70°

Blizzard Says StarCraft On Wii U ‘Might Work’

The lead designer of StarCraft II says there are several ways the popular real-time strategy series could make its way to consoles—and that under the right circumstances, Nintendo's upcoming Wii U might be a good fit.

NYC_Gamer4319d ago

Blizzard should be able to do things with the Wii-U pad

nukeitall4318d ago

I would buy a Wii U just to play StarCraft on it!

I think voice control with Kinect, and Smart Glass on box 360 might work better though.

donman14318d ago

WiiU controller = zero latency (lag). So how exactly will Kinect and Smart Glass top that?

Kinect is not 1:1

Hisiru4318d ago (Edited 4318d ago )

@nukeitall
You can't use smartglass in real time, how can it be better than WiiU's gamepad? You wouldn't be able to control the game using Smart Glass.

Also, WiiU has a mic on the gamepad, so it probably works for voice chat.

nukeitall4318d ago (Edited 4318d ago )

Smart Glass can give you the appearance of real time, similar to how cross game play or remote play works on PS Vita. Many things also doesn't require real time interaction.

StarCraft for instance doesn't require lag free input. CoD probably does.

Remember using Smart Glass to play a game, you will be connected to your local network, so input lag is significantly minimized on top of that.

Also, I don't know how voice recognition is on the Wii U, but almost on all other devices it sucks big time.

Case in point, the game Binary Domain supported voice control on PS3 and the regular microphone on Xbox 360 in addition to Kinect. The former two sucked big time and was almost useless while Kinect worked pretty darn good.

@donman1

Most devices aren't 1:1, which is overblown. It's all about perception and experience.

Hisiru4318d ago (Edited 4318d ago )

As I said before (via PM), it was confirmed at this year's E3: Smart Glass is just an App and won't work in real time. Smart Glass is an app to give you infos about the game (such as maps) and that's it.

Also, WiiU has physical buttons (D-Pad, 2 analog sticks, a b y x, R L, R1 L2, clickable analog stick etc) + touch screen buttons and things like maps on the screen, smartphones/tablets won't be able to replicate all those inputs. Even if they give the "real time" feature for Smartglass it won't give the same experience as the WiiU.

nukeitall4318d ago (Edited 4318d ago )

SmartGlass used with an Xbox 360 to play games will be on your local network. You know what the ping time is on your local network is?

It's 1ms and occasionally 5ms. You know what the time frame for a 30 frame per second game is? 133ms!

If you run the game code on the tablet itself and feed it status updates, the experience will be real time. Online multiplayer games use a similar strategy, but they typically has 25-50ms delay and that is considered smooth. It's when it spikes around 150+ ms that you start noticing the lag, but even then it is still good depending on the game.

So it is definitely possible, but it isn't what is possible technologically. It's if consumer adoption is high enough, and if developers are willing to support it.

Wii U has an upper hand there as a standard, but it also depends on Wii U adoption. On the other hand you got 67+ million Xbox 360 owners and the vast majority of them will have a smartphone or tablet.

Can't reach your touch device on Xbox 360 controller? Third party accessory attachment to your controller!

Voila, Wii U experience if on Xbox 360 if you wanted to.

Also, I don't believe SmartGlass itself is an app, but rather a set of technology to make it easier for integration of such features similar to Xbox Live. MS just happened to show you some apps to do some things billed as SmartGlass.

BrutallyBlunt4318d ago (Edited 4318d ago )

@Hisiru

Did you not see E3 and them showcasing Madden while using a tablet during gameplay? It's far too early to make 'guesses' and then implying them as being factual. However i do expect less latency using the Wii U as it is designed to communicate with the console, unlike Smartglass and Vita/PS3.

Hisiru4318d ago

@LevelHead
I believe youre not following the E3 news. You need to pause the game in order to use most of the features and again, you won't have physical buttons, only your smartphone's touch screen unless you want to hold your x360 controller and your smartphone/tablet on the same hand.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 4318d ago
grailly4318d ago

i don't know... I don't see how controls can be done. It would be very touch based and then what's the point of bringing it to wiiU if you're going to use it as a tablet?

beerkeg4318d ago

It wouldn't be like a tablet though, it has other controls beside the touch screen.

Timmer4319d ago

Tablets would be awesome for RTSs, Starcraft would be awesome on consoles, if they could do it.

I expect that we might see SC2 on Wii U and 360, thanks to the new Windows tablet.

metroid324319d ago

no chance unless Microsoft fund the development trust me ?? WiiU version i will buy it.

CouldHaveYelledUiiW4319d ago

I doubt it. The Microsoft and Sony Fanboys say that WiiU is worthless and is only slightly more powerful than 2 Wii's.

So, I am sorry Blizzard you are wrong. Sure you are hugely successful at what you do but you know that fanboys know-it-all even when they don't know it all.

So to this I say WoW?

Sarcasm aside: I am glad to read this. I like both Blizz and Nintendo, two of my favorite developers. Getting them together in anyway is EPIC (imo).

metroid324319d ago

The WiiU cpu is 20/25 times the power of wii and 3 times ps3 ?? u idiot :(

CouldHaveYelledUiiW4319d ago

Lol- I was being sarcastic. Please read the whole quote before commenting. And do not say "idiot" if you are in the more "idiotic" position.

+ the number you just threw-up... where are you getting this data. Nintendo had not released any official specs, but I am fairly certain that the WiiU will be more powerful.

(Then again I don't care, as long as I get Zelda and Samus.. everything else is chocolate sauce, cherries, and whipped cream).

yabhero4318d ago

He's right ... Look it up the Power7 in WiiU with only four cores and clocked at maybe 3 GHz would still do around 100 GFLOPS... The Cell in the PS3 on paper should be more powerful than an i7 and a Power7 and do 230 GFLOPS...however because it has no real cores except the central one, and has to rely on the other SPE it only does around 20 GLFOPS... So it lay mans term it
100:20 or 5:1... The power7 is a beast... Say some that power is taken from WiiUPad streaming... Say it uses the full power of the PS3 CPU to stream? Still 80:20
Or 4:1
So the WiiU CPU is 4-5 time better than the Cell

neutralgamer194318d ago

So your saying that if and thts a big iffffff it done on wii u its because wii u is more powerful than ps3? and it cant be done on ps3? hahahahaha yeah sure games like dust 514 and others say diferently. If its done on wii u it still doesnt equate to wii u being more powerfull then ps3 or it being next gen.

yabhero4318d ago

It's pretty obviously WiiU is more powerful than PS3, if you can't realize. That you msut be a blind fanboy...
The real question is how next gen is it?
I think it will be be behind PS4 but like the PS2 was behind Xbox, the difference will be ntociable in exclusives, but ntot in multi plats

koehler834318d ago

It would also work on an iPad, or indeed any device you could think of, given sufficient planning.

However Blizzard does not seem interested in letting people in on their party. They seem more interested in their own platform.

Show all comments (28)
170°

$15 horse for WoW made more money than StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

Jason Hall, currently an indie developer and former Blizzard employee, has been sharing some really interesting stories from his long career in the industry for a while now. Some of them are truly insightful, while others may seem depressing.

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Sciurus_vulgaris153d ago

I’m a little shocked that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty sold only around 6 million copies. The original StarCraft did over 11 million. Maybe Blizzard was too leisurely in releasing StarCraft 2? Starcraft 2 came out 12 years after it’s predecessor.

Plague-Doctor27152d ago (Edited 152d ago )

Im surprised too. Starcraft was still a huge name in 2010. It was kinda the only new RTS around and other genres like MOBAs hadn't really kicked off yet. I do remember at the time sentiment around the game was
pretty angry the game was being split into 3 but I doubt that would have impacted sales to that degree

Sciurus_vulgaris152d ago

For a long time I believed StarCraft II sold on par or better than its predecessor. There was so much hype for the game. Plus it had a pretty strong E-Sports scene for a few years.

Myself and half a dozen friends all bought StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and played it religiously for a full year. While I bought the expansions, most of my friends did not. RPGs seem to be a generally low selling genre.

Nerdmaster152d ago

I'm not shocked at all. This was an early example of Blizzard being greedy. Instead of releasing a complete experience, splitting Starcraft 2 in 3 parts so it could make us purchase it 3 times if we wanted to know the whole story and play story mode with the other races.

Sciurus_vulgaris152d ago

I originally had that stance. However, Wings of Liberty, was just as long, if not longer than StarCraft 1. The expansions were of decent length too and added a good amount of additional content.

il-JumperMT152d ago

and people wonder why we are having mtx in everything. i blame the people who actual buy them.

Nerdmaster152d ago

It's interesting he used Brazil as an example of the importance of regional pricing. Nowadays many companies on Steam are setting their prices in Brazil as high as, if not more than, their price in USA. I simply refused to buy a few games when I noticed that's the case.

Extermin8or3_152d ago

This right here is the fucking problem.

151d ago
160°

20 Best Sci-Fi Games of All Time

The best sci-fi games ever made range from diving into the depths of humanity to finding hope among the stars.

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rlow11133d ago

Don't really agree on Dead Space being number one. But usually come down to preference. Alot of good games on the list. I was hoping to see Aliens vs Predator by Sierra on the list, as it was a great game. Anyways for me the number one is still Halo but Mass Effect was really good up to the infamous ending of the third game.

Rebel_Scum1133d ago

I would put Flashback on my list. Its got such a great tone and background design. The cutscenes were pretty good too.

1133d ago
Master of Unlocking1132d ago (Edited 1132d ago )

DEAD SPACE 2 as number 1? Really? I've only ever played DEAD SPACE 1 (without finishing it) and, sure enough I liked it a lot, and have been yearning for getting to grips with an hd remastered trilogy for the PS4/XBox One/PS5/XBox Series X/S, but what about Deus Ex Human Revolution & Mankind Divided? Alienation (to quench our thirst for twitching fingers' top-down dual-stick shooters)? Or even Cyberpunk 2077 (once the game has been re-released and all the kinks have been ironed out)?

If not at the #1 spot, it seems to me these games deserved to be on the list somewhere.

But what really strikes me as unfair is, if you're going back to the PS3/XBox 360 era with DS2, how could you forget to mention Killzone 2 & 3? The Resistance games? When it comes to Sci-Fi FPS, it's inadequate not to pay your respects to those stellar franchises! Heck, even the Crysis trilogy should've been there IMHO.

140°

Starcraft Mass Recall is a Starcraft Remake in Starcraft 2, Version 8.0 available for download

A team of modders is working on a Starcraft Remake in Starcraft 2, and has released a brand new version of it.

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