RUMOR - Retro's Wii U title facing rocky development, Nin...

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RUMOR - Retro's Wii U title facing rocky development, Nintendo rebuilding Retro
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This information comes from none other than Emily Rogers. Her past features have been either spot-on or hit-and-miss. I just wanted to state that as you read on.

- Nintendo has been in panic mode over Retro for the last year
- Retro’s Wii U project is far along in development
- it has had a rocky development road
- Nintendo has flown a few employees from NST out to Austin, Texas to supervise Retro’s project
- major gaps in positions and staff have caused delays and frustrations
- Nintendo is currently rebuilding and restructuring Retro Studios
- more senior talent to leave Retro Studios after Retro’s Wii U game is completed
- id receiving resumes from current and former Retro staff
- “Yeah, we receive resumes from Retro employees. From what I understand, Retro Studios is bleeding away their talent.” - id dev
- Retro Studios employees considering a jump over to Bioware Austin after their obligations to the Wii U project are complete
- Wii U title will be created without the majority of the top designers and top engineers responsible for the Metroid Prime trilogy
- Nintendo believes Retro acted out in protest when employees left the company
- Nintendo sought out another developer to handle Metroid to show Retro that the series was bigger than them

More details here (thanks to all that sent this in!)

[LegendofSantiago]

Hope it's not true

[CyTheLegend]

When has she been spot-on? I remember last year all she did was spew lies.

[TheBitBlock]

So if this is true it would seem Retro is going the way of Rare. I'm not saying it IS true, mainly because just who the hell is this woman to begin with and how would she possibly know this many details about such a top secret game developer.

Not to mention some of the lies.. I mean rumors just don't sound like a company's behavior at all.

[ThanyIlia]

yiiiiiiiikes if true. hope its not

[metalpants]

Some of these things just don't sound right...

[kdognumba1]

Who knows. I do know Retro has been hiring employees from other major companies. Even if something is happening with them, I don't think things are all doom and gloom for them.

[Entity]

Don't be true! Just don't! Nintendo NEEDS Retro!

[PaperLink64]

Seems more like a fake rumor to drum up traffic to a low-profile blog.

Also goes against the trend of Retro Studios hiring employees from other high-profile developers.

[toadster101]

Good, the circle jerk over Retro needs to end. They're not even the best developer Nintendo has.

[Emily Rogers]

When has she been spot-on? I remember last year all she did was spew lies.

Can't say I'll be right on every single rumor. No insider is.

But all of my rumors came before E3 2011. Before we knew a single thing about the system.

I said Pikmin 3 was moving to Project Cafe before any site or Miyamoto said it was.
I said New Super Mario Bros was coming to 3DS.
I said a lot of 360/PS3 ports were coming.
I said Ubisoft is throwing a ton of support, with at least 2 games.
I said Project Cafe was getting a big FPS. Then you saw Killer Freaks/Zombie U.
I said Project Cafe was getting no harddrive.

Yes I said Soul Calibur was coming to Wii U, but it turned out to be Tekken. Both are Namco fighters. But I talk to business people, not developers. They don't know the difference between fighting franchises. You can't expect me to get every single thing correct.

Don't just nitpick me on the things I'm wrong about. I got a lot of things correct.

A lot of people take it out on me that I posted some fake screenshots. First of all, someone was pranking me, and I apologized to everyone. I have no intentions to lie about anything. If that apology is not good enough, then so be it.

You want a liar? Go look at Paul Gale and his TMNT/Rocksteady and Starfox/Metroid rumors.

Most of my rumors have been spot on. And when they are wrong, I'll accept defeat. I don't have an ego.

[Red Dragon]

I know that someone who worked on the prime series is now working on halo 4. But Nintendo giving metroid to team ninja because its bigger than them. Well that was a misstep. But I cant see retro employees angry and jumping ship. Wanting yo try new things sure. Just hope they found great new talent to replace the old great talent

[KingBroly]

She's been reliable on some things in the past, but wrong on others.

Some of these things don't really make sense, given how certain games turned out and how they were seemingly developed. Particularly the 'Metroid is bigger than any 1 developer or designer' part, considering Other M was really the workings of 1 guy who literally had control and last say over everything.

[LegendofSantiago]

@Emily Rogers a lot of those seem pretty obvious

@Red Dragon *sees halo 4 trailer, plays metroid prime* well that's makes a lot of sense

[shingi70]

didn't a few guys leave after both prime 3 and Donkey Kong. I could honestly see why Retro should and is the 343i/Naughty Dog of nintendo. Having them work on mario art tracks seems to be a waste of resources and implies bad management What was stopping from having NST or one of the other EAD teams help instead.

[Emily Rogers]

@LegendofSantiago

Nobody knew if Project Cafe would have a harddrive or not. I saw plenty of speculation before E3 2011 AND before E3 2012 about whether Nintendo would make a harddrive available for Wii U.

And I remember plenty of people getting mad when they heard Pikmin 3 was not going to be on Wii, but instead Project Cafe. I also rejected the rumors about Retro working on Zelda 1 year ago, and I rejected Eternal Darkness 2 ever being in development due to documents filed by Silicon Knights against Epic.

Anyways, I apologize for having to defend myself. I really love Nintendo fans and Nintendo in general. I have no intentions to lie to anyone.

[Orian]

When has she been spot-on? I remember last year all she did was spew lies.

Can't say I'll be right on every single rumor. No insider is.

But all of my rumors came before E3 2011. Before we knew a single thing about the system.

I said Pikmin 3 was moving to Project Cafe before any site or Miyamoto said it was.
I said New Super Mario Bros was coming to 3DS.
I said a lot of 360/PS3 ports were coming.
I said Ubisoft is throwing a ton of support, with at least 2 games.
I said Project Cafe was getting a big FPS. Then you saw Killer Freaks/Zombie U.
I said Project Cafe was getting no harddrive.

Yes I said Soul Calibur was coming to Wii U, but it turned out to be Tekken. Both are Namco fighters. But I talk to business people, not developers. They don't know the difference between fighting franchises. You can't expect me to get every single thing correct.

Don't just nitpick me on the things I'm wrong about. I got a lot of things correct.

A lot of people take it out on me that I posted some fake screenshots. First of all, someone was pranking me, and I apologized to everyone. I have no intentions to lie about anything. If that apology is not good enough, then so be it.

You want a liar? Go look at Paul Gale and his TMNT/Rocksteady and Starfox/Metroid rumors.

Most of my rumors have been spot on.

Basically you said a lot of things just about anyone could have guessed. Pikmin 3 moving over to new hardware was a total "no ****" moment, as that's what Nintendo does when a new console is on the way, they abandon the old one. A sequel to NSMB is also quite obvious given how well the series has performed over the last few years, so again... no ****. Ports? Of course, ports are cheap, easy and tons were announced at last year's E3... so again, no ****. As for Ubisoft... you would call them supporting a new console when that's what they've always done a prediction? I'm sorry, but no ****, and you call ZombiU a major FPS? First off, it was announced last year, secondly, were it not for the dearth of quality titles at E3 it wouldn't have gotten much attention. As for the lack of an HDD... again, no ****, Nintendo is behind in such things as evidenced by the lack of built in memory on the 3DS. You brag like your "news" matters, when it's just a bunch of obvious rumors that stand a moderate to high chance of coming true. Anyone could do the same with or without sources.

As for Retro, this is common. Workers leave developers for newer, better employment on a regular basis. That's how people further their careers. It happens everywhere to every developer and publisher.

[Meelow100]

"Emily Rogers"

Yeah...I'm not believing.

[shingi70]

@LegendofSantiago

Yep 343i is like some crazy american super team. Have guys from Bungie, Retro, epic, Infinity ward, Epic, and Kojima Productions.

[BigLord]

NONONONONONO! NOOO! NO!!! DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN NINTENDO! Retro is one of your best 2nd parties, and most likely the best American developer you ever had! Don't let them fade away like Rare, Nintendo!!

;_;

[Cape_Mario]

Isn't moving to studio to studio kinda the nature or being a game dev. from what I've seen it is. you stay with one studio for maybe 4 years at best then move on. working in the game industry is a hard life with no real job security. So if people are leaving Retro and going to new studios its sadly no real big shock or news really as I've seen news about big devs moving alot. its just the nature of the industry.

[BigLord]

Oh, wow. Emily herself is paying attention to this comments section? This should be entertaining...

[Shaanyboi]

Well that doesn't sound good..

[KingBroly]

Oh, wow. Emily herself is paying attention to this comments section? This should be entertaining...

Not if I have anything to say about it. I'm watching this like a hawk.

[shingi70]

@BigLord

there first party. But I agree with the sentiment that they should be expanding retro instead of having problems.