In a very personal and revealing postmortem published anonymously to Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, we seem to finally have some concrete information to explain Nintendo’s struggling Wii U console, and their seemingly lacking Nintendo Network.
This anonymous piece was written by a developer who worked on a third party game that launched with the Wii U – that should definitely narrow the list of candidates down. In the piece, the developer goes over the entire process of developing a game for the Wii U and boy does it sound tedious. Waiting at least a week to hear back from the development teams in Japan (due to translating their questions into Japanese and their responses back into English) can seriously put a damper on their progress. The next bit is where the headline comes from:
The most shocking revelation from this piece is brought up when the development team was trying to get their game’s online features up and running, and when they asked how certain situations might pan out with the Mii friends and networking, while referencing Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, they were quickly shunned and told to not even bother mentioning the Playstation Network or Xbox Live, as no one on their development teams used those systems. Let me repeat that for you – Nintendo officials literally told a third party developer to not bother with comparing features to XBL and PSN, because their development teams don’t use them.
Other things this developer pointed out were the brand confusion (Wii vs. Wii U), the bad timing of the console’s launch as the Xbox One and Playstation 4 were massively hyped only months later, the rush to get the day one patch ready, and of course – the stagnating or unimpressive sales that have slowly driven third parties away, slowly tightening the noose around the platform’s neck. The most disappointing part of the read, in my opinion, is when the developer mentions how many studios quietly backed away from their initial development pledges and statements, only to later (and quietly) confirm that they were no longer making Wii U versions of their games.
Most developers, in fact, have begun calling the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 the “true next gen” consoles, while echoing the claim this developer has made in that the Wii U is more comparable in processing power to the previous generation Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 platforms. The developer even goes so far as to say that the Wii U “might even struggle to do current-gen (PS3 and X360) titles.” Coming from this, he pointed out that Nintendo wanted the machine to consume less power so that it would run quieter, making it a more appealing living room machine.
The entire story is definitely worth the read, it’s quite long but it will hopefully fill up your lunch break, or day off.
