Kotaku: The Wii U Won't Be Getting Unreal Engine 4

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Nintendo would not have gained third party support by way of competitive specs. If anything, the new excuse would be concern over the Wii U's price point. The simple truth is that Nintendo fans will occasionally invest in an exclusive title from third parties, but they only really flock to first party releases.

As much as I'm a fan and would love to see Nintendo flourish, I've made peace with that. I'll be supporting other hardware for these other experiences and the Wii U for what's exclusive.
 
AstroNut325 said:
If you want a truly unique experience... then why does third party support matter? The only benefit of third party support is to get content destined for (or already on) another platform.

It sounds like Nintendo fans are getting exactly what they want. The "UNIQUE" experience.
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Your point makes no sense.

They want the unique experience but they also want to be able to play the top third party games from other systems.

What we, or I would think anyone, would want are three systems are exactly the same essentially in terms of what they offer. Ideally I would want a system that offered the most of everything. Best Nintendo first party games plus the very best of the 3rd party offerings. Unfortunately Nintendo doomed themselves by thinking the Wii strategy can simply be replicated.

What I find most surprising are the comments they made leading up to the Wii U.

That they learned from the long periods/droughts between big releases from the Wii and even the poor launch of the 3DS. Yet here we are with no games since launch and no work on Pikmin 3.

They also talked over and over about partnerships with 3rd parties and especially EA. Yet here we are and no one is committing to it outside of some multiplatform ports.

WHAT HAPPENED? Were they just flat out lying? Why? Why lie so far out from the actual release of the system? I mean some of these comments were from early 2011. What purpose did they serve? Surely they didn't affect the early adopters of Nintendo loyalists. And they sure as hell didn't win over any new audience. So either they just flat out lied to get some good will or something seriously went wrong between them and some of the major third parties out there.
 
kidtamagotchi said:
Please list them.
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Ok let's see:

1. The name
2. How the console looks
3. The price
4. The lack of Nintendo games, Nintendo should have expanded years ago with Wii money
5. Tablet controller
6. A multiplayer launch game like Nintendoland lacking online
7. Terrible marketing
8. Not launching with a core Nintendo game (like 3D Mario), but instead with NSMBU which looks almost the same as the Wii version.
9. Launching Wii mini
10. Uhh, no Miyamoto autograph on the console
 
Why would anyone play a multiplatform game on Wii U if they own another stronger system, barring some execution of the gamepad that really bolsters the gameplay and fits the genre?

Wii U tries to be both its own thing and a power console and because of this is failing at both. As a system, Jack of all trades, master of none.
 
Mystic_Wanderer said:
I love this "I have nothing to back this up other than my favorite company isn't doing well, so all will do poorly!" mentality.
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Nope...console gaming is in trouble...people just try and pretend it's just Nintendo. We don't know for certain since the others aren't out yet, but it's just a feeling I have.

Also, I care about console gaming as a whole doing well and Nintendo is a part of that. As a whole people should be more worried about Sony as they're in a more dire position. More than just their gaming division are bleeding money.
 
I like the way that being "loss averse" is a bad business model but "almost ruining your company through loss" is a good one.

I don't expect to see Nintendo exit the hardware business, but I do foresee a distinct recalibration. I imagine we'll see an X86 box by around 2016, and every manufacturer will be more forthcoming with incremental upgrades ala Apple. I would be surprised if the launch PS4 is as powerful as the system is in 2018.

"Yeah, your iPad can play that game too...but look at the extra effects on mine!"

All games will run, they'll just perform better on a newer version if a developer decides they have room to up the frame rate / resolution at minimal cost..

Their next mobile device is anyone's guess, though an app focused & episodic future in that area is probably going to be worth investigating, maybe two worlds of Mario for £5 (or the full thing for say £25) and so on and so forth. Animal Crossing and Pokemon could be extremely fruitful under such a structure.
 
capslock said:
Iwata: Hey everyone, ido said he doesn't really care about third party games. Stay on course!
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Should I pretend to care about third party support for the Wii U for my opinion to matter? Don't confuse my preference of games with business advice to Nintendo, Billy.
 
And Now for Something Completely Different

images
 
infiniteheteroskdasticity said:
This isn't all particularly surprising. People like myself that cover the entertainment sector for financial institutions have been saying since its reveal that the Wii U was a very poor business decision for Nintendo. It will at best be a breakeven product that does nothing to grow the brand beyond the bubble of dedicated fans that will buy it purely for first party games. A lot of the casual Wii Sports gamers are ditching consoles for tablets and smartphones so the console consumer will be a lot more traditional this generation. Nintendo got that completely wrong.

Nintendo had not one but two opportunities to position itself perfectly. The first was back in 2010 when it could have released a WiiU specced system (minus the technically impressive but expensive and pointless tablet controller) and managed to make the HD console market a true 3 way fight. Nobody would have been looking at the PS4 or Xbox 3 at that point and the Wii was still selling well so third parties would have jumped at the opportunity to capture some of the Wii market base before tablets became a big deal. The second opportunity was last year where they could have used the money and BOM share spent on the gamepad to improve the Wii U specs to something around the 1-1.4TF range and pull a XBox 360 on the PS4 and Durango. Not only would Nintendo have been first to market with a true next gen console but one of MS or Sony (likely the latter) would have been forced to rush their own console to market to cover. If Sony had been forced to announce the PS4 a year back, it would have likely had a weaker GPU and only 2GB of RAM. This would have left Nintendo in the same ballpark performance wise with a product out to market much earlier and third parties would have once again supported the system.

By doing what they did, Nintendo gave Sony and MS enough time to significantly boost their next generation specs and are as a result on the outside looking in this time around.
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They would have never spent the BOM on the tablet to up the specs, because in the grand scheme of things it would raise their development budget, this way they can still sell cheap-looking games running on cheap inferior hardware but with a gimmick. Adding the gimmick is nowhere as expensive as actually competing on the graphical front, something they have given up long ago. In a way, they're delusional in that they probably believe somehow a team like Retro is still competitive on their hardware.
 
Brainiac 8 said:
Nope...console gaming is in trouble...people just try and pretend it's just Nintendo. We don't know for certain since the others aren't out yet, but it's just a feeling I have.

Also, I care about console gaming as a whole doing well and Nintendo is a part of that. As a whole people should be more worried about Sony as they're in a more dire position. More than just their gaming division are bleeding money.
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Yeah, right. I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune if the Wii U wasn't floundering like it is.
 
TalesOfWin said:
Losing money in the short run yes, but in the long run they would probably sell more consoles with better 3rd party support. Right now it looks abysmal.

and yes, I have a Wii U so I am not some anti nintendo guy. I havent played on it since NSMB U though.
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I'm not saying you are hell I'm typing this on the gamepad right now i just feel that the same people who are saying lol nintendo would still be saying lol nintendo no matter what they released.
 
Phoenician_Viking said:
Where do people get this info? I would like to see their crystal ball.
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Depends on hype - which is looking to be effective. The big thing is that advertisement really has to show how much better looking the games are compared to current PS3 and 360 efforts.

The difference was clear from PS2 to PS3 and previous. It may be trickier this time around based on what I've seen so far
 
peaceiscloser said:
While this news is depressing, I hope that Nintendo's about to engage Panic Mode: Wii U edition and perform some magic to at least remedy the situation. I think that Nintendo would dig some cash out of the warchest before things get truly miserable.
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They'll need a little more than just "some magic" i'm afraid...
 
hydragonwarrior said:
Depends on hype - which is looking to be effective. The big thing is that advertisement really has to show how much better looking the games are compared to current PS3 and 360 efforts.

The difference was clear from PS2 to PS3 and previous. It may be trickier this time around based on what I've seen so far
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Keep in mind that the HD market was pretty shaky until 2009-10, despite the huge advance.
 
I only read the first page, UE4 may well end up on WiiU. It all depends on the dev that makes a UE4 game. If they want the game on WiiU also it will be there, all they have to do is port it. Porting isn't something developers aren't used to doing. Just don't expect Epic to make a WiiU UE4 game.

If no one ports their UE4 game to WiiU nintendo knew what they were getting into. They lowballed WiiU's specs to save money and allow for a screen controller. Good thing they have Mario.
 
Nintendo's success is usually on the merits of their art direction, and ability to hold games and iterate.

Who here is only buying a WiiU this generation? Who here only had a Wii?

You have three other viable options in the PS4, NextBox, and PC.

We'll see what the price points of the new consoles ends up being. Nintendo is actually at a price advantage, and if they get a decent (better) marketing team they should be able to clean up come Christmas.

Who knows, if NOA has the Pokemon Skylanders ready for Christmas, sales could jump dramatically - Or maybe Nintendo will dump a bunch of money to be the featured platform for Disney Infinity.

That or Nintendo needs to make their big play and acquire some other entity. Capcom seems the logical choice at this juncture. A few years ago I would have said Level5, but they seemed to have risen and fallen rather quickly.
 
I think the best we can say for the Wii U at this point is that the other consoles haven't had the chance to fail yet.
 
Phoenician_Viking said:
Where do people get this info? I would like to see their crystal ball.
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I personally think cross-generation games will be a major problem. They're not going to convince people to go buy a new $400 console when it shares half it's games with the ones they have now, just like the Wii U. They'll just question why the games exclusive to the new console aren't on the old ones as well.

I guess UE4 has some advantage there if publishers are willing to completely ignore the PS3/360 console base...
 
the-increasingly-poor-decisions-of-todd-margaret-4f441d4154814.png


Please replace with Nintendo.





btw
I don't think it's a problem the can use Unreal Engine 3 instead or port themselves UE4 cutting all the expensive features
 
Taurus said:
Tells me more than I want to know about the state of industry and people working in it.
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he's.... not wrong.
Such a non-priority for so many.

That said, you know how it could be a priority?
people. buying games. it will change everything.
 
Chinpoko_Master said:
Yeah, right. I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune if the Wii U wasn't floundering like it is.
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Um...do you know how to have a conversation?

Look at the list of game companies we lost last Gen. That was before the market got nearly as crowded as it is now. The resurgence of PC gaming and smartphone/tablets are cannibalizing what used to be the stomping ground of consoles. Plus the rising cost of development and inability of companies to keep a controlled budget and the flailing economy means that we'll see many many more companies shut down before all is said and done.

And here's a profile for you: with the gaming market the way it is now, the Wii wouldn't do nearly as well as it did before were it just released.
 
I figured I'd ask straight-out, so during the Q&A with Rein, I did. "Will UE4 run on the Wii U?"

"Hahaha no." Rein said, with expert comedic timing. The room erupted with laughter.
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Professionalism. Game developers don't have it.
 
As I've said since before the Wii U launch, I think Nintendo would be MUCH better served by releasing a stopgap console to fill in the long gap between the release of Sony/MS consoles (i.e., about 3 years after PS4 and 3 years before PS5).

The only way it works, though, is if Nintendo constantly makes a system more powerful than the systems released 3 years earlier--something they seem to refuse to want to do. That way they give people a reason to want to upgrade--something I think many, many people would want 3 years after picking up the previous system.

The only other thing I can see them doing is focusing all their efforts on handhelds or collaborating with Apple.
 
Plinko said:
As I've said since before the Wii U launch, I think Nintendo would be MUCH better served by releasing a stopgap console to fill in the long gap between the release of Sony/MS consoles (i.e., about 3 years after PS4 and 3 years before PS5).

The only way it works, though, is if Nintendo constantly makes a system more powerful than the systems released 3 years earlier--something they seem to refuse to want to do.

The only other thing I can see them doing is focusing all their efforts on handhelds or collaborating with Apple.
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Yeah I agree with that first idea. Release a console that's more powerful as a stop gap between the other two. Seems like Nintendo doesn't want to do that, which is pretty dumb.
 
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