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[blu]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=34716696&highlight=#post34716696

One of the most epic quasi-tech threads in gaf's recent history, if only for the end spiel.

 

[suracity]

Which markets? I know about Korea and their fairly good success there, but where else? I'd like to hear more about this.

I currently live in Singapore and Maxsoft is the official distributor of Nintendo products in South Asia area (including Singapore , Malaysia , Indonesia , Philipines and Thailand). iQue is responsible for taking care of Nintendo products and do some localization work in mainland China.
Using 3DS as an example, SM3DL and Nintendogs got a "U.A.E Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore Official Product" seal on the case. It is basically the US version game without Club Nintendo reward PIN. But Oot3D does not have such a seal on it and it contains PIN. If we want to access eshop we must switch region to US, but there is noway to watch Nintendo Video because of the IP thing.
PS. If you have any detailed questions I'd like to answer.

 

[bgassassin]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=34716696&highlight=#post34716696

No wonder I missed it.

 

[Terrell]

I currently live in Singapore and Maxsoft is the official distributor of Nintendo products in South Asia area (including Singapore , Malaysia , Indonesia , Philipines and Thailand). iQue is responsible for taking care of Nintendo products and do some localization work in mainland China.
Using 3DS as an example, SM3DL and Nintendogs got a "U.A.E Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore Official Product" seal on the case. It is basically the US version game without Club Nintendo reward PIN. But Oot3D does not have such a seal on it and it contains PIN. If we want to access eshop we must switch region to US, but there is noway to watch Nintendo Video because of the IP thing.
PS. If you have any detailed questions I'd like to answer.

Well, I was aware that most Asian regions got products through distributors and that the level of service gained from said distributors was non-existent.

I had mentioned earlier in this thread (or in a Media Create thread, can't recall which) that I was absolutely overjoyed that Nintendo branched out into Asia starting (naturally) with Korea, including fully translating their games into Hangul.

I asked for Wii sales data in Korea to see how well that panned out for them, and depending on how well it did, I expect them to branch out into other regions, with Taiwan being the first, as they are the next most affluent Asian market not tied directly to China per se.

But yes, I could see Nintendo distributing download-only models in other regions, though I don't believe we would see quite the same level of support for the multitudes of languages in those regions. It really depends, as the market conditions are nowhere NEAR the same as places Nintendo already sells in themselves.

 

[AzaK]

Either that or they need good silicon yields and product burn-in tests to lock down their clocks. But when in doubt I'd personally go with the orange port.

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about

Man, since all the tech talk here has stopped I've lost a lot of interest in the thread, but as I glance over everyone's wishes for remakes, my hunger grows and grows for an HD remake of Super Mario Sunshine.

It could just be nostalgia infused delerium, but I have very very fond memories of that game; probably the fondest of all the 3D Marios for me. I don't remember any real problems with FLUDD as a lot of people seemed to but given that we would now have pointer and/or gyro control, combined with great graphical fidelity, I think the game could be a real winner.

 

[woo and indeed hoo]

Everyone has a different opinion of what constitutes a good FPS. Personally I think that if my health regenerates and I end up being forced into a series of scripted encounters, its an utterly crappy game, no matter what the budget.

I like you.

 

[shnord]

Anytime Super Mario Sunshine is mentioned, music from the game instantly plays in my head. So catchy.


Well I might as well hop on the specs prediction bandwagon.

Spoiler

Or run after it screaming and crying as it kicks up dust and pebbles in my face.

Worst case scenario?:

CPU: tri-core at 2.916 GHz
GPU: 320 SPUs at ~600 MHz
RAM: 1 GB
Nintendo Magic: 110%

The end. I'm not confident enough to get any more specific. Generally though, if the actual specs turn out to be less, that would be unfortunate...

*faces camera*

...for us all.

I don't understand why this is an issue if the GPU instructions are being translated anyway. Wouldn't it only be an issue for games that read from the framebuffer expecting a scene at the game's own defined resolution? Why not just render two scenes? A native "reference buffer" as well as a hi res buffer to be outputted which the game logic doesn't even know exists. Maybe I'm overlooking something really obvious though.

I was thinking about this lying in bed after I posted it and realized it would probably make more sense to only render the hi res scene and then just copy and downscale it to the reference buffer.

P.S. I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Terrell]

Worst case scenario?:

CPU: tri-core at 2.916 GHz
GPU: 320 SPUs at ~600 MHz
RAM: 1 GB
Pikmin Power Levels: Over 9000

Fixed.

 

[IlSignorCornetto]

nintendo magic will be over nine thousand

 

[Übermatik]

CPU: tri-core at 2.916 GHz
GPU: 320 SPUs at ~600 MHz
RAM: 1 GB
Nintendo Magic: 110%

Totally. People need to keep this in their mind when slating the console's abilities. This is good, fine - but it will be better.

What does GAF think about 1.5GB RAM? Was it Iherre that said they were dealing with 3GB in the dev kits, and it's usually double the final unit memory?

 

[wsippel]

It's up to Nintendo of course, but we might not have to wait until E3 for some substantial info. Some developers seemingly have stuff they want to show as soon as possible.

 

[DCKing]

There is no way the final unit will have a GPU with only 320 SPUs. I'm not as much of an optimist as some others, but 320 SPUs is just way too low. People need to stop going back to that RV730. It isn't happening. DigitalFoundry was not commenting on actual hardware.

If GCN or VLIW4, it will be 512 SPUs or thereabouts. If VLIW5, it will be 640. 480 at the very least.

Spoiler

What's also important about these larger GPUs is that the larger number of TMUs and ROPs involved as well. A 320 or 480 SPU chip would likely have the same amount of TMUs and ROPs Xenos has, and it would be very bottlenecked in that area. Nintendo's hardware wizards are not going to let that happen.

 

[AceBandage]

It's up to Nintendo of course, but we might not have to wait until E3 for some substantial info. Some developers seemingly have stuff they want to show as soon as possible.

Probably depends on what it is.
I'm betting exclusive stuff will be saved for E3, but they might let them start showing off the multiplatform games.

 

[blu]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about

That much is true. I'm an old whatchamacallit and senility is my best buddy. The only thing that can kick some senses in me is yogurt. Lots and lots of it.

Man, since all the tech talk here has stopped I've lost a lot of interest in the thread, but as I glance over everyone's wishes for remakes, my hunger grows and grows for an HD remake of Super Mario Sunshine.

It could just be nostalgia infused delerium, but I have very very fond memories of that game; probably the fondest of all the 3D Marios for me. I don't remember any real problems with FLUDD as a lot of people seemed to but given that we would now have pointer and/or gyro control, combined with great graphical fidelity, I think the game could be a real winner.

I want PN03 redone without all the fake baked GI, in a path-tracing renderer (and ergo not in HD, as it'd be impossible for any current gpu). Seriously.

 

[Wolfie5]

Probably depends on what it is.
I'm betting exclusive stuff will be saved for E3, but they might let them start showing off the multiplatform games.

4 months to E3...

Nintendo will of course save their games to E3, but hopefully there will be some info on the multi stuff at least.

 

[Azure J]

I still think 640 - 800 is the real SPU range with some strange numbers in between (like 720/768), but eh. At this point, I'm ready to hear more about RAM amount.

 

[AceBandage]

While specs interest me, the OS and Networking abilities of this thing have me far more captivated.
So many possibilities for this thing in terms of a user interface.

 

[antonz]

I still think 640 - 800 is the real SPU range with some strange numbers in between (like 720/768), but eh. At this point, I'm ready to hear more about RAM amount.

640 SPU is the logical Minimum. The reported first Dev Kit GPU was a 640 SPU part.

Thats why its so annoying when people do the hit and runs oh people are gonna be so disappointed stuff.

Outside of blatant trolls and people who refuse to accept reality we already have a decent baseline of what to expect. So unless Nintendo somehow nerfs the systems power most of us already have our expectations at reasonable levels.

 

[wsippel]

Probably depends on what it is.
I'm betting exclusive stuff will be saved for E3, but they might let them start showing off the multiplatform games.

I'd say that the developers who also sell middleware or do contract work are those who would be most interested in getting stuff out as early as possible.

 

[BY2K]

I hope the design of the UI is much different from the Wii, DSi and 3DS' OS. It's fine, but I want to see something new.

 

[blu]

640 SPU is the logical Minimum. The reported first Dev Kit GPU was a 640 SPU part.

Thats why its so annoying when people do the hit and runs oh people are gonna be so disappointed stuff.

Outside of blatant trolls and people who refuse to accept reality we already have a decent baseline of what to expect. So unless Nintendo somehow nerfs the systems power most of us already have our expectations at reasonable levels.

Do you also expect the shader architecture to be Wekiva-based? Just for keeping those expectations in check ; )

 

[Wolfie5]

You know, Nintendo usually have a "short" press conference at E3. 70 maybe 80 minutes long. The year they released Wii it was all about the games and some statistics.

I have a feeling we will hear about the online and other stuff(that isn´t games) before E3. Maybe some at GDC and some at the Fiscal Year end briefing. We did learn about NFC at the Q3 report.

 

[Mr Swine]

640 SPU is the logical Minimum. The reported first Dev Kit GPU was a 640 SPU part.

Thats why its so annoying when people do the hit and runs oh people are gonna be so disappointed stuff.

Outside of blatant trolls and people who refuse to accept reality we already have a decent baseline of what to expect. So unless Nintendo somehow nerfs the systems power most of us already have our expectations at reasonable levels.

The only way I can see Nintendo nerfing the systems power is to cheapen out and have a lower price tag. But if Nintendo wants to stay in the long run they need to have it at 640spu if they want the Wii U to last 7 years With some third party support

 

[Gianni Merryman]

Nintendo will of course save their games to E3, but hopefully there will be some info on the multi stuff at least.

I'm afraid all third-parties are strictly tied to NDAs, they' are not going to leak anything unless Nintendo allows them to.

 

[Penguin]

It's up to Nintendo of course, but we might not have to wait until E3 for some substantial info. Some developers seemingly have stuff they want to show as soon as possible.

That kind of makes sense, I assume Red Steel got a boost for being the first Wii game revealed to the world.. even if the final product was a bit questionable.

 

[blu]

The only way I can see Nintendo nerfing the systems power is to cheapen out and have a lower price tag. But if Nintendo wants to stay in the long run they need to have it at 640spu if they want the Wii U to last 7 years With some third party support

Nintendo need no flops.

 

[bgassassin]

That much is true. I'm an old whatchamacallit and senility is my best buddy. The only thing that can kick some senses in me is yogurt. Lots and lots of it.

LOL. That other post you made had me envisioning you on your porch in a rocking chair as you talked about that.

 

[antonz]

Do you also expect the shader architecture to be Wekiva-based? Just for keeping those expectations in check ; )

I could see Nintendo using a 4XXX series gpu but I wouldnt say its impossible they use a newer variant that performs similar. In the end its going to come down to the price for performance for Nintendo.

 

[blu]

LOL. That other post you made had me envisioning you on your porch in a rocking chair as you talked about that.

That's pretty close to my current state of watching a 600,000-verts-heavy mesh rotate slowly on a 5 SPU gpu.

 

[ReyVGM]

At this E3, this is what we are going to say to Nintendo:

 

[AceBandage]

That's every E3...
Well, as long as we pretend the entire year of 2008 never existed.
>_>

 

[Terrell]

I want PN03 redone without all the fake baked GI, in a path-tracing renderer (and ergo not in HD, as it'd be impossible for any current gpu). Seriously.

Sorry, I stopped reading at "I want P.N.03". Seriously, it had SO much potential and it's a shame it was so rushed. But of course, Capcom would never touch the series again, and I doubt Mikami would want to re-visit working with Capcom even in a contracted sense. All hope is lost, but my candle still burns bright for Vanessa and her robocidal ways.

 

[Rösti]

We do know one thing about Wii U's CPU, it will be based on what IBM Watson (as seen on Jeapordy) uses, which is a POWER7 (IBM Power 750 system). As reported by Engadget:

It's a silicon on insulator design and packs the same processor technology found in Watson, the supercomputer that bested a couple of meatbags on Jeopardy awhile back.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/07/ibm-puts-watsons-brains-in-nintendo-wii-u/

Only the CPU is important here in reference (unless I've mistunderstood what IBM meant), so here are the specifications for the POWER7 chip:

POWER7 Processor Chip

• 567mm² Technology: 45nm lithography, Cu, SOI, eDRAM

• Clock rates between 3.0 - 4.25 GHz (turbocore mode)[1]

• 1.2B transistors
  • Equivalent function of 2.7B
  • eDRAM efficiency

• Eight processor cores
  • 12 execution units per core
  • 4 Way SMT per core
  • 32 Threads per chip
  • 256KB L2 per core

• 32MB on chip eDRAM shared L3

• Dual DDR3 Memory Controllers
  • 100GB/s Memory bandwidth per chip sustained

• Scalability up to 32 Sockets
  • 360GB/s SMP bandwidth/chip
  • 20,000 coherent operations in flight

• Advanced pre-fetching Data and Instruction

• Binary Compatibility with POWER6 and prior systems

POWER7 Design Principles

Multiple optimization Points

• Balanced Design
  • Multiple optimization points
  • Improved energy efficiency
  • RAS improvements

• Improved Thread Performance
  • Dynamic allocation of resources
  • Shared L3

• Increased Core parallelism
  • 4 Way SMT
  • Aggressive out of order execution

• Extreme Increase in Socket Throughput
  • Continued growth in socket bandwidth
  • Balanced core, cache, memory improvements

• System
  • Scalable interconnect
  • Reduced coherence traffic

POWER7 Design Principles

Flexibility and Adaptability

• Cores:
  • 8, 6, and 4-core offerings with up to 32MB of L3 Cache
  • Dynamically turn cores on and off, reallocating energy
  • Dynamically vary individual core frequencies, reallocating energy
  • Dynamically enable and disable up to 4 threads per core

• Memory Subsystem:
  • Full 8 channel or reduced 4 channel configurations

• System Topologies:
  • Standard, half-width, and double-width SMP busses supported

POWER7: Core

• Execution Units
  • 2 Fixed point units
  • 2 Load store units
  • 4 Double precision floating point
  • 1 Vector unit
  • 1 Branch
  • 1 Condition register
  • 1 Decimal floating point unit
  • 6 Wide dispatch/8 Wide Issue

• Recovery Function Distributed

• 1,2,4 Way SMT Support

• Out of Order Execution

• 32KB I-Cache

• 32KB D-Cache

• 256KB L2
  • Tightly coupled to core

Sources: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/download/attachments/104533501/POWER7+-+The+Beat+Goes+On.pdf
[1]Gathered from comparison between IBM Power Systems

This is the POWER7 processor in default as far as I can see it, and apparently what the CPU in Wii U will be based on. I wonder however if Nintendo may have been influenced even more by Watson, and thought of bringing the design of Wii U around the IBM Power 750 system, customized of course. Here are the (relevant) specs for that:

POWER7 processor modules – one per processor card
4-core 3.7 GHz or
6-core 3.7 GHz or
8-core 3.2 GHz or
8-core 3.6 GHz

Sockets: 1 to 4
Level 2 (L2) cache: 256 KB per core
Level 3 (L3) cache: 4 MB per core
Memory: 8 GB to 512 GB of RDIMM DDR3, Active Memory Expansion
Solid State Drives (SSD): Up to eight SFF drives
Disk drives: Up to eight SFF SAS drives
Disk capacity: Up to 2.4 TB
Media bays: Slimline for DVD-RAM, Half height for tape drive or removable disk
PCI Adapter slots: Two PCI-X 2.0; Three PCI Express 8x

Sources: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/750/specs.html
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4638.pdf

Now, IBM Watson utilizes 90 of these systems, as well as 16 TB of memory (unknown type), but this is the base. Could it be that Nintendo has decided to use the 750's architecture as well, or is this out of this world?

The processor excites me anyway, even if we would see it with only two cores and clocked at 2.0 - 2.5 GHz. The SMP should suffice, and 32MB on chip eDRAM (though I find that much unlikely) is nice. I assume all this perhaps is posted in earlier iterations of this thread, but it can perhaps act as a reminder/update on what we are dealing with.

 

[DCKing]

No need to post all that stuff.

We've already heard word that the Wii U CPU doesn't seem to be based on POWER7 directly. It wouldn't make sense either if it did, although I still suppose it would have been possible.

The interpretation is that IBM has made a new PowerPC design possibly with some elements of the POWER7 (same basic processor features), that will be used in the Wii U and maybe the next Xbox and the PS4. We also heard that there's a cache split of 1.5 MB L2 cache for one core and 768 kB for the others, which is an oddly detailed fact for a CPU that besides that we know almost nothing about. EDIT: We've heard that it's an unevenly split cache. Amounts are speculation.

The fact that IBM is calling it a PowerPC instead of a POWER-chip is probably because IBM seems to use the POWER name for their HPC CPUs, and PowerPC is used for all other stuff. Which is why the PowerPC A2 is a PowerPC chip.

 

[bgassassin]

^ That split amount was my guess. That main core could have 2MB or 2.5MB as well.

That's pretty close to my current state of watching a 600,000-verts-heavy mesh rotate slowly on a 5 SPU gpu.

Haha. Don't know what the latter fully means, but that doesn't sound good at all.

 

[lwilliams3]

If we are going by Arkam's post:

I think most people are going to be a little disappointed when they see the final WiiU specs from what I am hearing. I know I was.


I think the 3DS is VERY telling on what the Wii U will be like. I mean that as in if the you were to consider the 360/PS3 = PSP the Wii U will = 3DS and the Xbox3/ps4 = Vita

Comparing the 360 -> Wii U to PSP -> 3DS is interesting. On paper, it seems difficult to measure how many time more powerful the 3DS is compare to the PSP. It's the modern fixed shaders in the GPU and the additional RAM that pushes the visual capabilities a bit beyond the PSP. I suppose I can somewhat see that comparison, though I don't think the gap of the Wii U to the other next gen consoles being comparable to as 3DS-> Vita

 

[Forsaken82]

Sorry, I stopped reading at "I want P.N.03". Seriously, it had SO much potential and it's a shame it was so rushed. But of course, Capcom would never touch the series again, and I doubt Mikami would want to re-visit working with Capcom even in a contracted sense. All hope is lost, but my candle still burns bright for Vanessa and her robocidal ways.

You don't need Mikami to continue the franchise.

Ninja Gaiden 3 for instance is moving along without Itagaki. (unless he returned without my knowledge?!)

 

[DCKing]

I think Arkam's comparison discredits him somewhat.

What game developer would make such a simplistic comparison? He knows that the PSP -> 3DS gap has more to do with GPU improvements than raw power, which is no gap a modern GPU can achieve properly over Xenos. He also knows that Nintendo has always been more conservative in handhelds than home consoles. He doesn't know the Xbox 3 and PS4's power.

I'm curious if anyone could back up whether Arkam is an actual game developer.

 

[Rösti]

No need to post all that stuff.

We've already heard word that the Wii U CPU doesn't seem to be based on POWER7 directly. It wouldn't make sense either if it did, although I still suppose it would have been possible.

The interpretation is that IBM has made a new PowerPC design possibly with some elements of the POWER7 (same basic processor features), that will be used in the Wii U and maybe the next Xbox and the PS4. We also heard that there's a cache split of 1.5 MB L2 cache for one core and 768 kB for the others, which is an oddly detailed fact for a CPU that besides that we know almost nothing about.

The fact that IBM is calling it a PowerPC instead of a POWER-chip is probably because IBM seems to use the POWER name for their HPC CPUs, and PowerPC is used for all other stuff. Which is why the PowerPC A2 is a PowerPC chip.

I agree that it might be a bit lengthy, but I wanted to create a small reference ram mainly for myself but for others to use as well of course. And I've heard as well from some sources Wii U won't be based on POWER7 (POWER6 was actually suggested, which I find quite obsolete (regarding power requirements and architecture) for Nintendo to base something around). But the split cache (at least the numbers) is new for me, have you got a link regarding it?

 

[DCKing]

POWER6 was only suggested because people think Nintendo is incapable of having new custom parts built. The same reason people still think the GPU is going to be a RV770LE "customized" (which I suppose means some patches of duct tape and some smilies, hearts and "Nintendo rulez lol" scribbled onto the die).

The split cache was suggested by lherre in the previous thread. Just search for lherre and cache in the Brains Beware thread and you'll find it.

 

[bgassassin]

If we are going by Arkam's post:



Comparing the 360 -> Wii U to PSP -> 3DS is interesting. On paper, it seems difficult to measure how many time more powerful the 3DS is compare to the PSP. It's the modern fixed shaders in the GPU and the additional RAM that pushes the visual capabilities a bit beyond the PSP. I suppose I can somewhat see that comparison, though I don't think the gap of the Wii U to the other next gen consoles being comparable to as 3DS-> Vita

To me it didn't really say anything we haven't already concluded. Wii U isn't expected to be on par spec-wise with the other two. They just won't blow Wii U away.

I agree that it might be a bit lengthy, but I wanted to create a small reference ram mainly for myself but for others to use as well of course. And I've heard as well from some sources Wii U won't be based on POWER7 (POWER6 was actually suggested, which I find quite obsolete (regarding power requirements and architecture) for Nintendo to base something around). But the split cache (at least the numbers) is new for me, have you got a link regarding it?

It still would be based on POWER7. It just wouldn't fall under the POWER line of classification is what DC is saying. And awhile back in the old thread a poster named lherre who has dropped bits of info here and there said one core had more cache than the others.


Beaten

 

[Gaborn]

I think Arkam's comparison discredits him somewhat.

What game developer would make such a simplistic comparison? He knows that the PSP -> 3DS gap has more to do with GPU improvements than raw power, which is no gap a modern GPU can achieve properly over Xenos. He also knows that Nintendo has always been more conservative in handhelds than home consoles. He doesn't know the Xbox 3 and PS4's power.

I'm curious if anyone could back up whether Arkam is an actual game developer.

Personally I'm not sure why people are taking the word of someone with 4 posts seriously at all lacking that verification from another source. I mean, maybe Arkam IS an insider with deep personal knowledge but his innuendo doesn't seem to be much more than hope on his part. It doesn't seem to fit with the latest rumors either, it strikes me as an outlier and as an outlier should be treated with suspicion.

This is especially true in my view because, even taking Arkam at their word they could be suggesting a lot of things because really, it's not so much a question of how much Nintendo's hardware is advancing, it's more narrowly a question of how much Sony and MS's hardware is advancing. That gap in technology was the problem last generation but he never actually addresses it, he seems to speak to strictly the Wii U. I'm going to guess it's FUD pending independent verification.

 

[lwilliams3]

I think Arkam's comparison discredits him somewhat.

What game developer would make such a simplistic comparison? He knows that the PSP -> 3DS gap has more to do with GPU improvements than raw power, which is no gap a modern GPU can achieve properly over Xenos. He also knows that Nintendo has always been more conservative in handhelds than home consoles. He doesn't know the Xbox 3 and PS4's power.

I'm curious if anyone could back up whether Arkam is an actual game developer.

Yes, that was the thing that set me back too, which means that 3DS -> Vita comparison has a similar problem. Comparing fixed modern shaders -> programmable shaders? Don't see how such a difference can achieved between the Wii U/720/PS4

 

[Terrell]

You don't need Mikami to continue the franchise.

Ninja Gaiden 3 for instance is moving along without Itagaki. (unless he returned without my knowledge?!)

Mikami would probably be the only person interested in doing so. Capcom isn't even doing anything with MEGAMAN, what hope do we have of a poor-selling Gamecube game coming back from the dead?

 

[Forsaken82]

Mikami would probably be the only person interested in doing so. Capcom isn't even doing anything with MEGAMAN, what hope do we have of a poor-selling Gamecube game coming back from the dead?

I know, I am merely saying you don't need previous devs to continue work on an established IP.

 

[shnord]

Just to clarify my stance:

320 SPUs: if Nintendo runs into problems
480 SPUs: minimum otherwise
640 SPUs: possible
800 SPUs: pushing it

And there's no reason to be afraid of 320 SPUs. That's still much nicer than the 48 in Xenos -- not that they're necessarily directly comparable, but still. There's also nothing preventing a 320 SPU chip from having 32 TMUs, which would be double Xenos. 640 SPUs or higher would certainly have 16 ROPs, also double Xenos.

Not that I'm an expert by any means.

 

[AzaK]

While specs interest me, the OS and Networking abilities of this thing have me far more captivated.
So many possibilities for this thing in terms of a user interface.

Yeah I was mainly alluding to the fact that I'm just not too interested in what the launch games will be. I'm pretty confident Nintendo will have a good selection for me to buy on day one and they will bring their key franchises over the console lifetime. Add in the fact that with almost 100% surety we'll be getting multiplats and I'm happy

But I agree, I want to see what the OS and other features entail. The online game network will be interesting to see, but I'm also very keen on the social element along the lines of things like Nintendo Letter Box and other friend features.

 

[blu]

Mikami would probably be the only person interested in doing so. Capcom isn't even doing anything with MEGAMAN, what hope do we have of a poor-selling Gamecube game coming back from the dead?

Capcom isn't even following up on Zack & Wiki, for Pete's. The only way we could see those games revisited is if somebody went to Capcom with a lump of cash and said 'Here's this lump of cash, oh, mighty capcom, allow me to pretty please touch your buried IP at my own expenses. Please.' etc etc. Still, I thought we were fantasizing about what we wanted, ergo my post.

Just to clarify my stance:

320 SPUs: if Nintendo runs into problems
480 SPUs: minimum otherwise
640 SPUs: possible
800 SPUs: pushing it

And there's no reason to be afraid of 320 SPUs. That's still much nicer than the 48 in Xenos -- not that they're necessarily directly comparable, but still. There's also nothing preventing a 320 SPU chip from having 32 TMUs, which would be double Xenos. 640 SPUs or higher would certainly have 16 ROPs, also double Xenos.

Not that I'm an expert by any means.

Xenos' is not a VLIW5 architecture but Xenos' SPUs are ALU-equivalent to 5 of the later SPUs. Thus Xenos' 48 SPUs are about equivalent to 240 VLIW SPUs (darn inflation).

 

[onilink88]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Versus_XIII#Development

It's only JUST entered "full production" as of last year, with all the work before it being teaser trailers, theoretical game design and scenario writing from the looks of it. Essentially, the game's announcement was severely premature. SEVERELY. But at the same time, SQE and Nomura have delighted in dicking us around and wasting money making trailers involving CONCEPT WORK. So the money invested in it before production even began is ludicrous.

We'll see a port, definitely. How quickly we will see one depends on whether or not Crystal Tools and Luminous Engine are ready to go for WiiU. But I really see no reason for doubting that it WILL happen.

Just to be clear, going into full production- that means that development's going whole hog? Well, either way, I agree that it was prematurely announced. To be honest, though, I'm not really in a rush to play the game. I just want 'em to get it right. But if they don't deliver on the Advent Children caliber combat, I'm going to flip my shit!

Spoiler

I keed, I keed! I'm just expecting a decent action RPG at this point.

 

[bgassassin]

Xenos' is not a VLIW5 architecture but Xenos' SPUs are ALU-equivalent to 5 of the later SPUs. Thus Xenos' 48 SPUs are about equivalent to 240 VLIW SPUs (darn inflation).

Yeah. Threw me completely off the first time I figured/found that out.