Wii U

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Unity CEO David Helgaso has sounded off with a few comments about its Wii U deal with Nintendo.

Helgaso first addressed the origins of the deal, noting that the company originally pitched the idea when the engine wasn’t widely-used.

“It’s actually been a dream of ours to be the default development kit for something you can access if you’re just building games for a particular console. I remember we pitched the idea to at last Nintendo, but also Sony maybe five years ago, but of course back then we were a tiny company, and we didn’t have a lot of users.

“So, it was understandable that they didn’t bite back then, although I think they should have, because the tools were really good back then, but they weren’t yet proven. We didn’t have 1.2 million registered users, or 200,000 monthly users back then – we probably had closer to 200.

“Our prowess grew very quickly thanks to the explosion of mobile, and that helped us grow our user base and improve our tools. I can’t describe the exact steps we took with Nintendo, but we were in touch with them, and in the end they may have even come to us. I can’t remember the exact steps.”

Helgaso said that the hiring of ex-Sega of America CEO Shinobu Toyoda may have contributed to Nintendo’s interest in Unity:

“We were over in Japan last year with our really good tech people who are famous in the Japanese industry, such as Shinobu Toyoda, who was the American CEO of Sega. He is very well connected. So we led the charge on this partnership – we were excited about it, as were Nintendo.

“From then on we negotiated a bunch of stuff, like who would do what and when. I think it’s interesting because we’re still working on tools that mean you can take a version of Unity and export it to the Wii U. It’s not done yet, but we know it’s going to get done soon.”

Helgason also explained the manner in which Nintendo will use Unity, and revealed that the company plans on rolling the engine out to all of its first and third-party studios to create a standard of cost-effective, powerful development.

According to Helgaso, Nintendo will “bring it to their big ecosystem of studios.” Unity will be available for first and third-party studios.

“It’s going well and we’re firing along with the project. Once that’s done, two things will happen, and these are separate things, but I think they are connected and they will work really well together.

“One thing is that Nintendo will take Unity tools that we give them, and bring it to their big ecosystem of studios. Nintendo has first-party, third-party and all of the other studios that they’ve worked with for years, and they know them well.

“They trust them because they know how to make awesome games for Nintendo platforms. Historically, none of these companies were using Unity, and they have the same challenges as everybody else – cost effective development and all that stuff.

“So Nintendo is bringing Unity to these studios so they can build with it. The second thing that will happen is that, we turn around with the same tools and technology we’re working on, and take them to our community, which is a different one.”

“Nintendo’s community is very formidable and respected, they’ve been around for a long time. We turn to our community which is new, very energetic – of course we have old studios, but there are a lot of young ones too – and many of them have built games for consoles before.

“But many more have never built console games, or published on any console. What is exciting there is that are many studios out there that make hit games on iOS, Android or Steam, but hopefully many of these studios will be able to bring their games to Wii U, and that’s just really exciting.”

Finally, Helgason feels that Unity could be a big factor when it comes to third-party interest in Wii U. Many developers use the engine these days, so having the technology ready for outside developers could create a more positive relationship with other studios.

“If the Wii U is – and we hope it will be – a big success, then that will be a big deal for a lot of those developers.”

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

Players will be able to obtain a huge amount of pins in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. Over 150 different pins are included, and each will provide different buffs and boosts.

Aside from that, the game’s Director Warren Spector detailed other ways pins can utilized during a New York Comic Con roundtable.

Director Warren Spector discussed the pins feature at New York Comic Con 2012:

“You can go to the Pin Shop (on Mean Street) and show off your collection to your friends and all that. Unless you’re a crazy tester, you’re not going to get them all in one playthrough, but it is possible.”

Unfortunately, there won’t be any online connectivity involving the pins.

Spector explained why this isn’t an area the team decided to pursue:

“The reality is I’m kind of a kitchen sink designer. When you start a project, you just kind of get every idea from everybody. It’s almost like sculpting; you just cut the stuff that doesn’t fit. I hope in the future we can come back to some ideas we had for how to facilitate pin interactions. But that implies that there are plans and people are working, and that’s how I get in trouble. Which I guess I just did.”

Spector wrapped up by teasing the Observatory on Mean Street:

“If you find [the Observatory] on Mean Street and you look through it, you might find something about the world and the cartoon universe and all that stuff. It’s pretty cool.”

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 10 Comments

CyberConnect 2, the developer behind Namco Bandai’s Naruto Shippuden games, is open to making a new title based on the manga/anime series for Wii U.

At a NYCC 2012 panel this weekend, CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama told attendees that the chances of such a project happening would likely be stronger following the release of the console. If there’s enough fan demand, things could be discussed internally. Matsuyama said that “it’s all up to you guys.”

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots, Wii U | 0 comments

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Best Buy outlets should be receiving Wii U demo units as early as this week. This is a nationwide campaign, meaning it shouldn’t be limited to a few, select retailers.

If you want to give the console a test run, you could try visiting Best Buy sometime over the next few days. A phone call doesn’t hurt either!

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

You may know Straight Right as the developer behind Mass Effect 3 on Wii U – but that isn’t the only project the studio is working on.

Direct from the LinkedIn profile of technical project manager Chris Slater, Straight Right is “porting a triple-A Square Enix game to the yet-to-be-released Wii U platform.”

Straight Right CEO Tom Crago recently teased a “big game in a well known franchise that will be released in 2013.” This has to be the Square Enix project, right?

So what can it be? Tomb Raider immediately comes to mind, but Crystal Dynamics global brand director Karl Stewart shut down the idea a few months back. Maybe something changed since January?

If not Tomb Raider, perhaps it’ll be a port of an older title… there are quite a few possibilities!

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Rayman creator Michel Ancel has high praise for the Wii U – in particular, the console’s main controller.

Ancel has been very impressed with the technology behind the GamePad. Not only does it offer “crazy” response time, but Ancel also says that it responds well thanks to very low latency – which comes in at only 1/60 of a second.

Below are Ancel’s thoughts about the GamePad in full, which he provided while speaking with Nintendo Power this month:

“And I think this is where Nintendo is really out in front of things. The technology inside the controller is quite a bit more advanced than what people might think. It’s really responsive. The response time is crazy, in fact, and I think the competitors will need some time to [get their solutions] this responsive.

“It’s crazy because the game is running in full HD [on the television], we are streaming another picture on the GamePad screen, and it’s still 60 frames per second. And the latency on the controller is just 1/60 of a second, so it’s one frame late. It’s crazy, it’s so fast. It’s almost instant. That’s why it responds so well. So it can be used as a real game-design thing.”

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Green Arrow is making his playable debut at this year’s New York Comic Con. Here’s what we know about the character’s style, thanks to some impressions from the show floor:

– Green Arrow is a super zoner
– He uses his arrows to fight, but they don’t fire extremely quickly
– You can draw his bow back and hold it while moving or jumping
– If you do too much, the arrow will be released automatically
– Fire, ice, and electric arrows available
– Change out quivers by tapping in a quarter-circle forward or back, or double-tap down, and the special button
– Firing is done with the same button
– Arrows fire forward by default
– Use directional commands to get in some air defense or jumping shots
– Green Arrow can get in close if need be
– He doesn’t hit hard in close-combat, but he can use a slide move, blade move, and more

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