Nintendo president explains why Wii U third-party games don't quite stack up to PS3 and Xbox 360
Developers have been optimising their engines for existing platforms for six years.
Wii U visuals for games produced by third-parties will improve given time, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has told investors.
The Wii U's graphical grunt has been called into question after games such as Batman and Assassin's Creed 3 seemed to be of a lower visual quality than the versions on PS3 and Xbox 360, but Iwata says developers just need to find their feet with the new hardware.
"While existing platforms have engines that development teams have tuned and optimized for six to seven years after their respective launches, the Wii U is a new platform that has slightly different architecture and, since development teams have only just begun development on software for it, they are only at the halfway point to utilising its full potential," he said.
"Despite this fact, however, if you look at the game Assassin's Creed 3, which was recently announced or shown, you can't see much difference when you compare it with games for other companies' systems."
Wii U will be released this holiday.
VideoGamer.com Analysis
Given we don't yet know what lies under the hood of the Wii U it's difficult to know exactly what will be possible, but if developers are currently only using half its full potential we should see games which comfortably outshine those on the current consoles. The only question is, how long will it take to get to this point?
Via CVG
User Comments
MJTH
I think that the best way to test this hardware at least early is to see if it can run next gen engines, like the Unreal 4 engine. We know that the current 360 and PS3 probably can't run it, but if the Wii U could that would instantly show the even the general games consumer the difference in power between the current gen and the next gen.
Endless
I mean sure if the next generation of MS and Sony hardware is to be out next year, then developers will already have test units. But I doubt we'll see anything resembling next generation, game-wise, until all 3 systems are out and developers can focus on all 3 at once.
munkee@ Woffls
I hope that developers do invest time/money in Wii-U and that we see some really special exclusives coming from outside the Nintendo camp.
I also think that Nintendo have put themselves in a slightly awkward position. They've spent the generation, up until now, separating themselves from the mainstream and winning their own market of gamers. But, it seems that now they're about to try and get back into the mainstream, the mainstream is actually about to steam onto the next level and Nintendo might end up being a step behind.
This is all personal speculation, of course. I'm no Pachter ;P
Woffls
Of course, if games and engines were made with Wii U in mind, then they will look much better than current gen games due to the assumed power increase, and modern GPU technologies that we've already seen the card perform.
The problem is whether publishers will see that it's worth investing in what some will consider a stop-gap between generations of Sony and Microsoft platforms. Some might just go straight to "next gen" development. Is there enough similarities between these and Wii U that they can share engine technology?
One thing I don't doubt, is that people will be blown away by whatever Retro shows for Wii U, but that needs to happen before Microsoft and Sony tell us what they're up to next.