NBA 2K – could be best on Wii U, voice recognition, even better next year
Posted on December 12, 2012 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U
NBA 2K13 senior producer Rob Jones believes that the franchise could be the best on Wii U – when looking at all three consoles – if the team truly focused its efforts on Nintendo’s home system.
Jones told Player Attack:
“I think that… if we focussed in on [Wii U], the experience on it could be superior, in my mind, to the other two consoles.”
Discussing Wii U’s positional, Jones said:
“I think that the way you can interact with that game controller is going to open up different ways of experiencing the game going forward, if we’re smart.
“We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re so focussed on integrating the controller features that we forget that a sports game usually gets interacted with in the same way, regardless of what console it’s on.”
NBA 2K13 doesn’t have voice recognition. The console is capable of such control, but Jones says that the functionality has to be carefully implemented. Since the team was busy getting NBA 2K running on Wii U for the first time and the console had not yet been “solidified”, voice commands did not make it into the final product.
Jones, however, hinted that we could see it pop up in future releases:
“When you start trying to add voice recognition to a game, it impacts the performance of the entire console, so you have to be careful, you have to focus your efforts in a specific way.”
“…We didn’t necessarily delve into voice recognition or facial stuff, and I think that all of that stuff is on the table going into the future. As our first step, we wanted to deliver the full, complete experience of NBA 2K, and give the users a taste of some of the things you’ll be able to do, going forward.”
Last but not least, Jones teased that NBA 2K14 Wii U could be significantly better than its predecessor with his ” laundry list of things for next year that I think will take this console to a different experience”:
“I’ve spent time with the Wii U producer, and I have a laundry list of things for next year that I think will take this console to a different experience, in terms of its interaction with the consumer and the person who’s playing it.”
