Slashdot Mirror
EA Forms Wii-Centric Studio
Despite analyst assurances that there would no longer be many console exclusives, EA is forming an entire studio for Wii titles. Larry Probst revealed this tidbit in a very interesting interview with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal. They've since acquired Headgate studios, rebranding it EA Salt Lake. From the article: "I don't think the Wii is going to be any different than all the other Nintendo platforms. Nintendo is going to have a very significant market share, and all the third party companies are going to have market shares that are single-digit or low double-digits. We think that we can be very competitive in that environment. We don't have any expectations that we're going to have a 30 percent market share, as we have had on Xbox 360, on PlayStation 2, or what we're targeting on PlayStation 3. But I think we can have a meaningful market share on the Wii platform, and be in the number two position behind Nintendo."
http://games.slashdot.org/games/06/11/27/1919234.s html
Either way, good to see companies fighting over making games for the Wii.
Is it just me, or do you hate it when people say "Is it just me..."?
In the long run I expect to see the Wii (if it is popular enough) to be handled by developers in a very similar way to how handhelds have traditional been dealt with. In almost every major third party release for the home console a handheld version was made at the same time because of how much less expensive it was to develop and the size of the userbase for the handheld system. It is possible that you could see Final Fantasy, Metal Gear or GTA (or whatever) being released at the same time for the Wii and other platforms but the Wii version could be drastically different.
EA has a million little studios all over the world. Even if you already know that EA is a big company, the number of little studios the company continuously is buying or setting up is staggering. So this is a pretty meaningless 'development'. It is pretty much the equivalent of a smaller company hiring or making one employee their 'Wii guy'.
There has been some friction inside EA with the Wii, most people want to focus on the PS3 and think the Wii is a distraction. So letting a small group focus on Wii specific stuff is a good option and lets the people at RS and the other main campuses focus on their PS3 titles.
Concidering most talk of the Wii as if its just a glorified gamecube, isnt it rather odd that the company that was most vocal about offering minimal gamecube support now wants to be #2 behind Nintendo on the console.
So far I am overwhelmed by the support announced for the Wii, I would not be surprised at the is point to see square even meander back to its original home with more support. It may not win the consumer side of the console wars (I actually think it will) but its clearly won the hearts and minds of developers. Perhaps the original name "Revolution" should have been kept because its certainly introducted an expected spark of creativity and love for platform that most developers thought of as near death.
I'm making a bold early statement here but I predict the Wii will end up largely winner of this third gen console war, not because its powerful but because its so goddamn fun and innovative.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
"I don't think the Wii is going to be any different than all the other Nintendo platforms. Nintendo is going to have a very significant market share, and all the third party companies are going to have market shares that are single-digit or low double-digits."
Great so they are already admitting defeat before going in. Before the N64 third party games were close to as dominate as the nintendo games, the problem is with the n64 no one really tried, on the Gamecube most third party companies barely made games, and made crappy games at best. If people want to become a significant market share it's easy, support the wii to the fullest, unlike Ubisoft who made it feel like their games were designed for other systems (early gamecube in terms of the racing games) And make sure the games are fun. Making a half hearted effort will assure you get single digit shares.
I'm sick of companies acting like Nintendo is the only one who can do anything on a nintendo console, they should make the best games, just like PS2 should have first and second party support that beats all others, and just like the Xbox has the same. It's because they have a partnership with the console that all third party companies lack. Doesn't mean they will be have a real majority, but they should at least have the best games, shouldn't they?
But then again EA doesn't think this way on other consoles, and floods the market with their half assed games, and earns market share that way. I'm glad if they don't do that on the wii, but I have a feeling most of what headgate is going to do is make Wii ports of other games (games you'll either own on other systems or not want) and then bitch when no one buys them.
Despite analyst assurances that there would no longer be many console exclusives, EA is forming an entire studio for Wii titles.
I'm not sure why analysts thought the Wii wouldn't have a lot of its own excusives, even from 3rd party developers. Porting to the Wii a game that was designed with the other two big consoles in mind presents two challenges:
1) The Wii has less graphics horsepower.
2) The controller is completely different.
Downscaling the graphics may not be terribly difficult, but I suspect adding Wii controller support onto a game that was built trying to work with traditional control schemes as well, or worse didn't even consider them at first, will have crummy results. Look at the poor porting results of console to PC titles, with interfaces that don't change to take into account the advantages different platform offers. I suspect a similar thing will happen with the Wii. The best and most competitive games in the Wii market are going to be ones that were designed for the Wii from the ground up and take advantage of everything that it has to offer. Which is really no different from any other console.
Would you rather play a game such as Unreal Tournament/Quake/Doom on your computer with a keyboard and mouse, or with a stupid gamepad with analog thumbsticks? Put those two players inside the same game and the gamepad player probably won't stand a chance.
Also, after playing Zelda (which ain't even a shooter) for a week, I find it weird to hold a gamepad in my hands (even the one from the Gamecube, which IMHO is the most comfortable gamepad ever made).
Of course, a lot of games would be weird with the Wiimote and the nunchuck, just like some games aren't made for a keyboard+mouse. I'm thinking MegaMan games, for example. But for all the rest, gamepads just plain suck.
Hmmm I'm not at all a console person but I've seen Wii, GameCube and PS2 in action and I've to say Wii is fun but the graphic is just crap with Wii Sports. I hope other games are not like that. OTOH PS3 price is just ridiculous.
EA are clearly going to be making at least one Wii specific game. Which isn't going to surprise anyone.
A studio doesn't have to be particularly big. And most developers will keep development on specific platforms in the same place. It means they can swap programmers around between projects, and makes equipment purchasing simpler. Simple benefits like that.
I love going back to read Slashdot's initial skepticism (if not outright indignation) about the Wii's name change. It's funny how quickly we've adapted to the new name (and how brilliant the switch seems in retrospect).
If you go to the Sims website, you see a link now for the Japanime version of the Sims for the Wii (which I would guess they're going to call Wii Sims unless they are clueless.
It's hyper-cute.
Japanese-only at this point, but let's hope they don't region-encode it since so many US and Canadian gamers can handle it.
I'll reply with the link to the Japan site once I figure it out.
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Sheesh- how soon we all forget/ignore. The Wii is intended to work with gamecube controllers which I consider to the THE best engineered game controller I've ever used- so comfortable...
And, if there isn't already, I'm sure there will be a Wii re-release of the GC controller in the Wii plastic style. There will be many, many games that do not and cannot use the Wii-mote. I also anticipate many games that give the option of using either or.
I think you may have missed his real point: It is harder to port to the Wii than other consoles.
Yet, a dev version of the PS3 or xBox360 costs USD 20,000, while a dev version of the Wii costs USD 2,000.
It may be harder, but the entry costs are far cheaper, and the graphics work is a lot cheaper to do.
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Lived a Wii-centric life. Beware EA.. Beware
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Dev box price is irrelevent for all of the major publishers simply due to scale of economies. And don't go thinking this'll allow the little guy to get into the developing game either, since that cost is a minor hurdle in the sea of problems with getting a game commercially shipped. Unless Nintendo is going to allow small time devs to publish via the virtual console, like Microsoft does with Live arcade. Even then, I've heard the average cost for a game is a few hundred thousand bucks.
I'm not sure if the graphics would necessarily be cheaper. You still have to hire graphic and 3D artists to design them, but they're more constrained. Perhaps they don't have to spend as much time on detailing a texture, or adding more polygons, I dunno. Maybe someone in the industry could elaborate on this? And if the game is a port anyways, it's likely to be developed primarily for the most powerful console, then graphic effects/features removed as needed for the other systems until they fit. This is far easier than the initial development, but the end result might not be pleasant (Look at Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for any console other than the 360...)
EAs understanding is, that they cannot gain big market shares on a nintendo console. But face it they are wrong, there is only one reason why Nintendo has such a huge marketshare, they are gaming gods when it comes to their game quality, every game, although they constantly recycle franchises, has something to it, and very often innovative gameplay. There are other companies which are in the same league, Ubisoft to some degree lately, Bioware, Sega to some extent and Capcom also lately. But EA is not one of them, there is a reason, why EA constantly only has mediocre success on Nintendo platforms, their games stick ultimately out as being half ass boring shovelware! Sure Nintendo is a strong contender, but you can make a lot of money on Nintendo platforms, as Square lately which sold millons of final fantasies on the GBA and DS. The problem is, you have to keep up a very high quality to be in the same league as Nintendo, and one thing is for sure, whith their industrial shovelware approach EA definitely has lost this game at the start!
The game is The Sims Wii, if oyu are interested.
Ah, but you said major studios.
Wii is mostly for short fun games, so the dev cost does matter.
We have EA and other publishers saying dev for PS3 or xBox360 at highdef costs them millions extra than it does for Wii, so if the graphics support costs are that high (layers, wire frames, images, etc) then it technically is cheaper to dev for the Wii.
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I think the name Revolution would make more sense if Nintendo just tried to make a powerhouse graphics machine, but considering the type of console the Wii is, it makes more sense to have it be a nonsensical name. When I think of the name Wii, I no longer think of urine, I think of making a child-like "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! This is fun!" type of sound. But that's just me. I am a dork.
I'm not sure if the graphics would necessarily be cheaper. You still have to hire graphic and 3D artists to design them, but they're more constrained. Perhaps they don't have to spend as much time on detailing a texture, or adding more polygons, I dunno. Maybe someone in the industry could elaborate on this?
Since moving to 3D games every generation of hardware leads to Game Development Costs becoming about 4 times as expensive as they were in the previous generation. There are two reasons for this, the content becomes much more detailed and you require far more content to make the game feel right.
In the N64/Playstation era. most models were simple and only had one very simple texture. You could re-use the same "soldier" model (or whatever) over and over because no one really noticed the repetition. Also an office was a room with a desk, chair and a file cabinet.
In the Gamecube/PS2/XBox era. models became more complex (hey, that guy actually has fingers) and used multi-texturing and some effects (bump mapping) to create a model. Re-using models continued at a much lower level than in the previous generation because people started to notice "clones" if they were over-used. Also an office was a room with a desk, chair, file cabinet, computer, desk lamp, garbage can and book shelf.
In this upcomming generation (PS3/XBox 360) models are far more complex, textures are far higher resolution, and the models are covered in texture based effects (normal maps, material properties, etc.). Re-using models is a massive problem because people will automatically pick up on the fact that you're using the same character model (or book shelf model) all the time. A office in this generation is a desk, chair, file cabinet, computer, telephone, desk lamp, book shelf, pens, coffee mug, paper, photos of a person's family, calendar, and all the drawers in the desk are filled with misc. items.
From a porting perspective, it would probably be far easier to generate your content for the Wii and upgrade everything for the PS3/XBox 360 than to go the other way; the reason for this is that it is easier to add complexity than it is to take compelexity away.
I am thinking, my friend, that you chose the wrong board to use the word "Japanime".
I agree. Third parties were unsuccessfull on the Cube because they simply did not try. Those who did try got good sales numbers (RE4, for example).
While I do own consoles from many manufacturers (including Sony and Sega), I did not buy an Xbox or a PS2. I bought a Cube. And I bought exactly one EA game: Need for Speed Underground. There are two issues with EA's games on the Cube:
So, on the Cube, they simply didn't even try to keep up with other publishers. The quality simply wasn't there, and the competition was too good.