Aqui está uma entrevista feita pela IGN ao presidente da Factor 5, responsável pelo grande Rogue Squadron para a Gamecube e responsável também por espremer ao máximo as capacidades da Gamecube.

Fala sobre a real capacidade gráfica da Wii e diz-se desapontado em relação à preguiça dos developers em puxarem o hardware da consola, concordo totalmente com ele.


Take Five: Julian Eggebrecht
Are Wii developers sloppy? GCN's unchallenged technology-pusher, Factor 5, says yes.



February 8, 2007 - Welcome to IGN Wii's 'Take Five' series of articles. Join us every Thursday as we pose five questions to various industry icons, from the developers making today's biggest games to the marketing groups and public relations firms selling them. These interview-style snapshots are designed to give our readers a quickly digestible peek into the minds of the industry's most important contributors.

Julian Eggebrecht is no stranger to Nintendo fans. He is the president of Factor 5, which was one of GameCube's most valuable developers. The company created the Rogue Squadron games and simultaneously pushed Nintendo's hardware more than any other studio, including even Nintendo. Eggebrecht is currently directing the Sony-published PlayStation 3 effort Lair, which is nearing its final stages of completion.



1. Do you see videogames as games, art or both?
Julian: Videogames right now are more games than art, but we need to get to art. I think on the art side, we already have it with games like Okami, parts of Zelda were amazing, and abstract stuff like LocoRoco was fantastic. But in the interactivity and the ability to touch the feelings of people, I think we're still too gamey and not artsy enough. I don't want a deliberate push for it, but it would be nice if we basically could get more artistic content into the interactive side and I think right now the industry is probably too much geared toward money, quite frankly. Some of the things which might help there are the small downloadables because we can go more artistic there, both from studios like us, which can do small incubation--like teams, as well as the initiatives like Linux on PlayStation 3. Install it, hack away, OpenGL -- you've got it right there. I think we might get a really cool grassroots thing going with that, and that will help the overall industry and hopefully get the artistic side out of it more.

2. What do you think of Nintendo's Wii console and is there any chance that Factor 5 would make a future Wii title?
Julian: I love the Wii, absolutely. As I've said many, many times, the perfect combination of consoles to have at home is a PS3 and Wii. Everybody really should have one. Will we make something for the Wii? Well, obviously we would have an extremely powerful engine on it with our work on Rebel Strike, but for right now we certainly haven't planned anything for the Wii outside of some third parties who have approached us about licensing DivX and MusyX, which would be a no-brainer for us. Speaking about games, right now we're quite happy with Sony and Lair is obviously something that is with Sony and will stay with Sony. As to other original IPs, I think as long as we and Sony can agree on price, budget and everything else that makes these things tick, we're quite happy with who we're with right now. On the other hand, I as a creator would love to do something with the Wii-mote, something wacky, but I also can do that just by hacking into the thing and never making a commercial game with it [laughs].

3. Where do you see PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 in three years?
Julian: It's all about the long term view. The one thing that I'm a little bit worried about with Nintendo is that a similar situation as the GameCube might happen. I do think they have a much stronger launch this time around, no doubt about it. But still, Nintendo always had a challenge keeping third party content on their platform and keeping third parties happy. Or, if the third party stuff doesn't happen in large enough amounts, then supplying enough first party content. If they get that right, I think the Wii can sustain quite a bit. With PlayStation 3, I don't have any doubt that in three years it will be the most sold system. On the other hand, though, I don't think it will dominate the market quite as clearly as PS2 did. I don't think there is any doubt about that anymore -- that Microsoft has quite a bit of traction and won't suddenly out of the blue lose that traction. This round of consoles will be a much more even thing, with Sony clearly in the lead in three years. The wild-card is really Nintendo's casual gamer thing. If Nintendo really manages to have a huge breakout thing and suddenly every second housewife is buying a Wii, then we're looking at a completely different scenario. But I don't know if that's going to happen.

4. What is the biggest problem that game developers face today, in your opinion?
Julian: The biggest problem is scale. I mean, we certainly experienced that with Lair. This time a lot of people expected it to be simple, but in the end it was probably the hardest time we had since the 2D-to-3D days. So the ramp up was pretty brutal and at the same time as you do ramp-up, it's suddenly about managing huge amounts of people. EA did that years ago and we were hearing the stories from them back then about how hard it was to do a game with a team of 100. Now we're there and yes, it's damned hard. That's probably what everybody in the industry is going through and for us, it's made us think hard about how we can scale back on the team sizes going forward and instead have a stronger efficiency again because if you go with a certain amount of people, things simply start to get inefficient, which is what I hate the most. So for the future, the key term is efficiency.

5. Resident Evil 4 was a beautiful GCN title. Rogue Squadron was doing things at launch that developers still haven't done on Wii. Why do you think that is? Are studios getting sloppy on Wii?
Julian: Yes. I'm so disappointed knowing exactly what the Wii can do -- and I still think nobody knows it better than we (no pun intended) [laughs]. I really have to say, boy, am I disappointed! They all have finally figured out, five years into the hardware's life cycle, how to do at least basic shaders and a rim light, but that's what everybody does. But I still don't see enough bump and normal-mapping, if any. I still don't see enough post effects, although you would have insane fill-rates with Wii. I don't see any of that. I was digging out Rebel Strike the other day and was looking at it, and we had some people who were visiting ask, "Why isn't anybody else doing this on Wii?" And I am at a loss. I really am.Fonte: Link (http://wii.ign.com/articles/762/762984p1.html)

Plenamente de acordo!!
Já é altura de se começar a ver jogos com gráficos dignos de uma wii!

Já tinha lido, e gostei de ler alguém que realmente percebe do que fala a defender a boa maquina que é a wii.

Eu acho que certos jogos para a Wii já têm um visual muito bom. O Twilight Princess está muito bonito, tem o tal problema das texturas que parecem das 128 bits, mas o visual do jogo está bastante bom. O Raving Rabidds também tem um visual excelente, não deixa ninguém de queixo caído, nem explora ao máximo as capacidades da Wii, mas cumpre muito bem a sua função. Mas também temos que ter presente que estamos a falar de uma consola com apenas três meses de vida, não podemos esperar que os primeiros jogos levem a máquina ao limite, isso até seria mau. Vamos esperar porque a paciência é uma virtude, e os jogops que eu tenho para a consola, e aqueles que espero comprar em breve até nem estão mal servidos a nível gráfico.

O twilight princess tem gráficos muitos bons sim, mas aquilo é apenas o que a gamecube consegue fazer. a wii consegue muito mais que isto

Até que enfim que alguém percebe daquilo que a Wii é capaz...
Não é capaz de gráficos comparáveis com a PS3 ou x360 mas é capaz de ter gráficos bons e agradáveis...

O problema é que nesta geração de consolas há uma diferença maior em termos gráficos, o que leva logo a pensar que a Wii é muito fraca.

Mas também é verdade que a Nintendo podia lançar um jogo bom graficamente para começar a tentar começar a "nivelar por cima"...Fico á espera do Metroid 3. :)

Mas também é verdade que a Nintendo podia lançar um jogo bom graficamente para começar a tentar começar a "nivelar por cima"...Fico á espera do Metroid 3. :)

METROID3 METROID3 METROID3

Mal posso esperar por esse jogo alguem sabe me dizer se ja tem uma data de lançamento oficial

;1426991']METROID3 METROID3 METROID3

Mal posso esperar por esse jogo alguem sabe me dizer se ja tem uma data de lançamento oficial
Ainda não. Eu aposto que sairá para o fim do ano, para vender muitas consolas pelo Natal.

Se sair no natal, é plausível termos um trio de jogos explosivos da Nintendo para a Wii no mês de Dezembro: Metroid Prime 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl e Super Mario Galaxy...e que ninguém tenha pena da Wii! :victory:

Se sair no natal, é plausível termos um trio de jogos explosivos da Nintendo para a Wii no mês de Dezembro: Metroid Prime 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl e Super Mario Galaxy...e que ninguém tenha pena da Wii! :victory:

A Nintendo já revelou que não vai lançar esses jogos ao mesmo tempo. Pelo que sei acho que o Metroid Prime 3 já estava pronto para sair mas foi adiado por razões desconhecidas (componente online adicionada? ou puro marketing?) Mas acho que daqui a umas semanas vai haver uma feira/conferência qualquer da Nintendo e penso que vão revelar mais promenores.

A Nintendo já revelou que não vai lançar esses jogos ao mesmo tempo. Pelo que sei acho que o Metroid Prime 3 já estava pronto para sair mas foi adiado por razões desconhecidas (componente online adicionada? ou puro marketing?) Mas acho que daqui a umas semanas vai haver uma feira/conferência qualquer da Nintendo e penso que vão revelar mais promenores.Será um misto de razões, não sei se poderia sequer sair no launch da consola mas um titulo da magnitude de Metroid Prime 3 é daqueles que nunca está realmente pronto a tempo de um launch e dado o pouco tempo que a retro studios esteve com os DevKits finais da Wii devia dar jeito o tempo extra, mesmo para a campanha single player.

Note-se que deixaram de ter os limites de espaço que tinham, estamos a falar de um Metroid Prime com potencialidade para ser muito maior que os anteriores (que já eram gigantescos) e também aparenta ter bastantes voice-overs e banda sonora orchestrada.

Por outro lado o Zelda felizmente estaria pronto em finais de 2006 pelo que nem convinha à Nintendo meter 2 system sellers frente a frente, com Zelda tinham um titulo para assegurar a época natalícia por isso fez muito sentido dar mais tempo à retro-studios.

Sendo que Zelda TP é um titulo GC tecnicamente, e Wii de primeira geração, faz sentido que Metroid Prime marque o inicio da segunda geração de software na consola.

Depois claro, o multiplayer online, Metroid Prime encaixa perfeitamente nesse segmento, seria um desperdicio desperdiçar essa oportunidade para sair a tempo do launch (se é que podia sequer sair).

Não acredito que o jogo já estivesse pronto, e sinceramente espero que não. Metroid é uma das minhas séries preferidas, e os Prime, com excepção do Hunters, são para mim verdadeiras obras primas e os melhores títulos da sua geração. Por isso como calculam anseio fervorosamente pelo lançamento do jogo, mas quero que a Retro leve o tempo que precisar para que nada corra mal, até porque o jogo online na Wii ainda não foi testado e deve demorar um tempo até que esteja tudo a funcionar sem problemas.

Volta à carga:

RG: Let's talk about Nintendo, You know Nintendo's hardware very well. Recently, you showed yourself disappointed with many studios graphical efforts on the Wii. In a hot selling machine like this, why don't we see many great looking games?

Julian Eggebrecht: There's a distinction between... because I think people took my comments as that I don't like the look for example for Wii Sports. I think what Nintendo is doing in the Wii Sports is perfectly fine because they're utilising the hardware for that style exactly as much as they need to utilise it. My complaints were actually about the games which try to go the traditional, more photorealistic route, because there you really have to push it, and they're really not pushing it. Why not? Hmmm I don't know, the hardware is very, very easy to understand. Now the problem might be -and it just might be- is that some studios -or some publishers specially- are discarding the graphical capabilities automatically simply because it is a Wii title and they're basically telling the developers "look, we won't pay for any advanced graphics". Because the Wii, I mean not that you would meet a 20 million dollar budget like on the PS3, but if you want to get really, really advanced graphics out of the Wii, then you have to spend probably more money than basically going for the cheap solution, so that might be an inherit problem, so it might actually not be the laziness of certain developers, but it might be the... inability or the non existent willingness of the publishers to actually give them in a budget to do better graphics.

RG: So maybe we can blame the publishers instead of the studios?

JE: I think that at the end of the day it's a mixture of both, because as a developer who is working on a more photorealistic title I think they also have to step up to the plate. They've to take a look a bit deeper and then go to the publisher and say look, just because we've done ten comic book type graphic titles, this one needs different graphics, so let's take a look a bit deeper into the hardware. You're giving us millions of dollars to find out how our assets end in the 360 GPU's work, we want to take a look a bit deeper into the Wii GPU because obviously you can do more. Many have proven... Resident Evil 4 clearly from Capcom or our own Rouge Squadron series has prove that you can do a lot more with the hardware, so it's not secret that it's in there, somewhere. But developers need to step up to the plate and the publishers as well... or they need to be open about it and if they're really willing to do it then they need to find the graphical style which is simply different, I mean that's another solution they have there.

RG: Can it be because of their tools? That it would be easier if the Wii had standard shader effects... or is it a matter of work because you have to prepare the shaders for yourself?

JE: The one thing which makes it probably harder for developers who are coming from the traditional direction is that the shader system inside the hardware works quite differently, you have something more right about that than the traditional AGI and the video pipelines. Because the thinking back when the basic graphics hardware structure was developed was to get very, very efficient, that hotwired a lot of things. But there're many possibilities in terms of how to use that hotwiring and actually rewire it, if you're clever about it. If you connect you can get a lot of shader effects which would've been on the 360 or the PS3.

RG: If you "create" them on the Wii

JE: Yeah, because... on the Wii, you just have to be more ingenious. But the Wii, on the other hand... I mean, think about it: it's got so much more power compared to the GameCube. If even with the extremely similar shader hardware, the system clockrate is so much higher, you can do so much more advanced things, so if people just would look at Rouge Leader, Rebel Strike and Resident Evil 4 and then say: this hardware is significantly faster than those games it should have the very minimum they should get that and then they should build on top of it.

RG: And with much more memory...

JE: Yeah, exactly, and the memory! That is a very good point. Aside from the shaders, our main limitation which we always found on the GameCube was the memory: the memory was a struggle the whole time; it was a very hard struggle. That was actually our biggest struggle. When we got the Wii specifications we were excited because we said "wow, this is actually the amount of memory which we needed"

RG: The memory problem you had before

JE: Yes, exactly, that would've been our "dream memory". (laughs)

RG: Going with that... have you considered the option of sharing your previous development tools with other studios? Because Rebel Strike was an awesome looking game.

JE: The Star Wars engine was never developed in a way that you can just sell it to somebody, because we never thought of it as something sellable. If we would do a new engine or something which is more around or current engine because with four years... it'll be the one which is basically been used as the basis for Lair. If we would do a Wii version of that, certainly that could be something which somebody could license. But I wouldn't just drop the old Rebel Strike stuff just onto somebody, because at this time I think we're so much more clever about the load of the data path issues, which you guys in the press never see because you get to see the finished game. So all of these things now that we're much more clever about. And it was way too painful back then. We don't want to take up the old engine, but having said that I would do a new engine, and certainly it'd be fun to do that on the Wii.

RG: So would you start from zero or downgrade something that you've been using on Lair?

JE: In terms of the data path and things like that, we would probably use what we're using nowadays really exactly because you can transfer that over. In terms of shaders and very specific things like physics, we would start from scratch, because you need to tail up that very much to the hardware.

RG: Just one more question about that thing. Some other tools like the Unreal Engine are widely and easily licensed and used by many studios. We haven't seen a modified version of them for the Nintendo platform, which could make a full and easier use of its graphical and control possibilities. Why?

JE: I think the issue with that... you would have to ask them. I think the more successful the Wii platform gets, the more Epic and other engine vendors will probably think about the whole thing. But if their engine is all thought about and all built around the current generation in terms of 360 and PS3 graphics hardware, then they might have a problem actually getting for example the data sizes down to a point where they work nicely on the Wii. Outside of that this guys usually haven't work much or at all in the GameCube days on the graphics side, and that comes down to exactly what you were asking earlier and I don't know if with their high end graphics program... as they're willing to look at the hardware and do something completely new. But I can imagine that there will be several engines coming out, also for the Wii, because the more successful it gets, the more people will ask about the pros of portability. But it is a tricky issue because you can take the PC and then you say "for the PC and the PS3 and the 360, all have an arrange to kick off memory" for example. That's so much more!, so all of your data structures... certain things within the engine always assume that you have that much memory, it might be practically impossible to go over to the Wii. So it really depends on your engine and if it was designed in mind with something very small and very large, and it's sometimes not very easy to scale in very large and very small.

RG: So then it's not a matter of scaling but maybe reworking

JE: Yes, exactly.

(...)

RG: Mario Galaxy seems the best example of what the Wii can do. How far do you think a studio can go from that point? In other words, how much does the game use the power of the system in your opinion?

JE: (...) Certainly looking at it, it's the first game -also which I saw at E3- where I said "yes, this thing is actually taking advantage, it's running at 60fps, it's basically doing new graphical things with the hardware". Having said that though, it's nice because of the things it's doing; it also does have certain advantage by having exactly the perfectly right style for the hardware. Doesn't make it easier at all, but nevertheless they have a big advantage due to that, because, of course, the Mario style just fits their hardware absolutely perfectly, and they're taking nice advantage of it. I think the biggest challenge which you have on that specific hardware platform is to go into the photorealistic route, because in the photorealistic route there're certain things which the basic structure of the graphics hardware was not meant for and which you have to find really clever tricks to basically make up. And that's kind of the next... that's the big barrier on the platform. I think certain developers will grab it. Certainly, if we would do a Wii game, we would try to do that.Fonte: http://www.revogamers.net/articulos-184-Entrevista:-Eggebrecht-y-el-desarrollo-de-la-potencia-de-Wii-5.html

Embora não tenha visto as ultimas 3 respostas, não posso deixar de concordar a 100% do que este senhor disse acerca da "falta de vontade" e da explicação " porque é para a Wii, não vale a pena esforçar muito"! E se a Wii é muito mais forte que a GC, então jogos como RE4 deveriam ser o mínimo da consola! Isto sim diz tudo a meu ver :)

I mean, think about it: it's got so much more power compared to the GameCube. If even with the extremely similar shader hardware, the system clockrate is so much higher, you can do so much more advanced things, so if people just would look at Rouge Leader, Rebel Strike and Resident Evil 4 and then say: this hardware is significantly faster than those games it should have the very minimum they should get that and then they should build on top of it.

eles não estavam contra a wii? o lair deve ter-lhes mudado a opinião :P nah
é bom ver uma developer que nós bem sabemos está habituada a puxar as maquinas da nintendo desde a N64, a confirmar que a Wii é muito mais poderosa. vamos ver se fazem uma nova engine boa especificamente para a Wii.

não entendo é porque que as pessoas dizem que a Wii não é nada de jeito para jogos foto realistas... então o Resident evil 4 não continua gráficamente belo? e tambem os rogue squadrons? só por haver melhor não quer dizer que o antigo já não funcione.

bem espero que umas developers leiam esta entrevista e aprendem que vale a pena esforçarem-se quando fazem jogos para a wii

O que o Sr. disse a respeito da potência da Wii, não é novidade para ninguém. As developres tinham obrigação de pegar na Wii, onde a GC acabou. Se a GC foi capaz de Resi 4, de Rebel Strike e de MP2: Echoes, os piores jogos da Wii deveriam no mínimo, ter o mesmo nível gráfico destes.

Com o fracasso total que foi Lair (segundo a crítica), pode ser que a Factor 5 se vire para a consola que tem sensor de movimentos a sério! :004:

eles não estavam contra a wii? o lair deve ter-lhes mudado a opinião :P nah
é bom ver uma developer que nós bem sabemos está habituada a puxar as maquinas da nintendo desde a N64, a confirmar que a Wii é muito mais poderosa. vamos ver se fazem uma nova engine boa especificamente para a Wii.

não entendo é porque que as pessoas dizem que a Wii não é nada de jeito para jogos foto realistas... então o Resident evil 4 não continua gráficamente belo? e tambem os rogue squadrons? só por haver melhor não quer dizer que o antigo já não funcione.

bem espero que umas developers leiam esta entrevista e aprendem que vale a pena esforçarem-se quando fazem jogos para a wiiHmmm... Eles são centricos em gráficos, razão pela qual para eles a GC era mesmo melhor que a Xbox em termos de potencia (mais fillrate e throughput de poligonos texturados por segundo; mesmo com as lacunas de RAM)... Logo e ao ver que a Nintendo não estava a ir para competir com o High End da geração seguinte (leia-se HD e o incremento de specs necessário para ele) foi natural que considerassem outras hipóteses. Logo... contra a Wii não é a palavra, sempre os ouvi ressalvar que o GPU da Wii era óptimo para SD... aliás Factor 5 é mesmo das poucas que pode mesmo dizer que para eles a PS3 é melhor que a X360, mesmo tendo a PS3 os défices de potencia no que toca a CPU que tem... Para estes não interessa, quanto mais potente o CPU mais vai ajudar nos graficos, pelo que não lhes interessa cá dhrystones, querem é fillrate e ainda chamam às SPE's presente do céu para meter mais e mais post effects em cima.

No entanto sim, se a Wii estivesse na mó de baixo em vendas eles não veriam necessidade em/considerariam voltar.

Um middleware completo deles era muito bem feito no entanto, partindo do principio que seria versátil para jogos que não de voo. :D

O homem parece um pouco "orgulhoso" demais para quem acabou de lançar o maior flop de 2007 (para a consola que foi provavelmente o 2º maior flop de 2007, a seguir ao Lair).
"Ah e tal se fossemos nós faziamos isto e aquilo".
Então que façam mesmo, porra..

Era da maneira que 90% dos jogos da Wii levantavam o seu standard gráfico um pouco acima do "nível playstation 2".
Ou "nivel dreamcast" para alguns jogos, tipo aquela tristeza do ferrari chalenge. Até o crazy taxi da DC tem melhor aspecto.

É. Isto é o reverso da medalha da filosofia da Nintendo em alargar o mercado das consolas e que está a dar resultados e a contaminar os produtores de jogos. Se o alvo principal da Nintendo são os que nunca jogaram/ jogadores casuais estes não têm a exigência de um jogador habituado a gráficos melhores. As editoras estão a ver que a estratégia está funcionar ( é ver as vendas ) e não se esforçam em fazer motores gráficos de raiz para a Wii, nem precisam.

Apesar de achar que a jogabilidade é o mais importante num jogo, os gráficos também são importantes...

O irónico é que a Nintendo sempre esteve na vanguarda em relação ao poderio gráfico das suas consolas sobre as concorrentes e agora vê-se nesta situação :P

O homem parece um pouco "orgulhoso" demais para quem acabou de lançar o maior flop de 2007 (para a consola que foi provavelmente o 2º maior flop de 2007, a seguir ao Lair).
"Ah e tal se fossemos nós faziamos isto e aquilo".
Então que façam mesmo, porra..Acho que tecnicamente eles podem orgulhar-se, tanto pelo que fizeram na Gamecube... como até pelo que fizeram tecnicamente na PS3... acho que o Lair é actualmente o jogo com melhores gráficos da PS3, não sofre de problemas técnicos que costumo ver em alguns jogos na consola... tem é outros problemas. :p

Mas eles podem falar, porque eles fizeram melhor na Gamecube (hardware inferior) que 99% das Third Party's a trabalhar na Wii; pessoalmente considero-os bastante competentes, seria um bom benchmark do equipamento e poderia ser muito vantajoso se vendessem essa engine... Precisamos de middlewares.

Ao género do jogo é que torço mais o nariz... Os céus é com eles, pior é que aparentemente ainda não resolveram o problema que tinham com o controlo em terra... Para coisas à Rebel Leader e Lair... prefiro ficar no ar (e por outro lado gostava de ver outro género de jogo deles, mas tão bom em execução como as secções aéreas)

É. Isto é o reverso da medalha da filosofia da Nintendo em alargar o mercado das consolas e que está a dar resultados e a contaminar os produtores de jogos. Se o alvo principal da Nintendo são os que nunca jogaram/ jogadores casuais estes não têm a exigência de um jogador habituado a gráficos melhores. As editoras estão a ver que a estratégia está funcionar ( é ver as vendas ) e não se esforçam em fazer motores gráficos de raiz para a Wii, nem precisam.
não é exactamente isso a filosofia nintendo, porque o que dizes vai completamente contra o que a nintendo anda a fazer com os seus melhores jogos.

a nintendo achou que evoluir muito mais nos gráficos não interessa neste momento (porque ambos a gamecube e a xbox conseguiram produzir jogos que ainda hoje são lindos), o que interessa mais é trabalhar no controller que já há mais de 10 anos não avança.
ou seja gráficos interessa claro, mas não interessa avançar muito mais do que já se podia alcançar se não melhorar outros aspectos da consola.

e o alvo principal da nintendo não são os jogadores casuais, continuam a focar nos hardcore (como dá para ver pelo SMG, SSBB, MP3-C, MKWii, BWii, etc.) mas a nintendo reconheceu e com razão que para os hardcore não precisa de fazer muito marketing, porque nós próprios vamos á procura dos novos jogos nintendo. Agora tem de focar o marketing no mercado que por si mesmo não vai á procura dos mais novos jogos.
pode ser que esse mercado não seja muito exigente com os gráficos, mas quantos jogos nintendo são gráficamente fracos? 2? 3? (nota-se wii sports tem gráficos simples, mas não fracos.)

não é exactamente isso a filosofia nintendo, porque o que dizes vai completamente contra o que a nintendo anda a fazer com os seus melhores jogos.

a nintendo achou que evoluir muito mais nos gráficos não interessa neste momento (porque ambos a gamecube e a xbox conseguiram produzir jogos que ainda hoje são lindos), o que interessa mais é trabalhar no controller que já há mais de 10 anos não avança.
ou seja gráficos interessa claro, mas não interessa avançar muito mais do que já se podia alcançar se não melhorar outros aspectos da consola.

e o alvo principal da nintendo não são os jogadores casuais, continuam a focar nos hardcore (como dá para ver pelo SMG, SSBB, MP3-C, MKWii, BWii, etc.) mas a nintendo reconheceu e com razão que para os hardcore não precisa de fazer muito marketing, porque nós próprios vamos á procura dos novos jogos nintendo. Agora tem de focar o marketing no mercado que por si mesmo não vai á procura dos mais novos jogos.
pode ser que esse mercado não seja muito exigente com os gráficos, mas quantos jogos nintendo são gráficamente fracos? 2? 3? (nota-se wii sports tem gráficos simples, mas não fracos.)Creio que não foi "não interessar" (até porque aumentaram os specs) foi mais que com a aposta deles no comando apostar em hardware que teria de ser vendido em perda para ser competitivo seria um risco muito grande, primeiro porque o preço mesmo assim aumentava o que prejudicava a rápida adopção do mesmo, e segundo porque se fosse um flop ficavam com a bomba na mão, não tinham fallbacks para baixar o preço tão cedo.

Para uma empresa que vive só dos jogos... é um risco muito grande, especialmente quando esta não vem de uma situação de liderança na geração passada.

Também hardware muito complicado aumentaria os custos de produção de jogos tornando a sua vantagem para os outros produtos no mercado nula; saía com um ano de mercado da X360 potencia semelhante e um comando novo, com a userbase afirmada da outra e custos semelhantes... ia é levar ports com wagglemote (o que seria bom e mau; bom no que toca a FPS's); mas acho que fizeram bem em manter os custos de desenvolvimento baixos... Acho é que mesmo assim muitas developers andam literalmente a gozar com as equipas e orçamentos que aqui metem... e isso tem de mudar.

Creio que não foi "não interessar" (até porque aumentaram os specs)
:rolleyes: será que alguma vez concordas comigo?

:p

o que eu queria dizer era que repararam que pelos gráficos não vão chegar longe por isso tentaram de outra forma

ou algo do género

:rolleyes: será que alguma vez concordas comigo?

:p

o que eu queria dizer era que repararam que pelos gráficos não vão chegar longe por isso tentaram de outra forma

ou algo do géneroDesculpa, mas sim concordo, mas quis meter virgulas. :p

Lembro-me por exemplo do Koji Kondo a dizer na GDC que era claro que não dizia não ao Dolbi Digital, concordava é que podia esperar (bom, provavelmente não por estas palavras), mas creio que em tudo à volta da Wii foi nessa onda... Não foram para o "Ok, o que é que queremos" mas sim para "Ok, o que precisamos?"; ninguém diz não a mais poder, e o HD a estar lá seria uma mais valia, eles consideraram foi que eram sacrifícios dignos de serem feitos; no entanto não considero a Wii fraca para o que é... considerando que é SD; não há justificação possivel para algumas aberrações que por aí andam.

Se fizerem um jogo para Wii que não se limitem à parte técnica, espero que tenham aprendido a lição com Lair...

Nada de concreto, nem propriamente referente às capacidades da Wii, mas aqui fica:

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Factor 5 boss man, Julian Eggebrecht, and we asked him whether another Rogue Squadron game might be a possibility. "I would go back to another Rogue Squadron in the Classic Star Wars universe. I still can't relate much to the new trilogy, so LucasArts can keep that. But, yeah, if it would be Classic and if we could find a new hook..."

If the series was revisited in the future, however, Eggebrecht wouldn't simply settle for old mechanics boosted with improved fidelity. "It can't be just to redo it in HD," he explains. "The Star Wars universe being relatively grey was actually represented really well last-gen already and so I don't think the HD step would be a huge jump forward. It would be much more about gameplay. What would probably excite me the most in Star Wars at this point is probably the lightsaber with motion control, things like that. But that wouldn't be Rogue Squadron."

And while Eggebrecht thinks motion-sensing was a perfect fit for conveying the feeling of flying a dragon in Lair, he would be more hesitant employing a similar control scheme for manoeuvring Star Wars' iconic vehicles. "If I was to do a game with an X-wing, I don't know if I'd necessarily use motion control. It might be [analog] stick, because that is how you'd be controlling the craft - it might be more appropriate."

So, there's a glimmer of hope for fans but, unfortunately, while Eggebrecht admits that he would return to the Rogue Squadron series, it's certainly not an imminent project in the Factor 5 development pipeline, saying with a smile that, "there's a ton of other cool things to work on..."Fonte: http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/ps3/game/news/article.jsp?articleId=2007091315537593096&sectionId=1006&releaseId=2005138888000000020735

Company president confirms that it's making at least one non-Virtual Console project for Nintendo's new system.

The maker of the hit GameCube series Rogue Squadron is back. In a phone conversation with IGN Wii this morning, company president Julian Eggebrecht confirmed that the studio is underway with at least one all-new Wii project -- and it's not a Virtual Console game. Beyond that confirmation, Eggebrecht was mum, but he did note that the new title would not simply re-use old Rogue Squadron tech; whatever it is, significantly updated or even completely new tech has been developed to help accommodate it. Factor 5's previous title, Lair, released for PlayStation 3 to mixed reviews. However, it is worth noting that the developer is intimately familiar with the GameCube hardware, whose technology extends to Wii. Not only did Factor 5 work with Nintendo to develop GameCube's audio solution, but it pushed the console harder on a graphics level than just about every other studio, Nintendo included. Bearing that in mind, fans can rest assured that whatever the company's new Wii game is, it's a safe bet that it'll look good and push the hardware.
At one time, Factor 5 was pegged to develop a sequel to Pilot Wings for the then-codenamed Revolution. Nintendo even went so far as to list the San Rafael-based studio as a "partner" in its official E3 presentation. Since that time, though, the company has been busy with the PS3-exclusive Lair and thus, work on any Pilot Wings sequel is thought to have been halted or cancelled altogether. Incidentally, IGN believes Factor 5's Wii title is an altogether different beast.
We'll have much more on the project as information becomes available. For now, though, Nintendo fans who loved the Rogue Squadron games should be happy to know that one of GameCube's best contributors is now lending its support to Wii.



http://wii.ign.com/articles/845/845353p1.html

Mais informações:

A short while ago Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht confirmed to IGN Wii that the developer, best known for its Star Wars Rogue Squadron titles, had at least one new project underway for Nintendo's Wii console. At DICE 2008 in Las Vegas last week, Eggebrecht shed some light on the mystery game.

The San Rafael-based developer has always been known for getting the most technically out of the consoles it works on and it looks like it will endeavor to use all of Wii's horsepower, too.

"We want to push the hardware. I think for us it's relatively easy for us to push the hardware. It inherently comes. But a lot of it is about exploiting the uniqueness of the Wii. I mean, on the graphical side, we're going to try and do everything to outdo everything else on the platform, the same as we did for the Star Wars games back on the GameCube," said Eggebrecht. "But one of our main focuses is the innovation around the controls. Everybody is always talking about the motion control, but I think people are overplaying that a bit. I really, really love the pointing aspect of the remote. Although we're going to use everything for what we have in development, I think the pointing stuff is probably the biggest innovation which we're working on right now."

Asked about the Wii game's state of completion, Eggebrecht responded: "We're pretty much at a state where we're almost done with the engine. At the same time, we've also been working on content quite a bit because we had enough running very quickly on the platform that we were able to. But the biggest milestone or mark right now is that we're almost done with the engine and it does everything that the PS3 did and then some, quite frankly. So we're pretty happy with that.

"It's not just what a lot of people were expecting. 'Oh, we're going to cash in on what we had from Rebel Strike.' Which we actually also did. That was a fun experience just to bring that game over and play it on Wii. Nevertheless, we said, well, weighing the pros and cons, why don't we do something completely new based on all the experience we had back then? So, that's almost done."

Before it began development on Lair for PS3, Factor 5 was linked to create Pilot Wings for Nintendo's then-codenamed Revolution system. What ever happened to the project and has Eggebrecht given up on the idea of creating a similar flying game?

"We'd never give up on the idea of making a flying game. Maybe a pure flight game, I don't know about that because it limits you a little bit. Flight can be involved, though -- our engine is strong around it. If it lends itself and the game design to it, it certainly can be an element.

"What happened back then. It was 2004 and I think, quite frankly, it came down to us wanting and needing to move on to the next-generation consoles. Nintendo at that point in time hadn't made up their mind, and I don't blame them, what the next-generation for them meant. We, of course, assumed that it was going to be something in the same vein of Microsoft and Sony, so we were kind of prodding and pushing them a little bit. We were saying, 'Come on guys. The road is pretty obvious. Why don't we get going on developing something in that vein because we all know where it's going to lead?' And they -- now in hindsight, of course, I know why -- but they always told us, 'No, why don't you keep it down? Don't think about 10 million polygons more. We're trying to figure something out here.' It was very mysterious throughout the year. Quite frankly, simple business matters happened. We had to run a studio, we had to pay people. And we had to jump onto something. That something at the time was basically the other upcoming consoles. Those guys were very aggressive as partners and at the time we didn't want to lay off anybody, and we needed the cash. So we happily went along with that also expected that sooner or later we could translate it back to whatever Nintendo came up with. Of course, we were blown away when they said, 'This is it, by the way,' which happened way later. So that's I think also why there were never any hard feelings. I think Nintendo knew what was going on with us and that to a certain degree that the time lapse forced us into how things happened. We never, ever had any bad break up, or anything like that. Which is also the case with Sony, by the way. We love the guys at Sony. So if we have another game which we want to work on with them, we would love to and I don't see any reason why not. Things there are a little overhyped on the Internet where people basically think that we all spit into each others' faces, which isn't the case at all."

Journey backward into Factor 5's history and you will eventually find the Turrican franchise, which will, it seems, be making a comeback, both on Virtual Console and perhaps as an all-new game -- most likely for PS3 or Xbox 360.

"You probably have seen the ESRB Wii ratings. There was quite a bit news going around that last year for Wii, which obviously means Virtual Console. So there might be something brewing there and we hope very, very soon there will be something there," said Eggebrecht. "And in general, what we have working on internally is thinking about how to bring that into 3D. I mean, taking a close look certainly at Metroid -- at what these guys did. Taking a close look at other old franchises from the 2D days which were brought into the future. I don't think we're at a point yet where it's full-blown and we're one-hundred percent set in a direction and everybody on the team is certain that this is the way it should go, but we're making headway. It will come back. It's definitely coming back in the old incarnations -- don't worry about that. But I also think that we will bring it into the future pretty soon."

Does Eggebrecht have any final words for Nintendo fans anticipating the company's Wii project? You bet.

"Whatever we're working on will at least blow you away in a lot of the technical aspects. We're really trying to do everything to squeeze the maximum out of the machine," he said. "I'm also hoping we're going to pay respect to what the console is all about, which is the innovation in terms of controls, in terms of accessibility, new experiences, things like that. We're really, really trying hard. I hope it's going to pay off. In terms of what we're working on; is it for third-party publishers, is it for a Nintendo first-party, what title is it? I won't give you a clue."Fonte: http://wii.ign.com/articles/851/851287p1.html

:) A ver o que aí vem

A Factor 5 sempre soube dar um bom uso ao hardware de uma consola Nintendo, basta ver o Rogue Squadron II para a Gamecube.

We're really trying to do everything to squeeze the maximum out of the machine,

vamos ver! :D

A Factor 5 sempre soube dar um bom uso ao hardware de uma consola Nintendo, basta ver o Rogue Squadron II para a Gamecube.E esse foi "só" um jogo de lançamento feito em 6 meses, eles na sequela conseguiram duplicar os poligonos por segundo sem prejudicar a framerate (e tem de longe o recorde de jogo que puxou mais poligonos na geração passada, até para a das HD não passa vergonhas). E ainda restam os mitos urbanos (mas prováveis) de que eles para fazerem mais shaders já andavam a manipular a TEV pipeline directamente via CPU :p

(as missões a pé é que...)

Pessoalmente... vejo muito potencial na Factor 5 se licenciasse as engines que faz, seriam middlewares óptimos (engine do Lair incluida)

Espero para ver este jogo então, se cumprir o que promete será uma óptima estalada de luva branca noutras third party's pelo menos no departamento gráfico.

No Rogue Squadron, criaram a sua própria engine na Gamecube ?

No Rogue Squadron, criaram a sua própria engine na Gamecube ?Sim, e agora para a Wii optaram por escrever "outra" de raiz em vez de a aproveitar. Que se alguém podia aproveitar para re-utilizar engines na arquitectura, eram eles.

Sim, e agora para a Wii optaram por escrever "outra" de raiz em vez de a aproveitar. Que se alguém podia aproveitar para re-utilizar engines na arquitectura, eram eles.

E isso não poderá abrir caminho a outras developers usarem a engine deles ?

E isso não poderá abrir caminho a outras developers usarem a engine deles ?
não, já na gamecube acho que a sua engine ficou só para eles, mas quem sabe.

E isso não poderá abrir caminho a outras developers usarem a engine deles ?Há uns meses não deixaram essa opção fora do mapa (a entrevista está nesta thread) mas a ver vamos.

Mais informações:

Fonte: http://wii.ign.com/articles/851/851287p1.html

:) A ver o que aí vem

Vá lá... terminaram a entrevista prometendo que o jogo não seria apenas para provar como eles são bons a "vomitarem" shaders e polígonos a 60fps… que querem aproveitar as capacidades únicas da Wii.

Vá lá... terminaram a entrevista prometendo que o jogo não seria apenas para provar como eles são bons a "vomitarem" shaders e polígonos a 60fps… que querem aproveitar as capacidades únicas da Wii.Por mim até podiam fazer isso, desde que fosse para mostrar a engine e a colocassem à venda.