A few days ago, we reported that the folks behind Metro: Last Light are not exactly fans of the Wii U. A while back, it was featured in a sizzle reel for the new console, but it won't be arriving on Nintendo's new console after-all. Due to it having "a horrible, slow CPU", according to Oles Shishkovtsov, chief technical officer at 4A, the game's developer. A comment that made the rounds, to put it mildly.
Since then, the game's publisher, THQ, has gone into damage control mode. Huw Beynon, the global communications manager for the publisher explains to Eurogamer:
"It's a very CPU intensive game. I think it's been verified by plenty of other sources… that the CPU on Wii U on the face of it isn't as fast as some of the other consoles out there. Lots of developers are finding ways to get around that because of other interesting parts of the platform."
So the publisher admits that the CPU is indeed not exactly all mighty and powerful. And it's true how some developers have found work-arounds, since this is hardly the first time such a scenario has taken place. Though right off the back; what does the statement above say about THQ's opinion of one of their very own developers?
But moving on, Beynon basically places the blame for all the negative headlines on, who else? The media:
"I think that what frustrates me about the way the story's been spun out is that there's been no opportunity to say, 'Well, yes, on that one individual piece maybe it's not as… maybe his opinion is that it's not as easy for the way that the 4A engine's been built as is the others.
What it doesn't go on to look at is to say that, you know, we could probably get around that. We could probably get Metro to run on an iPad if we wanted, or on pretty much anything. Just as in the same way that between PC and current console versions there are some compromises that need to be made in certain places and we strive to get the very best performance that we can from any platform we release on."
Basically, Beynon is annoyed that no one bothered to quote him, alongside Shishkovtsov, who also stated that a port would be possible if the effort was made. But the funny thing is, that's not what he said. His actual statement was, once again, in the original report:
"We had an early look at it, we thought we could probably do it, but in terms of the impact we would make on the overall quality of the game – potentially to its detriment – we just figured it wasn’t worth pursuing at this time. It’s something we might return to. I really couldn’t make any promises, though."
Back to the Eurogamer response, Beynon adds:
"But I understand that there's a real appetite in the media at the moment because the Wii U is a hot topic to spam some stories that are going to attract a lot of links if they present it in a certain way."
Why Beynon or anyone at THQ didn't simply say "The opinion shared by one of our developer doesn't not represent the entire publisher and all other parties" is anyone's guess.
