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Factor 5 reacquires Turrican license (Interview with Factor 5 founder)

Datschge

Member
Factor 5 is back? fuck yeah. hopefully they are working on a Switch game.
This is about the original German Factor 5 entity which always existed even when it was only a shell after the US Factor 5 was formed and did all the work. The latter went bankrupt and the founders essentially revived/reused the German Factor 5. I honestly doubt they'll do big game development again anytime soon.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
The Switch is also between Wii U and PS4, PS4 Pro and a high end PC.

you could say that but that would suggest it is more powerful than a PS4/PS4 Pro but it's not. It's between a Wii U and Xbox One which is what the title says. It's not as powerful as a PS4 because then it'd need to be more powerful than Xbox One.
 
I just listened to the part about Factor 5. So in a nutshell:

- they solves all outstanding legal issues with all Factor 5 entities, also the US one.
- Factor 5 GmbH, the German company, is a legally registered company again since a few weeks.
- they've bought back all their right to their old own IPs
- this also includes all IPs from former German publishers Rainbow Arts and Softgold, which were with THQ prior to their bankruptcy.
- He won't confirm any development starting but it is their idea to bring back old IPs and games and maybe develop further sequels "at some point".

So all in all, there is a prospect of re-releases of old F5 games such as Turrican and maybe even a new Turrican, but this does not change anything on the Roque Squadron games for now.
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
Come on... People still think PS3 and Xbox 360 are more powerful than Switch..

Well, folks make it sound like the Wii U was basically a Wii++. The thing played games at 1080p, while mirroring the image on a tablet remotely. The system wasn't a slouch.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton

You're reading too much into those comments. And this statement doesn't invalidate them unless it specify where between Wii U and Xbone is. We already know that the handheld mode is very close to Wii U, a bit better now with the new boost mode but nothing to write home about. And that's the what developers have to target as a minimum, running a game at native resolution on handheld on a system slightly more powerful than Wii U (in handheld mode). In docked mode there is a different story, but I doubt we will see too many games without a handheld mode or with a sub-HD resolution in handheld mode (except adaptive resolution).
 

KageZero

Member
Maybe one interesting bit is that he says that the final clock speeds for the gpu&cpu were finalized very close to the launch date and that nintedno could change them later on.
Also he stated that they have worked a lot with the hardware itself.
 
He also confirmed that Wii was exactly the GameCube but with higher clockspeeds. So the Wii wasn't even 2 GameCubes duct together.


Switch is the first modern Nintendo Console.
Same GPU standards like Xbox and PS.
Extremely Dev friendly.
 

openrob

Member
This means exactly nothing, because the divide between the Wii-U and the Xbox One is absolutely vast.

If you take it off the dock, the thing is basically a more modern handheld Wii-U. Dock it and it pushes a bit more power to up the rendering resolution to 900p or even 1080p. That's basically it.


I think you, and anyone else who equates power to resolution, have no idea about anything tech related.
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
I just listened to the part about Factor 5. So in a nutshell:

- they solves all outstanding legal issues with all Factor 5 entities, also the US one.
- Factor 5 GmbH, the German company, is a legally registered company again since a few weeks.
- they've bought back all their right to their old own IPs
- this also includes all IPs from former German publishers Rainbow Arts and Softgold, which were with THQ prior to their bankruptcy.
- He won't confirm any development starting but it is their idea to bring back old IPs and games and maybe develop further sequels "at some point".

So all in all, there is a prospect of re-releases of old F5 games such as Turrican and maybe even a new Turrican, but this does not change anything on the Roque Squadron games for now.

So let me as a couple of hard questions:

Besides Turrican and Lair, what bankable IPs does Factor 5 have? I'm going through the list of them and Rainbow Arts, and... yeah. Not a whole lot that they can do.

Are they planning on creating tools for other games, or original games?

Don't get me wrong, they seem to know how to do magical stuff with restricted hardware. Give them a solid IP like Star Wars or R-Type, and they'll knock it out of the park.

But they don't seem to have much without a supporting IP.
 
P9haOaz.jpg
 

Guymelef

Member
So let me as a couple of hard questions:

Besides Turrican and Lair, what bankable IPs does Factor 5 have? I'm going through the list of them and Rainbow Arts, and... yeah. Not a whole lot that they can do.

Are they planning on creating tools for other games, or original games?

Don't get me wrong, they seem to know how to do magical stuff with restricted hardware. Give them a solid IP like Star Wars or R-Type, and they'll knock it out of the park.

But they don't seem to have much without a supporting IP.

Lair is Sony's IP.
 

Lutherian

Member
A new released Interview with Julian Eggebrecht, Co-Founder from Factor 5 (Star Wars Rogue Leader, Turrican,...).

It's in german but here are some things he said:

-Switch is performance wise between Wii U and Xbox One
-developing is as easy or even easier than on PS4
-all modern GPU Standards
-they got all rights back and Factor 5 is alive (Turrican!!)

Edit: all Turrican rights. NOT Star Wars :(

Maybe a new Turrican for Switch???

Here is the link to the Interview (begins after 20 minutes).
http://www.spieleveteranen.de/

And if Julian reads that...
DANKE DANKE DANKE und bitte veröffentlicht doch die Rogue Squadron Trilogie für Switch! ;)

The day my heart stood still.

I WANT TO BELIEVE, Julian Eggebrecht !
 

FTF

Member
I thought Switch was harder to develop for and that's why switch versions of games cost more?

Edit: nvm, it was costs more to develop, not harder.
 
Is it closer to the Wii U, or the XBox One. Is it halfway? This doesn't really say anything substantial.

Switch has:

-a much better/more modern cpu/gpu than wiiU
-more RAM
-Developing​ is MUCH easier on Switch
-openGL/Vulkan and Nvidia experience

I guess only time will tell.
 

tkscz

Member
I thought Switch was harder to develope for and that's why switch versions of games cost more?

Easy to develop for, but carts cost more than disc to produce. So games that get a physical release usually cost more because of it (and Nintendo doesn't want to piss off/compete with B'n'M stores so they have the digital price the same as the retail price).
 

ksamedi

Member
Its obvious it means that Switch is half xbox one. No one says in between if the Switch is only a bit more powerfull then WiiU or very close to Xbox one.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
I think you, and anyone else who equates power to resolution, have no idea about anything tech related.

I don't 'equate' the two. I'm looking at what we're seeing with the games available right now.
The jump from 720p native to 1080p native is going to eat up quite a lot of that extra docked performance no matter which way you slice it.

But please, share your thoughts on the matter, seeing as you apparently seem to know better.
 
But I thought The Last of Us couldn't run on the switch!
some people on this board have actually argued that...

I'm genuinely curious, can Switch run something like God of War 3, Uncharted 3 and GT6? these games still looks pretty damn great even now imo. if you can have that kind of visual on portable, that'd be amazing.

I really want to get Switch, but I'm waiting a year or two for the first revision since Nintendo seems to always does that with their handheld.
 

Mabase

Member
Very nice interview with many interesting little story bits, like the internal Nintendo Dev history of Factor 5.
Also mentions how the video streaming apps (talking specifically about Hulu, which he works with) are basically done, just needs a go from the executives. Julian praises not only the quality of the Switch OS and devtools, but also Nintendo's deliberate decision to focus on the essentials of the Switch OS at launch (games), instead of overloading it with half-working features (one of Nintendo's big takeaways in their postmortem of the WiiU),
 

FTF

Member
Where did you hear that?

Source? FakeNews dot com?

Easy to develop for, but carts cost more than disc to produce. So games that get a physical release usually cost more because of it (and Nintendo doesn't want to piss off/compete with B'n'M stores so they have the digital price the same as the retail price).

Ahh ok yeah it was costs more to develop, not harder.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1352099
 
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