Support NeoGAF

[dark10x]

If the WiiU can run Battlefield 3 (or Witcher 2) at 1080P, 60FPS and texture detail almost on par with the PC version at launch, imagine how it will perform later on in its life-cycle. Additionally, I hope that Nintendo signs with Valve to power their online & digital distribution. EA would be better for Nintendo, but Valve better for gamers/consumers IMO.

While there maybe something to these next Xbox rumors, MS's true appeal lies in Xbox Live and its related services. And would likely do just as well in a machine with a quad core and 1 GPU much less hex-core and a dual GPU setup. But we'll see.

That's a *HUGE* if right there. I'm not convinced it will be able to pull off such a feat, to be honest, when much beefier PCs are unable to do the same.

 

[radioheadrule83]

The Wii version of The Force Unleashed weren't ports, though.

No I suppose thats part of my point really. Making a good Wii port-down required a full ground up adaptation really - assets could be simplified and reduced, but you had to put in a special effort to make the game work. The userbase being as large as the 360/PS3 userbases combined should have made such efforts more common really, but publishers just didn't have the faith / confidence really. Ghostbusters was another good example... the game is there on Wii and completely different, playing more to its strengths.

The Wii-U will hopefully be better for people who want to port - a case of downscaling assets and making minor tweaks rather than having to make a special effort, even if the competition release much more powerful consoles. Where the gameplay is better on Wii-U I will always consider a third party title on that over the 'better looking' ones, same as I have behaved with regards to the Wii really.

 

[DCKing]

Lots op people are talking about 1080p 60fps games in the PS4/X720 speculation thread as well. That's really not going to happen. Upping the resolution to 1080p and 60fps makes it so much more intense to run basically the same game. It's not going to happen on PS4 and X730 either.

For the Wii U to be able to run PS360 games at 1080p/60fps, it needs to be able to push many more pixels than the PS360 can (it's 4.5 times the amount of pixels per second). This means either a much faster clocked GPU and/or (more realistically) have more ROPs on the GPU. Unless Nintendo explicitly customizes this, this is not very likely to happen assuming their GPU is comparable to mid-range AMD GPUs. Most still use the same amount of ROPs the Xbox 360 and PS3 have - 8 in total. A larger number of ROPs significantly increases chip complexity, so it's not something trivial either. I have my fingers crossed that Nintendo will use a RV770, Juniper or Lombok chip with 16 ROPs (would be amazing), but I think that's stretching it too much.

The Wii U may have the potential to produce better graphics as 720p, and might be able to do better than PS360 at resolution in general. But it's far from trivial to be running games at 1080p and 60fps, and I doubt that it could do that even for PS360 games.

 

[HylianTom]

Fill in the blank:

Xbox 360 and PS3 games commonly could not be ported to Wii because the system was __a Nintendo System__

Ding ding ding ding! Winner winner cuccoo dinner!

3rd parties have whined in the past about having to compete with Nintendo on Nintendo's systems. I've always thought that this speaks volumes.

 

[Lonely1]

Lots op people are talking about 1080p 60fps games in the PS4/X720 speculation thread as well. That's really not going to happen. Upping the resolution to 1080p and 60fps makes it so much more intense to run basically the same game. It's not going to happen on PS4 and X730 either.

For the Wii U to be able to run PS360 games at 1080p/60fps, it needs to be able to push many more pixels than the PS360 can (it's 4.5 times the amount of pixels per second). This means either a much faster clocked GPU and/or (more realistically) have more ROPs on the GPU. Unless Nintendo explicitly customizes this, this is not very likely to happen assuming their GPU is comparable to mid-range AMD GPUs. Most still use the same amount of ROPs the Xbox 360 and PS3 have - 8 in total. A larger number of ROPs significantly increases chip complexity, so it's not something trivial either. I have my fingers crossed that Nintendo will use a RV770, Juniper or Lombok chip with 16 ROPs (would be amazing), but I think that's stretching it too much.

The Wii U may have the potential to produce better graphics as 720p, and might be able to do better than PS360 at resolution in general. But it's far from trivial to be running games at 1080p and 60fps, and I doubt that it could do that even for PS360 games.

An R770 should be capable of doing that. My 280 is not that much more powerful than a 4850 and can run UE3 like GeoW, Darksiders and Mirror's Edge at 60fps and 1080p with (forced) AA. And yes, Rv770 is medium tier, it can be considered low tier nowadays.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Ding ding ding ding! Winner winner cuccoo dinner!

3rd parties have whined in the past about having to compete with Nintendo on Nintendo's systems. I've always thought that this speaks volumes.

It wasn't just about that though. ShockingAlberto (too reasonable, yadda, yadda...) hit the nail on the head. Going into this generation Nintendo was completely aware of where the rest of the industry was heading and what level of power the Wii was going to need if it was going to get ports of PS360 games. They chose instead to thumb their nose at everyone and start what they thought was going to be a new VG market with the Wii.

They said time and time again that the Wii was meant to be a "disruptive" product. Disruptive products don't play nice with everybody and get ports. Instead they do exactly what the Wii did for a while which is make life miserable for everyone who wasn't onboard when the product succeeds. But what ruined Nintendo's overall plan for the Wii is that the PS3 and Xbox 360 managed to sell well enough to, when combined with the PC market, give 3rd party developers a stable enough platform for their games while ignoring the Wii.

The rest was a self fulfilling prophecy as Nintendo was unable to support the Wii on their own and virtually all big third party development abandoned the console.

 

[disap.ed]

An R770 should be capable of doing that. My 280 is not that much more powerful than a 4850 and can run UE3 like GeoW, Darksiders and Mirror's Edge at 60fps and 1080p with (forced) AA. And yes, Rv770 is medium tier, it can be considered low tier nowadays.

30 FPS with top notch parts, I don't think the WiiU will be able to match these results (at least not in the beginning)

And it is 1080p with 4xAA to be fair enough.

The 6850 (which will be the maximum on a performance level we can expect of the next gen IMO) does 20fps under these settings, maybe with less overheads of the consoles (x2 according to Carmack) and without AA we will see 1080p @60fps but def. not on WiiU (or only with other technical limitations)

 

[E-phonk]

Do you think the ipad is more powerful than the wii

It is actually more powerful. It has an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU running at 1Ghz with a PowerVR SGX 535 GPU with 256 mb of ram (ipad 1).
Wii uses a 729 MHz cpu with a 243 mhz GPU and 88 mb of ram.

The amount of RAM alone is a major differentiator.

 

[Van Owen]

lol Wii couldn't run Infinity Blade so iPhone 4 is more powerful too.

 

[blu]

It is actually more powerful. It has an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU running at 1Ghz with a PowerVR SGX 535 GPU with 256 mb of ram (ipad 1).
Wii uses a 729 MHz cpu with a 243 mhz GPU and 88 mb of ram.

The amount of RAM alone is a major differentiator.

Erm, no. Wii's CPU and GPU are decisively more powerful than A4's. As about ram, only a fraction of those 256MB are available to apps (from memory, ~128MB IIRC). An this is before considering BW or latency characteristics.

 

[Deguello]

Erm, no. Wii's CPU and GPU are decisively more powerful than A4's. As about ram, only a fraction of those 256MB are available to apps (from memory, ~128MB IIRC). An this is before considering BW or latency characteristics.

If I were to do a "what do most of the games look like on the platform" analysis like what seems to pass for judgment of hardware capabilities, I'd say the iPad was a little bit more powerful than an N64. Maybe. Most of the games look barely better than SNES games. It has some impressive tech demos and it can run them provided that there is limited interaction between the player and the game world.

 

[MDX]

Erm, no. Wii's CPU and GPU are decisively more powerful than A4's. As about ram, only a fraction of those 256MB are available to apps (from memory, ~128MB IIRC). An this is before considering BW or latency characteristics.

Thats why the numbers game is fool's gold.

People really tend underestimate the Nintendo engineers.

 

[Luckyman]

Even the 3DS GPU is ancient in featureset compared to iPhone 3GS from two years ago. Thats why firms like Epic dont really bother with it because industry standars are not supported

 

[blu]

Thats why the numbers game is fool's gold.

People really tend underestimate the Nintendo engineers.

There's nothing wrong with numbers. People use them to quantize things. But the numbers he gave are so far from giving the picture that the only more skin-deep numbers he could have quoted would be the bitness of the cpu's. Actually, his post gave me a strong 'N-bit vs M-bit' era vibe ; )

 

[DCKing]

An R770 should be capable of doing that. My 280 is not that much more powerful than a 4850 and can run UE3 like GeoW, Darksiders and Mirror's Edge at 60fps and 1080p with (forced) AA. And yes, Rv770 is medium tier, it can be considered low tier nowadays.

Whoops, I got a little carried away there. The low amount of ROPs is a problem for the PS360, but there are other factors as well. Now you mention it, I remember even BurntPork's cherished RV730 being benchmarked running CoD 4 at 1080p30 when the 360 managed only 600p30. That 's what I get from reading Beyond3D >_<

 

[DCKing]

Even the 3DS GPU is ancient in featureset compared to iPhone 3GS from two years ago. Thats why firms like Epic dont really bother with it because industry standars are not supported

I distinctly remember the 3DS is not getting UE3 just because it doesn't have the memory and raw CPU power to run efficiently their UnrealScript interpreter. Not becauyose of the GPU.

 

[DragonKnight]

I still find it funny that some people here feel that they know what quantifies a generational leap.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

But the wii wasn't designed to be a hardware powerhouse. It was designed to bring gaming to the masses and open the medium to people that otherwise would NEVER have played a videogame.

You think a 9 year old cares about bumpmapping, Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, Texture Mapping, High Dynamic Range Lighting, Shaders, Tessellation? Does a family that just wants to bowl/tennis together on a thursday night? These are the new gamers Nintendo brought into the medium. And it paid off tremendously with the Wii.

Will the WiiU have the same success? I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they'll hit the mark again and find a new way to bring more people to their new hardware. Maybe the same people that purchases a Wii will have no interest in a WiiU. Only time will tell.

 

[Rolf NB]

Erm, no. Wii's CPU and GPU are decisively more powerful than A4's. As about ram, only a fraction of those 256MB are available to apps (from memory, ~128MB IIRC). An this is before considering BW or latency characteristics.

No they're not. ARM CPUs are beastly clock-for-clock, and it's clocked higher than the Wii CPU to boot. The GPU is also as wide as Wii's, clocked comparably, supports a lot more fancy shading features, and is much more efficient because it's a TBDR.

 

[DragonKnight]

But the wii wasn't designed to be a hardware powerhouse. It was designed to bring gaming to the masses and open the medium to people that otherwise would NEVER have played a videogame.

You think a 9 year old cares about bumpmapping, Anti-Aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, Texture Mapping, High Dynamic Range Lighting, Shaders, Tessellation? Does a family that just wants to bowl/tennis together on a thursday night? These are the new gamers Nintendo brought into the medium. And it paid off tremendously with the Wii.

Will the WiiU have the same success? I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they'll hit the mark again and find a new way to bring more people to their new hardware. Maybe the same people that purchases a Wii will have no interest in a WiiU. Only time will tell.

They may not know what it is but they sure as hell do care when it leads to a great looking game.

 

[MDX]

There's nothing wrong with numbers. People use them to quantize things. But the numbers he gave are so far from giving the picture that the only more skin-deep numbers he could have quoted would be the bitness of the cpu's. Actually, his post gave me a strong 'N-bit vs M-bit' era vibe ; )

Well lets talk numbers.

The assumptions and rumors are pointing to WiiU having 3 cores.
Assuming these cores are Power7 based, will that enough cores to keep up with
next gen games, in light of the fact that the new Xbox might come with six cores?



.

 

[v1oz]

Erm, no. Wii's CPU and GPU are decisively more powerful than A4's. As about ram, only a fraction of those 256MB are available to apps (from memory, ~128MB IIRC). An this is before considering BW or latency characteristics.

Are you sure? The iPad is much higher clocked and it's running full screen HD games with shaders.

 

[THE:MILKMAN]

I think Sony will have the best looking CGI passed off as graphics at next year's E3.

Doesn't really matter to me. If Naughty Dog show their next game, it will be real time and awesome. Everything else can be CGI for me and I wouldn't care.


Looking at the timeline of PS3/360 dev kit delivery earlier, it looks like this upcoming gen the developers have kit's about the right time.

Final PS3 dev kit=Dec '05 Early '06 (earliest kit's= Jan-Mar '05) planned release= spring '06 actual release=Nov '06.

Final 360 dev kit=May? '05 (earliest kit's=Early-Mid? '04) release= Nov '05.

I reckon it is fair to say that both MS and Sony's 1st/2nd party dev's have had kit's since early this year.

Everything seems to fit for MS to release from Nov '12 on and Sony Mar '13 on if they wish....

 

[MDX]

Well I guess its really not an assumption, but a fact:

http://twitpic.com/594zsv/full

Wii will be using a customized Power 7 chip

 

[Plinko]

They may not know what it is but they sure as hell do care when it leads to a great looking game.

Not in comparison to other games that look relatively close to it.

GAF has a tendency to massively overestimate the effect graphics have on the consumer.

 

[v1oz]

Well I guess its really not an assumption, but a fact:

http://twitpic.com/594zsv/full

Wii will be using a customized Power 7 chip

Nice to have it confirmed and official.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

How is this even a discussion? For the games the industry wanted to make, the Wii did not have enough power to run them. There. End of story.

You can argue until you're blue in the face that they should have wanted to make different games, but at the end of the day, they didn't. They chose to make games that would not play on the Wii. Ergo, by all logic, the standard at which the industry was at was not met by the Wii. So, underpowered.

By this same logic, you could consider the PC overpowered. But publishers don't like that not because it's too powerful, but because the margins are thinner.

*Clap*

 

[Shin Johnpv]

The assumptions and rumors are pointing to WiiU having 3 cores.
Assuming these cores are Power7 based, will that enough cores to keep up with
next gen games, in light of the fact that the new Xbox might come with six cores?

It really depends on other factors. You can't just say well this is 3 cores and this is 6 cores so it's faster.

The one chip may only have 3 cores but each core is accomplishing 4x as much as one of the 6 cores does.

 

[MisterHero]

Watson's brain huh? Most difficult Jeopardy game to be published on Wii U confirmed?

How is this even a discussion? For the games the industry wanted to make, the Wii did not have enough power to run them. There. End of story.

You can argue until you're blue in the face that they should have wanted to make different games, but at the end of the day, they didn't. They chose to make games that would not play on the Wii. Ergo, by all logic, the standard at which the industry was at was not met by the Wii. So, underpowered.

By this same logic, you could consider the PC overpowered. But publishers don't like that not because it's too powerful, but because the margins are thinner.

The whole argument comes from examples where a developer could feel the need for a major game on a portable but not on a more capable console, as 'under-powered' as Wii was. Yes there are probably lower-tier teams that have more priorities than to make decent ports (like the GTAIII Story PSP-PS2 ports).

Why did the PSP get MGS Peace Walker and all Wii got was Snake in Brawl? Was Kojima full of crap when he said he liked the Wii? Wouldn't he like to have given such a large userbase a Metal Gear title?

Capcom developed SFIV for goddamn iPhone, and couldn't be arsed to put ANY of their 2D fighters on Wii/DS aside from the SNES and Genesis ports. PSP got Alpha 3, Megaman Powered Up, Maverick Hunters, a new Ghost-n-Goblins, etc. None of those franchises were suitable for Wii, despite much of their history and predecessors being accessible on Virtual Console? Bwuh?

So, underpowered still not a complete argument.

I'm really happy that 3DS got SFIV/is getting MGS3 but it doesn't answer the question on whether 3rd Parties will continue to blow chances on Wii U.

 

[ReyVGM]

We need some news. I miss the days of 200 posts per hour.

 

[ReyVGM]

Well I guess its really not an assumption, but a fact:

http://twitpic.com/594zsv/full

Wii will be using a customized Power 7 chip

Can anyone explain what this means?

*Edit*

Whoops. Posted twice.

 

[disap.ed]

Can anyone explain what this means?

Win

 

[ReyVGM]

Win

A winner is Wii U?

 

[Gaborn]

We need some news. I miss the days of 200 posts per hour.

I maintain my belief that even if they do a full relaunch at E3 we'll still get more hard info sooner than later, maybe before the end of the year, maybe right after the holidays. I STILL have to believe third parties will want at least some hype for their games in advance and that there is too much info we don't know.

Then again, as much as I believe that it's hard to stay optimistic since we've heard so little for so long.

 

[Olaeh]

Capcom developed SFIV for goddamn iPhone, and couldn't be arsed to put ANY of their 2D fighters on Wii/DS aside from the SNES and Genesis ports.

I agree with you on Capcom's incompetence, but they did give Wii TvC which is in some eyes a significantly better game than MvC3. If only they would've better cultivated a fighting game presence on the system.

 

[disap.ed]

A winner is Wii U?

A winner are We!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER7

 

[Deguello]

Watson's brain huh? Most difficult Jeopardy game to be published on Wii U confirmed?


The whole argument comes from examples where a developer could feel the need for a major game on a portable but not on a more capable console, as 'under-powered' as Wii was. Yes there are probably lower-tier teams that have more priorities than to make decent ports (like the GTAIII Story PSP-PS2 ports).

Why did the PSP get MGS Peace Walker and all Wii got was Snake in Brawl? Was Kojima full of crap when he said he liked the Wii? Wouldn't he like to have given such a large userbase a Metal Gear title?

Capcom developed SFIV for goddamn iPhone, and couldn't be arsed to put ANY of their 2D fighters on Wii/DS aside from the SNES and Genesis ports. PSP got Alpha 3, Megaman Powered Up, Maverick Hunters, a new Ghost-n-Goblins, etc. None of those franchises were suitable for Wii, despite much of their history and predecessors being accessible on Virtual Console? Bwuh?

So, underpowered still not a complete argument.

I'm really happy that 3DS got SFIV/is getting MGS3 but it doesn't answer the question on whether 3rd Parties will continue to blow chances on Wii U.

I agree. It's not that I think the Wii isn't "underpowered" by whatever standard was put forth in 2005. It's that I disagree about the legitimacy of the standard itself.

No third parties cared about console power in say, the PS1 era, where the PS1 was essentially an overclocked SNES with only modest 3D capabilities and a CD drive. (Essentially 50%-100% more powerful than the SNES.) It didn't matter that at first none of the games looked much better than what was on the SNES at the time (Perhaps I should say undeniably better) Developers only cared about the massive userbase and that was that. PS1 even got downports of N64 games, which had massively superior graphical capabilities, like a processor that was 3 times as powerful and polygon pushing power that dwarfed the PS1. It didn't even matter about CDs because CD systems had been on the market forever since 1994 and they mostly all failed too.

If it is simply to be "Accepted" that this is what third parties did and the past is the past, then I think, considering the market bloodbath of this generation and all the bodies lying by the road to get here, then it should be "accepted" that it was a huge mistake. They should have focused on the market leader as they always have. There was much pain in this generation and it just so happened to be the only one in history where they thumbed their nose at the market leader.

But your points aren't invalid Alberto. I would only question that these were the "industry's" standards consider for a good three years Nintendo platforms WERE "the industry" as far as the consumers were concerned.

I agree with you on Capcom's incompetence, but they did give Wii TvC which is in some eyes a significantly better game than MvC3. If only they would've better cultivated a fighting game presence on the system.

By "they," do you mean Capcom?

 

[PdotMichael]

No third parties cared about console power in say, the PS1 era, where the PS1 was essentially an overclocked SNES with only modest 3D capabilities and a CD drive. (Essentially 50%-100% more powerful than the SNES.) It didn't matter that at first none of the games looked much better than what was on the SNES at the time (Perhaps I should say undeniably better) Developers only cared about the massive userbase and that was that. PS1 even got downports of N64 games, which had massively superior graphical capabilities, like a processor that was 3 times as powerful and polygon pushing power that dwarfed the PS1. It didn't even matter about CDs because CD systems had been on the market forever since 1994 and they mostly all failed too.

that's pretty bullshit

or I wanna hear some facts about it

 

[EloquentM]

if power7 comes in 4, 6, and 8 core variants why do rumors suggest wiiu is 3 cores?

 

[OniShiro]

if power7 comes in 4, 6, and 8 core variants why do rumors suggest wiiu is 3 cores?

4 cores with a core disabled or defective

 

[Lupin the Third]

4 cores with a core disabled or defective

This makes the most sense.

 

[Deguello]

that's pretty bullshit

or I wanna hear some facts about it

I'm just looking at the specs of the PS1 vs. the specs of the SNES and remembering that the PS1 started it's life as an SNES CD add-on. Other than the very slight 3D hardware of the PS1, it wasn't leaps and bounds and "generational leap" ahead of the SNES.

Hell the PS1 had difficulty running ports of games from the SNES as well. The GAF of the 1994 BBS boards were probably laughing their ass off and waiting for the N64 to blow it out of the water with a true "generational leap."

 

[muu]

Everyone followed FF7 into PS1. SquareEnix wielded some serious weight back then, and it was undeniably the killer app. Development takes time, so the momentum shift must have occurred prior to release, but no doubt it was the driving factor for the shift.

After the second landslide victory that the PS2 was I don't think anyone was doubting that Sony would fall behind again. You also had a bunch of publishers already committed to HD development on the 360, and the 'underpowered' wii was definitely the exception. You'd be crazy if you were looking at the market and could think, "that Wii thing is going to kill their competitors." Third parties also already pandered to the 'core' too much to be able to try and put them back to Wii gaming. That kind of about-face likely won't have won them any favors, and it would only serve to benefit the ones that stuck with HD consoles. So, rather than let anyone make money, they made sure everyone bled out. We've seen enough of the studio closures and lost revenue the last few years that came as a result.

 

[EloquentM]

4 cores with a core disabled or defective

what would be the point of that?

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I really wish you guys would talk about something else.

The Wii by design was a generation behind PS360, so in that relative sense it was underpowered. There is no way this would apply to Wii U, even if it is technologically inferior to the next XBOX or PlayStation. All Nintendo has to do on the tech side is guarantee Wii U is still in the conversation with the other two consoles and the battle is won.

Nintendo doesn't, and never had to match Sony and Microsoft shoulder to shoulder. This mission is to make it financially feasible for third parties to leverage their existing tools and engines over to the Wii U with little legwork or financial investment. Re-configuring already established engines and hiring new teams for one platform didn't make fiscal sense for Wii. The end.

 

[AmFreak]

This makes the most sense.

No, the most sense makes that it clearly isn't a Power7. It would be outright stupid to put a "stock" Power7 in there, cause of all the things you don't need or are oversized for a console.

 

[Jocchan]

what would be the point of that?

To increase the yield (CPUs happening to have a defective core can still be used).

 

[Lupin the Third]

No, the most sense makes that it clearly isn't a Power7. It would be outright stupid to put a "stock" Power7 in there, cause of all the things you don't need or are oversized for a console.

No one said it was a "stock" Power7 chip, but they just confirmed it was a Power7. It probably uses the same type of PowerPC architecture with some customization options (Out-of-order?).

To increase the yield (CPUs happening to have a defective core can still be used).

There you go.

 

[Deguello]

I really wish you guys would talk about something else.

The Wii by design was a generation behind PS360, so in that relative sense it was underpowered. There is no way this would apply to Wii U, even if it is technologically inferior to the next XBOX or PlayStation. All Nintendo has to do on the tech side is guarantee Wii U is still in the conversation with the other two consoles and the battle is won.

Nintendo doesn't, and never had to match Sony and Microsoft shoulder to shoulder. This mission is to make it financially feasible for third parties to leverage their existing tools and engines over to the Wii U with little legwork or financial investment. Re-configuring already established engines and hiring new teams for one platform didn't make fiscal sense for Wii. The end.

I could bring up that they made a special version of Unreal Engine for iPhone, but I agree. I hate talking about fucking specs. It's why I stopped playing PC games in the mid 2000s.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

what would be the point of that?

Increase yields, or maybe one reserved for the OS.