running quickly while others struggled.  Futhermore, I recall hearing similar things about a lot of other consoles at that stage of developement as well.  For example, Sony platforms have sometimes been known to be notorious to program. But that never stopped anyone for developing for them nor did the early non-sales of the PS3 -- which points to at least somewhat of a double-standard being applied to Nintendo.

The most curious comment I found in the story was knocking the WiiU for needing a Day 1 update for certain features --w hen both the PS4 and XB1 needed the same thing (and some outlets even reported the XB1 would not play games wihtout the update).

The next most curious comment was the discussion on the on-line systems. The critique of that makes me think that the author had reason to want a different system. Given Nintendo's on-line history, it is not unwarrented to want to see improvement in its system. But I also read it thinking who would have benefitted had Nintendo gone a different direction.

Finally, the timing to me was a bit curious. Why would someone decide now -- 12 to 18 months after the event but while the console is still available is the time for an anonymous "tell all" feature. I could understand it after the company's game launch. I could understand it after NDA's expired.  But this almost seemed like a hack/hatchet job being put forward by a company to justify its decision.

Mike from Morgantown

PS -- Would the worst company in America do something like this?

 



      


I am Mario.


I like to jump around, and would lead a fairly serene and aimless existence if it weren't for my friends always getting into trouble. I love to help out, even when it puts me at risk. I seem to make friends with people who just can't stay out of trouble.

Wii Friend Code: 1624 6601 1126 1492

NNID: Mike_INTV

its interesting to note that the developer admits that wii u supports compute shaders, but then he says that wii u is shader model 4.0 and that uses 55nm fabrication

well,the 55nm is obviously as big mistake since we know for sure nintendo is using 40nm

about the shader model 4.0,i wonder how can he claimthat when already said wiiu supports compute shaders?

compute shaders is something you only find in shader model 5.0,surely a directx10 hardware can use somehow try to do new features found in directx11 hardware butthat could result in low performance and a slodown in the hardware that want conceived for those purposes according to many hardware reporters and we know for sure that nintendo is about performance and optimized hardware so clearly they wouldnt give support to features that would slow down the hardware

we also know thanks to unity doc that the unity engine requires a hardware capable of shader model 5.0 to support compute shaders with the unity engine and that wii u supportsallthe features found in the new unity engine 4.0 so there is no denial it

 

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ComputeShaders.html

"

Compute Shaders

Compute Shaders are programs that run on the graphics card, outside of the normal rendering pipeline. They can be used for massively parallel GPGPU algorithms, or to accelerate parts of game rendering. In order to efficiently use them, often an in-depth knowledge of GPU architectures and parallel algorithms is needed; as well as knowledge of DirectComputeOpenCL or CUDA.

Compute shaders in Unity are built on top of DirectX 11 DirectCompute technology; and currently require Windows Vista or later and a GPU capable of Shader Model 5.0.

"

 

we also know that wii u can also use multi threaded rendering thanks to project cars builds, so now we have two features found since directx11 was presented

i think people tend to confuse technology with power
wii u might not be that much ahead in power compared to the older consoles like ps4 and xbox one seem to be, but that doesnt make it an old hardware

wii u gpu could be considered like a low range gpu of shader model 5 and the ps4 and xbox one gpus could be considered like medium range gpu classes

 

 

As for the claims of having hard time with the coding, well, thats always expected from a new hardware and even more if you use an early SDK and development kit, and we also have quotes from other developers that coding for wii u aint that difficult, od course if you just port over a gae coming from an old directx9 hardware you cant expect a good perfomance cause you are forcing the new hardware do things the way the older one was cocieved for, you also waste new features like geometry shaders that could enhance the performance in certain areas and even force the hardware into using multipasses, just like xbox 360 does, where the work could be done in a single pass, so obviously this also both wastes power and slowsdown the gpu capabilities

 

all these problems can be solved if you do a ground up game or at the very least rework the source code of the game to optimize it to do things the way wii u was designed for, this last option obviously requires some work effort, time and money investment

 

 

o well, at least we also got others who do not agree with digitals foundary anonimus developer

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Wii-U-Digital-Foundry-Story-Part-Nintendoom-Wheel-Says-Dev-61599.html

 

or

http://wiiudaily.com/2014/01/indie-developer-on-wii-u-development/

"

Indie developer chimes in on the “Wii U anonymous developer story”

An indie developer has chimed in on the rumor that the Wii U is hard to develop for.
Ping 1.5+ developer Christopher Arnold says this story doesn’t paint an accurate picture of developing for the Wii U today, and that the story that’s being told by Digital Foundry seems to be a developer who had pre-release SDK hardware. You can find his opinion of the article in the following tweets.

Ping 1.5+ developer says Wii U developer story is bull

Over the weekend Eurogramer ran a story concerning an anonymous developer who said that Wii U development was not up to par with the other consoles. Ping 1.5+ developer Christopher Arnold says otherwise and that the description of the hardware is from pre release SDKs, not recent hardware.

 

I keep on getting pestered about this @eurogamer article about 'The Secret Developers: Wii U - the inside story'. It's a bit obnoxious now..

"

 

 

and well, its only this developer who disagrees

we also have kamiya, shinen multimedia develpers, etc

 

http://mynintendonews.com/2014/01/13/kamiya-says-developing-for-wii-u-was-pretty-much-the-same-as-xbox-360-or-playstation-3/

"

 

Platinum Games designer Hideki Kamiya has told his fans on Twitterthat developing for the Wii U was pretty much the same as developing for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Kamiya was asked the question by a fan due to a recent feature by Digital Foundry which suggested that Wii U was more of a complex machine to develop for than the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

"