Topic: Is the Wii U underpowered?

[pokepal148]

For all intents and purposes, Nintendo has yet to show anything on the Wii U that can't be done on the 360 and PS3,

and what makes you so knowledgeable on the matters of what the ps3/360 can do.

And PC gaming can go **** itself.

[Adrock]

For all intents and purposes, Nintendo has yet to show anything on the Wii U that can't be done on the 360 and PS3,

and what makes you so knowledgeable on the matters of what the ps3/360 can do.

He's not blind.

[ThePerm]

X looks good, but it looks kinda like what Lair looked like.

[shingi_70]

It's a sad world we live in when a console as powerful as Wii U is considered to have "bad technical specs." It's only underpowered when you compare it to more powerful hardware and there will ALWAYS be something better. Like I said earlier PS4/One are already outclassed by the best PC has to offer today. It'll be even worse in five months. This race to the top is so F-ing silly. What do you get out of it?

Empty pockets.

Isn't that technology in a nutshell? I mean for the longest time I was an android fanboy during the Froyo/Gingerbread/Honeycomb years and I burned out fast becuase the user experience was horrid and companies kept pushing specs to be different. I end up burning out hard and it wasn't till Jellybean that I came back and even now I'm deep into the mobile game as I once was.

[shingi_70]

For all intents and purposes, Nintendo has yet to show anything on the Wii U that can't be done on the 360 and PS3,

and what makes you so knowledgeable on the matters of what the ps3/360 can do.

And PC gaming can go **** itself.

Well the PS4/One have barley showed anything that couldn't be done on Current gen consoles so I guess the same goes for the Wii U by proxy.


So far the only three things to really wow me were Ryse, Quantum Break, and that Quantic Dream tech demo. Out of those three Ryse was the only one that made me think that couldn't be down on current Gen hardware and that turned into QTE's all day every day. (Quantic ream doesn't count as its not a game)

[BranDonk Kong]

Lets not pretend for one second that the Wii U has "secret cores" and is magically as powerful as the XBox One or PS4. It doesn't and it isn't. Let's not pretend for one second that the XBox One and PS4 are not immensely more powerful than 360, PS3, and Wii U. They are.

Can the Wii U do more than the XBox 360 and PS3 - probably, but they came out 7 and 6 years before the Wii U, respectively.

[Kytim89]

Is the Wii U under powered? In a way, yes, when compared to its future competition. Is it under supported? Definitely, and a whole lot of its shortcomings could be bypassed if the laziness that permeates the industry were to disappear.

[Mannypon]

There is no such "secret core", I think that's a story from a Neogaf insider (he's trusted on that site, mod approved, take it or leave it) that has been twisted.  The insider had claimed that with the first dev kits, developers were having an issue where 1 core was not being utilized and they weren't even aware of it.  As dev kits matured, the issue was resolved but supposedly some launch games suffered from this.  Again, this is all from what I've read in the technical discussion threads at Neogaf.  I tend to believe SOME of the members there as that site seems to be extremely tough on rumor mongering and people making claims out of the blue.   A mod confirmed this poster's credentials supposedly. Again, take it or leave it.
 
As for WiiU compared to the other 2, I'll take the general consensus that I've seen from the many frequent tech threads I've lurked on.  What I've come to understand as a good comparison is PC gaming now where a game can run on low or med specs (WiiU) and can also run on high specs (PS4/Xbone).  PS4/Xbone games can and should be able to run on WiiU as long as some features are lowered, res dropped, and framerates adjusted.  The bigger question will always be whether publishers will want to fund the amount of money into actually doing the work.  That's a whole other story/thread.   

[Jabs]

The problem with Power PC is less of being hard to develop for and more the other three platforms are so similar (X86 across the board) is it possible for developers to take time out for a Wii U version.

PowerPC isn't a difficult architecture to work with (one of the easiest really), that said there are some minor issues that have to be overcome when porting from x86 to the PPC ISA. For the most part however developers don't really see the underlying hardware anymore, most code is so abstracted from the chips so much that it doesn't even factor in to how the code is developed.

I know of some developers on PS4 have ported their Cell SPE code directly onto the x86 CPU without any major issues but thats because it was C based code to begin with.

Wii U's issue is that if a game is being built for the bigger machines, scaling back the games to the lower platforms in terms of CPU grunt and memory (which is a much bigger issue) is a costly and time involving effort. Most developers would rather focus on a single project with set high targets rather than having a limbo bar to crawl under while trying to keep the other guys happy.

[Soren]

What Mannypon said. Hey, I even managed to find the Gaf post.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57889424&postcount=656

One of the Wii U core wasn't used throughout the development of several launch window games. It's an "engine related issue", meaning it's the way the teams behind those titles have programmed their engine for the Wii U CPU. It wasn't widespread, not universally seen on all the games, but witnessed on at least a few of those. The developers found and resolved this problem mere months/weeks prior release, and most of them gained a nice increase in FPS. It's one the origin of the huge boost in framerate i reported a long time ago that some studios managed to get (from 30 fps to 60 fps for some games), along with new dev kits, etc.You heard it right, a whole core of the Wii U CPU wasn't put in use for most of the dev cycle of several titles, before it was fixed.It's rather telling either: - on the crucial need of studios, accustomed to the HD-Twins framework, to adapt their code to the Wii U specifics - or the perfectible state of documentation/dev kit/SDK's at the time - or [insert your own conclusion/guess derived from this info]

Funny how the only people talking about "secret cores" in this thread are the ones who believe the Wii U is "immensely" underpowered to the PS4/Xbone. Even though the data coming out is starting to show us that gap is nowhere near as huge as those people think it is.

[Jabs]

Funny how the only people talking about "secret cores" in this thread are the ones who believe the Wii U is "immensely" underpowered to the PS4/Xbone. Even though the data coming out is starting to show us that gap is nowhere near as huge as those people think it is.

Funnily enough that's just it Wii U isn't that far behind especially compared with the gap between Wii and the X360/Ps3. CPU wise it's only roughly 5-7 times slower than X1/Ps4 and GPU wise it's somewhere between (based of estimates here) 2.5/5 times slower than X1 and 3.5/7 times slower than PS4. Mind you running most of these games at 720p 30fps is going to close the apparent gap a lot more than you would expect.

Compared with the Wii to X360/Ps3 where the CPU gap was about 20-30 times as much and 20-25 times on the GPU side combined with diminishing returns in visuals and we are still set to see some great stuff form the platform. Just look at Monolith's new "X" title to see what I mean.

[Oblivion]

Once again, X is leagues behind Infamous Second Son, Destiny, Titanfall, etc. I mean, lookat the close up of that Shulk-lookalike in the first trailer. God-awful, right?

[Jabs]

Yes it is behind but it's not staggeringly behind like we had last generation. It will never match what the others can do but it at least the technology decisions that have been made allow for the maximum results from a chepa machine.

[Kytim89]

Once again, X is leagues behind Infamous Second Son, Destiny, Titanfall, etc. I mean, lookat the close up of that Shulk-lookalike in the first trailer. God-awful, right?

While those games are very pretty, if one of them fails sales wise then it is lights out for their respective developer and publisher.

[Mannypon]

Once again, X is leagues behind Infamous Second Son, Destiny, Titanfall, etc. I mean, lookat the close up of that Shulk-lookalike in the first trailer. God-awful, right?

How much would that be attributed to the budget and studio size?  I'd like to think (and this is my opinion with nothing to base it on) that those Sony games are benefiting from a much larger team and even more likely a much larger budget.  I don't see Nintendo throwing AAA money into X.  Mainline Zelda will probably be series Nintendo may spend decent money on.  Every other series including Mario, I believe, is being developed on a tight budget.  The team could be as large but I think Mono is working wonders with the budget they are given.  Just look at Xenoblade, the fact that they got that out of the Wii was amazing.  I'm sure they weren't given 1st tier money for such games.  Again, this is all my opinion.  I'm sure others may see it differently. 

[broodwars]

Funny how the only people talking about "secret cores" in this thread are the ones who believe the Wii U is "immensely" underpowered to the PS4/Xbone. Even though the data coming out is starting to show us that gap is nowhere near as huge as those people think it is.

Actually, I was just responding to the TC's belief that the Wii U somehow had more technical power in it than people thought. I believe I called bull**** on the whole "secret core" idea as just the Nintendo fanboys' way of trying to pretend the Wii U isn't immensely underpowered.

[Mannypon]

Funny how the only people talking about "secret cores" in this thread are the ones who believe the Wii U is "immensely" underpowered to the PS4/Xbone. Even though the data coming out is starting to show us that gap is nowhere near as huge as those people think it is.

Actually, I was just responding to the TC's belief that the Wii U somehow had more technical power in it than people thought. I believe I called bull**** on the whole "secret core" idea as just the Nintendo fanboys' way of trying to pretend the Wii U isn't immensely underpowered.

I think the issues everyone is having with your statements is how you come off as if your stating facts.  "pretend the WiiU isn't IMMENSELY underpowered".  I'll like to highlight "immensely underpowered".  That is your opinion but its coming across as if you have first hand knowledge of it being a fact.  Now I can agree with you on the WiiU being underpowered, that is a fact simply by looking at the specs.  Immensely underpowered is a whole different story.  Maybe I define "immensely" different than you but I don't think of that word when comparing the WiiU to its upcoming competition.  "immensely" is something I would say was better suited when comparing the Wii to the PS360.  That argument holds water.  Your either giving the PS4/Xbone way too much credit or severely downplaying WiiU's technical capabilities.  I know you are waiting for the WiiU to prove it to you but only time will tell on that front.  If you want further detail on what's in the WiiU, I suggest reading some of the tech threads dedicated to the WiiU at Neogaf as some of the knowledgable members there have really done a lot in figuring out what the WiiU is made of. 

[Oblivion]

Being underpowered is not a matter of opinion. It is, or it isn't. Simple as that. And like it has already been established... it is.

[Kytim89]

The Wii U being under powered does not bother me as much as the price and used game lock out of the XBone.

[shingi_70]

You be the judge.

[Kytim89]

Square Enix would have to sell more than five million copies of Final Fantasy XV to be profitable. 

[Oblivion]

Source? Because I can almost guarantee that to be false.

[Kytim89]

Source? Because I can almost guarantee that to be false.

Perhaps you have forgotten the recent news that the Tomb Raider reboot did not meet their expectations. Also, I was being sarcastic.

[Jabs]

The next generation is expensive its a simple as that. Most developers can't survive now with a game selling less than a million copies simply because they lose so much cash on them. Budgets are set to double at least for these high end machines, sales expectations are going to be higher than ever.

[Kytim89]

The next generation is expensive its a simple as that. Most developers can't survive now with a game selling less than a million copies simply because they lose so much cash on them. Budgets are set to double at least for these high end machines, sales expectations are going to be higher than ever.

I am not the Final Fantasy loyalist that I used to be in the past. The series has lost its teeth and I do not see future games being profitable enough for SE to avoid major financial difficulties.