Valve takes an interest in Wii
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 9:32am by Jack
File this under the ol’ speculation column, but the folks at Valve, the popular development house behind Half Life, likes the Wii platform something fierce.
Valve marketing vice president Doug Lombardi revealed in the wake of GDC last week that if the firm were to branch out beyond the PC and Xbox 360 platforms, the obvious target would be Nintendo’s little waggle-inducing console, the Wii.
“If Valve were to develop in-house for another format, it would be the Wii. It’s growing, there’s already a huge user-base, and it’s fun. Source is really scalable. We can do that,” Lombardi said.
First Factor 5 claims the Wii can handle whatever the PS3 can “and then some,” and now Valve is claiming their platform works just fine on the console too? Man, that’s some mighty strong duct tape Nintendo used to put the Wii together, huh?
February 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Hmm .. Pay And Play is announced, followed by Valve talking Wii…………. hmm.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Well, realistically the Source engine was introduced in 2004, so the fact that it can run on the Wii isn’t that surprising.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:54 am
TRUE FACT: I know more about industry “digs” on the Wii from reading Jack’s posts than I do from reading other gaming blogs.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
That isn’t exactly what Factor 5 said. They said that the engine they made could do all the same effects, as the PS3 engine.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Portal would be an ideal game for the Wii!
February 26th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Don’t shoot the messenger, Andrew (assuming your comment was meant to be degrading). Jack can be a ranting fanman, but he doesn’t fabricate stories or take quotes out of context. True fact.
On topic, I’d love to play Portal using a Wiimote.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Who’s Andrew?
February 26th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I’m not accusing him of fabricating stories, but he took a quote out of context IN THIS POST. When he quotes Factor 5 as saying that the Wii can do anything the PS3 can do, he is taking a quote out of context, as Noel already pointed out.
Jack is so incredibly focused on what other people think of the Wii that he reminds me of a high school girl, standing in front of the mirror for hours before a date, frantically worrying that he overheard someone say his butt looked big in those jeans.
*WHO CARES* what some random employee at some random game developer thinks about the Wii? Who cares if ALMOST A YEAR AGO someone made a comment about the Wii being two Gamecubes duct-taped together? Who else, besides Jack, still cares about that quote, and still believes it to be accurate? Jack posts as if there’s still a thriving mass of people who think the Wii is nothing more than two GC’s duct-taped together who are going to (somehow) stumble across his post and realize the error of their ways. It’s echo-chamber, preach to the choir nonsense, and pretty much embodies everything that is wrong with this site.
There is absolutely nothing about Valve’s interest in the Wii that has anything to do with Chris Hecker’s 2007 GDC misinformed rant. Nothing. To connect the two is a hell of a stretch, but it’s the type of stretch that Jack makes in well over half of his posts. Bubble this, Duct Tape that. We get it, Jack. You think that the industry is wrong about the Wii. We’ve gotten it for the past 2 years. WE KNOW.
And now, I will ban myself from this thread because I don’t have the energy for the seventeenth iteration of “Andrew-MG argues with people at Infendo.”
February 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Andy’s big mistake here is that he assumes I take things as seriously as he does. Truth is, it was a funny and incorrect quote from two years ago, and yet it still fit into the context of this post today and my overall writing style, so I used it.
PS — Is it really an argument if you’re always the only one talking (commenting)?
February 26th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
“Jack posts as if there’s still a thriving mass of people who think the Wii is nothing more than two GC’s duct-taped together”
If you think there’s not such a mass, you should be reading some other game blogs. I frequent a LOT of game related blogs and listen to a lot of podcasts, and the idea that ANY mature game interested in good graphics would be a waste of time on Wii is still quite prevalent, even if its no longer commonly bolstered by the duct tape quote. At this point, the duct tape quote has nothing to do with the rant that spawned it and shouldn’t be confused as such. Rather, it is simply a metaphor for that wrong-headed attitude toward Wii without re-explaining it in depth. Such metaphors are useful because they are universal and require little setup.
Sure, jack is a pitbull when it comes to drubbing the plethora of misconceptions about the wii, but I’m familiar with the quotes mentioned and I don’t feel they’re out of context.
Personally, I think the idea that valve would develop in-house for the Wii is pretty significant, and worthy of note on a Nintendo fansite particularly considering they couldn’t be bothered to develop orange box on PS3 as I recall.
And there’s nothing wrong with relating this to the Factor 5 quote, since they are both on the exact same topic, i.e. “the wii can do more than people realize”.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Each Infendo writer has a unique style. When we make a post or write a feature, it is easy to decipher our distinct opinions. Whether it’s Jack, Blake, David, Jake, me…whomever. I think that’s one of the great things about the “intelligent passion” of Infendo, honestly.
The tone Jack used in this post shouldn’t come as a surprise; he always takes the “Wii defender” stance. Perhaps feverishly, sometimes.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Kotaku still makes the two-gamecubes-duct-tapped-together crack pretty regularly. The phrase fairly ingrained in the mind of the hardcore gamer. Probably because it’s pretty funny!
February 26th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I hope to see Portal on the Wii as well. It seems like a perfect fit…. a FPS crossed with a puzzle game minus the testosterone overdose.
And if you compare what the PS3 can do at 1080p to what the Wii can do at 480p, it’s really not so surprising they might be equivalent…. specialized hardware in each device aside, pushing 1/6 as many pixels on a CPU/GPU that’s more than 1/6 as fast shouldn’t be that hard.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Portal would be Great. so would Half life.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I’d buy a Wii version of the Orangebox if it had everything the other systems had. It’d be even better if they could also include counter strike and the original half-life with its’ episodes.
Yea, the wii is capable of many of the same effects the ps3 can dish out, but not at the same level. Even Diddy Kong Racing had advanced lightling effects back in the day that pale in comparison an do now. Could the wii output at 720p, 1080i or 1080 p? Yes, but what would a game like that look like? Would those resolutions be for upscaling vc games in the future? Maybe, but if the Wii really is struggling with N64 emulation that systems crossed off the list. The Xbox even has troubles with such thing.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Portal on the Wii could be very very fun !
But, it is merely speculation and wishful thinking.
Andrew-MG has some good points, and it IS funny reading all the staff running to the rescue of the resident fanman and his overused clichés and out of context quotes. Personally, I cant wait until he has an other article up about the “BUBBLE BURSTING”…yet again. We can never get enough of that journalism on this blog!
And maybe Jack’s A S S is fat . But with all the motion controls and upcoming Wii Fit games, he is working on it….lol! =)
Stirring of the pot aside, I believe valve would be a great asset to the Wii. But we just dont seem to get many great 3rd party titles…
February 26th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Where’s Malstrom? I originally joined the site after reading a few of his great expositions. Aren’t we overdue for another one? And what are his and sites current views on the DS? Obviously video game companies read this site and even espond to some of its’ articles. How abot calling out all of the Lumines sequels and the lack of true an online enabled Meteos (none of that Disney crap) for the DS? Why havn’t we’ve seen an adaptation of that wonderful game for the Wii? Mabe it’ll come via wiiware and allow for custom planet uilding and online Wii Play (I had to do that).
February 27th, 2008 at 4:05 am
Why does everyone keep saying “Portal on the Wii would be great”? Portal on any system would be great, it was a highly enjoyable game, but I don’t think having a WiiMote will make it more engaging or a better game then the PC version?
February 27th, 2008 at 10:30 am
@ Andrew, Noel, and Wii Wii
Maybe I missed a later clarification from Factor 5, but this is the direct paragrah the quote came from and there’s no clarification other than what one would literally get from the phrase.
“Asked about the Wii game’s state of completion, Eggebrecht responded: “We’re pretty much at a state where we’re almost done with the engine. At the same time, we’ve also been working on content quite a bit because we had enough running very quickly on the platform that we were able to. But the biggest milestone or mark right now is that we’re almost done with the engine and it does everything that the PS3 did and then some, quite frankly. So we’re pretty happy with that.”
It just doesn’t seem that Factor 5 said anything other than the engine does what the PS3 did and then some. What that means I don’t think any of us really know yet. While Jack can be too defensive sometimes, I’m tired of the Wii getting dismissed, because it’s last gen or whatever the nonsensical argument maybe. When someone defends a valid system for it’s strengths they are labeled a fanboy, is that really necessary? Is it some crime to want quality games on my system of choice? I’ve gone on a tangent and I apologize.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:37 am
One reason people might want it on the Wii is for the control scheme. Frankly, I don’t really like dual analog shooters because the controls feel archaic when compared against using a mouse or Wii remote. And because most people here are console gamers, they probably haven’t all tried the PC version.
(Although a Wii version probably wouldn’t be any better than the PC version, my PC is several years old and simply wouldn’t be able to handle Portal. So count me in for the “Portal would be sweet on Wii” landslide.)
Regarding quotes taken out of context, I’ve seen a lot of that happening at MANY gaming sites lately. Not because people are intentionally trying to misrepresent things… but often because (1) the original quote is interesting and gets headlined without the full article, or (2) the original quote is very brief and people add meaning when they try to interpret it.
The Factor 5 quote is a good example. A Wii clearly isn’t as powerful or versatile as a PS3; while a Wii game engine might be able to do everything “and then some” that the PS3 engine can, that doesn’t automatically mean it will have the same physics models/level of detail/graphical output.
Another good example is Nintendo’s upcoming pay-to-play model. People really don’t know what will happen with this service, but many sites are content to speculate blindly and tear down Nintendo (or praise the decision) without knowing the real facts.
Speculation and hype driving the gaming press? Who knew?!
February 27th, 2008 at 10:38 am
(And I do mean that in a fun and playful way.)