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[AmFreak]

A core i7 is a modern technology and pretty much in its own class . Its the exception not the rule; and pretty much all of there previous processors followed this rule. And of course there's more to it than that. ISA, ALU counts, Pipeline width, pipeline complexity, software, etc.

No it isn't an exception. That it's higher clocked and faster per clock than the comparable weak competition, doesn't change the fact that higher IPC works against high clock.
You can even see this by looking at Intel - even by now no Intel cpu has ever reached the clock of the P4.

 

[EloquentM]

Let's see



Woah! This is some amazing insight at what Retro is doing. It doesn't read like a typical response from a developer when asked about that kind of stuff.

"We like the hardware and we are doing cool stuff"

Amazing

why are you so unnecessarily patronizing? Are you that bothered?

 

[Saint Gregory]

Partially. What this really demonstrates is how little the general public will care about the concerns in this thread. Looking at individual specs on processors is of little value unless you examine the system in its entirety. I would take better balanced system over faster cores any day of the week. This reminds me of the GHz push in the early 2000's when everyone was so focused on the number on the processor without also considering the order of magnitude slower bus speeds that they sat on.

It is also of little use to compare the embedded components to OTS parts for PCs and the embedded packages have been modified for the console. We saw this with the PS2 and the Emotion Engine, the PS3 and the SPUs, and the 360s core packaging.

Comparing launch game ports to the Wii U vs established consoles that have had the luxury of YEARS of code optimization in their engines is equally silly.

At any rate, all I can tell you is that me and my family have been having a BLAST with the WiiU. And isn't that what it is all about anyway?

While you're not wrong Nintendo specifically stated that their goal for this console ws to win back the crowd that they lost with the Wii.

Now while it was silly to ever believe that this was true, especially after the name became official, it still would have served Nintendo better if they had just said that they were repeating their strategy with the Wii.

I'm not mad at all, I've had my WiiU for about a week and I'm really happy with it. But as you can see from this thread the choices that Nintendo made with this console has some generally level head posters, including one of the founding fathers of the board, pretty irate. This isn't the best way to start off your supposed campaign to win back this market. I'm not saying that Nintendo can't turn this around but they're off to a horrible start.

 

[Mr Swine]

Nintendo needs to realise the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about:

1. Wii backwards compatibility....why the hell would you cripple your current system to ensure this?
2. Small form factor...it's not actually that small...it's as big as OG Xbox! Both the 360 and PS3 slims are smaller and more powerful by the looks of it.
3. Energy consumption...I mean WTF!

1. I like to have BC so I can play games on 1 console.
2. It is possibly a lot smaller than what the next gen consoles are going to be and you can't compare Wii U to PS360 slim since they have smaller CPU/GPU and many other stuff
3. Yeah! Wii U should not be energy effiecient, it should be very hot and use a lot of electricity! Intel should do the same too!

 

[onQ123]

Nintendo needs to realise the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about:

1. Wii backwards compatibility....why the hell would you cripple your current system to ensure this?
2. Small form factor...it's not actually that small...it's as big as OG Xbox! Both the 360 and PS3 slims are smaller and more powerful by the looks of it.
3. Energy consumption...I mean WTF!

are you high?

http://youtu.be/37_ucjLr1TI

 

[Freezie KO]

This isn't something that needs a fee. That's why I said universal right -- it should always be included, no matter if the service is free or paid. PSN includes the same feature.

Saying "BUT IT'S FREE!!!!" doesn't exclude the fact that the situation is absolute lunacy and completely anti-consumer. PSN, Steam, and any modern app store all include this absolutely crucial, basic feature at no extra cost. Nintendo is deliberately not supporting it in order to be as contrary as possible.

Okay... I'm not necessarily disagreeing that they should have that ability. Although I do disagree that their motive is "to be as contrary as possible."

I think you're losing sight of the original line of conversation though. I was comparing Nintendo's network with XBox Live. That's all.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Super high clock speed (3+ GHz) at the cost of having to have an extremely deep pipeline to support the frequency. However that deep pipeline gets invalidated whenever the branch prediction fails, costing a ton of cycles. So really, it's not getting a whole lot out of its cycles, which is why the lower clocked Pentium M mopped the floor with it at much lower power consumption.

Ah, OK, so basically the P4 was way faster than what available bandwiths at the time could support, in essence making it be a 'too much, too soon' CPU?

 

[Linkhero1]

The Wii U's online system right now has account names, friend requests, a digital distribution platform, YouTube, etc. Unless you like paying double the cost of your console so that you can download games onto your friend's hardware, I'd say they have a better platform than Microsoft.

No...

Until they have all the features XBL has and then some, XBL is leagues better.

 

[Koren]

1. Wii backwards compatibility....why the hell would you cripple your current system to ensure this?

I'm sure it helps a bit (would have helped Vita, I think), and it's handy.

2. Small form factor...it's not actually that small...it's as big as OG Xbox!

What ? If I'm not mistaken :

Wii U is 17,5 x 26,8 x 4,6 cm
Original XBox is 26,0 × 31,0 × 10,0 cm
PS3 Superslim is 26,0 x 29,0 x 6 cm

It's more than four times smaller in volume than original XBox, also smaller than PS3 superslim

3. Energy consumption...I mean WTF!

I'm pretty sure it has more to do with reliability (impacted by heat generated) than with consumption.

 

[Madouu]

The next Xbox and PlayStation are not "GPU-centric." There are pretty significant things happening with their processor architectures. And at least for Durango, it's not using off the shelf kit, contrary to what many GAF posters have insisted. Even more troublesome for the Wii U, they have much more dedicated GPGPU capabilities which aren't happening on the dedicated GPUs they're packing.

This is why, in addition to other reasons exposed in this topic by other more insightful posters, I still feel Nintendo are doing the right thing from a business perspective.

From a consumer's perspective, it definitely sucks. We all wish for the cutting edge technology when it comes to new pieces of hardware, and it sure would have been great to have a more powerful machine in addition to new functionalities that still have to prove themselves. That being said, I canot say I am surprised as this is most definitely in line with Nintendo's policies during the last few years or so.

Most of the comments in this topic, I feel, are pretty harsh and perhaps justly so - that we shall know in the months and years to come - but honestly, when I think about it, I am perfectly happy with having Microsoft + Sony and my PC catering to my "powerful hardware" needs while the last market actor explores different avenues. So yeah, there's definitely more of a market for a device like the Wii U than just soccer moms. Whether it will be financially viable though will probably boil down to the quality of the software at the end of the day.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I think you're exaggerating the extent of the disagreement there. It's not really shocking that a dev like Retro, which is focused solely on Wii U and can design a game from the ground up for the strengths and weaknesses of the hardware, would have a more positive view of the platform than a developer who would have to shoehorn an engine designed for very different hardware onto it.

But maybe it is just Nintendo Stockholm syndrome, who knows.

I don't deny that there may be a valid reason for them to have a more optimistic outlook on the hardware, probably being more familiar with it. I just also am highly skeptical of anecdotal evidence that suggests all of the criticism of the hardware currently is somehow null and void because of secondhand info of unannounced software. We don't all have to agree on anything here, or reach a consensus on how great or how terrible the hardware is. But in a thread where people are trying to reach conclusions about what the actual tech is powering the system, I just don't see the place for "nobody's shown anything yet, but people in the know are really liking what this puppy can do" here.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Okay... I'm not necessarily disagreeing that they should have that ability. Although I do disagree that their motive is "to be as contrary as possible."

I think you're losing sight of the original line of conversation though. I was comparing Nintendo's network with XBox Live. That's all.

I'm not going to let anyone on this board trivialize the lack of downloaded game portability. Don't toss out a statement like that unless you want to be called on it.

 

[B.O.O.M]

I think this is gonna prove bad for the console in the long run. But it all depends on how the next ps/xbox ends up. But things are not looking good 3rd party support wise unless some games suddenly find a lot of popularity on the system. Another wii like situation is likely. Shame too because they were very well placed too

 

[cRIPticon]

No...

Until they have all the features XBL has and then some, XBL is leagues better.

Like a confusing interface, gimmicks like Kinect controls for menu control, advertisements everywhere? Urm....ok!

 

[Sexually Aggressive Uncle]

NeoGaf runs best on Wii U.

NegGaf has a new banner.

Make it happen modUs/evilore.

 

[Davey Cakes]

I'm pretty sure it has more to do with reliability (impacted by heat generated) than with consumption.

Remember when WiiConnect24 made the Wii overheat? I'm guessing Nintendo wanted to avoid any such thing happening on the new system.

I always gets uncomfortable when systems heat up, whether it be consoles or my laptop. Heat reduction is cool by me.

 

[Linkhero1]

Like a confusing interface, gimmicks like Kinect controls for menu control, advertisements everywhere? Urm....ok!

Not sure what the OS/Interface has to do with XBL but sure why not.

 

[raven777]

so how good is 3 x Broadway? is it literally 3x power of Broadway?
is it more efficient than having multicore?

 

[radioheadrule83]

So the silver lining is...

What kind of PC would you need to emulate a WiiU. Forgetting the gamepad screen obviously. Would it be possible using Core i7 overclocked.

Some core i5s and i7s can struggle with Wii, so I don't think it would be possible in any usable way right now. The reason you need a pretty good processor emulating Wii is because it has to emulate the way Gekko and Broadway process instructions, its a processor intensive task and this will be multiple times harder than that I would have thought. There's a good discussion here on trying to get KVM playing nice with Gekko, and the difficulties that entails: http://pl.digipedia.org/usenet/thread/11771/1362/#post1377

 

[Freezie KO]

No...

Until they have all the features XBL has and then some, XBL is leagues better.

Only if cost is out of the equation. Nintendo doesn't charge you to play games you already own online.

And as someone mentioned, I don't have ads shoved in my face either on Nintendo's network.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Has ghst posted in here yet? wish there was an RSS feed for his posts, a google alert even

 

[Ty4on]

3. Energy consumption...I mean WTF!

Size, noise and heatsink cost. The (2005/2006) Xbox 360 was 200W and you pay for that with the noise. The PS3 was also 200W, but used a more clever (and expensive) cooling solution. It was still not silent.

Of course, Nintendo could have used that to make the WiiU bigger and not look like the Wii

 

[LeleSocho]

And you have a lot of comments from developers saying the system is very powerful and great.

Why'd you leave out that part???

(rhetorical question)

Yep it's really a rhetorical question but i will answer it just for the sake of...
Because all the ones who said good things about the wiiu have either done ports of their games which are subpar confronted with the ones on ps360 or they are have a relationship that don't want to ruin with nintendo so they tend to lie.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

The next Xbox and PlayStation are not "GPU-centric." There are pretty significant things happening with their processor architectures. And at least for Durango, it's not using off the shelf kit, contrary to what many GAF posters have insisted. Even more troublesome for the Wii U, they have much more dedicated GPGPU capabilities which aren't happening on the dedicated GPUs they're packing.

Awesome .
It was expect , don't why some people think Wii U GPU was going to help when the next Xbox and PlayStation going to better for both CPU and GPU.

 

[Neuromancer]

Has ghst posted in here yet? wish there was an RSS feed for his posts, a google alert even

the problem is that y'all keep expecting rational behavior from nintendo, even after the wii -- which was a total engineering and API clusterfuck on top of being underpowered. we saw, what, three games that started to approach its theoretical abilities -- smg, smg2, and skyward sword -- and all from nintendo? the rest were by-and-large ps2-grade efforts. why do you expect different from the wii u? even that zelda demo is doable on a 360, albeit with lower fidelity shadowing.

nintendo makes great games in SPITE of their absurd hardware priorities. third parties -- well, how much do they enjoy martyrdom?

you're looking at this all wrong. see, you're used to driving a ferrari. sure it's fast, exciting and leaves you with a smile on your face - but have you never thought of buying a minivan? why tear up the strip at 100mph when you can instead enjoy the piercing odour of your kids shitting their pants on the back seat while screaming at tinnitus inducing decibel levels as you hit the five mile daily tailback on the between daycare and your ex-wife's boyfriend's house?

you're just out of touch is all.

Most people would be shocked. I played Street Fighter and drank some beers with someone very high up at Retro last week, a friend of mine, and the attitude about Wii U is pretty much completely perpendicular to what is conveyed in this thread. They really like it, and they're doing some very cool stuff with it. This person also worked on a big game from another studio a couple years back.

that's not what my uncle said, and he should know.

.

 

[richiek]

Nintendo needs to realise the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about:

1. Wii backwards compatibility....why the hell would you cripple your current system to ensure this?
2. Small form factor...it's not actually that small...it's as big as OG Xbox! Both the 360 and PS3 slims are smaller and more powerful by the looks of it.
3. Energy consumption...I mean WTF!

1. Point taken
2. LMAO. The OG Xbox was a cement block of a console. The WiiU is is a longer than the Wii but much smaller than the Xbox 360.
3. Yeah, who cares about spending less on your electric bill, amirite?

 

[Fenderputty]

And if you have an xbox 360 and/or ps3 there's very little reason to own a WiiU right now.

Pretty much. I've seen zero reason to get one for myself. If I had a child, or only bought a Wii last gen I would be interested. Even if it CAN play current ports well enough now, what happens when next gen starts? Why get one if I can already play the games coming out on my current console. I like Mario games and Zelda too, just not enough to drop $350 on a console.

Also ... gaming side is scary. So much hyperbole and blind love / hate. If you're a fan of Nintendo and their games the 1st party stuff will be there regardless of 3rd parth love. Sounds nice to finally play some of those 1st party games in HD. If you've only had a PS3/360 for tghe last 6 years and don't care about the 1st party selection there doesn't seem to be any reason to jump.

 

[User Tron]

Do I recall correctly that you are one of the posters making long "technical" posts about the Wii U and GPGPU?

If not, then let me explain to you why you are completely wrong: SMT is a technique with 2 primary goals: feeding all the execution units on a core, and bridging long stalls (in the order of 100s of cycles) of one thread by performing useful work in the other(s). There can be more than 2 SMT threads per core, e.g. the Sun Niagara had 8, and Power7 as well as the new Intel Xeon Phi have 4.

It's almost entirely orthogonal to out-of-order execution, which serves the purpose of mitigating delays caused by instruction scheduling dependencies and pipeline stalls.

Sorry but that's not correct. OoOE was introduced to keep the execution unit fed. So SMT and OoOE try to solve the same problem with different approaches. If die space is limited you will go for only one of them. See Atom vs Brazos.

 

[Linkhero1]

Only if cost is out of the equation. Nintendo doesn't charge you to play games you already own online.

And as someone mentioned, I don't have ads shoved in my face either on Nintendo's network.

You're point is true, but with the amount of XBL gold cards that are given away yearly you can practically get it for free. At least, I was able to get 3 years worth of XBL free. The lack of cross-game chatting, group chatting, ability to compare games you and your friends own/completed, etc makes the Wii U online experience weak. I'd reconsider my view point if Nintendo implemented these in future updates, but as of now I'm going to stick by it.

Ads aren't that big of an issue. You barely notice them, so that point is moot.

 

[Joni]

Tagging. Curious to see if we get any more information about the 'behind the scenes' of the Wii U hardware.

 

[iamshadowlark]

No it isn't an exception. That it's higher clocked and faster per clock than the comparable weak competition, doesn't change the fact that higher IPC works against high clock.
You can even see this by looking at Intel - even by now no Intel cpu has ever reached the clock of the P4.

Well yeah, so our main points are the same. I called it the exception because it is borderline commercial grade, you can clock it pretty highly, and the IPC is pretty good making the IPS pretty godly. What I was getting at is that there are decades of processors, including all Intels previous designs, that follows the principle of IPC and Clock Speed being a trade-off. The fact that Intel made a good hybrid doesn't change that.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Alright. Decided to upgrade GPU with 6770.

CPU: 3.2GHz Triple Core AMD Athlon II X3 450 - $65
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 6770 GPU with 1GBs of VRAM - $100
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A780L3B Micro ATX - $45
RAM: 2GB of Kingston DDR3 - $10
Power Supply: Athena Power 400W PSU - $20
Hard Drive: 250GB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM - $50

TOTAL: $290.

you forgot an * at the bottom noting that this is @ MSRP. A company manufacturing millions of these would get considerably lower prices on almost every part

.

:lol

 

[Always-honest]

Well, bought it anyway. Slowass OS. But love the interface.
Miiplaza is jaggy as fuck

 

[Mastperf]

Well, bought it anyway. Slowass OS. But love the interface.
Miiplaza is jaggy as fuck

Aint nothin wrong with enjoying yur chit.

 

[DarkPanda]

Size, noise and heatsink cost. The (2005/2006) Xbox 360 was 200W and you pay for that with the noise. The PS3 was also 200W, but used a more clever (and expensive) cooling solution. It was still not silent.

Of course, Nintendo could have used that to make the WiiU bigger and not look like the Wii

Nintendo went WAY overboard when making the Wii U low power. The system pulls what, less than 40W? They could have literally DOUBLED their draw and still have been under 100W, or half of what the HD twins were at launch. The case size would have increased a little (but again seriously, who cares?), and it would have enabled them to use much more capable hardware for the same cost. There's no marketable reason for the Wii U to use so little energy at launch.

 

[Garcia]

Judging from all this you can only conclude Nintendo doesn't even care about what Microsoft or Sony do at this point.

I wonder what's their plan for this gen. Also, I think it's rather healthy to just have 2 or 3 options for multiplatform games (PC/PS4/Xbox) instead of 4.

 

[Mastperf]

Nintendo went WAY overboard when making the Wii U low power. The system pulls what, less than 40W? They could have literally DOUBLED their draw and still have been under 100W, or half of what the HD twins were at launch. The case size would have increased a little (but again seriously, who cares?), and it would have enabled them to use much more capable hardware for the same cost. There's no marketable reason for the Wii U to use so little energy at launch.

Yeah, engineers had one hand tied behind their back day 1.

 

[Version 3.0]

Be honest, people: If you owned either the PS3 or 360, did you ever consider buying the same 3rd party game on the Wii? No...and why would anyone? The WiiU will not buck that trend.

Actually, yes, I did, for pointer control.

But point taken: most people did not, and with word of mouth starting off bad for Wii U ports, it's not likely to change. I'm not sure if you think that's okay, though. I doubt anyone buying a Wii U wants it to be as poorly supported as the Wii was. Especially considering that Nintendo specifically said that they wanted to address that poor support.

 

[Wazzim]

Oh good, clock speed direct comparison time.

Like a more throughout comparison would make any difference, the CPU is terrible.

 

[Linkhero1]

Be honest, people: If you owned either the PS3 or 360, did you ever consider buying the same 3rd party game on the Wii? No...and why would anyone? The WiiU will not buck that trend.

I did. Bought Sonic Racing and Tekken Tag on the Wii U instead of my PS3 or 360 because of the extra features.

 

[Kenka]

Judging from all this you can only conclude Nintendo doesn't even care about what Microsoft or Sony does at this point.

I wonder what's their plan for this gen. Also, I think it's rather healthy to just have 2 or 3 options for multiplatform games (PC/PS4/Xbox) instead of 4.

In the contrary, they assume they took the best decision hardware and service-wise (ok, their online is still sucking to this day) and they expect Microsoft and Sony to follow.

 

[radioheadrule83]

so how good is 3 x Broadway? is it literally 3x power of Broadway?
is it more efficient than having multicore?

It's not 3x broadway. You can't infer "3x" from the clockspeed or the amount of cores.

If I'd have any advice for anyone here that doesn't want to read through utterly unintelligible hyperbole and alarmism, skip everybody's posts apart from Thraktor, Panajev, blu, etc. If you have to read a thread about this subject here on this forum, read this one: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500466&page=5

 

[tycoonheart]

Personally, I couldn't care less. Maybe I'm getting old, but graphics just don't matter to me anymore. Give me a fresh game. Something different. Something creative. If Nintendo can provide me with that with the tablet, I'm happy.

 

[Tallshortman]

3. Yeah, who cares about spending less on your electric bill, amirite?

Electricity is cheap in the US so power consumption has never been a big thing here as long as you're not running your house on full power 24/7. Not sure if it's a bigger deal in EU or Asia.

 

[Starwind]

I feel like I'm reading gamefaqs...

 

[Father_Brain]

I don't deny that there may be a valid reason for them to have a more optimistic outlook on the hardware, probably being more familiar with it. I just also am highly skeptical of anecdotal evidence that suggests all of the criticism of the hardware currently is somehow null and void because of secondhand info of unannounced software. We don't all have to agree on anything here, or reach a consensus on how great or how terrible the hardware is. But in a thread where people are trying to reach conclusions about what the actual tech is powering the system, I just don't see the place for "nobody's shown anything yet, but people in the know are really liking what this puppy can do" here.

I'm definitely not suggesting that. The fact that a new console has trouble running 360 ports at parity is legitimately troubling, as are the various CPU criticisms.

 

[Fenderputty]

Actually, yes, I did, for pointer control.

But point taken: most people did not, and with word of mouth starting off bad for Wii U ports, it's not likely to change. I'm not sure if you think that's okay, though. I doubt anyone buying a Wii U wants it to be as poorly supported as the Wii was. Especially considering that Nintendo specifically said that they wanted to address that poor support.

So then why release a console that's handeling current ports "just fine" when the next generation of pS3/360 consoles are due to come out. It sounds like last gen all over again.

 

[iamshadowlark]

Electricity is cheap in the US so power consumption has never been a big thing here as long as you're not running your house on full power 24/7. Not sure if it's a bigger deal in EU or Asia.

From my 6 or so months here, utilities are absolutely terrible.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Is this a serious post or troll? Because some of those ports are from 2011, and having such old releases even if "just" from early winter 2012 is not a justification for "budding userbase for the biggest third party releases" that they 'never had'. The GC saw some of the best 3rd party support in its first year. On par easily with Xbox and several titles not seeing Xbox release until much later (especially Japanese 3rd parties, SEGA games, and some others) The Wii also had awesome exclusives early in life from a smattering of 3rd parties

The biggest ones at launch are from a month or so before Wii U's NA debut, you know, the newest iterations of the biggest-selling, most high-profile third party releases. I don't see GC or Wii being anywhere close to Wii U in terms of third party support. Having these big titles on launch day, even after having suffered the cold shoulder of those same publishers in the past, is a big thing for them and signals a real intent to work on their biggest weakness, which is third party relations and the enthusiast gamer crowd who they left behind when they shrugged off most of the biggest titles third party titles of the last decade. Also, Ninty has leverage in the regard that theirs is still the best-selling platform of the current generation, so let's not act as if they're coming off of the Game Cube or something. Their track record as a platform holder isn't perfect, but it is successful even if not always at the top of the podium. Third parties need another viable platform to spread their big bets across just as much as Ninty needs a wider base of software to attract gamers. After Wii destroyed MS and Sony for the better part of the generation despite all numbers saying they shouldn't, I'm not going to presume they aren't going to be successful enough to hold their own in a much-worse climate for luxury TV toys which are under increasing pressure from the mobile and phone sector. Ninty, of all current console-makers, knows how to subvert the established rules of the game better than anyone.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Alright. Decided to upgrade GPU with 6770.

CPU: 3.2GHz Triple Core AMD Athlon II X3 450 - $65
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 6770 GPU with 1GBs of VRAM - $100
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A780L3B Micro ATX - $45
RAM: 2GB of Kingston DDR3 - $10
Power Supply: Athena Power 400W PSU - $20
Hard Drive: 250GB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM - $50
Controller: Kindle Fire: $199

TOTAL: $489.

fixt

Wrong, the $199 kindle fire hd actually has innards and isn't just a streaming device:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083PWAPW/?tag=neogaf0e-20 <-- destroys the Wii U pad

that was a terrible, ill-informed post, grampa.