Topic: Wii stronger then the first Xbox ?

[Crave]

I have yet to see anything that is even of Xbox quality, and yet this was the early claim by developer's (obviously one's who have not yet created a Wii title)  What's your take? I enjoy the Wii, but I would like to see something beyond GCN quality at least.

All opinion's happily accepted.

-Crave  

[NeoThunder]

I thought Call of Duty 3 had pretty good graphics.....of course I think other people think otherwise

[NWR_pap64]

You do know that the XBOX only had Halo at launch, right? Luckily the game was good enough to sell consoles.

Second, I think you are demanding too much out of a system that was just released. Of course the games will feel like GC games, ALL consoles suffer from the same thing. Many of the PS2 games were initially PSone titles and even Sega DC ports.

History has stated that the games that are created from the ground up for the system appear a year after launch.

So give the Wii a break and enjoy what you have, rather than trying to wish it was better.

[Chiller]

This has been gone over quite a bit.  Many have proposed that, since the Wii is architecturally similar to the GameCube, developers are treating it as merely an extension thereof.  They aren't taking time to really do anything spectacular with the system - they are instead developing for it as if it were a GameCube with a different controller.  In a way, we are getting what might be akin to a port.  Many also state that even the GameCube wasn't really pushed to its limits.  Combine those two factors, and consider that most consoles suffer from lackluster graphics early on, and it is easy to see why we are getting games that don't look like anything beyond the Cube.  As such, one shouldn't try to estimate its "strength" based on what we currently see, as far as graphics go.   Once developers feel comfortable with the system as a source of profit (which is likely considering its current success), you will then see games which look much better.  

[Edfishy]

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance deffinitly surpasses the GameCube in graphics, and considering the graphical quality of the Xbox version of X-Men: Legends 2, I'd even go as far as to say that the Wii is 1.5x more powerful than the Xbox.  Mostly in that it can hold a decent framerate while displaying Xbox quality graphics, at wide-screen no less.

Loading times are also much faster than I'd expect on the Xbox.

[segagamer12]

I havent had too many complaints yet, I have DBZ BT2 and it looks good enough for me, so does COD3, and Zelda TP. I had issues with Red Steel and, thankfully, sold that POS on ebay the other day.

I was disapointed at first but after pl;aying 360 a lot and going back to Wii I am not seeing the difference as that big anymore. I think Wii holds its own compared to regular xbox and can put up a good fight agianst the 360, but I hope the good looking games come out sooner rather than latter. MP3 is suppsoed to look great so thats going to be the deciding factor I think for most people.  

[son of lucas]

Truth be told, the Gamecube was rarely taken to its limits either.

[IceCold]

[nickmitch]

Shouldn't that say "than" and not "then"?

[TrueNerd]

I'm not sure. I heard one of my friends say that the Wii was as powerful as like ten PS3's, but my other friend said he was a liar and that the Wii was barely as powerful as an N64. In conclusion, I'm of little help to you.  

[jasonditz]

I think it's mostly lack of effort rather than lack of console power. A lot of these early games were rushed to market to make the launch window, and it's not surprising that they spent most of their time focusing on the new controls rather than pushing the new graphics hardware to its limit.

[Smoke39]

Quote
Originally posted by: TVman
Shouldn't that say "than" and not "then"?

Yes.

[Kairon]

With so many rushed launch ports, I'm not surprised that we've seen some not very ambitious stuff.

Personally, I am very, very forgiving of bad graphics (I enjoyed playing Far Cry, for example), but hopefully you'll see some stuff more representative of the Wii's early-life capabilities when more developed-from-ground-up-for-Wii-premiere-titles come out, like Metroid Prime 3 or Mario Galaxies. The tricky thing about Nintendo systems these last couple of Gens is that third parties seem very lazy with pushing the tech, very few of them did it last time around, so you generally look at first or second party efforts for technical excellence.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[ShyGuy]

Elebits had some amazing moments power-wise. Hundreds of items on a single map all having their physics manipulated at the same time. Very impressive really.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Speaking of 3rd parties and Wii, I've also heard (feel free to confirm or deny this) that even Resident Evil 4 didn't push the GC's graphics to its limits.

[Adrock]

It's a lack of effort, but that's not strictly a Wii problem. Developers rarely take full advantage of the hardware. Games on PS2 can look as good as FFXII, but few come close. Wii may not be a graphical powerhouse, but it's more than capable of producing amazing visuals.

And once again, a game's graphics rely highly on art design.

[Koekoenutt]

I really enjoyed the graphics for Excite Truck for being a launch game. Zelda is a great example of how powerful the Gamecube can be if tapped correctly, and I think we will definatly see an incline in graphics on the Wii for about a year or two in certain games. I like to think that Nintendo worries about frame rate issues before adding onto the graphics in games. Unfortantly, I think most of the Wii games out right now were pushed due to that certain Launch Window that they all wanted to make so badly, that some really could have used a few more months in development.  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

These "didn't push the GC to its limits" ideas are crap.  If a game like Metroid Prime 2 or RE4 can cause a moment of framerate stutter on GC, it's obviously being pushed to some kind of limit, and obviously can't handle the extra demand that's being thrown at it.

There's only so much resources for managing the available features.  If all the features were active at the same time, something's going to be spread thin, cuz some feature is bound to bottleneck everything else.  Look at how StarFox Adventures tried to pack all kinds of shiny details into a scene, causing the framerate to fail its 60fps glory.  Then see how Metroid Prime handles lots of things quite smoothly, while mainly sacrificing texture detail and other bumps -- more importantly, Metroid Prime chose to maximize performance in specific areas for better all-around performance while StarFox did NOT, causing it to fall into the pit of "hmm that's too bad, not as hot as we thought."  It's an engineering decision (for the sake of performance) that throws more weight/dependence on the art direction to provide some extra visual pizazz.

Consider Xbox, and it's multitude of bump-heavy, shadow-heavy games.  The vast majority of them were limited to 30fps, telling us we couldn't have ugly-black-shadows AND silky smooth 60fps framerates.  Developers obviously chose to prioritize some visual features over others.

[denjet78]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
These "didn't push the GC to its limits" ideas are crap.  If a game like Metroid Prime 2 or RE4 can cause a moment of framerate stutter on GC, it's obviously being pushed to some kind of limit, and obviously can't handle the extra demand that's being thrown at it.

There's only so much resources for managing the available features.  If all the features were active at the same time, something's going to be spread thin, cuz some feature is bound to bottleneck everything else.  Look at how StarFox Adventures tried to pack all kinds of shiny details into a scene, causing the framerate to fail its 60fps glory.  Then see how Metroid Prime handles lots of things quite smoothly, while mainly sacrificing texture detail and other bumps -- more importantly, Metroid Prime chose to maximize performance in specific areas for better all-around performance while StarFox did NOT, causing it to fall into the pit of "hmm that's too bad, not as hot as we thought."  It's an engineering decision (for the sake of performance) that throws more weight/dependence on the art direction to provide some extra visual pizazz.

Consider Xbox, and it's multitude of bump-heavy, shadow-heavy games.  The vast majority of them were limited to 30fps, telling us we couldn't have ugly-black-shadows AND silky smooth 60fps framerates.  Developers obviously chose to prioritize some visual features over others.

I really wish more developers would prioritize the important stuff first, like a solid framerate. I don't understand how there can still be games that are unable to run at 60fps. By this point ALL games should run at 60fps by default. Anything slower is just unacceptable.

[Kairon]

Bah. Only fighters and racers should do 60 fps. All other games are just dandy at 30 fps if you ask me, and can lay on the other effects. Slower paced games (action adventures, action titles, platformers, etc.) benefit far more from atmospheric effects than twitch games.

But games like F-Zero X... now THAT needs 60 FPS! BRING IT ON BABY! BRING IT OOOOOOON!

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[denjet78]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Bah. Only fighters and racers should do 60 fps. All other games are just dandy at 30 fps if you ask me, and can lay on the other effects. Slower paced games (action adventures, action titles, platformers, etc.) benefit far more from atmospheric effects than twitch games.

But games like F-Zero X... now THAT needs 60 FPS! BRING IT ON BABY! BRING IT OOOOOOON!

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Progressive scan needs 60 though or really you're just wasting it.

The thing is, progressive scan still isn't even standard but we've got certain companies trying to jump the gun into the hi-def era. If companies can't even master technology from the analogue era when can we possibly expect them to actually be able to do hi-def right?

[bustin98]

When you have games like Turok causing framerate issues, there's more going on than the system being pushed over its limits. Its called optimization. And I'm sure one of the first processes to get dropped when a deadline is growing tight. Not saying that framerate issues in RE4 are due to a lack of polish in that particular instance, but its a good possibility.

Ok, technically speaking, if a game is not optimized, it is pushing the system to its limits in its own way. But its better to have a polished game push the limits rather than a crap game impose its own limits.

[Extra Terrestrial]

Since when has the Wii been about the graphics anyway?

We all knew that Nintendo were going to give the graphics department a back-step by offering us to what the GameCube produced but over time we will eventually be able to see the gap between your average (or high quality) GameCube games in terms of graphics to what the Wii can offer in the not too distance future.

At the moment, most developers (especially Ubisoft) are being very lazy and putting less than inspiring ports on the shop shelves so we shouldn't haste to say that the Wii is merely offering GameCube terms in the graphics department when Zelda: Twilight Princess looks wonderful although you could argue that it is the art direction that makes it more appreciative to look (and play).

It has been nearly two months since the Wii was released so I wouldn't worry about the disappointing effort(s) that shows average GameCube standard graphics so far as by the end of the year, we should hopefully enjoy games that are both enjoyable to watch and play.

[Pittbboi]

Well, the system has only been out for a few months, so it's not fair to expect to see the full capabilities of what the Wii can do yet. However, what's bothering me so far is the lack of confirmation that things are going to get better. Sure, the big Nintendo franchises are all set to look good (I won't say great yet, nothing I've seen of Nintendo's upcoming titles look like they couldn't have been done on the Cube), but the handful of future third party games we have seen kinda look....blah. They all look like they could have been done on the Cube. Heck, I even have to admit that my most anticipated third party game, No More Heroes, looks like crap (with the exception of the character models). For me it's not that we're not seeing that new gen style now, it's that we have no proof that we're ever going to see titles that look better than what the Gamecube did. No announcements, no screen shots, nothing.

Then again, this could all be Nintendo's fault. It is my personal belief that the reason we're not seeing a lot of new projects being announced for the Wii yet, or any games that seem to be pushing the envelope (with the graphics OR the controls), is because Nintendo waited until the absolute last minute to reveal any details of the Wii to developers and get out dev kits so they could start creating.  Remember, with the exception of a few key people, developers were finding out about the Wii's features just as the public was, and MOST didn't get their dev kits until just a few months before launch. Everyone was wondering what the hold up was. If any developer wanted to take initiative in developing a game for the Wii (and not many did, looking back at the failures of Nintendo's previous two consoles), they had to use Gamecube dev kits. In that kind of environment it makes perfect sense that we're not going to see games moving out of Gamecube and into Wii territory anytime soon. I honestly don't see that happening until late next year.

I know Nintendo wanted to keep a tight lid on the Revolution to keep Sony from finding out through a developer and stealing their ideas (again). But I honestly think it would have been worth the risk if it meant getting developers up and creating Wii games a lot sooner than this.    

[Plugabugz]

F-Zero GX is arguably the most rock-solid cube game there is in terms of framerate stability and graphical output. The thing there is, the engine used was heavily modified from Monkey Ball.