Disney Interactive president Stephen Wadsworth keynoted the DICE Summit 2010 in Las Vegas Wednesday night and afterward he and studio chief Graham Hopper met a small group of journalists for a brief Q&A session. The two company leaders spoke about several topics, including everything from Disney's portfolio of games to support of iPad. Inevitably, questions arose about Epic Mickey, the Wii-exclusive adventure headed by industry veteran Warren Spector and Junction Point Studios.
Asked why the title was selected for Wii rather than another platform, the two suggested it was a simple matter of the project being well-matched to Nintendo's system.
"We've got to think about our audience and obviously we have a very large base that has Wii in their homes. It's not to say that it won't come to other platforms, but we want to get the intersection of that story, those characters and that audience," said Wadsworth.
"The simple thing is that the key mechanic is an ink and pain mechanic and the motion of the ink and painting and erasing something with the Wii as a gesture is completely intuitive to people," added Hopper. "And as soon as we started playing around with that, it seemed obvious to us that Wii was the right platform to bring this to life."
The Wii remote does seem the ideal fit for such play mechanics, but what about Microsoft's forthcoming Natal, set to debut for Xbox 360 later this year?
"We started this a few years ago. I think if we would have started it six months ago we would have potentially thought differently about it. But when we did this there was no sign of Natal on the horizon," said Hopper. "I think that kind of gesture control, which is an intuitive way of interacting with the game, is going to help us to make more immersive experiences that are more natural for people."
And what about Natal and Sony's motion devices? Does Disney have any titles in development for either one?
"We talk to Microsoft and Sony about them all the time. But nothing we want to announce at this time," said Hopper.
(I hope natal will have better games....)
Home 
