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[TheCongressman1]

I wish home consoles would go back to using cartridges. So much space could be saved.

I can't wait to see all Wii U game pad mockups in the next Iwata Asks.

I hope we see that too.

 

[SolarPowered]

I'm not disagreeing with you but you got to remember too, the Xbox 720 could be coming with Kinect 2, and the PS4 could be coming with something completely new which will raise the price.

Lots of these floating around.

 

[MDX]

People talking about they wish the wiiu was more powerful have no idea how powerful it really is.
And Japan is not the only energy / space focused society either. Its important in europeland as well.

 

[Yagharek]

I wish home consoles would go back to using cartridges. So much space could be saved.

What kind of capacity could you get a 3DS or Vita sized card up to? 2GB I thought was 3DS sized. Vita I assume is quite a bit more.

Obviously it would get expensive if games were around the 20GB mark. But it would also be significantly faster than BD ROM wouldn't it?

It'd be interesting to see what kind of console size/game card size and prices could be wrought out of a system that used such a medium.

Wii U could have been half the size of a Gamecube for all we know.

 

[disap.ed]

I think in another 6 years flash memory will be at a price level where you could bring it back for AAA games.

I don't expect a disc based system after XB720/PS4.

 

[fabricated backlash]

I for one am glad to get another system that won't sound like a fucking jet engine after a few months of usage. Both the 360 and original PS3 were horrible in regards to the noise levels. I couldn't play Dead Space 1 for months before ripping that shit 360 open and mod it with an 18 cm low RPM fan to get rid of the jet engine sound.
My friends PS3 sounds like a vacuum cleaner even when watching a bluray.
And don't get me started on the 360 disc drive sound level. Good thing I can install games on the 250 GB HDD instead of using that POS, otherwise i would've thrown it out long ago.

The only thing that worries me is that the WiiU drive might be as obnoxiously loud as the one in the Wii (still miles better then that horrible 360 drive) but it was still annoying at times (especially when playing COD online).

I agree though that they should've made the box about 20 or 40% bigger and increase the power substantially. This focus on small boxes reminds me a bit about how the engineers at Sony basically run the place, only that they have a power first, economics later philosophy, while here it's the complete opposite.

What kind of capacity could you get a 3DS or Vita sized card up to? 2GB I thought was 3DS sized. Vita I assume is quite a bit more.

Obviously it would get expensive if games were around the 20GB mark. But it would also be significantly faster than BD ROM wouldn't it?

It'd be interesting to see what kind of console size/game card size and prices could be wrought out of a system that used such a medium.

Wii U could have been half the size of a Gamecube for all we know.

So far the biggest 3DS cart released are 4GB (RER, MGS3D)
Theoretically that's the current cap, but there is really nothing beside costs to limit the size.

And yeah SSD memory is a shitload faster than any optical drive. Furthermore, like you said, it would allow for completely new paradigms to console design as the drive would merely take up a fraction of the space, creating zero heat, zero noise and allow for a much more compact hardware design.

Carts right now are not feasible to use for larger than 8 GB games. They are still considerably more expensive than optical media.

 

[ColdBlooder]

People talking about they wish the wiiu was more powerful have no idea how powerful it really is.
And Japan is not the only energy / space focused society either. Its important in europeland as well.

Totally agree!

Electricity will get a whooping rise in costs next year in Germany. So a console not sucking 200w out of the wallsocket is really welcome!

 

[fabricated backlash]

I think in another 6 years flash memory will be at a price level where you could bring it back for AAA games.

I don't expect a disc based system after XB720/PS4.

Could be, allthough in 6 years I expect the physical media distribution to actually be the exotic option, so I don't know what progress we still can expect in that regard.

Also in 6 years I expect (at least in the EU) a much more comprehensive legal groundwork to make Digital Distribution a real service to consumers instead of a blatant rip off like it is today.

 

[Seik]

Fuck life, fuck everything. *Takes a flight to Japan with checkbook*

 

[Kenka]

The Wii U is as powerful as Gamecube ↑↑ Gamecube in Knuth's notation.

 

[BocoDragon]

,

Looks like a Zip Drive from 1996.

 

[runnin_blue]

The funny thing about "cheapness and laziness" about Nintendo hardware design is that all of my Nintendo consoles and handhelds (I could say the same for Sega as well) from my NES onwards still function like the day I first powered them on. I've had to replace one PS1, one PS2, and two Xbox 360's because of hardware problems. I would not be surprised if my current Xbox 360 or PS3 does not survive the next 5 years. Cheap and lazy, at least Nintendo's damn things survive over time.

QFT my original Gameboy still works

 

[Panajev2001a]

Nintendo admitted some parts of the CPU and GPU were modified to support Wii compatibility
which if it means that Wii CPU and GPU are not there as dedicated chips then there is little reason for Wii mode to be so limited: no BC enhancement, no gamepad support for VC titles, etc...

Maybe they could and would improve this situation in time?

 

[I Stalk Alone]

Nintendo admitted some parts of the CPU and GPU were modified to support Wii compatibility
which if it means that Wii CPU and GPU are not there as dedicated chips then there is little reason for Wii mode to be so limited: no BC enhancement, no gamepad support for VC titles, etc...

Maybe they could and would improve this situation in time?

Nintendo has not yet addressed the Wii BC as well as other internal software and features such as online very much and I suspect this to happen in the coming weeks. Hopefully there is a special surprise but don't count on anything besides the normal upscaling.

 

[DjRoomba]

Transparent Gamepad would be pretty cool

 

[ColdBlooder]

Nintendo has not yet addressed the Wii BC as well as other internal software and features such as online very much and I suspect this to happen in the coming weeks. Hopefully there is a special surprise but don't count on anything besides the normal upscaling.

Wii U dosen´t upscale or upres Wii games, thats already official.

Unless plans changed somewhere down the road...

 

[Panajev2001a]

Wii U dosen´t upscale or upres Wii games, thats already official.

Unless plans changed somewhere down the road...

I know that, but if what I am inferring from this interview is indeed true, no big dedicated Wii chips inside Wii U but re-using the Wii U CPU and GPU to emulate in SW the Wii components (thanks to some HW enhancements that allow emulation to happen more easily), then things like lack of Gamepad support for VC games make even less sense than before.

 

[ColdBlooder]

I know that, but if what I am inferring from this interview is indeed true, no big dedicated Wii chips inside Wii U but re-using the Wii U CPU and GPU to emulate in SW the Wii components (thanks to some HW enhancements that allow emulation to happen more easily), then things like lack of Gamepad support for VC games make even less sense than before.

The chips could technically be compatible to the Wii and "run" Wii code natively. It could use Wiis OS to run the game and Wiis OS dosen´t support the Wii U Gamepad

 

[blu]

This, gents, is what state-of-the-art CE design looks like. Enjoy.

 

[Pikma]

It's outstanding how much attention Nintendo puts into their design philosophies. <3

 

[GCX]

I think Nintendo's focus on the size of the console, noise reduction, etc. is becoming more and more relevant. Long gone are the days of desktop PCs and gigantic home consoles.

 

[ColdBlooder]

This, gents, is what state-of-the-art CE design looks like. Enjoy.

Wii U and state of the art in one sentence... RUN i hear them coming!!!

 

[Vagabundo]

All I have to say about Nintendo's low power design philosophy is the following...

After 6+ years of faithful service from my PS3, Nintendo's launching a console that:

Has a much more modest footprint
Doesn't sound like a jet engine taking off
Has significant hardware spec advantages
Costs half what I paid for Sony's last system

...yeah, sign me up for that shit.

The PS3 has been a incredibly useful machine for me, but by jebus it is a hog. I'm glad Nintendo keep an eye toward power consumption, it gives the market a choice. I was a Wii lover and skeptical about the Wii U for a long time, but I think they have finally won me over.

It would be worth it for me even if I only use it as a Netflix machine.

 

[Sid]

Totally agree!

Electricity will get a whooping rise in costs next year in Germany. So a console not sucking 200w out of the wallsocket is really welcome!

The electricity consumption will get reduced over time with the slim models,like always.

 

[Rich!]

Playing through Xenoblade on Dolphin on my PC right now.


My flat is on an electricity meter, and holy fucking shit does my PC eat through the credit I put on that. Its insane.

So yeah, for me at least, im glad the Wii U has been designed with low power consumption in mind - as I'll be using it a hell of a lot.

 

[GCX]

The electricity consumption will get reduced over time with the slim models,like always.

The price reduction caused by smaller electricity bill becomes kinda irrelevant if you have to buy the console multiple times to get the reduction.

 

[Sid]

The price reduction caused by smaller electricity bill becomes kinda irrelevant if you have to buy the console multiple times to get the reduction.

I think the initial model of the ps4 or nextbox would consume electricity at least as much as the launch ps3 and i don't think that the early adopters would care too much about it and when the slim model gets announced the people who are looking to buy a cheaper and less power hungry console will buy it.

 

[Scofield94941]

how can a whole message board think the transparent Wii looks like the best thing ever? Ugly doesn't even begin to justify being able to see the inner parts of any console/handheld. This coming from someone who had the clear purple gameboy color

 

[GrotesqueBeauty]

It amazes me of how many people laugh off the benefits of a quiet efficient console with low power consumption and small footprint. Personally I am sick of loud systems that take up a lot of room, heat up, and make a lot of fan noise. Even the "slim" revisions of the PS3 and Xbox are pretty clunky imo. I thought not nudging the Wii into HD capable territory was a massive oversight last gen, but in general I am fully behind Nintendo's balanced design philosophy, which takes more into account than raw horsepower. I just hope the quality of the components are up to their typical standards since they're cobbling them together from disparate sources.

 

[GrotesqueBeauty]

Double post.

 

[squid]

The WiiU looks like it'll continue the Nintendo tradition of hardware that's reliable, small, quiet and affordable but punching above it's weight.

 

[Yagharek]

So far the biggest 3DS cart released are 4GB (RER, MGS3D)
Theoretically that's the current cap, but there is really nothing beside costs to limit the size.

And yeah SSD memory is a shitload faster than any optical drive. Furthermore, like you said, it would allow for completely new paradigms to console design as the drive would merely take up a fraction of the space, creating zero heat, zero noise and allow for a much more compact hardware design.

Carts right now are not feasible to use for larger than 8 GB games. They are still considerably more expensive than optical media.

Thanks for your musings.

I guess unless flash media becomes really cheap to make it feasible to distribute 20-50GB size games on them, it will be sandwiched between cheap digital distribution for sub-5GB games and cheap optical media.

Part of me would love to see the flash memory option via something akin to SDXC cards but
yeah, probably not going to happen.

If they ever did make a flash/rom successor to carts like DS/Vita cards, the implications for console design would be amazing. A Gamecube sized machine could pack ridiculous amounts of processing power without a disc mechanism. And a Wii U could pretty much have most of the guts inside the controller and stream to the TV itself, not the other way around!

 

[Graphics Horse]

Carts right now are not feasible to use for larger than 8 GB games. They are still considerably more expensive than optical media.

If Nintendo are still designing consoles after the Wii U I think they will go back to solid state, especially with them making their retail games available digitally from day one this time.

At this stage hardly any games go near the 50GB mark that Sony introduced, and I'm not sure that will even change once their new system comes out.

 

[Jacobi]

Everybodys talking about the power consumption of the console, but nobody's talking about the power consumption in the gamepad, which seems to be pretty high. The battery will hold only five hours, which is quite bad.

 

[MadeInBeats]

This interview was fucking awesome. Nintendo really care about great hardware design. Go Team Nintendo.

AWESOME.

 

[2MF]

The electricity consumption will get reduced over time with the slim models,like always.

That's very nice for late adopters or people who don't mind spending money re-buying consoles to save money on electricity...

 

[Neo C.]

I think in another 6 years flash memory will be at a price level where you could bring it back for AAA games.

I don't expect a disc based system after XB720/PS4.

That's what I expect as well. Assuming flash memory development doesn't slow down by a lot, we could see 16 to 32 GB carts for home consoles in the first year and up to four times the amount in the following years. Much less heat, less power consumption and much smaller in general, all these advantages can be used for putting beefier GPU and CPU into the box.

 

[beje]

If Nintendo are still designing consoles after the Wii U I think they will go back to solid state, especially with them making their retail games available digitally from day one this time.

At this stage hardly any games go near the 50GB mark that Sony introduced, and I'm not sure that will even change once their new system comes out.

Also taking into account that discs hold a lot of redundant data for faster access that wouldn't be needed with flash media so games could be overall smaller.

 

[Boss Doggie]

Everybodys talking about the power consumption of the console, but nobody's talking about the power consumption in the gamepad, which seems to be pretty high. The battery will hold only five hours, which is quite bad.

It's not like you'll be using it without power available (i.e. taking it outside).

 

[fabricated backlash]

If Nintendo are still designing consoles after the Wii U I think they will go back to solid state, especially with them making their retail games available digitally from day one this time.

I am curious about that, because I really don't see a new optic/mechanical standard to arise beyond Bluray. Right now all I can see is improving BR to hold more data, but even then, the trend definetly goes to solid state memory, or DD.

The biggest problem with a console is, that you need a single media format or else the market is going to reject it. Thus I think that we will never see a solid state format for consoles. It's going to be optical/DD from here on out, with DD overtaking in the next 10 years, facilitated by upcoming consumer right legislation that will hopefully make that distribution model fair to consumers instead of ripping them off by having full price rentals.

Thanks for your musings.

I guess unless flash media becomes really cheap to make it feasible to distribute 20-50GB size games on them, it will be sandwiched between cheap digital distribution for sub-5GB games and cheap optical media.

Part of me would love to see the flash memory option via something akin to SDXC cards but
yeah, probably not going to happen.

If they ever did make a flash/rom successor to carts like DS/Vita cards, the implications for console design would be amazing. A Gamecube sized machine could pack ridiculous amounts of processing power without a disc mechanism. And a Wii U could pretty much have most of the guts inside the controller and stream to the TV itself, not the other way around!

Even if flash media is getting cheaper, it's still the issue of distribution/market conformity. A console can't have 2 or more different physical media formats to read games from. It never worked and it's obvious why.
So that leaves manufacturers with the dilemma: Go for Solid State tech, get the benefits of low latency, high access speeds and size/heat, but lose out on legacy support, media support and ultimately being cut off of a whole segment of the media market, or go with optical, and it's inherent problems: Slow read speeds, noise, heat, size, but at the same time offer universal support for (DVD, BR, CD etc etc)

I would love a return of flash memory cards for physical gaming, but I simply don't see it happening unless like you said, as an alternate physical option when DD becomes the de facto standard for game distribution.

 

[Sid]

Everybodys talking about the power consumption of the console, but nobody's talking about the power consumption in the gamepad, which seems to be pretty high. The battery will hold only five hours, which is quite bad.

Wasn't it 3 hours?Yeah it's terrible.

That's very nice for late adopters or people who don't mind spending money re-buying consoles to save money on electricity...

If the launch models consume as much as the launch ps3 and be a capable system not many would care.

 

[Jacobi]

It's not like you'll be using it without power available (i.e. taking it outside).

I thout we'd be beyond wired controllers by now... And my ipad holds 10 hours with its own hardware and four times huger screen...

 

[Boney]

That's what I expect as well. Assuming flash memory development doesn't slow down by a lot, we could see 16 to 32 GB carts for home consoles in the first year and up to four times the amount in the following years. Much less heat, less power consumption and much smaller in general, all these advantages can be used for putting beefier GPU and CPU into the box.

backwards compatibility will always be a road block though

 

[DaSorcerer7]

Wasn't it 3 hours?Yeah it's terrible.

3-5

 

[Pineconn]

I thout we'd be beyond wired controllers by now... And my ipad holds 10 hours with its own hardware and four times huger screen...

And you paid hundreds of dollars/(insert currency here) for it.

 

[Graphics Horse]

So that leaves manufacturers with the dilemma: Go for Solid State tech, get the benefits of low latency, high access speeds and size/heat, but lose out on legacy support, media support and ultimately being cut off of a whole segment of the media market, or go with optical, and it's inherent problems: Slow read speeds, noise, heat, size, but at the same time offer universal support for (DVD, BR, CD etc etc).

This is easier for Nintendo as they've never put an emphasis on disc based multimedia. Does it even play CDs?

 

[Sid]

3-5

Still it's quite bad.

 

[ColdBlooder]

And you paid hundreds of dollars/(insert currency here) for it.

We may see bigger 3rd party batteries at some point.

 

[Neo C.]

backwards compatibility will always be a road block though

Not really, Nintendo could make a driver as an add-on, perhaps even put blu-ray usage into it. It 1) wouldn't cost a fortune, 2) wouldn't be mandatory (thus doesn't have influence to the console design) and, 3) if designed properly, wouldn't add more heat to the system.

 

[Jacobi]

And you paid hundreds of dollars/(insert currency here) for it.

What am I paying for when I'll buy the WiiU? But I'll wait for hardware reviews first...