Retro Studios

With Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze now settling into stores around the world, its developer Retro Studios is looking back on the development and hinting at what's to come. As a first-party studio with high-profile experience on GameCube, Wii and now Wii U, it's also in a position to share its perspective on the hardware transition.

Speaking to GameSpot, Retro Studios president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh has admitted that there were "traditional limitations" with the Wii, but focused on the capabilities of the Wii U in glowing terms.

Unfortunately, the perception is that it's not a very powerful machine. That's just not true. It's a powerhouse. It's more than adequate to make great games on.

It was really fun being able to crack that open for the first time and learning HD techniques; pixel shading, having a lot more horsepower and how that impacts the team. It was really fun to watch our artists just go crazy because now they didn't really have to worry about polygons anymore. 'Make as many as you want!'

In the same interview Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe stated that the Texas-based studio has been working on a new project for a few months, with the team keeping busy since wrapping up Tropical Freeze production in November. When quizzed on what's next, Kelbaugh naturally resisted giving any details.

We love working with Donkey Kong. It's a great character. It's a lot of fun. We love working with Metroid Prime, with Mario Kart; those are fun, fun games to work on. So, you know, you can't lose. Every one of those IPs have been a lot of fun to play with and work on and [we'd] love to come back to them sometime.

Let us know what you think of Kelbaugh's views on the Wii U as a "powerhouse", and what you hope the studio's been working on since November.

[source gamespot.com]