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Wii U Community Thread

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MDX

Member


The first round of this process has already been completed.

Darth_Vader.jpg
 

AzaK

Member
I've heard Nintendo say that many times, only to end up getting just a little more leg. Hype cannot penetrate my suit of pure jadedness.


"Thankfully the game isn't out until next year," he added, "but it's certainly not something that we've cracked yet."]

Pro-tip

Wii-U-pro-controller-pachter-nintendo.jpg

It's great developers are trying to find good ways to use the GamePad but they shouldn't worry about it if it doesn't fit their game. Just stick a Hud/Menu on it. I'd much rather have the game than not.
 
It's great developers are trying to find good ways to use the GamePad but they shouldn't worry about it if it doesn't fit their game. Just stick a Hud/Menu on it. I'd much rather have the game than not.

Yeah, there are a lot of really low resource uses of the GamePad that could either enhance the game a little or just amuse the player while not actually being required at all. I'm all in for having a Blazkowicz head on the subscreen in shooting games. :D
 

MDX

Member
It's great developers are trying to find good ways to use the GamePad but they shouldn't worry about it if it doesn't fit their game. Just stick a Hud/Menu on it. I'd much rather have the game than not.

Yes, if they cant get the controller to work out, then use the extra power to make
the game graphically stand out from the current gen versions. And if its an FPS, now would be a great time to give us all those wiimote controlled fps's we were waiting for on the Wii.

The myopic view of some of these people is astounding.
 

AzaK

Member
Yes, if they cant get the controller to work out, then use the extra power to make
the game graphically stand out from the current gen versions. And if its an FPS, now would be a great time to give us all those wiimote controlled fps's we were waiting for on the Wii.

The myopic view of some of these people is astounding.

It's like they think that Wii/U owners aren't actually interested in games, just gimmicks. Therefore without hacking in some fancy functionality with the controller, we'll not bother buying it. As you said, myopic, and also dangerous for the platform and game sales.

Hopefully they won't say in this mindset for long.
 

10k

Banned
Personally, I don't think the Wii U will be much more powerful than the HD twins. I understand the frustration with Ninty fans wanting more power under the hood (though how much power it have is publicly unknown). My point is that at the end of the day the success or failure of the Wii U will depend directly on software and not hardware grunt just like every other generation.
Yes software is king. Unfortunately Nintendo doesn't offer enough software from their own studios to justify a console purchase, hence the importance of third party games. Third party games which may skip out on wii u because of weak specs. That is my only concern. I Have accepted the fact that Nintendo will always release the weakest console but I want it to at least get ports of the other two consoles so I don't need to purchase a second console.
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
That looks so uncomfortable OH MY GAWD THIS FUCKING COMPANY WILL NEVER LEARN *destroys Reggie shrine*

I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?
 

Meelow

Banned
I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?

Because it would of been a 360 controller.
 

Nibel

Member
I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?

I think the Xbox 360 button layout is patented.
 

Zero148

Member
I think the reason is simply, to have the same button layout on the pro controller as on the gamepad. And that makes actually sense.

But why the second stick on the gamepad isn't unter the face buttons is another question. Now we need a fourth console, which has the left stick under the dpad and the right stick above the face buttons and we have every possible layout on the market ^^
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
Because it would of been a 360 controller.

Here's a even better idea. Take the GameCube controller and replace the nub stick with a proper stick, and make the buttons proportional, add a left shoulder. Done.

Better than copying the 360 layout and dropping the stick into a inopportune spot.
 
I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?

My concern is the placement of the a,b,x,y buttons. I know that's how they've been since the SNES, but I know I'm going to get confused. Now we have three different controllers with the x button in three different places lol. I know I always get confused when I switch from my 360 to my DS.
 

prag16

Banned
Here's a even better idea. Take the GameCube controller and replace the nub stick with a proper stick, and make the buttons proportional, add a left shoulder. Done.

Better than copying the 360 layout and dropping the stick into a inopportune spot.

This. I know there's hate for the GCN controller in some quarters. But it probably is still my favorite controller. Make the changes you mentioned, plus I guess clicky analog sticks, and you're golden; not even sure if I'd feel the need to change the buttons any to "make them proportional". Great controller.
 

The_Lump

Banned
I think the Xbox 360 button layout is patented.


By nintendo? It's a GameCube controller! :p

Also, to me the lowered right stick never made sense, most of the time your thumbs are on two sticks, and keeping your hands symmetrical helps with the thumb cramps.
 
By nintendo? It's a GameCube controller! :p

Also, to me the lowered right stick never made sense, most of the time your thumbs are on two sticks, and keeping your hands symmetrical helps with the thumb cramps.

Yeah, I think the decision stems from the button layouts of modern FPS games. The action takes place mostly on the two sticks and shoulder buttons. For fighters and such, there's always the CC and CC Pro. It's just another option and it's obviously specialized for a particular genre.
 

10k

Banned
I think the reason is simply, to have the same button layout on the pro controller as on the gamepad. And that makes actually sense.

But why the second stick on the gamepad isn't unter the face buttons is another question. Now we need a fourth console, which has the left stick under the dpad and the right stick above the face buttons and we have every possible layout on the market ^^

I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?
Because when you play an fps you usually use the dual analog and triggers.

When you play somethin like Zelda or Mario I guess you use the analog and face buttons. It makes fps's better by being able to reach fe trigger quickly? I dunno. Maybe Nintendo didn't want to copy the 360 Look.
 

The_Lump

Banned
Something interesting I noticed while looking up the PPC 476fp was that it can do four instructions per cycle (or 5 depending on the source - I think 4 is likely accurate). This is in comparison to Xenon's 2 instructions per thread. Perhaps there was some confusion there since it evens out? Although thread level parallelism is a whole different ballgame than instruction level parallelism in coding. For instance, Xenon could have 2 threads on a core both accessing the VMX128 unit, which would be impossible on a 476fp, even if they put VMX on there. Then again, Xenon's L2 cache was both shared and limited, which could have caused problems in scenarios such as that. I have to search for some more developer comments on the issue, but I found that kinda interesting.


Interesting, thanks for the insights. Is that 4 instructions dependent on the number of cores?

To my uneducated brain, SMT sounds like something too fundamental to just be removed once it's in there. So given lherre said it was there, I'll believe that over a rumour stating its now gone.
 
I don't understand why Nintendo wanted to place the right stick above the face buttons. Just to be different, because it seems to amount to nothing more than that. My instinctive muscle memory for my right thumb is to go upwards toward a button, not down. Doesn't seem like a hard habit to break, but why place it there besides just wanting to be different?

Maybe they did usability testing and found that there's less stress for the analog sticks to be up top. After all, your left thumb moves up for the stick -- why would it be fundamentally less comfortable or less healthy for the right thumb to perform the same action for the same?

I mean, you could say that Microsoft chose their current layout just to be different from the PS2's, but it is certainly seen as an advantage to some. At the moment, we can only speculate, but it's just as accurate to say Nintendo did it this way "because it's better" than it is to say that they did it "to be different".

I'm thinking that another possibility is that they saw how popular 2D games still have the potential to be and decided that they didn't want to stagger the "classic SNES" layout.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Interesting, thanks for the insights. Is that 4 instructions dependent on the number of cores?

To my uneducated brain, SMT sounds like something too fundamental to just be removed once it's in there. So given lherre said it was there, I'll believe that over a rumour stating its now gone.
The instruction dispatch abilities are per core, ie. independent of the number of cores. Also, those 4 instructions are dispatched and retired out-of-order, which is a big advantage over a similar in-order design.

As re SMT, it's a way to better utilize the cpu units, given the instruction parallelism is not sufficient. Not to be confused with SMP.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
O-Live?

Hmm. Not sure what the "O" stands for unless it's "Origin."
 

Meelow

Banned
Someone posted a topic on Gamefaq (I know it's Gamefaq lol), but he has a good theory about Monoithsoft new game, this is the artwork they shown for there new game saying it could be Baten Kaitos 3


New game Artwork
art_19205_id_1.jpeg


This is from Baten Kaitos, in a way they look alike.
Diadem.jpg
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It sounds like she meant to say "online".
 
I hope they release Origins (and the first game) on VC if they do make a sequel. I've played through a good portion of the first, but didn't pounce on Origins in time and now I think it's rare. Beautiful games, but after Xenoblade, I'd be disappointed if they didn't take the concepts of that battle system a bit further. It really did feel like a satisfying evolution of all the things which made the 16-bit RPGs so great.

The O-live thing I agree, is probably a mistake. Unless she meant to say "Do-Live" You down with the 'do? haha
 

Pineconn

Member
Like I said a few pages back, I'd bet that O-Live is just Miiverse before it was called Miiverse.

It sounds like she meant to say "online".

No way. She was clearly in a state of thought, preceded with "new," and ended with "system." Why would she say new online system? Plus, the "O"s are different in each term. Own-line? Nah.

EDIT: I sounded like a conceited ass in the last paragraph. I really didn't mean to, though. :p
 

MDX

Member
Interesting, thanks for the insights. Is that 4 instructions dependent on the number of cores?

To my uneducated brain, SMT sounds like something too fundamental to just be removed once it's in there. So given lherre said it was there, I'll believe that over a rumour stating its now gone.

well...

Simultaneous multithreading cannot improve performance if any of the shared resources are limiting bottlenecks for the performance. In fact, some applications run slower when simultaneous multithreading is enabled. Critics argue that it is a considerable burden to put on software developers that they have to test whether simultaneous multithreading is good or bad for their application in various situations and insert extra logic to turn it off if it decreases performance. Current operating systems lack convenient API calls for this purpose and for preventing processes with different priority from taking resources from each other.[2]

There is also a security concern with certain simultaneous multithreading implementations. Intel's hyperthreading implementation has a vulnerability through which it is possible for one application to steal a cryptographic key from another application running in the same processor by monitoring its cache use.[3]

Maybe Nintendo's design is not conducive to using SMTs.
 

10k

Banned
News to me too, I'm not too familiar with O-live, any details anyone can share.
Maybe on-live was what she said?

2 things wrong with that video.

1) it was a Sony Tv being used for the demo! Blasphemy!
all my tvs are sony haha :p
2) omfg the fingerprints on that GamePad!
 
Interesting, thanks for the insights. Is that 4 instructions dependent on the number of cores?

To my uneducated brain, SMT sounds like something too fundamental to just be removed once it's in there. So given lherre said it was there, I'll believe that over a rumour stating its now gone.

Np, and thanks to Blu for clarifying. The varying reports on SMT (or lack thereof) are truly baffling. My only guess is perhaps Nintendo was working on a chip w/ IBM up to last year - some sort of stripped down POWER7 - but decided to ditch it in the end due to heat output or perhaps difficulty in achieving BC w/ Wii. There was a rumor that the chip was running at 3.5 or 3.6 Ghz (I forget which) that I recently came across again when looking through some old posts. Now, it's apparently anywhere from "a little bit slower" to "closer to Broadway than Xenon." Very strange indeed, but wsippel's discovery that they broke library compatibility back in April seems to indicate something was changed.
 

AzaK

Member
Np, and thanks to Blu for clarifying. The varying reports on SMT (or lack thereof) are truly baffling. My only guess is perhaps Nintendo was working on a chip w/ IBM up to last year - some sort of stripped down POWER7 - but decided to ditch it in the end due to heat output or perhaps difficulty in achieving BC w/ Wii. There was a rumor that the chip was running at 3.5 or 3.6 Ghz (I forget which) that I recently came across again when looking through some old posts. Now, it's apparently anywhere from "a little bit slower" to "closer to Broadway than Xenon." Very strange indeed, but wsippel's discovery that they broke library compatibility back in April seems to indicate something was changed.

Interesting hypothesis. I didn't think about the possibility that they might have changed the chip altogether. That would certainly account for the need to recompile everything and explain this discrepancy in clock speed indications from way back to recently.
 
Interesting hypothesis. I didn't think about the possibility that they might have changed the chip altogether. That would certainly account for the need to recompile everything and explain this discrepancy in clock speed indications from way back to recently.

Yeah, it's kind of out there, but it's the only thing I can think of to make sense of the whole situation other than that some of what we're hearing (or heard previously) is blatant misinformation.
 

big_erk

Member
This. I know there's hate for the GCN controller in some quarters. But it probably is still my favorite controller. Make the changes you mentioned, plus I guess clicky analog sticks, and you're golden; not even sure if I'd feel the need to change the buttons any to "make them proportional". Great controller.

I bet most of the hate for the GC controller comes from people who never bothered to pick on up and use it. I loved the button layout on that puppy. Some one needs to design and market a pro controller with that layout.
 

AzaK

Member
Yeah, it's kind of out there, but it's the only thing I can think of to make sense of the whole situation other than that some of what we're hearing (or heard previously) is blatant misinformation.

Yeah. Man I can't wait until someone opens up one of these babies and all is revealed. More exciting than the actual games at the moment :)
 
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