How can you say anything wise in a comment to this...

Some game devs will be able to create new IPs fashion made for the Wii.

But some companies will lack the strength needed to cancel or postpone it's big projects and divert it's "HD-resources" to the Wii, because it's a tough decision. These will hope that the traditional market will still remain big enough to prosper in.

Then there are devs that simply feel that the old way of making things are what they're best at. Ther team might have cutting edge programmers, or they have a strong passion for making graphic intensive games (like Id, Epic and Crytek, I can't see them making Wii-games in a long time).

Squilliam said: The Wii has a few problems - It costs more to develop than the HD consoles now for an established player after you take tools, training, risk of new franchises into account. Furthermore is Nintendo actually supplying sufficient development kits now to all those who want them?

Wait what? The wii costs less to developer for. For the first year developers use upgraded gamecube dev kits, just a few months ago nintendo released a wii specific one.

 

sc94597 said: Squilliam said: The Wii has a few problems - It costs more to develop than the HD consoles now for an established player after you take tools, training, risk of new franchises into account. Furthermore is Nintendo actually supplying sufficient development kits now to all those who want them? Wait what? The wii costs less to developer for. For the first year developers use upgraded gamecube dev kits, just a few months ago nintendo released a wii specific one.

If you're starting out from scratch... Yes.

If you have a house engine  -> Circa $20-30million, paid for. So then if you go and make Gears of war 2 - They made it in 12months or less. Cheap. Probably $15million or less to make, with a certain level of guarenteed sales.

Wii game - You are a large developer so you have to maintain your reputation. You can't release Shovelware and get away with it! So you make a new FPS for the Wii. Cost of engine and design - $15,000,000 or so. Sure you can reuse the engine for a sequel but its a risk even with a large install base.

These are big companies you can't just turn around and say "make me some Wii games" It takes time... whilst on the HD consoles the easy money for people like Ubisoft or Insomniac or Bungie is a sequal. If they started development today, it would take probably 18 months to get the first game out the door at least. So I wouldn't count on third party games to come to the Wii at the same rate as the Xbox360/PS3 for at least a year and then I still would doubt it because the combined 360/PS3 market is more compelling than the Wii market.

Squilliam said: sc94597 said: Squilliam said: The Wii has a few problems - It costs more to develop than the HD consoles now for an established player after you take tools, training, risk of new franchises into account. Furthermore is Nintendo actually supplying sufficient development kits now to all those who want them? Wait what? The wii costs less to developer for. For the first year developers use upgraded gamecube dev kits, just a few months ago nintendo released a wii specific one.   If you're starting out from scratch... Yes. If you have a house engine  -> Circa $20-30million, paid for. So then if you go and make Gears of war 2 - They made it in 12months or less. Cheap. Probably $15million or less to make, with a certain level of guarenteed sales. Wii game - You are a large developer so you have to maintain your reputation. You can't release Shovelware and get away with it! So you make a new FPS for the Wii. Cost of engine and design - $15,000,000 or so. Sure you can reuse the engine for a sequel but its a risk even with a large install base. These are big companies you can't just turn around and say "make me some Wii games" It takes time... whilst on the HD consoles the easy money for people like Ubisoft or Insomniac or Bungie is a sequal. If they started development today, it would take probably 18 months to get the first game out the door at least. So I wouldn't count on third party games to come to the Wii at the same rate as the Xbox360/PS3 for at least a year and then I still would doubt it because the combined 360/PS3 market is more compelling than the Wii market.

Except (of course) that programmers make up the minority of development teams, are inexpensive, and there is middleware and ready-made game engines for all platforms. The expensive part of game development are the artists, which is dramatically more expensive for the HD consoles because the quality and quantity of artistic assets required to produce the same "ammount" of game are dramatically higher on HD consoles.

Using Haze as an example:

Every element in this area has to be modeled and textured, including all of the decorative elements like the structural beams which may not have been created in previous generation games; even if they were in previous generation games they wouldn't be nearly as detailed and there wouldn't be as many beams.

Now as you can see from The Conduit the same level of detail is not there:

 

 

 

The expense of the HD games will not be (dramatically) reduced by improved tools ...

Middleware costs money too, and it may not suit your vision anyway so you have to redesign parts at your own expense. The reason people use it is to have a faster turnaround for games and start realizing the vision of the game sooner.

As far as assets go, all major publishing houses have a shared pool of assets they can put into games. I don't think it is a significant issue. Sony makes available a large amount of art assets and information to developers so they can develop better games.

As for the Haze example, they cheated. They only used one model anyway for the enemy soldiers. The Wii developers if trying to make the same type of game to the best of their budgets will probably spend as much as the HD developers on their 2nd/3rd generation titles. Engines/tools/libraries of art assets all have to be made, they are cheaper yes... but they have to be made.

Squilliam said: Middleware costs money too, and it may not suit your vision anyway so you have to redesign parts at your own expense. The reason people use it is to have a faster turnaround for games and start realizing the vision of the game sooner. That applies to HD design as well, so it does not prove it will be too expensive to switch to the Wii. As far as assets go, all major publishing houses have a shared pool of assets they can put into games. I don't think it is a significant issue. Sony makes available a large amount of art assets and information to developers so they can develop better games. What does that have to do with Wii development cost vs HD development costs? The assest within a 3rd party would still be shared. As for the Haze example, they cheated. They only used one model anyway for the enemy soldiers. The Wii developers if trying to make the same type of game to the best of their budgets will probably spend as much as the HD developers on their 2nd/3rd generation titles. Engines/tools/libraries of art assets all have to be made, they are cheaper yes... but they have to be made. Making them is not proof they will cost that much. And again, those apply to HD games as well, unless you think engines magically save more on HD games.

 

What you're probably gonna get this gen is what you're already starting to see where bigger traditional devs avoid the Wii at all costs cos prioritising originality and gameplay over beauty probably intimidates them a little but you will see a rising of new smaller devs as in High Voltage, Jet Black, Majestico who will grab the Wii dev kits with both hands and use this gen to try and establish themselves.

Nintendo probably purposly kept Wii dev as cheap as possible to ensure the Wii would be on the other end of the spectrum, they also introduced Wii Ware as not only their DLC outlet but to be used as a testing ground for devs and to inspire them to release more out there ideas through the retail channel.

 It'll only take these smaller devs to have one or two hits then the bigger devs will come flocking - the Wii will be fine

the most expensive wii game so far was red steel which cost only 12.75mln$. ubisoft is making most wii games with budget of 5-6mln$(this was in one of their statements). so how can it be more expensive? every game for hd console  is developed for more than 20mln$. people from gamecock said that cost of wii game is about 20-25% of hd game developing costs.

Good post, but I think it falls into the trap of the binary world. You know, the "either things will go this way or they will go that way" part.

Third parties aren't actually a single cohesive group. There will likely be developers who stick with HD (Epic), and others who embrace the Wii heavily (Atlus and Majesco), and most will probably play both sides against the middle (EA and Capcom).

The result will be a big upheaval. Those who bet too heavily on HD will risk being bought up by those who are making big profits on Wii. Small, agile players who support the Wii will grow into substantial forces in the videogame market, while lumbering giants grind to a halt (Hi, Take Two!). The Wii really is a kind of revolution, and like all dramatic conflicts, the hierarchy will not look the same when the dust settles.

I find this situation far preferable to a world where the third parties all stick with the HD consoles. That path of skyrocketing costs would only lead to fewer games trapped into delivering reliable archetypes. The number of development studios dwindle as third parties rapidly consolidate in a desperate attempt to keep costs down and as the limited talent pool is divided into fewer projects.

The rest of your piece may have been great but I stopped reading at that point. You completely invalidated everything else in your editorial with that one simple sentence.

The Wii will not dominate on the level the PS2 did because both the 360 and PS3 are selling quite well.

The PS2, which completely dominated the landscape and created the modern gaming environment as we know it, annihilated the competition to a staggering tune of 140 million sold to 25 million sold. Do you see that happening right now? Do you see that in the future?

If you're a realist and accept that this generation is vastly different, you would choose words a little more carefully and retract that statement.

I don't mean to be a stickler on details and I constantly get torn apart on my editorials but at least I make people work to tear apart my sentences. You made it too easy. If you're going to be controversial, at least make your diction indisputable. People may misunderstand it but at least if you keep it clean, you're given the liberty of making them look like an ass for not understanding the language we call English.