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[Plinko]

What's funny to me is that all of this will most likely mean absolutely nothing to the majority of people who buy this machine.

I mean, I love watching the discussion on here. Some great stuff is observed and analyzed. But, in the end, it's funny how almost meaningless it is to so many consumers.

 

[StuBurns]

If WiiU had a fraction of the hype the Wii did I'd say Nintendo is far and away in the best position going forward. Support for the highest end of current gen engines, 2-4x the memory, a more advanced GPU, and launching a year ahead of the competition.

Launching a year ahead could still be a huge boon to the system. I mean they have the potential to be a good 10-20 million units ahead of Orbis and Durango before either has launched.

The last time that happened we had a PS2 generation.

What happened? DC launched first that time.

 

[Diablos54]

And if third parties do flock to ps4/720 it will be more costly for them to downport then it did to downport to the wii and that very well mean even less ports and lower third party support.

I'm pretty sure this would be impossible.

 

[Dicer]

A whole bunch of people that have no concept and just say "durr Huurr slow CPU deederp no dx11 " awesome thread for sure...

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Disappointing, but expected.

Lol @ all the of the posters calling this a bait thread.

 

[schuelma]

Isn't it though? If your a thrid party developer you have two systems to spread the risk out on and incoming development tools like unreal engine 4 that are supposed to drastically help out with development and it's associated costs.
.

I am extremely, extremely, skeptical of the supposed ease of UE4. Sounds like sales bullshit to me. If publishers really push next gen system, costs will go up. That's a fact.

I am not convinced that putting all of your eggs in a basket of 2 platforms who will be getting a late start and which will require more money is any less riskier than developing for 1 platform which A-let's you keep your current tech more or less and B- will have a 10M headstart before the other two even launch.

 

[snowdog1971]

Seriously pissed off.


There is no excuse for this machine to cost $300 now.

I wouldn't worry mate, these 'specs' are from yet another anonymous developer. We know thanks to the SDK leak a while back that the GPU has a DX11 equivalent feature set and not a DX10 one. Even if it did have an older feature set it would be DX10.1 anyway.

We know that the CPU has OoOE, the console has an IO processor and DSP.

We also know that the CPU has 3MB of cache compared to 1MB on the Xenon and the GPU has compute shaders, tesselation and 32MB of eDRAM compared to bugger all compute shaders, non-viable tesselation and only 10MB of eDRAM on Xenos. On paper the CPU and GPU are 3 times more powerful in terms of cache and eDRAM before you even take the newer and more efficient architecture into account.

As for the RAM I personally think it's highly likely that Nintendo will have opted for 2GB of DDR3 rather than 1.5GB of the same or any other type of RAM.

This is yet more bollocks from yet another anonymous dev.

Calm down, people, calm down.

 

[BlackJace]

Disappointing, but expected.

Lol @ all the of the posters calling this a bait thread.

This post attests to their accusation, actually.

 

[Diablos54]

Since no one answered, I need to ask again.

Is this info 100% correct then? Since everyone in this thread seems to be acting like it is. I just want to be sure.

 

[KageMaru]

For tomorrow ask Ubisoft. For the future, well Wii had exclusives. Any console has 3rd party exlusives.

Then we can talk about exclusive features.

Yes, every console does have 3rd party exclusives. I'm sure you'll disagree with me here, but I'd much rather have the 3rd party exclusives on the PS360 than those on the Wii.

You also have to consider the budgets for these exclusives. If the Ps4 and 720 can be treated as one SKU again, more of the overall development budget will be directed towards 3rd party software on those two systems since the overall install base will be higher.

So unless the Wii-U proves successful for 3rd party software, or is capable of receiving down-ports, I wouldn't expect much from those 3rd party exclusives.

this is the quote I'm talking about:

Hey thanks. That quote is really lacking in specific details. However it doesn't look like it's done by any of the guys from DF, so that may explain some things.

Regardless, it can be both right and wrong. In general purpose computing, I can see the Wii-U CPU easily outpacing the Xenon in the 360, same for single threaded performance. However it's entirely possible that the CPU in the Wii-U may lag in terms of floating point processing compared to the Xenon for example.

 

[jrDev]

It just needs good games to sell.

MwahahHa!!!

 

[antonz]

A whole bunch of people that have no concept and just say "durr Huurr slow CPU deederp no dx11 " awesome thread for sure...

Its about the typical quality of posts on Neogaf these days. Mods let the Wii U threads get gamefaq level of quality.

 

[Mr. MondayNight]

That might work for madden and FIFA. But when we're talking about your call of dutys or unreal engine 4 games the cost to do that will be higher then it was for doing it for wii, so there is the possibility - if wiiU sales aren't stellar - that it doesn't make financial sense to pursue a downport.

I disagree they aren't/don't have to start building a new engine for the Wii U when they can use the existing ones, that's what made it harder for the Wii the cost of building an engine from the ground up where as the Wii U can use an upgraded 360 engine that just needs optimization.

 

[Jonm1010]

I'm pretty sure this would be impossible.

Explain??

Wii development is based on last gen technology whereas the 360/ps3 tech requires significant more development time, tools, man power and so forth. How it wouldn't be more expensive to produce a wiiU game over a wii game is what's baffling me about your comment.

 

[NateDrake]

I wouldn't worry mate, these 'specs' are from yet another anonymous developer. We know thanks to the SDK leak a while back that the GPU has a DX11 equivalent feature set and not a DX10 one. Even if it did have an older feature set it would be DX10.1 anyway.

We know that the CPU has OoOE, the console has an IO processor and DSP.

We also know that the CPU has 3MB of cache compared to 1MB on the Xenon and the GPU has compute shaders, tesselation and 32MB of eDRAM compared to bugger all compute shaders, non-viable tesselation and only 10MB of eDRAM on Xenos. On paper the CPU and GPU are 3 times more powerful in terms of cache and eDRAM before you even take the newer and more efficient architecture into account.

As for the RAM I personally think it's highly likely that Nintendo will have opted for 2GB of DDR3 rather than 1.5GB of the same or any other type of RAM.

This is yet more bollocks from yet another anonymous dev.

Calm down, people, calm down.

Link?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

1GB of RAM is way lower than the otehr rumors (most of them said 2GB) and is quite hilarious. All this basically confirms Wii U will have the same situation as Wii. Sub-par 3rd party support and minimal multiplatform games.

A lot of people will be fine with this, but I don't see how the Wii U can gain the support of the ppl that wasn't interested in the Wii.

 

[chertipros]

Seriously pissed off.


There is no excuse for this machine to cost $300 now.

Calm down. Just don't buy it.

 

[Sid]

What happened? DC launched first that time.

Lol

 

[StuBurns]

I disagree they aren't/don't have to start building a new engine for the Wii U when they can use the existing ones, that's what made it harder for the Wii the cost of building an engine from the ground up where as the Wii U can use an upgraded 360 engine that just needs optimization.

You're implying people use PS360 engines for WiiU games, while the PS480 have 'next-gen' engines? How is that different to this generation? People could have used PS2 era technology to keep making Wii games, but no one bothered.

 

[Jonm1010]

I disagree they aren't/don't have to start building a new engine for the Wii U when they can use the existing ones, that's what made it harder for the Wii the cost of building an engine from the ground up where as the Wii U can use an upgraded 360 engine that just needs optimization.

And wii used slightly upgraded GameCube engines in areas.

And like i said, it WILL NOT be that bad for the maddens and fifas but what about new IP's developed first and foremost for 720/ps4? That downgrade to wiiU will be more expensive then the downgrade from 360/ps3 to the wii and will require more sales to recoup its costs.

 

[Diablos54]

Explain??

Wii development is based on last gen technology whereas the 360/ps3 tech requires significant more development time, tools, man power and so forth. How it wouldn't be more expensive to produce a wiiU game over a wii game is what's baffling me about your comment.

I thought you meant it would be more expensive to downport a 360/PS3 game to the Wii, than it would be to downport a Orbis/Durango game to the Wii U.

 

[specialguy]

I wouldn't worry mate, these 'specs' are from yet another anonymous developer. We know thanks to the SDK leak a while back that the GPU has a DX11 equivalent feature set and not a DX10 one. Even if it did have an older feature set it would be DX10.1 anyway.

We know that the CPU has OoOE, the console has an IO processor and DSP.

We also know that the CPU has 3MB of cache compared to 1MB on the Xenon and the GPU has compute shaders, tesselation and 32MB of eDRAM compared to bugger all compute shaders, non-viable tesselation and only 10MB of eDRAM on Xenos. On paper the CPU and GPU are 3 times more powerful in terms of cache and eDRAM before you even take the newer and more efficient architecture into account.

As for the RAM I personally think it's highly likely that Nintendo will have opted for 2GB of DDR3 rather than 1.5GB of the same or any other type of RAM.

This is yet more bollocks from yet another anonymous dev.

Calm down, people, calm down.

sorry couldn't help it.

BTW "cache" doesnt strictly mean "power" though, that's more functional units, clockspeed, eg shaders, FP units on the CPU.

It would be like saying a console with a huge amount of RAM and crap GPU is super powerful. While Ram/cache facilitates power, it's not exactly the same thing.

 

[ZoddGutts]

Those specs will kill any chances of getting ports from PS4/720. The amount of ram alone will kill any ports from PS4/720 that are rumored to have at least 4GB. Also explains why the WiiU is not getting the full UE4 engine since DirectX11 is a must for the full engine, yeah I know the WiiU is getting some sort of a gimped UE4 version.

 

[gofreak]

I am not convinced that putting all of your eggs in a basket of 2 platforms who will be getting a late start and which will require more money is any less riskier than developing for 1 platform which A-let's you keep your current tech more or less and B- will have a 10M headstart before the other two even launch.

I don't know about the relative risk of each approach, but it seems like a lot of pubs may have already made their choice, for now at least. There's incredibly little evidence of next-gen development activity on Wii U vs it being a porting station for PS3/360 software.

I know I keep harping on this point, but I think it's pretty incredible. Not sure we've ever seen anything like it in a new platform.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

What happened? DC launched first that time.

Sega wasn't coming off of the market leading console of the generation either.

Different situation. It could end just as badly for Nintendo. Like I said if it had a fraction of the hype of the Wii this coming generation would probably be a blowout. But it doesn't currently have that hype.

This could mean very bad things for the WiiU.

 

[schuelma]

You're implying people use PS360 engines for WiiU games, while the PS480 have 'next-gen' engines? How is that different to this generation? People could have used PS2 era technology to keep making Wii games, but no one bothered.

I think its early to really determine what is going to happen. I still think it is reasonable to assume there will not be the same technical barriers to downports there were last gen. If early 3rd party games sell well I can see Wii U getting better support from Western pubs than the Wii. In Japan I expect very good support.

 

[Jonm1010]

I thought you meant it would be more expensive to downport a 360/PS3 game to the Wii, than it would be to downport a Orbis/Durango game to the Wii U.

Haha now it all makes sense. Sorry if I was confusing. I'm on an iPad and typing fast, things can get messy.

 

[Proelite]

From a power perspective, I think the Wii-u is fine. There is a chance that both PS4 and Orbis have minimal improvement over their predecessors, especially in the CPU area. It's quite possible that wii u will be able to handle Orbis and Durango ports than 360 and Ps3 ports that have a lot of in order code.

Considering that Durango will only be 4-6x more powerful, it won't be a repeat of last generation.

 

[schuelma]

I don't know about the relative risk of each approach, but it seems like a lot of pubs may have already made their choice, for now at least. There's incredibly little evidence of next-gen development activity on Wii U vs it being a porting station for PS3/360 software.
.

We haven't seen much of anything from next gen development yet. Not sure how we are supposed to judge that without seeing PS4/720 development.

I'm not saying it will be equal and I'm not saying the early signs are awesome, but I think it is way too premature to be making such strong statements.

 

[Nibel]

That picture is Vita thread-exclusive, you can't just click around GAF and post it where you want, dawg

 

[Sid]

From a power perspective, I think the Wii-u is fine. There is a chance that both PS4 and Orbis have minimal improvement over their predecessors, especially in the CPU area. It's quite possible that wii u will be able to handle Orbis and Durango ports than 360 and Ps3 ports that have a lot of in order code.

Considering that Durango will only be 4-6x more powerful, it won't be a repeat of last generation.

Why?

 

[specialguy]

Sega wasn't coming off of the market leading console of the generation either.

Different situation. It could end just as badly for Nintendo. Like I said if it had a fraction of the hype of the Wii this coming generation would probably be a blowout. But it doesn't currently have that hype.

This could mean very bad things for the WiiU.

What were the lines at E3 like for Wii U?

I remember the E3 lines for Wii where insane back in the day. Hours to get to play anything.

BTW, full disclosure, I predicted abject failure for the Wii before it released as well...

 

[Diablos54]

I don't know about the relative risk of each approach, but it seems like a lot of pubs may have already made their choice, for now at least. There's incredibly little evidence of next-gen development activity on Wii U vs it being a porting station for PS3/360 software.

I know I keep harping on this point, but I think it's pretty incredible. Not sure we've ever seen anything like it in a new platform.

I find it strange that many publishers are ignoring the successor to the highest selling console this gen. Especially since they did the same thing to the Wii (Which was more understandable) and left tons of money on the table, which Nintendo took for themselves. You'd think they would have learnt, but I guess not. I can't wait for RE5/RE6 gold combo to sell millions before Capcom give us lightshooter squeals.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

What were the lines at E3 like for Wii U?

I remember the E3 lines for Wii where insane back in the day. Hours to get to play anything.

BTW, full disclosure, I predicted abject failure for the Wii before it released as well...

Lines were like for any new console. Big, but far from the fervor in the lead up to the Wii.

 

[Jonm1010]

From a power perspective, I think the Wii-u is fine. There is a chance that both PS4 and Orbis have minimal improvement over their predecessors, especially in the CPU area. It's quite possible that wii u will be able to handle Orbis and Durango ports than 360 and Ps3 ports that have a lot of in order code.

Considering that Durango will only be 4-6x more powerful, it won't be a repeat of last generation.

I think this is a key point to the porting question.

If the low end of the rumors are true and the 720/ps4 is only a minor leap with 2gigs of ram, an average CPU and gpu, then ports won't be a problem(though if that pretty much verified leaked microsoft document is any indication the leap is at least fairly decent if not improving)

If however the higher range of the rumors turns out true then it probably will be unless wiiU knocks it out of the park sales wise and sells a strong amount of thrid party software to get developers over their fear of Nintendo consoles being unfriendly to third parties.

 

[Proelite]

Why?

Maybe not Orbis, but we've gotten consistent leaks the past year that Durango won't be all that except for 4gb of slow ram.

 

[Blades64]

/meltdowncauseimissgaf

I hesitate to post in these kind of threads because I view them as entirely pathetic. Bunch of console warriors eager as fuck to prove their superiority to one another (we even have cock size references in this thread, with celebration around how brilliant those references are, smh).

The bottom line is, and always has been, there isn't a need to buy Nintendo hardware unless you're at least one of two things;

1. A Nintendo fan that enjoys their franchises

2. An enthusiast gamer that can't let a generation pass without buying all the hardware available so that all the game options are available to you.

These metrics apply for MS and Sony machines as well of course. I get that people want to buy 1 system and get all the great games each new generation brings but that's never been possible. EVER. You've always had to either pick a favorite, or buy them all throughout the entire history of this industry and that's not going to change anytime soon. I also understand that people are concerned with "value" and don't want to buy dated tech or whatever, but are we not gamers? Do you not buy a system for it's games? I sure as fuck do. Don't particularly give a fuck what company makes it. Maybe I'm a dying breed.

There is no actual discussion to be had in these kinds of threads. Never was. All sides spend page after page banging your heads against the wall. This shit used to be easy to ignore, but now it's every where here. They bring the whole forum down, if you want my opinion, but they obviously aren't going away for whatever reason.

I can barely tell the fucking difference most days between NeoGaf, GameFAQS or consolewarz (or whatever the fuck that shitty forum was/is called) anymore, and that's a fucking shame.

I'm probably biased. When Gaf lost the exclusive NPD numbers it used to get, that was a big blow to my interest, but I continued to return here because it's often frequented by intelligent people, or insiders that are interested in actual discussion about the video game industry and it's varied components. Fuck, even the trolls used to be celebrated here because they were a higher form of troll that was actually well versed, clever and actually FUNNY. It all seems less true with each passing day.

I probably just need some time off. This shit is a waste of time.

/meltdowncauseimissgaf

This. This so much. I agree 100%.

I just recently joined Gaf, but I've been lurking for quite some time. I dunno if it's just a new console release or what that causes people to jump at each others' throats like this, but it's getting ridiculous.

I don't think I've ever been this disappointed in Gaf (not singling out anyone). I wish we could go back to the great discussions that we once had.

 

[antonz]

What were the lines at E3 like for Wii U?

I remember the E3 lines for Wii where insane back in the day. Hours to get to play anything.

BTW, full disclosure, I predicted abject failure for the Wii before it released as well...

E3 Is smaller than it was back in 2005 and 2006. To the tune of nearly 20,000 fewer attendees.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

I think its early to really determine what is going to happen. I still think it is reasonable to assume there will not be the same technical barriers to downports there were last gen. If early 3rd party games sell well I can see Wii U getting better support from Western pubs than the Wii. In Japan I expect very good support.

How so? UE4 won't run on Wii U at all except for some gimped version that could be perfectly the mobile version for all we know. (I'm saying UE4 because if probably the multi platorm engine of choice for the next gen)

Given the specs in this article and seeing the rumored durango specs the difference is big. Probably the closest comparisson we have is Vita/3DS and you can see the state of multiplatform titles for western companies.

 

[Sid]

Maybe not Orbis, but we've gotten consistent leaks the past year that Durango won't be all that except for 4gb of slow ram.

Ue4 is targeted at both ps4/nextbox best just to wait and watch

 

[specialguy]

From a power perspective, I think the Wii-u is fine. There is a chance that both PS4 and Orbis have minimal improvement over their predecessors, especially in the CPU area. It's quite possible that wii u will be able to handle Orbis and Durango ports than 360 and Ps3 ports that have a lot of in order code.

Considering that Durango will only be 4-6x more powerful, it won't be a repeat of last generation.

Yeah I was thinking of that. Wii vs PS360. Wii was a previous gen console X1.5 right? More than 1.5 in the RAM even (88MB's vs 24 for GC)

So you could try to ascertain if Wii U is a bigger jump over PS360 than Wii was over Xbox/PS2. That thought experiment might not end well for Wii U.

The difference might be though, that the Next Box and PS4 might be significantly smaller leaps than 360 and PS3 were to their predecessors.

That said PS4 seems like a traditional console and imo will easily provide a traditional generational leap with the rumored specs. Durango seems like a really odd duck so I cant comment as unequivocally there.

 

[gofreak]

We haven't seen much of anything from next gen development yet. Not sure how we are supposed to judge that without seeing PS4/720 development.

I think that's the point though. That Wii U isn't triggering this 'reveal' of the next generation speaks volumes IMO. I'm not sure Nintendo's track record here affords a lot of trust in a more optimistic scenario. And what little we have seen of more obviously 'next-gen' work has been silent wrt Wii U support.

We've never had to wait before like that. Even Dreamcast wasn't comparable. While it had zero confidence from the likes of EA, from the start it also had confidence from other pubs as a home for exclusive next-gen content. It offered more from third parties than PSX ports, and stuff that was appreciably advanced from that prior gen.

 

[demigod]

1GB Ram, what a joke. I guess that rumor about it having 1.5GB is true. GC was such a beast. Wii and Wii U are a joke. System isn't worth more than $249. Knowing Nintendo, they will charge $299+.

Watch 3rd party games will look like crap compared to next gen Sony/Xbox games in late 2014.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

Yeah I was thinking of that. Wii vs PS360. Wii was a previous gen console X1.5 right? More than 1.5 in the RAM even (88MB's vs 24 for GC)

So you could try to ascertain if Wii U is a bigger jump over PS360 than Wii was over Xbox/PS2. That thought experiment might not end well for Wii U.

The difference might be though, that the Next Box and PS4 might be significantly smaller leaps than 360 and PS3 were to their predecessors.

That said PS4 seems like a traditional console and imo will easily provide a traditional generational leap with the rumored specs. Durango seems like a really odd duck so I cant comment as bluntly there.

If you're just counting main RAM between Wii and GCN it would be 24MB versus 24MB.

Total system RAM would be 88MB versus 43MB.

 

[schuelma]

I think that's the point though. That Wii U isn't triggering this 'reveal' of the next generation speaks volumes IMO. I'm not sure Nintendo's track record here affords a lot of trust in a more optimistic scenario. And what little we have seen of more obviously 'next-gen' work has been silent wrt Wii U support.

We've never had to wait before like that. Even Dreamcast wasn't comparable. While it had zero confidence from the likes of EA, from the start it also had confidence from other pubs as a home for exclusive next-gen content. It offered more from third parties than PSX ports, and stuff that was appreciably advanced from that prior gen.

We'll see. If companies are targeting all 3 platforms for games next fall, I don't know how much sense it makes to reveal them now.

I would also add Japan has been silent so far. That is a big piece of the puzzle.

 

[JAYinHD]

I wouldn't worry mate, these 'specs' are from yet another anonymous developer. We know thanks to the SDK leak a while back that the GPU has a DX11 equivalent feature set and not a DX10 one. Even if it did have an older feature set it would be DX10.1 anyway.

We know that the CPU has OoOE, the console has an IO processor and DSP.

We also know that the CPU has 3MB of cache compared to 1MB on the Xenon and the GPU has compute shaders, tesselation and 32MB of eDRAM compared to bugger all compute shaders, non-viable tesselation and only 10MB of eDRAM on Xenos. On paper the CPU and GPU are 3 times more powerful in terms of cache and eDRAM before you even take the newer and more efficient architecture into account.

As for the RAM I personally think it's highly likely that Nintendo will have opted for 2GB of DDR3 rather than 1.5GB of the same or any other type of RAM.

This is yet more bollocks from yet another anonymous dev.

Calm down, people, calm down.

This.

 

[StuBurns]

Sega wasn't coming off of the market leading console of the generation either.

Different situation. It could end just as badly for Nintendo. Like I said if it had a fraction of the hype of the Wii this coming generation would probably be a blowout. But it doesn't currently have that hype.

This could mean very bad things for the WiiU.

My point was, you said the WiiU is coming off the winning system, and launching first, and the last time that happened was PS2, I was just saying no, that didn't happen then. The PS2 launched second, and the PS3 actually launched second too.

Looking at previous generations doesn't really consistently tell us anything. Launching first doesn't seem to matter, being cheapest doesn't seem to matter, having won the previous generation doesn't seem to matter. The WiiU could certainly win, it could steamroll the other two, or it could flatline, I don't think there's any way to make an educated guess, because there's no consistency in the characteristics of previous winners.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

I think that's the point though. That Wii U isn't triggering this 'reveal' of the next generation speaks volumes IMO. I'm not sure Nintendo's track record here affords a lot of trust in a more optimistic scenario. And what little we have seen of more obviously 'next-gen' work has been silent wrt Wii U support.

Another really good point. I can't remember the last console that was revealed that didn't show off any next-gen games. Imagine if in 2005 and 2006 Microsoft and Sony didn't show any footage of confirmed games for the 360 and PS3. This is unprecedented. P-100 maybe...

 

[AOC83]

From a power perspective, I think the Wii-u is fine. There is a chance that both PS4 and Orbis have minimal improvement over their predecessors, especially in the CPU area. It's quite possible that wii u will be able to handle Orbis and Durango ports than 360 and Ps3 ports that have a lot of in order code.

Considering that Durango will only be 4-6x more powerful, it won't be a repeat of last generation.

Iwata is that you?

 

[specialguy]

If you're just counting main RAM between Wii and GCN it would be 24MB versus 24MB.

Total system RAM would be 88MB versus 43MB.

As I understood it the other 16 MB's of RAM in the GC was almost completely useless (the thing I heard it used for was "streaming audio"). Functionally it had 24MB of main RAM. Plus you're counting the 3MB of EDRAM which I think is bad form (EG, in that case 360 is 522 MB's instead of 512 etc, it just doesn't make technical sense though). Whereas I count the Wii as having 88MB essentially straight up as it's all fast and usable AFAIK.