E3 2006 News | Ubisoft Shun Sony, Praise Wii

Attending a workshop at E3 on games development, Ubisoft Montreal creative director Clint Hocking vented about Sony's approach to the next generation, citing their mimicry of Xbox Live and Wii's controller and their approach to graphics as his main issues.

Hocking claimed that the visual push meant that developers were acting more like factory workers, with a strict regime of sorting out textures, then shaders and repeating. The HD-TV push was also pointless, he claimed, as there is still such a small adoption rate and so art resources are being wasted. After speaking of their copying of other companies' features, he said "how much more 'me too' can [Sony] be?"

In contrast to this, Hocking was very enthusiastic about Nintendo's new controller interface with Wii, saying that if it fulfils everything that Nintendo claims, it will open developers' minds and help players feel emotion much more than improved graphics would.

Thanks to Nintendojo for the news.

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