Nintendo Life's Interview With FarSight President Jay Obernolte

Here's a great interview with FarSight President Jay Obernolte conducted by Nintendo Life. ENJOY!

Looks like that Wii U will have quite a nice version - it's a nice feature to have the gamepad/screen display the DMD, rather than on the TV.

PiN WiZ said:

Here's a great interview with FarSight President Jay Obernolte conducted by Nintendo Life. ENJOY!

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And look at your hands/away from the table to check your score/mode/info. No thanks.

That will be pretty cool, though I wonder if people won't be distracted by looking down. I suppose you could hold the controller up in front of you, but I can't imagine the Gamepad will be that lightweight.

I definitely plan on getting the Wii U version (when I get a Wii U) and suspect I'll end up playing it almost as much as on the iPad if they implement the remote+nunchuk controls and tilt mechanism like they did in Williams Pinball Classics on the Wii.

Sean said:

That will be pretty cool, though I wonder if people won't be distracted by looking down. I suppose you could hold the controller up in front of you, but I can't imagine the Gamepad will be that lightweight.

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The Tablet could also be used *just* for the DMD and you could use the Wiimote or Classic Controller in *addition*. Thus you could place the "virtual dmd" directly over or under your screen, right? Now that actually sounds cool to me!

goforthewall said:

The Tablet could also be used *just* for the DMD and you could use the Wiimote or Classic Controller in *addition*. Thus you could place the "virtual dmd" directly over or under your screen, right? Now that actually sounds cool to me!

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you could place it on a stand above the tv somehow and it would be like glancing up on a real machine...

"We have a few technical problems to solve on the 3DS, mainly related to the ROM-emulation: we’re having trouble running it fast enough to play the game at 60fps on the 3DS’s processor. The Pinball Hall of Fame collection we released previously on 3DS did not feature ROM-emulation, but many tables in the Pinball Arcade depend on it."

And yet, PHOF on 3DS runs at a terrible framerate (not to mention with low brightness and contrast), while the same tables on PSP run smooth like butter. I really hope 3DS TPA is technically more solid than PHOF. If it is, I will buy a 3DS XL without even thinking twice, 3D works really well for pinball games, even on such a lowres screen.

I mean, I know the 3DS must be pretty hard to develop for considering all the other platforms run circles around its slow cpu... oh, and please, PLEASE add an option to controll the flippers via dpad and face buttons. Shoulder buttons only works great on comfortable console controllers, but not so much on the RSI-inducing, sharp-edged 3DS ones (Kid Icarus Uprising really soured me on these).

Sorry, rant over. I'm really in love right now with No Good Gofers / Williams Classics on my new 360, so all is forgiven

bavelb said:

And look at your hands/away from the table to check your score/mode/info. No thanks.

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Yeah, shoehorning the tablet screen into games with no obvious use will be common in the next few years for the Wii U, just like waggle in everything for the Wii and touchscreen nonsense for the DS.

I just had a terrible idea: Lower playfield in Black Hole on the tablet screen But hey, plunger on the touchscreen might be actually useful!

If you play Pinball, one tends to glance at the DMD when there are obvious pauses in the gameplay, or when the ball goes out of play. Obviously, when the ball is in play, you won't be paying much attention to the DMD. So, it looks like a useful touch to have the DMD on the Wii U's controller screen.

Perhaps if you could control the pinball flippers with your eyeballs, that would be a novel way to use Kinect

squidlr said:

Perhaps if you could control the pinball flippers with your eyeballs, that would be a novel way to use Kinect

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And people around you will think you're having a stroke!

mmmagnetic said:

"We have a few technical problems to solve on the 3DS, mainly related to the ROM-emulation: we’re having trouble running it fast enough to play the game at 60fps on the 3DS’s processor. The Pinball Hall of Fame collection we released previously on 3DS did not feature ROM-emulation, but many tables in the Pinball Arcade depend on it."

And yet, PHOF on 3DS runs at a terrible framerate (not to mention with low brightness and contrast), while the same tables on PSP run smooth like butter. I really hope 3DS TPA is technically more solid than PHOF. If it is, I will buy a 3DS XL without even thinking twice, 3D works really well for pinball games, even on such a lowres screen.

I mean, I know the 3DS must be pretty hard to develop for considering all the other platforms run circles around its slow cpu... oh, and please, PLEASE add an option to controll the flippers via dpad and face buttons. Shoulder buttons only works great on comfortable console controllers, but not so much on the RSI-inducing, sharp-edged 3DS ones (Kid Icarus Uprising really soured me on these).

Sorry, rant over. I'm really in love right now with No Good Gofers / Williams Classics on my new 360, so all is forgiven

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Haha, just get the Vita version man. IMO, it is the best overall version of TPA. Its missing the enhanced graphics of the console versions, but you got a great screen, 60 fps on each table (except for a bug in MM) and solid controls on top of the portability. All they need to do is add a better portrait mode and it will be almost perfect.

I considered getting a Vita for a moment when I had to choose between either that or a console. I ended up getting a 360 because it also had a ton of 2D shooters as well as PHOF, I wanted to move up from the terrible 3DS and PSP version and was fed up with touch control.

I'm sure the Vita is a great piece of hardware, but I have absolutely no interest in anything else on the platform so far. I recently sold my 3DS and might consider a Vita later this year and see if the library has anything else that interests me - but I have a very niche taste and getting a 360 for TPA, PHOF, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and the several CAVE titles was something I could justify more than spending about the same amount for a Vita where only TPA interests me (and maybe Lumines).

And as much as I enjoy Nintendo games, it really bugs me that the hardware is so weak - at this point I'd be surprised if TPA could ever really run on the 3DS, let alone at 60fps when not only ROM emulation, ball physics and geometry are taxing the CPU, but also the 3D has to be rendered. As much as I like Farsight, I somehow get the feeling they name-dropped the 3DS without even checking before if it can run TPA at all. I would certain love it too, because again, the stereoscopic 3D on PHOF was one of the only really nice things about that miserable port, and about the only time 3D really made absolute sense to me.

In a perfect world, TPA should have been a launch title for the 3DS - that would have convinced a lot of 3D critics

mmmagnetic said:

but I have a very niche taste and getting a 360 for TPA, PHOF, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and the several CAVE titles was something I could justify more than spending about the same amount for a Vita where only TPA interests me (and maybe Lumines).

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hehe, same here just don't forget you have lumines on xbla also nobody plays it online but hey, its lumines

Nice! Didn't know that, thanks for letting me know

Again, once there are enough tables releases I might very well end up with a Vita, probably around fall or winter.

goforthewall said:

The Tablet could also be used *just* for the DMD and you could use the Wiimote or Classic Controller in *addition*. Thus you could place the "virtual dmd" directly over or under your screen, right? Now that actually sounds cool to me!

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My thoughts exactly. Otherwise I'd hope it would be an option you could toggle off since I wouldn't want to look down at the Gamepad during a pinball game.

mmmagnetic said:

but I have a very niche taste and getting a 360 for TPA, PHOF, Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and the several CAVE titles was something I could justify more than spending about the same amount for a Vita where only TPA interests me (and maybe Lumines).

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I don't know why, but I never thought I'd run across other CAVE game lovers on here (I dig Lumines, and the Treasure shooters too). Cool.

Now, if only the 8 officially announced tables that haven't been released yet on 360 would start coming out.

Another big Cave fan here! I've been playing Akai Katana while I patiently wait for more TPA tables.

Sounds worrisome about the 3DS TPA. Sorry to hear PHOF is so bad on it.. I've wanted a 3ds for a while but just couldn't bite even after the price drop because I'd rather spend my money on console stuff.