38 replies to this topic

[GAMER1984]

i have a lot of thoughts on this article i feel i need to express.

 

1. EUROGAMER dont like Nintendo. Why "NOW" of all time publish an article about this. this is launch timeframe and some of the issues are to be expected from a lunch system. Yes all of the tools were not there at launch. Why didnt they go and talk to developers like Shin'en and Slightly mad who have spoken positive about the WiiU hardware and what it can achieve. Why find the one pissed off developer that had a bad experience with a launch game and post an article "NOW".

 

2. Wii U hardware. This article still show that the Wii U hardware is capable and hasnt been used by most any developer. The developer said under certain circumstances the CPU had a 4x increse performance over 360 cpu. Also what has always been said the GPU is "VERY CAPABLE" and had no issues with it. The developer also said the GPU has GPGPU features manily off loading task from CPU but they didnt have time or the know how of the Wii U GPU to take the risk of trying that. also the not good notion or so it has become that the main RAM DDR3 is slower and a bottleneck for developers. They said that is not the case and the EDRAM could fetch data and allow GPU to run at top speeds. So i say all of this to say the Wii U hardware is exactly what we thought. pretty much in the middle last gen and this gen and we havent seen not even close to what the Wii U can do. But will there ever be a developer 1st or 3rd party that Uses every trick and feature to get the most out of the hardware and show just how "CAPABLE OF PUNCHING ABOVE ITS WEIGHT" the console is..... I dont know.

 

3. Nintendo. They need to make some changes plain and simple. The mentality they have has to change for their business to grow. They relied heavily on the "Wii" name and it didnt work out for them. Some changes need to be made in senior management mainly they need to let NOA do more for their gamers. They need to step out the box and either by more studios for more content (New IP's or franchises like Starfox, f-zero, etc) or spend money to ensure 3rd party games come to the system. Something has to change they cant keep thinking the same Mario, Zelda, Smash formula is going to lead them to the promise land every generation. I love them as a company and will continue to support but I hope what is happening with the Wii U really does open their eyes.

Edited by GAMER1984, 11 January 2014 - 05:59 PM.

[Raiden]

@Nollog if it is Darksiders II well then this dev does not have a lot of room to talk. I'm a big Darksiders fan and love the series a hell of a lot. Thing is they were very rough devs with very little experience. DS had some bad stuff like PS1 type pixelation on stuff like water and fire effects. Not an exaggeration. DSII was plagued with bugs and game breaking problems. Also again had some bad pixelation. They are talented guys but they struggled on the more technical side. I found areas in the game where textures are missing or not even finished. PS3,360 and PC all had different bugs as well. Some got fixed thankfully. So they just did not have much experience and struggled on any platform the developed for at a technical standpoint.

 

I played both games on 360btw

Edited by Ryudo, 11 January 2014 - 06:17 PM.

[Goodtwin]

Its a good read, but most of it we all concluded anyway.  You mean to tell me that highly optimized code for the 360 cpu did work very well on the Wii U cpu, two processors worlds apart in design and architecture?  Im shocked, who would have thought. LOL  The stuff about Nintendo's tools sucking and being slow with info is no surprise.  Nintendo has a bad track record with sketchy info and tools.  

[Nollog]

@Nollog if it is Darksiders II well then this dev does not have a lot of room to talk. I'm a big Darksiders fan and love the series a hell of a lot. Thing is they were very rough devs with very little experience. DS had some bad stuff like PS1 type pixelation on stuff like water and fire effects. Not an exaggeration. DSII was plagued with bugs and game breaking problems. Also again had some bad pixelation. They are talented guys but they struggled on the more technical side. I found areas in the game where textures are missing or not even finished. PS3,360 and PC all had different bugs as well. Some got fixed thankfully. So they just did not have much experience and struggled on any platform the developed for at a technical standpoint.

 

I played both games on 360btw

It's just a guess from the content of the article.

 

 

And here is someone with experience you can trust saying similar things to what I said in my previous posts here.

http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/

[Raiden]

Yeah exactly. this other secret dev is Daisying because he is inept or lazy or both

[MorbidGod]

Oh dear, if all this is old news then & not relevant anymore, why hasn't the WiiU got any third party support & why are we not getting comparable ports of X1 & PS4 games then ?

The guy in the article is talking about what happened at the start, the whole thing was a big mess & the WiiU hasn't recovered.

As for saying that 'we already know the issues at the start' well there were rumours, but Nintendo didn't come out & say until the WiiU has launched that there very own inhouse teams were not skilled enough for the move from SD to HD & thats why the games were delayed, they never said until well i don't think they have said anything only going by what's in the article that Nintendo had not even bothered to look at PSN or Live when working out their own online network, if I had know what i know now i wouldn't of bought a WiiU at launch for £300+.

All I gatta say, 3Dude and I, plus a lot of others here, have admitted Nintendo didn't support third parties very well.

To directly answer your question, third parties base their choices of what they think they can make money from. The Wii U may not be the best place because of these problems documented.

If you read the article, you'll see something that I have known for a long time. Third parties are afraid of Nintendo. Nintendo is on the best best developers of all time. They have some of the most recognizable brands ever. They know their hardware and consistently their games sell better than third party exclusives.

So there ya have it.

[Raiden]

http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/

 

Boom there it is this other dev is just a crybaby confirmed

Recently a popular website released an article that was from an “anonymous Third Party developer” which chronicled the “struggle” of developing games for the Wii U. From basic programming to online structure to dealing with Nintendo, the article took place during the launch window of the system. The article then concludes that is why Third Party companies tend to shy away from the Wii U. Curious, I decided to Tweet my friend Jools Watsham over at Renegade Kid to see his stance on this, since the anonymity would be null and void. I received back the following exclusive information.

 

Hopefully this will help shed some light on the situation when one of the biggest indie developers on Nintendo platforms disagrees with the recent article that is circulating the internet.

UPDATE:

I had the owner of a new Wii U indie company, Nami Tentou, reach out to me to respond to this situation. Nami Tentou is a licensed Wii U developer. They had the following to say, which strengthens the case of the situation.

 

 

 

 

[3Dude]

http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/
 
Boom there it is this other dev is just a crybaby confirmed

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

Ryudo, on 13 Jan 2014 - 03:12 AM, said:
http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/

Boom there it is this other dev is just a crybaby confirmed

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

[GAMER1984]

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

Agree but iw ould have loved to see a "BIG" developer come out and defend the WiiU but I knew that wasn't going to happen. The thing is 3dude people don't realise what you are saying. They don't understand the differences between port teams and actual devs teams that build the code running the game.but I do like the one dev calling out eurogamer for a "OBVIOUS" clickbate WiiU doomed article that has no place being talked about at this time. The problems the dev faced are long gone and it makes no sense to bring them up now. Also the dev called out 3rd parties. I feel after all the years of complaining the original Wii wasn't powerful enough to run certain engines and they needed more power publisher should have gave a little more support to Wii U and tried a little harder not to look like A$$es

[Nollog]

http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/
 
Boom there it is this other dev is just a crybaby confirmed

It's just a guess from the content of the article.
 
 
And here is someone with experience you can trust saying similar things to what I said in my previous posts here.
http://nintendoenthu...s-renegade-kid/

http://www.gonintend...medium=facebook

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

You guys need to understand their is a huge difference between an actual developer, even small time ones, and port teams, who cant actually make their own games/code.

Their is a reason why every original game developer, or ports made from the original dev teams (trine 2, nfsmwu) ended up much better, looked better, performed better, had more, and was fast and without a hitch.

First off, port teams are not comprised of very experienced or capable individuals. These are typically people trying to 'pay their dues' and gain experience ao they can actually start making real games. They didnt make the engine the game runs on, and while they may be able to use it, they most certainly dont understand how it works on say, the kernel level, not to mention the kernel level architectures of different systems. They literally just copy and paste the code, and then trial and error tinker to see if performance improves, and then they begin haccking away it it until it runs acceptably.

Nintendo supports original content creators above port teams. Its not a surprise Nintendo gave the majority of their support to platinum who was making their nintendo all stars (to become tw101) game and bayo 2 , or ubisofts zombi u, over crapped out 3rd party port with understaffed under experienced dev team.

Who knows.

[Raiden]

http://gonintendo.co...story&id=220454

 

Another dev saying Wii U is easy to devlop for and the Euro bit was old info.

 

So Eurogamer as usual had a anti Nintendo agenda to imply that the reason dried of 3rd party support as if this info is current.

Edited by Ryudo, 14 January 2014 - 11:22 PM.

[Nollog]

And people will still take them seriously next article.

[Leland]

Good read.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Nintendo threw together their online features at the last moment, though I’m blown away that they don’t even have people there who know how PSN & XBL work - that’s insane.

I suppose the same explains their lousy DRM policies.

[MorbidGod]

Good read.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Nintendo threw together their online features at the last moment, though I’m blown away that they don’t even have people there who know how PSN & XBL work - that’s insane.

I suppose the same explains their lousy DRM policies.

It's not that insane. If you want to make a copy of what the other guy has - like what Google did with the Android - then you have your workers use the other guys product. But, if you want to create something that is your own, then don't even research what the other guys are doing. In the end, it lets you create your own unique product. Like WebOS made by Palm. Hopefully Nintendo does better though.

[EvilMoogle]

I haven't posted here in a long time but after reading this article I just had to see what everyone's reaction on here would be.

I mean for the longest time I've been defending third parties on this forum when everyone was saying "They are trying to kill Nintendo its a conspiracy bla bla" and finally this beautiful article comes out of nowhere. It pretty much explains everything but also just confirms what I've been saying all along that Nintendo messed up the launch and the lack of third parties is Nintendo's fault.

I still have my Wii U and I have 9 games for it so I've done my fair share of supporting Nintendo and I enjoy the console for what it's worth. I will definitely enjoy it more when X, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Bros, and a few other games are released but I can't help but think of what could have been with the Wii U.

It could have been a true next-gen console that competes with the PS4/Xbox One has all the same third party games on top of Nintendo exclusives and a online network that rivals PSN and Xbox Live If this was the case and I had to pick between Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One I would have picked Wii U.

Mistakes were made with the console but at least the games are great and the 3DS is a huge success so Nintendo is here to stay for a long time but they really dropped the ball on the Wii U.
 

Ryudo, on 15 Jan 2014 - 01:19 AM, said:
http://gonintendo.co...story&id=220454

Another dev saying Wii U is easy to devlop for and the Euro bit was old info.

So Eurogamer as usual had a anti Nintendo agenda to imply that the reason dried of 3rd party support as if this info is current.

 

A Twitter post vs an entire in-depth article? If you can find me an article that is as informative as the EuroGamer one that explains the lack of 3rd party support from an actual developer who has worked with Nintendo like the guy in the EuroGamer article I will gladly read it. I don't want some conspiracy article either. I've yet to get an explanation from Nintendo in my email and haven't stumbled upon an article anywhere else. 

Edited by EvilMoogle, 16 January 2014 - 08:21 PM.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I don't understand some of the logic in here that somehow the Eurogamer article is wrong because a few small developers can write perfectly fine on the Wii U.

 

That doesn't prove the developer was lazy or incompetent, it proves what we already knew - that it CAN be done but it costs too much time and money to be worthwhile if your game is also releasing on other much easier to write on platforms.

 

The Wii U is not a BAD platform to develop on, that is clear, but its certainly not as easy as the competition.  When you consider that even the Xbox One and PS4 now have an equal or larger install base than Wii U (and the code can easily be ported between those platforms as they are similar), its a no-brainer than the Wii U is just not third-party developer friendly, unless you are willing to commit a lot of resources to that single platform.

 

As many have said already, Nintendo thought they could capitalise on the popularity of the Wii and blew it. 

 

Is the Wii U a failure?  I don't think so, just as I never felt the Gamecube was a failure (and Nintendo certainly didn't, they made a profit on it).  But from a multi-platform developers point of view it is and that doesn't mean they are wrong, because the most important thing for them it for the platform to be profitable and its pretty clear the Wii U so far is not, for them.

 

I have said it before, based on the Wii I always expected the Wii U to be a platform only really worth buying exclusives on, I always intended to get a PS4 or One for multi platform titles.  The problem is that Nintendo promoted it otherwise and clearly did not support the port teams well enough to achieve that goal and then delayed their own titles so much that many of us felt ripped off.

Edited by Alex Atkin UK, 17 January 2014 - 11:17 AM.

[Leland]

I haven't posted here in a long time but after reading this article I just had to see what everyone's reaction on here would be.

I mean for the longest time I've been defending third parties on this forum when everyone was saying "They are trying to kill Nintendo its a conspiracy bla bla" and finally this beautiful article comes out of nowhere. It pretty much explains everything but also just confirms what I've been saying all along that Nintendo messed up the launch and the lack of third parties is Nintendo's fault.

I still have my Wii U and I have 9 games for it so I've done my fair share of supporting Nintendo and I enjoy the console for what it's worth. I will definitely enjoy it more when X, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Bros, and a few other games are released but I can't help but think of what could have been with the Wii U.

It could have been a true next-gen console that competes with the PS4/Xbox One has all the same third party games on top of Nintendo exclusives and a online network that rivals PSN and Xbox Live If this was the case and I had to pick between Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One I would have picked Wii U.

Mistakes were made with the console but at least the games are great and the 3DS is a huge success so Nintendo is here to stay for a long time but they really dropped the ball on the Wii U.


A Twitter post vs an entire in-depth article? If you can find me an article that is as informative as the EuroGamer one that explains the lack of 3rd party support from an actual developer who has worked with Nintendo like the guy in the EuroGamer article I will gladly read it. I don't want some conspiracy article either. I've yet to get an explanation from Nintendo in my email and haven't stumbled upon an article anywhere else.

I think the Nintendo Enthusiast piece is kind of a joke - it’s not even a real rebuttal.

IMO, the thesis of the original article is that Nintendo doesn’t give third parties the type of support they need, not that the “WiiU is harder to develop for." I think the intent there is to kind of poke Nintendo and say “hey, you should be doing this better."

It seems like every time an article like the Eurogamer one appears, sites like these immediately retaliate with one like this, apparently without even having read the source article closely.

[3Dude]

I think the Nintendo Enthusiast piece is kind of a joke - it’s not even a real rebuttal.

IMO, the thesis of the original article is that Nintendo doesn’t give third parties the type of support they need, not that the “WiiU is harder to develop for." I think the intent there is to kind of poke Nintendo and say “hey, you should be doing this better."

It seems like every time an article like the Eurogamer one appears, sites like these immediately retaliate with one like this, apparently without even having read the source article closely.

Everything Nintendo enthusiest is a joke, Id be extremely wary from anything that comes from there.

This is very very simple, we are looking at two different situations.

Situation 1: Third party third rate port team: No time, No money, No staff, No experience. No documented tools or support from Nintendo (we know this to be true of pre launch sdk's, weve known this to be true for a very long time)

Situation 2: Actual dev studio: Actually wrote the engine they are using, actually designed the game they are putting on the platform. post launch time period, Strong Nintendo support and matured tool base.

There isnt a 'wrong' or a 'right'.

[megafenix]

interesting to note that the guy says wii u was made at 55nm, cant beleive he said that

another interesting note is that the guy admits that they could have used compute shaders on wii u yet says wii u is shader model 4.0. How can that be when compute shaders appeared in directx11 and shader model 5.0?

 

I know that technically a directx10 gpu can be used for compute shaders but the old hardware will not perform very well and using this feature will slowdown the hardware, this is something that many expert journalists have reported so far and since nintendo is all about performance clearly they woul not support features that the hardwrae would not accomplish so well, so obviously the gpu has to be shader model 5.0

 

o well, at least we have other developers like shinen, kamiya from plantium games, the guys from renegade kitand  this guy fro PING 1.5 that do not agree with these secret developers about wii u being difficult to code for and that their accusations were based on a pre retail SDK 

Edited by megafenix, 18 January 2014 - 11:03 AM.