Frostbite Technical Director on why Frostbite never came to Wii U

If you think FB2 can run on Wii U then you literally don't know what you are talking about - Arthur Gies


Stop believing what companies tell you. You have to look no further than the SimCity fiasco to know that EA is full of crap 99.9% of the time.

FB2 or 3 not being on Wii U is not a hardware issue, nor is it a money issue. If MS or Sony was in the same position as Nintendo was in Wii U, EA would still support them 100%.


EA does not want to support to Nintendo for whatever reason.
 
gofreak said:
Nintendo had 7 years to make a system that could, at the very least, offer developers easy access to competitive current gen performance.

Making devs contort themselves to reach that level on 2012 hardware is a shame. What could or couldn't be done with a massive optimisation effort is besides the point, really. If you're coming this late with that level of hardware power, you cannot be demanding about developer effort. A certain level of performance with relatively little effort ought to be a given.
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Exactly. Noone is saying that the Wii-U can't do PS360 level graphics, but the fact seems to be that developers in some cases - depending on how the engine is built - have to rebuild their engine because Nintendo just didn't check the damn boxes on CPU and memory speed.
 
AzaK said:
Haha this thread needed that.

Please explain how and ensure you go back over the development of Wii U dev kits and advancements. Connect them with the time DICE got their kit (you must obviously know this in order to raise the point you did) and tell me why you are sure DICE knows as much about WiiU as some people here who have seen more recent specs and internals.

Please also be aware that I was not claiming what I said as fact but speculating why DICE's decision might have been premature.

Your turn.
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You are seriously reaching if you think talented developers at DICE don't know what they are talking about in comparison to a bunch of random posters with no credentials on message board. It's not even a need to know basis. It's normal logic, which you obviously lack. It's kind of sad, really.

But keep going though because it amuses the rest of us. Not that it makes any difference since you're not getting any game developed on Frostbite 3 on Wii U.
 
timetokill said:
Why is the Wii U looking out into the rain? It's stuck inside the house?

edit: Wait, I guess the pad would be reversed if that were the case. But then why is the controller semi-transparent/turning invisible?
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I think it's a reference to a webcomic where psp doesn't get taken outside with his owner, he looks out of the window as his owner leaves like a dog who doesn't get to go out for a walk.

I think it's either from penny arcade or castle vidcons, I can't remember.

Not sure what the rain is for though.
 
Replicant said:
You are seriously reaching if you think talented developers at DICE don't know what they are talking about in comparison to a bunch of random posters with no credentials on message board. It's not even a need to know basis. It's normal logic, which you obviously lack. It's kind of sad, really.
Click to expand...


You sound like Arthur Gies
 
gofreak said:
Nintendo had 7 years to make a system that could, at the very least, offer developers easy access to competitive current gen performance.

Making devs contort themselves to reach that level on 2012 hardware is a shame. What could or couldn't be done with a massive optimisation effort is besides the point, really. If you're coming this late with that level of hardware power, you cannot be demanding about developer effort. A certain level of performance with relatively little effort ought to be a given.
Click to expand...

Yes, well said :).
 
Easy_D said:
And Frostbite 3 is on PS360 as well. The PS4 doesn't really factor into the discussion when you consider that fact.
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DICE started working on 360 with BF:MC like 7 years ago, pretty sure know every nook a cranny they can pull out of it.
Fact could put of a high res texture pack in BF3, that didn't impact on frames is pretty impressive.
 
Maybe if the Wii U sales recovers, EA will develop a "Frostbite U" engine. ;) Seriously, it will be interesting to see what happens with this situation in the next few months.
 
OryoN said:
Tools came up as one of the biggest reasons why NFS:MWU turned out as well as it did. I don't know to what extent DICE tested their engine on Wii U, but based on Criterion's comments, it's very UNLIKELY that proper tools were available at the time of testing. Also, whether or not DICE took Criterion's approach to Wii U's architecture (looking at what the processors are fast/slow at, and why) is anyone's guess, but they definitely couldn't have exploit the hardware's strength without the proper tools.

Anyway, it is what it is.

Carry on...
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Was the cut-down multiplayer count a factor of the network not being progressive enough, hardware constraint, or just a developer decision?
 
Pie and Beans said:
Definitive version of Need For Speed: Most Wanted -- sold like shit.
ZombiU, totally exclusive and for launch -- Nintendo fans en masse don't care, low sales.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate -- only selling to usual MonHun crowd.

Fact of the matter is, most people waiting on getting a WiiU are doing so because the new big Mario, Zelda, or Smash isn't out.
Click to expand...

NfS:MW sold badly because it was a port of a game that was released 5 months prior on every other major system at which point your market pretty much becomes people that own a wii u and no other console.

Shame ZombiU didn't sell more, it's really good, but in reality launch games don't sell much anyway even the original uncharted 10 weeks to hit 1 million sales, and that is a first party title released one year into a systems lifetime.

and i think you are underestimating the size of the MonHun crowd...

The problem is that there hasn't been much more than that, i havet bought a Wii U game since launch, and that would have been mitigated by rayman had that released as originally planned.
 
How come I feel that no matter how powerful the system was, they would come up the same excuse...?

Is it just me? I feel like it can't just be me who thinks that something else is going on here behind the scenes. I'm just really surprised we've not heard anything after all this time.
 
Meelow said:
Nintendo and EA fighting remind me of little kids fighting.

EA: "We want you to do everything I say!"
Nintendo: "But you want us to make Origin our main platform for Wii U, we can't do that, sorry.
EA: "WHAT!!!???"
Nintendo: "You heard us"
EA: "Our partnership is over! We won't give your stupid Wii U anything!"
and so on...
Click to expand...

Your interpretation doesn't seem to portray Nintendo as childish. Curious.
 
kirby_fox said:
How come I feel that no matter how powerful the system was, they would come up the same excuse...?

Is it just me? I feel like it can't just be me who thinks that something else is going on here behind the scenes. I'm just really surprised we've not heard anything after all this time.
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So you think if there was a lot of money to be made on the WiiU EA wouldn't develop for it because they don't like Nintendo ? I find that very unlikely.


Do people find it that unresonable that porting the engine isn't worth the cost/effort considering current software sales?
 
DragonSworne said:
If you think FB2 can run on Wii U then you literally don't know what you are talking about - Arthur Gies


Stop believing what companies tell you. You have to look no further than the SimCity fiasco to know that EA is full of crap 99.9% of the time.

FB2 or 3 not being on Wii U is not a hardware issue, nor is it a money issue. If MS or Sony was in the same position as Nintendo was in Wii U, EA would still support them 100%.


EA does not want to support to Nintendo for whatever reason.
Click to expand...

This isn't EA or Dice PR, it's the personal account of the engine technical director.
 
frankie_baby said:
Doesn't mean he cant have been given a PR script to follow if anyone asks
Click to expand...

What you typed doesn't make sense, If you going to affiliate to a Company you work for, anything you say can have potential repercussion. See that tweet done by that Microsoft employee #Livewithit regarding "Always on" inquiry. That how the real world works. It doesn't mean you have to follow a PR script but you need to careful and sensible in your tweeting.
 
OryoN said:
I'm not here to argue with trolls, not here to bash nor defend DICE. Just here to bring something sensible to the 'discussion,' if it can even be called that.

If they are talking about testing their FB2 engine(not even 3, but 2?) on Wii U, then I wonder how mature the system's software tools were at that time.

Criterion mentioned two main reasons why Need For Speed: MWU ran even better than PS360 versions, with PC textures and improved (night) lighting to boot.

One reason was: According to them, they didn't just take a look a the specs, did a premature analysis and walked away, but they tried to understand why the processors were weak/strong in certain areas and why, and then took advantage of the strengths.

The second - and most important to this discussion - was this:




Tools came up as one of the biggest reasons why NFS:MWU turned out as well as it did. I don't know to what extent DICE tested their engine on Wii U, but based on Criterion's comments, it's very UNLIKELY that proper tools were available at the time of testing. Also, whether or not DICE took Criterion's approach to Wii U's architecture (looking at what the processors are fast/slow at, and why) is anyone's guess, but they definitely couldn't have exploit the hardware's strength without the proper tools.

Anyway, it is what it is.

Carry on...
Click to expand...

If Disney is dead serious about EA making multiplat games for all three next gen systems, I do hope Criterion can help other EA devs as mentors to make the most of the Wii U, considering they seem to be one of few devs to back up their claims of the Wii U being very capable hardware.

At the same time, I hope they wouldn't be entirely shoved with port duties, as I sincerely want to see their effort on an original Wii U game one day.
 
PairOfFilthySocks said:
I am quite confident indeed it is a combination of those two issues.
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Based on?

Panajev2001a said:
Yes, well said :).
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While I don't necessarily disagree with what gofreak's general statement says, the reality of the industry is that platforms are often released in a very raw state WRT toolsets, which requires a lot of good will, or heck, faith on behalf of the devs and publishers alike to carry on with their launch-window projects on those platforms. A platform vendor can either provide for a massive performance margin to accommodate for that initial 'disparity' between what the platform can do, and what developers can actually extract out of it, or make sure they launch with really mature tools. Apparently nintendo did neither. Does that somehow translate to 'FB2 was a poor fit for WiiU'?, which, low and behold, seems to be the subject of this thread?
 
kirby_fox said:
How come I feel that no matter how powerful the system was, they would come up the same excuse...?

Is it just me? I feel like it can't just be me who thinks that something else is going on here behind the scenes. I'm just really surprised we've not heard anything after all this time.
Click to expand...

It's not just you. Many feel that way and with good reason. Many publishers and developers just make excuses. Those excuses will change depending on the hardware but in the end they're all just excuses.
 
Codeblue said:
Did you also believe everything Maxis told you about SimCity?

That's a poor argument to counter a poor argument.
Click to expand...

I don't think one needs to believe everything these companies say as though it's the gospel truth. Obviously, it's quite reasonable to assume that -- if nothing else -- differences in perspective will yield different conclusions. However, what I do think is somewhat out of line is people who have no experience with the Frostbite Engine or Wii U hardware not simply raising a skeptical eyebrow at claims that the Wii U may not be ideal for the task, but going way beyond that and deriding any assessment of the hardware that's not positive as BS.

I don't think that anyone doubts that if Wii Us were flying off the shelves and software sales were soaring that they could probably get something up and running. But that doesn't mean that failure to do so and dissatisfaction with early efforts means that they're hacks who are besmirching the fine, upstanding tech encased in the Wii U due to political pressure from the higherups, as some seem to suggest. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that he may know a little about what he's talking about, even if we don't need to defer to him as the ultimate authority on what the Wii U is capable of.
 
blu said:
Based on?


While I don't necessarily disagree with what gofreak's general statement says, the reality of the industry is that platforms are often released in a very raw state WRT toolsets, which requires a lot of good will, or heck, faith on behalf of the devs and publishers alike to carry on with their launch-window projects on those platforms. A platform vendor can either provide for a massive performance margin to accommodate for that initial 'disparity' between what the platform can do, and what developers can actually extract out of it, or make sure they launch with really mature tools. Apparently nintendo did neither. Does that somehow translate to 'FB2 was a poor fit for WiiU'?, which, low and behold, seems to be the subject of this thread?
Click to expand...

blu: saying what I'm too incompetent and lazy to say myself on GAF since 2012.
 
The technical statement is bullshit because we have statements by developers of other high end engines running beautifully on Wii U like CE3. There was no effort into making the engine run well because of business decisions.

The ROI statement is bullshit based on the userbase because they are betting heavily on PS4 and Durango and we know the userbase for that, yes 0. EA as every other Pub must know or predict that Nintendo will hit with vengeance this second half of the year. SO there is a possibility of thei userbase growing.

So that leaves with two reasons:

1. Simply they believe 3rd party games dont sell on Nintendo platforms
2. Origingate .....

The thing is that I am inclining for the latter, something did went south.

Someone made a list of 3rd party games coming to the Wii U and IMO the picture is not of doom. In fact I would say that it is more the Pubs that are supporting than the ones that are not.
 
gofreak said:
Nintendo had 7 years to make a system that could, at the very least, offer developers easy access to competitive current gen performance.

Making devs contort themselves to reach that level on 2012 hardware is a shame. What could or couldn't be done with a massive optimisation effort is besides the point, really. If you're coming this late with that level of hardware power, you cannot be demanding about developer effort. A certain level of performance with relatively little effort ought to be a given.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a fair assessment.

Nintendo was never realistically going to go nearly as high-spec as PS4/Durango, but that doesn't mean Wii U was smartly designed from a development perspective even considering the twin goals of PS3/360+ performance and low TDP.

megabytecr said:
So that leaves with two reasons:

1. Simply they believe 3rd party games dont sell on Nintendo platforms
2. Origingate .....

The thing is that I am inclining for the latter, something did went south.
Click to expand...

No, option 1 is a more than adequate explanation.
 
megabytecr said:
The technical statement is bullshit because we have statements by developers of other high end engines running beautifully on Wii U like CE3. There was no effort into making the engine run well because of business decisions.
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So, you've got hearsay from one developer that hasn't released a game on the platform saying that his engine performed well, and one developer that works with a completely different engine saying that early tests weren't promising, and your position is that the only logical conclusion that can be drawn here is that the latter is peddling BS? You aren't allowing for any possibility that there might be differences in how the engines are optimized that might add legitimacy to the notion that the Wii U is a less than ideal candidate for Frostbite? Because hearsay that Cryengine performed well automatically means that every other engine will surely perform just fine?
 
Steve Youngblood said:
So, you've got hearsay from one developer that hasn't released a game on the platform saying that his engine performed well, and one developer that works with a completely different engine saying that early tests weren't promising, and your position is that the only logical conclusion that can be drawn here is that the latter is peddling BS? You aren't allowing for any possibility that there might be differences in how the engines are optimized that might add legitimacy to the notion that the Wii U is a less than ideal candidate for Frostbite? Because hearsay that Cryengine performed well automatically means that every other engine will surely perform just fine?
Click to expand...

We also don't know when the testing for Frostbite was done. It could have been before the clock bump and before the tools were mature enough to do the engine justice. There isn't enough information here to really draw any conclusions about the programmers or the current state of Wii U development, but that hasn't stopped anybody from firing up their jump to conclusions mat.

The most likely scenario is that the effort to optimize the engine wasn't worth whatever time they would have had to put into it, especially with EA's recent conservatism about where they spend their development money.
 
Father_Brain said:
No, option 1 is a more than adequate explanation.
Click to expand...

It's also an untrue one as third party games do sell on Nintendo platforms.

However it also helps if they don't actively provide reasons (missing features, lack of acknowledgment it even exist, etc) to not buy a game on Nintendo hardware. Which is what some publishers have been doing in recently years. Some games have actually managed to do well inspite of that.

BronsonLee said:
Bit off topic, but I'm curious: Would Wii U owners prefer Origin to what Nintendo implemented?
Click to expand...

No. I don't care for how the client is designed. Also it doesn't offer anything Nintendo isn't offering. In fact Nintendo has offered more in options then what is available in Origin.
 
Schnozberry said:
We also don't know when the testing for Frostbite was done. It could have been before the clock bump and before the tools were mature enough to do the engine justice. There isn't enough information here to really draw any conclusions about the programmers or the current state of Wii U development, but that hasn't stopped anybody from firing up their jump to conclusions mat.

The most likely scenario is that the effort to optimize the engine wasn't worth whatever time they would have had to put into it, especially with EA's recent conservatism about where they spend their development money.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. However, I do think it's a bit different to argue that as a plausible conclusion one might draw, and suggesting that this guy is lazy and/or peddling BS and probably doesn't know what he's talking about or is intentionally trying to harm Nintendo's reputation.
 
Steve Youngblood said:
I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. However, I do think it's a bit different to argue that as a plausible conclusion one might draw, and suggesting that this guy is lazy and/or peddling BS and probably doesn't know what he's talking about or is intentionally trying to harm Nintendo's reputation.
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I never claimed that. It's just one of those GAF narratives that never dies. Just like the "Wii U is weaker than PS360" stuff that will persist until the thing is retired. People believe what they want to believe. Development hurdles are much easier to overcome when the money is flowing and the willpower exists, and in this case neither of this things appear to be in the cards.
 
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