We've written much here on Nintendo Life about Nintendo's sustained efforts to attract small developers to the Wii U, through relaxed requirements, greater accessibility and support, and most vitally development tools designed to assist studios with limited time and budgets.
In that respect we've written about Nintendo's freely distributed Unity tools and the Nintendo Web Framework, the latter of which is perhaps less understood; while many games utilise the Unity engine, it can be tricky to understand the Web Framework. We know it allows easy porting of games to the Wii U, as well as development using Javascript and HTML5, but how will that translate into games on the system?
Thankfully the Unity3D YouTube channel has posted a presentation given by Nintendo of America's Clayton Hughes, explaining the development tools available on the home console, providing demonstrations of the Nintendo Web Framework in action as well as providing plenty of information.
If you're curious about how some development on Wii U actually works, you should check this out.
[source siliconera.com]
Comments 25
Seats are pretty empty...
@WiiLovePeace That's often the way at these events (in my limited experience), but this video has a pretty good number of views on YouTube, so it's not all bad!
That guy looks as nervous as high school kids doing something in front of class.
@ThomasBW84 Yeah that's true. Could just be a case of developers not being able to fly over to the event to be there & instead watching the youtube video
The lime green tie shivers
poor guy lol he look so nervous
The dude on the left's bowl cut.... That is all.
The most important part was the bamboo...
I find this pretty interesting. I don't see myself doing this sort of thing to be honest, but I do understand how it works for the most part. The coding part seems the most complicated, but there's a manual.
I'm just wondering if the eShop will turn into an app store like this. It sounds good, but no one wants junk, which is what Apple's app store consists of.
@SCAR392 Not everything on the app store is junk. There are many good games there.
@OptimusG: But to be fair, there is a lot of junk on it even with the good games.
@Scollurio @Ackmans
lots of good tech guys are bad in public presentations.
by the way, i LOVE that option: see a video on the tv and continue browsing in the pad..
@OptimusG @ SCAR392 @LzQuacker
I am pretty sure Nintendo are at least being slightly restrictive with what actually makes it on there after submission because shovelware makers would be all over an empty shop with 4 million customers and thus far we've not seen much of anything like that.
@SCAR392 There is quite a significant amount of Good stuff on the App Store. The only problem was official controller support which they are adding to iOS 7. There is something better or as good as everything other than the retail releases.
(I don't have one but I will probably get one. All those Cave shooters are ported from the Arcade to iOS. There is all the Metal Slug's / Crazy Taxi / Jet Set Radio / Gunstar Heroes / Afterburner Climax / Super Hexagon (Which is as good as anything gets really I think it is better than VVVVV) / Raiden Legacy / Blazing Star. Those Dreamcast games are from when Sega still cared about making stuff fun. Think it is more likely stuff like Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia will end up on iOS. Verticle orientated Arcade games work particularly well when you can just flip the tablet and not have to turn the tv on its side.
I would rather have the arcade version than the console port. (The Android versions are generally poor though).
I think there will be a point fairly soon where to get a significant number of games I want even including the price of the ipad and the controller it will be overall cheaper than paying the Nintendo virtual console prices. Obviously if any of the versions are not the best I don't want them.
I personally don't like game engines and write my own code. I don't know why anyone would limit themselves to someone's game engine and possible bugs.
@TenEighty Well to cut expenses and time for development. I've done plenty of programming myself so I know it would take a while to build one's own engine from the ground up. Chances are you'll run into your own bug problems if you make your own engine and it could be just as costly time-wise to deal with problems (sometimes more so since established engines have communities and prior exposure to existing bugs and glitches).
That's why once a developer creates a new engine they generally don't create another one right away. They have to run things as a business which means efficiencies (whatever they can do to cut time and monetary costs). This is especially true if said company has a sizable fanbase which expects timely releases.
@Ernest_The_Crab Thanks for the reply but I have no issues with programming. I've been doing it for some time now and it's one of the things I enjoy. I personally prefer writing my own engine as I can have more control over it then any game editor can offer. That's all I was really saying.
How coincidental that I started using Unity recently...
Bloody hell, put that guy through a public speaking course Nintendo!
Sorry @above posts
I understand there are some good things on the app store. There are what, 4 milion apps?
I had an iPad 2 for a bit and there were only like 100 apps at the time I would have wanted. I searched and searched and searched and there was WAY too much trash to dig throygh for the good stuff. It's been a couple years, but I've seen some videos on even more junky junk than what was available a couple years ago.
Even if Clayton Hughes seems nervous he is a pretty damn cool guy. I wasn't there at Unite Nordic for this presentation, but I was at the Nordic Game Conference the following three days at the same venue, and Clayton was there at the Nintendo booth, eager to give specifics on technical questions.
Life of a Nintentroll:
Wakes up at 10.34 AM
Turns up computer
Goes to IGN.com
Sees an article that says Wii U sales are picking up
Signs in and post comments that PS4 will crush Wii U in Christmas
Then Goes to WiiUdaily.com
Sees that COD Ghosts is coming to Wii U
Post comment saying that it will not sell because Nintendo fans only play kiddie games.
Shuts up browser and computer.
Goes to the kitchen, grabs a Mountain Dew can and Doritos.
Turns up PS3 and puts in Black Ops 2.
Turns up his bluetooth mic and starts talking $#!T online until it's 6.00 PM...
@TenEighty
Not sure what kind of limits you are talking about with Unity3D. Unless you are talking about developing a AAA game engine from scratch that pushes the limits of the hardware it's using (which no one person is going to do in any amount of time that matters), you'd be better off using it. There's no type of game you can't make with it. There are some engines that are highly oriented towards a certain type of game, but Unity isn't one of them.
You also mention bugs, which is a huge ADVANTAGE of using a good game engine because millions of users are testing it and pushing it daily and at least in the case of Unity it is becomes very stable. It is also viable across a huge number of platforms: Android phones and tablets, iPhone and iPad, now blackberry, Windows 8 phone and RT, Windows and Mac OS X and even Linux, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS4, XBox One, and Wii U. Making an engine from scratch that works across all those platforms is far from trivial and a complete waste of time for a small development team because it is a moving target that a small group can never move fast enough to aim at.
I don't know you or your situation but I often see people boast about their programming skills or they make their own stuff from scratch. That's a good exercise but, in small teams at least, it's usually a horrible business decision.
@GoldenAxe Haha, you copied my comment ha? Seems like you have no creativity
http://wiiudaily.com/2013/07/wind-waker-hd-difficulty-settings/
@Steven_Segal
You seem to be following me everywhere I go -_-
Tap here to load 25 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...