Epic Mickey was originally in development for Xbox 360 and PS3, Warren Spector has confessed.
Speaking in an interview with ONM, Spector revealed that Disney Interactive Studios allowed him to focus on the Wii version alone in order to make "the very best game" he could.
"The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title," Spector told Nintendo mag.
"It's burned in my brain - Graham Hopper [Disney Interactive boss] pulled me into my office one day and said 'What does it take to deliver on the goals we have for this product? And I said, well, you need enough time and enough money to be competitive. And it'd be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform."
"At that time we were talking about a Wii port and I was begging people - no, we can't just port to the Wii, it's not going to work. It needs to be its own game. A lot of the design ideas just won't work on the Wii, we need to give the Wii its dues. Graham looked at me and said 'What do you think about a Wii exclusive?' And I went 'Holy cow - yeah!'
"They walked away from three other platforms - no other publisher on the planet would have done that. It was a magic moment for me. No-one has even mentioned other formats since that point."
You can see the first screenshots of Epic Mickey here.
"Sir, we've tested the game and we can complete it in 4 hours. Our testers also say the textures and the animation is very poor and well sir... it's just not very good"
"Okay, well throw in a few motion controlled minigames and we'll release it as a WII EXCLUSIVE"
what he meant was it's the cheapest to develop for and has the biggest install base. but he's not factoring in the title getting drowned in a sea of shovelware. i reckon we'll see ports sooner or later, on formats where quality titles can sell well.
what he meant was it's the cheapest to develop for and has the biggest install base. but he's not factoring in the title getting drowned in a sea of shovelware. i reckon we'll see ports sooner or later, on formats where quality titles can sell well.
Good titles are not drowned by shovelwear it is only the mediocre titles that get lost in that. The PS2 had just as much shovelwear and it did not harm its good games.
I happen to think the story in the article shows that this game may well be excellent as it seems as if both the developer and publisher care very much about making the game to use the strengths of the wii rather than porting a game and adding pointless and ill thought out motion controls. The Wii is a very capable system however it is also open to abuse by lazy developers and greedy publishers.
Also your comment about sales does not stand up either. only 1 PS3 game has sold more than the 10th best selling game on the wii! And LBP, the PS3s best game (up until Uncharted 2) has only sold around the 1 million mark.
well said leefer! If you want to talk about a console with poor sales for its better games the PS3 is the poster child for it. in comparison to the wii and the 360 , the exclusives on the PS3 haven't performed well at all.
@ kimoak. I get the feeling that the haters weren't alive for the 8 and 16 bit eras of gaming.
Well, it's a shame. First, Spector is my hero. Second, I don't have Wii. Third, both PS3 and X360 are getting motion controllers (probably the main reason why it's on the Wii). Fourth, Gameplay+Graphics>Gameplay.
Apply that theory to Tetris and tell me if it works?
Tetris, a logic game that's 25 years old, is using "graphics" as the main element for gameplay. You know, all those different shaped blocks falling down. And I'm not even talking about the colorful versions of Tetris. You see, logical games are build around logic. Epic Mickey and pretty much every other genre is using presentation/graphics to their advantage.
Oh, but of course, you can take pretty much any game from the time when there was nothing like graphics cards/chips and act like a smartass.
The fact is Gameplay+Graphics>Gameplay. It's like math you know, like 1+1>1. It's not so difficult to understand, really. It's logic. Use it.
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