Epic,s Mark Rein started a tempest in a teapot when he declared that Nintendo,s controller was a gimmick, and his concerns that developers would program substandard games due to the novelty of the device. Rein said last year in October, “Don’t kid yourself – you’re going to see more gimmicky, crappy, cheap, I-wish-I-hadn’t-bought-it gimmick games based around that controller than you can ever possibly imagine.”Nintendo responded quickly with comments by Jim Merrick, vice president of marketing, Merrick said, "…He [Mark Rein] doesn’t have a [Wii] controller, he doesn’t have a dev kit, he’s talking about something he knows nothing about. If he’d like to get a dev kit and really dig into it, then I’d be interested to hear what he has to say."The heated banter between the two game executives ended amicably as both parties buried any ill will towards one another. But a new twist to the plot has surfaced, and the once anti-Wii faction has come around to realize that Nintendo,s next-gen offering may be more of a contender than first thought. During the course of an interview with Joystiq at the recent E3 convention, Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer at Epic, had these words to say about Nintendo,s Wii:”We’re currently talking with Nintendo. It’s not really my department to pontificate on other people’s system and comments that the wonderful Mark Rein will make occasionally to upset the fans. Again, I reserve judgment of the Wii until I get hands on with it. I was very judgmental about the DS until I actually got to play hands-on with it and I love Trauma Center and stuff like that.”You know what, Nintendo is zigging while everyone else is zagging and they’ll be just for it. I give them props for doing something different. My advice to anybody developing a first person shooter for the Revolution (Wii) is: even though you have a new way to control and make a new FPS you still need a cool, compelling FPS underneath that. [Control] is only one of five things that you need. Give us a Half-Life 2 with those controls and I’ll be first in line to buy it.”
There is no solid word on any Epic games for the Wii, but the mere fact that Epic and Nintendo are in communication is a good sign for gamers everywhere.
Gears of War, anyone? We can always hope.
