Resident Evil: Revelations saw its start on the Nintendo 3DS platform, where it did moderately well before Capcom decided to port the game to Wii U and eventually other platforms. Now that a sequel is in the works, fans have been very upset that Capcom has decided to focus the series on those other platforms, instead of the home of the original title. According to Matt Walker, the reason for this is because of the framework used and the focus on next-gen systems.
[For the sequel], we ended up using MT Framework [not the same as MT Framework Mobile for 3DS]. This locked what platforms we could use: we can’t output MT Framework on the 3DS. And because we’re working on MT Framework, we ended up saying ‘ok, we’re moving to new-gen too’, so that kind of locked the platforms we’re putting our game on.
So fine, you can’t make a Nintendo 3DS version of the game because the framework isn’t compatible. But what about the Wii U? When asked about that, Walker only stated that the new-gen hardware is different from the Wii U, so that limited the development team. Currently, both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 use x86 architecture and they’re the first consoles to do so. The Wii U processor still utilizes the old PowerPC processor technology of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, which is why Capcom is ignoring it this time around.
Because we ended up expanding on the new-gen hardware, that then limited us to what we can do as far as hardware we can work on.
While it sucks to hear that the Wii U’s older architecture is the reason Capcom is choosing not to focus on it as a platform, this does serve to explain why other third party developers like EA and Ubisoft have bowed out of having development teams for the Wii U. Nintendo’s next home console will need to be based around x86 architecture in order to prevent this from being a problem in the future.
