Work Hasn't Started on 3DS/Wii U Smash Bros
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Was Iwata's E3 announcement premature?
In a Famitsu column this week, Project Sora head Masahiro Sakurai expressed concerns over Iwata's announcement of a new Smash Bros game for 3DS and Wii U, saying that development has not yet started on the title.
In the interview – translated by 1UP - Sakurai says that his team has been too busy concentrating on Kid Icarus to even put together a team for Smash Bros, and that announcing a project that is still "years away" made him uncomfortable.
"We've got no plans whatsoever," he wrote. "We've got two new games out in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all. It makes me cringe, and I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years, but the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members."
He appears to be rather nervous about the pressure that the announcement has put on him to assemble a team. "With previous projects I had a game design document in place before forming a team," he explains, "but with this I don't have the time for that. I won't be able to look at every aspect of the game and balance out all the characters by myself this time. I'm trying to think about how this is going to work out, but probably I'll have to discuss it with my future development team. The future of this project really depends on the people I can get involved with it."
Sakurai also shed light on the reasoning behind placing the title on both Wii U and 3DS platforms. Evidently, a Smash Bros had been provisionally planned as the developer's second 3DS title after Kid Icarus, to give the team a chance to get used to the hardware. But when Iwata showed Project Sora the Wii U, the studio's plans changed.
"If we went solely for the Wii U, the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race," he said. "If we made this [Wii U] game another extension over previous [3DS] one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay... It wouldn't be a fruitful competition."
This raises interesting questions about the nature of release announcements, and what we expect in their aftermath. Ten years ago it was not remotely uncommon for developers to announce games that could be five years away, and it's not unheard of now, either – LA Noire is just one recent example. But the general wisdom is that a publisher should have something to show, even if it's just a teaser trailer, before formally announcing a project, especially one that's sure to be hotly anticipated.
It's also concerning that Iwata's statement in front of thousands of E3 conference viewers worldwide seems to have come as something of a surprise to Sakurai – this isn't characteristic of Nintendo, a company that usually plans its announcements extremely well and has a talent for keeping secrets.
In a Famitsu column this week, Project Sora head Masahiro Sakurai expressed concerns over Iwata's announcement of a new Smash Bros game for 3DS and Wii U, saying that development has not yet started on the title.
In the interview – translated by 1UP - Sakurai says that his team has been too busy concentrating on Kid Icarus to even put together a team for Smash Bros, and that announcing a project that is still "years away" made him uncomfortable.
"We've got no plans whatsoever," he wrote. "We've got two new games out in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all. It makes me cringe, and I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years, but the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members."
He appears to be rather nervous about the pressure that the announcement has put on him to assemble a team. "With previous projects I had a game design document in place before forming a team," he explains, "but with this I don't have the time for that. I won't be able to look at every aspect of the game and balance out all the characters by myself this time. I'm trying to think about how this is going to work out, but probably I'll have to discuss it with my future development team. The future of this project really depends on the people I can get involved with it."
Sakurai also shed light on the reasoning behind placing the title on both Wii U and 3DS platforms. Evidently, a Smash Bros had been provisionally planned as the developer's second 3DS title after Kid Icarus, to give the team a chance to get used to the hardware. But when Iwata showed Project Sora the Wii U, the studio's plans changed.
"If we went solely for the Wii U, the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race," he said. "If we made this [Wii U] game another extension over previous [3DS] one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay... It wouldn't be a fruitful competition."
This raises interesting questions about the nature of release announcements, and what we expect in their aftermath. Ten years ago it was not remotely uncommon for developers to announce games that could be five years away, and it's not unheard of now, either – LA Noire is just one recent example. But the general wisdom is that a publisher should have something to show, even if it's just a teaser trailer, before formally announcing a project, especially one that's sure to be hotly anticipated.
It's also concerning that Iwata's statement in front of thousands of E3 conference viewers worldwide seems to have come as something of a surprise to Sakurai – this isn't characteristic of Nintendo, a company that usually plans its announcements extremely well and has a talent for keeping secrets.