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Wii U Speculation Thread The Third: Casting Dreams in The Castle of Miyamoto

So a few weeks ago we were riding high on comments form the likes of Epic, Dice and Crytek praising the system, and were hearing reports of dev kit improvements and increases in power.

Everyone was so happy. Do you remember that guys? Everyone was so happy...

Now it's weaker than the XBOX 360.

Right.
 

popeutlal

Member
So the ports will be superior on Wii U for a year, then will go back to being inferior when the other two consoles are released, or ports might not even be released on Wii U at all...

So nothing will change from N64, GC and Wii when it comes to third parties.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
That can be easily interpreted as the WiiU being more powerful than the Wii, hence his comment about ports that are not inferior to every other version this time. (which was the case with the Wii)

Come on- that is a stretch.
 

magash

Member
That can be easily interpreted as the WiiU being more powerful than the Wii, hence his comment about ports that are not inferior to every other version this time. (which was the case with the Wii)

I do not detect a single contradiction to the articles posted today and a few days ago.

If that is the case where is the Wii's version of Darksiders?
 

ozfunghi

Member
That can be easily interpreted as the WiiU being more powerful than the Wii, hence his comment about ports that are not inferior to every other version this time. (which was the case with the Wii)

I do not detect a single contradiction to the articles posted today and a few days ago.

Oh? I wasn't aware Vigil had worked on the Wii before or that they were making DSII for Wii.
 

DynamicG

Member
So the ports will be superior on Wii U for a year, then will go back to being inferior when the other two consoles are released, or ports might not even be released on Wii U at all...

So nothing will change from N64, GC and Wii when it comes to third parties.

At this point in time is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect Nintendo hardware to get 3rd party ports? This has been an issue long enough that I just no longer expect most 3rd party ports.
 
That can be easily interpreted as the WiiU being more powerful than the Wii, hence his comment about ports that are not inferior to every other version this time. (which was the case with the Wii)

I do not detect a single contradiction to the articles posted today and a few days ago.

Easily interpreted by someone that wants to see it that way I suppose.

Darksiders, last time I checked, wasn't on Wii.

So if he is saying that the new game could be the best looking version(the new one isn't on Wii either) because the system is more capable, he's not talking about it in comparison to the Wii.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
Come on- that is a stretch.

I think the other interpretation is a stretch. He's more excited (and he should be) about the features of the new controller than the hardware.

He also often refers back to the Wii in his article. It's weird to think he's suddenly talking about the other consoles in the final sentence.
 

lednerg

Member
Can we agree to not post any more of those Wii U "dev said" hardware threads? All they do is shit up the boards and bring people in here who shit up this thread. Nobody's going to lose their biases because some dev said this or that. In the end, it's going to be up to the games and demos at E3 - which is how it always has been and will ever be.
 
So a few weeks ago we were riding high on comments form the likes of Epic, Dice and Crytek praising the system, and were hearing reports of dev kit improvements and increases in power.

Everyone was so happy. Do you remember that guys? Everyone was so happy...

Now it's weaker than the XBOX 360.

Right.

the facts fall somewhere in the middle I think.

If this hardware was uberpowerful we would not have a middle ground to stand on.
but if software have to be optimized to tap the little edge that the WiiU has over current gen then people will just focus on it being weaker rather than waiting for that optimization

wasn't the PS3 suppose to be a beast compared to 360? What happened to that? After awhile people just forget and after seeing the results and some games turning out better on 360 no one believes in those claims much anymore.

If the WiiU is just getting by on Optimized software it deserves the flack that its getting and Nintendo does not care about this shit at all.

Epic's statements are just good for business it does not prove anything unless the have games on the WiiU to backup those words
 

HylianTom

Banned
At this point in time is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect Nintendo hardware to get 3rd party ports? This has been an issue long enough that I just no longer expect most 3rd party ports.

I don't expect it very much at all. Just a few good titles per year, and then garbage for the rest of what is released.

If Sony & MS go all-out on power and smaller/middling-sized companies are hesitant to go into "AAAA budgetland," we may see a bit more. But I'm convinced that they'll try to keep-up with the big boys..
 
Can we agree to not post any more of those Wii U "dev said" hardware threads? All they do is shit up the boards and bring people in here who shit up this thread. Nobody's going to lose their biases because some dev said this or that. In the end, it's going to be up to the games and demos at E3 - which is how it always has been and will ever be.

Seconded!
 
At this point in time is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect Nintendo hardware to get 3rd party ports? This has been an issue long enough that I just no longer expect most 3rd party ports.

If I'm being totally honest - I don't really care about 3rd party ports either way. I don't buy Nintendo systems to play ports, I buy them for 1st party goodness.
 
So the ports will be superior on Wii U for a year, then will go back to being inferior when the other two consoles are released, or ports might not even be released on Wii U at all...

So nothing will change from N64, GC and Wii when it comes to third parties.

Oh if this optimization thing pans out what makes you think we won't get ports that look worst on WiiU?

this is going to be some fun times with lots of meltdowns and greyed out names
 
Can we agree to not post any more of those Wii U "dev said" hardware threads? All they do is shit up the boards and bring people in here who shit up this thread. Nobody's going to lose their biases because some dev said this or that. In the end, it's going to be up to the games and demos at E3 - which is how it always has been and will ever be.

we don't have to start them, if trolls and even mods are going to start them anyway this will not end
 

Door2Dawn

Banned
If I'm being totally honest - I don't really care about 3rd party ports either way. I don't buy Nintendo systems to play ports, I buy them for 1st party goodness.
Yeah you'll buy it for the Nintendo games, and then drop it like a hot potato because they can't support their own system by themselves for 4 years.

They need third party games. Period.
 

DCKing

Member
@Ideaman: how does that explain the comments that say "it just doesn't have the shading power"?

I just can't fathom how the Wii U or any of the earlier devkits could have less shading power than a 360. Even overheating underclocked GPUs should easily beat it in that area at least.
 

Nibel

Member
Can we agree to not post any more of those Wii U "dev said" hardware threads? All they do is shit up the boards and bring people in here who shit up this thread. Nobody's going to lose their biases because some dev said this or that. In the end, it's going to be up to the games and demos at E3 - which is how it always has been and will ever be.

Sign.
 

99%

Member
The gpu in the WiiU is more powerful than the xenos or the rsx. on paper, it appears significantly moreso. reality, though, given the complexity of next generation graphics features -- IT MIGHT AS WELL BE THE EXACT SAME 2006/2007 GENERATION. it could be 5X the on-paper performance and still eke out no more than a couple extra fps given the same assets and rendering pipeline in real world results -- and can even look worse in early dev situations. until people understand the complexity of current rendering and effects models and why the require GEOMETRICALLY more horsepower (i.e. vastly greater shader resources) to see significant visual improvements at higher pixel counts and frame rates, they're yakking about shit that is wholly, entirely academic and therefore 100% useless in the real world of game and graphics development.
 

Thraktor

Member
Re: Comments on the CPU

In almost all real-world in-game scenarios with properly optimised code, the Wii U's CPU should outperform the XBox360's CPU, even if it's clocked as low as ~2.5GHz. That's even ignoring the impact of the dedicated I/O processor and DSP.

As far as I can see, there are three reasons a developer could come away with the impression that the Wii U's CPU is less capable:

1. They're working on early dev-kits.
2. They're working with poorly-optimised middleware.
3. They're not very smart.

Point 1 is very plausible, as not every developer will have the latest round of dev-kits yet, and we know there's a bump in performance with them.

Point 2 is very likely. As wsippel pointed out, there is middleware out there which has seen massive performance improvements on the Wii U over the past few weeks due to optimisation. I've seen the document he's talking about, and as I understand it, said middleware doesn't even make use of the dedicated hardware yet. There's likely to be a lot of other middleware out there which is still unoptimised, and developers who use it and don't know any better will be liable to blame the hardware.

This brings us to point 3. There are a lot of people in the video games business, not all of whom are particularly intelligent. And in my opinion, the ones who leak these sorts of vague stories with trolly comments like the Mario one are much less likely to be intelligent than the sensible ones who keep their mouths shut.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
the facts fall somewhere in the middle I think.

If this hardware was uberpowerful we would not have a middle ground to stand on.
but if software have to be optimized to tap the little edge that the WiiU has over current gen then people will just focus on it being weaker rather than waiting for that optimization

wasn't the PS3 suppose to be a beast compared to 360? What happened to that? After awhile people just forget and after seeing the results and some games turning out better on 360 no one believes in those claims much anymore.

If the WiiU is just getting by on Optimized software it deserves the flack that its getting and Nintendo does not care about this shit at all.

Epic's statements are just good for business it does not prove anything unless the have games on the WiiU to backup those words

No, the extra-power of the Wii U won't come exclusively from "optimizations to a different hardware", there are more powerful and more in quantity components in it than doesn't require tons of tailoring hardship to benefit from. It's just some specifics area of a game, of an engine (sound, physics, ai, etc.), often handled by middleware solutions, that seems to struggle on the Wii U CPU in some cases (because other statements declared that the CPU is better that its current gen equivalent). We can surely assume it will only get better, considering the audio middleware example (they found a solution to the initial crap performance of their software, through optimizations of course), and there's time for Nintendo to see what in the CPU design or in SDK, the tools for developing on Wii U, could cause these difficulties.
 

Christine

Member
I think the other interpretation is a stretch. He's more excited (and he should be) about the features of the new controller than the hardware.

He also often refers back to the Wii in his article. It's weird to think he's suddenly talking about the other consoles in the final sentence.

The article never refers to Wii's hardware power; the comparison made is quite specifically between the remote and the padlet.

It's also not weird to think he's talking about PS3/360 in the final quote. In fact, it's impossible that he's referring to anything else. Look at the question again: "[Is it] possible that the Wii U version of Darksiders II [will] be the best version of the game?"

Any coherent answer to that question can only refer to other platforms that host Darksiders II.
 

Anth0ny

Member
So the ports will be superior on Wii U for a year, then will go back to being inferior when the other two consoles are released, or ports might not even be released on Wii U at all...

So nothing will change from N64, GC and Wii when it comes to third parties.

Pretty much.

But at least first party Nintendo games will be pretty ^_^

I'm going to attempt to change the subject by doing what I do best: posting dolphin shots of Wind Waker!

Zelda%20WW%2054.jpg


IIQUE.jpg


Look forward to it!
 
No, the extra-power of the Wii U won't come exclusively from "optimizations to a different hardware", there are more powerful and more in quantity components in it than doesn't require tons of tailoring hardship to benefit from. It's just some specifics area of a game, of an engine (sound, physics, ai, etc.), often handled by middleware solutions, that seems to struggle on the Wii U CPU in some cases (because other statements declared that the CPU is better that its current gen equivalent). We can surely assume it will only get better, considering the audio middleware example (they found a solution to the initial crap performance of their software, through optimizations of course), and there's time for Nintendo to see what in the CPU design or in SDK, the tools for developing on Wii U, could cause these difficulties.

so all of this "The Sky is Falling" is for nothing?

Are these not the same middleware that Nintendo had press releases about? How long until these issues are solved and devs take back what they have been saying?

I would like to see a dev that was saying negative things come back and say wow but will this ever happen? I believe you ideaman but I think those devs will continue to have negative things to say. I wonder which publisher is forcing them to make WiiU games :)
 

guek

Banned
I think the other interpretation is a stretch. He's more excited (and he should be) about the features of the new controller than the hardware.

He also often refers back to the Wii in his article. It's weird to think he's suddenly talking about the other consoles in the final sentence.

There are as many sources, most of which are official sources by actual named developers rather than anonymous leaks, that put the wii u at a point beyond the current gen as there are that put it at par or below.

If you haven't done the research or refuse to believe anything but your own cherry picked rumors, that's your fucking problem.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
PAX East begins this Friday, I wouldn't wanna be in Nintendo's shoes once the inevitable flood of agitated gamers begin to storm their booth. Of course could a miracle happen and Reggie or someone else at Nintendo declares stuff about Wii U's capabilities, but more likely is a scenario where no Wii U demo units are featured at PAX and people are grumpy to the point where their attendance at Nintendo's booth becomes a nuisance.

“We do not focus on technology specs. We understand that people like to dissect graphics and processing power, but the experience of playing will always be more important than raw numbers.”
Nintendo of America speaks intriguing words, not for third party developers interested in sensible portability though, at least if these "rumors" about Wii U being technically inferior to Xbox 360 are true.
 

Penguin

Member
So the ports will be superior on Wii U for a year, then will go back to being inferior when the other two consoles are released, or ports might not even be released on Wii U at all...

So nothing will change from N64, GC and Wii when it comes to third parties.

Well most likely, they get ports from this gen throughout their first year
And the 2nd year will mostly be developers coming to terms with the next Xbox/PlayStation so you'll still get ports and the likes since will mostly be better looking 360/PS3 games.

And then?
The industry is unpredictable. I'm sure some brands will shine, some brands will flourish. Maybe more support, maybe less.

Its hard to say.. when we still have no idea what Nintendo's actual focus for the device is. In terms of their own game releases.
 

DynamicG

Member
Yeah you'll buy it for the Nintendo games, and then drop it like a hot potato because they can't support their own system by themselves for 4 years.

They need third party games. Period.

Good of you to tell him what he'll do. I'm in the same boat as he is. I buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games. Been doing so since the start and I have yet to drop any of them like a potato, hot or not.

The point I was getting at was that individual gamers have individual preferences. How many of the folks who buy Nintendo consoles do so exclusively for Nintendo games?
 
I guess I am the only one who would like even more negative news so that Nintendo would be forced to do damage control by leaking screens of Retro Studio's game?
Or allowing Ubisoft to release screens

Pretty much.

But at least first party Nintendo games will be pretty ^_^

I'm going to attempt to change the subject by doing what I do best: posting dolphin shots of Wind Waker!

Zelda%20WW%2054.jpg


IIQUE.jpg


Look forward to it!

there is no Wind Waker port to WiiU :mad: this just makes me sad and angry
 
I think it's safe to say that for a year-ish, we'll be getting the definitive version of multi-plat titles.

That's if 3rd party developers are concerned with porting games over to the Wii U and putting in that little extra effort to make ti look better.
 

sfried

Member
Rösti;36647846 said:
Nintendo of America speaks intriguing words, not for third party developers interested in sensible portability though, at least if these "rumors" about Wii U being technically inferior to Xbox 360 are true.
They've always been vague. Remember their initial statement about Xenoblade and The Last Story?
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
There are as many sources, most of which are official sources by actual named developers rather than anonymous leaks, that put the wii u at a point beyond the current gen as there are that put it at par or bellow.

If you haven't done the research or refuse to believe anything but your own cherry picked rumors, that's your fucking problem.

Calm down. I don't refuse to believe anything, i'm just saying things might be interpreted in different ways.

But seeing that you still refer to the CVG and GI articles as "anonymous leaks" versus "actual named developers", amuses me greatly.
 
I think it's safe to say that for a year-ish, we'll be getting the definitive version of multi-plat titles.

That's if 3rd party developers are concerned with porting games over to the Wii U and putting in that little extra effort to make ti look better.

what if Nintendo launches in November and Microsoft launches in April 2013?
And Sony launches in Feb. 2013 just to say to MS Hahaha... where is your definitive ports noaw?

wait... I'm a Nintendo fan what has gotten into me >_<
 

ozfunghi

Member
But seeing that you still refer to the CVG and GI articles as "anonymous leaks" versus "actual named developers", amuses me greatly.

Because?


The gpu in the WiiU is more powerful than the xenos or the rsx. on paper, it appears significantly moreso. reality, though, given the complexity of next generation graphics features -- IT MIGHT AS WELL BE THE EXACT SAME 2006/2007 GENERATION. it could be 5X the on-paper performance and still eke out no more than a couple extra fps given the same assets and rendering pipeline in real world results -- and can even look worse in early dev situations. until people understand the complexity of current rendering and effects models and why the require GEOMETRICALLY more horsepower (i.e. vastly greater shader resources) to see significant visual improvements at higher pixel counts and frame rates, they're yakking about shit that is wholly, entirely academic and therefore 100% useless in the real world of game and graphics development.

So... you know something or you're just posing?
 
what if Nintendo launches in November and Microsoft launches in April 2013?
And Sony launches in Feb. 2013 just to say to MS Hahaha... where is your definitive ports noaw?

wait... I'm a Nintendo fan what has gotten into me >_<

Yeah dude, come on!

And XBOX will release late next year I think... not too sure about Sony, they're tough to call.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned

Because websites like CVG and GI don't throw up random rumors just for kicks.
Again, they are statements made by verified Wii-U developers, of which a few are working on "big name franchises", and just chose to remain anonymous not to lose their job.
 

guek

Banned
But seeing that you still refer to the CVG and GI articles as "anonymous leaks" versus "actual named developers", amuses me greatly.

Because you like trolling this thread like a jackass? Well at least you're having fun.

They are anonymous to us in any case, which does make a difference. I'm not trying to say those sites got carrier pigeon letters one day signed "anonymous." For all we know, they're anonymous to those sites too. For all we know, they're second hand sources from friends of developers that are relaying the information without giving specific ties to companies or games. Or they could be from a dev who is in touch directly with those sites but asks to be made anonymous for obvious reasons. But all of those things are very different from developer spokesmen going on camera or on record about the hardware. But go ahead and keep pretending like there's no difference.



Anyway, something that seems to have gone under the radar from that CVG article is this tid bit:
A second source working on a big name franchise said GPU and RAM power...It's not actually a problem getting things up and running because the architecture is pretty conventional...

So there might be a big name franchise coming to wii u according to this rumor. It could be AC or maybe even Arkham City or something we don't even know about. That is if this rumor is credible at all.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
Because you like trolling this thread like a jackass? Well at least you're having fun.

Right, so now i'm a just troll and a jackass for having an viewpoint that differs from your own.

This right here is why most people avoid this thread like the plague, and discussion goes to die. Keep it up.
 
Actually, I'm also a developper myself, but I won't tell who I am, and for who I work. But I can say that Wii U will be powerfull as NES, and will display 5D graphics with holograms. It will also travel in the time.
 

HylianTom

Banned
Actually, I'm also a developper myself, but I won't tell who I am, and for who I work. But I can say that Wii U will be powerfull as NES, and will display 5D graphics with holograms. It will also travel in the time.

Welcome aboard! Have you been verified yet?
(no offense - we ask this of everyone..)
 
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