Two Tribes, the developers of Toki Tori, are launching their final game, Rive, this September on PlayStation 4 and on Xbox One- but they may not end up launching the game on the Wii U as they had previously announced, instead opting for a Nintendo NX release.
“The Nindies demo in 2015 was specifically optimized to perform well in hand-picked levels and didn’t manage 60FPS consistently,”Two Tribes co-founder Collin van Ginkel explained to NintendoLife. “We’ve added a lot of stuff since then and we haven’t been able to reach the performance level required [on the Wii U] yet. We won’t release Rive unless it’s a solid 60FPS, and if that means delaying it to a future platform, we will make that call and make sure Nintendo fans get the perfect experience.”
Van Ginkel explained that the move was not a cop-out- that the company was eager to have the game in the hands of Nintendo fans, but it had to make a decision based on technical constraints and business considerations. An NX version would make more sense in that regard.
“Nintendo is exiting the Wii U market early in favor of the NX which means a long tail in sales is not looking likely,” van Ginkel said. “Do you release a game on a platform in its last days or on a new one that’s better suited and can reach gamers for years to come?
“We’ve made games for Nintendo platforms since 2001 and we’d hate for Rive not to be in Nintendo gamers’ hands in some way. It pains us to have to bring this news, but we just can’t release a game that’s not perfectly playable. We’ve seen other shoot ’em ups deliver less than stellar framerates recently and it just kills the experience completely.”
In such a case, it sounds like Rive may end up not coming to the Wii U at all- which would undoubtedly disappoint Nintendo owners and fans, but, were this game to ultimately come to the NX after all, might end up being for the best.