This leads back to my original point that if the job of publishers and developers was to make money "period," then most failed this generation, to degrees moderate to extraordinary, meaning they obviously thought wrong about the market and where to put their efforts, regardless of tangential issues like "demographics."
I assume you are talking about publishers putting their efforts on the Wii, since it was the market leader sales-wise and cheaper to develop for. Things aren't that easy.
The Wii market had three main groups:
1) Nintendo fans: traditional gamers mostly focused on Nintendo titles and, to a lesser extent, exclusives, since they've had a love/hate relationship with third parties since the N64 days.
2) Other traditional gamers: both casual and hardcore, interested in both Nintendo titles and Wii exclusives, more open to third parties and other consoles, in many cases owning more than one.
3) New gamers: this last group conforms the vast majority of the Wii owners, interested in the system due to the simplified control methods and less intimidating games, the new/social experience factor and Nintendo's marketing.
And that's where the problem lies for most publishers.
Most Wii owners are new gamers and these new gamers barely know a thing about upcoming games, much less than the traditional gamer. It seems that the only way to reach them is through big tv ad campaigns (that most publishers can't afford) or through word of mouth (which relies on enough people buying the game in the first place). The end result is that you have a few titles with massive sales and then everything else, with no in-betweens.
Meanwhile publishers have the "HD market" (PC, PS3, 360) which is bigger sales-wise and is filled with more predictable traditional gamers.
I just don't think that's a good enough explanation. Companies were struggling for years because the cost of updating to new engines and new hardware and new development tools and HD and all that sent budgets skyrocketing, such that selling the same amount of units no longer produced a good enough turnover on revenue, not because it's destiny.
Publishers were expecting PS3/360/Wii to be in the same ballpark, both power and architecture-wise so they bet their farms on that.
Yes, they have struggled for years (not only due to skyrocketing budgets but also because this gen required a complete restructuration in many aspects) but one of the reasons is because the market leader in the console front was so different that it literally split the market. You had PC/PS3/360 on one side, where the publishers had invested their money and could happily port their games around, and then the successful but unpredictable Wii on the other, where you had to build your games from scratch and pray the new gamers would buy it in droves. That drastically reduced the potential sales for all third party publishers.
What I'm saying is that this gen all third party publishers had to face an unprecedent situation and they did as good as they could. Not everyone succeded and most didn't make as much money as they had hoped (if at all).
Nintendo is now fixing this situation next gen with a system that, while not being as powerful as the competition, will be much easier to port games to.
I don't know why but I am also always considering Wii clock rates/multipliers when speculating about WiiU. Only problem is that CPU won't be higher clocked than 2,2 GHz
12 VLIW4 clusters implies a 960 shader GPU like the Barts Pro. I'd say that's too much... 6 to 8 is more realistic I think, especially when compared to the RV770LE.
Iirc that rumor came from some guy on Beyond3d without much of a posting history. I'm highly suspect of it and everything we have heard officially (45nm cpu) as well as in other rumors (SoC design) clash with it. I also googled and there doesn't seem to be much about 1t-SRAM in the last few years. I doubt it's still relevant to anything other than GCN BC (which can be done in other ways) and against IBM's own eDRAM solution being put in a shared "Mem1," it just doesn't seem a very attractive option. Then again, I don't know shit.
Iirc that rumor came from some guy on Beyond3d without much of a posting history. I'm highly suspect of it and everything we have heard officially (45nm cpu) as well as in other rumors (SoC design) clash with it. I also googled and there doesn't seem to be much about 1t-SRAM in the last few years. I doubt it's still relevant to anything other than GCN BC (which can be done in other ways) and against IBM's own eDRAM solution being put in a shared "Mem1," it just doesn't seem a very attractive option. Then again, I don't know shit.
Well most probably they have developed it further, but I really don't know how it compares to IBM's eDRAM.
Still there is the possibility of a 45/32nm CPU and 28nm GPU/1T-SRAM on the same package (System on a package), so I don't want to write off this rumor completely.
Still, I doubt they'll go with GDDR3. If there's anything Nintendo are absolutely adamant about with their hardware design, it's RAM speed. They always go with the fastest RAM available at the time (GCN= 1T-SRAM, Wii = 1T-SRAM & GDDR3, 3DS = FCRAM), even at the expense of RAM quantity. They hate loading times with a passion!
If those XB3 specs are real, they're not from an actual dev kit, but a reference. You know, like that early 360 reference that used DDR memory. The final one will have GDDR5 or XDR2.
However, the actual Wii U dev kits have gone nearly six months with no changes. I think it's safe to assume that there won't be any significant changes at all.
So if we are speculating that it is an APU, then what? CPU and GPU both at 45nm, right? I doubt Nintendo are targetting a 28nm GPU. Any real or imagined "delay" of the system has more to do with software support and market conditions I'm guessing. Holding out for the 28nm process to work out its kinks is way too risky. The Wii was fabbed at 90nm at a time when 45nm was just starting to come into its own, iirc. I don't believe this time will be any different.
Right. Betting the farm on the newest lithography node is quite risky. You can ask the big desktop GPU vendors about it, NV in particular ; )
Can anyone (wsippel? blu) speculate as to how AMD could get the TDP of the GPU down without drastically shrinking the chip (most 700 series chips seem to have been made at 55 or 40nm)? If they are targetting 640spus and 500Mhz, how could they get it to run cool enough?
I'm not qualified to speculate on this (i'm a software guy, not a silicon guy) but from my limited understanding of the subject, there's been a diminishing return in the power-efficiency gains of new fab nodes, due to the increasing portion of leakage at those fringe geometries. So things are not so simple anymore, 'just design for 2 nodes ahead in mind, and you'll reap big power enveloper rewards just by hopping to new nodes as they become available' does not seem so valid a tactics nowadays, or so I've heard. So if you target N gates @ M clock, and those are not meeting your TDP, depending on how much they're off the mark, you can try to go next fab node, but that might not cut it for you. In which case, something has got to give. That something could be clocks. Now, you can try to re-gain your original performance grounds by increasing the workload units (shader ALUs, etc) at this lower clock (as that most likely will still give you a PE gain), but that may or may not be an option, as the increase in silicon area is never without risks. So, basically, all I'm trying to say, is that the way you posed your question, I really don't know ; )
So if we are speculating that it is an APU, then what? CPU and GPU both at 45nm, right? I doubt Nintendo are targetting a 28nm GPU. Any real or imagined "delay" of the system has more to do with software support and market conditions I'm guessing. Holding out for the 28nm process to work out its kinks is way too risky. The Wii was fabbed at 90nm at a time when 45nm was just starting to come into its own, iirc. I don't believe this time will be any different.
I don't think the Wii U will come with an APU. I just don't see AMD cooperating with pairing an AMD GPU to non-AMD CPU. Besides, there are still some issues to be resolved by AMD in their current x86 APUs that don't make them particularly suited for game consoles just yet. If any of the next-gen consoles will have an APU I'm guessing it's Microsoft with a next-gen AMD APU. That's only because of some rumours and that it could be advantageous for MS to base their console on x86.
The Wii was introduced at a time where 65nm was used for several months, but 45nm was still a year away.
I definitely agree that how the game looks and plays are very important, but you can't completely separate that from what's under the hood. The debates about the Link and bird demos (I thought they looked great for all things considered), are proof of that. And that's just what we are trying to find out.
I am not entirely separating them. I think getting at least close enough to allow down or up ports for your system is an important way to entice 3rd parties for example. I think ultimately specs are overrated if they're all in a certain ballpark though.
The Wii for example was an anomaly in multiple ways, not least which it was under powered compared to it's competition. From a consumer stand point though of course that didn't matter. Then again, if you look at generations before this one did anyone really care that the PS2 was the weakest system? Hell no, it was dominant but even if it wasn't it wasn't so ridiculously out of the Gamecube/Xbox ballpark that it was ridiculous.
And, I think indications seem to be the strong potential for a generation closer to the PS2 generation where even if the Wii U is the weakest system it won't be decisive in the way this generation the Wii was decisively weaker. It might be weaker, but if it's in the same ball park will that matter? I say no.
I don't think the Wii U will come with an APU. I just don't see AMD cooperating with pairing an AMD GPU to non-AMD CPU. Besides, there are still some issues to be resolved by AMD in their current x86 APUs that don't make them particularly suited for game consoles just yet. If any of the next-gen consoles will have an APU I'm guessing it's Microsoft with a next-gen AMD APU. That's only because of some rumours and that it could be advantageous for MS to base their console on x86.
The Wii was introduced at a time where 65nm was used for several months, but 45nm was still a year away.
Considering they've already manufactured a SoC at 45 nm using IBM processors in the 360 slim, I don't think that will be an issue. Also, I hate bringing up the case size, but it would certainly help keep things small.
And yes, I meant 65nm around the time of the Wii. Was hoping that would slip by. haha
What competition? You think MS or Sony gives a shit what Nintendo's console power is? They care how to make the most profit first, the most sales second, and what the competition is doing third. Consumers? Considering consumers have, the last TWO generations chosen as market leader the weakest system they don't care about uber power. The only people that give a damn are techies, fan boys, and some high end developers.
I mean, I'm not saying that any company doesn't care about their consumers but ultimately I think you're completely overvaluing the relevance of specs. Specs do not drive the majority of sales.
I mean, I'm not saying that any company doesn't care about their consumers but ultimately I think you're completely overvaluing the relevance of specs. Specs do not drive the majority of sales.
I have to agree, specs are about to become the most invisible quality consoles have. There's a difference between "Wow that looks awesome" vs. "Wow that's using 100,000 polygon models with 16 textures per pass with MSAA and Recombinant Vector Vertices! ... With Ambilight!"
Or a 96-bit bus, with the option of reducing down to 3 chips when higher density parts arrive.
Imo, a 128 bit GDDR5 memory bus isn't exactly necessary if you've large CPU caches and a 32MB chunk of eDRAM that both the CPU and GPU can access. Even a 64 bit bus would still deliver more bandwidth than current generation consoles if you're using GDDR5.
I mean, I'm not saying that any company doesn't care about their consumers but ultimately I think you're completely overvaluing the relevance of specs. Specs do not drive the majority of sales.
Of course they do. The Wii's pathetic specs were the root cause of its dire third party software situation and the very reason its sales stagnated so quickly.
I'm not sure how GDDR5 prices and XDR2 prices combine. From what I can Google XDR2 has a (minor) power advantage, a performance advantage (guess that's mostly marketing though), but importantly it seems that there are 4 GBit XDR2 chips available. With those chips they could accomplish 1GB of memory with only two chips. That would be attractive to Nintendo, I think.
You really broke down my post, haha. An exotic memory produced in a low volume like XDR2 is just asking to be more expensive. I really can't imagine what any density would cost. Although we were considering a way to get that info.
DDR3 has no real disadvantages compared to GDDR3 (right?), and also comes in 4 Gbit chips. Each type of memory (GDDR3, GDDR5, DDR3 and XDR2) has something going for it, I'm not sure we can say anything sensible about it at this time. GDDR3 seems to have been in use in the devkit, but that could be a stopgap solution much like the CPU and GPU could be.
From what I remember searching at the time you are correct. GDDR3 has a lower latency, but DDR3 makes up for that with higher clocks. Then there should be a power advantage for DDR3, and somewhere in this thread is a benchmark link I posted where the DDR3 card was equal to its GDDR3 counterparts.
Yeah, but I'm also of the belief the reason they chose a 4870, if the Japanese site is correct, over say a Juniper was because of a 256-bit bus. Going back to how Nintendo is with memory I can see that being the one area they sacrifice simplicity. (brain_stew got a post in while I was working on this one so I'll lean on his wisdom over my speculation.)
That was more of a foundational calculation based on how Nintendo likes multiples (from the CPU perspective 6x, 5x, and 4.5x respectively of those GPU clocks I posted) and the rumor that the CPU was clocked higher than Xenon.
12 VLIW4 clusters implies a 960 shader GPU like the Barts Pro. I'd say that's too much... 6 to 8 is more realistic I think, especially when compared to the RV770LE.
VLIW5 has 80, while VLIW4 has 64. A 12-cluster VLIW4 GPU would have 768 ALUs (14 is 896). Well within range of an RV770XT (I'm sticking with the other rumor ).
Of course they do. The Wii's pathetic specs were the root cause of its dire third party software situation and the very reason its sales stagnated so quickly.
"So quickly?" So far 3 out of the 5 years Wii's been out they broke sales records. IT's only recently been slowing down and hey! that might have something to do with the New console that was announced 6 months ago.
The third party situation, a problem as it may be, had actually very little impact on the Wii's in its first 4 years. It's only shown itself to be a problem (although in a post hoc manner) lately, and it's really too late for it to matter as Nintendo sits the victor in sales.
Of course they do. The Wii's pathetic specs were the root cause of its dire third party software situation and the very reason its sales stagnated so quickly.
Which is why I specifically said above that as long as the Wii U is in the ball park of Sony and Microsoft's efforts such that up ports and down ports are possible between the systems the details of the difference don't matter. And I fully expect that to be the case this generation as opposed to last generation.
Which is why I specifically said above that as long as the Wii U is in the ball park of Sony and Microsoft's efforts such that up ports and down ports are possible between the systems the details of the difference don't matter. And I fully expect that to be the case this generation as opposed to last generation.
I am not entirely separating them. I think getting at least close enough to allow down or up ports for your system is an important way to entice 3rd parties for example. I think ultimately specs are overrated if they're all in a certain ballpark though.
The Wii for example was an anomaly in multiple ways, not least which it was under powered compared to it's competition. From a consumer stand point though of course that didn't matter. Then again, if you look at generations before this one did anyone really care that the PS2 was the weakest system? Hell no, it was dominant but even if it wasn't it wasn't so ridiculously out of the Gamecube/Xbox ballpark that it was ridiculous.
And, I think indications seem to be the strong potential for a generation closer to the PS2 generation where even if the Wii U is the weakest system it won't be decisive in the way this generation the Wii was decisively weaker. It might be weaker, but if it's in the same ball park will that matter? I say no.
I agree with almost everything in this post. But you have to admit that while you feel speculating on the hardware is annoying, you can't ignore it's importance if we want/ believe it to be in the ballpark of others. Wii is a prime example of hardware not being important. And that eventually caught up to Nintendo. If Wii U is going to be in the same ballpark, then the specs are almost, if not just as important.
Final design. Those devs/pubs are a console maker's business partners since they are using the console to sell their games. You don't do that to business partners. They tell them what the plan is for the console. Things can always change, but even when they do change you let them know. And one thing about Nintendo when looking back at how they've worked, that kind of perception won't matter because they will focus more on how it looks on screen.
I agree with almost everything in this post. But you have to admit that while you feel speculating on the hardware is annoying, you can't ignore it's importance if we want/ believe it to be in the ballpark of others. Wii is a prime example of hardware not being important. And that eventually caught up to Nintendo. If Wii U is going to be in the same ballpark, then the specs are almost, if not just as important.
I think it matters to some people, but even if we knew basically the specs there is the further issue of how easy it is to get the most power out of the system. The PS3 for example was considered extremely powerful but extremely difficult to program for in it's day which limited early on what devs could get out of it. Ultimately though I seriously doubt specs will decide the generation, it seems more like a side discussion rather than anything really relevant.
I mean, I'm not saying that any company doesn't care about their consumers but ultimately I think you're completely overvaluing the relevance of specs. Specs do not drive the majority of sales.
I think you misunderstood me.
What Im saying is that MS and Sony should worry about the WiiU's power, if higher specs is all they are marketing next gen.
What competition? You think MS or Sony gives a shit what Nintendo's console power is? They care how to make the most profit first, the most sales second, and what the competition is doing third. Consumers? Considering consumers have, the last TWO generations chosen as market leader the weakest system they don't care about uber power. The only people that give a damn are techies, fan boys, and some high end developers.
Sony and MS will never will drive their system for profit, they are to focused in a eternal battle for mindshare where the money spent really didn't matter. They will bleed all the necesary until one of them just can't still fight.
Sony and MS will never will drive their system for profit, they are to focused in a eternal battle for mindshare where the money spent really didn't matter. They will bleed all the necesary until one of them just can't still fight.
Sony and MS will never will drive their system for profit, they are to focused in a eternal battle for mindshare where the money spent really didn't matter. They will bleed all the necesary until one of them just can't still fight.
I love tuna, while brain stew is, well, brain stew. On one hand, fish is high in Omegas which are good for brain health, yet at the same time, over consumption of mercury found in tuna can have a detrimental effect on your health. Hmmm.
They're not "subsidising Vita units." Its the most conservative design in their history (at best any small loss on hardware will be made up by the mandatory proprietary memory card purchase) and we don't have a single credible "Loop" rumour yet, so the less said about that, the better.
Both MS and Sony have been striving for profitability in their gaming divisions above everything else for the last 3-4 years.
I assume you are talking about publishers putting their efforts on the Wii, since it was the market leader sales-wise and cheaper to develop for. Things aren't that easy.
The Wii market had three main groups:
1) Nintendo fans: traditional gamers mostly focused on Nintendo titles and, to a lesser extent, exclusives, since they've had a love/hate relationship with third parties since the N64 days.
If its to be accepted that third parties don't "hate" Nintendo and that's a crazy conspiracy theory, then I doubt it's logical that, say, the 30 million or so people that bought Mario Kart hate third parties. Maybe third parties just aren't providing better alternatives. Nintendo "fanboyism" doesn't exist in a vacuum. Nintendo's been making legendary and high quality games for 30 years. Third parties have always complain about having to compete with Nintendo, but they rarely actually DO. It would take time to repair the damage third parties have done to their reputations with this group. And yes they do have reputations to fix, not just Nintendo.
3) New gamers: this last group conforms the vast majority of the Wii owners, interested in the system due to the simplified control methods and less intimidating games, the new/social experience factor and Nintendo's marketing.
I think I'm also hesitant to say that the Wii mainly consists of "new" gamers (or "casuals" for that matter) because the unintended consequence of such a statement is that the games market itself has then shrunk considerably, Because the Ps2 outsold the 360 and Ps3 combined at this point. And since apparently the "new gamers" seem to be in love with Mario Kart, which is a franchise as old as the 90's, doesn't that say that maybe they aren't a bunch of mouth-breathing "casual gaming" ghetto dwellers? Also, proof please that that "the vast majority" of the Wii userbase is "new gamers." Also I'd like a little proof that the Wii is "mostly" new gamers. It's easy to believe because it gets repeated ad nauseum but It'd be nice to actually see it in numbers.
Most Wii owners are new gamers and these new gamers barely know a thing about upcoming games, much less than the traditional gamer. It seems that the only way to reach them is through big tv ad campaigns (that most publishers can't afford) or through word of mouth (which relies on enough people buying the game in the first place). The end result is that you have a few titles with massive sales and then everything else, with no in-betweens.
But I see big ad campaigns on TV for the "traditional" games all the time and I see NO ad campaigns for anything targeting the "new gamer" unless Mario Kart counts (doubtful.) Also, yeah word of mouth. Like when third parties mostly made crap and the word of mouth spread that Only Nintendo and a few others have made games worth a damn on Wii. That's something THEY need to fix, not Nintendo, although I'm sure Nintendo knows that, quite wrongly, they are the ones who get blamed for bad third party games, so in a strange sense they're the ones MADE responsible.
Meanwhile publishers have the "HD market" (PC, PS3, 360) which is bigger sales-wise and is filled with more predictable traditional gamers.
For a while the Wii sold more than the 360 and the PS3 combined. Including PC is specious, because there's about a billion PCs out there and they were "HD" as far back as 1999. Also, since publishers mostly lost money and Nintendo made money, I'd say the "market" was actually bigger on Nintendo's platform.
Yes, they have struggled for years (not only due to skyrocketing budgets but also because this gen required a complete restructuration in many aspects) but one of the reasons is because the market leader in the console front was so different that it literally split the market. You had PC/PS3/360 on one side, where the publishers had invested their money and could happily port their games around, and then the successful but unpredictable Wii on the other, where you had to build your games from scratch and pray the new gamers would buy it in droves. That drastically reduced the potential sales for all third party publishers.
But in a results-oriented manner, Since Nintendo made more money, and third party publishers mostly did not, then the third party publishers were wrong to support that one half of the market. Sour grapes at "fanboys and casuals" is not a valid enough reason to ignore the market leader, or at least it wasn't until 2006. And yes, the past is the past, these events cannot be changed. But what also cannot be changed is that 3rd party publisher's decision to back the "HD Side" was a mistake.
I think it matters to some people, but even if we knew basically the specs there is the further issue of how easy it is to get the most power out of the system. The PS3 for example was considered extremely powerful but extremely difficult to program for in it's day which limited early on what devs could get out of it. Ultimately though I seriously doubt specs will decide the generation, it seems more like a side discussion rather than anything really relevant.
I think ease of programming is a moot point since Nintendo hasn't gone against that since the N64. We have enough indication that Wii U is following their more recent trend. I don't think anyone is saying specs will decide this generation. I'm just of the view that I don't see how you can write them off so easily. Fortunately Wii sold like gangbusters early on so the fall off didn't hurt Nintendo too much. But thanks to Wii, we're seeing a shift on control methods and a weak console wouldn't do very well with that. No way Wii U's pad could work properly with with Wii hardware so from just an input standpoint alone you have to make sure you have decent specs. And also since I think the console market will see some level of shrinkage this time, I don't think Nintendo could get away with another Wii-level increase.
"So quickly?" So far 3 out of the 5 years Wii's been out they broke sales records. IT's only recently been slowing down and hey! that might have something to do with the New console that was announced 6 months ago.
I wouldn't use such a strong statement as brain_stew because the Wii was indeed breaking sales records during its first years, but there's some truth behind his words.
We've never witnessed a market leader have such a drastic decline in sales and popularity in gaming history until now with the Wii, and it's because of two factors, the large non-traditional gamers audience it has and the lack of strong third party support, in most cases a direct result of the hardware limitations the system has.
The third party situation, a problem as it may be, had actually very little impact on the Wii's in its first 4 years. It's only shown itself to be a problem (although in a post hoc manner) lately, and it's really too late for it to matter as Nintendo sits the victor in sales.
Wii's third party situation may not have affected Nintendo's revenue and profits but it sure has affected any traditional gamer that only owned a Wii this generation; those have missed many many games during the last few years or got to play a vastly downgraded version of them (or a lower budget spin-off) as a direct result of Wii's archaic architecture.
In other words, Nintendo went after a different market this gen, new gamers, which is good, but they forgot to make a competitive system that could satisfy all kinds of gamers, and that's not so good.
I get the feeling that now they get what was wrong with the Wii, and while they are still going to stick to Iwata/Nintendo's philosophy of making cheap, profit friendly machines next gen, they also acknowledge that they have to make a system for everyone, one that satisfies all kinds of gamers and is close enough to the competition to get all those juicy third party games, even if it's in a relatively downgraded form.
I'm standing by my prediction that next gen the specs are going to be close enough that for most the generation the average consumer will not be able to tell which one is the "more powerful" one. I think you'll have maybe a handful of games that really push which ever system is strongest and make it stand out, but they're going to be the exception and not the norm.
Sure sure, there will be folks on here, B3D, those who work in CG, and the pixel counters who will be able to tell the difference, but for most it's not going to be so obvious.
I think the console makes next gen need to find other ways to make their console stand out from the pack. Nintendo is going to do it with their tablet controller, and I think MS is going to do with Kinect. I have no idea about Sony though.
Online is going to be the other big way the consoles stand out. Live vs PSN vs who knows what Nintendo is doing/Origin?/Steam?.
While I was not impressed at all at E3 by the Wii U, I think Nintendo understands they really have to deliver. Plus, there are certain Nintendo games (Zelda, Mario Kart) I just can't pass up. So I am looking forward to next year.
I believe the Genesis went through the same ordeal. They were popular in America and Europe for a few years and then faded.
and it's because of two factors, the large non-traditional gamers audience it has and the lack of strong third party support, in most cases a direct result of the hardware limitations the system has.
Nobody pointed a gun to third party publishers' heads and forced them to go "HD." They could have supported the Wii if they wanted. They didn't, and most suffered. If anything it's the other way around, no market leader up until this point has ever been snubbed for third party support based on forum stereotypes and invented marketing terms.
Wii's third party situation may not have affected Nintendo's revenue and profits but it sure has affected any traditional gamer that only owned a Wii this generation; those have missed many many games during the last few years or got to play a vastly downgraded version of them (or a lower budget spin-off) as a direct result of Wii's archaic architecture.
I think the main difference in our opinions is that you blame Nintendo for their lack of third party support based on horsepower differential, while I blame the third parties for not supporting the market leader in spite of the power differential, considering they never cared much before. We aren't likely to agree, so I suppose we should just agree to disagree, but I will say that because Nintendo made a lot more money than almost all third parties, sometimes even combined, this generation, perhaps it would have been wiser if they didn't put all their eggs into the HD basket and continued to double down in spite of the market's reactions to the Wii.
If its to be accepted that third parties don't "hate" Nintendo and that's a crazy conspiracy theory, then I doubt it's logical that, say, the 30 million or so people that bought Mario Kart hate third parties.
Nintendo fans aren't the only ones that bought Mario Kart; its audience is very diverse. The actual number of Nintendo fans is not that high at all.
And of course there's no conspiracy anywhere.
If you ask around there's a lot of respect for Nintendo.
Every company out there is just trying to earn as much money as they can, be it short term or long term. With the N64 Nintendo went with cartridges, the competition went with CDs. CDs were far cheaper so third parties followed where the money was. It's a logical conclusion.
All Nintendo has to do to get third party support is make the right decisions with their hardware and help third parties like MS/Sony usually do. If there's money to be made with their system third parties will be there day one.
I think I'm also hesitant to say that the Wii mainly consists of "new" gamers (or "casuals" for that matter) because the unintended consequence of such a statement is that the games market itself has then shrunk considerably, Because the Ps2 outsold the 360 and Ps3 combined at this point. And since apparently the "new gamers" seem to be in love with Mario Kart, which is a franchise as old as the 90's, doesn't that say that maybe they aren't a bunch of mouth-breathing "casual gaming" ghetto dwellers? Also, proof please that that "the vast majority" of the Wii userbase is "new gamers." Also I'd like a little proof that the Wii is "mostly" new gamers. It's easy to believe because it gets repeated ad nauseum but It'd be nice to actually see it in numbers.
It's been six years after this gen started and Wii, 360 and PS3's cumulative hardware sales are somewhere around 205-210 million units.
Last gen, at this same point, we were at ~145 million units.
That doesn't include the raise of the handheld and social gaming market.
The PS2 didn't "outsold the 360 and PS3 combined at this point" as you claim either. Combined they should be close to 120 million units now while the PS2 was at ~105.
The GC had sold a little over twenty million units at this point last gen... where do you think all the other 70 million Wii owners have come from?
The Wii userbase is composed mainly from new gamers and "it gets repeated ad nauseum" because it's what it is. Even Nintendo openly declared multiple times at the beginning of this gen that they were after a new market. They even explained it.
But I see big ad campaigns on TV for the "traditional" games all the time and I see NO ad campaigns for anything targeting the "new gamer" unless Mario Kart counts (doubtful.) Also, yeah word of mouth. Like when third parties mostly made crap and the word of mouth spread that Only Nintendo and a few others have made games worth a damn on Wii. That's something THEY need to fix, not Nintendo, although I'm sure Nintendo knows that, quite wrongly, they are the ones who get blamed for bad third party games, so in a strange sense they're the ones MADE responsible.
Worldwide you only see campaigns for a very small number of games (and in this aspect the game industry has a lot to learn from other big industries).
You see big ad campaigns for stuff like Call of Duty, Wii fit, Mario games (including Mario Kart, yes), Madden/FIFA/PES, Singstar in Europe and the like and guess what? Those games sell a ton.
The third party situation on the Wii is the fault of many factors, including, in no particular order, lack of advertisements, a pretty big non-traditional audience (making designing/marketing your game harder), publsher's investments at the beginning of this gen going in a different direction, bad decisions and predictions all around, Nintendo's own bad hardware decisions and many others.
I'm sorry you feel all the blame is put on Nintendo, because it's not true, but at the same time Nintendo is partially to blame for the situation. But that's it, partially. The reality is that a lot of things had to go wrong to create this situation and now it's too late to change it. The Wii is what it is and next gen is around the corner for Nintendo.
But in a results-oriented manner, Since Nintendo made more money, and third party publishers mostly did not, then the third party publishers were wrong to support that one half of the market. Sour grapes at "fanboys and casuals" is not a valid enough reason to ignore the market leader, or at least it wasn't until 2006. And yes, the past is the past, these events cannot be changed. But what also cannot be changed is that 3rd party publisher's decision to back the "HD Side" was a mistake.
Publisher's didn't decide to back the "HD Side", they decided to back "Next Gen" and that included Nintendo at some point.
I'm pretty sure they didn't expect Nintendo to release a system that was pretty much incompatible with the rest due to hardware limitations and a drastically different interface; and when they finally knew what Nintendo was going to put on the market they had already invested a lot into getting ready and developing "next generation" games.
Ignore everything you know about Wii sales right now.
Imagine that you are back in 2004/2005 and ask yourself this: why should publishers and developers throw aside their investments and decide to put all their eggs on a system named Wii which uses an unprobed controller and was the follow-up of a console that barely sold above 20 million units with mediocre software sales to boot? Especially when Sony, that had 70% market share two generations in a row, seemed unstoppable and were releasing a powerful system? Ask yourself that question and try to put your emotions aside. Be honest.
There was no way anyone could have predicted this gen using anything that resembles logic.
I think the main difference in our opinions is that you blame Nintendo for their lack of third party support based on horsepower differential, while I blame the third parties for not supporting the market leader in spite of the power differential, considering they never cared much before.
As I said, I don't blame anyone; it's just a cumulus of factors. But yes, one of the most important ones is Nintendo's hardware decisions or lack of vision regarding the Wii.
Third parties never cared too much about horsepower because consoles released during the same gen were essentially the same. You could develop most games for the lowest common denominator and then release some big exclusive titles that would take advantage of the full capabilities of a certain system and everyone would be just happy.
That's the main problem with the Wii: the difference in horsepower and architecture compared to the other machines (including PCs) is just so big they are basically incompatible. In a gen where exclusive games have pretty much disappeared that's a HUGE deal. It means every title you develop for the Wii has to be developed from scratch, just like an exclusive title last gen, except you don't get the extra attention from the fanbase nor the money for the exclusivity.
What I was intending to say if that if, according to you, 70 million out of the 90 million Wii owners are 100% new gamers (LOL No.) then that leaves us under the 200 million (PS2 + GC + Xbox + DC) the "traditional" Last Generation brought us.
The GC had sold a little over twenty million units at this point last gen... where do you think all the other 70 million Wii owners have come from?
Hopefully from the PS2 for the "traditional" console market's sake. Consider this: the PS2 sold 150 million. The Xbox sold around 24 million. OK The 360 is at what, 60 million, and the PS3 55 million? Either way, that's much lower than just the PS2. Since the Wii is apparently not a "traditional" console and has 80% completely new people, then the old "traditional" market must have shrunk. Either that or the Wii picked up the slack that the PS2 lost, making it more "traditional" than first considered.
The Wii userbase is composed mainly from new gamers and "it gets repeated ad nauseum" because it's what it is. Even Nintendo openly declared multiple times at the beginning of this gen that they were after a new market. They even explained it.
I don't think "We are seeking to expand the market" means "Our console is solely for casuals and newcomers." Hell this wasn't even reflected in the games they actually made. How many "non-traditional" games have they made this gen for Wii? Like 10? Out of what, 50?
And the facts I need are at least surveys and some kind of empirical data. It can't even be "casual" game sales because even those dried up in a few years when the Wii userbase said "no mas" and stopped buying the cheap crap being thrown at them and stuck to Nintendo.
The third party situation on the Wii is the fault of many factors, including, in no particular order, lack of advertisements, a pretty big non-traditional audience (making designing/marketing your game harder), publsher's investments at the beginning of this gen going in a different direction, bad decisions and predictions all around, Nintendo's own bad hardware decisions and many others.
Putting aside that I seriously dispute the Wii's "non-traditional" audience (They certainly bought the hell out of Smash Bros. Brawl. More than Melee on GC), Really? I'm not the only one who thought that it seemed like third parties lobotomized themselves when it came to making games for the Wii. It's like they all (aside a few) collectively forgot how to make video games. Seriously, google "3rd Party Wall of Shame." MAybe I'd buy the concept of third party struggles on Nintendo hardware this generation is they didn't seem like they were half-assing it all the time.
I'm sorry you feel all the blame is put on Nintendo, because it's not true, but at the same time Nintendo is partially to blame for the situation. But that's it, partially. The reality is that a lot of things had to go wrong to create this situation and now it's too late to change it. The Wii is what it is and next gen is around the corner for Nintendo.
Yeah I know this gen for Nintendo is wrapping up, but I'm still irked by the third parties' complete ineptitude with Wii. I mean I don't think everybody who owned a Wii at first was a Nintendo fanboy/girl, but I bet they are now, if you catch my drift. If anything, their snubbing the Wii only makes the problem worse in the future. And yeah seriously, third parties can get away with murder on Nintendo platforms. There's this Edge (or eurogamer, one of them) interview with a Take 2 guy who was going on and on about how the Wii had a shovelware problem, and the writer made little editor notes of all the games Take 2 had published for the Wii, which included, yes, really bad shovelware.
Imagine that you are back in 2004/2005 and ask yourself this: why should publishers and developers throw aside their investments and decide to put all their eggs on a system named Wii which uses an unprobed controller and was the follow-up of a console that barely sold above 20 million units with mediocre software sales to boot? Especially when Sony, that had 70% market share two generations in a row, seemed unstoppable and were releasing a powerful system? Ask yourself that question and try to put your emotions aside. Be honest.
Actually I CAN. When Wii debuted at E3, the entire floor went nuts over it. There was a record queue just to get into the place to see it. 7 hour waits. There were people who went to E3 and all they did was the Wii demo and stand in line for it. That signaled a hot product, period. Nothing ever had such a reaction at E3. Anybody not asleep at the wheel knew Nintendo had a hit on their hands. Also, the skyrocketing success of the DS earlier that year proved that the general gaming audience was more hungry for innovative controls rather than horsepower, considering the far more powerful PSP was being beaten by it.
I know we've been chatting this topic up for a while, but I think it's probably time to just shake on it and let the thread get back to Wii U specs. Sound groovy?
Lets not relive the Wii's lifetime for the Nth time, folks. Summary: Everyone acted in their own self interest, resulting in a colossal fuck-up of a generation with pretty extensive consequences. Only reasonable complaints are as follows:
3rd parties should have dedicated non-AAA franchise development towards the Wii, rather than allow many to perish in the generational transition or bump up their development costs with little to no benefit from the shift to HD. This would have allowed them more flexibility and diversity in their libraries while keeping costs down.
Nintendo should have aggressively supported smaller 3rd parties interested in creating games for the system. They should have babysat the hell out of them, especially as it became clearer that the larger companies were passing on the system by and large.
If the console can handle it, it will come. The first one was released on all three consoles, so there's no reason why it shouldn't come to the Wii U too.
Anyone? Nintendo has some of the best development teams and is one of the best/bigger publishers around? Most of the people in the industry grew up in a world where Nintendo was synonymous to gaming? I don't know why you think everybody hates Nintendo.
What I was intending to say if that if, according to you, 70 million out of the 90 million Wii owners are 100% new gamers (LOL No.) then that leaves us under the 200 million (PS2 + GC + Xbox + DC) the "traditional" Last Generation brought us.
Those 70+ extra million compared to the GC are a combination of different types of gamers but as I just proved with facts and numbers (your request), the installed base is much bigger this gen, which means there are a lot of new gamers and most of them were captured by Nintendo with the Wii, therefore the Wii has a lot of new gamers. The way the Wii market has evolved so far shows that as well.
Hopefully from the PS2 for the "traditional" console market's sake. Consider this: the PS2 sold 150 million. The Xbox sold around 24 million. OK The 360 is at what, 60 million, and the PS3 55 million? Either way, that's much lower than just the PS2. Since the Wii is apparently not a "traditional" console and has 80% completely new people, then the old "traditional" market must have shrunk. Either that or the Wii picked up the slack that the PS2 lost, making it more "traditional" than first considered.
The PS2 sold less than 105 million in six years, which is where we're at at the moment this gen.
I gave you the approximated installed bases last gen and this gen and there's a difference of at least 60 million, which means there are a lot of new gamers this gen regardless of what they play. THAT IS A FACT THAT CAN BE CHECKED BY ANYONE.
I don't think "We are seeking to expand the market" means "Our console is solely for casuals and newcomers." Hell this wasn't even reflected in the games they actually made. How many "non-traditional" games have they made this gen for Wii? Like 10? Out of what, 50?
And the facts I need are at least surveys and some kind of empirical data. It can't even be "casual" game sales because even those dried up in a few years when the Wii userbase said "no mas" and stopped buying the cheap crap being thrown at them and stuck to Nintendo.
They didn't say "we are going to expand the market".
Nintendo especifically said they were trying to reach traditional non-gamers, people that didn't care about gaming at all, be it your grandma, that girl that thought gaming was for kids or that guy that thought that games were too complicated for him and controllers had way too many buttons.
They designed the console around that, they created a simplified controller, their conferences were directed at these people, they made games for this specific audience.
You can google it if you want, or ask other people in the forum. Have you never heard of the blue ocean strategy that was discussed to death all over the internet, including this very forum?
I say that because I'm beginning to think that even if Iwata and Miyamoto showed up in this thread and told you exactly what I'm saying, you wouldn't believe them.
I'm not the only one who thought that it seemed like third parties lobotomized themselves when it came to making games for the Wii. It's like they all (aside a few) collectively forgot how to make video games. Seriously, google "3rd Party Wall of Shame." MAybe I'd buy the concept of third party struggles on Nintendo hardware this generation is they didn't seem like they were half-assing it all the time.
Most of the best developers last gen moved into making multiconsole titles this gen. Since these teams were occupied making these big budget PC/PS3/360 games and they usually couldn't be ported to the Wii without starting from scratch, that means that in many cases only their less experienced teams where available for the Wii. And since the audience was pretty different from those other more traditional systems on the market, both publishers and developers were kind of lost on what to do on the Wii, how to use the motion controls, etc.
Result: most of the time, lower quality (but not necessarily bad) games.
Yeah I know this gen for Nintendo is wrapping up, but I'm still irked by the third parties' complete ineptitude with Wii. I mean I don't think everybody who owned a Wii at first was a Nintendo fanboy/girl, but I bet they are now, if you catch my drift. If anything, their snubbing the Wii only makes the problem worse in the future. And yeah seriously, third parties can get away with murder on Nintendo platforms. There's this Edge (or eurogamer, one of them) interview with a Take 2 guy who was going on and on about how the Wii had a shovelware problem, and the writer made little editor notes of all the games Take 2 had published for the Wii, which included, yes, really bad shovelware.
Well, yeah, you sound pretty pissed off at the whole situation.
But tbh, no one can do a thing about it anymore, we just have to wait for their next system which I guess will fix most of the problems.
And really, it's not completely the publishers' fault, or the developers', or Nintendo's. Designing and releasing a console worldwide, coordinating so many people at the same time, managing all the variables... it's all very complex. In the case of the Wii something failed along the way and things ended up like this.
It's not that bad.
The Wii brought some new gamers into the market and some of them will stay; some great games plus some B quality games were released for the system; some people that never got a GC/N64/SNES/NES/etc had the chance to play some classics, we experimented with motion controls to see what they could bring into gaming and Nintendo got a lot of money that now will be used in our benefit (hopefully).
With just a few changes the system would have been fantastic.
Actually I CAN. When Wii debuted at E3, the entire floor went nuts over it. There was a record queue just to get into the place to see it. 7 hour waits. There were people who went to E3 and all they did was the Wii demo and stand in line for it. That signaled a hot product, period. Nothing ever had such a reaction at E3. Anybody not asleep at the wheel knew Nintendo had a hit on their hands. Also, the skyrocketing success of the DS earlier that year proved that the general gaming audience was more hungry for innovative controls rather than horsepower, considering the far more powerful PSP was being beaten by it.
I know we've been chatting this topic up for a while, but I think it's probably time to just shake on it and let the thread get back to Wii U specs. Sound groovy?
To be honest, he's not the only one in the forum that "knows stuff", but just like him no one wants to lose his/her job... soooo lets wait for actual announcements and more leaks.
eDRAM on Power7 is for L3 cache only AFAIK, L2 is only 256kb/core. L1 and L2 are SRAM.
I expect 6 or 12MB unified eDRAM if it will be a 3 core (2 or 4MB/core) and I think even 6MB would be sufficient by far (these +6MB would make much more sense on the GPU side IMHO)
Lets not relive the Wii's lifetime for the Nth time, folks. Summary: Everyone acted in their own self interest, resulting in a colossal fuck-up of a generation with pretty extensive consequences. Only reasonable complaints are as follows:
3rd parties should have dedicated non-AAA franchise development towards the Wii, rather than allow many to perish in the generational transition or bump up their development costs with little to no benefit from the shift to HD. This would have allowed them more flexibility and diversity in their libraries while keeping costs down.
Nintendo should have aggressively supported smaller 3rd parties interested in creating games for the system. They should have babysat the hell out of them, especially as it became clearer that the larger companies were passing on the system by and large.
That was a very good business-side post. Particularly on the bolded part, I find that was nintendo's biggest fumble this entire gen. They misses every single opportunity to court up talented, prospective small (western) 3rd parties. Just because NoA and NoE are nothing but marketing goons, and NCL are traditionally very conservative in reaching out to foreign devs.
Our good friend wikipedia says that Power 7 has 256KB of L2 per core. Are you saying that the cores don't all have the same amount each? Why would they do that?
Our good friend wikipedia says that Power 7 has 256KB of L2 per core. Are you saying that the cores don't all have the same amount each? Why would they do that?
