Nieuwe Smash Bros. is nog ver weg

Op de afgelopen E3 is er door Nintendo een Smash Bros. aangekondigd die cross-platform gamen mogelijk maakt op Wii U en 3DS. Even later bleek dat development voor deze game nog niet begonnen was en vandaag blijkt dat het nog wel jaren kan duren voordat de game er is.

"We've got two new games out in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all. It makes me cringe, and I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years. But the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members," aldus Sakurai, de man achter de serie.

Development voor Smash Bros. begint op zijn vroegst direct nadat Kid Icarus voor 3DS in de winkels ligt rond de Feestdagen. Deze keer is het overigens extra zwaar omdat Sakurai nog geen plannen heeft terwijl hij al wel een team moet gaan verzamelen om de game te maken: "The hardest part about game development is the burdens it places upon me. With previous projects I had a game design document in place before forming a team, but with this I don't have the time for that."

"I won't be able to look at every aspect of the game and balance out all the characters by myself this time. I'm trying to think about how this is going to work out, but probably I'll have to discuss it with my future development team. The future of this project really depends on the people I can get involved with it."

Er is gekozen om de game op zowel 3DS als Wii U uit te gaan brengen om beide platformen optimaal te benutten: "If we went solely for the Wii U, the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race. "If we made this game another extension over previous one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay we can put it."

"It wouldn't be a fruitful competition, but doing something completely new would be difficult for many reasons, not least of which that the gamers may not be satisfied with it. That's why we decided to think about ways to link the personal connection one has with his portable system to the gather-around-and-play aspect of console systems."