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Switch dev says he's worked on Wii games that were sub-par due to the team's lack of enthusiasm for the Wiimote

by rawmeatcowboy
19 January 2018
GN Version 5.0

Brandon Sheffield is creative director of Necrosoft Games, which just released their game Gunhouse for Switch. Brandon has worked on games like Sine Mora EX, Dragon’s Crown, and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. He's also worked on some Wii and DS games in the past.

Brandon's latest article dives into the recent reveal of Nintendo Labo. According to him, his favorite thing about the game is that he doesn't have to pick it up or support it. It's there for people who share interest in it, but it's not a required part of Switch development. This leads into a discussion about how attributes of the Wiimote and DS were unavoidable, and had to be factored into games.

I’ve worked on Wii games that wound up being sub-par because nobody on the team was enthusiastic about the Wiimote. The DS games I’ve worked on couldn’t come to any other platform without basically being remade. All this means Nintendo’s most recent platforms have been risky bets. For the last 10-plus years, if you made a game for a Nintendo platform, you either had to do a lot of extra work to make it fit, or you had to target that platform exclusively and trust you’d make your money there, ignoring the potential of future ports.

You have to wonder if stuff like this happens in Xbox One or PS4 development. Are there dev team members who aren't into aspects of those platforms, therefore making them lackluster experiences? I'd imagine it happens on some degree, but much less than what you see on Nintendo platforms.

[Link]