Punch-Out!! (Wii) - Development

Development

The game was revealed in 2008 at the Nintendo Media Summit, where a fifteen second trailer was shown. It was later announced that it was being developed by Next Level Games, which had partnered with Nintendo on games such as Super Mario Strikers. Nintendo wished to make a new iteration similar to the original Punch-Out for the NES, so they asked the studio to design the gameplay to be exactly like it and the characters to look like the original games. This led to the studio designing the game with classic NES-style controls by using the Wii Remote turned sideways. Pre-production started when the Wii was released. At the time, Nintendo was discussing the idea with the studio. Soon after that, the studio created a prototype of the game.

In an interview, the game's producer, Kensuke Tanabe, described the development as a collaborative effort between the people of Next Level Games and the people from Nintendo of Japan. As an example of this, Tanabe said that the roster of opponents that are in the game were chosen by people of both studios, Next Level wanting to include more NES characters. When asked about the challenges of bringing an old franchise to the current generation, the game's gameplay lead, Bryce Holiday, said that the most difficult thing to figure out was how to design the gameplay and where to locate the camera. The game has a cel shaded graphical style, which was a decision of Next Level. Both of the developers wanted to design the graphics in a way that would be immediately identifiable to any person who catches a glimpse of the game. They also wanted to invoke the style of the previous iterations while at the same time creating some new visuals. Holiday called the style "the logical choice".

The inclusion of Donkey Kong was a suggestion from an employee of Nintendo of America, and Tanabe also wished to include Princess Peach, but that idea was abandoned because of the issue of violence towards women. The reason that there were not many Nintendo characters in the game is because the studio wanted to solidify the game's universe. The Title Defense mode was designed to make the game more of a standalone game and not just a nostalgia title, and also to make the game's length longer. The developers liked this since it added more personality to the characters. The studio adjusted the difficulty level in order to make the game easier to pick up and play. The game's 2 player mechanic was difficult task to create, according to Tanabe, because the series didn't have a template to base it on.

There were various additions to the game that were cut from the final product. One of these was online multiplayer, while another feature was the ability to move around the ring in a 3D environment. This idea was scrapped so that the game would have the same feel as the older games in the series. Other features include character customization, other RPG elements, and mini-games.