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Valve interested in developing for Wii U

Published on 23rd June 2011 by Joe Martin

Valve has hinted it may be interested in developing for the Wii U at some point.

Valve has hinted that it may be interested in developing for Nintendo's newly announced Wii U console, claiming that 'it seems a lot more powerful than the previous generation' in an interview with Joystiq.

'Wii U seems to be a lot more powerful than the previous generation,' explained Valve founder Gabe Newell. 'It sort of fits better into the scalability in terms of graphics performance and CPU performance, so I think it'll be a lot easier for us to fit it into our scalability model.'

'We've always loved Nintendo,' he added, before suggesting the Wii U could represent the next stage in the transition from its PC-only origins to full multi-platform development.

'Now it's a lot easier to look at Wii U and have it fit within that framework.'

The Wii U was announced at Nintendo's press conference at E3 earlier this month.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

17 Comments

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B1GBUD 23rd June 2011, 11:00

Steam on the Wii U? if this happens I'll eat my trousers

SpAceman 23rd June 2011, 11:23

I like this. Nintendo needs some good third parties like Valve to make the Wii U more appealing to more people.

GravitySmacked 23rd June 2011, 11:34

I think Gabe has become emotionally attached to it as the controller weighs more than him.

leveller 23rd June 2011, 11:40

Good on them. They need to expand, but retain what makes them unique ...

PingCrosby 23rd June 2011, 11:40

A Scottish paedophile has raised a dispute with eBay.

He claims that the Wii Game Boy he received isn't what he was expecting.

mclean007 23rd June 2011, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpAceman
I like this. Nintendo needs some good third parties like Valve to make the Wii U more appealing to more people.

Yeah because the original Wii has been such a total flop without Valve.

Mentai 23rd June 2011, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by mclean007
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpAceman
I like this. Nintendo needs some good third parties like Valve to make the Wii U more appealing to more people.
Yeah because the original Wii has been such a total flop without Valve.

It wasn't exactly amazing in terms of software sales. If Nintendo had been making a loss on the console sale it would have been disastrous for them since most Wii owners only played Wii Sports which was bundled with the system.

There really is no guarantee that lightening will strike twice either. I really have my doubts about the Wii U.

SpAceman 23rd June 2011, 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by mclean007
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpAceman
I like this. Nintendo needs some good third parties like Valve to make the Wii U more appealing to more people.
Yeah because the original Wii has been such a total flop without Valve.

Not saying it was. There is just a large audience that the Wii never fully appealed to. If Nintendo can get them on board it will just be the North Koreans left to sell them to.

erratum1 23rd June 2011, 12:28

Girls like the wii, and girls like Portal and l4d. So for Valves future games it could certainly be a success.

Kiytan 23rd June 2011, 12:31

It does seem that nintendo want to aim back at the more "hardcore" gamers market, rather than the casual/family market of the Wii, so I would imagine that getting valve on board would be a big boon for them

will_123 23rd June 2011, 12:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by erratum1
Girls like the wii, and girls like Portal and l4d. So for Valves future games it could certainly be a success.

Most of the females that I know do not play L4D.......or Portal..

PlayedStation 23rd June 2011, 15:47

Most of the females i know are either fat, ugly or slutty, wait, wrong thread.

OCJunkie 23rd June 2011, 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiytan
...nintendo want to aim back at the more "hardcore" gamers market, rather than the casual/family market of the Wii

Uh, when did they EVER aim at "hardcore" gamers? No amount of Valve can shake off Nintendo's casual rep at this point, not after something like the Wii.

Though Portal on console definitely makes sense.

hyperion 23rd June 2011, 21:56

I'm glad to see there is potential for Nintendo to broaden its appeal. I look forward to the day when I can fully replace my pc with a console as my main entertainment centre. PS3 was moving in that direction with otherOS and then they f'ed it up.

StoneyMahoney 24th June 2011, 12:29

Nintendo's first-party software doesn't do it's reputation any favours. The third-party stuff is a different story. Which console can you get Madworld and Manhunt 2 on? Getting more third-party games without the family-friendly direction can only be a good thing, as long as we don't just get the cookie-cutter Gears/CoD style FPS ports that seem to be the only qualfier the Xbox and PS3 have as "consoles for grown-ups".

OCJunkie 24th June 2011, 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyperion
I look forward to the day when I can fully replace my pc with a console...

Thank you for contributing to the decline of PC gaming.

Lazarus Dark 24th June 2011, 22:51

My concern is that, while having higher specs allows third parties to seriously consider porting more games to the Wii U, I'm afraid very, very few third party games will take advantage of the second screen. Sure, all the first party games will use it extensively, but if they are going to port, say Gears of War 3 or something to Wii U, they are not likely to use the second screen in any meaningful way. Which is why I still think they need a traditional controller, there are just too many games that only play right with a traditional controller. The Umote is cool and I'm interested to see what more creative developers can do with it (though to be honest, if you can't use two Umotes, I think that is a failure), but like the Wiimote, some games just don't need that type of control scheme shoehorned in. Take Zelda: Twilight Princess (one of the two main first party titles!): I really would have preferred to just use a regular controller for that; swinging the wiimote was clunky and imprecise and added nothing to the game after the first ooh-ahh moment.

It's funny, because I really, really like the "classic controller pro" for the wiimote, its one of the most comfortable controllers I've ever used, but its always freaking tethered to the wiimote! If it just worked on its own and worked with all Wii games instead of just Virtual Console, I would be a happy camper.