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Nintendo Shares Up, But Do Devs 'Get' the Wii? 157

Posted by Zonk from the no-one-recognizes-a-revolution dept.
kukyfrope writes "Nintendo shares have jumped over six percent since the Wii's unveiling at E3 last week." Despite both Peter Moore and Phil Harrison recommending you should get a Wii, the future of Nintendo and the Wii aren't assured. Next Generation reports that third party developers may not really 'get' the ambitious console.
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Nintendo Shares Up, But Do Devs 'Get' the Wii? More

Nintendo Shares Up, But Do Devs 'Get' the Wii?

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  • Good Point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday May 15, 2006 @05:54PM (#15338295) Homepage
    I saw this earlier and he has a good point. There haven't been many games announced for the Wii by 3rd parties. Red Steel, Madden, Super Monkey Ball, and Sponebob are all I can think of off the top of my head. There will be more, but not at launch (we're not even sure about the above).

    Nintendo will have a ton of great games (good for them, they usually have a few, things are looking great here) but while EA made out like a bandit on the 360 launch (Madden, Fight Night, Burnout, whatever) there is just Nintendo here.

    Of course, if they could get Super Smash Brothers out at launch (instead of a few months later as I think they said) then they could really cream the competition.

    A $200 system (just a guess) with a new Mario, Super Smash Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, Wario Ware, and a few other titles at launch. What gamer could possibly resist that?

    • Re:Good Point (Score:5, Informative)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @05:57PM (#15338317)
      EA is also working on ports of its sports games. They are porting to the new controller as well, its been mentioned that in Madden passing will use the remote as a pointer and a tossing motion for the throw. It might make that the first Madden game I've bought in years.
      • From what I've seen and heard, its not a tossing motion, but a snapping motion; you just need to snap the controller forward like you were snapping a whip, rather than arcing it over your shoulder.

    • Re:Good Point (Score:5, Funny)

      by scd ( 541350 ) <scottdp.gmail@com> on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:06PM (#15338402)
      What games could possibly resist that?

      The ones who are too mature, and need violence/sex all the time, that's who...
    • Final Fantasy? Dragon Quest? both are major series.

      • Re:Good Point (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Parham ( 892904 )
        As far as Final Fantasy goes, I don't think Crystal Chronicles is as popular as the main series. I don't see many Final Fantasy gamers bragging about that branch of the series, even though I think it was a pretty good game.
      • Final Fantasy? Dragon Quest? both are major series.

        It's getting non-canonical side versions of each. A sequel to Crystal Chronicles, which is sort of FF-lite with multiplayer elements, and an action hack-and-slash version of Dragon Quest.

        Neither of those games is going to move systems. The people who really want to play FF and DQ will still be buying the PS3, because that's the system Square Enix is going to put the proper games on. The people who buy FF:CC2 and the DQ sword game on Wii are going to be t
        • It's dragon quest kenshin, and the only announced dragon quest for next gen systems. Do you not know what Dragon Quest Kenshin is/was!?

          Obviously not. It was a standalone unit released in Japan in 2003. SNES-style graphics(like DQ7, the DQ series has never really put a huge emphasis on graphics or FMV), retelling of DQ1(basically, Dragon Warrior 1 here in the US) and you used a sword peripheral. Sold like crazy. One of my friends has a copy, it's a hell of a lot of fun actually, but I can't read japanes

    • Re:Good Point (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lave ( 958216 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:34PM (#15338576)
      There haven't been many games announced for the Wii by 3rd parties. Red Steel, Madden, Super Monkey Ball, and Sponebob are all I can think of off the top of my head. There will be more, but not at launch (we're not even sure about the above). The top off your head isn't the best place to decidie things like that. This is the official upcoming games list announaced at E3 As you can see they have a lot of support. 77 games announced before launch is amazing compared to the gamecube. (FYI: These aren't launch titles but are the first announced - they plan to have 20 titles at launch.) Disclaimer from the Nintendo press site - someone was kind enough to post their login details on a forum I use. These are copied and pasted from a pdf - hence the formatting problems - I'll bold the developers but I cant be bothered to arrange them:

      Tony Hawk's Downhill JamTM MarvelTM: Ultimate Alliance Activision Call of Duty® 3 AQ Interactive Boxing Action

      Atari Dragon Ball Z Budokai: Tenkaichi 2

      Atlus Trauma Center: Second Opinion

      BANPRESTO Family Action Game Disney's Chicken Little: Ace in Action

      Buena Vista Games Disney's Meet the Robinsons

      Capcom Resident Evil series SIMPLE series

      D3Publisher Original Action Game

      Eidos Title TBD Madden NFL '07

      Electronic Arts Medal of Honor Airborne

      EPOCH Title TBD From Software Action Game Genki Title TBD BOMBERMAN LAND

      HUDSON SOFT Flight Game

      JALECO Title TBD KOEI Sengoku Action Elebits

      Konami Digital Entertainment Soccer Game Majesco Bust-A-Move Revolution BOKUJO MONOGATARI Heroes KAWA NO NUSHITSURI Marvelous Interactive Original Simulation Mastiff Mr. D. Goes to Town (working title) The Ant Bully

      Midway Games Happy Feet New Vertical Scroll Shooting Game

      MILESTONE New Action Game Character Action Game MTO SAN-X All-star Revolution FINAL FURLONG Mobile Suit GUNDAM SD GUNDAM G BREAKER DIGIMON ONE PIECE UNLIMITED ADVENTURE New Action Game New RPG TAMAGOTCHI

      NAMCO BANDAI Games Title TBD

      Natsume (developed by Marvelous) Harvest Moon Disaster: Day of CrisisTM Excite TruckTM Fire EmblemTM Metroid® Prime 3: Corruption Project H.A.M.M.E.R. TM Super Mario® Galaxy The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess WarioWareTM: Smooth Moves

      Nintendo Wii Sports Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz

      SEGA SONIC WILD FIRE

      SNK Metal Slug Anthology Necro-Nesia Spike Jawa CODENAME: FINAL FANTASY® CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: Crystal BearersTM

      SQUARE ENIX DRAGON QUEST SWORDSTM: The Masked Queen and the Tower of MirrorsTM Turn IT around!! Let's go by train!

      TAITO Cooking Mama -Cooking with International Friends-

      TECMO Super Swing Golf PANGYA The Game Factory Title TBD Avatar: The Last Airbender SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab THQ Disney/Pixar Cars Action Game

      TOMY Battle Action Open Season Rayman Raving Rabbids Ubisoft RED STEEL Vivendi Universal Games Title TBD

      Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Title TBD

      • Re:Good Point (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MBCook ( 132727 )
        Those are all announced. While there are quite a few there, I don't think many of them will be big "must have" type titles. More important though is which of those are launch titles. We actually know very little about what is a launch title and what is not right now.
      • Natsume (developed by Marvelous) Harvest Moon Disaster: Day of CrisisTM Excite TruckTM Fire EmblemTM Metroid® Prime 3: Corruption Project H.A.M.M.E.R. TM Super Mario® Galaxy The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess WarioWareTM: Smooth Moves

        Wow, Nintendo's putting a lot of trust in Natsume and Marvelous to be outsourcing all those games!

        Your list has more than formatting problems. These aren't third-party games, and you've also got Nintendo listed separately as a developer. So that's more tha
        • There are some niche titles there that might find an audience in the US - Harvest Moon, maybe even something like Pangya! Golf - but these won't move systems.

          Why? Because it's not to your tastes, and you represent gaming's "core"?

          Nintendogs moved systems. It's hardly something that "core gamers" clammored for. It's hardly a game at all. This is Nintendo's stradegy. Games for everyone. Not "E" for everyone. Games that appeal to non-gamers and casual gamers and the hardcore alike. There will be titles
        • That's still 9 must-have launch titles. Way to prove the guy's point for him.
        • it had FF:CC

          It took years for the GameCube to get FF:CC. The fact that it's got the sequel to FF:CC, and Dragon Quest Swords from Square is a serious improvement.

          "Sengoku Action Elebits"

          It's Sengoku Action, and Elebits. Sengoku Action is a Dynasty Warriors-type game (you know, the one that's spawned a million sequels on PS2). Elebits [ign.com] is a bizarre new game by Konami that looks fantastic.

          As far as I can tell, your "reduced list" is basically "which games on here are from franchises I've seen before?" I don't

    • Re:Good Point (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What gamer could resist? How about those who actually want to game instead of use a tacked-on gimmick. I'll take the PS3 any day, thank you very much. Then I know I'll get a hard core game console with traditional controllers like EyeToy and Dual Shake instead of something originally made to prolong the death of Gamecube.
      • It took a while for developers to "get" the mouse as a gaming controller, but after iD released Quake, the mouse/keyboard combination has been the only FPS controller setup worth mentioning. Likewise, it will take a while for developers and gamers to accept the demise of the unwieldy playstation-style controller.
    • LucasArts made a very coy comment about how they are "looking into" doing a Lightsabre title for Wii. This will be the absolute reason for Wii's existence, folks. Expect a title in time for the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie. 5/25/2007, baby. That's my fearless prediction.

      Of course, it will be even cooler if they built the game around Master Mace Windu, but who knows. A "secret level" where he has to deal with a snake-filled starship would be the ultimate in kewlness.

  • They Will, Eventually (Score:5, Insightful)

    by knight37 ( 864173 ) * on Monday May 15, 2006 @05:55PM (#15338305) Homepage Journal
    Remember, when the DS first came out not that many third parties "got" the DS either, but now they do, and we're seeing tons of titles coming out for it. Developers will figure Wii out, and since it's such an innovative platform, developers will WANT to develop for it. I can see Wii having much better third party support than the GameCube did, even though it was generally easy for a quick "port" to the cube. We won't see those cheap ports on the Wii, but we'll see some actual games developed specifically with the Wii in mind. Sure, we'll see some gimmicky crap too, but "90% of everything is crap".
    • I think if Wii really sold 10 million units in the first year, any dev will 'get' it.
      • I think if Wii really sold 10 million units in the first year, any dev will 'get' it.
        For the Wii to sell tons of units, there will probably need to be a good amount of third-party games. If no third-party games come out until many units are sold, then that would be a catch-22.
        • For the Wii to sell tons of units, there will probably need to be a good amount of third-party games. If no third-party games come out until many units are sold, then that would be a catch-22.
          And that's why hype is THE thing console makers are loooking for... Just read this discussion and you'll see. Nintendo has nothing to fear.
        • Considering that the Wii launch titles seem to include the new Zelda, the long-awaited new Mario and Metroid Prime 3. That's got to be 5 million sales right there.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • For the Wii to sell tons of units, there will probably need to be a good amount of third-party games. If no third-party games come out until many units are sold, then that would be a catch-22.

          Nintendo has already stated in the past that people often buy a console because of one title. If there are two good games for the Wii, then that will be enough for me. If the price point of the console is around $200, then it will be enough for a lot of people to put money down, simply because it won't hurt too much, e
    • I was told that the creators of Castlevania had said that they didn't know how to make the game on Wii.

      And if more developers start to say that they need to great a weird active waving-around game just because it's for Wii we might lose quite a few games. I still want to regular games aswell, they should just use the tilted Wii-remote, virtual console controller, a shell or whatever. Not all games has to be special just because it's a Wii.

      I hope they do understand that so they don't say "Hey, only waving-ar

  • Nintendo DS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by conigs ( 866121 )

    Wasn't this the same issue with the DS when it first launched?

    If I recall (I'm too lazy to look anything up and I'm about to leave work), the DS had limited (if any) 3rd party support at launch. Everyone claimed the device was gimicky and no one would use it. It took a while before we saw games that took real advantage of the hardware.

    I believe this is the case with the Wii as well. The first year of the device will see a lot of 1st party support with interesting games, but the 3rd party developers will u

    • I don't thikn that is 100% correct, but pretty dang close. :-) Most developers think in terms of what the controller can do. The Wii has a controller that no one really knows WHAT it can do. It is changing the face of video games... just like the DS, in many ways, changed how we view hand-held video games. The Wii should be successful, despite anything else Nintendo does to mess it up. (though, with their track record, they generally don't mess up).

  • It took them a while to "get" the DS. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blibbler ( 15793 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @05:57PM (#15338318)
    It took quite a few months before games that really took advantage of the DS's capabilities (the two screens as well as the touch capabilities) came out, but now the market is full of them, and the PSP is largely being ignored. It might take a while for developers to appreciate what the Wii can do, but hopefully they will make the most of it when they understand its potential.

  • The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrDitto ( 962751 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:02PM (#15338367)
    The big problem is that game developers like to develop a game for all the consoles in a given generation. The hardware capabilities between the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube were different, but in the same ballpark.

    Now I'm not a graphics guru and could be wrong, but to my understanding, this greatly eases the art pipeline-- for example textures and polygon counts could be the same size.

    The problem with the Wii is that it is not in the same class as the Xbox360 and PS3.

    Many people don't realize that for a given game, as much as 3/4 of the manpower goes into art and *not* code. Most developers leverage existing game engines. A friend of mine is on a project where they have ~ 40 artists and ~ 10 coders.

    • Many people don't realize that for a given game, as much as 3/4 of the manpower goes into art and *not* code. Most developers leverage existing game engines. A friend of mine is on a project where they have ~ 40 artists and ~ 10 coders.

      I wonder if that has to do with the relative difference in automation and replication? For instance, you mention leveraging existing game engines, but as far as I know (which could easily be wrong), most models and textures are generated from scratch for each game. Perha
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The hardware companies do this on purpose.

        Sony is notorious for this - you think the fact that the ps3 has a bazillion seperate processors and whatnot is there to make developers lives EASIER? not likely. It's to make sure that your code runs on the ps3 and ONLY the ps3.

        Gamecube developers already have existing technology that will run on the Wii (for the most part), this eleviates alot of the difficulty of getting started with the Wii - the fun part will be testing & figuring out cool ways to use the

    • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:5, Insightful)

      by egomaniac ( 105476 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:22PM (#15338505) Homepage
      You could just as easily argue that this is an advantage of the Wii -- games can be made by smaller teams on tighter budgets. That's one of the reasons Nintendo's handhelds enjoy such strong third-party support: it isn't a huge investment to develop a game for the GBA or DS, at least compared to the home consoles.

      So if Wii is cheaper to develop for and has innovative features which get people excited about gaming again, it may mean that developers will be more amenable to the idea of developing for it. After all, nobody seems to mind that the DS doesn't have the same horsepower that the PSP does -- if they likewise don't care that the Wii doesn't have the same horsepower as its competitors, then developing for it is going to look very attractive.

      Speaking only for myself, I don't really give a rat's ass that the Wii isn't as powerful as the competition. Sure, high-def support would have been nice, but saving $350 by getting a Wii instead of a PS3 is damned nice too. And as a jaded adult with a wife and kid who has very little time for gaming anymore, it's been really hard to get excited about games lately. Sure, I bought a GameCube and a PS2 and (eventually) an XBox, but I don't remember being really excited about any of them. The Wii, on the other hand, has me positively giddy with anticipation. I'll get a PS3 and an XBox360 after a few price drops when I have nothing better to do with my time and money. I'll get a Wii at midnight on launch day.
    • as much as 3/4 of the manpower goes into art and *not* code.

      Well, it seems to me that is precisely the game industry's major faux pas.
      Everybody's just trying to copy bloody Hollywood instead of doing what they should: games.
      Won't anybody think of the games??

      • Well, it seems to me that is precisely the game industry's major faux pas. Everybody's just trying to copy bloody Hollywood instead of doing what they should: games. Won't anybody think of the games??

        Partly true. I don't think the main problem is an art vs. coding issue, but more of a design vs. development issue. So much of gaming is based off of very "safe" and tried and true conceptual designs, and then most of the time and effort is put into the development, be it visuals/sound or code. Gameplay ele

        • "E.T."... you mean the legendary flop for the Atari 2600?

          It was also out for the GBA, PS, PS2, etc...but not for the NES.

          And yes, people often do remember the 2600 for "E.T."...especially the landfill bit. Funny thing is it's not that terrible of a game, though it has its annoyances.

    • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:34PM (#15338572)
      Want to know a Secret?

      The Wii really isn't much less powerful then either the PS3 or the XBox 360, and in some ways (single thread performance) is more powerful. What the Wii's weakness is, is that the Wii contains a fixed pipeline on it's GPU; for those people that don't know what this means, the Wii does not support Programable Pixel/Vertex shaders.

      If you look at the Red-Steel screens you'll see what I'm talking about; the geometry in the image will be as high as anything on the PS3/XBox 360, the Textures are as high resolution as anything on the PS3/XBox 360 and the Particle effects are as nice as anything on the PS3/XBox 360. When you compare screens you'll notice what is lacking is Normal Maps, and Material effects. Nintendo didn't include shader support because it costs a lot of money to produce Normal Maps and BRDFs (or other material functions).

      Games will not be hard to port to the Wii, but they will never look as good as they do on the XBox 360 or PS3.

      • The Nintendo Wii's video card does support vertex and pixel shaders. It just doesn't support really really advanced vertex and pixel shaders. Did you see the preview for Super Smash Brothers Brawl?

        -:sigma.SB

      • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:54PM (#15338686)
        "the geometry in the image will be as high as anything on the PS3/XBox 360, the Textures are as high resolution as anything on the PS3/XBox 360 and the Particle effects are as nice as anything on the PS3/XBox 360"

        This is, at best, wishful thinking. The Wii has very little in the way of texture memory - if they do what they did to the rest of the system, about a meg and a half, but let's assume it's really 10mb. The 360 has 512mb of shared RAM - presumably, more than 64mb of this could be dedicated to textures. The CPU is running at 729mhz last I checked, which is 1/3 of _one_ of the 360's cores - good luck trying to generate the same geometry. Even if you could, the comparatively low resolution (480p) is going to make it look like a jaggy mess - and there's not exactly much power to spare for fancy AA.

        There is some serious delusion on the part of some Nintendo fans on how well this system is really going to be able to compete in the graphics department. I personally don't think it matters - Nintendo has obviously staked the system on the controller and Virtual Console, not the graphics. Whether that's a mistake or not, we shall see...

        -Erwos

        • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:5, Informative)

          by Cadallin ( 863437 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @08:30PM (#15339232)
          There are several things wrong with your post:

          1. Texture memory - Yes, the Revolution has less memory overall, (estimates about final numbers are between 96-128MB. HOWEVER (!) this memory is all 1T SRAM, i.e. it's really fucking fast, and the system is using a UMA, plus each of the individual components have reasonably big on-die caches, so the Revolution has a very decent, SPEEDY (Faster than DDR2, and RAMBUS), memory sub-system.

          2. Information indicates that the revolution's main CPU is a faster clocked version of the chip in the Gamecube, which is a slightly customized POWERPC G3 chip. On the other hand, the cores of the Cell, and the Xbox 360 are known to be the same design and are in many ways extremely cut down, to such an extent they they are less capable than the initial 1993 PowerPC cores. The Revolution's G3 has a MUCH higher IPC than the CPUs in the competition. As a result a more accurate comparison would be to say that it probably around 1/2 as powerful as one such core.

          3. Given the Gamecube GPU's proven graphical prowess, and that it is known that the Revolution's GPU is a faster version of that chip, YES, there will be power to spare on AA, especially at 480p. Also, you seem to be confused, Jaggies get worse as you INCREASE resolution. So all things being equal, at 720p a scene will look more jaggy than at 480p.

          That lower resolution also means that requirements are lower across the board. One can simply look at GC titles like "Resident Evil 4" and the release screen for Twilight Princess, plus the knowledge that the Revolution has headroom to improve on that, and rest confidently that the revolution will look just fine

          • The 360's RAM is higher bandwidth than the Wii's. 1T-SRAM was impressive when the Gamecube came out - it's not so much anymore.

            The 360 (and PS3) is also using a PowerPC architecture chip, but architecture does not inherently impact IPC. Your entire point makes no sense. Unless you can give us some actual benchmarks, it's easier to simply assume they have the same IPC. In any event, it has 1/6 of the power according to your calculations, so I don't see your problem.

            Jaggies get _better_ with resolution increa
            • You need to read the articles on the Power Processing Elements at Ars technica. "PPE" being the name IBM is marketing the Power component in the Cell, and the Xenon CPU.

              http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox36 0 -2.ars [arstechnica.com]

              The PPE is an extremely stripped down POWER design with significantly fewer resources than the G3 in the Revolution.

              Higher resolutions tend to mask jaggies somewhat, except they also cause them to pop out and crawl much worse during movement. Additionally FSAA is easier at lo

            • The 360 (and PS3) is also using a PowerPC architecture chip, but architecture does not inherently impact IPC.

              Holy cow ... someone modded this informative.

              If architecture does not inherently impact IPC, then what, pray tell, does?

              I'll be the first to admit that I've only taken 2 semesters of computer architecture classes, and designed and implemented a pipelined, data-forwarding CPU in verilog for those classes... But seriously, AFAIK, architecture and instruction scheduling are the ONLY things that affect
              • Note that I said "PowerPC architecture". Duh, your chip's internal architecture is going to have quite a lot of impact on IPC. The fact that it's using the PowerPC instruction set ARCHITECTURE is not inherently going to raise it, though. Stuff like pipeline length and the quality of your branch predictor are extremely important, as you've already pointed out.

                Performance isn't going to scale linearly with more CPUs, but if you think modern games can't fill three threads, you need to re-examine the problem yo
            • Start Quake3, and then try running it at 640x480 and then 1600x1200, no AA. If you think there's fewer jaggies at 640x480, you need to get your eyes checked.

              "Jaggies" are largely an effect of the display itself, not the video circuitry driving it.

              Fire up an NES emulator on your 1600x1200 LCD flat panel PC monitor, and check out how pixelated everything looks. It wasn't like that on your TV when you were a kid, right? Right. Your old TV had a much lower resolution, and a dot pitch wide enough that you cou
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • You'd think by now people - at least the ones who read slashdot - would get that MHz != performance. The PPE elements in the Xenon are clocked high, sure. So was the Pentium 4, which was abandoned in favour of the slower clocked Core architecture. And the individual cores are in-order, only two issue, and the L1 caches are fairly small (32k) considering they're servicing two threads and only two way associative. The L2 cache is a bit more advanced, but again it's fairly small (1MB shared) and runs half-

        • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:5, Insightful)

          by keyne9 ( 567528 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @08:53AM (#15341507)
          There is some serious delusion on the part of some Nintendo fans on how well this system is really going to be able to compete in the graphics department.

          There is some serious delusion on behalf of the PS3/Xbox360 fans in that graphics are the game.

        • Even if you could, the comparatively low resolution (480p) is going to make it look like a jaggy mess - and there's not exactly much power to spare for fancy AA.

          No one (sane) is doing anti-aliasing on the CPU; they're doing it on the GPU. While the Wii's GPU may not be up to it (I really have no idea), you're talking about the CPU. If the Wii's GPU is roughly on par with the GPU in the 360 or PS3 then by only running in lower resolutions it will (potentially) have extra power available to spend on fancy

      • So you're telling me the entire ~350$ dollar difference between the Wii and the PS3 hardware (more like ~450$ when you consider that the Wii controller will probably cost 100$ on its own) comes down to only the presence of a shader? I don't know that much about the specs of these systems but I call BS. I expect much stronger performance across the board from the Wii's competitors.

        • Re:The problem is vastly different capabilities (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I think you're over simplifying what was said.

          Nintendo's approach with the design of the Wii was to produce a (reasonably) powerful system based on conventional technology. The result was that the CPU is very similar to the Gekko (the Gamecube's processor) in that it is a modified Single Core Power PC processor with excellent single thread performance; by being single core it is cheaper, smaller and produces far less heat than the XBox 360's or PS3's processors. Ultimately in theoritical floating point perf
    • Well you're absolutly right about the artist vs. programmer ratio. I'm trying right now to think of an analogy that would correctly compare the arists and programmers of video games to people who work with movies...but I don't know enough about how movies are made so let me say this: while developers do like to produce a game for all three consoles (which they should, it maximizes their profits) that doesn't mean that they'll shy away from the Wii. What it does mean is we'll see less small name, low budg
    • probably not that big of an issue.
      They have to create textures of different resolutions anyway. depending on how far the object is you use a differn't resolution. For the Wii you will just use a lower resolution texture for each distance.
      What you could see is more games being written for the Wii or being released sooner since the cost for the art work will be less for the Wii.
      It will all come down to numbers. How many people buy the Wii next Christmas vs how many people buy the PS-3 and XBox 360.
      My money is
    • The Wii not being in the same class as the Xbox360 and PS3, is really good for 3rd party developers, it means they won't have to spend as much on the graphics budget. Development wise the Wii is going to be cheaper to develop for.

  • Go back to sleep, Zonk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, Zonk, of course developers aren't interested in the Wii. After all, why would they be? Nothing could ever stand up to the developer heaven that is your precious XBox 360. The author of the blog you link is right, even though he's apparently never heard of EA [google.com] or Activision [google.com].

    The massive outpouring of launch exclusive support by EA, Ubisoft and Sega unlike anything we saw directed at Nintendo at any point during the Gamecube era is just a coincidence. And not such a big deal either. After all, as the articl

  • Yeah right (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Tell me if I'm wrong, but this Pachter guy sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about.

    "no publishers would be able to take advantage of the installed base because they haven't fully committed to the early life of the platform"

    How does that make any sense? Even if this were true, I believe there were 25 Wii games shown at E3? I'm pretty sure not all of those games are being published by a small number of publishers. Nintendo seems to have plenty of 3rd party backing for Wii.
  • Only if they are lady devs. otherwise, they give the wii.

    Sorry, I thought I had that out of my system already ;-)

  • Lack of Developer Support? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeadCatX2 ( 950953 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:15PM (#15338453) Journal
    Say what?

    There are lots of games [1up.com] coming out for the Wii.

    And just because big third parties aren't frothing at the mouth doesn't mean anything. I'm FAR more interested in titles like Sadness. These less-known developers are going to take risks that you won't see any big third party developer take.
    • ...I doubt it.

      DeadCatX2: And just because big third parties aren't frothing at the mouth doesn't mean anything. I'm FAR more interested in titles like Sadness. These less-known developers are going to take risks that you won't see any big third party developer take.

      Agreed. And the SDK (development kit) will only be $2,000USD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Revolution) , whereas the PS2 SDK was $20,000 at time of launch (same website), which will allow indie developers with considerably less ven

      • Yes, there will likely be tons of crap out there because of the bar being lowered,

        And then, I wish we could have the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" again here. At least I hope that if there are games downloadable at the Virtual Console, Nintendo will choose just quality games to add.

        And of course, there are still TONS of crappy games out there (just look at the numer of titles for PSX or PS2) even though the bar was quite high.
    • I wonder if the developers that don't "get" Wii (I don't get the name though) are the kind that like to rehash existing concepts and increment the version number.

  • Ask the right question. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ant P. ( 974313 )
    What are Nintendo doing to get the devs? Part of the reason they've historically had poor 3rd-party support is because they make it _hard_ for outsiders to get in.
    • well for starters they are making their devkit cost only $2,000. if that doesn't make developers go "sure we will make a game for you" I don't know what will.

      Especially since Microsoft's devkit costs around $50,000 - $100,000 (last I read) and the PS3 devkit is something like $16 million.
      • Any links? Perhaps my googling skills aren't up to par, but I've not been able to confirm any of those figures
      • Uhh according to this article - http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3story.html?sid=614915 4 [gamespot.com]

        "THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell spoke about developing for the Nintendo Wii, touching on a number of topics including THQ's first reactions to its Wii games..."

        "...[The Wii] wasn't a whole new programming environment," Farrell said. "So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs--and again, I hate these broad generalizations--but they could be as little as a third of the high-end n

        • I can't speak about the accuracy of his figures for the dev kits (I haven't a clue about that issue), but the comment you quoted doesn't seem to be talking about the dev kits to me. It seems to be talking about the expense of purchasing upgraded game engines or developing the upgrades to in-house game engines in order for them to take advantage, as well as related upgrades to development tools (editors, modeling tools, stock resource libraries, etc).

  • Smash Brothers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EdwinBoyd ( 810701 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @06:31PM (#15338555)
    The delay for Smash Bros. may be intentional. This was a 'must have' game for the Cube but as mentioned previously does not really take advantage of the Wii's unique features. Perhaps Nintendo thought it best to launch games that highlight the controller first before bringing in the tried and true favourites.

    • Re:Smash Brothers (Score:3, Interesting)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )
      The lead producer of Smash Bros left Nintendo (the HAL division specifically) within the past few years. Nintendo didn't ask him to head the new Smash Bros project until after their announcement last year that there would be a new Smash Bros at launch. They didn't even start forming a development team until about a year ago, so it was extremely optimistic to expect the game to be ready in time for the launch. SSBM was an *extremely* well polished game, so I really doubt they'd want to rush the followup.
  • I'll definitely buy the Wii as soon as it's launched because of the Nintendo exclusives and the backward compatibility. I still regret missing the chance of having a Nintendo 64 back when it was relevant and won't miss it again.

    For third party games I'm considering the PlayStation 3 for two reasons: the Sony exclusives and the possibility of running Linux on a relatively cheap Cell implementation.
  • You can use the motion activated controller, and toss it for your nintendog to go and fetch. Of course... you will have to fetch the actual device yourself, but it will help you shed a few pounds.
  • The fact is, if enough consumers "get it," then you can bet that the developers will "get it."

  • It will take time to gain momentum (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordZardoz ( 155141 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @07:45PM (#15338988)
    Regardless of how great the Wii turns out to be, Nintendo is going to need some time to overcome the less then impressive image they have gained from the N64 and Gamecube. Part of it is that not many companies are going to be eager to bet on the guy who came in 3rd place in a 3 way race. Gamecube did better in Japan then the X-Box though, and that is why your seeing alot more Japanese publishers giving it a shot.

    Aside from that issue, another more insidious problem is that people tend to hold grudges, and Nintendo has alienated many developers over the years. It took most of 2 console cycles for Square to do anything with Nintendo after Yamauchi said that Squares RPG games suck. And Nintendo also managed to drive away Silicon Knights shortly after the Metal gear port was done. There are many more companies that just dont much care for having to work for Nintendo.

    The last issue is that even once the console starts to take off, most 3rd party games (except probably for those done by Sega) are just not going to feel as good to play as most of the Nintendo titles will. While the SDK is cheap, its going to take a while for the designers to get their head around the sort of things that are possible. WarioWare: Smooth Moves will be the best demo title for the sort of things someone can try with this console, and Metroid will point the way for FPS games. But beyond that, its going to take a while before 3rd parties come up with the sort of Original titles that will truly sell the system.

    Its like playing a Texas Hold-em poker game, and your starting hand is 7 Jack, when your opponents have pocket aces and pocket kings. You will win once the flop comes down as 7, Jack, Jack, but its going to be a while before everyone else at the table watching the game realizes it.

    END COMMUNICATION
    • And Nintendo also managed to drive away Silicon Knights shortly after the Metal gear port was done.

      Nintendo and Silicon Knights were a HORRIBLE match for each other. If you read interviews with Dennis Dyack, he goes on and on about how storytelling and presentation are what matters about games, and practically dismisses gameplay as meaningless. If you play Eternal Darkness, you'll realize rather quickly that the game is all about the story, and that the gameplay is very simplistic.

      Nintendo is constantly tal
      • The amusing thing about it, though, is that Nintendo and SK still parted ways on good terms -- with both parties speaking highly of each other, and simply acknowledging their differing visions.

        Square, on the other hand, royally screwed Nintendo, and people seem to forget that Nintendo actually played the 'mature' role by not publicly bad-mouthing Square. Then, somehow, people like the grandparent poster to this day believe that Nintendo did something to alienate Square other than not provide enough storage
        • Square, on the other hand, royally screwed Nintendo, and people seem to forget that Nintendo actually played the 'mature' role by not publicly bad-mouthing Square. Then, somehow, people like the grandparent poster to this day believe that Nintendo did something to alienate Square other than not provide enough storage space for their games.

          The space issue is clearly the most important thing, the reason there was no FF for the N64. Yet after FFVII was released for the PS1, a Nintendo rep (president? U.S. Pr

  • Spinning a way out of E3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by killbill! ( 154539 ) on Monday May 15, 2006 @08:01PM (#15339082) Homepage
    Whenever I hear both Microsoft and Sony advising consumers to buy a Wii as a second console, I hardly see that as an endorsement. Instead, I can see fear in their eyes. Fear that consumers are going to buy a Wii first.
    The huge splash Nintendo made at E3 has spin masters frantically running for cover. They're trying to downplay the Wii as good enough only as a secondary console. But even they feel the former Revolution is going to be a coup.

    As for third-party developers, I'm planning to buy a Wii on launch day and at least 4 games (Metroid, Mario, Zelda and Red Steel, maybe Wii Sports). That's enough quality gaming right here to prevent me from actually seeing the light of day for the next few months, and I'm not even counting the countless classics on the Virtual Console.

    The Wii is not suffering from a lack of titles. Actually, it already has too many strong launch titles to even let me try an unknown third-party game. Out of my 4/5 launch titles, only one is from a third party. The publishers that missed the boat have only themselves to blame.
  • The Wii Talk [thewiitalk.com] is posting a Miyamoto interview that hints at a $200 price at launch to be announced in September at the Tokyo Games Show.
    • If that's true, it's Awsome. $200 is just over £100. I paid £120 for my DS and 3 games. It sounds as if I'll be able to get a Wii and 3 games bundle for around £150-£170. I just hope I don't have to import it just to keep to that price. Please Nintendo, don't do a Sony and make $499 = £499.
  • ...because new developers that DO will take their place, and do quite nicely to boot.
  • PS3 and XBOX 360 games are the same as the previous generation with updated graphics (and not far better than a PC anyway). But Nintendo's Wii games will be an experience totally different, thanks to its controller. I can't wait to play my favorite sports games with it! :-)

  • Who will be the first big new dev? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SlappyBastard ( 961143 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @12:58PM (#15343395) Homepage
    One thing I think folks are overlooking is that each leap in console tech brings one or two new developers to the front.

    Does the Wii have the potential to propel someone new, who "gets" the Wii remote control, to the forefront?

    Only time will tell.

    But, I like the bold, eveocative nature of the Wii controller. It speaks well of Nintendo to be thinking of things other than polygons and shaders.

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