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Wii U Speculation Thread 2: Can't take anymore of this!!!

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JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
Which rumours do you consider credible and which not? How do we decide? Is it only the positive rumours that are credible? His comment about less powerful was then specifically followed up with a qualifier about scaing back the game and not about the specs, which he then listed.

I'm not saying he is right I am not saying the other rumours are wrong I am not bashing nintendo, all I am doing is trying to take all the rumours as exactly what they are, rumours.
We no longer have a cloud of doubt hovering over ever possible rumor. It's been almost a year now and we can see which rumors had been backed up and which rumors were made up. Even if you wanted to hang your hat on an outlier rumor possibly being true at the time, we still have 8 months of known developers making public statements to the contrary that can't be written off as just another rumor or PR-spin.
 

Roo

Member
It was sold for a very large profit, though.

Really? I always thought it was like $6 or $8 per system. Not sure though.

But it is interesting the way they did it with with 3DS.
At launch, it was $250 but due to no good games (aka Nintendo killers) and an overpriced system they had to cut it to $170 which represent a small loss per system now.
Exaggerating, let's say the system cost them 200 to make (and I think I'm stretching it) they were making 50 of profit. That's what I call a large profit
 

antonz

Member
Really? I always thought it was like $6 or $8 per system. Not sure though.

But it is interesting the way they did it with with 3DS.
At launch, it was $250 but due to no good games (aka Nintendo killers) and an overpriced system they had to cut it to $170 which represent a small loss per system now.
Exaggerating, let's say the system cost them 200 to make (and I think I'm stretching it) they were making 50 of profit. That's what I call a large profit

Yes the Wii was sold on very thin margins of $6-$8.
 

guek

Banned
Really? I always thought it was like $6 or $8 per system. Not sure though.
Nintendo reportedly has optimized production costs to obtain a significant profit margin with each Wii unit sold.[85] On September 17, 2007, the Financial Times reported that this direct profit per Wii sold may vary from $13 in Japan to $49 in the United States and $79 in Europe.[86] On December 2, 2008, Forbes reported that Nintendo makes a $6 operating profit per Wii unit sold.

Courtesy of wikipedia
 

AzaK

Member
256MB of RAM.
Single Core Intel P1 processor.
ATI 250 GPU
Keepin it real.

I agree with others. We gave Arkam hell until he was verified and even then it continued. Ideaman should be held to the same standard. Doesn't matter if what he is reporting is positive or not.

I asked about the verification issue right after he arrived..

So are we asking for Ideaman's head now?

Don't forget that he's French. We're some of the most pretentious asshats on the planet next to Americans.

Pretentious maybe, but I agree, we should be asking Ideaman to give some verification. Ideaman?

Lherre, can you chime in at all with a yay or nay on Ideaman's info.
 

guek

Banned
Nope. I said by October. So I was totally right. :p

Well in that case I'd like to let you know the Wii U will launch by December 2032, as will the other consoles by the year 2200.

1329697820817.gif


:p
 
We no longer have a cloud of doubt hovering over ever possible rumor. It's been almost a year now and we can see which rumors had been backed up and which rumors were made up. Even if you wanted to hang your hat on an outlier rumor possibly being true at the time, we still have 8 months of known developers making public statements to the contrary that can't be written off as just another rumor or PR-spin.

But what I'm saying is that it is not that much of an outlier compared to what other rumours we have heard. It just presented itself more negatively.
 

Terrell

Member
But what I'm saying is that it is not that much of an outlier compared to what other rumours we have heard. It just presented itself more negatively.

Point me to devs who said you had to down-port a 360 game other than arkam. Even as far back as E3, we heard contrary to that. And that's not even arkam contradicting a rumor, that was him contradicting confirmed statements from developers about how easy it was to port content. Down-porting can NEVER be described as "easy".
 

Terrell

Member
You are getting stuck on that point, the rest of what he said was in line or close to what we heard.

Why shouldn't I get stuck on that point? He sure was.
Besides, it's the part that matters most. Applications of said hardware ran so far in the other direction, and since that's what matters at the end of the day, it naturally casts all other commentary into the bin, as far as I'm concerned.

Do you really think that he'd say "yeah, they're using the same pre-E3 hardware as Vigil, who had no problems with it whatsoever, and my team sucks so bad that we did?" I want you to think about that logically, go re-read what he read from the outset at the very beginning, and tell me that's the conclusion you'd draw from what he was saying.
 

guek

Banned
You are getting stuck on that point, the rest of what he said was in line or close to what we heard.

No, it really doesn't. At the very least, his estimation of said specs are painfully off. There is no way a decently featured modern gpu with 1GB of DDR3 would perform at sub-360 levels. He's obviously trying to report negative news but his story wasn't even coherent, it was self-contradictory. I accept bgassassin's hypothesis that he might have heard or has access to a early dev kit and that he has no idea how to interpret the technical specs, but beyond that, I find his shpeal very hard to swallow.
 

Vinci

Danish
Wii was $250

Contrary to popular belief, the Wii did not change what a video game is; it simply took away the obstacles present in playing them. I'm talking something far more substantive, not just in terms of bringing back old audiences or opening new markets but in completely redefining what a video game is.

The Wii didn't do that. In many instances, it simply went back to what games were in the past. Wii Fit might have come close, I'll give you that one.

botty said:
Wasn't the Wii overpriced?

Hell no. The Wii was underpriced. Nintendo left money on the table.
 

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
The $6-$8 figure always seemed a bit hard to believe really.
I don't buy it either. There's a quote (that I vaguely remember) about how the Wii would have launched at $200 but retailers were asking for better margins, so they bumped it to $250. Yet, when I got a look at retail cost for each system at the company I was working for, the Wii hardware only made them (the retailer) about $10 per system at the time. And that was only a slightly higher percentage than any other system. So either Forbes is wrong, the quote is wrong (or I'm remembering it wrong), or my list is wrong.... I'm going to fingers at Forbes.


pieatorium said:
But what I'm saying is that it is not that much of an outlier compared to what other rumours we have heard. It just presented itself more negatively.
Okay, I'll go along with that. I'm just not sure which rumors you're referring to.

pieatorium said:
You are getting stuck on that point, the rest of what he said was in line or close to what we heard.
He came back two weeks later and reaffirmed that point. You can't blame other people for being stuck on it.
Arkam said:
And I am going to stand by that until we get a new kit that proves otherwise.

It will have some factors that are superior like Memory amount(though bus speeds are slow) but other things (GPU) are slightly less than what we have come to expect from the current gen systems. I am sure if a game a is built from the ground up on the console it will look nice, but porting anything from the HD twins over will take a hit.
 

guek

Banned
I feel the same way.

I think it has to do with the fact that games set during the American Revolution are extremely rare. The holy land and the Italy during the renaissance aren't super common either but they seem much more familiar. I'm super stoked.
 

Anth0ny

Member
Contrary to popular belief, the Wii did not change what a video game is; it simply took away the obstacles present in playing them. I'm talking something far more substantive, not just in terms of bringing back old audiences or opening new markets but in completely redefining what a video game is.

The Wii didn't do that. In many instances, it simply went back to what games were in the past. Wii Fit might have come close, I'll give you that one.

So you're waiting for... the Matrix?

I'd probably bite at $599.
 
I accept bgassassin's hypothesis that he might have heard or has access to a early dev kit and that he has no idea how to interpret the technical specs, but beyond that, I find his shpeal very hard to swallow.

Isn't that what he himself said? not a new kit, just basing of what the actual guys who work on the kit are saying?
 

EloquentM

aka Mannny
well, because there's a pretty good idea on what you expect the system to be at, at the very least, comments like arkams are going to be hard to take seriously because it contradicts every solid piece of info we've gotten thus far.

he's no more credible to me than Idea man even if he is verified simply for the fact that he ISN'T a developer and he hasn't come into direct contact with the dev kit. Even though they're a second-hand source (who haven't given us a great deal of tangible information, not to mention the fact that they aren't verified by a mod) I'm more inclined to believe the musings of wippsel and bg because they actually have an idea of what they're talking about when it comes to hardware.
 

EloquentM

aka Mannny
BUT we must also remember that Lherre just said the other day that the most recent kit developed THAT ONLY NINTENDO HAS was having trouble running current gen engines up to his expectations. this seems very similar to what arkam was saying, though it doesn't necessarily mean that the devkits are weak, but possibly that the engines aren't optimised to run on the current Wii U hardware.
 

Vinci

Danish
So you're waiting for... the Matrix?

I'd probably bite at $599.

I'm not sure what it would be, honestly. The Wii couldn't have pulled off $599; the Wii U can't. In fact, I haven't seen an innovation in gaming that warranted that sort of investment.
 

guek

Banned
Isn't that what he himself said? not a new kit, just basing of what the actual guys who work on the kit are saying?

Sure, but he was also very adamant that that it was fairly close to what we'd get at retail.

He also introduced himself as huge nintendo fan and then immediately proceeded to bash their review process with considerable vitriol. Combined with his absolute refusal to discuss his comments more in depth and the fact that there were contradictions within the story itself as well as with what other devs had stated last year made his motives very suspect for me.

I mean, I understand giving him the benefit of the doubt, and it is possible he was being sincere, but too much of it stinks for me to consider it anything but an extremely outdated leak.

BUT we must also remember that Lherre just said the other day that the most recent kit developed THAT ONLY NINTENDO HAS was having trouble running current gen engines up to his expectations. this seems very similar to what arkam was
saying, though it doesn't necessarily mean that the devkits are weak, but possibly that the engines aren't optimised to run on the current Wii U hardware.

I wish lherre had clarified a bit more. PS360 would have a very hard time running certain current gen engines as well at higher resolutions or with larger textures, more effects, etc.
 
well, because there's a pretty good idea on what you expect the system to be at, at the very least, comments like arkams are going to be hard to take seriously because it contradicts every solid piece of info we've gotten thus far.

he's no more credible to me than Idea man even if he is verified simply for the fact that he ISN'T a developer and he hasn't come into direct contact with the dev kit. Even though they're a second-hand source (who haven't given us a great deal of tangible information, not to mention the fact that they aren't verified by a mod) I'm more inclined to believe the musings of wippsel and bg because they actually have an idea of what they're talking about when it comes to hardware.

iirc arkham is verifeid as being from a dev house that is known to have kits but he himself said that he's not a tech guy
 

Terrell

Member
I remember reading an Edge article in late 2006. Nintendo commented on how it wanted Wii priced at $200 , but U.S. retailers wanted it to be higher.
Wait.... what? LINK?!

Cuz if that's real, then perhaps the $6-8 profit thing is bullshit, cuz to price it at $200 would have meant a $42 loss per sale.

Please, to the internets with you, Hiltz, to search for proof that Nintendo wanted to make the Wii a loss-leader console!! This could really change the pricing talks we're having here if it proves that Nintendo is ready for loss-leading strategies.
 

sfried

Member
I think I'll just wait until they announce games and support for it. Kinda hard right now since even if there is, Nintendo's making sure that the competition doesn't get wind of it one bit. No doubt its inevitable big publishers are involved but as to what titles it remains a big question mark.

Of course, the prospects of Nintendo games in HD is alone a sell to most. But to others who, and by this I mean the entirety of GAF, are skeptical, if not downright HATE Nintendo, I wonder how much the company is willing to invest to win them over. The scrounging of info over the specs with "powerfull hardware" as a sign of them trying to court over the hardcore is...charming to say the least. But I don't want to fall into the same pitfall of analyzing their past to predict their future because, as one poster said, Nintendo is pretty much a wildcard in the industry.

Regardless of what the devkits have, I want to see good games on it, and hopefully not just first party offerings. I'd rather hear of leaks of games than more about hardware at this point.
 

Hiltz

Member
Wait.... what? LINK?!

Cuz if that's real, then perhaps the $6-8 profit thing is bullshit, cuz to price it at $200 would have meant a $42 loss per sale.

Please, to the internets with you, Hiltz, to search for proof that Nintendo wanted to make the Wii a loss-leader console!! This could really change the pricing talks we're having here if it proves that Nintendo is ready for loss-leading strategies.

I posted it above. :)
 

EloquentM

aka Mannny
Wait.... what? LINK?!

Cuz if that's real, then perhaps the $6-8 profit thing is bullshit, cuz to price it at $200 would have meant a $42 loss per sale.

Please, to the internets with you, Hiltz, to search for proof that Nintendo wanted to make the Wii a loss-leader console!! This could really change the pricing talks we're having here!

not necessarily, the whole 3ds fiasco should negate anything pre-2011 we use to base Wii U pricing on.
 

TriGen

Member
I think I'll just wait until they announce games and support for it. Kinda hard right now since even if there is, Nintendo's making sure that the competition doesn't get wind of it one bit. No doubt its inevitable big publishers are involved but as to what titles it remains a big question mark.

Of course, the prospects of Nintendo games in HD is alone a sell to most. But to others who, and by this I mean the entirety of GAF, are skeptical, if not downright HATE Nintendo, I wonder how much the company is willing to invest to win them over. The scrounging of info over the specs with "powerfull hardware" as a sign of them trying to court over the hardcore is...charming to say the least. But I don't want to fall into the same pitfall of analyzing their past to predict their future because, as one poster said, Nintendo is pretty much a wildcard in the industry.

Regardless of what the devkits have, I want to see good games on it, and hopefully not just first party offerings. I'd rather hear of leaks of games than more about hardware at this point.

I agree, if I could right now know the specs or the exclusive launch window games, I'd take the games.
 

Terrell

Member
not necessarily, the whole 3ds fiasco should negate anything pre-2011 we use to base Wii U pricing on.

No it wouldn't. Nintendo's console and handheld strategies have always been different, since Nintendo crushes competition in handhelds and there's normally no advantage to loss-leading in that sector of the market because of said dominance. This time proved them wrong.
 
Not enough ThunderMonkey innuendo.

God told me if I made one more completely unnecessary dick joke that he'd doom me to being the sexual toy of Seagal.

I said "Ummm... far as I know he's straight God."

God looked at me with his Jewish nipples and said "I can make him want you."

That's when I learned you don't fuck with God. Motherfucker is unhinged.
 
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