Support NeoGAF

[AndyH]

I still would like someone to press them on the specs the next e3 in the interview sections....

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

 

[Doc Holliday]

yes, YESSS, i'll be sure to buy the Doc Holidaystationbox this holiday. This console is gonna wipe the floor with ALL the competition. i'm sure it'll be nice and expensive, just like u would want it huh?

You can actually build a better system right without making is too expensive. I'm not talking about ps4/720 level here. Just better than the ps3 and 360. I just don't want Wii U to end up collecting dust like mine has :./

 

[fernoca]

Yup. Those are what I call the "consolation prize" games.

"Sorry, Nintendo.. you didn't win the $50,000 Grand Prize - but you do get a hot tub. Pretty nice, eh?"

Well, it's better to keep the expectations low.
Plus there were some rumors about how the GTA team still feeling..burn after what they went through with Nintendo during the N64 days of the "dream Team" (or something like that).

I'll be happy with just Bully 2 and manhunt 3. Though I doubt Manhunt 3 gets made. @ got an AO rating, then scaled down to M; can't imagine the same but "with HD visuals".

Bully 2 has been in preliminary work apparently for quite some time, but the main team is mostly focused on Max Payne 3.

 

[Twenty7KVN]

So what happened to the lifting of the NDA?

It seemed to be a assassin's creed 3 nda that was lifted.

 

[VAPitts]

You can actually build a better system right without making is too expensive. I'm not talking about ps4/720 level here. Just better than the ps3 and 360.

ok so let me get this straight: Nintendo can make a better console and without being cheap but yet it STILL won't be on the level of the PS4/Nextbox? well i guess that just makes Nintendo look even worse than your previous statement.

 

[HylianTom]

So what happened to the lifting of the NDA?

It was a non-event. There probably wasn't even an NDA to begin with. We would've heard much more fanfare about it expiring in the hours leading up to it, and in the hours after the info was revealed.

Maybe we'll have better luck with the next rumor. Or E3. Whichever one comes first.

 

[Bagu]

So there's like this interview over on Gametrailers about Assassin's Creed 3
and the developer man said while new hardware is awesome cause it's like, new and more powerful, they now have learn to get accustomed to it, while on the 360, since they're so used to it, they want it to be one of those late generation games that you look at and say, "That's a good looking game." Mentions the Gamecube too
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-2012-assassins-creed/728473

 

[Doc Holliday]

ok so let me get this straight: Nintendo can make a better console and without being cheap but yet it STILL won't be on the level of the PS4/Nextbox? well i guess that just makes Nintendo look even worse than your previous statement.

How so?

Also I have't been following you posts, so are you saying that having a system on the same level as the 360 a good thing?

BTW nintendo were the ones to raise expectations when they said they want to get the hardcore fans back.

 

[Donnie]

What is shocking to me is that you can make a system that is more capable than 360/ps3 without breaking a sweat. Nintendo is going out of their way to make an average system. With just a little more investment and foresight they could be set for a decade :/ Even if they want to save money they could do what they did with Gamecube. Invest now and recycle the hardware for the next system after the Wii U.

Cheap bastards lol

WiiU will be more capable than 360 or PS3, I'm not sure how its even possible that some people still can't get this into their heads..

How so?

Also I have't been following you posts, so are you saying that having a system on the same level as the 360 a good thing?

BTW nintendo were the ones to raise expectations when they said they want to get the hardcore fans back.

As long as its more powerful, which it will be, then fine. It doesn't have to be on another level.

 

[Donnie]

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

This nonsense gets more tedious and less funny by the day. Please link me to these "spot on" leaked specs that show the CPU will be less powerful than Xenon and that the GPU will only be DX10.

BTW do you realise how much more powerful a 4770 is in comparison to current gen console GPU's? If you're assuming that is the GPU in WiiU and you believe the next MS/Sony consoles will have GPU's that will leave it behind to the same degree that Hollywood was by Xenos then you're living in a fantasy world.

 

[BD1]

A multi-platform 2D Mario Bros. would be Wii U suicide in Japan. Everyone would buy the 3DS handheld version. The better choice is release a 2D Mario on 3DS in the fall, then launch Wii U with the brand new and different Super Mario Bros Mii. The hook would be you could "connect" the 3DS to Wii U and unlock cross-platform bonus levels.

But the exact same game on both platforms? Not a good idea.

... I personally hope for Super Mario Utopia, the next 3D Mario masterpiece from EAD Tokyo.

 

[Christine]

Wii U and Vita, port frenemies 4 life.

 

[Doc Holliday]

WiiU will be more capable than 360 or PS3, I'm not sure how its even possible that some people still can't get this into their heads..

I hope so! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it was any other company I would agree with you, but this Nintendo. We'll find out soon enough.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

I think the CPU will be somewhat more powerful than Xenon. What is your source of this information anyway?

 

[blu]

What is shocking to me is that you can make a system that is more capable than 360/ps3 without breaking a sweat. Nintendo is going out of their way to make an average system. With just a little more investment and foresight they could be set for a decade :/ Even if they want to save money they could do what they did with Gamecube. Invest now and recycle the hardware for the next system after the Wii U.

Cheap bastards lol

Chances are nintendo did not recycle the cube because they like to recycle but because they did not want to go deeply in the red if their paradigm shift fumbled. The cube was just something that fit the bill, plus it allowed nintendo's R&D to go elsewhere than into the silicon. In comparison, the upad is a 'safe bet' which, with the proper upad costs, allows nintendo to go more 'mainstream' on the console unit.

 

[Vdragoon]

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

Stop making up shit, do people even read the threads before posting?

 

[AndyH]

This nonsense gets more tedious and less funny by the day. Please link me to these "spot on" leaked specs that show the CPU will be less powerful than Xenon and that the GPU will only be DX10.

Just saying what I've been hearing. I'm not a well known member like Alberto who is a known former journalist so I don't expect you to believe me but it is the case.

I think the CPU will be somewhat more powerful than Xenon. What is your source of this information anyway?

Developers.

 

[BY2K]

What leaked specs? How are they spot-on?

Stop that bullshit, seriously, it's getting on my nerves.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

Just saying what I've been hearing. I'm not a well known member like Alberto who is a known former journalist so I don't expect you to believe me but it is the case.

My cat said the CPU would be boobs and the GPU would be tits for the Wii U.

 

[BY2K]

A hobo said to a friend of my father's boss that the Wii U will cook pancakes in the time it takes to install a game on the Hard Drive.

 

[Diablos54]

Just saying what I've been hearing. I'm not a well known member like Alberto who is a known former journalist so I don't expect you to believe me but it is the case.



Developers.

Lower clock speeds does not = weaker, did you not hear that as well?

 

[VAPitts]

I hope so! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it was any other company I would agree with you, but this Nintendo. We'll find out soon enough.

yes, that's the statement of all times. "This is Nintendo..."

they know absolutely nothing about developing hardware.

 

[ozfunghi]

A 4770 is actually close to 1Tflop if i'm not mistaken and could fall in between a 4830 and 4850 performance wise?

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Lower clock speeds does not = weaker, did you not hear that as well?

Exactly. It's more about the architectures than the clock speeds.


i.e. how much work can be done per cycle. The Wii U CPU has to be better in this area.

 

[tkscz]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

yes, that's the statement of all times. "This is Nintendo..."

they know absolutely nothing about developing hardware.

If that's sarcasm, then you're good. But, if that's serious, please consider how wrong you are by reading the following:

1. Single handily revived console gaming when Atari and 3rd parties back then destroyed it.

2. Has been in the console business sense the early 80's.

3. Usually makes the most/second most powerful console of a gen, while also making it cheap, with the exception of Wii

4. Makes their consoles work, even when taken a lot of damage.

Oh yeah, they no nothing about hardware.

 

[Bagu]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

Da

 

[Eteric Rice]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

I suspect so.

 

[Christberg]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

Yes.

 

[Christine]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

Possibly.

 

[Doc Holliday]

yes, that's the statement of all times. "This is Nintendo..."

they know absolutely nothing about developing hardware.

Who said that? I think this is what annoys people about them. They have very capable designers yet they haven't pushed console hardware in a while.

 

[axisofweevils]

Just muddying the waters further.

Rumors of a new Xbox have been swirling for quite some time now, though they are now taking a slightly different shape. The next Xbox hardware won't actually be a generational leap, according to anonymous blogger MS Nerd, posting on Reddit. Instead, the console will actually be a stripped down version of the current Xbox, which will concentrate on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect apps. This is apparently the same ARM-powered console that MS Nerd first discussed in November of last year. The device will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV and is apparently slated for a late 2013 launch.

Meanwhile, the "true successor" will launch sometime after with the same media apps and support for more core game experiences. Furthermore, the next generation of Kinect will supposedly launch sometime around 2015. At this point, keeping track of the next Xbox is becoming something of a chore, with estimates for a new launch ranging from late this year all the way out to 2014. For Microsoft's part, the company says there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at this year's E3.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/26/rumor-stripped-down-xbox-planned-for-2013/

I can't post this as a new thread as I'm a Junior Member.

 

[Sadist]

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Smash, but clearly the guy knows what he's doing with singleplayer focuses.

He actually made an interesting villain.

 

[Donnie]

Just saying what I've been hearing. I'm not a well known member like Alberto who is a known former journalist so I don't expect you to believe me but it is the case.



Developers.

Ok, could tell me what you've heard? If its nothing more specific than "less powerful" then I wouldn't put much stock in it if I were you, as that could simply be down to the clock speed being lower. The CPU is a triple core out of order processor with about 3 times as much L2 cache as Xenon. The out of order execution and larger L2 should go a long way to improving performance over Xenon. Even if its lower clocked.

I'm expecting the WiiU CPU to be a bit better overall then Xenon, I think the GPU and RAM will be the areas were WiiU is noticeably superior.

 

[BD1]

Just muddying the waters further.



http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/26/rumor-stripped-down-xbox-planned-for-2013/

I can't post this as a new thread as I'm a Junior Member.

I think this is a few months old actually. There has been lots of speculation of a more casual games/apple TV like xbox SKU and the mega 720 Xbox SKU for a while now.

 

[Ramblin]

A hobo said to a friend of my father's boss that the Wii U will cook pancakes in the time it takes to install a game on the Hard Drive.

Will said pancakes come with the Nintendo seal of quality? And will you have to flip them? I'm so bad a flipping pankcakes.

 

[VAPitts]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?



If that's sarcasm, then you're good. But, if that's serious, please consider how wrong you are by reading the following:

1. Single handily revived console gaming when Atari and 3rd parties back then destroyed it.

2. Has been in the console business sense the early 80's.

3. Usually makes the most/second most powerful console of a gen, while also making it cheap, with the exception of Wii

4. Makes their consoles work, even when taken a lot of damage.

Oh yeah, they no nothing about hardware.

yes it was sarcasm and thank you for that reply. now...

Who said that? I think this is what annoys people about them. They have very capable designers yet they haven't pushed console hardware in a while.

::whistles::

 

[blu]

Developers.

Devs told you personally, or you read about it somewhere? If the latter, you can still provide a link. If the former, that's one of those things a smart dev would not let slip and just hang there. Vastly different CPU designs, as in OOE vs in-order, can differ vastly in their performance characteristics - the OOE cpu can run at much lower clocks and still be on par or outperform the in-order cpu in many tasks, whereas the in-order cpu can have higher peak FLOPs ratings (referring to VMX128 here, apparently), provided you can feed the cpu with data at those rates - something which depends further on the entire mem subsystem. So basically it's a fairly complicated subject and a developer should know better than that. Moreover, it flies against wsippel's recent finding about a CPU-bound middleware which allegedly peforms on-par or slightly better (after initial optimisations) on the U-CPU vs Xenon (where it's had a generation of optimisations). So, again, feel free to back such claims somehow.

 

[Donnie]

I have a question, did this "on par with this gen" fear get restarted because of what that guy from Vigil said?

Yep its all from that throw away line by some guy at Vigil, which actually contradicted what another member of Vigil said about the hardware being more powerful:

At the very least, Vigil believes that gamers can look forward to ports to Nintendo’s new console that are not inferior to every other version of the game. When we asked Bonstead if he thought it was possible that the Wii U version of Darksiders II would be the best version of the game, he said, "Yeah, just because the hardware is more powerful and it will have some extra features that I think will actually be useful to people playing the game. With it’s controller, [the Wii U version of Darksiders II] might be the best version of the game."

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...3-be-the-best-platform-for-darksiders-ii.aspx

 

[GameplayWhore]

What is shocking to me is that you can make a system that is more capable than 360/ps3 without breaking a sweat. Nintendo is going out of their way to make an average system. With just a little more investment and foresight they could be set for a decade :/ Even if they want to save money they could do what they did with Gamecube. Invest now and recycle the hardware for the next system after the Wii U.

Cheap bastards lol

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

Here's what we sort of "know" about the performance so far:

The cpu is IBM Power Architecture based (that much is official). Wikipedia claims that it's POWER 7 based, but I can't find a source for that. Popular hubbub has it that it will be triple-core but with each core being more capable than Xenon on the 360. This means that cpu-dependent games which are specifically optimised for the 360 but not optimized for the Wii U could run slower on the latter even though it is, from a hardware standpoint, more powerful.

The gpu is AMD based. An AMD engineer (I think that this has been sourced in the last three 100ppp pages here) last year claimed that it would be capable of greater than 1 TFLOPS total performance. This would put it at least at 3x (if I hedge it pessimistically) what the Xbox 360 is capable of, as it is capable of ¼ TFLOPS. (edit: I know there are other elements to the gpu, like Texels/s and soforth -- anybody got a reasonable range based on anything we've actually heard?)

The memory is substantially higher than 1GB (as per hints from a generally trustworthy attention whore in this thread) and almost certainly not above 2GB (for reasons of the limitations of physics and current layout of high performance memory chips).

That's what it seems that we're most certain of. At minimum, it looks like much more of a gap from Xbox 360 → Wii U than we had from Xbox → Wii.

 

[wsippel]

The specs that have been leaked have been pretty much spot on so far. The CPU is weaker than 360 which is pretty shocking, the graphics card is DX10 class, and there was 1GB of RAM last I heard. Now some info came out that the graphics card was around the level of a 4770 and there was possibly an increase in RAM - I have no idea whether or not those are true though. It will be the Wii in terms of specs in the coming generation though, that's for sure, in that it will be a bump compared to this generation but not even close to what MS and Sony will put out. What I've heard about MS plans mirrors Alberto - they are creating a monster of a console that will make graphics whore GAF weep tears of joy.

For me this is fine. I'm just happy to be able to play Nintendo games in HD for the first time and happy that PCs will soon no longer be chained to the floor by ancient technology.

Most of the old rumors are seemingly completely worthless. The GPU is very unlike PC GPUs so using "DX-levels" is bullshit, and if recent statements by middleware developers are anything to go by, the CPU is actually faster than Xenon in pretty much all areas, and much faster in some.

 

[radcliff]

I beleive Iwata said the 2D Mario for 3ds will launch this fiscal year, so anytime between now and 3/31/13. This could mean NSMB could be a launch game for Wii U (say September), with the 3DS game early next year.

 

[idwl]

maybe nintendo told that vigil guy to say it was on par just so at E3 they can blow us away

 

[GameplayWhore]

Will said pancakes come with the Nintendo seal of quality? And will you have to flip them? I'm so bad a flipping pankcakes.

That's only if you're running "Cooking Mama: U Fry Edition" in the disc slot.

 

[Christine]

Just muddying the waters further.



http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/26/rumor-stripped-down-xbox-planned-for-2013/

Could be an effective way to execute the long tail for their consoles. Each Xbox gets re-branded as Kinect as the next Xbox launches. This is a somewhat palatable way to excuse not supporting backward compatibility, make some nice profits, and potentially sideline Wii U's head start.

 

[tkscz]

Yep its all from that throw away line by some guy at Vigil, which actually contradicted what another member of Vigil said about the hardware being more powerful:



http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...3-be-the-best-platform-for-darksiders-ii.aspx

More than likely, he didn't mean the hardware itself is on par, but what they used the hardware for was on par.

 

[Rösti]

No news, but a modest article about what it could mean for Nintendo if Wii U turns out to be little more than an Xbox 360 on steroids: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...nly-has-current-generation-hardware-power.ars

 

[Disorientator]

Sorry if old (tried searching first - results were a mess) but:

Is this Youtube channel, titled Super Smash Bros Universe OST, for real?

There's even a "demo cover":

Was Smash Bros Universe ever confirmed, other than those "leaks" a couple of months ago?

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Here's what we sort of "know" about the performance so far:

The cpu is IBM Power Architecture based (that much is official). Wikipedia claims that it's POWER 7 based, but I can't find a source for that. Popular hubbub has it that it will be triple-core but with each core being more capable than Xenon on the 360. This means that cpu-dependent games which are specifically optimised for the 360 but not optimized for the Wii U could run slower on the latter even though it is, from a hardware standpoint, more powerful.

The gpu is AMD based. An AMD engineer (I think that this has been sourced in the last three 100ppp pages here) last year claimed that it would be capable of greater than 1 TFLOPS total performance. This would put it at least at 3x (if I hedge it pessimistically) what the Xbox 360 is capable of, as it is capable of ¼ TFLOPS. (edit: I know there are other elements to the gpu, like Texels/s and soforth -- anybody got a reasonable range based on anything we've actually heard?)

The memory is substantially higher than 1GB (as per hints from a generally trustworthy attention whore in this thread) and almost certainly not above 2GB (for reasons of the limitations of physics and current layout of high performance memory chips).

That's what it seems that we're most certain of. At minimum, it looks like much more of a gap from Xbox 360 → Wii U than we had from Xbox → Wii.

If the 1 TFLOP GPU is true, that's 4x the XB360's Xenos GPU. Of course there are other things to consider, like you said, texels/s and pixels/s (texture units and ROPs, etc).

 

[AndyH]

Ok, tell me what you've heard. If its nothing more specific than "less powerful" than you shouldn't put much stock in it yourself if I were you, as that could simply be down to the clock speed being lower. The CPU is a triple core out of order processor with about 3 times as much L2 cache as Xenon. The out of order execution and larger L2 should go a long way to improving performance over Xenon. Even if its lower clocked.

Just less powerful. I don't know any specifics about its operation though. Like I said I was shocked when I heard that myself so it might end up just being an opinion of a dev who isn't really sure them self in the end as they are not directly working with the hardware. This all might have just been an old dev kit as well - I didn't bother to try prying further.

Devs told you personally.

Yes, but like I said they aren't working with Wii U. I'm more sure of MS plans than what Nintendo are up to, but even then I am not privy to the specifics of the architectures they are using.

The cpu is IBM Power Architecture based (that much is official). Wikipedia claims that it's POWER 7 based, but I can't find a source for that. Popular hubbub has it that it will be triple-core but with each core being more capable than Xenon on the 360. This means that cpu-dependent games which are specifically optimised for the 360 but not optimized for the Wii U could run slower on the latter even though it is, from a hardware standpoint, more powerful.

This could also be part of the reason I heard complaints about the CPU, like I said I don't know for sure what exactly is going on.

 

[ozfunghi]

No news, but a modest article about what it could mean for NIntendo if Wii U turns out to be little more than an Xbox 360 on steroids: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...nly-has-current-generation-hardware-power.ars

Already posted in a hard to overlook post