Spore developer: Wii is a piece of shit!

[Stark]

Hey hey hey, MoO3 was flawed from the ground up, complete waste of time, killed a franchise, yada yada. We're talking about Wii and it's lowend hardware here!

[petesampras]

Hey hey hey, MoO3 was flawed from the ground up, complete waste of time, killed a franchise, yada yada. We're talking about Wii and it's lowend hardware here!

I, personally, think the Wii was a great move by Nintendo. They were getting pushed out the traditional console market by Sony and Xbox, so they tried to find a new niche. It's been pretty successful so far. Good for them.

The only thing I will say, is that MOO3 may have worked if only the Wii had been around at the time it was developed. The PC platform was clearly the main problem... :p

[Teleros]

I looked forward to the extremely ambitious MOO3. In the end, it was just too much to put in one game and it ended up a mess. Spores scope makes MOO3 look like a carbon copy starcraft clone.

So did I, but the problem was the ridiculous micromanagement (and interface) - the scope was fine IMHO (played Pax Imperia 2, MOO2 etc and loved 'em). All they needed to do IMHO was polish off MOO2 and it'd've worked fine .

Anyone remember the 4Q 2006 release date target???

You've obviously never bought a game from Blizzard Entertainment .

[Tolya]

I have serious problem with understanding, how the guy does not see the easiest answer: DO NOT USE IT.

Don't like it? Develop games for the PC or for other, more powerful consoles.

Wii's charm (the way I imagine it, because I've never played on it) is the way the controller works. Wireless, reallife action. And I imagine they had enough problems with making that work.

Besides, a guy working at Maxis bitching about Wii is like an eskimo complaining about hot weather in Kenya.

[Zac Naloen]

I have serious problem with understanding, how the guy does not see the easiest answer: DO NOT USE IT.

This probably has something to do with him not having a choice. The publisher wants a multiplatform game, the publisher gets a multiplatform game. After all, guess who's fronting the money.

[LMSx]

The guy does have an interesting point, though. When i bought the wii i knew that the graphics would suck ass and didn´t really care that much. But i didn´t think about the fact that it might not be able to process reasonable AI.

That's the main aggravation I have with Nintendo taking a hands-off strategy to console horsepower. If you think high polygon counts or bump mapping distracts developers from making a great game, more power to you. But going low-tech to chop off developers at the knees means it becomes more difficult to do other graphical things that improve the game- things like having 60 frames per second, or a farther draw distance, or more intelligent AI.

It's still early in the Wii life cycle though so it's possible this never even becomes an issue. I don't think anyone can point to any examples yet of a game with "dumbed down" AI, but it sounds like whenever Spore gets released it'll be an interesting thing to watch for.

[Hamel]

The guy does have an interesting point, though. When i bought the wii i knew that the graphics would suck ass and didn´t really care that much. But i didn´t think about the fact that it might not be able to process reasonable AI.

That's the main aggravation I have with Nintendo taking a hands-off strategy to console horsepower. If you think high polygon counts or bump mapping distracts developers from making a great game, more power to you. But going low-tech to chop off developers at the knees means it becomes more difficult to do other graphical things that improve the game- things like having 60 frames per second, or a farther draw distance, or more intelligent AI.

It's still early in the Wii life cycle though so it's possible this never even becomes an issue. I don't think anyone can point to any examples yet of a game with "dumbed down" AI, but it sounds like whenever Spore gets released it'll be an interesting thing to watch for.

Wii's largest and most outrageous graphical drawback is the 6x6x6 colour format. Visually it looks like 16-bit colour. A gaming machine with 96 megs of RAM can handle 32-bit colour for games of such calibre.

If the 6x6x6 colour cannot be bypassed and devs are stuck with it due to backwards compatibility, then it's my opinion that backwards compatibility wasn't worth it in the first place. For the billions that Nintendo invested into die shrinkage, form factor, and modest performance increases, they could have made a considerably more powerful and efficient system.

[Elessar]

That's the main aggravation I have with Nintendo taking a hands-off strategy to console horsepower. If you think high polygon counts or bump mapping distracts developers from making a great game, more power to you. But going low-tech to chop off developers at the knees means it becomes more difficult to do other graphical things that improve the game- things like having 60 frames per second, or a farther draw distance, or more intelligent AI.

Farther draw distance and FPS are directly related (trade-off's) in order to get high-polygon counts or any other of little graphical tricks. The reason why high polygon counts aren't available is in order to maintain little things like constant FPS. Complaining about one basically means you're complaining about the rest, given the current architecture.

So the only real complaint is intelligent AI, which has very little to do with the GPU and more about the PowerPC chip that's sitting inside the Wii. That's a valid complaint, but just looks really silly sitting in the middle of a GPU bitchfest. Beyond the huge variants on optimizing routines to simulate intelligence, whether or not intelligent AI even matters could be even debatable. Most games are being geared heavily towards multiplayer. It's akin to the way PC games advanced, enemy AI hasn't had major breakthroughs because the internet connected us with highly skilled opponents. The developer viewpoint is simple: people generally prefer to play against each other, so why invest in competetive AI?

More to the point, if Nintendo put their efforts into their online offerings, lesser AI won't be a big deal for the majority of gamers. Optimizing their architecture for network transport instead of mathematical transforms would create a superior product for the marketplace. The fact that they don't have online play yet is their biggest failure.

[Darth Wong]

OMG, a game console that was intended from the ground up to buck the trend in console development has been found to be ... bucking the trend! Stop the presses!

The fact that the Wii is not the ideal platform to develop every kind of game was pretty much set in stone when they decided to go in a different direction than the power path that the other two consoles followed. I really don't see how this criticism amounts to anything. It's like a Ford executive triumphantly declaring that the latest Toyota economy car doesn't have as much interior room as the Ford Expedickhead SUV.

[Stark]

Yeah, since this complaint is basically 'it's hard to port Spore - a highspec, genrebending PC game - to Wii', it's hardly damning. I'd be happier if the Wii had just a bit more grunt, though.

[Davis 51]

This just in: He apologized.

GDC 07: Hecker apologizes for Wii comments
A day after bashing Nintendo at a GDC developer rant, Spore designer Chris Hecker offered a public apology.
By Jason Ocampo, GameSpot
Posted Mar 8, 2007 8:49 pm PT

Spore designer Chris Hecker probably didn't realize that a firestorm of controversy would erupt over his comments yesterday regarding the Nintendo Wii. During a developer rant session at the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday, Hecker said that the "Wii is a piece of s***," slamming the system for its lack of power and Nintendo for only making fun games and not artistic ones. A day later, and after much outcry on the Internet, Hecker offered up a lengthy apology just prior to a presentation that he gave on Spore's powerful animation system.

"I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun, and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process, I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now," Hecker said.

He added that when he said those words, he was speaking for himself, and that he did not represent the views of EA or Maxis. Hecker also apologized to his coworkers, who he said were upset over the remarks.

"I do not think that the Wii is a piece of s***," Hecker said, and he applauded Nintendo for its innovation regarding the Wii's unique controller, its user interface, and the system's affordable price. He also commended Nintendo for its passion at making great games.

Hecker's apology was met with polite applause from the sizable audience. He then launched into an in-depth explanation of the animation system in Spore, the ambitious and long-awaited next game from Will Wright, the creator of The Sims and SimCity. Hecker's session was titled, "How to Animate a Character You've Never Seen Before."

[Ace Pace]

One could reply that at any rate, unlike Spore, at this time, the Wii is not vaporware. Anyone remember the 4Q 2006 release date target???

You clearly need to recheck your brain. Very few games worth anything release on time.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I see that Will Wright and associates knocked him about for a bit.