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The Wii U Speculation Thread V: The Final Frontier

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Hm. Wii U's pad will be bluetooth, right?

What's the likelihood of someone coding a driver for streaming to it from a PC? Being able to use it as a keyboard/remote/screen for my PC would be...mindblowing

guys, it's gonna happen, isnt it?
Its controls communication might be some standard, but I doubt the video/audio streaming will be any standard, that's going to require a hell of a lot of bandwidth to support realtime streaming with under 1 frame of lag at 60fps.
 

Izick

Member
dm-T1MH.gif

Still waiting for the gif to finish it's animation...
 
Yeah, it was kind of everything that Ninja Gaiden went on to be. Violent, brutal, quick, fun, and punishingly hard. Did you ever play Nightshade? Was it any good? I remember the reviews weren't that hot, but then again, they weren't for Shinobi either.

I did. And it was not. The original was kind of bland level wise, and they basically made the same game again but worse. Though it was beatable that time.
 

usmanusb

Member
Seems like Retro has hired more industry veterans in recent times..


Timothy Wilson. Environmental Art Lead. Worked at Escalation Studios,Gearbox Software and 3D Realm. Worked on modeled and textured assets for Rage MP, collaborated in creating the hand-painted Borderlands art style and provided guides for technique and process....

Brad Taylor. Environment Artist. Disney Interactive Studios, NCsoft (Korean studio - MMORPG),

Aaron Black. Designer. Zipper Interactive, Sucker Punch Productions. Worked on Unit 13, inFAMOUS 2, SOCOM 4.

Chris Carroll. Sound Designer. Worked on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Epic Mickey, Age Of Empire, Serious Sam 3.

Robert Kovach. Senior Technical Artist. Worked at Junction Point Studios, Sony Online Entertainment, Ion Storm. Could have worked on Epic Mickey, Thief, Deus Ex..




http://www.linkedin.com/company/retro-studios
 

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
It's like you've read my mind. I couldn't come up with a better idea if Retro Studios said, "Paul, you tell us what to make and we'll make it." What I received is absolutely bitchin' in my opinion. My heart even sunk a bit and got a little chill when I first heard it cuz it's so damn cool.
I knew Acid Ghost was real!
 

usmanusb

Member
Seems like Retro has hired more industry veterans in recent times..


Timothy Wilson. Environmental Art Lead. Worked at Escalation Studios,Gearbox Software and 3D Realm. Worked on modeled and textured assets for Rage MP, collaborated in creating the hand-painted Borderlands art style and provided guides for technique and process....

Brad Taylor. Environment Artist. Disney Interactive Studios, NCsoft (Korean studio - MMORPG),

Aaron Black. Designer. Zipper Interactive, Sucker Punch Productions. Worked on Unit 13, inFAMOUS 2, SOCOM 4.

Chris Carroll. Sound Designer. Worked on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Epic Mickey, Age Of Empire, Serious Sam 3.

Robert Kovach. Senior Technical Artist. Worked at Junction Point Studios, Sony Online Entertainment, Ion Storm. Could have worked on Epic Mickey, Thief, Deus Ex..




http://www.linkedin.com/company/retro-studios



Definitely we are gonna get some coool high profile hardcore games..
 

usmanusb

Member
Definitely we are gonna get some coool high profile hardcore games..

Well guys it didn't end up there.. They also got people from Square Enix, Bethesda Softworks, Namco and list goes on...

Check out Retro profile...


SOMETHING BIG IS GONNA EXPLODE IN FEW WEEKS TIME..
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Staff having experience in high profile titles on other platforms does not necessarily guaranty anything regarding Retro's project. All it means is Retro prioritises hiring people with experience and skill in the industry, which these people have, versus juniors and those with weaker resumes.
 

usmanusb

Member
Staff having experience in high profile titles on other platforms does not necessarily guaranty anything regarding Retro's project. All it means is Retro prioritises hiring people with experience and skill in the industry, which these people have, versus juniors and those with weaker resumes.

rite.., but it could imply their strength and may be focus for the project.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
rite.., but it could imply their strength and may be focus for the project.

Indeed. If it indicates anything, it is that Retro is working on a high profile project that demands the attention of experienced staff. So they're probably not working on a cliche'd safe sequel, or as a support team for Nintendo's other projects (like they did for Mario Kart 7). Instead they're working on something of their own.

Could be anything though.
 

usmanusb

Member
Put like this
Art team who has worked on Rage, Duke nukem, Epic Mickey, Thief, Deus Ex...
Designers who has worked on Unit 13, inFAMOUS 2, SOCOM 4

What could we expect from them??
 

usmanusb

Member
Indeed. If it indicates anything, it is that Retro is working on a high profile project that demands the attention of experienced staff. So they're probably not working on a cliche'd safe sequel, or as a support team for Nintendo's other projects (like they did for Mario Kart 7). Instead they're working on something of their own.

Could be anything though.

yes you r rite, got more confirmation for high profile title..
 

Sadist

Member
Pretty cool news regarding Aliens CM and the Wii U. Hype got a bit restored. The part about the online experience sounds very promising.

And the Paul Gale thing... it will be an interesting read. Nothing more. Reminds me of 2010, with HALlaboratory leaking about Donkey Kong Country Returns. I didn't believe him at the time, but when the jungle beat started with Retro's logo on the big screen I was like "holy shit he was right".

I wish this year could be as cool as 2010.
 
Are these people being fired from their previous position and then getting picked up by Retro? Or are they getting offered better pay and stuff at Retro, which seems weird considering how low budget their website is.

Or maybe the new game is so exciting that people are just quitting their old jobs to work on it.
 

Suzzopher

Member
Are these people being fired from their previous position and then getting picked up by Retro? Or are they getting offered better pay and stuff at Retro, which seems weird considering how low budget their website is.

Or maybe the new game is so exciting that people are just quitting their old jobs to work on it.

You don't generally stay at the same company long. A lot of the time your contract is for one projec
 

burst

Member
Retro doesn't really need a great website as they are a nintendo second party, so people normally go through the nintendo website for their games.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Does retro has enough resources for having multiple projects?

Last headcount, according to Wikipedia, was in 2010, where their staff count was 60. With all the recent hirings they're maybe a little bit bigger now.

If they're working on a large HD project I suspect a majority of that staff is working on a single project. However, it's likely prototypes and other smaller projects are being built as well.

For example, Retro could probably still dedicate some staff to other projects from Nintendo, again like Mario Kart 7 support, depending on status of their main project. Keep staff busy.

Are these people being fired from their previous position and then getting picked up by Retro? Or are they getting offered better pay and stuff at Retro, which seems weird considering how low budget their website is.

Or maybe the new game is so exciting that people are just quitting their old jobs to work on it.

People move around a lot, rarely because they're fired. A lot of people are contractual, staying on only for the length of a project and as long as they're needed. People move to different jobs and roles depending on their interests, pay, location, and so on.
 

lherre

Accurate
About the OS/Wii U "software layer", its memory size, etc.

I got a confirmation from a different source that the ones i'm usually referring to since the start, that the data revealed 2 months and half ago (with other following messages, please search in speculation thread 2, 3 & 4) about the "OS" is right. Right on the "surprising" comment, right on the at the time expected amount. It's huge, surely never seen before on a normal home system.

Nota Bene:

- It's still on a v4 dev kit context, so relevant a few months from now, a big semester before the system launch, so it's likely to change.

- Cross-read/understood/analyzed with the info in regard to third-parties left in a roughly vague knowledge of the Wii U OS/Background status until recently (they don't know the "real" dashboard for example, etc.), it could hint toward:

---> Nintendo reserved a certain amount of memory (at least 512MB to be clear) without knowing the exact space that the Wii U OS will take once completed, they made a prevision of that with a noticeable additional room, in case it will occupy more place. In the end, it will be more reasonable size-wise than this locked space. Considering the OS size of the other systems, it's pretty sure that it will remain the biggest software layer seen on this kind of platform. This anticipated trimming could free up some memory for games. As projects are being developed with a limited amount of memory from the total pool (the rest is for the OS/background/system features), we could expect a 3DS situation where developers, once the OS is optimized and slimmed down, will be able to use more memory.

---> Or the software layer will indeed match the amount reserved for it in the dev kits. Then, we can really expect huge features, multi-tasking, etc, on the Wii U.

- More to come about that (especially on the OS "storage") soon.

Ehrm, I think you misunderstand a bit ths ...

One thing is the memory in flash used to store the "system" (we can put it more understandable as the firmware of the system) and another is the memory "OS footprint" in ram memory.
 

kami_sama

Member
Ehrm, I think you misunderstand a bit ths ...

One thing is the memory in flash used to store the "system" (we can put it more understandable as the firmware of the system) and another is the memory "OS footprint" in ram memory.
I think he refers to the amount of ram the OS will be using, not the amount of storage.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The notion of Nintendo reserving 512mb of RAM specifically for the OS (even with the likelihood of scaling back) isn't very believable to me. That's more than twice the RAM Windows 7 uses while idling.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
Ehrm, I think you misunderstand a bit ths ...

One thing is the memory in flash used to store the "system" (we can put it more understandable as the firmware of the system) and another is the memory "OS footprint" in ram memory.

As said in private message :)

Well, my sources explicitly told me that the "software layer", the "system features", have reserved for them a very huge amount. This is why i didn't say OS, but put marks on it ("OS") and added "console functions", like multi-tasking, storing your progression in games the switching back to it like 3DS.

It's not OS as operating system, the software including the dashboard, etc, like the "windows" of the Wii U. This, will not have 500MB of size, it's obvious. It's the amount of memory that will be reserved to that + the functions of the console.

I already explained this a lot in other thread. I explicitly stated that there are two possible scenarios: 1) The amount reserved for this will be optimized/trimmed down, nintendo basically reserved this because they didn't know at the time the final amount it will occupy, so in place of letting the studios having let's say 1,5GB of memory and 0,3GB for the OS then warning them that finally the OS/System features will take 0,5GB and they will have 0,2GB less, they did the reverse, they started low for their application, and they will have more in the end

2) Or really, the OS/system functions will take that space

thanks for pushing me to insisting on the fact that i'm not talking strictly of the OS to avoid misunderstandings, but more all the memory room let free for ALL the system functions. I've heard it's really big on multi-tasking for example, it could come from that.
 
The notion of Nintendo reserving 512mb of RAM specifically for the OS (even with the likelihood of scaling back) isn't very believable to me. That's more than twice the RAM Windows 7 uses while idling.
Yeah but how much RAM does Windows use when it is browsing modern websites? I think It's a given that Nintendo will allow us to pause the game and bring up a browser on the tablet, among other multi-task applications. The 3DS does this, but it does it so slowly to be absolutely useless (if you have any sort of smartphone it is always quicker to just pick that out of your pocket instead). So I can see them beefing up the OS layer to make this all run smoothly.
 
You don't generally stay at the same company long. A lot of the time your contract is for one projec

People move around a lot, rarely because they're fired. A lot of people are contractual, staying on only for the length of a project and as long as they're needed. People move to different jobs and roles depending on their interests, pay, location, and so on.

Ok, that sounds a lot better than a team of fired employs.

What timezone is paul gale in?
 
Last headcount, according to Wikipedia, was in 2010, where their staff count was 60. With all the recent hirings they're maybe a little bit bigger now.

If they're working on a large HD project I suspect a majority of that staff is working on a single project. However, it's likely prototypes and other smaller projects are being built as well.

For example, Retro could probably still dedicate some staff to other projects from Nintendo, again like Mario Kart 7 support, depending on status of their main project. Keep staff busy.

I believe 60 is around the same team size that ND and Sucker Punch had working on the original Uncharted and inFamous. U2 went up to 85 due to them implementing online modes. That didn't include outsourced work. So, that's around the minimum for what you need if you're working on AAA HD games. It's a really small number when you compare it to the size of the Assassin's Creed teams, which have upwards of 400 people working on it.

I'll be interested in seeing which route Nintendo takes with their next gen engines. I hope that they end up going with custom engines over licensing third party stuff like Cry Engine or UE. I know that there was a rumor that Retro would be using UE3 on the Wii U, but I think that would be disappointing. It's more time consuming to build your own engine, which is why Sony's first party was slow to get off the ground this gen. But their studios are also a pretty good example of the benefits that you see from developing your own engine.
 

NBtoaster

Member
Yeah but how much RAM does Windows use when it is browsing modern websites? I think It's a given that Nintendo will allow us to pause the game and bring up a browser on the tablet, among other multi-task applications. The 3DS does this, but it does it so slowly to be absolutely useless (if you have any sort of smartphone it is always quicker to just pick that out of your pocket instead). So I can see them beefing up the OS layer to make this all run smoothly.

Browsers are far too CPU intensive to have a useful one in game.
 

Paul Gale

Member
Ok, that sounds a lot better than a team of fired employs.

What timezone is paul gale in?

California PST. Just put it up right here. Was going to wait until 9am, but I've done all the digging I can and just can't find out whether or not it's more than a rumor so no point in waiting another 5.5 hours.

It's just a rumor, but I really wanted some more evidence. We'll see in 17 days hopefully.
 
Star Fox – Metroid: Fusion Saga?

lol

I can't see it, myself, and I REALLY don't see how those universes mesh together outside of Smash Bros.

Seems more of a fanboy wet dream than anything that can be a quality title.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
To try to be even more clear, with a new info in it:

- My sources told me there is a huge amount of the total memory (at least 512MB) that they can't tap from for their games. They are developing their titles since a moment now, with X amount of the Y total system memory, whereas another pool of it, Z, is not available at all for them. I was told back then that this Z was for the system features, it INCLUDES the OS, the operating system, the "windows" of the Wii U, that will be loaded in the memory when you turn on the console, but it doesn't constitute ALL what Z is, i've heard a lot of things about multi-tasking, the possibility to store your progression in games (so the system must store quickly where you are, etc.), go do other things in the interface, then switch back when you paused.

Concretely, the OS could have a size of let's say 200MB, but there will still be 300MB not available for developers because Nintendo, in a v4 dev kit context (so it could change), need this room for the system functions, features.

- Another source, that you know well lherre ( :) ) told me, and this is the new tidbit, that the OS is stored in a specific flash, different than the other flash memory that will be built-in the system for downloading, saves, etc. Like a lot of other platforms actually (they need a specific type of flash dedicated for the OS, the firmware upgrades, etc.). The size of this flash seems to be 512MB. Obviously, it doesn't mean the OS is 512mb, and that it will occupy 512MB once loaded in the RAM memory, because 1) the OS surely won't take 512MB and 2) the system won't need to load everything on the RAM memory. Again, they could have decided on this amount in advance and being large for it because the OS wasn't fleshed out at all at the time. The OS could actually take let's say 200 MB (i don't know it's amount) of this space. The fact is that i don't think we've ever seen such room reserved for OS storage, so it's clearly another hint, in addition to the first info, to a bigger operating system than on the other home systems, rich in features, in functions (functions that requires another space in the RAM memory, like the aforementioned multi-tasking).

I hope i was crystal-clear :)
 

Luigiv

Member
California PST. Just put it up right here. Was going to wait until 9am, but I've done all the digging I can and just can't find out whether or not it's more than a rumor so no point in waiting another 5.5 hours.

It's just a rumor, but I really wanted some more evidence. We'll see in 17 days hopefully.

What? That's what you were hyping? That's just stupid. Of course the rumour is fake.
 
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