Hey guys! It's time for a new installment of the Negative World podcast. This episode, nacthenud, NinSage and DrFinkelstein discuss about the news, the backward compatibility of Nintendo's controllers and the IPs born in the Wii's lifecycle that we would like to get brought back. There is also a short tidbit about Backlaugust, enjoy!
Oh hey, it's up! I've been impatiently checking several times a day.
I feel like this might be the most irrelevant podcast ever, though, being that our speculations about Wii U took place prior to the recent press event. Guess I can listen to see how off the mark we were.
It's all good! A shame that some of our speculation is outdated but eh, oh well. I woulda had this up yesterday but I got hung up on stuff. Friday I couldn't do it all but it's been officially done since late thursday.
I've listened to it now. It's odd hearing me talk. (I had no idea I have such a sexy voice... )
It's interesting how several times I'd catch something Dr. Fink or Ninsage had said that I'd missed when I was actually in the conversation. Maybe all my conversations should be recorded so that I can go back and review them for things I don't catch the first time...
Embarrassingly perhaps, I didn't realize it was for iPhone until after the podcast. Knowing it was from the makers of VVVVVV I thought it was a pc game at least with a chance of eshop release. Ooooops. I hope it comes out for one of those. As for the tweet... I'm not sure. I barely tweet.
At least my Pokemon Pinball and Fluidity love was represented!
So..what do you guys think of WM+'s situation now?
I'm whatever on it. They'll make another single player WM+/nunchuk exclusive games if they really want to (namely Zelda U) since they benefit from the WM+ sales it drives. Rebranding WM+ as a wii U controller might be fairly successful anyway. Like people impulsively getting one for NSMBU because they're not entirely sure if any old remote works with the game.
@Renjaku I think they basically just confirmed exactly what I was afraid of. They want all the old Wiimotes out in the wild to be compatible, so developers are faced with the choice of developing for the original Wiimote or developing for a smaller user-base. 9 times out of 10 they will probably opt to develop for the largest possible consumer-base which means another generation of sub-par motion controls.
Nice podcast, guys. I understand the idea of supporting only motion plus, and I imagine some games will, but they really do need full compatibility with all hardware in the wild. And I loved the story of having the locations in NSMB described by your lady off an FAQ. Was that DrFinkelstein? I'm still getting used to the voices. I totally sympathize. I'm still working slowly through the game and have a lot to get. I'm sure an FAQ is in my future.
It will certainly be interesting to see who takes up the reigns of motion control (and in what way) in the 8th hardware generation. By that I mean from a game development perspective - not from a hardware perspective.
Nintendo Land requires Motion Plus if you're using a Wiimote, so I think this is a sign that we'll see Motion Plus treated as the standard. Regular Wiimotes will still work in games that don't need the extra motion, like NSMBU. This is what I'm thinking, anyway.
uh oh, a bad glimpse of what devs think of lack of WM+ inclusion:
Yuji Naka said:
One unfortunate thing about the Wii U announcement: It doesn't come with a Wii remote, so Rodea and all the other Wii titles I created, people won't be able to play it with a Wii remote. They'll have to use the Wii U GamePad. I created the game specifically for the Wii remote, so it's going to turn into a totally different experience. I'm really down about that because Rodea is a really good game.
It's as if a Wii U game that can only be played with the remote is out of the question in his mind. That's bad.
Super Hexagon is awesome. These are the kinds of iOS games I want -- ones designed with the platform in mind, not ports from other systems or games that are way to ambitious and have to use shitty virtual analog sticks.
And yeah, it's confirmed to be coming to PC and Mac at some point in the future.
Now I can't find that interview..but to summarize, a 3DS version is being finished before the Wii version will be released. Wii version has been done since last year. Naka is wondering when he'll be able to put it out too.
Red Steel 2 was a huge bust. Like 50,000 copies bust. Part of that was it highly pirated, but I don't think all the people who pirated it would have bought it considering the circumstances.
Yea, I'm with Yuji. Nintendo basically abandoned motion controls by not packing in a Wiimote. There's going to be about as many Wiimote exclusive games as there are WM+ only games on Wii, or less considering the record of those few games that did come out (see above)