Another for the 'maybe' pile

The developer response to Wii U has been remarkably mixed, with studios contradicting each other on a weekly basis in terms of the machine's capabilities and potential. One particularly vocal developer in the supporter's camp has been Gearbox, which has talked about the system's power and contributed plenty of positive noises about the planned release of Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Another Gearbox title that's set to launch in the near future is Borderlands 2, and the developer's chief creative officer Brian Martel has been talking up Wii U to dealspwn.com while also highlighting why, from a business perspective, publisher THQ is currently holding back.

We really like the Wii U. I think it's a really cool platform. I like what they're doing — obviously with the touchscreen — and it will be interesting to see what Microsoft do with their approach to that idea. It's one of those problems of the Wii: the only people who have ever made a lot of money on the Wii is Nintendo.

So we're really excited to bring Aliens: Colonial Marines to it. And we're going to do a wait and see approach, our publisher 2K is going to see whether they're going to go with that.

If Borderlands 2 was on the Wii U, the thing I would be most excited about is inventory management: it would be amazing on that, it would just be fantastic. And I think the artwork would look really good, with the way they can deal with the resolutions and textures, I think it's a really good console.

It's becoming clear, unless the expected upcoming third-party announcements from Nintendo are truly exceptional, that a number of publishers and developers are holding back on big projects and biding their time to judge the early success of the system. It'll be a question of whether the software available in the launch period will do enough to give Wii U a good start, and hopefully attract more projects to the console.

[source dealspwn.com]