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Another One Bites The Dust: Eternity's Child To Wii [Update]

Mon, 2007-09-10 14:23 — LunarDuality

A sad day for all the 2D platforming fans out there, as Eternity's Child has jumped the XBLA ship to make its debut as a retail title on the Nintendo Wii.

Eternity's Child, which was shaping up to be a lush 2D gem for the XBLA library, was deemed unfeasible due to the size restrictions of XBLA. But how's this for irony -- the massive amount of high quality 2D art (which created the space problem in the first place) is now being reworked for the Wii's 480i/p output.

More and more it seems that the Xbox 360 platform could benefit from a new category of downloadable titles for games that do not fit under the 150MB limit of XBLA. I certainly doubt that Penny Arcade Adventures will be under 150MB per episode, so maybe exceptions are already being made. But will those exceptions become a new class of downloadables for the 360? One could hope. And then we would not lose games like Eternity's Child.

[via Shacknews, originally from ArtduJeu (Link to French language site)]

[Update]: According to an email from Luc Bernard (the game's creator) to xbox-archiv.de, this game is not only destined for the Nintendo Wii but also for the Nintendo DS (although different from the Wii version) and for the Playstation 3 as a PSN download. The PSN version is not mentioned in the ArtduJeu interview at all, so we'll have to take xbox-achiv's word for it at this point.

In addition to Eternity's Child, he is also working on other games including a "mature fairytale" called The Pink Princess (or is it The Rose Princess) which may arrive on XBLA. [via xbox-archiv, translated (poorly) here, thanks Wasabi]

Comments

Posted on: Mon, 2007-09-10 14:58 #1
This game will also come for

This game will also come for the PS3 now!!!

 

Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 01:06 #2
Crushed Hype............

It is indeed a sad day, I was pretty hyped about this game (specially since I heard some first hand info from Luc -the creator- himself) Basically MS is f*cked with that stupid cap for XBL Arcade titles.

I understand the need for a cap to promote awesome experiences in small packages but, perhaps there’s room for a different kind of DL content out there?

I mean, if things continue as present, there will never be a so called “fully fleshed out” game on XBL, ala Warhawk. And likewise the above mentioned Eternity’s Child.

Anyway, I guess Sonic 2 will have to suffice for now to fulfill my craving for 2D adventures.

Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 01:47 #3
While the warhawk comment

While the warhawk comment still holds true, I don't think that Eternity's Child is the game to prove this.

While I will miss the game being on XBLA, something just doesn't seem right. I can't remember exactly where I read it, but he's saying that each level needs over 100MB.

Really?

So for one, admittedly beautiful, level takes up twice as much as the gorgeous Undertow? Doesn't add up to me.

Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 06:09 #4
It seems like he wanted to
It seems like he wanted to use uncompressed bitmap textures for each of his backgrounds. That might be why it looked so good...but there must be a way to compress some of that stuff down. Or so you'd think.
Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 16:59 #5
All consoles are by

All consoles are by default compressing the image enroute to a visual output source, let me try to explain...

Even going from development to even 1080p HDMI v1.3 (Xbox Elites are v1.2 and offer even less total colours) is in itself a form of compression. While the TV can display say 100 colours (for simplicity in explaining) and the console can output about 200 colours the TV can only simultaniously display around 95 at once. An LCD would be around 90 simultanious colours.

Almost all video game development software that I have seen in any form has defaulted to within the reasonalbe limits of what a TV can display. Film makers generally don't care about those limits, but developers are and have adjusted their tools to work within the limits.

Point is even hand painted images scanned in (which is still a form of compression, but lets ignore that) would have to be reduced for output on all consoles. MS probably wanted them to do the compression before hand to reduce the total file size where as the others will just downsample as part of the console's software.

Pre compression is general the preferred method since it reduces the total amount of data a user has to download as well as letting the developer to fine tune any small issues the compression caused.

If an artist is complaining that one copmany is enforcing limits the competition will snap that up even though in the end the compression will still be happening. The less tech savvy only hear that they are not forced to compress the graphics.

Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 17:59 #6
I always depend on you to

I always depend on you to drop the learning on my head. Thanks!

The whole situation still seems weird to me.

Posted on: Tue, 2007-09-11 21:23 #7
Few artisit fully understand

Few artisit fully understand the tech side of things and that causes communication issues. I would bet that miscommunication is the whole limiting factor here, after all while the Wii is great fun it doesn't have near the video output of a 360 so the visuals would have to be reduced just for the console to play it.

Combine miscommunication with frustration from development and you get situations like this.