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Forums - Nintendo - Can you explain why it is supposedly so difficult to develop games on the Wii U?

JWeinCom on 08 July 2015
spurgeonryan said:
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

So basically Nintendo could fix many problems next gen by just using moreI common equipment, and at least boosting the Wii U 2 to PS4 levels.

 

Obviously not the only things, but if devs dont even want to take the time, why make the effort.


Many problems.  But even so, there will still be intricacies that require specific adaptations, and Nintendo will need to show that their market is large enough to make the effort worth it.



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fleischr on 08 July 2015
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

1. the 360 is power PC based

2. the WiiU has 4x the RAM of the 360

3. Not true. I'll cite NFS: Most Wanted U as a real-life example



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

fleischr on 08 July 2015

With specific regard to Elliott Quest, it was built primarily with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

Porting it to the WiiU requires knowledge of the Nintendo Web Framework which interfaces with that. Basically, it's a HTML5-JavaScript framework you have to learn -- not unlike Angular, jQuery, Cordova or others. It's not necessarily difficult - it's just you need to take the effort to learn it much like anything else.



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

EricFabian on 08 July 2015
fleischr said:

1. the 360 is power PC based

2. the WiiU has 4x the RAM of the 360

3. Not true. I'll cite NFS: Most Wanted U as a real-life example


Wii U need to compete with PS4/X1, not last gen consoles. So he is 100% right



JWeinCom on 08 July 2015
fleischr said:
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

1. the 360 is power PC based

2. the WiiU has 4x the RAM of the 360

3. Not true. I'll cite NFS: Most Wanted U as a real-life example


1.  Ok.  Send this post back to 2010 when the XBox 360 was the lead console for development.  

2.  First off, half of the Wii U's RAM is reserved for the OS, so in practical terms, it has about twice the RAM of a 360.  Secondly, it has about 1/4 of the RAM of PS4 and the XBone.  I figured when I said other two systems, it would be implicit that I meant the other two current gen systems.  Again, send this post to 2010 when comparisons to the 360 would be worthwhile.

3.  I kind of assumed that it would be undurstood that I was comparing the Wii U to modern consoles, but in case it wasn't, I was comparing it to modern consoles.



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cheshirescat on 08 July 2015
fleischr said:
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

1. the 360 is power PC based

2. the WiiU has 4x the RAM of the 360

3. Not true. I'll cite NFS: Most Wanted U as a real-life example


You know exactly what wein's talking about, there's no point in acting obtuse, especially now that last gen support is being phased out.



midrange on 08 July 2015
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

I would also like to add a note about engines. Aside from unity, most engines really aren't on the wii u (unreal engine 4, frostbite engine, etc.) or are not optimized for the wii u (don't take full advantage of the Wii u capabilities). If a third party wanted to add the Wii u in, they would have to see if their engine could run well on it, and if not, they would have to spend more money and time working or optimizing.



mornelithe on 08 July 2015
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

^ /thread



midrange on 08 July 2015
spurgeonryan said:
JWeinCom said:
1. The Wii U uses a different architecture than other consoles, and most modern PCs. The Wii U is based on IBM's power pc. It's not necessarily more difficult, but since most third party games run on x86 architecture natively, it means extra work to port.

2. The Wii U has less ram than either of the other two systems. This means textures and such have to be compressed further than they would on other systems.

3. The Wii U is simply less powerful. This means certain effects have to be altered or taken out completely. Probably not for Elliot Quest, but in general...

As for Elliot Quest, it's not a graphically complex game, but it likely has a small budget and a small team, which makes altering the game to run on the Wii U might be challenging. They also didn't say explicitly it was a technical issue. There are also licensing issues and other red tape with the eShop. All of the console shops tend to be more restrictive than Steam.

So basically Nintendo could fix many problems next gen by just using moreI common equipment, and at least boosting the Wii U 2 to PS4 levels.

 

Obviously not the only things, but if devs dont even want to take the time, why make the effort.

There are 2 reasons to make the effort:

1) some third parties actually did try hard at the beginning of the Wii u's life. Ubisoft gave the Wii u an exclusive new ip, and almost another exclusive highly rated game (Rayman legends). Sega also announced 3 exclusive wii u sonic games. I don't remember that many ps4 third party exclusives that early in the ps4's life.

2) if a third party developer does show interest, the hardware should be there to encourage the dev with easy development, not discourage them with hard development. After all, it only helps to have as many games as you can get



Proxy-Pie on 08 July 2015

It's not difficult. It's just more difficult than the PS4One.