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The Wii U Speculation Thread V: The Final Frontier

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EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
To you, fine. But Nintendo isn't trying to get you. They already have you. And you're right that it'll take time, and that's why Nintendo can't sit on their asses. They need as many huge games as possible right off the bat. If R* wants 10 mil for the port, it's an investment for the future.

Yeah but that's what I think wont necessarily grab people who aren't me. I don't think Nintendo has to stand on a podium and shout "WE HAVE GTA" for people to take them 'seriously', or for them even to give a fuck. I don't mean to downplay GTA, I just think there's better money spent elsewhere, and better ways to attract that audience.
 

Donnie

Member
For Nintendo's platforms in the past, there hasn't been enough demand or, in their eyes, a market to support big releases. Who cares if Nintendo fans want San Andreas? It will make tenfold the money it would make on the GCN released on the PS2, and even Xbox. This is where that market is, moreso than the GCN, so why bother?

Last gen it was sort of understandable for it not to come out for GC. It was mainly PS2 exclusive, but the fact they developed it for PC made porting to XBox's very PC like architecture very easy/cheap. To port to GC required a lot more work and the audience was also a bit smaller for that particular game. But this gen GTA is multi platform focused from the start and porting to WiiU would be extremely easy/cheap, they'd be mad not to port it IMO.
 

AGITΩ

Member
This thread is a colossal beast that refuses to die of hunger

It keeps moving on with absolutely NO NEWS lol

but its heavy on speculation, so thread justified.

Anyone think that the Wii U will be the first system in recent memory without any 3rd party Main controller copy?
 

donny2112

Member
It was at least somewhat addressed coming from the other direction by the DarkstalkersDarksiders team, who claimed that it took about five weeks from no knowledge of the system to a full port. That's pretty promising for the future systems, I think.

That's a port from PS360 gen. Wii U needs to be an easy port from PS480 gen with the engines being used for those consoles. That's the main question I'm looking for an answer for with Wii U.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
That's a port from PS360 gen. Wii U needs to be an easy port from PS480 gen with the engines being used for those consoles. That's the main question I'm looking for an answer for with Wii U.

Right, that really is the key. I don't think we'll get an answer until next year though.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
About speculation:

http://andriasang.com/con0wk/inazuma_eleven_mmorpg/
Hino on Twitter: do you wanna play an Inazuma Eleven MMORPG?

Probably just a teaser or a joke, but in case it's something "reliable" I could imagine it on Wii U.

The brand was Nintendo-related up to now; the two spinoffs were developed for Wii (and performed decently, maybe better than expected); the MMORPG is more for home than for portables; DQX (MMORPG) is listed also for Wii U.

What do you think guys?
 
That's a port from PS360 gen. Wii U needs to be an easy port from PS480 gen with the engines being used for those consoles. That's the main question I'm looking for an answer for with Wii U.

Nintendo wouldn't be able to answer that question at this E3, would they?

Either way, we're not expecting major architectural shifts (in terms of graphics features) with the new systems, right? My running assumption is that it should be roughly as difficult (in terms of coding, not in terms of performance-tuning) to port from the PS3 or 360 as it is from the PS4 or X³box.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Yeah but that's what I think wont necessarily grab people who aren't me. I don't think Nintendo has to stand on a podium and shout "WE HAVE GTA" for people to take them 'seriously', or for them even to give a fuck. I don't mean to downplay GTA, I just think there's better money spent elsewhere, and better ways to attract that audience.
I personally think Nintendo investing in Steam and Valve would be a much more profitable thing than just throwing some money to Rockstar for Grand Theft Auto V (and possibly its successor). Steam is available for PlayStation 3 and that offers cross-platform experiences with players on Windows or Mac. And for example, purchasing Portal 2 for PlayStation 3 also gives you a redeemable code so you get access to the game on PC as well. Something like this for Wii U I would find very interesting, although the majority of games released do not come with a function like this. But let's say Half-Life 3 gets released for Wii U, maybe there could be some cool Nintendo inspired easter eggs or unlockable weapons (F.L.U.D.D. for example) in it for people to pick up that version while still being able to play it on the PC.

Grand Theft Auto V is inevitably a blockbuster title but as suggested, money that would perhaps be required to get it on Wii U could be spent in better ways.
 
If you render four screens at 15fps or two screens at 30fps, the rendering resources shouldn't be much more horrible than rendering one screen at 60fps, no? So splitting the frames based on time -- let's call that "TimeSplitting"
goddamnit Crytek, you know what I want, TAKE MY MONEY!!
-- would solvemitigate both the bandwidth and rendering issues, even though the solution is obviously not ideal.


Edit: "solve" is a too promisey word… obviously, there's a bit more overhead involved when working with four separate small images versus one huge one

Here's what I was saying above

1 screen, 852x480 resolution, 60 frames per second
2 screen, 852x480 resolution, 30 frames per second
4 screens, 852x380 resolution, 15 frames per second

Fill rate in both cases are ~24.5Mpixels/s (not counting compression, which would decrease the data rate in either case). There would be more overhead for the latter, but perhaps not a lot.

I see various issues with my suggestion here, but I can't yet visualize any killing blows that would prevent this from working out.

(edit: just in case it gets lost on the last page, we know that the first of those three cases is possible)




Time division is sort of what I'm discussing. :)

Why not just leave the 4-screen scenario at 480? We're kind of stuck in that we don't know the full capability of what the GPU could put out. My thought in getting four screens to work would be making the TV image as the map (or something as static as possible) and handling the gameplay strictly on the controllers. Guessing at what the TV image would be in normal gameplay (1280x720/60) and one Upad (using your scenario), someone can correct my math if needed, but I'd assume we could see four Upads where each is playing at 30-45FPS.

Theoretically a 4 player splitscreen with each player using the Upad should be possible though? The resolution added up would still be below 1080p, and you could just output a simple map or statboard onto the TV.

That would be awesome.

Going by what I said above it's plausible. But don't take that as guaranteed. :p

The Wii is dead. Kinda dumb for Nintendo to let it get to this state, but as it is there's probably no point releasing anything significant.

Pachter said the Wii U announcement killed Wii.
 

AGITΩ

Member
About speculation:

http://andriasang.com/con0wk/inazuma_eleven_mmorpg/
Hino on Twitter: do you wanna play an Inazuma Eleven MMORPG?

Probably just a teaser or a joke, but in case it's something "reliable" I could imagine it on Wii U.

The brand was Nintendo-related up to now; the two spinoffs were developed for Wii (and performed decently, maybe better than expected); the MMORPG is more for home than for portables; DQX (MMORPG) is listed also for Wii U.

What do you think guys?
This will do well in Japan. I'd import a Wii U just for this. I have 1 of the DS Games (Spark Bomber) and Imported Strikers for Wii day 1...kinda upset they announced a sequel only a couple months later though.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
To you, fine. But Nintendo isn't trying to get you. They already have you. And you're right that it'll take time, and that's why Nintendo can't sit on their asses. They need as many huge games as possible right off the bat. If R* wants 10 mil for the port, it's an investment for the future.

psst, scroll up :p
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
AGITΩ;37638702 said:
This will do well in Japan. I'd import a Wii U just for this. I have 1 of the DS Games (Spark Bomber) and Imported Strikers for Wii day 1...kinda upset they announced a sequel only a couple months later though.

I have the first two episodes (PAL) but I was really upset about the Striker being relegated only in Japan...
 
Oh i'm not complaining. Its just that people usually loose interest when there is nothing to fuel speculation. I'm glad it keeps on moving.

That's the Nintendo Difference™. ;)

We did get some patent diagrams several hours ago. They were interesting, but the chatter afterward has been primarily about GTA and elements which could prevent rendering and/or streaming images out to four external monitors simultaneously.
 
So has everyone accepted that November rumour to be truth for the console release date? Or is there any chance it could come a month or 2 earlier? I'm still hoping for September at least.
 

Nibel

Member
A Max Payne 3 Wii U version is more likely than GTAV in this year - this is the year of Payne, they will take their time with GTAV. It will be their big 2013 release.
 

AGITΩ

Member
all though it didn't help, I don't believe this is fully true. Wasn't it already trending downward before then? Maybe I'm remembering wrong.

The Kinect killed the Wii. From consumer interactions, this is what I consider as fact. Casual consumers kept asking "Which is better, the Kinect or the Wii?" Most didn't even know about the PSMove so it was a non-factor. The Wii for Casuals was either used for WiiSports, Just Dance, and Fitness games. Once kinect got similar games...at day one, then Wii became nearly dead for a while.
The announcement of the Wii U didn't do much to kill Wii sales, simply because people didn't know to much of it outside of those of us who stay in the loop. There was word of mouth spreading after a while but misconceptions about the system being a handheld or an add on for the wii were more common actually. The Wii also got a boost in sales...and Wiimotion plus got more awareness, after Zelda came out.
 

HylianTom

Banned
So has everyone accepted that November rumour to be truth for the console release date? Or is there any chance it could come a month or 2 earlier? I'm still hoping for September at least.
I'd love to see September or October, as more games would sell well in the run-up to the holiday season, and Nintendo would get more of a head start on the other two in terms of console sales..
 
Other than the NBA game, I have a hunch that, of the ones you list, the only ones that'll make it to the U are the ones already announced (Darksiders, Assassin's Creed) or heavily hinted at (CoD).
I think we'll probably see six month or season-late ports in 2013 for big stuff like RE6, BS8, GTAV, etc, probably with extra content or at least GOTYEdition style dlc unlocked on disc. Can't wait to play Zero Suit Samus in DOA5.

Japan side, I think we're going to see lots of PS3/WiiU multi for region specific games (Gundam Vs, Musou, Basara, Powapuro, etc) with the latter even replacing 360 in many cases.
 

AGITΩ

Member
I have the first two episodes (PAL) but I was really upset about the Striker being relegated only in Japan...

I haven't seen the PAL episodes. Seen every Japanese episode to date, long before getting into the games. Strikers is a missed opportunity. For those who just want an off the wall Soccer game without the fluff of a story line, strikers was a great pick up and go. Though I wish they could have added Hissatsu Tactics to the game, and more diverse techniques, since most Characters who weren't the Mains only had like 1-2 techniques.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
A Max Payne 3 Wii U version is more likely than GTAV in this year - this is the year of Payne, they will take their time with GTAV. It will be their big 2013 release.
Max Payne 3 is slated for release on the the 15th respectively 18th of May in North America and other territories. Well, versions for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 anyway, with the PC version being released on the 29th of May. If Wii U launches in November, will it really be fresh enough to make an impact on launch window sales?
 

Linkhero1

Member
Maybe, down the line, but at launch no. I fully expect Rockstar to turn their nose up at the Wii U and focus on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC instead.

It's easy to write it off as anti-Nintendo conspiracy nonsense, but this is just how Rockstar behaves with releases. They follow a predictable pattern of releasing games on platforms that guaranty the highest profit margins. They take into account dev time (reworking engines, optimisation, QA, manufacturing, distribution, etc), and shape releases accordingly.

Or, long and short of it, if it won't make them a bazillion dollars they just don't give a fuck. See Red Dead Redemption on PC. Doesn't matter that it's based off the GTA IV engine. It doesn't matter how well GTA IV PC did, or how many people ask about a Red Dead port. They just don't care because they see the 360 and PS3 as the big money makers. Which they are.

For Nintendo's platforms in the past, there hasn't been enough demand or, in their eyes, a market to support big releases. Who cares if Nintendo fans want San Andreas? It will make tenfold the money it would make on the GCN released on the PS2, and even Xbox. This is where that market is, moreso than the GCN, so why bother?

They'll have a similar attitude to the Wii U. It's a new system, so right off the bat the potential market will be much, much smaller than the 360 and PS3. It's a Nintendo system, so they'll be wary of the audience. They'll take the conservative approach and not bother with a port as there's too many maybes, and the 360, PS3 and PC versions will do more than enough to cover the dev costs.

Maybe down the track when (if) the Wii U has a proven sizeable installbase of customers who buy these kinds of games, Rockstar will release a port of the game. Until then, and unless Nintendo throws some money their way, I don't really see it happening.

One thing to remember with the Wii U and GTA is that Nintendo isn't competing with a whole new generation of systems. This isn't like a couple of systems launching, each battling out with exclusives and deals to outsell the other. GTA V will release on the 360 and PS3, and they already have a massive audience. Fact of the matter is even if the Wii U had GTA V at launch, a vast majority of gamers will still just buy it for the 360 and PS3. That's the system they already own. That's the system they know. That's where their LIVE/PSN accounts are tied to their achievements/trophies. That's where their friends are found.

And that's why the Wii U needs exclusive, new games to draw in new gamers. Proving to the Xbox/PlayStation crowd that the Wii U has all the same games means nothing when those people already own those systems.

You have some good points. If they were able to release Manhunt 2 and Bully on the Wii, I don't see no reason that GTA V won't appear sometime down the road. I'm hoping that it would appear around the same time the 360 and PS3 versions appear so people don't write it off.

I disagree with your last point though. If they release a Wii U version at launch I would probably buy it for the Wii U rather than for my 360 or PS3, only to begin building up my third party titles for the Wii U. The problem is that it won't be a system seller of any kind, so exclusives are definitely a must for the Wii U.
 

Effect

Member
Personally I could care less about GTA. For me the series peaked with Vice City. GTA4 just wasn't fun. A far as open world games go I would want and hope that the next Fallout or Elder Scroll is on the system. Far Cry 3 as well is something I hope is on the system at launch even though it comes out a few months before the official release.

Maybe it's a long shot but I do hope for a September or October release. That way you have enough time to get systems out there in a wild for hands on impressions to build. Then have a good holiday season starting with Thanksgiving. Don't see how releasing the system later rather then sooner if they can would be a good thing. As long as you have a good selection of games at the start and they come out at a steady pace 2 or 3 month for several months. That way titles have breathing room instead of dropping a huge chuck of games at once knowing that people will have to pick and choose if they are getting the system day one. That's a good way of making sure either nothing does really well with purchases really being spread out or just a handful of things dominating and everything else doing poorly and then being forgotten.
 
Don't forget Tomb Raider.

Really hoping we see Bioshock Infinite on WiiU, and maybe Borderlands 2 depending on how it turns out. Only time will tell.

I thought Tomb Raider is confirmed to not be coming to Wii U.


Rösti;37638607 said:
I personally think Nintendo investing in Steam and Valve would be a much more profitable thing than just throwing some money to Rockstar for Grand Theft Auto V (and possibly its successor). Steam is available for PlayStation 3 and that offers cross-platform experiences with players on Windows or Mac. And for example, purchasing Portal 2 for PlayStation 3 also gives you a redeemable code so you get access to the game on PC as well. Something like this for Wii U I would find very interesting, although the majority of games released do not come with a function like this. But let's say Half-Life 3 gets released for Wii U, maybe there could be some cool Nintendo inspired easter eggs or unlockable weapons (F.L.U.D.D. for example) in it for people to pick up that version while still being able to play it on the PC.

Grand Theft Auto V is inevitably a blockbuster title but as suggested, money that would perhaps be required to get it on Wii U could be spent in better ways.

Nintendo has paid for development of titles before(EA during the GC days) & getting R* to release GTA for the Wii U is just as important as getting Madden was then( & far more important than getting steam on the platform, I would suspect the majority of GTA owners have little idea of what Steam even is), the only game that is more important is CoD(which is likely to be on Wii U).

As for the argument that Nintendo might as well spend the money on a new IP, I don't think that would have the impact that GTA V Wii U would have(regardless of quality, GTA is one of the biggest brands in gaming, not having it says more than any amount of new IP's).

Or, long and short of it, if it won't make them a bazillion dollars they just don't give a fuck. See Red Dead Redemption on PC. Doesn't matter that it's based off the GTA IV engine. It doesn't matter how well GTA IV PC did, or how many people ask about a Red Dead port. They just don't care because they see the 360 and PS3 as the big money makers. Which they are.

Haven't they said that the way RDR was made makes a PC version difficult?
 

Nibel

Member
Rösti;37639016 said:
Max Payne 3 is slated for release on the the 15th respectively 18th of May in North America and other territories. Well, versions for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 anyway, with the PC version being released on the 29th of May. If Wii U launches in November, will it really be fresh enough to make an impact on launch window sales?

Re-release it with the DLC or new additional content. Don't forget they released an overhauled version of Bully for the PC version.

But remember: I never said that it will actually come to Wii U - but it is more likely than GTAV hitting 360/PS3 this year.
 

Hiltz

Member
AGITΩ;37638894 said:
The Kinect killed the Wii. From consumer interactions, this is what I consider as fact. Casual consumers kept asking "Which is better, the Kinect or the Wii?" Most didn't even know about the PSMove so it was a non-factor. The Wii for Casuals was either used for WiiSports, Just Dance, and Fitness games. Once kinect got similar games...at day one, then Wii became nearly dead for a while.
The announcement of the Wii U didn't do much to kill Wii sales, simply because people didn't know to much of it outside of those of us who stay in the loop. There was word of mouth spreading after a while but misconceptions about the system being a handheld or an add on for the wii were more common actually. The Wii also got a boost in sales...and Wiimotion plus got more awareness, after Zelda came out.

I think Nintendo killed the Wii. 2010 was the console's best year yet Nintendo came into 2011 with nothing and made us wait until the end of the year for Kirby and Zelda titles. Third-parties had suddenly abandoned the platform due to generally underwhelming core game sales, leaving gamers to suffer through one of the worst software droughts on a Nintendo console. With that said, some software such as Just Dance and Skylanders seem to continue to sell well to the expanded audience.

Kinect certainly helped contribute to stealing the spotlight away from the Wii. It was the hot new thing that ended up selling a significant amount of peripherals and boosted 360's monthly hardware figures. However, only a handful of software has sold well. Naturally, most of it coming from Microsoft. Of course, gamers who grew tired of owning a Wii with its inconsistent third-party support, have the opportunity to pick up an Xbox 360 at a more affordable price nowadays.
 
Why not just leave the 4-screen scenario at 480? We're kind of stuck in that we don't know the full capability of what the GPU could put out. My thought in getting four screens to work would be making the TV image as the map (or something as static as possible) and handling the gameplay strictly on the controllers. Guessing at what the TV image would be in normal gameplay (1280x720/60) and one Upad (using your scenario), someone can correct my math if needed, but I'd assume we could see four Upads where each is playing at 30-45FPS.

Okay. That's just getting a little out of the scope of what I was looking into, which was very specifically how technically possible it is to deliver to four 480p screens given what we know about delivering to one 480p screen. You're solving for a somewhat different question.

Your example is focusing solely on rendering capability. Network streaming is still a factor of which we only know one thing: The latency to deliver one 480p frame through the wireless connection to a Display Remote Controller is one-sixtieth of a second.

In order to deliver 45fps to four Wii U controllers, the system would need to be capable of sending one entire frame every 0.00555 seconds (within one one-eightieth of a second), which far exceeds a pessimistic view of what we have so far been told about the method Nintendo uses by a factor of three.
 
Okay. That's just getting a little out of the scope of what I was looking into, which was very specifically how technically possible it is to deliver to four 480p screens given what we know about delivering to one 480p screen. You're solving for a somewhat different question.

Your example is focusing solely on rendering capability. Network streaming is still a factor of which we only know one thing: The latency to deliver one 480p frame through the wireless connection to a Display Remote Controller is one-sixtieth of a second.

In order to deliver 45fps to four Wii U controllers, the system would need to be capable of sending one entire frame every 0.00555 seconds (within one one-eightieth of a second), which far exceeds a pessimistic view of what we have so far been told about the method Nintendo uses by a factor of three.

You're right. My post was more myopic in discussion.
 
Hey guys, I'm like new here and stuff, and like, I heard about this new console Nintendo is putting out and whatever. My friend told me that like, he has one and its as powerful as like the Atari 2600. Is this true and stuff? Hes like me bestest friend so I believe everything he says and stuff.
 

The Boat

Member
I think Nintendo killed the Wii. 2010 was the console's best year yet Nintendo came into 2011 with nothing and made us wait until the end of the year for Kirby and Zelda titles. Third-parties had suddenly abandoned the platform, leaving gamers to suffer through one of the worst software droughts on a Nintendo console. With that said, some software such as Just Dance and Skylanders seem to continue to sell well.

Kinect certainly helped contribute to stealing the spotlight away from the Wii. It was the hot new thing that ended up selling a significant amount of peripherals and boosted 360's monthly hardware figures. However, outside of games like Dance Central, Kinect sports and Fruit Ninja, Kinect's software has generally failed to sell well. Of course, gamers who grew tired of owning a Wii with its inconsistent third-party support could move on to picking up an Xbox 360 at a reduced price.

I agree. It would be a miracle if the Wii had continued to sell considering everyone already had one and there were pretty much no games coming out. I don't think it had that much to do with Kinect.
 

TriGen

Member
Hey guys, I'm like new here and stuff, and like, I heard about this new console Nintendo is putting out and whatever. My friend told me that like, he has one and its as powerful as like the Atari 2600. Is this true and stuff? Hes like me bestest friend so I believe everything he says and stuff.

All sounds about right.
 

The Boat

Member
Hey guys, I'm like new here and stuff, and like, I heard about this new console Nintendo is putting out and whatever. My friend told me that like, he has one and its as powerful as like the Atari 2600. Is this true and stuff? Hes like me bestest friend so I believe everything he says and stuff.

I wouldn't say as powerful as the Atari 2600, but it's about 5-6x on par.
 
Hey guys, I'm like new here and stuff, and like, I heard about this new console Nintendo is putting out and whatever. My friend told me that like, he has one and its as powerful as like the Atari 2600. Is this true and stuff? Hes like me bestest friend so I believe everything he says and stuff.
Is his name Michael Pachter?
 
So has everyone accepted that November rumour to be truth for the console release date? Or is there any chance it could come a month or 2 earlier? I'm still hoping for September at least.

I accepted that particular date long before it became a rumour, because the magic formula of "Sunday Before Black Friday" has been used by Nintendo for 75% of this millennium's systems. So it just seems like they'd be likely to go with what usually works.


You're right. My post was more myopic in discussion.

Hm. I didn't mean what I said in a meany-way. I try to avoid discussing too much about the rendering capabilities because we just have so little to work with there. :|
 

Levyne

Banned
Thanks guys, I just saw it now, flipped back a couple pages in this thread but must have not flipped back far enough,
 
Hm. I didn't mean what I said in a meany-way. I try to avoid discussing too much about the rendering capabilities because we just have so little to work with there. :|

You're fine. I got your context. :)

But I was coming back to add/ask that wasn't the 1/60th latency dealing with the controller image vs the TV image making the latency a moot point if the gameplay is strictly on the Upads?
 

BurntPork

Banned
Yeah but that's what I think wont necessarily grab people who aren't me. I don't think Nintendo has to stand on a podium and shout "WE HAVE GTA" for people to take them 'seriously', or for them even to give a fuck. I don't mean to downplay GTA, I just think there's better money spent elsewhere, and better ways to attract that audience.
Nintendo has the money to do both this and that better way. This is something that's going to take years to accomplish, and if they hold back, they will fail.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Nintendo has the money to do both this and that better way. This is something that's going to take years to accomplish, and if they hold back, they will fail.

Yes well I don't agree with your absolutive thinking.
 
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