The Wii U is Nintendo’s first foray into high definition gaming and it’s showing in development times for their announced games. Shigeru Miyamoto recently explained that Nintendo’s development teams have struggled to adapt to the HD era, resulting in numerous delays for their titles. Despite these delays, Miyamoto confirms that these growing pains are almost over for the company.
“When it comes to the scale of software development, Wii U with HD graphics requires about twice the human resources than before. Please allow me to explain that we may have underestimated the scale of this change and as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development. However, we are almost out of this phase, and we are also trying to create something unique utilizing an easier development approach called “Nintendo Web Framework.”
It’s interesting to see such a famed designer as Miyamoto admit that his company has had trouble transitioning into the HD era, as it’s been painfully obvious to everyone watching Nintendo’s development cycles so far. Hopefully the realization that HD development requires many more resources will lead Nintendo to plan accordingly so that future games for the Wii U can be released in a timely manner.
