Oddworld Wii U Port Having Problems Running on 8GB Wii U Basic

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! is one of the games I name-dropped in my recent list of 20 promising eShop titles. The release of this HD remake of the original Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee on Wii U will mark the first time a mainline Oddworld game has appeared on a Nintendo system. It may not be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's another notable event in Nintendo's ever-improving relationship with third parties. But sadly, it may not arrive by the end of this year as originally planned.

In the latest Fragments of Silicon podcast, Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning explained that there were certain hurdles that had to be cleared before the game could appear on Wii U. The biggest of the hurdles seems to be the lack of hard drive space on the 8GB Basic model:

[W]e're trying to figure it out. And at the end of the day, it's ultimately time and money and can you do it. But you know, we have a significant amount of money — I should say investment — in time, investment in effort in trying to resolve that issue. But again, if I guaranteed it, I might be being silly. What I can say is we're absolutely giving it out best effort and we want to succeed. But it is a challenge not having a hard disk.

Lanning went on to say, "If you’re going to make a game for the Wii U, it better run on an 8 gig unit. Otherwise it’s not really a Wii U game." It's noble that he doesn't want to exclude people who have purchased Nintendo's entry-level option, but it seems to me like he's making a mountain out of a molehill. There are already many eShop games with file sizes in excess of 8GB, and there isn't much if any backlack regarding those. Even owners of the 32GB Premium unit know that they'll need to hook up an external hard drive sooner rather than later if they make frequent digital purchases.

In any case, trying to shrink down New 'n' Tasty! for the sake of letting Basic owners play without need of an external hard drive seem disingenuous. The bulk of those 8GB is dedicated to the OS and built-in apps, leaving only about 3GB for games saves and downloads. The PS4 version of New 'n' Tasty! clocks in at 4.5GB, which means that the Wii U version would have to reduce that by at least a third. But even then, that would mean the game just barely fits on the machine; if you wanted to download anything else, you'd need to temporarily delete Oddworld. Seems rather inconvenient.

Lanning has gone on to say over Twitter that "while supporting the 8GB model is a consideration, it is neither a dealbreaker nor the only challenge." If it becomes too much trouble, I could see the studio leaving the game as is. Regarding what those "other challenges" may be, your guess is as good as mine.

Via: Nintendo Enthusiast