@ Soriku )

Wrong , Factor 5 are the people who do Lair for the PS3 , WKS is from Level 5.

@Albionus,

You are way oversimplifying things.  These developers are not complete newbs off the streets..even the rookie teams.  They have all seen a wide variety of hardware and know how to compensate for nuances in the hardware.

Aside from that I am not sure how you could of been contemplating this issue since the launch of the Wii since there would of been a serious lack of information to contemplate...but ok sure.  

The thing most people aren't getting yet is that the Wii has about a 12 month full dev cycle and the PS3/360 has about an 18 month full Dev Cycle.  When you take into account that the majority of veteran teams are working on the PS3/360 projects 6-9 months before launch you have a situation where these veteran teams aren't even going to start working on Wii projects for at most 3 months and as early as a week from now.  And even then it would be another year before the game was released.

The point that most companies started to understand how successful the Wii is being is when they started to shift their resources.  Anything before then is going to continue lest they waste thousands of man hours.  Its not as if the Wii doesn't have good games coming out these holidays but you aren't going to be seeing superb 3rd party games for at least another 4-6 months.  And we are already seeing companies announce some interesting new IPs for the Wii.

Frankly this topic is old, and has been discussed numerous times before, I am not sure why it needs to be addressed again now that it makes even less sense than it did before.

I think it has to do with that fact that unlike the PS3 and 360 in which game makers are constantly trying to one up each other with graphics, that doesn't really seem to exist on the Wii since graphics isn't one of it's selling points. In fact the entire philosophy of the Wii is gameplay over graphics and Nintendo has pushed that so it's not surprising that third parties have embraced it.

Also the fact that the best selling games on the Wii have Gamecube level or worse graphics probably isn't lost on any third party developers so they don't feel the need to pour money into graphics if the games are going to sell anyways and nobody else is pouring money into graphics for their games.

Legend11 said: I think it has to do with that fact that unlike the PS3 and 360 in which game makers are constantly trying to one up each other with graphics, that doesn't really seem to exist on the Wii since graphics isn't one of it's selling points. In fact the entire philosophy of the Wii is gameplay over graphics and Nintendo has pushed that so it's not surprising that third parties have embraced it. Also the fact that the best selling games on the Wii have Gamecube level or worse graphics probably isn't lost on any third party developers so they don't feel the need to pour money into graphics if the games are going to sell anyways and nobody else is pouring money into graphics for their games.

 Any time there is a way to differentiate your product from the rest you should be giving it serious consideration. Within the realm of gaming the wii differentiates itself with unique controls, no reason that if people percieve the Wii to have low quality graphics a company shouldn't take advantage of that perception and really wow people.

Wait jus a sec, I agree with Shams, sonic was pretty sweet looking, go and see for yourself, I think it was better looking then sonic 360... not in terms of pixel power or resolution, but because of the nice small effects, the coloursss. The art style was just so much better suited for a sonic game.

Also SSX BLUR was a nice looking game

couchmonkey said: ...because fanboys need something to troll about to make themselves feel better about how Wii is creaming their favourite system in sales.

Did you even read what he posted? This was not an anti-Wii post. Why do people immediately cry "fanboy" if something can be remotely interpreted as anti-Wii.

Legend11 said: I think it has to do with that fact that unlike the PS3 and 360 in which game makers are constantly trying to one up each other with graphics, that doesn't really seem to exist on the Wii since graphics isn't one of it's selling points. In fact the entire philosophy of the Wii is gameplay over graphics and Nintendo has pushed that so it's not surprising that third parties have embraced it. Also the fact that the best selling games on the Wii have Gamecube level or worse graphics probably isn't lost on any third party developers so they don't feel the need to pour money into graphics if the games are going to sell anyways and nobody else is pouring money into graphics for their games.

 Very good point.

Sqrl said: @Albionus, You are way oversimplifying things.  These developers are not complete newbs off the streets..even the rookie teams.  They have all seen a wide variety of hardware and know how to compensate for nuances in the hardware. Aside from that I am not sure how you could of been contemplating this issue since the launch of the Wii since there would of been a serious lack of information to contemplate...but ok sure.   The thing most people aren't getting yet is that the Wii has about a 12 month full dev cycle and the PS3/360 has about an 18 month full Dev Cycle.  When you take into account that the majority of veteran teams are working on the PS3/360 projects 6-9 months before launch you have a situation where these veteran teams aren't even going to start working on Wii projects for at most 3 months and as early as a week from now.  And even then it would be another year before the game was released. The point that most companies started to understand how successful the Wii is being is when they started to shift their resources.  Anything before then is going to continue lest they waste thousands of man hours.  Its not as if the Wii doesn't have good games coming out these holidays but you aren't going to be seeing superb 3rd party games for at least another 4-6 months.  And we are already seeing companies announce some interesting new IPs for the Wii. Frankly this topic is old, and has been discussed numerous times before, I am not sure why it needs to be addressed again now that it makes even less sense than it did before.

First paragraph, it sure isn't showing if even rookie teams can quickly get around the nuances and differences in architecture.  I know in theory they should be able to but reality and theory are usually different as they appear to be in this case.   For example, in theory the veteran teams at EA should have been able to get the PS3 Madden running at 60 FPS but they didn't.  I could also go into examples like the Saturn or N64 but that should suffice.  Unfortunately as you mention this is an old topic so I don't know where the old stories are I've read about developer issues and complaints with the TEV's (essentially IIRC it's 8 year old technology that no one else uses so few devs have any experience working with them directly). 

Next paragraph, what information was lacking at launch beside the TEV count of the Wii?  Last Nov we knew the rest of the Wii's tech specs and could already see the launch games and upcoming games looked PS2ish.  Not much has been added since then except more PS2ish looking games.  Yes as you said this topic is old, which means the information is old.

As for the rest I already said I agreed with it except that I don't think it explains everything. I do have to say though that your defense of software programmers reminds me of when I said motion controls on early Wii games suffered because they had to program the motions in complex multivariable calculus.  Several posters jumped to the defense of software programmers since they take plenty of calculus in college so it couldn't be an issue (they could have said I was "oversimplifying it").  I had to find the article where actual developers said they were having trouble with motion controls due to the complex math involved which shows that just because someone, even a software programmer, should be able to do something doesn't mean they can do it easily or well.

Keep in mind the Wii audience doesn't demand nor should it expect "flashy/fancy" games. Sure the SYSTEM is capable of some good looking games (Mario Galaxy looks sweet), but the people purchasing the games really don't place as much emphasis on graphics as people buying a 360 or PS3 game, thats just how the market pans out.

What might happen is developers will hopefully realise that nicer looking Wii games will generate higher sales, but that likely won't be the case. As long as the games are playable, and people enjoy them (graphics withstanding), teams will continue to make do with what they have.

The Wii CAN make some good looking games, its a matter of Developers stepping up to the plate. Lets see if that happens :)