Games axed at the eleventh hour due to unimpressive performance, paper claims
Nintendo axed a number Wii U demos at E3 due to concerns that they would fail to impress, a new report suggests.
Games consultancy group Hit Detection claims in a white paper that external developers had created Wii U game demos with “underclocked development kits” for this year’s E3.
These developers “worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3”, the paper read.
“However, due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles and focus instead on tech demos.”
Hit Detection’s white paper, which Develop has obtained a copy of, is the first documentation of Nintendo’s alleged decision to pull third-party games from the E3 show floor.
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Games built with the Unreal Engine, such as the next Batman and Darksiders titles, were initially scheduled for presentation at E3.
“THQ said Darksiders 2 was running on development hardware and could have been shown”, Hit Detection claimed.
The full technological potential of Nintendo’s next-generation system is a matter of debate.
Several sources speaking anonymously to Develop say the hardware specifics are yet to be finalised.
Unreal Engine and CryEngine 3 are said to be supported on the console, primarily due to the Wii U allowing for programmable shaders.
Well, I think Nintendo did right - you should never show a client something you know you will have to defend.
In this case the demos may have been thought to cause doubts on the system's performance which would have done no-one any favours, including those who worked so hard to get the demos complete on time.
It also means that they will have to be pretty good when they finally do surface, so I can't wait to see them up close when they are ready to show.
Remember Nintendo will want to 'control' what we 'see' when we are shown any demos - for the Wii they just showed people playing it, which was a brilliant strategy, hardly any footage of games was shown until the media we whipped into a frenzy about the crazy controller and how it would change the way we played games.
Look, even if Nintendo's Wu (console end) is basically current market tech, they will find a way to milk as many innovative games as they can out of it before it's dead. There is plenty of room for expanding gameplay/entertainment using the current HD tech we have. I am all for new technology, but there really is a LOT MORE that can be done with it in its current state. I'm not sure if Wu will accomplish this or be another console too focused on its control method, producing crops of underwhelming titles. I'm always down for some new gadgets and there are some aspects of Wu that would be nice to see in action.
