Factor 5 on its abandoned Turrican spiritual successor Tornado pitched as a Nintendo-published game, future of the series
Posted on 3 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GameCube, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Factor 5 was responsible for some notable Star Wars games on the N64 and GameCube many years ago. The studio is also well-known for the Turrican series, which is now returning on Switch.
Factor 5 studio founder Julian Eggebrecht spoke about the past, present, and future of Turrican in an interview with Eurogamer. One interesting subject discussed was Tornado, a spiritual successor planned as a 3D title and was initially pitched as a Nintendo-published project. Sadly, it was put on hold and never touched again so that Star Wars: Rogue Squadron could be ready for the GameCube’s launch.
Eggebrecht said:
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Why Hulu wasn’t on Switch at launch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 113 Comments
Julian Eggebrecht is the president of Factor 5. You may not be aware of this, but he’s also the vice president of technology at Hulu.
It was almost a funny coincidence that Eggebrecht appeared on this week’s episode of Nintendo Voice Chat from IGN. He largely talked about Factor 5, but also had a bit to say about the new launch of Hulu on Switch. Hulu just made it to Nintendo’s console on Thursday.
When asked why Hulu didn’t appear on Switch until now, Eggebrecht explained:
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Factor 5 wants canned Wii game Star Wars Rogue Leaders: Rogue Squadron on Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 46 Comments
Many years ago, during the Wii era, Factor 5 worked on Star Wars Rogue Leaders: Rogue Squadron. Unfortunately, it never saw release. Now all of these years later, Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht wants to see it return.
In an interview on IGN’s Nintendo Voice Chat, Eggebrecht spoke about his aspirations of wanting to bring Star Wars Rogue Leaders: Rogue Squadron to Switch. For those who are unaware, it was a compilation featuring modified versions of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike under a new graphics engine at 60 frames per second and new content.
Here’s what Eggebrecht had to say about a potential Switch release:
Factor 5 weighs in on Switch performance, has the rights to Turrican
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch | 16 Comments
Factor 5 co-founder Julian Eggebrecht appeared on the latest episode of German podcast Spieleveteranen. During the talk, Eggebrecht weighed in on Switch.
Regarding Switch’s technical performance, Eggebrecht said its between Wii U and Xbox One. However, he claims that developing is as easy or even easier than the PlayStation 4. Switch is further supported by having all modern GPU standards.
Factor 5 was thought to be dead at a few points, but they’re apparently alive and kicking again. The company even has the rights to Turrican, so perhaps that’s something that could appear on Switch in the future.
More: Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht
Factor 5 had a Star Wars trilogy compilation finished for Wii, but was cancelled
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 16 Comments
During the latest Nintendo Voice Chat episode, IGN spoke with Julian Eggebrecht, who was the president of the now-defunct development studio Factor 5. Eggebrecht revealed details about a cancelled Star Wars trilogy compilation for Wii – titled Rogue Leaders – that was actually finished.
Here’s what was shared:
– Factor 5 was originally working on a trilogy compilation for the first Xbox
– This would have contained Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
– Factor 5 was interested in Wii given the advances of motion tech thanks to Wii MotionPlus
– The team tried resurrecting its cancelled Star Wars trilogy from the first Xbox
– Making the game work on a modern console was only a matter of tweaking the already-existing systems in the half-finished game
“…we had our old trilogy project, which we had fifty percent done, which was basically putting Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike with new content, [along] with fixing some of the mistakes, redoing completely the cameras, and everything.”
– Factor 5 wanted the game to work with the GameCube controller and a few Wii peripherals
– The team “wanted to support every single control that you could imagine.”
– During flight sequences, you could have the Mario Kart wheel control your X-Wing together with the balance board to control the pedals
– There was space combat, speeder bike racing levels, third-person action sequences, and even lightsaber battles making the most of the Wii Motion Plus’ 1:1 controls
– New graphics engine allowed for 60 FPS with a high visual fidelity
“Believe me, if you ever saw it running on the Wii at 60 [fps], it is by far – and I think I’m not overstating that – the technically most impressive thing you would ever see on [Wii].”
– Wii trilogy was finished, but the project was shut down
– The cancellation was because of the financial crisis of 2008 and the fact that the team had taken it upon themselves to self-fund the project in order to claim a larger “piece of the pie” once it was distributed
– Two potential publishers also went bankrupt and LucasArts was having “their own financial woes”
– IGN says multiple companies stepped in to help out with publishing, but financial hardship, legal snafus, and budgetary restrictions ultimately led to the project’s final cancellation.
– Eggebrecht loves the Wii U, but its unpredictable trajectory and licensing troubles make it unlikely
“Maybe sooner or later a hardware spot will be hit again, and we certainly would love to talk to Disney about it. And of course, with J.J.’s [Abrams] comeback to kind of the traditional trilogy feel, I think there’s going to be a lot of commotion around that. I just don’t know if we will be a part of it or not.”
