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Iwata Asks: Wii U

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...
I think having constant wi-fi communication turned on for streaming video to the lcd screen is a huge factor here.

Or well, that's what seems to draw lots of charge from the battery on my smartphone.
 
How much did that cost you?
I mean do people seriously not thing about these things before they post.
Why? The ipad does cost more but it has a complete package of hardware and one of the best screens available right now.

WiiU Gamepad has a ~2009 screen and gamepad controls. Will I have to load it everyday if I play a lot?
 
Have the said anything about how it will be to change battery?

might be wrong but I'd assume the battery itself is smaller than the 3ds battery (as its fair to guess the pad draws less power than 3ds but seems to have similar battery life) so I guess charging time would be less than3ds
 
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...
Why? The ipad does cost more but it has a complete package of hardware and one of the best screens available right now.

WiiU Gamepad has a ~2009 screen and gamepad controls. Will I have to load it everyday if I play a lot?

Again, stop treating it as a tablet. It's a controller. Sure you'll use it for "out of TV" playing, but clearly people play at their big screens most of the time. Hell, streaming is limited within your house as well.

The problem with Wii remote is that it uses replaceable non-chargeable batteries, so when you run out you have to buy two new AAs. It's remedied by third party stuff like chargeable batteries.

I'm baffled that even up to this point, where even its called a Gamepad, people think it's a tablet as though it has no buttons.
 
What am I paying for when I'll buy the WiiU? But I'll wait for hardware reviews first...
Even for GAF, this must be a new... new! Waiting for 'hardware' reviews to buy a console? lol, you guys... I am sure you will find detailed comparison between Gamepad screen brightness and that of iPad 3... lol
 
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.

If Nintendo aren't ever going to let people watch dvds/bluray movies on Wii/Wii U and presumably the next system, there's no real reason to stick with optical media at all once an alternative becomes cheaper + harder to pirate + able to support the same file sizes.

There seems to be a pattern of no legacy support for older systems discs (eg GC vs Wii U compatibility) and this will be less an issue with DD for all Wii U games being available..
 
Even for GAF, this must be a new... new! Waiting for 'hardware' reviews to buy a console? lol, you guys... I am sure you will find detailed comparison between Gamepad screen brightness and that of iPad 3... lol
I'm waiting for the review because I want to know if the game pad is gonna be the game gear of controllers.
 
It's running all but one current gen multiplatform title at 30 frames per second.

That's how powerful it is.

Lol, these comments still exist. Anyways, I admire your willingness to go off of only what is evident, but there is more to it than you think. Much more.
 
Again, stop treating it as a tablet. It's a controller.

Actually this came up often (comparing the Gamepad with an ipad).
I think this is very flattering for Nintendo, since people are so amazed by the Gamepad and its possibilities than they compare it, a controller for a $300 system, to an independant device that cost how much, $500?
Repeating this and I feel like kicking haters ^^"
 
might be wrong but I'd assume the battery itself is smaller than the 3ds battery (as its fair to guess the pad draws less power than 3ds but seems to have similar battery life) so I guess charging time would be less than3ds
They might go with such a battery solution yeah, i didnt think about that. I was thinking that it was internal somehow, like the PS3 controller battery is.
 
If Nintendo aren't ever going to let people watch dvds/bluray movies on Wii/Wii U and presumably the next system, there's no real reason to stick with optical media at all once an alternative becomes cheaper + harder to pirate + able to support the same file sizes.

There is one: 3rd Parties. They properly never ever want to go back to the times, where Nintendo had a lot of control over all the 3rd Parties by simply having the power to decide, who gets how much cards to which price. To escape Nintendo's dictatorship was one of the main reason, why many developers supported Sony's PlayStation.
 
...Do... do you even know what the Wii U GamePad is?

They can't even make their mind if it's a tablet or a controller that doesn't do anything lol

I mean I understand that more battery life is good, but simply comparing it to a controller without what Gamepad does is baffling. Next thing you'll know they'll compare it to Glass.
 
They can't even make their mind if it's a tablet or a controller that doesn't do anything lol

I mean I understand that more battery life is good, but simply comparing it to a controller without what Gamepad does is baffling. Next thing you'll know they'll compare it to Glass.

Here is what the Gamepad does:

Streams lag-less picture wirelessly from the console.
Streams input data wirelessly to (and from) the console.
Has a bunch of components (mic, stereo speakers, camera, IR functionality, gyroscope, accellerometer, rumble, NFC chip, back-lit 6.2" LCD touch display, etc.).


Here is what the PS3/360 controllers do:

Stream input data wirelessly to console.
Rumble
PS3 controller has six-axis gyroscope.
 
My PS3 controller holds up 20+ hours, just like my 360 controller.

Why do you compare it with the extremes?

Wii U Gamepad is not a tablet device, it's a controller that's included in a $300 game console as opposed to iPad's $500.

PS3 Controller is a controller that fully acts as an input device. All it does is send signals to the console (and receive a bit for vibrations). The gamepad streams data from the console and displayed it on its own.
 
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.

I've already got a 6m usb cord ready for charging whilst gaming.

I do the same with my PS3.
 
Lol, these comments still exist. Anyways, I admire your willingness to go off of only what is evident, but there is more to it than you think. Much more.

"There is more than you think" - what do you want to say?

That Nintendo has limited the hardware power for release games, and will "unleash" it for latter games via a firmware update to show them all?

That the Wii U's GPU has an advanced feature set that will magically speed up future games? You can increase the speed of a game when you use some DX11 effects (or similar) instead of DX10 effects. But only by a few percentages!! What a game needs is raw hardware power. And when there is not much, which is evident when looking at how similar those multiplat games are, and when you look at the thermal design of the case, then there won't be more in the future. They could have easily increased the resolution and frame rates of existing games if there was the power to compete with the other nextgen consoles. But they have not.
 
Again, stop treating it as a tablet. It's a controller. Sure you'll use it for "out of TV" playing, but clearly people play at their big screens most of the time. Hell, streaming is limited within your house as well.

The problem with Wii remote is that it uses replaceable non-chargeable batteries, so when you run out you have to buy two new AAs. It's remedied by third party stuff like chargeable batteries.

I'm baffled that even up to this point, where even its called a Gamepad, people think it's a tablet as though it has no buttons.

Really they use replaceable batteries on a controller that runs for 5 hours max? I thought they had some charging thing announced.
 
Gemüsepizza;43078702 said:
"There is more than you think" - what do you want to say?

That Nintendo has limited the hardware power for release games, and will "unleash" it for latter games via a firmware update to show them all?

That the Wii U's GPU has an advanced feature set that will magically speed up future games? You can increase the speed of a game when you use some DX11 effects (or similar) instead of DX10 effects. But only by a few percentages!! What a game needs is raw hardware power. And when there is not much, which is evident when looking at how similar those multiplat games are, and when you look at the thermal design of the case, then there won't be more in the future. They could have easily increased the resolution and frame rates of existing games if there was the power to compete with the other nextgen consoles. But they have not.

No.

I'm referring to him basing the totality of Wii U's power off of current-gen ports. Now think about why that isn't as obvious as it may first seem. There are many factors, all of which are thrown out in order to form a simple idea: that the Wii U is only capable of what we've seen so far.

Again, it's fine to judge by what's given, but it's not always correct.
 
Why? The ipad does cost more but it has a complete package of hardware and one of the best screens available right now.

WiiU Gamepad has a ~2009 screen and gamepad controls. Will I have to load it everyday if I play a lot?

Seriously, what your paying for is the WiiU, the gamepad is a controller - no ones calling it a tablet.

An ipad costs what, double the price of the WiiU Basic?
You pay for what you get; the WiiU you pay to play the games it offers; an ipad is a different device entirely.

Plus I know my ipad would be defunct in a year anyway, with the WiiU its made to last rather than be replaced annually to (for some reason) applause.
 
The motherboard is so clean, elegant and uncluttered that it must cost them next to nothing to build these. Nintendo design motherboards like its an art form.
 
About the controller, have there been any words if you can turn off the screen?

Well...you can use the pro-controller I suppose - but can you turn it into one? Am not really sure. Good question though; would be good for power management with different things.

Next Iwata Asks is all about the gamepad so maybe more info there.
 
Well...you can use the pro-controller I suppose - but can you turn it into one? Am not really sure. Good question though; would be good for power management with different things.

Next Iwata Asks is all about the gamepad so maybe more info there.
Yeah, also about background light settings. It is not like you're going to look at the screen all the time, so it would be handy to have power management settings like this.
 
Btw these Iwata asks are amazing. The insight they offer is awesome.

I really got a sense of what Nintendo was after reading it.

It's a shame that Nintendo didn't allow themselves more freedom for casing development. I mean why not a circular console? Or triangular? Or back to cube?
 
Yea, I just love saving $5 PER YEAR on my game console power bill. I mean it's not like I could save 500x that (both environmentally and monetarily) by changing my climate control to be 1 degree less comfortable, making it a point to put my PC's to sleep, or being more mindful about turning off lights. Good thing Nintendo are look out for us, right?

It's hilarious how you're trying to make reduced energy consumption sound bad.
 
Btw these Iwata asks are amazing. The insight they offer is awesome.

I really got a sense of what Nintendo was after reading it.

It's a shame that Nintendo didn't allow themselves more freedom for casing development. I mean why not a circular console? Or triangular? Or back to cube?

triforce shaped console!
 
It's a shame that Nintendo didn't allow themselves more freedom for casing development. I mean why not a circular console? Or triangular? Or back to cube?
icC3kftmUNUuK.jpg

(i know this is controllers, but still round =)).

For me, the question is more about why would they make a round or triangular console? :)
 
icC3kftmUNUuK.jpg

(i know this is controllers, but still round =)).

For me, the question is more about why would they make a round or triangular console? :)

i've seen this image linked about 2000 times and still i don't understand how you are supposed to use the star shaped controller.

Exactly...why people blind themselves of this fact I'll never know. I guess then they couldn't make their collects dust joke.

it's because that attach rate comprehends casual games designed for you grandma, therefor they do not count.
/trollface
 
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