To preface this, I do not own a Wii U but numerous times I have considered getting one. I didn't get a lot of mileage out of the Wii, but what I did get out of it was often good enough to justify the purchase. So this is more of a question I've been asking myself, and the people smart enough to answer it with panache are here, so here goes:
It seems to me that it's not out of the question that developers are, at this point, purposefully trying to phase out the Wii U. At first I didn't even understand why I thought that, but the more I've thought about it, the more it seems like a real possibility.
First, we've seen quite a few threads lately talking about developer dissatisfaction with Wii U -- the thing that initially comes to mind was the thread about ZombiU and how it failed to turn be a commercial success (though as I understand it, did better critically).
That alone is not enough to go by; it just means, to me at least, that one developer had what we'll just call "bad luck" for now -- it's not uncommon with new platforms for the platform maintainer to fund partially at least new games, since it's understood that the installed base is small, and it's more of an investment.
Lately though, my attention has turned to technology. The Wii U seems not to be a behemoth in this regard, but the amount of near-vitriol surrounding its slightly-less-than-next-gen capabilities has caught my attention. We're living in a middleware world, and when a company abandons a middleware solution for a console, it doesn't strike me as a good sign. We can see this in the Frostbite engine as well as UE4, though there are undoubtedly more. The excuses range, but many of them sound to me like, in spirit, the kind of things MS was saying pre-DRM reversal about Xbone ("Oh boy do we have a console for you people without internet! It's called Xbox 360"). Except now it's "Our technology for that platform is _insert last-gen tech_."
Now, I will not pretend to be an authority on the subject, but I'm a programmer at least and the way I take this is "Well, we can modify the engine(s) such that they will run on X console, but when you strip X, Y and Z feature away from the engine itself, it looks and feels more like last-gen tech anyway, so why bother?" I get that, but it's not the pragmatism of it that is bothersome, it's really the spirit of the thing. You can't toss a dog a bone, kind of thing.
That's what led me to the realization that, frankly, it costs a lot of money to do all of this. When you're looking out for the interests of more than one fixed-hardware machine, you need to account for all of those extra development costs. In an ideal world (but not a practical one, since we all like competition) we build for one platform, and try to get as many people as possible on that platform.
So, in my mind, it's not out of the question that this may be a concerted effort. The Wii U stands as a relatively annoying niche to some of these developers, I'd imagine, since there's probably enough people there in that console space to make money, but it complicates matters.
There have been some stand-out examples of games on the Wii U where the work was done to move a game there, but none of them games provide any particular technical challenge on behalf of devs to get it working. If it's an UE3 game, no big deal, right? But the problem will get larger and larger as many move to adopt newer middleware; this really puts Wii U owners in a horrible spot, since almost out of necessity they may need to move out from under that.
Now, I'll admit, this could just be stupid ramblings, and Nintendo's plans will come together and the Wii U has a long life ahead of it yet, so this may all sound very conspiratorial. But, I would hasten to mention that when you're dealing with the high-level partnerships that occur in the technological space, companies can certainly do things that are entirely legal, but can, in effect, kill a piece of hardware. I realize that's part of the game, and it's "survival of the fittest" in the console market, but I wondered if GAF had any thoughts on this.
edit: I see there's a thread already partially on this subject, so if a mod wants to close it that's fine. But I kind of wanted this to be a bit more about the technical aspects and middleware than particularly "tin foil"-style propagandizing.
It seems to me that it's not out of the question that developers are, at this point, purposefully trying to phase out the Wii U. At first I didn't even understand why I thought that, but the more I've thought about it, the more it seems like a real possibility.
First, we've seen quite a few threads lately talking about developer dissatisfaction with Wii U -- the thing that initially comes to mind was the thread about ZombiU and how it failed to turn be a commercial success (though as I understand it, did better critically).
That alone is not enough to go by; it just means, to me at least, that one developer had what we'll just call "bad luck" for now -- it's not uncommon with new platforms for the platform maintainer to fund partially at least new games, since it's understood that the installed base is small, and it's more of an investment.
Lately though, my attention has turned to technology. The Wii U seems not to be a behemoth in this regard, but the amount of near-vitriol surrounding its slightly-less-than-next-gen capabilities has caught my attention. We're living in a middleware world, and when a company abandons a middleware solution for a console, it doesn't strike me as a good sign. We can see this in the Frostbite engine as well as UE4, though there are undoubtedly more. The excuses range, but many of them sound to me like, in spirit, the kind of things MS was saying pre-DRM reversal about Xbone ("Oh boy do we have a console for you people without internet! It's called Xbox 360"). Except now it's "Our technology for that platform is _insert last-gen tech_."
Now, I will not pretend to be an authority on the subject, but I'm a programmer at least and the way I take this is "Well, we can modify the engine(s) such that they will run on X console, but when you strip X, Y and Z feature away from the engine itself, it looks and feels more like last-gen tech anyway, so why bother?" I get that, but it's not the pragmatism of it that is bothersome, it's really the spirit of the thing. You can't toss a dog a bone, kind of thing.
That's what led me to the realization that, frankly, it costs a lot of money to do all of this. When you're looking out for the interests of more than one fixed-hardware machine, you need to account for all of those extra development costs. In an ideal world (but not a practical one, since we all like competition) we build for one platform, and try to get as many people as possible on that platform.
So, in my mind, it's not out of the question that this may be a concerted effort. The Wii U stands as a relatively annoying niche to some of these developers, I'd imagine, since there's probably enough people there in that console space to make money, but it complicates matters.
There have been some stand-out examples of games on the Wii U where the work was done to move a game there, but none of them games provide any particular technical challenge on behalf of devs to get it working. If it's an UE3 game, no big deal, right? But the problem will get larger and larger as many move to adopt newer middleware; this really puts Wii U owners in a horrible spot, since almost out of necessity they may need to move out from under that.
Now, I'll admit, this could just be stupid ramblings, and Nintendo's plans will come together and the Wii U has a long life ahead of it yet, so this may all sound very conspiratorial. But, I would hasten to mention that when you're dealing with the high-level partnerships that occur in the technological space, companies can certainly do things that are entirely legal, but can, in effect, kill a piece of hardware. I realize that's part of the game, and it's "survival of the fittest" in the console market, but I wondered if GAF had any thoughts on this.
edit: I see there's a thread already partially on this subject, so if a mod wants to close it that's fine. But I kind of wanted this to be a bit more about the technical aspects and middleware than particularly "tin foil"-style propagandizing.
