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

Forums - Nintendo - The Walking Dead coming to Wii U in March

Aielyn said:

While I agree that chances are higher on games published by the publishers that are supporting the system well, I don't think you can include this instance.

This isn't an Activision game. It's a game by Terminal Reality (an independent studio), and Activision is merely publisher. There is no reason to think that Activision is in any way influencing decisions like "do we release on the Wii U".

And I'm not convinced, at this time, that Activision is "really supporting the console". They put Black Ops 2 on the system, but then, Treyarch also put all their CoD games on the Wii, too. They put 007 Legends on the system, but that'll be driven by the success of Goldeneye 007 on the Wii. The other titles are licensed titles (of which, one, the Transformers one, is the secondary version, with 360/PS3/PC getting a different Transformers game and the Wii U sharing an externally-developed version with the Wii, DS, and 3DS) and their routine "casual" games (like Rapala Fishing), except perhaps Skylanders: Giants, which is aimed at children. Given Activision's attitude towards the Wii, I remain skeptical that their support is anything more substantial than it was then. I'll be more convinced when we start seeing substantial games from Activision beyond Black Ops 2 and 007.

You are mistaken, the publisher is the one who approves the budget so they make the final choice to do an additional sku or not. Of course  is important that the development wants to create a version for the console in the first place, but the final word is given by the publisher. The last 2 cases of games not comming to Wii U were Crysis 3 (developer told it was bussines decision aka the publisher said no) and Castlevania LoS 2 (the developer was not big enough to handle more skus and publisher did not increased the budget to allow the dev to grow).

You will find few cases were the developer don't want to create a version for everything under the sun, because that means they get experience and kits for every console/device possible but the approval is given by the publisher that is thinking only in money terms. The grip last time was that the Wii was way underpowered so publisher asked to a smaller/more willing developer to do that sku, like in the case of CoD Modern Warfare titles, were IW said they did not wanted to create Wii versions and Activision told Treyarch to do it, but that make them miss one of the editions.



Around the Network
Euphoria14 said:

Excellent game, WiiU owners are in for a treat. There is a reason why this game won a ton of...

Wait, what the fuck is this shit?!


That's exactly what I waws thinking, I completely forgot about the other Walking Dead game.  



...

flagstaad said:
You are mistaken, the publisher is the one who approves the budget so they make the final choice to do an additional sku or not. Of course  is important that the development wants to create a version for the console in the first place, but the final word is given by the publisher. The last 2 cases of games not comming to Wii U were Crysis 3 (developer told it was bussines decision aka the publisher said no) and Castlevania LoS 2 (the developer was not big enough to handle more skus and publisher did not increased the budget to allow the dev to grow).

You will find few cases were the developer don't want to create a version for everything under the sun, because that means they get experience and kits for every console/device possible but the approval is given by the publisher that is thinking only in money terms. The grip last time was that the Wii was way underpowered so publisher asked to a smaller/more willing developer to do that sku, like in the case of CoD Modern Warfare titles, were IW said they did not wanted to create Wii versions and Activision told Treyarch to do it, but that make them miss one of the editions.

It depends on the game. For instance, The Conduit was made by High Voltage Software, and then Sega became the distributing publisher. What this means is that the game itself was funded by HVS directly, and then Sega just handles the costs of things like pressing the discs, advertising, shipping, etc.

Since the biggest of the publishing costs - advertising - doesn't increase with an additional SKU, distributing publishers are unlikely to mind an additional SKU being added.

On the other hand, some games are fully or mostly funded by the publisher. This is what is happening with Crysis 3. In this case, development costs increase when an additional SKU is added, and thus the cost to the publisher is significantly higher. As such, the publisher is going to be more careful about the decision to allow an additional SKU.

What makes me think that this game is a case of the former is that Terminal Reality, the developer, is very much an independent developer - their last game, Kinect Star Wars, was published by LucasArts. The one before that was published by Atari (Sony in Europe for the PS* versions), and before that was three SNK games and a Midway game. The one before those was a Majesco game.

This is not a developer that is in any way tied to a publisher (like Crytek is primarily tied to EA in recent times), and this isn't an IP owned (or licensed) by the publisher, so the chances are high that it's a distributing publisher situation. But I do recognise that I could be wrong.

 

By the way, I highly doubt that Activision asked Treyarch to do Modern Warfare for the Wii. If Activision had wanted MW for the Wii, they'd have asked Treyarch to do it for release at the same time as the other versions, not two years later. Since they had n-Space make the DS version for release in 2007, we know that they didn't have a problem asking for secondary studios to have simultaneous release. And Activision barely even acknowledged Reflex Edition - you don't specifically ask a studio to make a port of a game, and then fail to properly advertise its existence. More likely is that Treyarch approached Activision with the idea, and Activision begrudgingly gave them a small budget.



Aielyn said:

...By the way, I highly doubt that Activision asked Treyarch to do Modern Warfare for the Wii. If Activision had wanted MW for the Wii, they'd have asked Treyarch to do it for release at the same time as the other versions, not two years later. Since they had n-Space make the DS version for release in 2007, we know that they didn't have a problem asking for secondary studios to have simultaneous release. And Activision barely even acknowledged Reflex Edition - you don't specifically ask a studio to make a port of a game, and then fail to properly advertise its existence. More likely is that Treyarch approached Activision with the idea, and Activision begrudgingly gave them a small budget.

Remember that the engine created for MW was brand new at that moment and develop by IW, which did not want to touch the Wii at all, the next year Treyarch ported the engine to the console for CoD World at War. The next year IW (having the engine ported) also did not wanted anything to do with the Wii, so Activision told Treyarch to developed a CoD for the Wii, but since IW was not giving them assets, or any kind of help, they went for MW instead of MW2. Then all hell broke lose and the IW scandal took place, making Activision to put hands into matter and very close control of the remains of that studio.

Next year Treyarch developed Black Ops with a Wii version, and then they worked on MW3 for the console, this time having more info and details without blocks from IW who were now under the full control over the studio, so the console never had MW2 but MW3 released at the same time as in the other consoles.



This looks absolutely horrible. It could pass as a Wii game.



Around the Network
NintendoPie said:
This looks absolutely horrible. It could pass as a Wii game.

If you weren't NintendoPie that would have been quite harsh.



green_sky said:
NintendoPie said:
This looks absolutely horrible. It could pass as a Wii game.

If you weren't NintendoPie that would have been quite harsh.

Well, it's quite true. This game just isn't that good looking at all.



NintendoPie said:
 This looks absolutely horrible. It could pass as a third-party Wii game.

A minor tweak makes it so true.