Behind the Scenes of Wii U Software Development

Sockatume writes "Digital Foundry has published an article from an anonymous but trusted developer outlining the challenges of developing for the Nintendo Wii U. The piece confirms some common perceptions of Nintendo, such as their attitude to third party developers, and presents a few surprises, like networking code not being made available to outside developers until the console was almost on sale."

Comments

People actually liked the controller?

[Stormwatch]

Almost immediately after the reveal the emails starting flying asking what people thought of the new console design and specification. The almost universal answer was, "I like the new controller, but the CPU looks a bit underpowered".

Funny, when they revealed it, I was underwhelmed by the controller. I thought: this looks so pointless, it's like a tablet that you can't carry around.

Re:People actually liked the controller?

[TWiTfan]

It just looks unwieldy to me. I mean, I have big hands and generally like a bigger controller (I like the 360 controller over the PS3 controller, for example), but even I have to balk at the Wii U controller. To me it looks even more uncomfortable than the old Dreamcast controller.

Re:People actually liked the controller?

[Sockatume]

Have you tried one? It's really nice, having the controls separated like that is much easier on your wrists and posture in general.

Re:People actually liked the controller?

[Moryath]

Funny thing: I liked the old DC controller and the original Xbox controller. As long as you didn't hold them improperly, they were great.

The trick is, you are supposed to actually hold them in your HAND, not your fingers. That prevents finger strain and a lot of the RSI problems people get into with awkward hand positioning. The side of the controller goes into the crease between thumb and forefinger and across your palm, and your thumbs are free to use the buttons while your index and middle finger operate the triggers.

The Xbox controller was the first one I ever had a marathon gaming session with and felt no pain after. Couldn't say that about any of nintendo's controllers, nor the silly Playstation controllers that jab your hand with a too-short flange underneath each side and force you to curl your ring and pinky fingers in to try to hold it up.

It's ergonomics 101.

The other feature I "like" about the WiiU's controller is the theoretical ability to play a game on it while someone else uses the TV. Not enough to buy a WiiU, but I like the concept of the feature. The problem with it is that from what I hear, most companies don't really take advantage of that - they assume you have the TV running the game, and the pad screen available for some other form of readout, and so going to single-screen mode hurts your gameplay options.

I guess that's kind of like with the Wii's controller. There were a few games that used it really well, and a lot of third-party games (looking square at Activision here) where they implemented shitty controls to "show off" the motion-sensing features when there was no good gameplay reason to bother with motion-sensing anything.

Re:People actually liked the controller?

[Sockatume]

The problem with the original Xbox controller is that the palm grip is was terribly intolerant of hand sizes: if your fingers don't reach the sticks and buttons in that posture, you're going to have to assume an uncomfortable one. It would've been fine if MS were producing a bespoke controller per user, or every user's hand was exactly average-sized, but you've got to design in a tolerance for natural variability. The finger grip of more traditionally-shaped controllers accomplishes that.

Re:People actually liked the controller?

[Sockatume]

That's the front and the back of the problem, really. People who try it like it, but unlike the Wii it's very hard to get people to that first step. It's not even easy to demonstrate in a store because of the size of it. I usually hop on the first demo pod I see of a new system, but I didn't get a shot on a WiiU until months after launch when someone brought one to a reunion. Completely shattered my expectations of what it would feel like in use.

Merketed product

[Dunbal]

I know lots of people who own a Wii (myself included), and amazingly few people who actually use it.

Article has been refuted from multiple sources

[JImbob0i0]

Following this 'anonymous developer' this article ended up being refuted by multiple developers ...

More bad blood and FUD by EA perhaps?

See more details here and here.

Re:Article has been refuted from multiple sources

[Sockatume]

I don't think you can call a collection of offhand tweets and casual remarks from developers a "refutation" when the article's about specific technical and toolchain issues.

Nintendo did the SMART thing.

[MindPrison]

Yes, it is underpowered, but do you really need that much power?

Let me first point out that when I first bought the Wii-U, the whole thing was a HUGE disappointment to me, it cost as much as a PS4, it had less power than an Xbox360, and the controller looked like a thing out of an 80s Fischer Price toy, huge, bulky and heavy - worst part of all...a RESISTIVE screen in our multi-touch society which made browsing on this thing, not as smooth as ANY tablet I know of. And the Updating mistake? Shortly after unpacking, I had to wait 3-4 hours for the thing to update...even on a 12mbit line, huge annoying update. And to no avail, the menues were horribly slow and annoying.

But...all that negativity aside, they actually did something right. Netflix was installed, and it was the BEST streaming app I've ever seen, not even on any of my other so called HD streaming devices...could even touch it. The practical video-selection menu on the Wii-U controller gave us an unbeatable feeling of browsing trough DVDs in a video rental store, and it could display information about the movie - while watching the actual movie on the bigscreen, this brought back the "hold-your-dvd-in-your-hands" feel when I used to rent/own movies back in the days, it was right - it felt good. And the streaming quality was totally unseen on any other device. It also recovered whatever you saw earlier...faster than anywhere, I was in Video heaven. That APP alone, saved the Wii-U for me when the lack of titles were so obvious

But the problems wasn't over yet, Nintendos endless arrogance shows up again and again, the Netflix APP stopped working properly somewhere mid April 2013 because a Nintendo update broke it. Netflix didn't respond to the thousands of complaints...and Nintendo left it up to its volunteers at the MiiVerse to try to help people re-install the App..but to no Avail, this "Black-Screen" issue with Netflix lasted nearly 5 Months before they actually fixed it. But after that - all was peachy in Nintendo land.

Nintendo DOES still have issues with connecting players online (eg. Camera / Chat features, and Wii Sports Bowling that rarely if ever connects with another player), Nintendo claims it's owners fault for having a too strong firewall, not all ports available etc...but nothing is ever wrong with Nintendos programming, needless to say...we've already had a team of experts on this (our cable supporters & full time technicians, who have even set up a special Nintendo Wii-U pass all on their routers, but to no avail - it IS actually Nintendos fault...but you know the Nintendo team, they are NEVER at fault.

So, what is so smart about Nintendo then? Well, they made this device available before EVERYONE else, this means...they've had a YEAR to iron out baby bugs and other startup issues. Today the Wii-U is a great little box with lots of 3rd party games sold for very low prices (we're talking dollar store prices here), and some great titles like Super Mario 3D World...which is in my opinion, worth purchasing the Wii-U for alone, it's a feast to gorge upon, but should have been released WITH the console back in the days of early release.

I was heading off to purchase an PS4, and it was quickly sold out in November/December. I could get one in January, but seeing how much fun I'm having with the Wii-U today, and remembering the launch issues it had...plus seeing the PS4 owners having problems abundance and a severe lack of fun titles...makes me think I'm doing just fine, and I suspect - so will a lot of people, expect to pick up PS4 cheap in the nearest future.

Oh well

[Jmac217]

I still like my Wii U