Miyamoto says Wii U development requires twice the amount of human resources than before

Shigeru Miyamoto said during a recent investor Q&A that the switch to Wii U development – HD visuals and all – “requires about twice the human resources than before.”

[Xof]

Of course it does. A big jump in hardware means a big jump in development costs. This has always, always been the rule.

So why did Nintendo get blindsided by it?

[bobacdigital]

They were blindsided because they are always working on several first party titles at once.

[sarcastoid]

Arrogance is my theory. All indications seem to point to them assuming publishers would just automatically flock to their new system, as would all the other non-gamers who bought into the wii fad. Turns out the non-gamers are still non-gamers and once that 'it' factor wore off the Wii, so did their interest. This is just my honest opinion--not hating on Nintendo, I just think they assumed too much.

[Prime_28]

First of all, you're wrong and secondly, what does third party support have to do with this article? Did you even read it?

Nintendo have said numerous times now that the transition from SD to HD has taken them longer than expected. What's wrong with that? Nothing.

[Reverent]

@Prime, you are a massive troll so no one will ever take you seriously.

Yes, Nintendo were incredibly arrogant with the Wii U. They did the exact same thing Sony did with the PS2/3 transition. They dominated sales with their prior console, then figured it would carry over with their later console without making any effort.

Nintendo in the end gets humbled, and believe me, it will be great for them.

[yeahokchief]

nope misterzadir is correct.

nintendo should start doing crossplay so that 3ds titles are playable on wii u. this will help fill the gap in their software lineup.

[live2play]

How is it arrogance?
did you read the same thing I did?

its IGNORANCE

they didn't anticipate making HD games would take them a whole lot longer, which is why he said you saw ALOT of titles pushed back because the development. Time they anticipated wasn't enough

seems to me you just wanted to say that rant for a while now and only needed a small excuse to do so. That or you can't read for sh!t

[kgamer20]

well this is more about the amount of people to required to make a HD quickly.

[Xof]

...Which is part of the cost of development.

This is why Nintendo is, nearly a year after the launch after the Wii U, finally starting to realize that they need to increase the size of their development teams.

[jakmckratos]

According to Square Enix dev time needed on the PS4 takes less than PS3. That's one of the reasons prices of new consoles are staying the same. SO it's not always true. Just true for Nintendo and shows how dated their system is.

[hollabox]

Agree, Nintendo seem to be an generation behind since 2006. But the key is learning from your mistakes so I'm glad Nintendo has finally realized what worked in the 90s cannot and will not work today.

[ChickeyCantor]

You realise Square is talking about developing in it's launch window, right?

Since the PS4 CPUs are based on the x86 structure it's easier to exploit certain features and grab existing (PC) code without losing efficiency. Tools/systems can be easily ported over from pc to ps4.

It's completely irrelevant to how developers handle their internal structure.

[Dgander]

Has nothing to do with how dated the hardware is. PS4 is cheaper than PS3 to develop for because of the cheaper and easier x86 architecture that they went with compared to cell. To be honest cell and power pc (Wii U architecture) is newer than x86 which has been around since 1970s. Barely anyone knows how to code for cell properly so i can imagine developer cost will be very high. Sony should be concerned about piracy and people making PS4 emulators since x86 is so easy to code and so much people know it.

[Concertoine]

this is wrong because the PS3 itself required ridiculous effort to program for. john carmack himself, one of the most respected developers in the industry, said it requires twice as much effort to get a game on ps3 to 360 levels. this is why the ps3 had such crappy ports (orange box, bayonetta, skyrim, red dead, etc).

[live2play]

Its mostly their fault
I mean going by what they say " we don't worry about what our competitors are doing"
they didn't know making bigger more detailed HD games would take sooo much longer.

which kinda makes sense they were too stupid to know because Miyamoto said they pushed back alot of games because the dev time took alot longer than anticipated.

which is why the wiiu has been dry.

hopefully it means more games more frequently
he did say the they will soon leave this "phase"

[CrossingEden]

miyaaammmooootttooo, come on man HD graphics aren't that hard for anything that isn't triple A, journey was created by an extremely small team in comparison to your team

[bothebo]

Lol Media Molecule has 47 employees. That should put things into perspective for you about how much resources Nintendo actually puts into their games. Nintendo first parties are a rip off-no excuses!

[ChickeyCantor]

Pretty arrogant of you to say.
A lot of Japanese developers have different ways of handling things compared to the western developers. It is evident their company structure is not as efficient as how western developers handle it ( mind you, gamedev is a hard business process, working over hours and you can be in and out before you know it.)

[jcnba28]

"Nintendo first parties are a rip off-no excuses!"

What a fanboy-ish statement lol

[zebramocha]

Mm have been working on 2 games that creation game and tear away.

[Kos-Mos]

How dare you compare a "close your eyes and push forward to finish the game" to Nintendo`s first party titles???

[CrossingEden]

yes because the last of us is totally just close your eyes and push forward to finish the game right?

[Kos-Mos]

Uhm, it`s easy as hell....there`s NO challenge in that game for adult gamers.

[CrossingEden]

its harder then most if not all of nintendo's first party exclusives -_-

[Kos-Mos]

Yeah, and that statement tells me you haven`t played a lot of them. Sorry.

[Braid]

Welcome to the world of HD graphics. Yeah, they kind of require a bit more work, don't they?

[live2play]

XD I bet it caught then by surprise!

but looking at how gorgeous Mario kart looks I'd say they are on the right track. Now if only they applied it to a 3D Mario adventure.

[dark-kyon]

nintendo need to get out of his bubble and be aware of the real world,first the retrograde region lock comment then this,is patetic.

[Baka-akaB]

So ? You got many times enough money to provide said ressources . Time to spend some to get some more

[unknownbystander]

It's not that easy as people think. Spending a lot of money wouldn't do a thing. Might increase the staff but the quality will drop. Might keep the same staff and learn more but it would take too long to develop games. So they came with the compromise and hired enough staff while not spreading themselves too thin and teach them the expertise of quality development. Also Nintendo is learning fast because all of their upcoming first party games look great and will most likely play great. Future is looking brighter for Nintendo. Besides all 3 companies had to do a learning curve for HD gaming. Nintendo, you might say is a generation behind, but all I can say is that they moved to HD gaming when the world was more than ready for the HD era.

[N4g_null]

Z brush is alien technology man! Just got my upgrade the other week. Welcome to the party Nintendo! If they are using any other method then they must like pain.

Once they get better it gets a lot faster.