Ok, Unity on the Wii doesn’t seem too far away. Unity on the 360 is unlikely to happen in the near future. But what about the PS3? Any plans or ideas if a PS3 port is possible?
Given enough time and resources just about any port is possible. When you folks consider anything console related you really must endure a reality check as to what the console business model is like:
- You buy a tool to do your authoring and you buy a dev kit
- You spend many months (18-24? more?) and involve numerous resources to develop a title
- Then you must take that title and see if Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo will want to release it and if so, when (not your choice in either case)
Given the above there’s not a strong business case for us to produce a port given the low adoption and success rate for our user base. When looking at the Nintendo Wii we see a bit more potential due to Nintendo having a different (and more open) approach to title development. With Microsoft and Sony that’s not the case, thus the potential return on the investment for us just isn’t there.
Of course please keep in mind that times, and needs change. So for now our support for consoles focuses is on the Wii due to the potential it offers, if/when the time is right to move to XBox 360, PS3 or any other console or platform then we’ll of course take appropriate steps.
In my experience, getting a dev kit (and the SDK’s and anything else covered under the console makers’ NDA) requires having a publishing deal in place, which effectively means you have to a have a publisher to even get started (and the dev kits are effectively on loan to you for the duration of the project) I’d be interested to know if any of that has changed, though.
well according to the rumor mills and various blogs the Wii dev kit could be a s little as 2k USD. Not sure what that gets one, or what rights to publishing that allows. But time will tell and I for one am excited about the (even if it is slim) possibility to develop for the Wii.
cheers
It is typical to have the backing of a publisher in order to obtain a dev kit from Nintendo. Otherwise, it is next to impossible due to the high demand since established developers are wanting to develop for the Wii. The Wii and DS are white hot right now.
If you are serious about getting your game on the Wii, you’ll have to go through the submissions process with a publisher. Unfortunately this is a tough step and can result in many rejections. My suggestion would be to develop a good looking demo with Unity along with a thorough concept overview doc(not a design doc) no more than 10 to 12 pages long with a solid focus/high concept on the first or second page. This is no guarantee but it makes for a good presentation and most publishers want to see something along these lines. Then you must have some sort of plan as far as how you will go about developing that title - a run down of your team and technical expertise. If the publisher likes your game, you could end up having those wonderful pearly gates of Nintendo heaven opened up to you.
If you are facing rejection after rejection, then look at what you are bringing to the table. Keep in mind that your game must be of high enough commercial quality that it can compete with the triple AAA titles in that genre and/or on the store shelf. In the end, it’s a very tough business. Not to mention that Nintendo’s standards are pretty high. Ideas are cheap and quality is not.
Lastly, everyone using Unity has a leg up for several reasons. Since Unity will become a dev tool for Wii, anyone with a solid game built with Unity has a better chance than not having anything at all. Polished fun titles, and I stress fun, will entice a publisher. I could go on and on, but the majority of this is common sense.
One other thing, I have said in another post somewhere that Unity is perfect for the Wii. I say this because of the specifications. If OTEE were going to support Xbox 360 and/or PS3 development, then that is a whole other can of worms. Not to mention that on the developer side, you can count on your team size to bloat exponentially in order to produce the hi-def assets. Microsoft and Sony publishers are less likely to enter into a deal with an indie at this level due to the overhead and risk of producing such a title.
http://www.warioworld.com/apply/wii.html
This is the official site and information you need for becoming a Wii Developer.
18-24 month development time? No way. I think Unity will be best used (at first) for small scale projects that have simple production needs but innovative gameplay.
Two words: Wii Channel
While the Wii Channel does present a second and exciting opportunity for us there are still hurdles in place. Notably we need the run-time ported (that’s part of our Wii support effort) then after that we’ll have to work with Nintendo to allow the download and installation of the player for browser or channel-based usage on the Wii. So for now the focus is on step 1: enable proper title development for the Wii and that is something that typically has long development cycles. Step 2 down the road is clearly to use the Wii Channel/Opera for more casual titles where a broader base of our users should be able to find opportunities.
Ahh gotcha - I thought Wii Channel downloadable content came for ‘free’
Just to put my 2c into this - I would actually think that /starting/ content development geared toward Wii channel might be a better way to go. The reason is that Nintendo might be more inclined for more experimental and ‘indie’ style concepts for downloadable content.
Getting Nintendo to sponsor a full scale production (i.e. nitendo authorized and published disks on the shelves) will require the production of a AAA title and all that entails. And to be honest, most places that have the budget / staff for that would have the money to go well beyond the Unity engine (i.e. Unreal or Crytek) in order to produce a ‘competitive’ product.
This isn’t a knock on Unity at all, but at this point the strength with Unity seems to be for indie developers to create small scale projects most of which are likely to be better suited to a download rather than a retail box.
The console market (especially Nintendo) is far far different from the Mac market.
I didn’t interpret anything you said as a knock on our product, I fully appreciate open and honest commentary. This is just a case of not putting the cart before the horse, we have to first port our run-time to the Wii and provide authoring tools which opens up the Unity-Wii connection (at first for release title developers). Then later we can work with Nintendo to see what might be possible via the Wii Channel and/or their Opera browser (for the broader more general developer population).
Neither of the engines you mentioned is available for the Wii or has a Wii version planned. Certainly UE3 or CryEngine 2 has some advantages over Unity, but those advantages are primarily centered around high end graphics cards. Features which are far beyond what you can do on the graphics chip in the Wii.
On the other hand Unity also has several major advantages over these engines, the most important being that Unity is much better suited for experimentation than any AAA engine available, something that’s very important on the Nintendo Wii, where it’s not massive amounts of artwork, but new gameplay modes that sell content.
I know several major developers who would beg to differ. And the first third-party title to be released commercially which is created using Unity, Big Bang Brain Games, is just that: in a retail box, coming to a store near you 
Just because we offer a very indie-friendly license doens’t mean that our customer base is limited to indies. In our eyes, the indie-friendly licensing is our way to “keep it real” and build an eco-system of developers.
The benefits go to everyone:
The independant game developers (and students, hobbyists, visualization studios, and game development startups) get an amazing tool that will set their creativity free and which is actually suited to make commercial grade work.
The game development houses get a community to draw employees and contractors from.
OTEE gets a large crowd to use Unity, which is important to keep the quality and creativity of our development high. Unity simply wouldn’t be as stable and polished as it is if we had just a handful of commercial customers using it, even if these were paying US$100K apiece: some thing money can’t buy.
This is the model of the future. You heard it here first
d.
Once Unity Wii is available, it will be the best choice for Wii developers. I am saying this from a factual standpoint. There are a couple other choices out there for Wii dev(not Unreal or Crytek), and Unity is by far the most flexible. Unreal and Crytek are totally different beasts and do not make as powerful a match as Unity and Wii. The clever workflow in Unity is a core strength that allows not only efficient development but also promotes experimentation beyond your standard schema. That is exactly what lacks in the industry as a whole today, even in monster engines like Unreal and Crytek.
But all that aside, yes, 18 to 24 months is a standard dev cycle. A good casual game can take anywhere from 6 to 9 months to develop at a commercial quality level, especially one acceptable to Nintendo. It takes about 9 to 16 monhs for a solid DS title too. That includes having several members on a team too.
agree. agree. agree. i really do hope it is a model of the future for all.
while your business is obviously doing great so far (and deservedly so), IMO otee is just one high profile game away from being HUGE. You heard it here first
I think it’s kind of wrong if you think that anyone who buys unity will also be interested in producing a game which can be sold. The nice thing about a console like the ps3, if otee could work out the licencing issues for their customers for at least personal usage, contrary to the Wii is, that this console offers much more power cpu and gfx wise and with this power you can try out new stuff on your own or use it for visualisation/simulation which are interesting fields. Beside of the controllers there isn’t much to get excited about of the rest in the Wii in my opinion.
The Wii is an interesting choice but the ps3 would be too!
I assume you mean “everyone”, not “anyone”
Only the XBOX360 is really open in that way (strictly for personal use only), and then only through XNA (managed C# code).
Sure the PS3 can run Linux, but in benchmarks it seems that Linux doesn’t get access to all its cores (and certainly not to its graphics capabilities), and overall performs like a slow G5.
If visualization/simulation is what one wants, one would be better off with the fastest workstation one could dig up, or set up any old cluster (a handful of Xserves for example)?
But it’s all about the controller… and the explosive market penetration… and the fact that it’s underpowered.
If you remove controller, the Wii is just a slow Mac with no hard-drive.
If you remove the market penetration, the Wii wouldn’t be a viable platform to develop fore.
If the Wii was a small form-factor supercomputer (a PS3), only very very big teams would get to make games for it. Now that it’s not, and because Nintendo has decided to focus on original modes of gameplay, smaller teams can get access to the large market that is there.
I for one think it’s the coolest thing that’s happened to gaming in a long time.
d.
I assume you mean “everyone”, not “anyone”
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Yep, it’s early in my head today … :O)
Sure the PS3 can run Linux, but in benchmarks it seems that Linux doesn’t get access to all its cores (and certainly not to it’s graphics capabilities), and overall performs like a slow G5.
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I hope that they will open the console more time after time. Beside of this it would be a matter negotiation with them and if you could come up with a reasonable deal. Have you talked to sony already?
If visualization/simulation is what one wants, one would be better off with the fastest workstation one could dig up, or set up any old cluster (a handful of Xserves for example)?
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Budget and availablility.
But it’s all about the controller… and the explosive market penetration… and the fact that it’s underpowered.
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Let’s put it this way: Both aren’t perfect and so target different markets. The Wii is underpowerded and once you got enough of swinging your arms you just want a bit more - that’s how it felt to me as i don’t wanna play casual games the whole day/night long.
The ps3 on the other side lacks a innovative controller concept but it comes with enough horse power to allow new game experiences from this side, may it be gfx, ai, physics and so on.
If the Wii was a small form-factor supercomputer (a PS3), only very very big teams would get to make games for it. Now that it’s not, and because Nintendo has decided to focus on original modes of gameplay, smaller teams can get access to the large market that is there.
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I wonder if it’s possible to do a good geometry wars 2 on the Wii. It for sure won’t be a problem on a ps3 but as i said before my focus isn’t only on the games market.
I for one think it’s the coolest thing that’s happened to gaming in a long time.
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I think it’s a nice thing but it’s also a bit overrated and hyped too much. As much as i appreciate Miyamoto for all the wonderful games he did, i’m just not such a casual gamer and the direction he wants to go maybe won’t be mine. I’ve played a lot of Wii sports and had a lot of fun with it but beside of this title honestly there wasn’t a lot to enjoy and swapping batteries still sucks.
By the way: Do i need an seperate agreement with Nintendo if i want to publish games for the Wii or is such a licence included with the Wii export possibility in Unity?