One relatively unknown fact about Wii U, aside from the official information and broad range of speculative rumours, is that Havok and Nintendo have an agreement for the 'middleware' provider to make its game engine technology available to developers on the system. Havok's development tools and technology are prominent in many games on HD systems, as well as appearing in Wii titles such as Disney Epic Mickey, and is responsible for delivering realistic physics and animations.
Dave Gargan, Havok VP of Engineering, has been talking about the agreement with Nintendo, but has also joined the group of those that believe Wii U has plenty to offer in terms of gaming experiences and potential.
The platform has its own unique features, and has its own challenges as well. When we come across any new particular platform, we optimize specifically for some of the advantages that those platforms offer over other platforms, and Wii U has specific advantages that no other platform has, and we optimize directly for those, right down at the level of accessing the hardware.
I think we'll see things done on the Wii U that we won't see on another platforms… I think people will be genuinely excited with the range of titles they're going to see come out.
A theme is emerging that Wii U offers something new and different from competitors, even if the raw power is only a reasonably small step-up from PS3 and Xbox 360. We only have one week to wait to see the system in action.
[source nintendoworldreport.com]
Comments 10
Sounds good.
Nintendo already announced there won't be price or date announcements at E3, which makes me wonder if we will be getting specs such as processor, memory and GPU. They better announce storage, and it better have some, even if it's only a 4GB SD card in the box. You can't sell DL content relying on soccer mom's to buy external USB HDD and putting them under the Christmas tree.
Most important though - more than anything - I want my Wiiware, VC and save points to be transferable. The 3DS did it so the precedent has already been set.
Dedicated physics chip?
Cool beans.
'I think people will be genuinely excited with the range of titles they're going to see come out'
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@Savino Advanced AI? Let there be advanced AI!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6PxRwgjzZw
@rjejr I wonder too, as surely tech specs will just lead to price speculation? Will be interesting to see though.
We are at the precipice of something great, especially if the PS4 and 720 go Pay-To-Play.
It's a smart move from Nintendo, especially making it available for smaller indie developers, which is what I would think they're after with this agreement. The Havok engine is a good, stable engine that works quite well if the developer knows how to work with it. Any way it goes, this is exactly the type of news I want to see from Nintendo. Smaller developers producing quality titles for Wii U could be a large step in growing a massive fan base with Wii U, and this definitely shows promise.
Does that mean Nintendo is giving us a powerful CPU or a more modern GPU? :3
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