Would Skyrim have worked out on Wii U?
Pete Hines had quite a bit to share about Bethesda as a whole at PAX Australia this past week, but he took a lot of time to address Nintendo and their partnership during their panel. In addition to the news we already reported on (ESO and Fallout 76 won’t be coming to Switch), Hines also shares why they were so hesitant to work with Nintendo: hardware.
Speaking on the panel, Hines notes: “That [hardware] was always the big barrier for us with Nintendo stuff. It wasn’t that we didn’t like the Wii or we don’t like this, it was just this is the stuff that we make, and as many things as will run that, we’ll do it.” He goes on to say that once the Switch entered the picture, the game changed: “That was honestly… that tech allowed us to do a lot of things across two different franchises. I don’t know how the hell they made Skyrim run on the Switch, but they did it. It looks great, it’s fun. I have played more Skyrim than a lot of people, but I still play it on my Switch because it turns out it’s pretty cool to be sitting on a plane and fighting a dragon.”
Of course, Bethesda isn’t going to throw shade on the Wii U’s low install base right after entering a key partnership as one of the premiere Switch third parties: but it’s obvious that it also played a factor in them staying their hand last generation.
Bethesda at PAX AUS 2018 [Nintendo Everything]
