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Cliffy B and Mark Rein comment on Wii
Warning: Some of the comments below concerning Nintendo, DS, and the Wii may enrage you. This is a portion of a discussion with 1up staffers, Cliffy B and Mark Rein of Epic. Thanks to Aaaaaaa for the heads up.
1-UP (Shane): Along with PS3, we’re also seeing Nintendo Wii come out this fall; I’m really curious what Cliffy’s take on it is? Because it seems like [nintendo] are taking a different direction [from epic] …gears of war [is the opposite of] what Nintendo’s trying to do with their titles on Wii; Would [you] ever make a game for Wii?
Cliffy B: I’ll buy one day one…
1-UP (Shane): Would you ever make a game for it?
Cliffy B: Ummm…
1-UP (Shane): Hypothetically…?
Cliffy B: If Cliffy got what cliffy wanted (laughs) Here’s the thing, I’m not that tight with Nintendo that I was able to get away for 30 seconds and play with the damn thing at E3 which was what I wanted to do… I got hands on with the PS3, but I was not able to get hands on with the Wii. I was very skeptical about the DS until i got hands on [time] with it… I’m a fanboy… They make funs games, and I’ll always have a soft spot for them.
1-UP (Garnett): What about taking a short project, and [making] a DS [game]?
Cliffy B: Honestly… people expect blockbusters out of us, who knows maybe somewhere down the line we can have a small team that I can work with, if we were a larger company, but that’s all just guessing, we have to deliver huge games at this point…”
1-UP (Garnett): Arguably you could make a blockbuster on the DS… because of the installed [user] base…”
Cliffy B: Absolutely, and I just read brain age cracked 4 million…
1-UP (Luke): But that’s a misleading number… that’s 3 million in japan… that’s Nintendo’s PR spin at work.
Cliffy B: (laughs) Good point.
Mark Rein: So what blockbusters are there for that system that aren’t from Nintendo…?
1-UP (Shane): Red Steel…? Are you talking DS or Wii…?
Mark Rein: DS… Any Nintendo system for that matter…
1-UP (Garnett): Sounds like the doors wide open for [Epic]?
1-UP (Shane): There are some minor DS blockbusters like Castlevania, Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center, they’re not million selling games… and they’re weird and they have great word of mouth.
Mark Rein: But the big blockbusters for their platforms come from them, don’t they?
1-UP (Shane): But the biggest rivals to third parties is always Nintendo
1-UP (Luke): That’s why it’s not neccesarily in epics best interest to work with a company like Nintendo because Nintendo canabilises it’s own sales of third party–
1-UP (Garnett): You see what they need, they need a development tool like Unreal [engine] for the Wii! What do you think about that, mark, unreal [engine] for the Wii?
Mark Rein: …I don’t know…
1-UP (Luke): I remember what you thought about that, mark…
Mark Rein: The problem with the Wii is that it’s not within our performance envelope…
1-UP (Luke): Like it’s gimped…?
Mark Rein: Without saying what the hardware spec of the machine is, i think it’s clear that nintendo has aimed it at [standard definiton] and unreal engine 3 is really more aimed at high definiton… I don’t think our engine really could deliver a compelling experience on that platform.
1-UP (Luke): Gimped.
Mark Rein: That’s not to say some people won’t do it, I’m sure one of our licensees at some point will port it to Wii, and ship their game on Wii, that wouldn’t surprise me.