Irrational has no plans for a Wii U game (yet)

Where's our BioShock, Ken?

While speaking to IGN, Ken Levine made it clear that Irrational Games has nothing in the works for the Wii U. Even though, he was quite impressed with the console and appeared in Nintendo’s Wii U third party software video back at E3. He did say that it was a possibility but that they were not working on anything at the moment.

“Just to be clear, there are no plans. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but we have no plans to do any games for that platform.”

Levine does seem to believe that the Wii U will be able to offer a ‘core’ gaming experience.

“The fact that the Wii U has got two sticks… I feel it’s like… It’s a great year for the core coming back and saying, okay, have your touch screens, have your motion control, we’ll try to make that work, and if you can pull that off it’ll be really good.”

This is slightly disappointing as PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 will be receiving BioShock Infinite and the PSVita is getting a BioShock game “built from the ground up”.

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. Oldergamer

    Yet? Never is more like it. The Wii-U doesn’t meet their game development requirements. The demographic is all wrong. The controller is not a good fit for their games and style of gameplay.

    And ULtimately, there’s NO guarantee the Wii-U is a money making proposition until such time it has proven itself in the marketplace and established it’s player base.

    Then, and ONLY then will a cursory inspection of the market, and playing field justify MAYbe starting to consider setting up a committee to set up another committe about considering a final committee structure to disCUSS LIMited development of shovelware for the Wii-U.

  2. Good news and bad news

    Considering that we know how easy it is to port to the Wii U, from THQ telling us three coders ported Darksiders 2 in five weeks, then I doubt bringing a multi-platform title to the console will be seen as much of a risk at all. Quite the opposite, if it is that easy, then why would you not establish a presence in, what has the potential to be, a significant market?

    I don’t see how the controller does not fit their games? It has the same functions as the PS3, Xbox and Classic controller pro, plus it has the touch-screen which is about as close as most consoles get to a mouse.

    No doubt the Wii U will get it’s share of shovelware, but as long as it gets some quality titles too, I don’t really care.

    I’m betting that Irrational announce something for the new console within a year of it’s launch, even if it is only a port of existing games, with Wii U controls.

  3. anti troll

    ken dont say second analog then STOP explain ones self technically and in terms of GAME-PLAY because i have not found one area of gaming were a second stick betters a wii remote for aiming/pointing/touching/interacting/camera controlling/typing/web browsing/shooting/hitting/swiping

    a second analog stick is no match for mouse pointer and speaker and motion and physics..
    ken back up what your saying with FACTS and same applys to touchscreen you ignore that too

    dual stick = core KEN your trolling fact with ps3 fanboy FICTION…

  4. zxride64

    Come on Ken, you company has the dev kits and the console has power and it is easy to develop. Bring some of your big titles to the wii u while the audience is still new.

  5. Epic Kirby

    So basically every console but a Nintendo one will be getting Bioshock. Thanks Ken…

  6. magicmonkey

    Why is it important to multiplatform developers of PS3 and 360 games to make games that are equally impressive across both platforms? Why don’t they fully utilise the hardware for 360 games, and fully utilise the hardware for PS3 hardware? Apart from the obvious answer: lower development costs thanks to not having to recode the games to take advantage of the cell processor, another reason is the PS3 versions would look significantly better and therefore, not as many consumers would buy the 360 versions.

    Now we have a console, Wii U, that will not only run the best graphics that PS3 can provide without breaking a sweat and without any fancy coding, but from what little information we have, will most likely contain at least double the RAM of PS3/360. So it will run PS3/360 games easily, and if texture resolution and variety isn’t noticeably improved over current gen, developers will obviously be wasting the console’s potential.

    So, keeping in mind that multiplatform developers and publishers like things to be equal so they can make as much money as they possibly can across the board, don’t be expecting them to be jumping up and down about their Wii U efforts. PS3 and 360 have the install base covered, those are the consoles they’ll be focusing on because that’s where they’ll be making the majority of their money. They won’t be saying to their main customer base “oh hey, you guys have the inferior versions of our games”.

    Wii U ports are inevitable though, I’m just not expecting developers and publishers to make a big deal out of it.

    I’m fully expecting Levine to do a turnaround sometime after Infinite releases on PS3/360/PC. He’ll be like “oh hey, guess what? We’ve been working on a Wii U port and here it is!”.

  7. RockD79

    Translation: Ken isn’t allowed to announce Bioshock Infinite yet. He’s obviously has had some hands on with Wii U. He wouldn’t have a kit in his possession if he wasn’t planning on using nor would Nintendo run an interview clip during their press conference with his statements. Smells like an NDA to me… Non disclosure agreement. Plus wouldn’t it make sense to select your plasmids on the controller? Looks like a proper marriage to me and Nintendo is asking him to be quiet for now which is typical for Nintendo.

  8. Oldergamer

    Why say anything about “no plans” then? Why reference it at all? NDAs doesn’t automoatically mean one gets a free license to lie through one’s teeth.

    Nope, I’m sticking with my cynicism and believing that 3rd parties haven’t just dropped the ball, they’ve not even picked it up yet. And again, that’s because they don’t know how to play; they don’t know what to DO with the ball. It’s an enigma to them.

    Nonstarters.

  9. Sparkymoreno

    As I stated before. Ken is a tool. His notion of dual sticks = hardcore demonstrates that he is a narrow-minded designer. As an artist/designer, I can’t see why he or any other developer wouldn’t want to jump on the Wii U boat regardless of a “market” or “demographic”. If I saw this thing I would be in the office saying 1) we could make great games on this thing. (Wii U) 2) If there is a PRESUMPTION that Wii has small hardcore market, let’s be the first to MAKE a larger one with easily porting it over and utilizing the unique controller. This risk and return is NOT bad….
    But like Oldergamer said…. they dont know what to do with the ball. Its like watching a chimp hammer a coconut on a tree… They have all these great tools but can’t get it through their tunnel vision producing brain to use them.
    Please can we get a developer/designer with some sense. If we let this goofies like Ken lead the market will be stuck with dual sticks for another 10 years twiddling our thumbs literally. Viva la Manifest Gaming Destiny!!!

  10. Jmaster720

    Come on Irrational you make some of the greatest games ever made in this generation right beside super mario galaxy 2 lol. WE NEED YOU SO THE WII CAN BE COMPLETE FOR THE CORE AUIDIENCE

  11. David

    If people ever needed a poster child for hypocrisy, you neednt look no further. Congrats Ken. You are a Douche to the 12th power. Ubisoft isn`t much better after hearing about how they killed the 3ds version of AC only to take the ideas from it and add em to other platforms. With companys like this, who needs enemies.

  12. RockD79

    It’s nothing new for Nintendo to keep their 3rd party plans under wraps. There’s a ton of Fall 2012 titles that may make the cut.

    • Ruthie

      That’s quite true, head of Nintendo Europe said there are still lots of third party announcements to come for the Wii U. 🙂

    • F0

      What I’m worried about is that Nintendo haven’t revealed anything first-party yet, and that’s pretty unusual…