FIFA 13 Wii U to lack 360/PS3 features

Total parity "not technically feasible" in first year, says producer

FIFA 13 on Wii U will lack a number of gameplay features included in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, including the First Touch and FIFA Street skill systems.

According to the game's producer Matt Prior, it's "not technically feasible" for EA's Wii U team to achieve total parity in its first year, because of how quickly the other versions' dev teams makes changes to new features.

"Some of the later improvements on 13 we weren't able to get into the game," Prior toldEurogamer . "So we've got version one. They've got version two."

Moving the foundation of the FIFA engine to Wii U has taken up 80 percent of the Vancouver-based team's work, the producer explained.

As a consequence FIFA 13 Wii U will lack the "tweaks and tunes" the PS3 and Xbox 360 team made to established features such as the Player Impact Engine, tactical defending and precision dribbling.

"It was a challenge," he said. "Because it's something that's been written for a different machine there's a lot of work getting it to work. There are different processors, CPUs and different libraries.

"We can't take a feature they're working on because we get it working and they change it," he added.

"We get it working and they change it, alongside all the challenges we already have. It's not technically feasible. Looking forward we could probably get parity now. But year one is always the most difficult because you're laying the foundation."

The Wii U version will also lack lucrative card game FIFA Ultimate Team, which Prior said is a result of Wii U's online system being in its "infancy".

On the plus side, Prior told ONM  that there were certain areas that his team was able to improve upon the PS3 and 360 versions of the game.

"There are pros and cons with each one. But the Wii U has got more memory so that allows us to improve visually on a couple of areas. You've noticed the crowd is double the resolution that it is on PS3 and Xbox 360 and also the pitch has a lot more detail. The crowd was something we knew we could have improved so we took that opportunity."

SOURCE:COMPUTERANDVIDEOGAMES