Nintendo's Development Secrets, Cloud Gaming & new Killer NIC - GDC '09
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on March 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The Two Most Hilarious Miyamoto Pictures
Before I get off the Miyamoto topic entirely I want to share two things that transpired during the keynote. First, Nintendo’s president talked about how Miyamoto engages in random employee kidnapping. He grabs an employee at random from the halls of Nintendo and makes him/her play one of these games in production. The employee doesn’t give any feedback; there are no forms or anything else formal, he/she just has to play the game and have fun - if that’s possible. It’s a very back-to-basics approach to game development that I believe is sometimes lost among everything that a developer needs to worry about.
Awesome?
How does Miyamoto get feedback on the user’s experience with the game? Well he uses a over-the-shoulder approach to watching the user of course:
He made Mario
Yep.
Wii System Menu 4.0
While I don’t want my first article about GDC to be a complete Nintendofest, it’s worth talking about some of the improvements that Nintendo announced at the show. There were no major game releases and no real hardware improvements, just minor evolutionary enhancements to the Wii’s OS.
We did get word of a new Zelda title for the DS in 2009
The Wii System Menu 4.0 adds support for SD-HC cards (2GB - 32GB in size) - thus allowing you to store more game data on a single SD card in your Wii. You can also store entire WiiWare games (downloadable Wii titles) on your SD card. Previously you could only store downloadable games and content on the Wii’s internal flash, which is only 512MB in size.
You can launch games directly from the SD card now too, and the system update is available today.
Third Party Development Doesn’t Suck on the Wii, I Swear!
Despite his comforting demeanor, Iwata’s keynote was a bit self serving. He very much wanted to convey the message that the Wii is good for 3rd party game developers, and that it’s not simply a cash cow for Nintendo.
Look! The majority of WiiWare games are 3rd party titles.
That’s what the whole spiel about the Wii having such a large installed user base was designed to do. Iwata said that Nintendo had to work hard to build such a large user base and that now 3rd party developers can benefit from so many existing Wii systems in the market.
The reality of the matter is that installed user base doesn’t necessarily translate into very high game sales numbers, especially if you’re not Nintendo. There are tons of problems and lots of blame to pass around when it comes to developing on the Wii. It’s difficult to compete with Nintendo and the Wii doesn’t have powerful enough hardware to just port your Xbox 360/PS3 games over. On the flip side, there are more Wii consoles in the market than Xbox 360s or PS3s so it makes sense to put in some extra effort into making a Wii-specific game.
Nintendo says that 3rd party developers can succeed on the Wii. Some developers disagree. I figure the reality of the situation is somewhere in between there.
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0roo0roo - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
i think its the same kind of idea as the network pc larry elison tried to push in the past. remember a while back he said that pc's wouldn't need harddrives, just boot through the net!! money saved!i think this is about as pointless as that. it moves the burden onto an expensive use of bandwidth, and people that have such lag free high bandwidth connections don't need help with buying video cards. they are selling a second rate experience in an environment of so many alternatives for entertainment. its just easier to get a console if you dont want to play the pc upgrade game.
nubie - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
[quote]...or on the OnLive "console" hardware; basically a video encoder, ethernet and a USB port.[/quote]I am assuming that you meant a video decoder?
Kroneborge - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
I don't know, I'm really not a fan of cloud computing, and don't think I would like cloud gaming either. There's something to be said for owning your own stuff, and not being totally dependent on a 3rd party provider.zayfmaro - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
All of your comments talking about lag and latency have nothing to do with the concept of cloud gaming in and of itself. The idea of cloud gaming is revolutionary. Although we are lacking the internet bandwidth to enjoy such concepts as multiplayer cloud gaming, as soon as we find a better medium for high speed internet or better yet, a different loss-less compression technology, the ability to play any game through the internet will surely take off. Sure the quality won't be as good, but saving hundreds of dollars on computer hardware, and not having to upgrade my video card to play the latest games is so worth a few chopped frames and some latency. Most computer users don't get the best video cards on the market anyway its just not worth the price/performance ratio. Overall, if everyone has the same latency, then the latency itself is non-existent. I'm very excited for this technology and can't wait to see other uses of cloud computing.bobobeastie - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
"This next part was cool. Iwata took us through how goes about designing games"That typo caused confusion for me for the first couple of pages. I just assumed it was supposed to be he that is missing, because it would seem difficult to skip someones name. It was not clear if Iwata was talking about Miyamoto or if Iwata was Miyamoto's first name. If I understand it correctly they had Iwata kissing Miyamoto's ass on stage, figuratively that is?
Wolfpup - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
All the stuff with Miyamoto SOUNDS good, but what's the point? Does Nintendo actually do any game development now? I can't remember any original titles last year that were GAMES.tejas84 - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
This company Onlive has the gall to try and screw Microsoft,Sony, Nvidia, Intel and ATI and they think they can get away with it. Hmm I don't think so... I don't see these companies sitting down and taking this. More hardware is sold via current methods than by this method and this project threatens too many big corporationsBesides what is this ??Communist North Korea where my gaming has to be done on a server collecting all my information ;spoonfed to me cos I'm too thick to buy a mid range PC or console and hook it up? People in this world still value tangible goods you know and where would all the folding@home be done?
I thought in freedom loving America that you all love the ability to do things your way and not be ruled by a server which dictates the games pricing, and lack of mods, settings etc etc
As far as Folding@home is concerned...Oh thats right I need to hire out a Cray Supercomputer server from Onlive costing $X thousands rather than using my GPUs and CPUs... This is about tangible versus nothingness and PC users are not going to give up their hardware for this shite. Maybe Mac fanboys would love this and some console gamers but PC enthusiasts know this is a load of baloney.
ISPs in the US and Europe cannot handle this service effectively due to aggresive traffic shaping and this is the physical and real life reason why this will fail.
iwodo - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
Personlly i think it is a good idea, at least Slow, or not fast paced Action RPG, slow paced games, turn based games, RTS, turn paced, etc....It would be great for Mac too.
arturnowp - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link
I'm just wondering if OnLive has something to do with AMD Fusion Cloud computing with is schedule for end of 2009. OnLive didn't invent new CPUs and GPU system afterall...arturnowp - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
I've just found out that AMD is behind OTOY, a competitor to OnLive. I just wanted to say please stop comlaining. It OnLive turn out to be over advertised nobody will use it, end of problem.