14 DAY TRIAL // The developers working on the NBA 2K series at Visual Concepts say that the new Wii U home console from Nintendo introduces a number of features that change the basketball simulation experience for the better.
Rob Jones, a producer on NBA 2K13, tells VG247 as part of a wider interview that, “the Wii U has some specific features that we wanted to take advantage of. Controllers have gone from one button to two, to six, to eight, to 10; it seems like it’s button crawl. But at the heart of it, basketball should really be played with two buttons: pass and shoot.”
The Wii U also adds more processing power and allows Nintendo fans to enjoy the same graphics quality as those who are playing NBA 2K13 on the PlayStation 3 from Sony or the Xbox 360 from Microsoft.
“We were getting accolades for our presentation, for our audio, for the lighting and the player’s look, and the Wii version looked like an old-school videogame,” Jones adds.
Nintendo wants the Wii U to have a wider appeal than the original Wii and to see third-party companies create versions for their biggest series.
The new console introduces a touch screen enabled GamePad controller and many developers have used it in order to bring simpler mechanics for their titles or to add more options that the players cannot access on the main television screen.
NBA 2K13 was launched earlier during the fall and has managed to sell more than 5 million copies all over the world.
The game was designed with Jay-Z serving as the executive producer and offers clear upgrades when it comes to both gameplay mechanics and presentation.
Visual Concepts is currently working on a new NBA 2K basketball sim to be launched in 2013, which will face competition from a new Electronic Arts made NBA title.