Well you know what they say, time is money.
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Kotaku: The Wii U Won't Be Getting Unreal Engine 4
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Well you know what they say, time is money.
Everyone knows Ouya and Android Game sticks are the real next gen.
If the Wii U picks up in sales and gets to be a relevant factor for third-party publishers (rather unlikely), it seems reasonable to expect Epic to reconsider their decision and offer an official Wii U branch as well.
True, but the point being that the actual cost of producing Wii U ports wouldn't be the issue, it's the man hours which could otherwise be improving the other versions. Money isn't usually as notable a barrier to game development as people seem to think, it's actually the things you mentioned above. A Wii U port of a UE4 game would be a decision that almost certainly doesn't rest on the cost of the port, it's everything around that which stops it being viable.
You're probably right it's not a really an apt point to make though.
EDIT: Gabe Newell didn't backpedal on anything. He hated Cell, and he never said he didn't. Nothing changed. He hired a couple of exND guys, and they already had a grip on the architecture so they ported it.
With that logic it could come to the game boy.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Well he did clarify what he said and it is the most logical conclusion too.
When I said last gen I meant in the views of Epic. Both Epic and EA view the WiiU as last gen that is a fact.
Not really .. There is a base line hardware spec. You have to have enough ram to hold the UE 4 overhead and CPU that can run the basic functions . Gameboy doesn't have that. The wii u does.
some people here were arguing it was impossible. It is very possible just not practical with the given cost vs return on the wiiu at this time.
You don't pay Sony or Microsoft (except for the devkit), you pay Unity. Unity Pro is $1,500 and only supports PC, Mac and Linux. Licenses for Flash, iOS and Android are another $1,500 each. So to release your game on PC, iOS and Android, you have to pay Unity $4,500. Console licenses are a lot more expensive and issued per-title:
http://unity3d.com/unity/faq
Unity Technologies doesn't make those license fees public. From what I've read, it's more than $10,000 per platform and title (some sources say $15,000). Nintendo gives you a Wii U only version of Unity Pro for free. Anyone working on Wii U exclusives gets the engine for free, for as many titles as they wish to release, and if you're already working on a Unity game for any other platform, you don't need to pay any additional license fees to release on Wii U. You only have to buy the devkit and invest maybe a couple of days, so you'll break even after just a few hundred copies sold. You're honestly telling me that's not attractive?
Yes there is a base line hardware spec and wiiu, ps3 and x360 are below that.
Some people I think are misinformed that getting ue4 means it can just run any game on that engine. That not true at all. It would be have to be ported down. You can just use ue3 for that...
Really there are 0 reasons the wiiu needs ue4 support.
Nor do they remember Kutaragi.
The original vision was that Cell would power everything from Toasters to Televisions.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
You can develop on iOS without using the Pro release and pay a much lower fee... they do remove some interesting features from it though, but some games can do without them...
The initial investment is $2,000 - 3,000 for the devkit (which can obviously be used for more than one title). A few hundred copies sold is enough.
And I didn't bring Unity up, I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions. Does it make up for the lack of UE4 and Frostbite? Hard to tell. Unity is far more widespread than any engine you mentioned, but not used for AAA blockbusters. It's very common in the PC indie scene, though. Project Eternity, Torment, Endless Space, République - all those games run on Unity.
Isn't there still some revenue threshold in place? Though most iOS games probably never exceed that threshold anyway...
Bony Manifesto
Member
I think it's hard to say how attractive it is when you're so reliant on conjecture when it comes to pricing (seriously, where are you getting these numbers from?). As a developer, you need to look at everything: the up-front costs, the development costs, the royalties, the number of copies you can expect to sell, and work out exactly which platforms are worth your while from that. And, as I say, it's hard to beat the PC from that perspective.
I guess we'll see who's right when it comes to how many Unity games get announced/released for the Wii U. If you're right, and the economics make it a no-brainer, pretty much every Unity game of note should also release on the Wii U, right?
Yeah, it's been repeated time and time....but this is GAF, people read and comprehend what they want.
Shin Johnpv
Member
As a journalist your job is to report the news unbiased and provide information. Gaming "journalists" can't seem to keep their personal opinions out of it. Save the personal opinions for your reviews, not in the news.
Part of a journalist's job is to relay information factually and correctly - but that doesn't preclude adding any (reasonable) analysis or personal opinion. Opinion based journalism is a big part of today's world, I don't see why gaming journalists should be held to some insane standard as long as their opinions are clearly identifiable and they don't exclude important facts in their articles or falsely represent reality.
And let's not forget that this panel was targeted at developers, not journalists.
Ninja Scooter
Member
You are assuming Nintendo gives a shit. They just want you to buy the next Mario, Wii Fit and Zelda. They don't care about third parties.
Shin Johnpv
Member
I wasn't targeting this panel specifically with my comment. I was targeting game "journalists" in general. Give me the news I don't need your shitty spin on it. I feel the same way towards regular journalism as well. It's a prime reason why I feel journalism in general is in the absolute shit tank. If I wanted their opinion on the news I'd read a blog.
Why are they supplying unity for "free" to anyone who buys a dev kit then?
Poly counts used to be used pretty regularly in PR and mainline publishing articles for a good while. The only company to not rely on poly counts in PR the whole time is Nintendo. Otherwise, Sega, MS, and Sony have all boasted about poly counts for their systems. The last time I recall this happening was when MS announced the 360 with their 500 million polys/sec quote. Now we only really see poly counts mentioned in tech specific questions or articles, not pushed by PR.
In the end, we'll have to agree to disagree. While I'm not saying poly counts won't improve (they will), I think other factors and effects (such as lighting) will contribute more to the look of the given scene than a raised poly count.
That quote doesn't really mean much, if anything at all. They said the same thing for UE3 on the Wii and no one bothered to port it over.
When there's already a perfectly good engine already available for less, I'm not sure why anyone would invest in porting UE4 down to the Wii-U.
It was funny, people laughed, I don't get the big deal. Unless I missed something in the conversation and you're actually talking about something else.
Probably right that no one will port it over, but it does disprove 80% of the posts in here that claim wiiU can't handle it.
Jackben
bitch I'm taking calls.
It won't happen. Nintendo doesn't care and Epic CERTAINLY do not care at all. Perhaps Rein and CO have simply been forthright about voicing their mirth at the WiiU but it's not anything most other devs wouldn't have laughed at as well had they been in the same situation.
https://store.unity3d.com
Again: The investment is $2,000 - 3,000 for the devkit. That's it. And royalties are by no means Wii U specific. Do you think Steam or the AppStore distribute your software for free? Getting on Steam is neither free nor easy, and while you can distribute PC games yourself, most devs want the exposure. Anyway, distribution royalties have little to do with the platform and nothing with the engine.
Off course Wii U can handle it, its a very scalable engine. The real question isnt if it can handle it, but if a multiplatform UE4 title will have to be scaled down beyond recognition on Wii U.
Epic's feeling on the matter are a fairly moot point, I'd imagine. If Nintendo asked them for a price, they would give it, they are a business, at the end of the day
Obviously I haven't read every post in this thread, but I think the context of these comment refers to the notion that the system can't handle the current set of features the engine provides, which is true. You can hack off or scale down these features so the engine can technically fit on the Wii-U, but at that point it's hardly the same engine.
I know some were trolling, but I'm inclined to agree that the Wii-U can't handle UE4 and I'm not one to troll these systems.
Bony Manifesto
Member
I don't mean the public Unity figures, I mean the secret dev-kit costs and Unity licence fees for console publishing.
And I never said royalties were exclusive to the Wii U - but they're not a fixed rate across every single platform. Some will charge more, some will charge less - you can't just ignore them when you're looking at the financial viability of this. As an example, a deal where you pay $3000 up front and 30% on any revenue you make is very different to one where you pay nothing up front, but pay 60% in royalties. Both (or neither) could be worthwhile, depending on your finances and how many copies you expect to sell, but you can't just say the latter is an amazing deal just because there's no up-front cost.
For the most part of this thread comments are saying that the Wii U is underpowered to run unreal engine 4. Mark Rain said it could run it but they do not support the Wii U. The double standards some people have in this thread is amazing. So Nvidia is salty to consoles because AMD have all the contracts for this generation of consoles. So why Mark Rein wouldn't be salty to Nintendo and Wii U because simple they did not licence their engine?
Also with the Xbox 360 collaboration and the release of Gears of War on Microsoft console Mark Rein was shitting on Ps3 and the Wii about the tech specs and how Xbox 360 was the future of gaming and Unreal 3 was the best thing humanity's eyes ever graced up on. Next thing we saw how Ps3 struggle to get support from Epic engine because most of the ports from Xbox 360 was an ugly glusterfuck in the early years of the console(Mass Effect 2, Turok, Unreal Tournament 3).
Now they are all kisses with Sony because they licence their engine something they didn't do with Ps3. I think it's normal for a company that is investing millions of dollars on specific systems to run their engine to trash talk an another competitor that from the look of things have no hope to collaborate.
Plus the strategy from developers like epic who invested to other consoles(ps4,Nextbox) to put Wii U in the same scale as the Xbox 360 and Ps3, which isn't true at all, serve to keep the mind share that "next gen" consoles is WAY more POWERFULL than nintendo's tin-can to sabotage sales. So keeping less risk something like the previous generation repeating(Nintendo got all the monnies).
If nintendo did licence Unreal Engine 4 Mark Rain would be all over Iwata's pecker. Same as he was with Microsoft before and with Sony now. It is Element(ary).
Also with the Xbox 360 collaboration and the release of Gears of War on Microsoft console Mark Rein was shitting on Ps3 and the Wii about the tech specs and how Xbox 360 was the future of gaming and Unreal 3 was the best thing humanity's eyes ever graced up on. Next thing we saw how Ps3 struggle to get support from Epic engine because most of the ports from Xbox 360 was an ugly glusterfuck in the early years of the console(Mass Effect 2, Turok, Unreal Tournament 3).
Now they are all kisses with Sony because they licence their engine something they didn't do with Ps3. I think it's normal for a company that is investing millions of dollars on specific systems to run their engine to trash talk an another competitor that from the look of things have no hope to collaborate.
Plus the strategy from developers like epic who invested to other consoles(ps4,Nextbox) to put Wii U in the same scale as the Xbox 360 and Ps3, which isn't true at all, serve to keep the mind share that "next gen" consoles is WAY more POWERFULL than nintendo's tin-can to sabotage sales. So keeping less risk something like the previous generation repeating(Nintendo got all the monnies).
If nintendo did licence Unreal Engine 4 Mark Rain would be all over Iwata's pecker. Same as he was with Microsoft before and with Sony now. It is Element(ary).
Jackben
bitch I'm taking calls.
HahahaUE4? I think you meant Unity.
THE FUTURE IS YOUUUNEEEEEETEEEE!
Whatever it would cost Nintendo could afford it or have their own people alter the engine. That I'm certain of. I own a Wii U and I believe Nintendo and those that it works with will deliver. However I think they should do it simply so there are no extra excuses. So the engine is there, lessing the cost of making a Wii U version. Even if no one uses it they can't say the option wasn't there.
However I don't think UE4 is going to be as big as an issue as we all think. The increased usage of internal engines at the big publishers, continued use of UE3, free access to Unity for those with Wii U devkits. Frostbite is a bigger issue here. Not because the Wii U won't be getting Battlefield 4. Forget that for a moment. I think gaming as a whole might very well be reaching their limit with shooters and the genre could go into a downward spiral like so many other genres before it. It needs a rest. It's a big issue because EA will be using it for other genres and that means the Wii U won't be getting Dragon Age 3 and a number of other games. Game that would do well on the Wii U or at least do respectable numbers far better then the typical shooter because there is a audience for RPGs, adventure games, etc among the Nintendo core fan base. Think about the genres Nintendo's titles are in and and how well they do. The audience is there and will be there as more people buy the system.
Pretty much this whole post is just nonsense.
https://twitter.com/MarkRein
As he stated in the past:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/14/water-meet-fish-epic-games-mark-rein-on-wii-u-ps-vita-and/
this is turning into wust 2.0. Its pretty funny how much people just dont want to face the facts in front of them.
UE4 probably could run on Wii U. The question becomes if UE4 would do anything witin the Wii U that UE3 could not.
If you strip out the very demanding lightning, particle and material effects, what does UE4 have over 3?
Keep in mind that UE3 can be heavily customized, that Star Wars tech demo was running on UE3 for instance.
If you strip out the very demanding lightning, particle and material effects, what does UE4 have over 3?
Keep in mind that UE3 can be heavily customized, that Star Wars tech demo was running on UE3 for instance.
i think you are completely wrong. So, reason companies use 3rd party engines is Cost. This is the main reason. From that comes efficiency, time, ease and everything else.
H_Prestige
Banned
It could probably run on the 360 too if you strip out all things that require more powerful hardware.
You give me tweets I state facts.
Nintendo never worked together with Epic even on the port of Unreal Engine 3 was made by 3rd party studios like Rocksteady.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games
Check the above list and see how many games were ported on nintendo consoles using unreal engine in general. Two-three so why Epic should support the Wii U with tools about the Unreal 4?
As for the comment of Rein about water meets fish, it doesn't contradict my opinion on the matter. Before he was referring to specs, when he made this comments was at e3 2011 when the specs was not problem for Wii U. The same e3 EA promised unprecedented support for the console.
Maybe Rein was expecting Nintendo to licence their engine now that the Wii U is strong enough for Epic, they didn't they licence Unity so Epic lost a potential client so he is salty. Sony licence their engine maybe for cheap alternative to keep the developing costs down for their internal studios so Ps4 is "Next Gen" for Epic and Wii U isn't. Strategic partnerships is fuelling this comments and right now Rein is on Sony's train. Good for him what ever makes his company floats.
Exactly, but My point was that it does not make sense to port UE 4 to Wii U or 360 if it is not going to do anything that UE3 can't.
phosphor112
Banned
lol, no.
Another key point not talk about much is for these third party is you have 2 next gen consoles that have almost the same specs. The target specs for your engine really doesnt need to be scalable really. Instead of having to support way different specs you can almost create a first party engine. Here you have a very narrow range that you need to support.
I think nintendo was caught off guard by how the ps4/720 are based on the same exact hardware.
That is your opinion. Which is just wayyy out there.
No one ever got ur3 on wii. They ported over code from ue2.
I think nintendo was caught off guard by how the ps4/720 are based on the same exact hardware.
right "facts"
That is your opinion. Which is just wayyy out there.
No one ever got ur3 on wii. They ported over code from ue2.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
People seem to be blatantly ignoring that in both of his recent statements, Rein is still pimping UE3 to Wii developers. Like Walter White said, this train doesn't stop. UE3 will be powering U games for years to come. This Unity stuff...who has shipped a AAA game using the engine so far?
You would rather have devs lie to you than tell the truth? Everyone bitches when we get canned PR responses, but the moment someone says what they really feel, people start talking about professionalism. People in the tech industry don't have to like each other, or each other's products. Rein didn't even express disdain at Nintendo, just at the absurdity of the question.
And he still made money on PS3 when he felt it was worth his time (and he made sure to point out that MS was the reason the 360 version didn't get the same treatment), and he still has a great reputation in the industry. I'm sure he meant every word of it at the time, and I'm sure he was happy to be wrong since it made him even more money.
You would rather have devs lie to you than tell the truth? Everyone bitches when we get canned PR responses, but the moment someone says what they really feel, people start talking about professionalism. People in the tech industry don't have to like each other, or each other's products. Rein didn't even express disdain at Nintendo, just at the absurdity of the question.
And he still made money on PS3 when he felt it was worth his time (and he made sure to point out that MS was the reason the 360 version didn't get the same treatment), and he still has a great reputation in the industry. I'm sure he meant every word of it at the time, and I'm sure he was happy to be wrong since it made him even more money.
Saint Gregory
Member
But Nvidia is over the PS4 somehow though. Funny how that works.
The funny thing is, UE3 might make for a better looking game than UE4 with all the fancy features turned off, because it is designed and optimized for that level of hardware. Some lighting/particle effects/etc. don't scale to all levels well, it'd be more about turning the feature off (in UE4).
However, what you WOULD gain, is less work for the port, as it's be unchecking box's for engine features, rather than having to use a completely separate code branch for the UE3 version.
So what would you prefer, a UE3 game that either looks better, but might not happen, or a more ugly than necessary, UE4 game that has a better chance of coming out?
There is nothing about the term "Nintendo Land" to inherently indicate that its inhabitants are crazies who think Rein was laughing at war widows. "Nintendo Land" is amongst a wide variety of Nintendo* terms that typically get applied to all Nintendo fans, and that is how your post came across. It came across as lumping all Nintendo fans into one big generalized smorgasboard to deride them for the posts of a few.
Thus, mentalfloss calling you out for hugging a hyperbole and my post on 'smh.'
For example:
shinra-bansho
Member
I'm not sure from where you derive this devkit cost for the Wii U. And from where you derive that devkits for Durango and PS4, 360 and PS3, and so on, are an order of magnitude higher.
But you mistake my meaning of initial investment - I don't just mean upfront costs, I'm also talking about the time and labour costs in producing the product and the opportunity-cost as well of developing on a platform. If the cumulative costs don't justify "70% of something" then the money and effort was better saved or invested elsewhere.
Except we're in the realm of consoles here. EA's major titles going forward will use Frostbite 3. Unreal Engine 4 will, like it's predecessor, likely end up one of the most popular console middleware engines. Fox is forming the basis of Konami's output. And so on.
And yet, how many of them are coming to the Wii U?
That's all very interesting. I already clarified my post. I'll make the target of my condescension much more clear in future. As I'm sure will Mark Rein.
The point of UE4 on the WiiU isn't what it can or can't do on the console, but rather the existence of a good middleware platform from which multiplatform titles may be easily ported to and from the WiiU. In turn, developers have a harder time getting their game on the WiiU and as such, do not have the funding or manpower to dedicate to engineering UE4 to work on the WiiU, making the investment required to produce the port unpalatable. This is just all around bad for WiiU owners because it means fewer games.
That said, it's also not a surprise considering Mark Rein's rather notorious issues with Nintendo. I do wonder if it would be worth it for Nintendo to engineer UE4 support and distribute the necessary middleware code to devkit owners.
That said, there is some misconception's that just because an engine supports a platform, doesn't mean a game a developer makes for say high end PC's and PS4, will all of a suddon work on that other platform, even if it has "support". Case in point, just because IOS and Android are going to be supported in UE4, doesn't mean those platforms will get ports of those PC and PS4 games.
*edit* I should clarify, even though games use the same engine, developers can do with that engine what they wish, and some games will push more geometry, more effects, more particles, more physics, more scripts than other games, making porting to lesser platforms difficult/unfeasible. This becomes a real problem when these areas that the game pushes are critical to the games design (turning them down/off would compromise the vision).
mentalfloss
Banned
I'm pretty sure the target of your condescension has been pretty clear for a while now, lol
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