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Wii U Thread - Now in HD!

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Mutt

Neo Member
That's why Microsoft is trying to turn Xbox into a media set-top box, to try to turn the console gaming machine into a household necessity, or at least get that broad functionality into the living room before Apple does.

Since day 1 with the original X-Box that has been their strategy and they were ready to sink money without returning a profit for the X-box. I believe, and I could be wrong, it was supposed to be their 10 year strategy.
 
Sure it isn't perfect, but it is a noticeable upgrade over their old model. As Dreamwriter pointed out, Madden 13 for the Wii U is basically Madden 12 with Upad features and updated rosters, but you can be sure that they're going to charge full price for it.
And Madden 13 is Madden 12 with a tacked on physics engine. As someone who buys madden every year for competitive reasons I promise you Madden 13s physics engine is not a gameplay changer at all. Sure its fun to see the players flopping all over the place after a play but other than that its not much. Madden 12 on WiiU isnt missing anything big. Gaming journalism and people can make it seem that way but its not. As of matter of fact madden 11 had this so-called physics at first dubbed locomotion.

edit: They charge full price for madden every year. Madden 11-12 nothing happened still 59.99
 

IrishNinja

Member
I just hope all the first party titles have AA
I just can't stand fucking jaggies >.<
not ultra high quality textures, not 500k polygons models and not dinamic lighting
just use AA!!

amen, i like their focus on solid FPS, but id trade 1080p in a second for 720p with some AA - looking at the Dolphin thread, that's the biggest difference in Wii titles, for me.


wow, lazy even by their standards
 

Shurayuki

Member
amen, i like their focus on solid FPS, but id trade 1080p in a second for 720p with some AA - looking at the Dolphin thread, that's the biggest difference in Wii titles, for me.

While 720p looks like somebody tripped and dropped jello all over the screen on my monitor, AA/Jaggy-less games is really all I want from Nintendo for WiiU, motion seconded.

3DS is fine for the most part but I really wish they had put that little extra something in there to get rid of jaggies 100% (Miku would be so much prettier:{).
 

Yagharek

Member
I'd say devs, publishers and customers equally share the blame. Why? They all wanted photorealism.

The thing is, when striving for realism in realtime it's much easier to achieve believable specular components than it's to get equally believable diffuse - you really need a decent approximation of global illumination to get proper diffuse. So what did devs do? Yes, they bestowed upon us 'the shiny shine'.

Things will be better this gen, but still, as consumers, we get to be careful what we wish for.

No, it's solely publishers fault. They spend bigger marketing dollars on photorealistic games, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy when they sell better.
 

Terrell

Member
No, it's solely publishers fault. They spend bigger marketing dollars on photorealistic games, so it's a self fulfilling prophecy when they sell better.

And why do they spend more marketing dollars on those types of games? We as consumers don't buy everything that's advertised to us, after all.
 

Yagharek

Member
And why do they spend more marketing dollars on those types of games? We as consumers don't buy everything that's advertised to us, after all.

No, but it's a known phenomenon that advertising makes a big difference. The biggest marketed games often have the biggest sales.
 
So, why is the FIFA port better? It lacks the new AI system and Ultimate Team as well..

The U SKU of FIFA is going to be better because you're not going to be relying on crappy AI to make runs down the right channels. Similar to the far superior Pro Evo Wii (compared to any other football game on any other system) you just click and drag. The only thing missing from Pro Evo Wii was licencing, and now that EA Sports have finally ripped off the Pro Evo controls by the looks of things that isn't going to be a problem. I still think pointer controls will beat touchscreen controls but in terms of playing realistic football the U SKU of FIFA will be far superior to the other SKUs.

With Pro Evo Wii's pointer controls you can recreate just about any goal you see on Match of The Day, and I can't see FIFA being that much different on the U. Even if the touchscreen controls only work half as well as pointer controls it'll still produce more realistic football than dual analogs on the other two machines, despite the new AI.
 

CrispyXUK

Banned
This thread is still going round and round.

We know the GPU as vastly superior, we also know the CPU is superior but has a lower clock speed - Like my 2500k has a lower clock speed than my 3.4ghz P4.

It's like a bunch of 16 year olds arguing over cinematography of the latest michael bay film.
 

Terrell

Member
No, but it's a known phenomenon that advertising makes a big difference. The biggest marketed games often have the biggest sales.

This is one of the reasons I'm happy about Miiverse... it advertises games right at startup in a really tangible way: "hey, look what people I know are playing."
 
This thread is still going round and round.

We know the GPU as vastly superior, we also know the CPU is superior but has a lower clock speed - Like my 2500k has a lower clock speed than my 3.4ghz P4.

It's like a bunch of 16 year olds arguing over cinematography of the latest michael bay film.

But aren't you just adding to the noise?

This is one of the reasons I'm happy about Miiverse... it advertises games right at startup.

Man, you'd love the 360 then. As soon as you turn on the console, you've got 4-5 game ads vying for your attention...
 

Thraktor

Member
I just want a wii u fallout with the gamepad screen being your pipboy

We all do. Hell, even if they just re-released Fallout 3 and NV on Wii U with Pip-Boy controls I'd probably end up triple and double-dipping respectively.
Who am I kidding, I know I'm going to end up re-buying NV on PC in a Steam sale some day soon. Triple-dipping on both it is!

You know, it strikes me that even aside from the launch details/price there is sooooooooo much we don't know. For example, Nintendo hasn't officially shown ANY of the NFC functionality (aside from announcing it a while ago). We saw it of course in that first leaked Rayman trailer but NOTHING since and of course that wasn't "official." It just feels like there is so much to show about the system and the games, so many questions we still have!

The one thing I'm probably most curious about is the whole "Entertainment" aspect of the console. People may have done a pretty good job of blocking Nintendo's E3 presentation from their memories by this stage, but during the presentation Reggie broke down what the Wii U does into three categories: Games, Social and Entertainment, saying that details on the Entertainment pillar would have to wait until later. Given that we already know the obvious aspects, like Netflix, the gamepad acting as a remote/EPG, etc., and the reports of the OS taking up such a large chunk of RAM, it really gets me wondering what it is they're planning, especially considering they've given it equal billing with the Games and Social pillars.

It may end up just being some weird quirky Nintendo-style feature, but it stands to be pretty interesting whatever it is, and there's a very good chance we'll find out about it in a few days time.
 

Hiltz

Member
Did they say anything about maybe advertising games similar to games that the player already tends to play? For that matter, do the other consoles do that currently?

I believe Nintendo said that Miiverse will display groups of other players as Miis playing and talking about games you may not even own.
 

Earendil

Member
The only thing we more or less know is that AMD started working on the chip in mid 2009, which explains the R700 baseline, but work didn't finish until at least mid 2011. And we have this statement from Golem.de (large German IT site):


http://www.golem.de/1106/84082.html

Basically, AMD told Golem.de that the GPU is a custom design created specifically for Nintendo, not just a modified version of any off-the-shelf Radeon.

I don't know if anyone is interested but I did a (admittedly rough) translation.

Wie AMD Golem.de sagte, wird auch die GPU der Wii U wieder von diesem Chiphersteller stammen. Es handelt sich um eine Spezialanfertigung nach Anforderungen von Nintendo, nicht um eine Ableitung eines aktuellen Radeon-Chips, teilte ein Sprecher von AMD mit.

As AMD told Golem.de, the Wii U GPU will also come from this chipmaker. It is a special design based on requirements from Nintendo, not one derived from current Radeon chips, said an AMD spokesperson.
 

Yagharek

Member
This is one of the reasons I'm happy about Miiverse... it advertises games right at startup in a really tangible way: "hey, look what people I know are playing."

So long as it isn't manipulated by advertising budgets it's a great idea, potentially substituting direct word if mouth
 

Terrell

Member
Man, you'd love the 360 then. As soon as you turn on the console, you've got 4-5 game ads vying for your attention...

You knew what i meant, but I've edited my comment to prevent further snark.

Did they say anything about maybe advertising games similar to games that the player already tends to play? For that matter, do the other consoles do that currently?

They only went as specific as saying it would show what your friends and others in your country are playing. I imagine it would have to sort or filter the results somehow, otherwise that startup screen would bloat pretty badly after launch. But to focus it down to just the genres you've played would make it TOO narrow and degrade some of its purpose.

I would imagine that they probably have it set to filter for newer titles first, then most-played regardless of release date, split by Nintendo and 3rd-party properties. Naturally, it would also filter out games based on parental restrictions.


So long as it isn't manipulated by advertising budgets it's a great idea, potentially substituting direct word if mouth
Well, it's based on actual play statistics, so unless marketers want to give away copies to 10,000+ people to all play it at the same time, eliminating the whole point of SELLING THE GAME in the process, there's really no way to manipulate it.
 
Should be a criminal act NOT doing a Fatal Frame 5 for Wii U considering the GamePad (Camera).

I dunno, they also didn't quite get the Wiimote, although the proper implementation should have been obvious. Spirit Camera apparently wasn't so hot either.
I want Zero 5, but I imagine they could easily make pad-controls a pain.
 

Terrell

Member
I dunno, they also didn't quite get the Wiimote, although the proper implementation should have been obvious. Spirit Camera apparently wasn't so hot either.
I want Zero 5, but I imagine they could easily make pad-controls a pain.

Do you ever have ANYTHING positive to say EVER?

debbie-downer.jpg


Is the September 13th Wii U blowout being streamed live anywhere? If so, what time is it?

Starts at 7am, no word yet if there will be a live stream or if it will be blogged first and then posted afterwards.
 

boyshine

Member
The U SKU of FIFA is going to be better because you're not going to be relying on crappy AI to make runs down the right channels. Similar to the far superior Pro Evo Wii (compared to any other football game on any other system) you just click and drag. The only thing missing from Pro Evo Wii was licencing, and now that EA Sports have finally ripped off the Pro Evo controls by the looks of things that isn't going to be a problem. I still think pointer controls will beat touchscreen controls but in terms of playing realistic football the U SKU of FIFA will be far superior to the other SKUs.

With Pro Evo Wii's pointer controls you can recreate just about any goal you see on Match of The Day, and I can't see FIFA being that much different on the U. Even if the touchscreen controls only work half as well as pointer controls it'll still produce more realistic football than dual analogs on the other two machines, despite the new AI.

Speaking of PES, have there been any hints about if the Wii U version of PES2013 will be a port of the PS3/360 game, or if it's continuing the playmaker style from Wii? Or if there will be one at all? I know they just showed the Wii and 3DS versions.. but.. WHAT ABOUT U??? :p I don't care if it's delayed to march like the first Wii versions were, just as long as it plays like the Wii game, but looks like the PS3/360-game.
 

Thraktor

Member
Starts at 7am, no word yet if there will be a live stream or if it will be blogged first and then posted afterwards.

7am? Given it's that early I presume it's going to be a presentation for 30 mins to an hour, followed by a few hours of letting the press play demos and such? In that case we should get to see some new demos, hopefully including Aliens:CM, at the very least.
 
For most issues of creative bankruptcy I put the blame squarely on publishers, not the developers/creative minds working on a project. The people only interested in ballooning revenue and appeasing shareholders are the ones focus testing projects into the ground and forcing studios to play it safe.

Unfortunately for us, big publishers have become the main source of release venues for most developers. Self funded games are almost impossible to release and market and effectively Ubisoft/Activision/EA basically dictate what content comes out for quite a large portion of the developer community.

And that's not even accounting for the 3rd party publishers own fully owned dev. studios.

And even then it doesn't mean that just because only space marines and violent war shooters are getting greenlighted that this is a valid excuse for the "creative" part in a publisher/developer relationship to deliver uninspired and uncreative crap.
 

Terrell

Member
Starts at 10:00 am Eastern time I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, sorry, I'm a west-coast guy. If there's a live-feed, I won't get to see it, since I'll be on the train to work. I'll have to read the liveblogs instead, since they're less data-hungry on my phone.
 

Thraktor

Member
Starts at 10:00 am Eastern time I'm pretty sure.

Makes more sense.

Speaking of PES, have there been any hints about if the Wii U version of PES2013 will be a port of the PS3/360 game, or if it's continuing the playmaker style from Wii? Or if there will be one at all? I know they just showed the Wii and 3DS versions.. but.. WHAT ABOUT U??? :p I don't care if it's delayed to march like the first Wii versions were, just as long as it plays like the Wii game, but looks like the PS3/360-game.

I don't think they've even said there is a Wii U version yet. It's a real shame that the PES games on the Wii didn't sell better, and I have a horrible feeling that they're just going to do cheap PS360 ports for the Wii U versions (if the Wii U even gets a version at all this year).
 

ozfunghi

Member
Yes. A confusing article due to the word choice. I think it was from Kotaku.

Secondly, DX10.1-level (key word) tessellator. The tessellator is not a DX-exclusive component. AMD, I believe (at least compared to nVidia), was the first to include a tessellator into their GPUs. And if I remember correctly not even the first DX11-level tessellators from them were considered good. Again going off of memory of my past posts, I think it needed at worst the same generation tessellator used in the Cayman GPUs and they were on the market in 2010. It would be stupid on their part to leave something like that off considering their own admitted desires for third-party support.

I take it, based on information at hand as well as it would only make sense for Nintendo to provide a decent tesselator if they were providing one to begin with (else why bother?) you have faith that it will not be a crippled tesselator?

Could some of the refinements seen in the showfloor version of the bird demo E3|2011 compared to the on-stage version be accredited to a tesselator? The more rounded birds feathers for instance?
 

Salvadora

Member
I don't think they've even said there is a Wii U version yet. It's a real shame that the PES games on the Wii didn't sell better, and I have a horrible feeling that they're just going to do cheap PS360 ports for the Wii U versions (if the Wii U even gets a version at all this year).

I would expect something similar to what happened with the Wii. A port of the current version 6 months down the line that may have some features missing.
 
Speaking of PES, have there been any hints about if the Wii U version of PES2013 will be a port of the PS3/360 game, or if it's continuing the playmaker style from Wii? Or if there will be one at all? I know they just showed the Wii and 3DS versions.. but.. WHAT ABOUT U??? :p I don't care if it's delayed to march like the first Wii versions were, just as long as it plays like the Wii game, but looks like the PS3/360-game.

No idea mate, hopefully they're going to carry on with pointer controls. We'll have to wait and see I guess. One thing's for sure, going back to dual analogs after having direct control of off-the-ball runs is going to be a major step backwards.

If I remember correctly EA Sports are allowing people the option to play with traditional dual analog controls, there's going to be plenty of online pwnage if that's the case lol. Using the touchscreen to control off-the-ball runs is going to give you pretty much limitless attacking options. I can't wait!
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
The one thing I'm probably most curious about is the whole "Entertainment" aspect of the console. People may have done a pretty good job of blocking Nintendo's E3 presentation from their memories by this stage, but during the presentation Reggie broke down what the Wii U does into three categories: Games, Social and Entertainment, saying that details on the Entertainment pillar would have to wait until later. Given that we already know the obvious aspects, like Netflix, the gamepad acting as a remote/EPG, etc., and the reports of the OS taking up such a large chunk of RAM, it really gets me wondering what it is they're planning, especially considering they've given it equal billing with the Games and Social pillars.

It may end up just being some weird quirky Nintendo-style feature, but it stands to be pretty interesting whatever it is, and there's a very good chance we'll find out about it in a few days time.

I think that Nintendo is definitely aware of the value that adding Netflix brought to the console which is why they went ahead with Hulu Plus for it as well as the 3DS. They're not gonna go all-in like Microsoft is, but they're willing to make the relatively minimal investment to get streaming service software on the Wii U. They've already confirmed the aforementioned services along with YouTube, and the Wii U may even be getting HBO Go.
 

JordanN

Banned
Been thinking about the Wii U's memory set up.

1GB of GDDR5 256-bit 64 GB/S (this is for games)
1GB of DDR3 64-bit 6.4 GB/S (this is for OS)
32MB EDRAM 128-bit 590 GB/S (framebuffer)
64MB ARAM 64-bit 3 GB/S (this is for controller/sound)

Plausible?
 

Thraktor

Member
Been thinking about the Wii U's memory set up.

1GB of GDDR5 256-bit 64 GB/S (this is for games)
1GB of DDR3 64-bit 6.4 GB/S (this is for OS)
32MB EDRAM 128-bit 590 GB/S (framebuffer)
64MB ARAM 64-bit 3 GB/S (this is for controller/sound)

Plausible?

Unlikely. My guess is either 1.5GB or 2GB of DDR3 system memory, and then 32MB of eDRAM on the GPU. ARAM is certainly out, anyway.
 

JordanN

Banned
Unlikely. My guess is either 1.5GB or 2GB of DDR3 system memory, and then 32MB of eDRAM on the GPU. ARAM is certainly out, anyway.
DDR3 seems painfully slow as a whole system memory (and so against Nintendo's mantra). I'm still willing to bet GDDR5 or equivalent is [going to be] in there.

Edit: My revised mem specs.

1.5GB ~ 2GB of GDDR5 256-bit 64 GB/S
-512MB for OS
32MB EDRAM 128-bit 590 GB/S (framebuffer)
 

ohlawd

Member
I miss BurntPork during sales topics ;_;

Anyways I've been playing NSMB2 lately and I'm having a ton of fun with it. NSMBU should be good no questions asked.
 

PhantomR

Banned
Bullshit. He's not going to burntpork himself anytime soon.

Hmm...if I were a betting man I'd happily wager you on that. But I'm not, so I won't.



On a different note, I'm hoping that when the Wii U launches, that all future Nintendo Directs and press conferences can be streamed directly on the Wii U itself. I think that'd be pretty badass...especially integrated with Miiverse.
 

Thraktor

Member
I think that Nintendo is definitely aware of the value that adding Netflix brought to the console which is why they went ahead with Hulu Plus for it as well as the 3DS. They're not gonna go all-in like Microsoft is, but they're willing to make the relatively minimal investment to get streaming service software on the Wii U. They've already confirmed the aforementioned services along with YouTube, and the Wii U may even be getting HBO Go.

They're getting streaming services, yes, but they've explicitly said that they're talking about more than just that. Here's Reggie's quote from the conference:

Reggie said:
At its core, Wii U does three different things; it changes your gaming, it changes how you interact with your gaming friends, and it changes the way you enjoy your TV. It's not just intuitive, it's not just accessible to everyone, but its stands to revolutionise your living room. Does that mean Netflix and Hulu? Yes. And YouTube? Yes. And Amazon Video? Of course. But it's how you enjoy that content, and more, that will make it truly unique. We know that's a strong assertion, but the proof points are going to have to wait for another day. There's no way we could explain it all this week.

And the slide that was up on the screen:

wiiu_entertainment.jpg


I find it hard to believe they're going to have something truly revolutionary, but they've got something that they think is revolutionary, so with Nintendo it should be entertaining whichever the outcome.

DDR3 seems painfully slow as a whole system memory. I'm still willing to bet GDDR5 or equivalent is [going to be] in there.

That depends entirely on the bus width and clock speed. DDR3 at 750MHz on a 128 bit bus will give you both higher bandwidth and lower latency than GDDR5 at 500MHz on a 64 bit bus. Of course there's no point putting GDDR5 on a 64 bit bus, but I hope you get my point.

Anyway, DDR3 and GDDR5 are the only options for a console releasing this year, and not only is DDR3 cheaper, but I'd guess Nintendo would prefer the latency benefits of DDR3 in any case. Furthermore, having it as a common pool is cheaper, makes things easier on developers, and allows Nintendo to free up RAM from the OS for games with firmware upgrades down the line.
 
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