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The Secret Developers: Wii U - the inside story
Topic Started: Jan 31 2014, 03:41 PM (322 Views)
Chamo
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story



By The Secret Developers Published Saturday, 11 January 2014

The Secret Developers is Digital Foundry's occasional series where game-makers come forward to talk with us - and you - about topics they are passionate about, or in the case of this article, to give you the inside story behind a particular hot topic. As the future of the Wii U looks uncertain in the face of the successful launches for both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, this "warts and all" tale from a respected third-party creator gives you some idea of how Nintendo handled the transition to the high-definition gaming era, and the challenges developers faced in bringing their games to the Wii U platform.

I was there when Nintendo first pitched the Wii U to developers, I worked on the hardware extensively and helped to produce one of the better third-party titles. Now, as the fate of the hardware looks uncertain after a second Christmas of disappointing sales, I wanted to tell the story of what it was actually like to work with the console, and with Nintendo, and perhaps give some context to the mixed fortunes of the machine and its third-party titles.

But first, let's go back to the beginning. The genesis of a new games console generally follows a standard pattern....

Continued: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story
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CronoLink9
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Chamo
Jan 31 2014, 03:41 PM
MetalJesus
Jan 22 2014, 11:55 AM
Here's that article about the Wii U developer I mentioned in the podcast. Very interesting read:

Wii U - The Inside Story
I haven't listened to the episode yet, so maybe you guys already covered this, but that article has been rebuked by several other developers:

More 3rd Party Wii U Developers Speak Out
Former Ratchet and Clank, Skylanders dev says Wii U easy to develop for
I'd just like to quote this from the All Gen Gamers board since I read all of these articles and found it interesting how many people disputed these claims. I do seem to remember when the Wii U was still in relative hush-hush stages that devs were favorable, saying it was easy to develop for. Really, to me it seems to be digging stuff up to capitalize on all the Wii U doom and gloom that gets hits on web pages.

...of course, not to say that the Wii U is doing fine, there are definite problems with it, but that it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
Edited by CronoLink9, Jan 31 2014, 05:42 PM.
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Lavitz
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Exactly, there's many developers who say it's not hard

Quote:
 
The Wii U eDRAM has a similar function as the eDRAM in the XBOX360. You put your GPU buffers there for fast access. On Wii U it is just much more available than on XBOX360, which means you can render faster because all of your buffers can reside in this very fast RAM. On Wii U the eDRAM is available to the GPU and CPU. So you can also use it very efficiently to speed up your application.

The 1GB application RAM is used for all the games resources. Audio, textures, geometry, etc.

Theoretical RAM bandwidth in a system doesn’t tell you too much because GPU caching will hide a lot of this latency. Bandwidth is mostly an issue for the GPU if you make scattered reads around the memory. This is never a good idea for good performance.

I can’t detail the Wii U GPU but remember it’s a GPGPU. So you are lifted from most limits you had on previous consoles. I think that if you have problems making a great looking game on Wii U then it’s not a problem of the hardware.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/09/shinen_if_developers_cant_make_great_looking_games_on_wii_u_its_their_own_fault
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RockmanDash12
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Eurogamer's articles are pretty entertaining, i've always enjoyed them. Very technical though, but if you know that stuff (like me :D) then you will like them.

About the article itself, most of the devs have been saying this about the wii u for a while... The wii u is weaker than the 360 CPU wise, and because of lack of sales, the difficulty of porting a game, and piss poor online, it's not supported well. It's not hard... it's just not worth the time and effort. That's a problem. Consumers won't buy a Wii U because the price is too high, and none of the games are appetizing (for most people, not saying there aren't good games on the platform.) Devs don't want to do it because consumers aren't buying it and it's not worth the time. it's a catch 22. I think the Dev's opinion are split in half, half of the devs hate the console for development (people who rely on the CPU) and another half who can add a lot more visual flare and like the console development (devs who use the GPU more). Even with this split in opinion, they need to do something about it. they need to have good games on the console. I think Nintendo can do a few things to try and turn the wii u around.
1. Fix online. This has to be done. I don't care how. Hire EA or something. FIX THIS. Digital distrabution is going to be an important part in gaming's future, and the wii u is not prepared.
2. Make games that sell the system like every other Nintendo system since the n64. it might not help 3rd party support, but it will help the system.
3. ramp up the clock speeds on the wii u so it runs a bit louder/hotter, but fix framerate issues and help devs a bit, and shutting up the critics.
3.5. If nintendo doesn't want to ramp up clock speeds, enable the devs who want to do that the ability to ramp up clockspeeds so games perform equivalent to the 360 and ps3, thus shutting up the critics.
4. Release a new SKU with a hard drive, better cooling, and a faster clock speed at a cheaper price to entice the consumer, and fix the dev problem. ( Sony did this with the PSP 2000, nobody noticed the clock speed differences, but they did notice the price :P)
5. make a better dev kit. (maybe more x86-like?)
6. make the wii u more like a streaming box ( make it more like a roku with a better web browser, more local content viewing, and more apps so it's easier to watch online content. BTW none of this is what the one is doing... That's why everyone is mocking the one right now... it can't even do the media stuff right.) and try to price it at an uber low price to steal apple TV's and vita TV's thunder. I'm not saying i'd prefer it, but if it helps nintendo, why not? I think the Wii U would be a more appetizing option over a vita TV.
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ShadowBlaze
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Rockmandash12
Feb 1 2014, 12:52 AM
3. ramp up the clock speeds on the wii u so it runs a bit louder/hotter, but fix framerate issues and help devs a bit, and shutting up the critics.
3.5. If nintendo doesn't want to ramp up clock speeds, enable the devs who want to do that the ability to ramp up clockspeeds so games perform equivalent to the 360 and ps3, thus shutting up the critics.
^
This. Is Nintendo still trying to sell the WiiU as a quiet console? I haven't heard them mention it since they revealed it. They could ditch it, i'm pretty sure most people wouldn't mind.
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