Topic: Wii U - e3 is over... now what?

[bustin98]

There are four USB slots, where are the other two?

There is a panel on the front, perhaps two more are hiding there?

[BlackNMild2k1]

WiiU is a PS360 1.5? Report that it's only 50% more powerful than PS360?
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/wii-u-is-actually-50-more-powerful-than-ps3---report/

Wii U will be HD, supporting up to 1080p resolution just like Xbox 360 and PS3, but beyond that it's unclear how powerful the hardware will ultimately be when it ships sometime next year. Nintendo never provides a full breakdown, although the company did say that the form factor is "near final." While many assumed Wii U would be on par with the current HD consoles, word is coming in from developers that it's quite a bit more powerful.

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia commented today, "Some of the developers we spoke to indicated to us that the console will have 50% more processing power compared to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. This is yet to be confirmed by Nintendo."

At E3 last week, Nintendo did little to prove this point. During the press conference, footage of Xbox 360 and PS3 titles was used, although the company did show off an impressive tech demo of a bird flying around some trees, and Nintendo also created a very pretty tech demo to represent what a new Zelda might look like.

This is all heresay and what devs sourced these comments could make a difference. Some devs literally got their hands on dev kits just weeks before E3 and even then we don't know what 50% more processing power really means.

I also heard some interesting things about the Bird nature demo from E3. And maybe a NWR staffer can clear this up for me. Was it actually possible to use the uScreen and look around in the environment in real-time while the demo took place. In other words, was it actually possible to look at areas other than where the bird was flying during the demo?

[NWR_insanolord]

So the Wii U is two Xbox 360s duct-taped together?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well when I think Processing Power I think CPU.
PS3 had a much more powerful CPU than the 360, so if the WiiU CPU is 50% more powerful than Cell, then we are off to a good start IMO.

But it's a vague second hand comment, so I'm not putting too much behind it.
I'm sure some more concrete details will be leaked when the chipsets are finalized.

[Morari]

It'd have to be pretty bad to not be leaps and bounds beyond the PS360. We're talking pretty old tech here... tech that wasn't even that impressive when it was originally released.

[Chozo Ghost]

WiiU is a PS360 1.5? Report that it's only 50% more powerful than PS360?

This may be a disappointment to many, but I am actually relieved, because I was genuinely afraid it would only be as powerful or even less powerful. Being 50% more powerful is a good thing. Could it be better? Sure. But it could also have been much worse so all in all I don't think this is too bad.

And of course, as others have pointed out before, thanks to the graphical wall having been hit more power doesn't matter as much now as it did in past generations.

[NWR_insanolord]

For reference, general consensus seems to be that Wii is 50% more powerful that the GameCube. AKA This does not bode well for the future. The Wii U will have at least a year to a year and a half head start, so hopefully it gains a lot of market share and support before Sony and Microsoft respond. Right now, I could definitely see them doing what Sony did around the Dreamcast launch, though: spew a bunch of bullshit about what their next consoles will be capable of, trying to deflate early interest in the Wii U.

[Chozo Ghost]

The Wii U will have at least a year to a year and a half head start,

Will it really, though? With the PS4 I'm sure it will, but rumors of the next XBOX are already circulating, and I recall the rumors pointing to a holiday 2012 release. If the Wii U is also going to be released in holiday 2012 then it isn't going to have any head start whatsoever. The only chance it has is if it releases earlier in the year like say June, but that wouldn't be much of a head start.

Fortunately, if the competition is far ahead in terms of power then they should also be far ahead in terms of price as well. Hopefully Nintendo won't repeat the mistake they made with the 3DS by overpricing it. The competition has a habit of selling their hardware for a loss, so Nintendo can't afford to overprice theirs too much.

[NWR_insanolord]

I thought recent talk had Sony and Microsoft staying out of it until at least 2013. Really, unless Microsoft sees Wii U as a serious threat, there's no reason for them to even think of launching next year. The 360 is still selling great, and still seeing great software support, and most importantly for Microsoft, is profitable. They're not going to throw that away and start taking a loss again without a damn good reason.

[Chozo Ghost]

The Wii U may only be 50% more powerful than the PS360, But how much more powerful is the PS420 going to be over the Wii U? If they are 100% more powerful than the PS360 then they will only be 50% more powerful than the Wii U, which as has been pointed out isn't much.

[NWR_insanolord]

At this point we have no idea whatsoever what Sony and Microsoft are planning, so it's pointless to speculate.

But I'm going to anyway.

Knowing Sony and their general inability to learn from their own mistakes, they'll probably try to push the envelope again. I could see Microsoft being more conservative, outdoing the Wii U a bit, but not by too much. Nintendo and Microsoft being in relatively the same ballpark would mean that's what games are built for, ensuring that all that extra power in the PS4 is for nothing. I have to think Microsoft would take the option that makes it easier for them to return to profitability relatively quickly while simultaneously screwing over Sony.

[Caterkiller]

I don't think this will be an issue at all for Nintendo, not like the Wii was to everything else. But still what could be the biggest thing (actual gameplay wise) to set the U apart from PS4/720 and just make it out dated? Things like GCN Resident Evil 4 to PS2 Resident Evil 4? More enemies on screen? Whats out there that delepors want that really can't be done now?  Not ranting I honestly would like know.

[Ian Sane]

I figured Nintendo would at best MATCH the Xbox 360 and likely go even less.  It was a very real possibility in my mind until we started to get more info.  Just being 50% more powerful at the very least shows that SOME thought was put into this.

With the Wii Nintendo knew what the Xbox 360 was at that point and released something WAY below it.  This time they're taking a guess about what Sony and MS might do, and they'll probably guess wrong, but at least they're thinking ahead to SOME extent.

[NWR_insanolord]

Being the least powerful and launching a year ahead of everyone is a huge improvement over releasing a console that was already significantly inferior to hardware that was a year old. If they manage to gain a foothold, they'll be in much better shape.

[Chozo Ghost]

At least this time Nintendo will have a console which is more powerful than the last generation, unlike the Wii which WAS more powerful than the GC and PS2, but a little less than an original Xbox. More importantly, the Wii U supports HD graphics, so what more is there for it to do than that? Once you've achieved HD graphics anything more than that is superfluous because the human eye can't tell the difference.

[broodwars]

At least this time Nintendo will have a console which is more powerful than the last generation, unlike the Wii which WAS more powerful than the GC and PS2, but a little less than an original Xbox. More importantly, the Wii U supports HD graphics, so what more is there for it to do than that?

It'll be interesting to see what happens, though, when Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles, which will probably be at least 2-3 times more powerful than their existing hardware.  Nintendo will be the odd man out once again.

[ShyGuy]

I also heard some interesting things about the Bird nature demo from E3. And maybe a NWR staffer can clear this up for me. Was it actually possible to use the uScreen and look around in the environment in real-time while the demo took place. In other words, was it actually possible to look at areas other than where the bird was flying during the demo?

From Kotaku:

the non-playable demo centered on soothing, sweeping travel through a traditional Japanese garden, following the flight path of a tiny sparrow. As it flew through this lush world, a Nintendo of America rep moved the New Controller around, tilting it and turning it. The New Controller's display was recreating what was being output to the television screen in perfect sync and movement of] the New Controller manipulated the camera's view on the big screen.

http://kotaku.com/5808706/weve-played-nintendos-new-wii-u-the-next+generation-of-motion-control

[ShyGuy]

I hate to tell you this, but the PS4 and the Xbox 720 won't look miles better than this generation. We are looking at diminishing returns.

[Chozo Ghost]

At least this time Nintendo will have a console which is more powerful than the last generation, unlike the Wii which WAS more powerful than the GC and PS2, but a little less than an original Xbox. More importantly, the Wii U supports HD graphics, so what more is there for it to do than that?

It'll be interesting to see what happens, though, when Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles, which will probably be at least 2-3 times more powerful than their existing hardware.  Nintendo will be the odd man out once again.

But unless HDTVs end up getting replaced by holodeck simulators in the next two or three years the extra power that these consoles may have will amount to naught. HD and 3D are the current most up to date TV standards, so even if the consoles have more power that power is bottlenecked, because they cannot have better graphics than what TVs are capable of displaying.

[NWR_insanolord]

At least this time Nintendo will have a console which is more powerful than the last generation, unlike the Wii which WAS more powerful than the GC and PS2, but a little less than an original Xbox. More importantly, the Wii U supports HD graphics, so what more is there for it to do than that?

It'll be interesting to see what happens, though, when Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles, which will probably be at least 2-3 times more powerful than their existing hardware.  Nintendo will be the odd man out once again.

Well if you want to get all mathematical about it, being two times as powerful is the same as being 100% more powerful, which wouldn't be too far off from the 50% boost of the Wii U. Like I said, I think it's fairly likely that at least Microsoft will be more conservative this time around. If so, that's certainly not too much to be able to cross-port.

[Chozo Ghost]

The PS3 is probably powerful enough to chug it through another generation without Sony releasing a new console. This time around though it would be like the PS2 in terms of power compared to the competition.

[Stogi]

50% more powerful? What does that even mean? That's like saying the Wii is two GC's duct taped together. I still don't know what that means.

As long as it's more powerful, I think we'll be ok (especially with Nintendo's IP's). Far Cry 3 was running off existing hardware and that looked fantastic running in real time. So..no worries here.

What I'm more concerned about is how much ram it'll have. I don't care if they push the envelope in terms of graphics, but I would like to see an army of pikmin rolling through lush forestry with bugs and enemies everywhere.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Here is some comments from a developer
http://www.gustavhalling.com/2011/06/08/wiiu-thoughts-nintendos-new-console/

- It’s not a big step up from consoles as x360 or PS3, it is better hardware wise but when the new xbox and ps4 comes it will be runned down again, wanted to see something much stronger.
[...]
I dont think the end game results will be significantly better than x360 and PS3. But the extra RAM will help with player limits that are stopping x360/ps3 today in for example BF3.

So he says it's not a big step up from PS360 here, but then goes way beyond that in the next quote.

It's also good to know that WiiU will likely be able to run any PS360 game natively at a minimum of 720p with a solid frame rate and all effects enabled while adding more players/characters on screen at the same time (I'm reading between the lines here)

Didn't say it wouldn't compete with current gen.

But I know how much RAM the WiiU has and I have an idea of how much "we" developers would like to see in the next Xbox and PS4, and they differ a lot.

Still, the WiiU will be the most powerful console out there when it's released, BY FAR!
But I wonder for how long...
[...]
And I agree with the controller, it looks amazing, but I dont see you playing BF3 on it (switching like they did in the rpg they showed) but maybe have the minimap up with chat support etc, that would be awesome!

The future will tell =)

So we just went from "not a big step" to "most powerful BY FAR" in the matter of a few comments. ok.

We can assume the WiiU probably has between 1.5-2GB of RAM if rumors are to be believed, and we can probably guess that developers want to see about 8GB of RAM in PS4/720 if Crytek is to considered the majority voice. Truth is, there is never enough RAM as you can always use more. May not necessarily need more, but you could always use it and will always want it. Unfortunately, it's neither free nor is it cost efficient to add way more than optimized code should need in a closed box environment.

Also good to see creativity flowing with the BF3 designers on how to use the controller. I look forward to the basics of what was demonstrated as being possible being used by most 3rd parties.

This guy also had this to say....

- All the Zelda stuff was RENDERED, we havent seen anything play on the console in their show, all “good looking” stuff was rendered. BF3 was from our movies.

No I'm sorry but you that need to get your facts about the Nintendo E3 press conference.

In the interview given 15 minutes after on Spike with Reggie (you know the NA Nintendo boss) he said that Zelda was rendered and showed how "it could look".
Not necessarily that they will do it like that.

Not saying that they have some kind of live demo of Zelda running somewhere but what was shown for us there wasent "live" or "gameplay", just a rendered scene.

He is saying that the Zelda Demo is pre-rendered, and when someone tried to correct him and tell him it was running realtime, he told them to get their facts straight.

But we know it was running real time, because you could manipulate the camera and the scene by turning it from night to day and viewing from any angle you please.

Also the Bird Demo was running real time as you could also manipulate the camera angles on that as well...

and then there is Ghost Recon & Killer Clowns Freaks from Outer Space, both of which were running live off of prototype dev kits and Ghost Recon was playable on the floor.

In other words, it looks like Devs that just got their dev kits are talking out of their ass and I would take the earlier vague second hand comments with a grain of salt.

-------------

Processing Power likely means CPU power. and if the WiiU CPU is 50% stronger, better and faster than PS3Cell, then we are off to a really good start. Especially since it will likely do it with a similar clock speed, less cores, a whole lot more embedded RAM and a far cheaper price tag.

We also know that if the WiiU is using a R700 (likely 4770 - 4850) GPU, then it will be 4-5x more powerful than the 360 GPU which was already better than the PS3 GPU.

50% more powerful is a very vague statement coming 2nd hand from someone who (probably wouldn't know any better) heard it from someone else that was probably either talking out of their ass, or purposely being vague, since they don't have final hardware and probably just got their dev kits a few weeks ago.

[ThePerm]

The next big step is mass parallax tile processing and voxel table searches, which graphic card makers seem intent on trying to avoid. These things however can be done with a cpu, but require lots and lots of memory to run efficiently. If someone included dedicated hardware for these things they would boost performance ridiculously.

Also, it must be said that we've reached a diminishing return limit with processors. Processors above 3 ghz become stoves, so what they do is put more cores. The more dedicated activities a processor does per cycle the more powerful it is.

I find it interesting that Watson is designed for searching and combing though data, because thats precisely what is needed for voxel trees.

people were concerned ps2 would be used to launch missiles...they should be concerned a cloud of Wii U consoles will becomes sentient and become skynet or the matrix

[GoldenPhoenix]

I am actually glad to hear that Nintendo's system is more powerful then the current generation. Let's face it, visuals are hitting a wall because of development costs. The jump between PS3/360 and the next generation isn't going to be nearly extreme as PS2/Xbox to PS3/360. Nintendo seems be playing things fairly well this time around, including embracing blu-ray esque storage. The comparison to Dreamcast in regards to power may be true, (though I doubt you'll see quite the gap), but that isn't necessarily a nail in their coffin, DC failed for reasons other then power, that was only one of many issues with the system.