Valve likes the look of Wii
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Feb 25th 2008 at 3:00PM }
Valve's take on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360? They're not massively keen. But what about the Wii? Nintendo's console is rarely mentioned by Valve bods; indeed, it's fair to say that Valve and Nintendo may not seem like an obvious partnership, given the former's reputation as a developer of PC games (and a damn fine one, at that). Then again, marketing director Doug Lombardi seems to think the Wii might be worth investigating. Doug, we totally agree!Chatting to videogaming247.com, Lombardi revealed that Valve would be more likely to develop for the Wii than either of its more powerful rivals, thanks to the fact that "it's growing, there's already a huge user-base, and it's fun." What's more, Lombardi reckons that getting Source (Valve's proprietary 3D game engine) running on the Wii would be realistic: "Source is really scaleable. We can do that."
Oh, man. Half-Life 2 or Portal with the Wiimote, anybody?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ross @ Feb 25th 2008 3:13PM
Man, imagine Portal or even TF2 on the Wii. Good times!
Jonathan Tran @ Feb 25th 2008 3:16PM
Screw Portal/HL2.
Get TF2 or CSS on the Wii and I will never play them on my PC again.
Atlantis1982 @ Feb 25th 2008 3:19PM
I only second for TF2. :D
don\\\'tmakemelaugh @ Feb 25th 2008 6:33PM
SCREW PORTAL!?
NO, no sir, I don't think I will "screw Portal".
I will say good day to you sir.
Macha88 @ Feb 25th 2008 9:59PM
Do not point the Aperture science device at your family jewels.
TD @ Feb 25th 2008 3:18PM
Things are really starting to pick up in Wii's third party arena. Between this and Square's recent Crystal Tools announcement, we might actually see something interesting. Portal and FFXIII were two of the bigger reasons I've eyed a PS3 as a secondary console. But maybe now I can save my money. :)
Ross @ Feb 25th 2008 3:20PM
You're right, slowly but surely the Wii appears to be gaining more 3rd party support.
Buntaro @ Feb 25th 2008 3:23PM
Original game for the win.
WiiTodd @ Feb 25th 2008 3:29PM
I'd buy HL2, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, TF2, Portal... WOW. Getting so excited.
KVN @ Feb 25th 2008 3:29PM
Portal would be awesome.
klepto88 @ Feb 25th 2008 3:34PM
"Oh, man. Half-Life 2 or Portal with the Wiimote, anybody?"
I hope you're joking.
These games would never run on the wii in any respectable version, ever.
ChrisG @ Feb 25th 2008 3:41PM
Actually, I played Portal for the first time over the weekend (I know, I'm behind), and I'd hardly say it was technically demanding. As for Half-Life 2, I completed that game on the first Xbox, and found the experience hugely enjoyable. I'm sure the Wii is capable of running either! :)
As someone else mentioned, however, it would be great to see some original Valve content also.
LV426 @ Feb 25th 2008 7:03PM
It worked on the Xbox, and that really wasnt optimized for games like a Wii title should be.... Id say it would work GREAT!
TD @ Feb 25th 2008 5:15PM
Why do people make comments like that? It's not like you're dealing with an N64 here. The PS2 was capable of some stunningly amazing games, graphically and otherwise. The Gamecube was more powerful than the PS2, and the Wii is twice as powerful as that. I think Portal IS doable on the Wii and it could end up being fantastic.
MikeG @ Feb 25th 2008 7:05PM
Oh, they're doable on the Wii. They just obviously won't be as pretty as their counterparts would be on the the two other systems. It'll be as if you were playing the games on a lower end PC and had to bring the graphical settings down so it didn't bog your system down. The games are very much playable and enjoyable, just without much of the cool eye candy.
beaus27 @ Feb 25th 2008 3:53PM
Yeah you're right Klepto88, getting games such has HL2, Portal, TF2, which ALL run on a 4 year old engine would never work on the Wii. Good call! ;)
Haohmaru @ Feb 25th 2008 4:24PM
I lol'ed.
James @ Feb 25th 2008 3:58PM
http://wii.hl2world.com/
Google is your friend. This works just fine, I think.
Or, you could try to shoehorn the Source engine into the Wii, then squint at your 480P (max) resolution. Your call.
Seriously, I love my Wii for what it does well, but "good graphics" is not one of those things.
Mr Khan @ Feb 25th 2008 4:03PM
Much like those who scoff at a 480p browser, its really not that different when the software is restructured to actually run in 480p
Like Valve said, they'll scale it
Author X @ Feb 25th 2008 6:33PM
This was a pain to set up for me (it won't work on default MS bluetooth stacks... common problem with wiimote homebrew), but definitely worth it once I got it running. It shows just HOW fantastic HL2 on the Wii would be.
I just wish the creator hadn't abandoned the project... it's really a fantastic mod.
mian @ Feb 25th 2008 4:10PM
I was purely a PC gamer before I bought my Wii. One of the main things that attracted me to Wii was the interface--the potential to get so much of PC precision and still have a console lean-back gaming experience. I'm always eager to here about moves like this.
Nate @ Feb 25th 2008 4:14PM
Golden Eye:Source, that is all
Sonic_13 @ Feb 25th 2008 4:24PM
Portal!!! (for WiiWare?!?)
chad @ Feb 25th 2008 4:28PM
i was just thinking about a similar topic earlier. i'm not much of a fps player (i do really like mp3, though, and i want to at least try moh:h2), but i was talking to a friend who bought a wii for his kids and decided to give moh:h2 a try. he loves it, but is looking for a new game to "kill people online." so he asked me, and i listed all the options for multiplayer fps games on the wii.
1. moh:h2
2. ...
3. ...
you get the point. the genre seems to be severely, embarrassingly under-represented. the interface is perfect - somebody just needs to make it happen. all that to say: yay, go valve!
Asok @ Feb 25th 2008 4:31PM
Ooohhhhh Portalportalportalportalportalportalportalportalportalpleeeaaaasseee
caramelzappa @ Feb 25th 2008 5:03PM
I love my wii but shooters belong on the pc. I know the wiimote seems cool to use as a gun because you kinda point and shoot but the accuracy is nowhere near as perfect as using a mouse/keyboard.so it's really not a good method of control.
mian @ Feb 25th 2008 5:23PM
I couldn't disagree more. FPS and RTS are two big reasons I got my Wii, even if developers haven't been quick on the uptake.
You can get 90% of PC accuracy with the wiimote (proved by MoHH2--which only has controls going for it, but it does prove the controls) while not having to hunch over a keyboard, meaning you also can get 90% of the console lean back experience.
I don't use my wiimote "like a gun". I'm not pointing at where I want to shoot or trying to line it up, and my hand is always rested on something, and in that light, you can achieve pixel perfect accuracy. At the same time, having a trigger to pull instead of a button to press does add a little something to immersion element.
caramelzappa @ Feb 25th 2008 6:08PM
I do admit the Medal of Honor Heroes 2 controls are excellent, definitely the best use of the wii for fps controls. Do you really hunch over your keyboard? That's just bad posture. I lean back in my chair while playing fps games and enjoy the near perfect control as well as comfort. I think fps's were just meant to be on the pc.
The wiimote may be great compared to say, duel analogs, but I still think the mouse is the champion of fps controls.
Valien @ Feb 25th 2008 4:57PM
I just spent 4 hours playing COD4 on my brother-in-laws XBox. Amazing. Love the game. Hate the controls. Being an old school PC-FPS gamer I love the Wii's controls for MOH:H2. If Valve could port TF2 or HL to the Wii, or even come up with an original IP, that would be insane.
For those scoffers that think the Wii can't handle the graphics. I think it really can, sure it won't look like Crysis or COD4 on the PS3 or Xbox but it'll run most PC based games on the market today.
Pointz @ Feb 25th 2008 5:24PM
Next to the DS the Wii-mote is the best for shooting games and is the closet thing to the keyboard/mouse controls. It make the dual analogue setup feel retarded.
@ James
Your a fucking knob jockey for saying Wii can't do good graphics. Look at Metroid and Mario Galaxy. GameCube pulled off Resident Evil 4 and that was quite realistic. The PS2 pulled off near photo-realism in Gran Turismo 4 and the Wii can do Gran Turismo without breaking a sweat. Not to mention God of War 2 so shut the f@ck up.
ChrisG @ Feb 25th 2008 5:29PM
There's really no need for name-calling. Let's keep it courteous, please.
caramelzappa @ Feb 25th 2008 6:37PM
Good graphics is a relative thing. When you're comparing the wii's graphics to the gamecube and ps2, or course the graphics are great. The wii is more powerful than both of those last generation systems. But we live in the present day. Both the 360 and the ps3 run circles around the wii in terms of graphics. Mario Galaxy may look good, but it doesn't have the amazing technologies that are in the unreal engine. Not to mention the fact that no matter how nice you can make the graphics on the wii, pushing it to it's limits, it will only output 480p, so on any tv supporting a higher resolution (Read: all HDTVs) the graphics look grainy and dilluted compared to the 360 or ps3's graphics.
The wii was never meant to have good graphics. Nintendo said that from the start, they said they didn't need great graphics to make great games, so they delivered innovative controls and didn't give their console much horsepower. The wii simply was not designed to put out stellar graphics like it's competitors, no matter how you tell yourself otherwise. That's just how nintendo designed it.
zelderman @ Feb 25th 2008 5:45PM
I would like Portal on Wii. As long as the disc isn't cake shaped...
paradox @ Feb 25th 2008 6:01PM
My god, this would be amazing, my favorite developer making a game on my second favorite developer's platform? why this... this...
This would be a triumph;
I'd like to make a note about this huge success;
It would be hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Valve Software, they do what they must because they can;
for the good of all of us, except the ones who don't play PC games;
ect.
Psycho300x @ Feb 25th 2008 6:39PM
I love my wii, but I would rather marvel at the graphics in HD, sorry guys but the graphics for HL2Wii would be filled with jaggies and a lot of shaders and other graphics technologies that would be disabled on wii... a perfect example would be RE4 wii ed, on an HDtv, its got great graphics, but is pretty jaggy...
MarMar @ Feb 25th 2008 7:02PM
puh-leeze. source is not "scalable"
exhibit A: Shitty Half-Life 2 Original Xbox
exhibit B: Source-based games on any computer with mobo integrated GPU
The portal flash game is better than the PC game too, btw.
Mr Khan @ Feb 25th 2008 7:17PM
But they did it, didn't they? That's the whole point. However it compares to the original project, they can do it
Max Headroom @ Feb 25th 2008 8:12PM
I have definitely been waiting for news like this. I hope they make it official soon: a bundle pack of Portal with Portal 2 on Wii. I think if there is any third party game out there that is really, really suited for the Wii audience, it is Portal. Please make it happen, somebody.
Perverted @ Feb 25th 2008 8:35PM
I always wanted Portal on Wii especially after playing the 360 version which was so slow to aim with....
I also actually prefer Wiimote > Mouse fro FPS and I hate using a keyboard....
At any rate it's good news as Valve is a great develop with a good few games under it's belt.
Mabui @ Feb 26th 2008 12:25AM
New IP for Wii! That would be nice
Portal 2 for Wii, that would be nice too, especially if they included the first one inside.
What we'll probably get.. Half Life 2 Party!
Just kidding
Matt @ Feb 26th 2008 3:39AM
C'Mon Valve, "Half Life - The Complete Saga (Freeman Chronicles) on Wii (exclusive), with Portals as a bonus.
Please please please please please please.
Pointz @ Feb 26th 2008 4:58AM
Sorry Carmez...I got bored with that graphic whore speech it was shallow and provides nothing new. Everybody know Wii graphics aren't in competition with the 360/PS3 it's old news son. Also what the hell kind of TV have you got if it looks grainy with Wii. I wasn't saying the Wii could do 360 graphics, I said it can produce eye pleasing graphics, if devs put in effort. And I wasn't comparing Wii to PS2/Cube. I was saying that even those systems could pull of good looking, near realistic graphic even in standard definition.
So don't even try come to me with your graphic whore statement like you know stuff.
hvnlysoldr @ Feb 26th 2008 6:09PM
This excites me.
ArmorForVictor @ Feb 26th 2008 7:29PM
rather play the orange box on my ps3. not saying the wii can't do it, but i really can't handle anymore swollen wrists from playing first person shooters like mp3.
Phizzy @ Feb 26th 2008 9:43PM
Too bad first person shooters on the Wii are like mouldy balls.
frihdson @ Feb 27th 2008 4:14AM
how about a remake of half-life 1, im pretty sure that the graphics can be better on wii than the old pc ver. of it, and so that the new fans of half life will have the chance to know what happen before half life 2, :)
eric brown @ Mar 20th 2008 6:21PM
Man, is Doug Lombardi on dope or what? He says the wii for Valve Software he wouldn't mind investing in, but they haven't announced a single game! As usual these are are
only rumors! I'd be surprised if they get half-life 2 or Left 4 dead on the wii! But because of graphics the wii is not powerful enough. The wii has around 98 or 100 RAM.(Random Access Memory) Remember that Half-life 2
just bearly came out for Xbox. it was almost cancelled after source code was stolen!(Sierra canceled the publishing duties, so it left Valve to publish it alone)
They cancelled Half-life for Sega Dreamcast.(the developers amange to finish the game on time before it got cancelled! So I have it on Dreamcast but it's a bootleg copy! and is complete.) The game was later ported to ps2 in 2001! The Wii will not be getting Turning Point,GTA 4 or Call of Duty 4 on wii mainly cause of lack
memory on wii! It will however get ports of Alone in Dark 5 and Tomb Raider Underworld but only because it is getting ported to the ps2! Also don't expect the wii version Ghostbusters be based on the movie like 360 or ps3! instead it will be based on the cartoon episodes, and yes it is also a port of a ps2 game. Except for Zelda and metroid(along with a couple of good mature games like the Godfather and Scarface)unless you like mario so much or simulated games like wii play. The Wii will disappoint you by the sheer lack of strong games from 3rd parties!