Gaming Nintendo Licenses Green Hills’ MULTI IDE For Wii U Developers

[gloweyjoey]

Nintendo has been acting characteristically un-Nintendo-ish the past few months. They have been focusing more on third-party developers and getting them the solutions they need to maximize gaming experiences on their platforms. Their latest license is further proof of their commitment to third-party developers.

Green Hills Software announced on Tuesday that they are supplying their MULTI Integrated Development Environment to Nintendo to supply third-party developers with the technology. Even if you haven’t heard of Green Hills, you probably have used a product that integrates their technology.

Nintendo’s senior managing director of integrated research and design, Genyo Takeda, says that they chose Green Hills because their software “because it generates highly optimized code, and Green Hills provides excellent global support.”

So what does this MULTI IDE software provide to developers? Quite a lot actually as it focuses on creating software quickly with the least amount of bugs possible. According to the product page, MULTI IDE combines a “debugger, editor, code browser, configuration manager, and other tools into one integrated package.” The software uses C, C++ and EC++ compilers to generate “the fastest and smallest code for 32 and 64-bit processors.”

Another great tool from this software is the DoubleCheck. It’s used to find bugs early in development so costs don’t skyrocket. It makes perfect sense too since the later a team finds a bug, the more expensive it is to go back and fix. If you can find the bug during development, you can fix it at no cost to the team.

The debugging performance isn’t just relegated to finding bugs during development either. It’s pretty much a given that the Wii U is going to use a multi-core processor since it’s on par with the Xbox 360 and PS3 which also have multi-core processors. This adds an extra layer of complexity to development and Green Hills claims their software can find bugs related to multi-core development faster than anything else on the market.

What may be the coolest development tool available, however, is TimeMachine. This tool allows you to find bugs that may be harder to reproduce. Take for example during testing you find a bug, but can’t reproduce it. According to Green Hills, with TimeMachine you can go back to that moment when the bug first appeared to find out what caused it.

All in all, it’s looking like a pretty great software suite for developers making games for the Wii U. This is on top of the previous announcement last month that Nintendo would be licensing out Autodesk’s software development suite to developers making games for the Wii U. It’s not explicitly stated in Green Hills announcement, but we can assume the contract is similar to the AutoDesk deal. Developers wanting to get a hold of this software will have to make their games exclusively for the Wii U.

Like I said, this is a brave new Nintendo that we’re seeing here. They’re getting aggressive about third-party support and combatting the image that they don’t care about their third-party partners.

We must ask ourselves though: Who is Nintendo targeting with this software? Most developers work with publishers that buy these tools for them, so they have no need for it. It makes most sense that Nintendo is targeting independent developers, because most of these smaller studios can’t afford the costs associated with these tools. Nintendo obviously wants the best content on the Wii U and giving smaller developers access to these tools will make games on the Wii U look and play better.

Source

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Wow, Nintendo is really stepping up in terms of third-party support. Hopefully they can continue to do so.

 

[CollosalPokemon]

Sweet. Nintendo's been on the ball with the WiiU lately.
Now if they'd be so kind as to not put a region lock on on the WiiU it would be much better (at least to me)...although I know it's not going to happen but hey, a guy can dream right?

 

[ilman]

I thought they were licensing the first zone of Sonic 1.

 

[gloweyjoey]

I thought they were licensing the first zone of Sonic 1.

I debated with myself as to create the picture I posted or to use one from Sonic, I wasn't sure if everyone would get the reference so I opted not too.

This one probably would have been the best to use

 

[Clarky]

I thought they were licensing the first zone of Sonic 1.

same as, but this should hopefully be encouraging for 3rd parties, time to wait and see now

 

[Rockhoundhigh]

A step in the right direction Nintendo, makes me even more optimistic about how the consoles gonna perform.

 

[Midna]

I'm feeling more and more optimistic about this console. All this news we've had about the ease of the developer environment, Nintendo licencing tools for their devkit, and pledges of support from 3rd parties leads me to hope we won't have another neglected console on our hands

I'm not going to point out the "on par" bit from the article

 

[Bladexdsl]

now they just need to do 1 more thing: ban zoo and the rest of the sw crap companies from making games on the wiiu

 

[Midna]

now they just need to do 1 more thing: ban zoo and the rest of the sw crap companies from making games on the wiiu

But it's terrible big companies like Ubisoft that kept pumping crap onto the Nintendo DS

 

[emigre]

Thanks fucking God, Nintendo seem to want acceptable third party support.

 

[The Milkman]

Ya know, I wonder sometimes, if these devs want loose coding platforms for development why don't they just code games in binary?

 

[Bladexdsl]

now they just need to do 1 more thing: ban zoo and the rest of the sw crap companies from making games on the wiiu

But it's terrible big companies like Ubisoft that kept pumping crap onto the Nintendo DS

well they better keep their horse shoveling shit imagine games OFF the wiiu

 

[Zekrom_cool]

Lets just hope doesnt stop it right here. It is awesome that nintendo has taken such a step.

 

[CollosalPokemon]

now they just need to do 1 more thing: ban zoo and the rest of the sw crap companies from making games on the wiiu

But it's terrible big companies like Ubisoft that kept pumping crap onto the Nintendo DS

well they better keep their horse shoveling shit imagine games OFF the wiiu

You know that's not going to happen. We're going to eventually have:

Spoiler

Horsez: HD WITHLOVEONASTICKYBUNFOR5YEAROLDGIRLSWHOCANTAFFORDTHECONSOLE

The Petz, Horsez, and Imagine: SH!T games have kind of already dug into Nintendo =/ They're already coming out with a Horsez 3D for the 3DS =/ (I think some Imagine: Crap games were listed as well but I'm not sure as I wasn't paying attn too much)

 

[yuyuyup]

fuck yeah green hills multi ide

 

[ferofax]

TimeMachine sounds like a Real-Time Save with debugger options on.

 

[chartube12]

So it is just debugging software? In that case who gives a shit! I don't understand how this alone improves 3rd party support. In the end Nintendo is going to do something ridiculous to chase 3rd parties away again.

 

[Midna]

So it is just debugging software? In that case who gives a shit! I don't understand how this alone improves 3rd party support. In the end Nintendo is going to do something ridiculous to chase 3rd parties away again.

Well free access to professional debuggers, along with all the other tools Nintendo has licensed would good incentive to develop for them. Especially if their devkit is as convenient as people are saying it is

 

[DarkSpace]

Well with this softare the companies would do a lot more becuase it expedites the process of debugging.