Nintendo Wii News | Game Informer Developer Survey

I kind of saw that coming...Besides the red buttons of death or whatever they are called, the 360 is a pretty good console. It doesn't force unwanted hardware to you causing the price to skyrocket (I'm looking at you Sony).

I hope to god ports using the GC controller or classic controller will be kept to a minimum.

I expect 360 comes out above both Wii and PS3 because MS is about the best at providing support and tools to help people make games for the 360. Sony has always been a bit weak in this area and I believe Nintendo is a bit as well. I agree that N staying with very similar hardware to last time should mean developers can get the best out of the console early on.

Porting to the Wii will be difficult because even if you just lower the graphics settings many PS3 or 360 games would still use more Hardware resources than the Wii has available. This is not really a bad thing though as it encourages companies to make exclusive unique titles for Wii that take full advantage of it.

I also think the arcade on the 360 (and also Wii's similar service) help to get developer support as it now allows them an easy way to release some cheaper easier to develop games and also to try and test new ideas with the community.

That's good in theory, however this relies on teh Wii being popular enough to warrant the cash outlay required for exclusive titles to be made. If the wii is a success then it's good, however if it hits rough times then 3rd parties won't beable to support it in the same way many supported the GC.

Nintendo haven't always pulled up tops with developers in the past. The SNES was a nightmare for developers to develop for but due to the success of the console developers didn't have much of a choice if they wanted a profit at the end of the day. The reason why a lot of developers jumped ship to the Playstation over the N64 was due to the fact that Nintendo wasn't very developer friendly.

This still happens today a bit. A great example is the PSP and the DS. The DS is a lot harder to develop for due to some limitations the hardware has while the PSP doesn't have these problems. I believe that the DS can not handle floating point operations too.

Nintendo have not remained ontop of getting the latest technology included into the dev kits. While Nintendo claims that it is getting easier to develop games on thier newer platforms, thier position with dev kits isn't really improving over its compeditors. People are interested in developing for the Wii but Nintendo still needs to improve its relationship with developers and they also need to loosen up on giving out dev kits. Many games weren't developed for the Gamecube not because a company didn't want to develop for it but because the smaller companies who publishers outsource games too didn't have the kits.

Nintendo is slowly changing the way it interacts with developers and the intrest shown is rather positive.

As a researcher that deals with government contracts and health studies I'd be interested in the N. N = the number of respondents.

Because if you only had 20 people take the survey the results are not true.

wii will do well, but the 360 will be the mainstream console. The devs seem happy to work for the 360 because its balance between ease of development and sheer power. The wii is cheaper to develop for but the weak abilities of the system will force some companies (EA) to not take it seriously, just like the DS its going to have a rocky start but a good finish. Cross platform games are not gonna be a huge thing on the wii because its a "special" system. It just wouldn't profit anyone to not make exlcusive stuff for it. So Wii60 all the way baby!!

( Edited on 28.07.2006 18:27 by incognegro )