FIFA 13’s producer Matt Prior has stated that it is “not technically feasible” for EA’s Wii U team to achieve an identical version of the game compared to the PS3/360. This is due to the other teams ability to quickly make changes to add new features.
“Some of the later improvements on 13 we weren’t able to get into the game,” said Prior in a Eurogamer interview. “So we’ve got version one. They’ve got version two.”
Apparantly, “porting” a game over the the Wii U is not as easy as some might think. In fact, just moving FIFA 13 to the Wii U has taken up about 80% of the team’s work. Mass Effect 3 Developer, Tatnalus, experienced similar issues. Due to the mass amount of resources used on just porting the game, it will lack many of the tweaks that the other consoles have.
“We get it working and they change it, alongside all the challenges we already have. It’s not technically feasible. Looking forward we could probably get parity now. But year one is always the most difficult because you’re laying the foundation.”
So what will be missing in the Wii U version? The FIFA card game will be missing in the Wii U version, due to the online system being in its “infancy”. Other missing features will be the FIFA touch and FIFA street skill systems.
Don’t fear though, the Wii U is going to have a few improvements over its counterparts.
“There are pros and cons with each one. But the Wii U has got more memory so that allows us to improve visually on a couple of areas. You’ve noticed the crowd is double the resolution that it is on PS3 and Xbox 360 and also the pitch has a lot more detail. The crowd was something we knew we could have improved so we took that opportunity.”
I think we might see similar issues with other developers out there, for at least a little while. However, as in the case of Ninja Gaiden 3, we might see some improvements on existing titles. Do you have any fears about the quality of some of the game ports that will make their way to the Wii U? What about improvements you would like to see in some of the ports?