Shin'en praises Wii U dev environment, tech

by **robometal cowboy** » 08 Jan 2013 23:11

Shin'en praises Wii U dev environment, tech
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“The Wii U development environment allowed us to go from zero to a great, polished game in only half a year. I think we never ever got so far so fast on a new hardware, and we’ve worked on a lot of platforms in the past decades.

We decided to add a local two-player mode where one player uses the TV and the other one the Wii U GamePad. That meant the complete game world would need to be rendered twice for the Wii U GamePad display. That nearly doubled the burden on the GPU and CPU, but even then we were still able to maintain solid 60FPS without much effort on both displays. Then on top we even added camera streaming, so that the TV player can see the face of the Wii U GamePad player, which adds a lot of fun. We expected the additional camera encoding and streaming would add noticeable strain on the Wii U, but it was almost free. All this proved the system is very well balanced and allows developers without much effort, to use all the unique features. Another benefit of the Wii U is that the system memory is so large that we never have to load an asset again. Everything can be cached and load times are almost gone.” - Shin’en’s Manfred Linzner

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by **LegendofSantiago** » 08 Jan 2013 23:15

I'm amazed at what a relatively small dev can do for a download service at the system's launch. The visuals are outstanding. These guys are very talented

by **highlar** » 08 Jan 2013 23:36

Aren't these the same guys that did that REALLY nice looking 3D platformer for the WiiWare service? Jet Rocket or something like that? I think they are, and yes, even from that game I could tell how talented they were. They REALLY did a great job with the visuals even back then on the Wii, when others were saying the things they did just "couldn't be done". A great little company!

by **PEICanada7** » 08 Jan 2013 23:43

Yep they did Jett Rocket, and F.A.S.T. Racing League on WiiWare. Plus Nano Assault on the 3DS, and Wii U eShop.

by **shadowbuster** » 08 Jan 2013 23:55

Please present these statements to EA and +THQ+

by **joshb1983** » 09 Jan 2013 00:11

Then what the heck is wrong with nearly every other dev? Answer: LAZY.

by **Gakdudes** » 09 Jan 2013 00:24

perhaps they can explain to nintendo how to make the load times disappear.

by **Ragnarokstorymaker** » 09 Jan 2013 00:37

@Gakdudes
I doubt that the loading would disappear, reduced maybe, disappear? Doubtful.

On topic, I can wait to see what else these guys got brewing. Nano Assault Neo was soo much fun.

by **Devil_Rising** » 09 Jan 2013 00:43

LegendofSantiago wrote:I'm amazed at what a relatively small dev can do for a download service at the system's launch. The visuals are outstanding. These guys are very talented

Exactly. I think the better statement, is that it's amazing how a tiny dev can get huge quality in a short amount of time out of Nintendo hardware, yet certain bigger developers can't seem to be bothered.

by **younghavok** » 09 Jan 2013 01:13

Its statements like this that prove how lazy alot of devs are. The power is there if you want it.

by **Pichu2010** » 09 Jan 2013 01:19

Another reason to love Shin'en. There really is no excuse to complain about a console's abilities if you don't even try to use them like these guys do.

by **drew** » 09 Jan 2013 01:30

Exactly. These people aren't complaining, they are just producing quality work.Capcom, Konami,etc. take note.

by **Entity** » 09 Jan 2013 01:33

Now tell this to those naysayers!!!!

I am going to DL this game ASAP. Trine2 was a bit more magnetic the first time around, but you're next, Nano!

Wonder what Retro is doing with the hardware....

by **FrenchFryGuy** » 09 Jan 2013 02:25

These guys must be mistaken, because other devs, who haven't even worked on the system yet but like that's important right, say it's so underpowered and not next gen.

Who to believe. The devs who actually get down in the trenches and work with the system and develop games or the devs who sit on the sidelines and lob the same old insults and excuses Nintendo's way. Hmmm I just don't know.

by **kdognumba1** » 09 Jan 2013 02:49

Nano Assault Neo is an absolutely gorgeous game too. If they can pull all of that out of the system, I can't wait to see what the future holds.

by **austrian** » 09 Jan 2013 04:11

This is exactly what most people forget when they claim that Wii U is not even on par with ps360 etc.
The Wii U has tons of complex things to do at the same time compared to ps360.

Alone the fact that the Wii U is able to render the entire game-engine of Call of Duty BO2 TWICE(multiplayer on TV and gamepad) at the same time without any sort of compromises, should prove other devs/people that the Wii U is indeed a very potent console.

the key words are (as always): laziness or just incompetence

by **varoennauraa** » 09 Jan 2013 04:45

I don't yet have the Wii U, but whats even more impressive of them is, that the Nano Assault is freakishly awesome in 3DS too!

I am waiting for it to arrive in the eShop.

by **Chosenoneknuckles** » 09 Jan 2013 04:48

@joshb1983 Yep.

... But not when it comes to PS4/X-Box 8 games [as we'll soon see].

by **void3953** » 09 Jan 2013 05:14

austrian wrote:the key words are (as always): laziness or just incompetence

Actually, the real keyword is greed, though laziness and incompetence do factor into it.

Sony and MS pay for support, even when its not exclusive.

Nintendo will not and cannot.

Guess who's going to get the least support and/or praise?

by **varoennauraa** » 09 Jan 2013 05:23

Not proving anything, but just to measure console penises. Heres an example what is possible with similar circumstances(small, talented team and inexpensive downloadable game) between PS3 and Wii U:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn2y3wt7-RY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD168liSmh0

In my eyes, generational leap.
(not only far more impressive looking, but also much more complicated geometry and interactive surroundings)

by **metalpants** » 09 Jan 2013 13:56

I agree that most of the other big name devs are doing some lazy porting, but in their defense, this game has relatively low poly counts and not that many 3D models on-screen.

On the other hand, from what I've seen in the games I've bought (Batman AC, Tekken TT2, NGIII) the game is being rendered twice most of the time and STILL manages to deliver smooth gameplay.

There's no excuse for NGIII really, but for Batman AC, you'd be crazy to give the game crap. With as much detail as that game displays, I'm VERY surprised it remains playable even with framerate dips. Not to mention, again, it's being rendered TWICE... with a pretty beefy engine too. And we're talking about a PORT! So games designed with the Wii U's architecture in mind will blow people's minds away naturally, but I just wonder if Nintendo will be the one to do that... cause honestly, ZombiU could've been that game, but Ubisoft just has too much on their plate methinks.

by **gatorboi352** » 09 Jan 2013 15:29

FrenchFryGuy wrote:These guys must be mistaken, because other devs, who haven't even worked on the system yet but like that's important right, say it's so underpowered and not next gen.

Who to believe. The devs who actually get down in the trenches and work with the system and develop games or the devs who sit on the sidelines and lob the same old insults and excuses Nintendo's way. Hmmm I just don't know.

You have to take into account what type of games these devs are developing when speaking praise or bashing the Wii U hardware. In all fairness, Shin'en was developing a very basic (by today's technical standards) downloadable title that can't be THAT taxing on hardware.

On the other hand, BLOPS2 supports multiplayer gaming on TV and Gamepad in the same fashion that Shin'en is describing and, when invoked, the gaming world instantly takes a 30fps cut.

by **gatorboi352** » 09 Jan 2013 15:31

metalpants wrote:I agree that most of the other big name devs are doing some lazy porting, but in their defense, this game has relatively low poly counts and not that many 3D models on-screen.

On the other hand, from what I've seen in the games I've bought (Batman AC, Tekken TT2, NGIII) the game is being rendered twice most of the time and STILL manages to deliver smooth gameplay.

There's no excuse for NGIII really, but for Batman AC, you'd be crazy to give the game crap. With as much detail as that game displays, I'm VERY surprised it remains playable even with framerate dips. Not to mention, again, it's being rendered TWICE... with a pretty beefy engine too. And we're talking about a PORT! So games designed with the Wii U's architecture in mind will blow people's minds away naturally, but I just wonder if Nintendo will be the one to do that... cause honestly, ZombiU could've been that game, but Ubisoft just has too much on their plate methinks.

Are those games being rendered twice in the way that Shin'en is describing? Or is the gameplay on the Gamepad just an exact mirror of the gameplay on the TV? Big difference there.

by **ddddd** » 09 Jan 2013 20:26

FrenchFryGuy wrote:These guys must be mistaken, because other devs, who haven't even worked on the system yet but like that's important right, say it's so underpowered and not next gen.

Who to believe. The devs who actually get down in the trenches and work with the system and develop games or the devs who sit on the sidelines and lob the same old insults and excuses Nintendo's way. Hmmm I just don't know.

Tecmo's studios devs must have had dev kits to be able to port NG:RE and WO3, and they didnt praise the hardware.
Besides, Nano Assault is an eshop game, that could fit into a CD, of course they wont find performance problems with that.

by **metalpants** » 09 Jan 2013 21:53

gatorboi352 wrote:
metalpants wrote:I agree that most of the other big name devs are doing some lazy porting, but in their defense, this game has relatively low poly counts and not that many 3D models on-screen.

On the other hand, from what I've seen in the games I've bought (Batman AC, Tekken TT2, NGIII) the game is being rendered twice most of the time and STILL manages to deliver smooth gameplay.

There's no excuse for NGIII really, but for Batman AC, you'd be crazy to give the game crap. With as much detail as that game displays, I'm VERY surprised it remains playable even with framerate dips. Not to mention, again, it's being rendered TWICE... with a pretty beefy engine too. And we're talking about a PORT! So games designed with the Wii U's architecture in mind will blow people's minds away naturally, but I just wonder if Nintendo will be the one to do that... cause honestly, ZombiU could've been that game, but Ubisoft just has too much on their plate methinks.

Are those games being rendered twice in the way that Shin'en is describing? Or is the gameplay on the Gamepad just an exact mirror of the gameplay on the TV? Big difference there.

Well it's an exact mirror yes, but I do recall reading that it still taxes the CPU and whatnot due to the realtime compression sent to the GamePad. So I don't really know what to tell you. I'm not a developer myself *shrug*

That said, the same applies with BLOPS II which does indeed render two different perspectives at the same time so... there's that.