There are many choice words that have been used to describe Wii U, but surely “powerhouse” has rarely been among them–that is, until now. In a recent interview with GameSpot, Retro Studios CEO and president Michael Kelbaugh praised the Wii U, calling the struggling console a “more than adequate” platform for modern games.
Unfortunately, the perception is that it’s not a very powerful machine. That’s just not true. It’s a powerhouse. It’s more than adequate to make great games on.
Despite only just shipping Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the developers at Retro haven’t rested on their laurels. In fact, they’ve hardly even taken a celebratory break. According to veteran Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe (who has overseen a number of Retro projects), the Texas studio is already hard at work on their next game, and have been for a solid three months.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kelbaugh further elaborated on what the power of Wii U meant for the team during Tropical Freeze‘s development.
It was really fun being able to crack that open for the first time and learning HD techniques; pixel shading, having a lot more horsepower and how that impacts the team. It was really fun to watch our artists just go crazy because now they didn’t really have to worry about polygons anymore. Make as many as you want!
Though it’s slightly tempting to poke fun at Nintendo for only now experiencing the freedoms of an HD console, it also bodes well for future games. Though DK’s presentation was fantastic in certain ways (fur shading, framerate, art design), it also featured a number of elements that seemed simply polished and up-res’d from the Wii version. An entirely new game from Retro, be it Metroid Prime or otherwise, is sure to look stunning regardless of the Wii U’s perceived limitations.
As for hints to what the next game actually is, Kelbaugh isn’t talking–at least not yet.
We love working with Donkey Kong. It’s a great character. It’s a lot of fun. We love working with Metroid Prime, with Mario Kart; those are fun, fun games to work on. So, you know, you can’t lose. Every one of those IPs have been a lot of fun to play with and work on and [we’d] love to come back to them sometime.
A new Metroid would be great news. A western-developed Zelda would be unprecedented. Regardless, we’ll likely have to wait until E3 at the earliest before we learn anything else.
[Via: GameSpot]
