Constantly zooming in and out is no substitute for stylus precision in fast-paced, precision-intensive games. It also doesn't really help you draw or write. It's obviously better for browsing, but I don't think that's the primary utility of the device.
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Nintendo: WiiU screen isnt multitouch due to cost- DS screen was/is sufficient enough
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
I Stalk Alone
Member
Nintendo aren't hiding it. You saying "practically" means they aren't but that you pulled that out of your ass to make it look like they are, but you would like to believe that they are. Also your finger works perfectly fine with the screen that is why they designed many game concepts around it. Nintendo did not choose that option because it didnt work and its cheap, they chose it because it is cheap and it works. why can't people understand the point here
I know it sounds like Nintendo defence force (for the record I thought Nintendo completely botched E3, and I don't think the Wii U will do very well, though I'm still interested in its potential), but I honestly believe a stylus is more important to gaming applications than clumsy, inaccurate capacitive multitouch.
A stylus allows for custom art/textures, for precise RTS commands or map editing, doesn't obscure nearly as much of the interface, etc.
For certain apps, like Draw Something, I *wish* my Galaxy Nexus could use a half way decent stylus (capacitive styluses generally suck, are ridiculously expensive, and many of them wear out rather quickly).
Yes, capacitive is great for smartphones, for something that's in your pocket that you need to interact with in brief spurts in crowded spaces, but for GAMING I've found it's usually less than ideal.
EDIT: Of course, if Nintendo wanted to spend a shit ton of money they could have gone with an active digitizer + capacitive, which would mean the best of both worlds, but I suspect that would have been at least twice the price.
A stylus allows for custom art/textures, for precise RTS commands or map editing, doesn't obscure nearly as much of the interface, etc.
For certain apps, like Draw Something, I *wish* my Galaxy Nexus could use a half way decent stylus (capacitive styluses generally suck, are ridiculously expensive, and many of them wear out rather quickly).
Yes, capacitive is great for smartphones, for something that's in your pocket that you need to interact with in brief spurts in crowded spaces, but for GAMING I've found it's usually less than ideal.
EDIT: Of course, if Nintendo wanted to spend a shit ton of money they could have gone with an active digitizer + capacitive, which would mean the best of both worlds, but I suspect that would have been at least twice the price.
It doesn't work as well as a capacitive screen would. That's the point. They are providing an inferior experience to save a buck.
EatinOlives
Member
I personally really enjoy the smooth sliding of my thumb on the surface of the screens myself. I tried using my thumb on the DS and blegh. I have to outright push the screen rather than placing my thumb to select something. It felt weird enough I just went back to using the stylus after a few seconds.
That said, given Nintendo's prominence in finger use on the promotional demos of the WiiU, I'm assuming using the finger on the pad controller is at least better than on the DS, though. At the same time, certain things like typing words with single touch are going to throw a LOT of non-gamers off the first time they try it.
Wait... You type more than one letter at the same time?
JordanLMiller
Member
I hate those pushable sticks. It feels like I'm gonna break the stick anytime I have to press them in
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
DS screen is terrible in that sense, 3DS if fine and apparently the U is even better. As a few might have noticed I'm an iOS gaming aficionado, well there's really no *gameplay* problem for me about the lack of multitouch really.
Pinching could be missed by some in web-broswing or media viewers, but the screen is much larger than that of an iPhone so it's less of a problem... I very rarely use it on my iPad (which is where I do 98% of my internet surfing). Definitely prefer resistive to capacitative in a button-based console/controller.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Well it means you can't hold shift to type a capital letter
At least on iOS you dont need to hold shift, you can just tap or double tap it. I never tried holding it until now.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Multitouch makes typing on a virtual keyboard much faster and smoother when using both hands. Maybe you don't think about it, but when typing quickly you typically press the next key before lifting your finger from the last one, which is why pretty much all smartphone/tablet keyboards support multitouch. Without it, they'd be much slower and more frustrating to type on. Like typing on the Upad will be.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Because you can still use your finger or the stylus. there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Nintendo also like to differentiate themselves and they did highlight painting and drawing messages with the stylus, commenting that its more personal than text.
Ahah
Pinch to zoom is pretty freaking useful to me.
Not trying to be a troll but the screen is much smaller than I thought it would be, it has a 3 hour battery charge and no multi-touch. Disappointing.
I will buy it anyway. That'll show 'em!
You are doing this wrong...
Playstation 3 "Requires two jobs"
Xbox 360 "RROD to the moon!"
WiiU "Cheaper then a Hobo!"
;P
(I was sarcastic)
Dreamwriter
Member
I hate capacitive screens, they are super imprecise. DS/3DS even without a stylus I can tap with my fingernail exactly where I want to. There is only one commonly used feature of multitouch that the Wii-U can't do, it's pinch to zoom, which isn't needed for gaming and for browsing isn't needed since you can already tap accurately. Sure, fruit ninja, but those games are quite rare.
Cost wise, if they had to choose between single touch with accuracy / stylus OR multitouch with less accuracy / no multi-touch, they made the right choice. Drawing has more potential than multitouch, since there's already plenty of buttons on the thing which will make multi-touch unnecessary 99% of the time.
Pinch to zoom won't be missed except by those who are used to doing it that way. Zoom in? Push up on a stick. Big deal. It's like since Nintendo left themselves open to criticism with a disappointing conference, NeoGAF is going to beat them up over every little detail, important or not.
Pinch to zoom won't be missed except by those who are used to doing it that way. Zoom in? Push up on a stick. Big deal. It's like since Nintendo left themselves open to criticism with a disappointing conference, NeoGAF is going to beat them up over every little detail, important or not.
Really? REALLY?
Fury Sense
Member
What a fucking stupid decision. This completely contradicts everything they claim to stand for. The only reason to own a Nintendo system these days is for the first party titles. Why would they exclude themselves from so many thousands of apps that developers would be EAGER to re-release on a new platform? I think they should have only booked a 30 minute time slot at E3.
Nintendo as a 3rd party publisher/developer used to sound like a joke to me, but I'm not laughing anymore.
Nintendo as a 3rd party publisher/developer used to sound like a joke to me, but I'm not laughing anymore.
Through the roof? $65 for 250gb?? The 120gb in Newegg are at $18 but I didn't link because they were refurbished, so I'd imagine it has a similar price as the ebay link I gave you. You're also forgetting Nintendo buys them in huge amounts so it'll be even cheaper than that. Not sure what you're trying to get at really. They could easily just put 60gb HDD in it, how much would that cost them to put? $15? less? come on...
Dreamwriter
Member
Many thousands of apps, eh? Can you name 5 good apps without using the Internet, that need multitouch for features that couldn't easily be replaced with a physical button/dpad? Most phone/tablet apps use multitouch because they don't have physical controls.
I Stalk Alone
Member
A different experience does not equal inferior. by your argument multitouch is inferioir ro actual controllers where you have more complete control. If multitouch was so superior why aren't the best games on multitouch systems? I dare you to play streetfighter with multi touch controls only vs a control pad and actually win against a control pad or arcade stick or type a message with touch control keyboard only vs a keyboard. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Something will always beat the current modern version of multitouch as a control method for any action you will list no matter how you look at it and guess what, all those things are found on the Wii U controller. All you have is pinch to zoom. My screen isn't 3 inches so I don't require pinch to zoom. SO if you want to argue about superioirty you will lose.
That is not the point however. The point is user experience and you can get a good user experience without the added cost of multi touch on the WiiU. It is mor ethna good enough.
Tobor, can you honestly say you can justtify an extra $5 in cost if it meant your company had to pay half a billion dollars for it for it in the space of 6 years, just so tobor can have do two finger waggling motions on his touch screen?
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Yes man, through the roof
Oh wow, holy fucking shit! Do you know how expensive that is for a 250GB 3.5 inch HDD? Like I said in my previous post, you don't have a clue what happened to the HDD market since late 2011. Please, just stop, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Stop acting like a smartass, I'm not asking for 250gb HDDs on the Wii U. How much would 60gb be then? hell 40gb is better than 0gb.
Not going for multi-touch seems like an unnecessarily cheap move on Nintendo's part. I understand cheeping out on memory makes sense as if you want more than 8 gigs SD cards are cheap and can go pretty high. And if it supports external hard drives those should be cost effective enough and satisfy those who want huge amounts of memory.
If you want to compete with tablets you should have your touch screen be comparable to that of an actual tablet. Saving the extra 3-5$ for a pretty big drop in quality doesn't seem like a good move in the long run.
If you want to compete with tablets you should have your touch screen be comparable to that of an actual tablet. Saving the extra 3-5$ for a pretty big drop in quality doesn't seem like a good move in the long run.
Dreamwriter
Member
I've been developing games commercially for iPhone/iPad since 2008, in that time my company has made one and a half games that need multitouch for non-Gamepad emulation purposes. That was Chimps Ahoy, a breakout-style game where you control two paddles, one on either side. And even that game could easily be translated to dual stick.
But more than once I would have killed for a resistive screen so we could have better accuracy, not having to make all our touch points huge.
But more than once I would have killed for a resistive screen so we could have better accuracy, not having to make all our touch points huge.
Yes.
We have no idea what the actual price difference is, but let's say it's $5.
The device would then be on par with the touchscreen of every other major consumer electronics device. Users familiar with smartphones and tablets will expect the same level of control, and I would be able to deliver.
I Stalk Alone
Member
$65 for 250GB when one week before the flood I paid my $74 for my... WD 2.5TB
Yes man, through the roof
I was going to mention this but people might not have been too aware of it. prices for HDD will not go start to go back to normal until the end of september at the earliest so any plans of nintendo adding a HDD (if they do add one) and what size all depends on what prices they are able to secure for all parts once manufacturing begins during that time. Only the CPU and GPU and Ram will be the only things needed to be manufactured before september as they are all on the same board but all the other parts will be paid for at current market prices agreed upon and at large availability just a few weeks before manufacturing. There is no point in saying it today or even during E3 that the machine will have a 160GB hdd if they arent even close to manufacturing it yet. I suspect we will get more specific announcements regarding specs the closer we are to the fall conference a few weeks before launch.
They haven't even shown many things about what the controller can really do yet nor the OS or online how it works with Wii BC or japanese games from third parties (but thats next week i think for japanese games). So many things and not much time so we will get a steady stream of things in every nintendo direct (three of them) plus the fall conference likely in october in time for a late october early november launch.
Dreamwriter
Member
Don't you mean 8 GB? If they're that cheap then surely it's no problem to get one for WiiU when you need it. Or an SD card. Or a pen.
Nintendo didn't go for on par, they went for superior
Read the OP. They went for "sufficient".
HDD, SD card, internal flash memory, whatever, I just want 20gb or more of internal memory right out of the box. What happened to this generation? it seems some people are fine with these companies not offering certain things that the competition does, hardware wise. Why doesn't Nintendo just not put wi-fi on the system and just sell an add-on, I'm guessing you're fine with that too.
Dreamwriter
Member
But by doing so they ended up with far better accuracy, so superior, at least from my perspective. Of course, as a developer it doesn't really matter to me, I still have to develop for the fat-fingered capacitive iphone/pad
I Stalk Alone
Member
Mate you would be fired on the spot if you told the shareholders you were going to take away half a billion dollars for them if it wasn't going to make them any profits in the long run. You just want to argue for the sake of arguing. half a billion is a lot of money for a company to spend. it is a huge risk.
You are forgetting the close to 170 million users of DS and 3DS with single touch who are familiar with it and are more the target market for games. PS3 is not even touch based XBOX 360 is opposite of touch based. They are the main target market. Nintendo are trying to lure non touch screen users into going into touch screen and with WiiU they are an alternative. Non users that don't experience touch screens at all do not know and don't care about multi touch.
Admit it, you love multitouch and that is the only reason you need. Ah yes true Love- when you love something so much that reason has no place anymore.
Accuracy is irrelevant when the majority of gaming experiences are clearly designed for fingers.
This conversation is going in circles.
Mate you would be fired on the spot if you told the shareholders you were going to take away half a billion dollars for them if it wasn't going to make them any profits in the long run. You just want to argue for the sake of arguing. half a billion is a lot of money for a company to spend. it is a huge risk.
You are forgetting the close to 170 million users of DS and 3DS with single touch who are familiar with it and are more the target market for games. PS3 is not even touch based XBOX 360 is opposite of touch based. They are the main target market. Nintendo are trying to lure non touch screen users into going into touch screen and with WiiU they are an alternative. Non users that don't experience touch screens at all do not know and don't care about multi touch.
Admit it, you love multitouch and that is the only reason you need. Ah yes true Love- when you love something so much that reason has no place anymore.
As I've already said, the entire consumer electronics industry, except for Nintendo, has moved on from resistive. There is a reason, capacitive is a better experience, and Users want better experiences.
I'm not the one with my head in the sand here. The entire industry is not wrong. Nintendo is.
riceandbeans
Member
But can it play Angry Birds?
I Stalk Alone
Member
Are you just talking about smart phones and tablets? or are you talking about the gaming industry? Consumer Electronics Industry is such a blanket statment. Do you mean PC's where we use mouse and keyboard for superior gaming and browsing? Do you mean console gaming where we use Motion Control and Analogue Control for gaming? Why are you making it such a right or wrong thing here. It is not about good or evil right or wrong. You are giving in to the conundrum of the primal dualistic self without even knowing why. You are making this out ot be some pseudo tribal warfare thing where there is an option of right or wrong. I told you before that the point wasn't about superior inferior (because there are so many other things more superior to current multitouch) and here you go again going back to the same primitive argument of right and wrong superior inferior dualism to the bone. Think about your argument and maybe you realise you are not arguing the same subject as everyone else here. In fact your aim is to win for some reason. Our aim is to get an understanding.
I like mulitouch in my phone but I use the multitouch in my phone maybe 1% of the time as Apple seems to like to paintent certain multitouch gestures and The galaxy SII for example does not really heavily relies on the use of multi touch nor does android. they use a lot of single touch. plenty of it and for good reason. You want to argue that multi touch is some kind of industry status quo that without it you might as well be a chinese iPhone knockoff, I am saying that Nintendo is not using multi touch because they are providing a different experience and are not comparing themselves to the Smartphbone and Tablet Industry. They are comparing themselves to their own industry. The Nintendo one.
Yes. With more precision if you want to. But only if you want to.
I'm talking about any device with a touch screen, and I'm talking specifically about the differences in user experience on touch screen devices.
It is an industry status quo.
Nintendo is a consumer electronics company. They sell portable devices with touch screens, and the touch screens are inferior to the rest of the industry.
I've responded to the bolded because you are posting stuff that has nothing to do with this conversation, and nothing to do with my thoughts or stance on this issue.
They are also superior when used with a stylus. Why cant you accept that both technologies have advantages and disadvantages?.
boutrosinit
Street Fighter IV World Champion
It's just spin.
Nintendo makes great business / money through selling at a profit. They're the only manufacturer that I think managed it consistently. That's an important part of their business, far as I've heard anecdotally (not worth much usually).
It's believed that it's part of their core strategy to sell the machines at profit.
Multi-touch may have created an expensive patent rights issue ($x per unit sold to Apple / someone else, who they are competing with) or simply an increased hardware cost that perhaps they would make a "pro" version of later, to try and up-sell into their market.
Much like Wii Remote Plus add-on thing. Which I don't believe did very well, but I honestly have no idea what the truth there is.
Bottom line - it would eat up the initial profits, and whatever they felt they could get away with cutting, they did. Which is a shame, because if anyone can make multi-touch interesting, it's Nintendo's game designers.
Nintendo makes great business / money through selling at a profit. They're the only manufacturer that I think managed it consistently. That's an important part of their business, far as I've heard anecdotally (not worth much usually).
It's believed that it's part of their core strategy to sell the machines at profit.
Multi-touch may have created an expensive patent rights issue ($x per unit sold to Apple / someone else, who they are competing with) or simply an increased hardware cost that perhaps they would make a "pro" version of later, to try and up-sell into their market.
Much like Wii Remote Plus add-on thing. Which I don't believe did very well, but I honestly have no idea what the truth there is.
Bottom line - it would eat up the initial profits, and whatever they felt they could get away with cutting, they did. Which is a shame, because if anyone can make multi-touch interesting, it's Nintendo's game designers.
Going by Nintendo's own demos, the majority of usage of the touchscreen is going to be by finger, not stylus.
What happened to this generation? *insert laughing .gif*
I'm fine with 8GB out of the box, I'm sure it'll hold me for a while, when it doesn't I have tons of SD cards and USB pens lying around and when I want I can use any of the USB HDDs I have or get a new one for cheap. Meanwhile, the console gets cheaper, smaller and cooler.
If it was barely a problem with 360 and proprietary HDDs it won't be with a console that already has internal storage that will be enough for quite a while and accepts pretty much any type of storage unit that pretty much every Dick and Jane nowadays has and knows how to use, even if they're not tech savvy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a 360 that only has 4GB?