According to some industry insiders, Nintendo’s whimsically named new console, the Wii U is up to 50% more powerful than the PS3. That’s a lot of horsepower, and as I said in my hands-on, there’s a lot to be excited about. Activision’s head of publishing Eric Hirschberg is equally enthused – although that’s probably just because they’ll soon have another system to sell Call of Duty on.
“I think Nintendo’s an incredible company and it looks like this is a platform that’s going to be even more relevant to the kinds of games we make. They’re committing to HD, greater processing power, digital infrastructure, connected universe at the back end…Those are all the things we need to make a state of the art experience for a lot of games. So we were thrilled to hear their plans and I think that anyone that bets against Nintendo does so at their peril. They’re a pretty great company,” he said.
Although he was unable to confirm that the world’s most popular first person shooter would grace the Wii U, despite it pretty much being a sure thing , he did say that its controller made it likely, unlike some other newfangled control systems.
“There are some first person shooters out there that are using motion control and Kinect and we’re not and that’s a conscious choice. Call of Duty runs at 60 fps. It’s an incredibly precise game. It’s an incredibly smooth game. We still think the DualShock controller is the best way to deliver that game. But there are other games where new innovations make all the sense in the world. I was very excited about some of the things that I saw in the Wii U because I thought it was an innovative take on the next gen controller and the next gen console. I was really excited to see Nintendo taking their console into something that I think is going to be friendlier to core games,” he said.
“Trying to make a Call of Duty experience on the Wii, you’ve got to make real sacrifices in the game just based on processing power and some of the other limitations of that console. This one seems like it’s going to be a lot friendlier to the kind of games that we generally make.”
The Wii U does have its problems – like the lack of a hard drive, and the fact that right now it only supports one of the fancy new controllers per system, but it also has a world of potential. Though I’m still not quite sold on the Wii U (until that HD Zelda becomes a real game, that is), my hands on time with it has me rather excited for its possibilities. A console that’ll run the latest in visually impressive, power demanding games as well as the best from Nintendo’s legendary stable? Yeah, I’ll take some of that.
Source : Industry gamers
Last Updated: June 15, 2011
