| Aielyn said: Everyone, by now, has noticed the way that Nintendo has fallen quite silent about everything to do with the Wii U. We have little to no idea what's coming aside from the biggest first-party titles. The fact that Nintendo is still set to release games like Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Hyrule Warriors suggests that they have not given up on the system. So why are they staying so quiet? Nintendo doesn't have anything up it's sleeves ? It's hard to believe that they'd do everything that they've been doing without having some overall plan for the system, but they haven't said a peep - they've been more secretive than usual. And I think I may have found a plausible reason why. They have no plans to revive a lost cause ... Let me begin with the simplest part of my idea - Steam games on Wii U. The advantages are obvious - many major titles that are heading to the PS4 and Xbox One are also heading to PC, many of which will probably be available via Steam. If Steam were to be made available to Wii U, with appropriate encouragement towards porting to the system, it would address the third-party problem on the platform. Furthermore, it would provide greater cohesion for indie developers, who would be able to link together their Wii U and PC development efforts. @Bold That sounds extremely desparate ... But my thought goes beyond the service. Let's have a look at the original prototype Steam Box controller:
See that thing in the middle? That's a touchscreen, intended to provide the player with the kinds of shortcuts that would normally be handled by keyboard. This functionality would naturally work on the Upad. Now have a look at the new, second prototype controller:
Notice the layout. Now, compare this with the Wii U Pro Controller:
The layout is essentially the same, except for the d-pad being substituted for four distinct buttons (in the same arrangement). Imagine Nintendo working with Valve. Nintendo would produce a "lower-end" system intended for the broader market, Valve would produce a "higher-end" system intended for playing games on max settings. The systems would share much of the same basic configuration, however (in the sense that game development across the two systems would be made to be easy, through common architectural elements). Note that I don't mean "uses Nvidia for graphics" as architecture. I'm talking about overall design, in terms of where there are bottlenecks, etc (the engine would handle generation of game code for the distinct hardware). It sounds like you have no understanding of hardware ... It all sounds pie-in-the-sky at this point, right? Well, there's more to this thought than I've said so far. Let's begin with what Valve had to say back in 2011: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/22/valve-interested-in-wii-u-it-fits-better-into-our-scalability/ "Wii U seems to be a lot more powerful than the previous generation," he told Joystiq. "It sort of fits better into the scalability in terms of graphics performance and CPU performance, so I think it'll be a lot easier for us to fit it into our scalability model." Valve has yet to release any of its games on a Nintendo console, though Gabe told us, "We've always loved Nintendo." Every time Gabe is asked what his favourite non-Valve game is, he says Mario 64. And last year, there were articles about indies talking to Valve and Nintendo, trying to get them to work together: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/10/indie-developer-tried-to-convince-valve-and-nintendo-to-work-together/ - with some success, apparently (according to that article). EA's falling out with Nintendo has been speculated to have been because Nintendo refused to have Origin on the Wii U. If they had been in early talks with Valve about converging their efforts, this would make quite a bit of sense. Just because Valve likes Nintendo doesn't mean that Gabe will start a relationship. SMDH Nothing but wishful thinking here. People have been speculating on various things Nintendo could do to revitalise the Wii U... what if their big idea is to re-launch the Wii U alongside the Steam Box as a pair of gaming options? The Wii U, with a modest price cut, alongside the more expensive, more powerful Steam Box, with most games having cross-compatibility, perhaps even including some select Nintendo titles. It's too bad that steambox is failure so it won't help revive another irrelevant system. Rumours seem to place Valve as developing their new engine, Source 2, along with Left 4 Dead 3 and Half-Life 3. Combining this with Valve's emphasis on the Wii U being well placed given their intent for scalability, etc... it seems plausible that the Wii U will be one of the target systems. Too bad that Valve hasn't announced that Source 2 will support the WII U. So why choose to support the Wii U over the other systems? Well, aside from Gabe's love of Nintendo, there's the element of competition - whereas supporting PS4 or Xbox One would mean fewer people having reason to buy a Steam Box (given that the specs would be relatively similar), supporting Wii U would not have such an effect, as the Steam Box's primary draw would be the PC-level quality, and Wii U isn't concerned with that sort of element; on the other hand, the Wii U's primary draw is in its relatively low price and broad appeal, the latter of which doesn't seem to be a major consideration for Valve. This provides a good complementary arrangement, with each system providing where the other one lacks, and thus potentially making Steam U the ultimate gaming combination. Hahaha ... Is it highly likely? No. But I do think it's plausible. Until Nintendo announces a little more of their plan, we can only speculate... and that's a fun thing to do, anyway. The only thing we can be confident of is that Nintendo hasn't even come close to revealing their proverbial cards. |
Cool story bro so can I have that crystal ball of yours now ?
