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Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
Trogdor1123
Member
at least we know why its so cheap. 249 seems like a certainty now.
I definitely agree that "first place" does not automatically equate to "did everything right and understands the market perfectly." But I think we have considerable additional evidence to suggest that Nintendo is, in fact, right in this regard.
If the Wii were the only graphically/technically weak platform to do well recently, it may be an outlier. Instead, we also have the DS (obviously), early gen iPhones, Android phones, and Facebook games, all platforms which rely on or which exclusively provided games with inferior graphical and technical capabilities -- and all of which, save Android, are individually more popular than either the PS3 or 360.
This certainly suggests that graphics/presentation/superficial concerns really aren't very significant for most people. For "core gamers," yes, but not for most gamers. However, this same body of evidence does suggest an area where Nintendo really did miscalculate: online and network functionality. Where Facebook/iPhone/Android games may be graphically inferior, they are some of the most online focused games in the world, often being available exclusively through DD and also frequently very social / multiplayer in nature.
That is an area where one could reasonably suggest Nintendo made a mistake, despite being "first place" this generation.
It wouldn't make much sense for Nintendo to have shown the Zelda tech demo at E3 2012. That year was for games while 2011 was for tech demos. It would be odd if Nintendo randomly showed the Zelda demo, as many people would naturally assume it's an actual game in development. With that said, Nintendo saving Nintendo Land for the conference's ending was one of many mistakes Nintendo made.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
True. Which is why I'm not jumping to conclusions and have tempered my expectations.
I think so too,maybe that's the joke.
amstradcpc
Member
I think Broadway cores were already out of IBM roadmap when Wii was launched...
It is. The readers in the 3DS and the Wii U are SDHC-compliant, so they can't mention that they support more than 32 GB cards, since that's all SDHC "officially" supports.
StickSoldier
Member
It's actually probably smarter to have it tweaked to $250 instead of focusing on an system capable of super amazing graphics. I know it's not huge sample, but most of my friends (who clearly know nothing about hardware) think graphics on the PS3 and Xbox are amazing, honestly. They're all like, "Oh wow, these graphics look like real life!". If the graphics are indeed better than the PS3/Xbox and depending on whether or not they will release the system at $250, it will more likely bold well for Nintendo as long as they can convince players that the control is worth an upgrade.
thehillissilent
Member
Nintendo would do well to lure as many indies as possible to the platform, including kickstarter games.
Metroid Hunter
Banned
How does this even make sense lol? The N64 and GCN tech demos were like 30 second Link vs. Ganondorf videos, and OoT/TP look significantly better.
BrokenEchelon
Banned
It's because they have to sell working ports of their games on consoles in order to be profitable.
Luxury car manufacturers still have volume products that allow them to sell and develop their flagships, the difference is that they have different teams working on different cars.
It's impossible to have that kind of split in the gaming industry. They can't have a DICE dedicated team for just PC versions of Battlefield and another team that handles the gimped console version. It isn't cost effective.
Yeah, people have forgotten that for what, pretty much every single console generation that the weakest system has always came out on top?
It's outstanding that people still don't get the industry.
Why does it need 2GB? It's a system meant to be on-par with the 360 and PS3. It already has twice as much memory as the 360, and it likely has some extra dedicated memory just for OS functions.
What more is the Wii going to do that's going to benefit from having 4 times as much memory as the 360? What is it going to be limited by, from having only TWICE as much memory as the 360? Right now we're still worrying that the processor won't be that amazing. RAM most certainly is not an issue here.
No PS1 and PS2 were not the weakest neither was the SNES,while being monumental upgrades in tech over their last gen competitors too.
Oh in that case, yeah it's a good leap.
I see, well it all depends on what the game does on the pad. If it's a simple menu, I don't see the performance impact to be large at all, even with two pads.
Compared to what? Unless you're actively developing on it now, there's no telling what part of the system is the problem.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
You know English right? I meant it pretty simply. I'm being serious. I can't say it clearer. Temper your expectations. For good or bad. I don't care about all the past games. We haven't seen anything yet. I know how the past has gone. I was there and bought the games. I'm still not jumping on either ship of it looking significantly better or worse. Wait and see.
Reallink
Member
In general terms, I think it's actually worse than Wii when you consider processing power as a function of time time. The comparison to (then) contemporary hardware was better for Wii as it only took 5 years to effectively overclock the GC. The U has taken 7 years to effectively overclock a 360, so there are obviously a couple extra years of Moore's Law factored in. I wonder if iPad 4 will be seen to match or surpass the overall fidelity of U.
Palette Swap
Member
Huh? Any gen before PS2 is debatable.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
Hmmm. My opinion has never changed on this subject. Ultimately, the specs are disappointing. I don't think there is any way around that fact. The next consoles will leapfrog it, likely by a lot, and the obvious potential of having the same old story as this gen is there. And that's assuming the wiiU even sells as much as the Wii to offer 3rd parties any incentive at all. If it doesn't I can't even imagine the disaster.
But with that said, as a machine to play Nintendo games and only Nintendo games, it's really not that bad (assuming the price isn't high at launch). And I don't think Nintendo cares about anything else, despite the times they state they'd like more 3rd party support. I'm sure they would like it, but I genuinely do not think they care about it that much. I think they're perfectly happy trying to sell a lot of consoles on their software alone, and tailoring the console to their needs was the first priority. If they manage to get any scraps throughout next generation, they'll happily take it. But it will definitely be another generation of a mostly nintendo machine, rather than an all encompassing device.
But with that said, as a machine to play Nintendo games and only Nintendo games, it's really not that bad (assuming the price isn't high at launch). And I don't think Nintendo cares about anything else, despite the times they state they'd like more 3rd party support. I'm sure they would like it, but I genuinely do not think they care about it that much. I think they're perfectly happy trying to sell a lot of consoles on their software alone, and tailoring the console to their needs was the first priority. If they manage to get any scraps throughout next generation, they'll happily take it. But it will definitely be another generation of a mostly nintendo machine, rather than an all encompassing device.
That's blatantly false.
Performance wise:
SNES>Megadrive
PS1>Saturn
PS2>Dreamcast
This is the first time the weakest has won.
Cygnus X-1
Member
I don't care about specs so much, but Wii U reusing parts of the Wii is really very Nintendo-ish. Iwata sure wants the system to be profitable from the first minute.
bgassassin
Member
TheNatural
My Member!
Cygnus X-1
Member
DC and Saturn were from the same gen as ps2 and ps1 respectively.
User Name Here
Member
So the CPU is an IBM PowerPC 729 MHz clocked higher times 3? How much higher is the clock speed and what kind of cache are they using / how much cache?
Fairly certain the Xbox was far more powerful than the PS2, and pretty sure the Gamecube was as well (in most departments).
Some games even supported 720p on Xbox.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
The greatest post
How did I miss that one? :lol
Joke post, right?
Grampa Simpson
Banned
1024 available for applications (primary Modal Games)
32 that's closer to the GPU
512 that is held off for the OS and any background processes (Web Browser - File Downloader - mini-dashboard - social networking stuff - etc - etc - etc)
My guess is that they will give up half of that 512 to games in an OS update sometime in the future.
MrCunningham
Member
Well, most likely just one core for that. But since they are (apparently) using Broadway again, they probably thought it would be best to update it to a triple core CPU for general gaming purposes. Shoveling in two different CPU's would be expensive.
But the Wii-U would have all the hardware components necessary for perfect Wii/ GameCube backwards compatibility.
-Three core processor based on Broadway.
-32MB of eDRAM (substitute for the Wii's 24MB of 1T-SRAM?)
-GX2 API with ATI Graphics (Wii had a GX1 API?)
-1GB GDDR3 (I'm speculating that it will be GDDR3) would replace for the Wii's 64MB of GDDR3.
All the hardware would be there.
Yeah, not certain at all. I am merely going by rumors.
megamerican
Member
I guess now it's clear why we were hearing all those reports of developer grumbling. This move seems pretty short sighted on Nintendo's part.
This seems less like Nintendo learning and adapting from the successes and failures of the Wii, and more like just straight up trying to copy their initial success and forgetting about the last few years of that consoles life.
This seems less like Nintendo learning and adapting from the successes and failures of the Wii, and more like just straight up trying to copy their initial success and forgetting about the last few years of that consoles life.
TheNatural
My Member!
The context of the post was this was the first time the weakest has "won."
It wasn't. PS2 was the least powerful and PS1 was less powerful than the N64.
Counting Saturn and Dreamcast is bizarre world since SEGA was off in their own half generation tangent. Between the real console wars, the past three generation the weakest system has won.
spons
Gold Member
Quinton McLeod
Banned
I agree with this statement. However, even so, it doesn't appear as though Sony nor Microsoft are really focused on social gaming... At all...
I read a Kotaku opinion piece awhile back about Nintendo's plans with social gaming. I'd have to say that I think Kotaku was on to something back then. They essentially said that Nintendo is attempting to bring social gaming to the forefront and that Nintendo feels that is the next wave to the future. Of course, Nintendo missed this boat with the Wii; but so did Microsoft and Sony. If Nintendo creates a system that makes gaming a social event across different mediums, we may be looking at something very very big.
So is Nintendo, but people will deny and defend against this with their life.
Should have formatted yours differently. The context of the original post was using the ">" character to denote one system's power being "greater than" the other. Yours was used as a measure of success instead of raw power.
And was the N64 really more powerful than the PS1? Because I've seen a lot of games on PS1 that look better than anything I ever saw on N64.
Depends on how you define a generation then. The Wii came out the same year as the PS3 and a year after 360, correct? Most people would say that puts it in the same console generation as the PS3 and 360.
What? Why don't those systems count? Saturn came out like two weeks before PS1.
IIRC there was some speculation in the Wii U thread that there was still 2GB of total RAM, with the OS chewing up an entire GB. Is this still a possibility?
Edit: This was a while back, maybe a couple of weeks ago.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
I think the other poster was making the point that if you count Sega, who traditionally had the weakest console from 1992-2001, this has never been true.
Saturn probably should. DC really was in it's own generation though. It was dead by the time the PS2 came out and was completely forgotten when GC and XBOX were released.