The Wii U has launched, but that doesn’t mean that developers have stopped sharing their thoughts on the console. Especially when it comes to those criticizing the new Nintendo hardware.
Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light developer 4A Games says that the Wii U has a “horrible, slow CPU”, adding that they had access to a Wii U dev kit early in the development of Metro Last Light, but that it wasn’t good enough for the game, quality wise. 4A Games’ CTO Oles Shishkovtsov said:
“Wii U has a horrible, slow CPU. We had an early look at it, we thought we could probably do it, but in terms of the impact we would make on the overall quality of the game – potentially to its detriment – we just figured it wasn’t worth pursuing at this time”
He added that they “might” pursue it in the future, but couldn’t promise anything. Metro Last Light was originally scheduled for release on the Wii U, but 4A Games and THQ later reversed that.
4A Games’ comments sounds a bit whiny, since other developers have managed to port them games to the Wii U without any trouble. In fact, the Wii U versions of popular Xbox 360 and PS3 games look better. For example, Batman Arkham City, FIFA 13, and Aliens Colonial Marines all look better on the Wii U, according to their developers.
Nintendo emphasized on power efficiency with the Wii U hardware, and the console reportedly only draws 35 W during New Super Mario Bros U gameplay. This is about one third of what the PS3 draws, and one fourth of the Xbox 360.
However, this isn’t the first time the Wii U CPU has been criticized. Tekken developer Namco said a few months ago that the Wii U CPU clock speed was “kinda low“.
