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[walking fiend]

Do you guys think the industry can survive another generation like this one? We have seen so many companies/developers struggling and closing. Even big companies like Konami, Sega, and Capcom (somewhat) have been licking their wounds this gen.

Can we afford another generation with expensive tech, and high development costs?

I think Nintendo is playing it smart and not going all out with the hardware.

What do you guys think? Will a big publisher/one of the big 3 go under the bus next gen, if things stay the same?


edit: posting again for new page

Depends on how much they have learned from this gen.
Of course it won't end well, when you start producing only for like 1/4 of the market.

This gen Wii, PSP and 3DS were all left alone. However, at least some companies (like Square Enix) have been quick to realize social and casual market (GREE, iOS, etc.)

I think many companies were confused this gen.

Does every game need massive development teams? Some games destined to struggle for 1 million sales have huge development teams.

when you think the only way to make money is developing AAA+ shooters and compare with CoD, that's what is gonna happen.

 

[Nibel]

I never actually understood why this gen was considered expensive to produce games.

I know PS3 was a pain in the ass to develop for, but could that alone mess it up so much?

Does every game need massive development teams? Some games destined to struggle for 1 million sales have huge development teams.

Someone show this man the list of studios that closed since the start of this generation

 

[bgassassin]

That IS a mighty interesting find. I could see Nintendo customizing the holy heck out of something like this with some general beefing up and a bunch of unique fixed function stuff. Final TDP could be 60-70W and it'd still smoke the holy hell out of your average current gen gaming console.

That low TDP is mighty impressive...

That 35watt TDP also includes memory right? it's also a 40nm chip, will be interesting to see how they could tweak something similar to that... just a gut feeling though, I think that they would choose 640 stream processors, it fits nicer to the original dev kits of project cafe and the bump in performance rumor also comes with what you were told about them finishing the chip in december/janurary... so maybe it's similar to something like a e6760 in design, but based on a slightly larger mobile gpu (the e6760 is based off of the 6700m series)

I'm really interested to hear if they are building the GPU on a 32nm or 28nm process, both are avalible to NEC and I would imagine that Nintendo is taking an approach to the chip similar to the Xbox 360 Slim which, if I'm not mistaken allowed for sharing the 10MB cache of Xenos with Xenon (though that isn't used as to allow compatibility to original 360s)

A little speculation: a 640sp 700mhz GPU with 32MB embedded memory share-able to a 3 core 6 thread ~3ghz IBM power7 related CPU all on a 32nm/28nm chip, would be a pretty strong performer, especially with 2GB ram. The chip could probably fit under 80watts TDP as well.

I also think Iwata might have increased the specs of the machine around the beginning of the year to match his "deeper" targets of Wii U.

Just to be clear I don't mean customizing that particular GPU. It's just very similar to what I envisioned Wii U's GPU that has extra functions to look like as the baseline.

Z0m3le. That should be the TDP for whole MCM, yes. Also I sincerely doubt Nintendo will use a 700Mhz+ clock on their GPU. Nintendo would be more likely to increase the ALUs than the clock. At 600Mhz my guess would be that 640 will probably be the highest they would go. At the same time the idea is that the extra function eliminate the need to push the GPU like that (e.g. more than 640 ALUs, clocked higher than 600Mz). My original 640-800 ALU speculation (and clocks) was based on the GPU taking a more traditional route. Knowing for sure that it is not traditional, a 640 ALU, 600Mhz GPU would be the max we'd see IMO.

If they aren't using GCN, which I don't expect, I would eliminate 28nm. At the same time MS and Sony will be using GCN in their GPUs even if it is customized in some fashion. What BP posted is the target spec for the PS4 and the Xbox 3 guess is similar to how I envision it to be.

I agree that the Wii U case as is should be able to handle a 50W GPU.

And I definitely don't see Wii U being able to run a 1080p Xbox 3 game with the same IQ at 720p.

Does this chip have a tessellator? I haven't seen anything about it.

Yes. AMD/ATi have placed them in GPUs since at least the Radeon 2000 line I believe.

 

[z0m3le]

Do you guys think the industry can survive another generation like this one? We have seen so many companies/developers struggling and closing. Even big companies like Konami, Sega, and Capcom (somewhat) have been licking their wounds this gen.

Can we afford another generation with expensive tech, and high development costs?

I think Nintendo is playing it smart and not going all out with the hardware.

What do you guys think? Will a big publisher/one of the big 3 go under the bus next gen, if things stay the same?


edit: posting again for new page

Only big publishers like EA Activision and Ubisoft would be around, everyone else would go to social gaming, that is those that survived.

Sony right now is in a lot of trouble when it comes to next gen, they can't afford another vita right now, and they really need to turn that console around first, but having said that, they don't really have a choice, the best they could do is match Nintendo and wait for next gen, but their hardware is likely already set, and they will just have to hope to turn things around with their exclusives.

All I know is that Nintendo is in the best position they are going to find themselves in, to retake the market from a gamers perspective.

 

[Penguin]

I never actually understood why this gen was considered expensive to produce games.

I know PS3 was a pain in the ass to develop for, but could that alone mess it up so much?

Does every game need massive development teams? Some games destined to struggle for 1 million sales have huge development teams.


Can Wii U do tessellation? No doubt 720/PS4 will.

I imagine because every developer/publisher THINKS they have the next great break-out hit. If you can usurp CoD or Halo.. I mean looking at like 10 million sales. So everyone chases that golden bunny.

 

[BlackJace]

I never actually understood why this gen was considered expensive to produce games.

I know PS3 was a pain in the ass to develop for, but could that alone mess it up so much?

Does every game need massive development teams? Some games destined to struggle for 1 million sales have huge development teams.


Can Wii U do tessellation? No doubt 720/PS4 will.

Games are becoming exponentially expensive to develop. Now with all of these high end engines rearing their heads, the industry will be even more in crunch time in the money department. You think $60 games are the limit? Think again next generation.

 

[Disorientator]

Thing you have to realize is that a patent doesn't necessarily describe a real product. When writing a patent, a company is going to try and make it cover as many possible variations as possible, so that they are covered if a competitor decides to take their idea and just make a small change. So that part of the patent is trying to cover both thin-client devices and smarter devices that function as self-contained portable game systems.

I understand that but you know, maybe we missed something/specs changed - it's not like we are having WiiU information overload.

I had to bring it up.

 

[Portugeezer]

Games are becoming exponentially expensive to develop. Now with all of these high end engines rearing their heads, the industry will be even more in crunch time in the money department.

I expect this, I just want to know why?

 

[bgassassin]

Don't know much about console hardware do you?

He's one of the last people to ask that question to. AlStrong is one of the ones we turn to for better understanding on tech things.

that article is over a year old... any chance, should they take this route, that they might be working on a newer embedded chip?

The date falls in line with Wii U's development as well. That said it's about the concept, instead of the actual GPU.

Can Wii U do tessellation? No doubt 720/PS4 will.

Yes. The 360 has a tessellation unit.

 

[BlackJace]

I expect this, I just want to know why?

Games are becoming dangerously close to movie-budget productions. The rumors of the NextBox proucing "Avatar-like" visuals come at a high price.

Gamers want their consoles to be close to what PCs can do? It simply cannot happen, as the cost of the high end tools to make them are expensive as hell.

 

[BGBW]

I expect this, I just want to know why?

Well in the 80s games were made by one person. Nowadays the credits can be longer than the game.

All those people have to be paid.

 

[aeroslash]

I expect this, I just want to know why?

I'm sure a part of it is because developers have to give extra detail to their graphics. It is not the same to model a car in GT5 than to model the same car on GT3. I remember them talking about spending maybe a month to model a car, and that's really a huge amount of time compared to last gen.
Now imagine the same for every NPC, enviroment, and object in a game.

 

[HylianTom]

Do you guys think the industry can survive another generation like this one? We have seen so many companies/developers struggling and closing. Even big companies like Konami, Sega, and Capcom (somewhat) have been licking their wounds this gen.

Can we afford another generation with expensive tech, and high development costs?

I think Nintendo is playing it smart and not going all out with the hardware.

What do you guys think? Will a big publisher/one of the big 3 go under the bus next gen, if things stay the same?

I think the industry will be fine. It might learn a lesson or two the hard way (either that, or we'll keep seeing more and more of this spiral), and we might lose some more iconic companies along the way, and I think we could see a few biggies devs/pub drop along the way.

As far as losing one of the big three? I could see one dropping, but gaming probably won't be the culprit, I suspect.

 

[Trevelyan]

I expect this, I just want to know why?

This big thing is art assets. With improved visuals and higher visual fidelity, you need more artists to draw all the little details which keeps adding up. While a game like the original mario may have had a handful of artists to create the assets, I would not be surprised if something like Uncharted has somewhere north of 25.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Just to be clear I don't mean customizing that particular GPU. It's just very similar to what I envisioned Wii U's GPU that has extra functions to look like as the baseline.

Z0m3le. That should be the TDP for whole MCM, yes. Also I sincerely doubt Nintendo will use a 700Mhz+ clock on their GPU. Nintendo would be more likely to increase the ALUs than the clock. At 600Mhz my guess would be that 640 will probably be the highest they would go. At the same time the idea is that the extra function eliminate the need to push the GPU like that (e.g. more than 640 ALUs, clocked higher than 600Mz). My original 640-800 ALU speculation (and clocks) was based on the GPU taking a more traditional route. Knowing for sure that it is not traditional, a 640 ALU, 600Mhz GPU would be the max we'd see IMO.

If they aren't using GCN, which I don't expect, I would eliminate 28nm. At the same time MS and Sony will be using GCN in their GPUs even if it is customized in some fashion. What BP posted is the target spec for the PS4 and the Xbox 3 guess is similar to how I envision it to be.

I agree that the Wii U case as is should be able to handle a 50W GPU.

And I definitely don't see Wii U being able to run a 1080p Xbox 3 game with the same IQ at 720p.



Yes. AMD/ATi have placed them in GPUs since at least the Radeon 2000 line I believe.

Thanks for dropping that link, bg. I've got some more speculation, but didn't have the chance to put it into a coherent post yet.

If anything, I think that chip should be seen as a starting point and example of the TDP of a modern embedded graphics system. Based off that, I'm thinking 480-640 ALUs. They could possibly get away w/ 8 ROPs (I don't think they're a bottleneck on the 360, but I gotta look into it more). 600 Mhz seems to be where AMD are comfortable clocking their embedded chips and that has also conveniently been my guess for a while now.

 

[Roo]

I think the industry will be fine. It might learn a lesson or two the hard way (either that, or we'll keep seeing more and more of this spiral), and we might lose some more iconic companies along the way, and I think we could see a few biggies devs/pub drop along the way.

As far as losing one of the big three? I could see one dropping, but gaming probably won't be the culprit, I suspect.

imo Sony is the unstable one
I can totally see the videogame industry without Sony around.
they really need to get their shit together

 

[z0m3le]

He's one of the last people to ask that question to. AlStrong is one of the ones we turn to for better understanding on tech things.



The date falls in line with Wii U's development as well. That said it's about the concept, instead of the actual GPU.



Yes. The 360 has a tessellation unit.

Thanks for the reply(I'm on my smart phone, so I will reply to this smaller post), I still think they could push it over 600mhz, the reason I said 800 MHz was to reach the early rumors of a 1TFLOPs. It should be possible, given that the HD 7750 exists with a gcn core and being a desktop card with memory @55TDP granted it is only a 512 shader part which is why I've talked about the 1ghz 640sp 7770, give it to the embedded process and cut out gcn function, while cutting back on the Hz and it is possible under 50watts.

Btw I am also talking about a completely new gpu, and not just a cut down. And if an Xbox3 game runs at 1080p, both boxes have the same ram and Wii U gets to run at 720p, it would make up the difference, in fact a 1080p resolution as you know is closer to 2.25X the power needed.

Bench marks can actually prove what I'm saying, look at a 7870 and a 7770 their roughly what we are talking about, and the 7770 will do everything the 7870 does at 720p vs 1080p. We will have to wait and see but there won't be a large difference, it should literally be smaller than Xbox to ps2 thanks to having the same functionality.

 

[volpone]

I expect this, I just want to know why?

The sheer number of people involved in creating a game these days is insane. Games go through pre-production first so you'll need - directors, producers, concept artists, writers and potentially a few more technical staff members simply for proof of concept. If the game gets greenlighted then you'll need a far larger amount of staff. The same people from pre-production are involved but then you'll also need: team leaders, cg artists, texture artists, animators, programmers, sound designers, composers, debuggers and network programmers if there is online multiplayer as well. Development time and costs can also be affected by whether you're also developing in-house tools and engines or licensing middleware (i.e. UE3/Havok etc.).

So think about who needs to be paid when working on a project like Uncharted 3. Naughty Dog make the game itself. They outsource the CGI trailers, motion capture, voice recording and sound sampling to other specialist studios with oversight by senior Naughty Dog staff. Sony Computer Entertainment America produces the game (pays for it), have senior staff ensure that Naughty Dog are hitting milestones during development, localise the game for other markets, pay for the advertising across multiple territories and run quality assurance which involves play testers.

These days big projects of high standards can often involve around 200 people in large and small capacities who all like to be paid for the work they do.

 

[BurntPork]

GCN is not a certainty, heck no rumors are certainties, its all speculation. Even if Sony gives you a fact, you have to watch it, unless you believe PS4 will do 4D

I haven't said Wii U will use a mobile part, I said it would use an embedded one, which happens to usually be based off mobile parts which are based on desktop parts.

This is exactly why I am posting less and less in this thread as E3 gets closer, this argument about speculation is far to personal to you, and I don't understand that as it is my speculation, I've tried replying to points you bring up, but you don't respond to them and instead keep giving me the same response about mobile parts that neither of us are talking about.

Several people here have said that Sony's target specs say GCN, and there's no reason not to. (No, your "heavy architecture" excuse doesn't count because it makes no sense and you pulled it out of your ass.)

Show me an embedded part with 640SPs using the VLIW5 architecture. If you can't then it moots your point.

And what the fuck? You think that Sony would lie about the architecture of the GPU? Are you insane?

 

[AlStrong]

I don't really see why they should use PCI-E to begin with.

I'm not saying they should or will. I'm just giving an example of the IHV cutting corners with respect to power consumption. In the mobile space, it's unlikely you'd be saturating the PCI-E bus or even require that much bandwidth, so they just go with the less complex solution and shave some wattage. The laptop coolers have enough to deal with, and they're not likely to be very cost effective. Every little bit helps, but it's not so great an optimization that they should alter the specs drastically.

edit: The same thing goes for OEMs tending to use DDR3 instead of GDDR5 (low/mid-end), though you obviously have the RAM cost thrown in there. For that target, a DDR3 controller will be less complex (smaller) than GDDR5 as there will not be a need to support the higher clock frequencies and increased power requirement, so they can ditch GDDR5 support as an optimization of their needs.

But I digress...

----

As I explained on the last page, even the 360 uses a couple PCI-E lanes for connection to the southbridge (audio and I/O purposes). I'm not really sure, but with a kinect successor in mind, they might have some use to go with more lanes/bandwidth, especially looking beyond USB2.0 and the sort.

 

[z0m3le]

Several people here have said that Sony's target specs say GCN, and there's no reason not to. (No, your "heavy architecture" excuse doesn't count because it makes no sense and you pulled it out of your ass.)

Show me an embedded part with 640SPs using the VLIW5 architecture. If you can't then it moots your point.

And what the fuck? You think that Sony would lie about the architecture of the GPU? Are you insane?

First point, GCN is a "heavy" architecture, I'm not sure how I can prove this, other than to say that the 8970 will be much faster with the same processing node... or maybe this will do:
"What makes this launch particularly interesting if not amusing though is how we’ve ended up here. Since Cypress and Fermi NVIDIA and AMD have effectively swapped positions. It’s now AMD who has produced a higher TDP video card that is strong in both compute and gaming, while NVIDIA has produced the lower TDP and weaker compute part that is similar to the Radeon HD 5870 right down to the display outputs. In some sense it’s a reaction by both companies to what they think the other did well in the last generation, but it’s also evidence of the fact that AMD and NVIDIA’s architectures are slowly becoming more similar." -Anandtech

Basically the 680GTX is the fastest graphics card you can buy, but in order to accomplish that, they had to trim away the compute performance, this is what I expect Nintendo to do with AMD, since they would rather keep up with the consoles coming next year, than simulate hair better, or something.

Second point, show you a gpu that I am speculating to exist, well I proved that wattage does scale with size and the #sp's on the chip, and that it is constant... If you want to ignore that point, than I don't think I can "prove" to you that my speculation is justified.

Third point, what does Sony's architecture have to do with my speculation, I will tell you that Sony will use a custom part, so while it might be very similar to GCN, it will likely be different, unless they go the same route as Vita and use off the shelf parts.

Just a reminder, there is nothing in the way from Wii U having nice air flow and actually having say 80-120 TDP.

 

[GameplayWhore]

Interesting. While I was trying to study in the computer lab at school, some guy across the table fielded a call from somebody at his home asking how to hook up the PS3, and he couldn't quite get across how to get his friend to find the HDMI cable in what was likely a mess of wiring. A little bit frustrated, he told whomever it was that they'd have to wait until he gets back.

It strikes me that this is one small area where the Wii U can be a little bit helpful, if the system boots with the controller as primary menu display and makes it easy to start games in controller-only mode.


Also, these people are being loud and laughing and generally making it hard for me to be ready to decrypt ciphers this Monday. >:|

 

[WiiRevolution1]

I had another E3 Wii U dream last night.

The conference lights dimmed, a announcer said to welcome Shigeru Miyamoto to the stage. The lights haven't started coming on when he comes out holding what appears to be the final form of Wii U. I watch from my iPad in my bed and am sad that it looks blocky, as in the same shape as the Wii excet maybe double its size. However, the stage is only silouted since the lights still haven't come on.

I can hear Miyamoto starts talking, but it doesn't sound like him. Since the speaker speaks english and doesn't have the Miyamoto voice. The stage lights come on and it is not Miyamoto but...uh...some other Japanese dude that I don't recognize. The person is not holding the Wii U in his hand but a huge DVD player that has a Sony logo on it.

This person is grinning, it almost feels as if Nintendo is trolling sony for some reason, but I can't figure out why they would hold a DVD player. It doesn't make any sense.

Then I wake up.

So yea...E3 needs to get on already!

 

[HylianTom]

I had another E3 Wii U dream last night.

The conference lights dimmed, a announcer said to welcome Shigeru Miyamoto to the stage. The lights haven't started coming on when he comes out holding what appears to be the final for, of Wii U. I watch from my iPad in y bed and am sad that it looks blocky, as in the same shape as the Wii excet maybe double its size. However, the stage is only silouted since the lights still haven't come on.

I can hear Miyamoto starts talking, but it doesn't sound like him. Since the speaker speaks english and oesn't have the Miyamoto voice. The stage lights come on and it is not Miyamoto but...uh...some other Japanese dude that I don't recognize. The person is not holding the Wii U in his hand but a huge DVD player that has a Sony logo on it.

This person is grinning, it almost feels as if Nintendo is trolling sony for some reason, but I can't figure out why they would hold a DVD player. It doesn't make any sense.

Then I wake up.

So yea...E3 needs to get on already!

That is truly messed-up. I'd be drenched in sweat after dreaming such a thing. Wow.

 

[Lupin the Third]

It's probably not going to happen, but why the "HELL no" on Saturn emulation on Wii U VC? You got something against Saturn? Have you looked at how functional Saturn emulators are lately?

 

[Redford]

I had another E3 Wii U dream last night.

Are you the guy who does the Neogaf News vids?

 

[BD1]

Everyone saw Call of Duty explode and chased the carrot down a money hole.

The big publishers like EA and Activision are fine with it, because they can weather the storm somewhat and watch their competitors collapse under the financial burden.

 

[GameplayWhore]

Perhaps it hurts a bit that the render target for the first two "3D" gens was one resolution (480p). Now they have to make sure their game looks good at 480p as well as whatever the native resolution they chose. If it's a 1080p game, they also have to make sure it looks good in 720p. This isn't an enormous expense, I guess, but it should strongly increase the costs for testing (because you have to look through all areas of the game up to three times now).

* N64 had three resolutions, but they all ran on 480p television sets, so there was no problem here, in case anybody wanted to bring up this point.


edit: Ah, lovely, the laughing duo is now a more frequently laughing trio. Maybe I should just no-show for the final.

 

[Hero of Legend]

The sheer number of people involved in creating a game these days is insane. Games go through pre-production first so you'll need - directors, producers, concept artists, writers and potentially a few more technical staff members simply for proof of concept. If the game gets greenlighted then you'll need a far larger amount of staff. The same people from pre-production are involved but then you'll also need: team leaders, cg artists, texture artists, animators, programmers, sound designers, composers, debuggers and network programmers if there is online multiplayer as well. Development time and costs can also be affected by whether you're also developing in-house tools and engines or licensing middleware (i.e. UE3/Havok etc.).

So think about who needs to be paid when working on a project like Uncharted 3. Naughty Dog make the game itself. They outsource the CGI trailers, motion capture, voice recording and sound sampling to other specialist studios with oversight by senior Naughty Dog staff. Sony Computer Entertainment America produces the game (pays for it), have senior staff ensure that Naughty Dog are hitting milestones during development, localise the game for other markets, pay for the advertising across multiple territories and run quality assurance which involves play testers.

These days big projects of high standards can often involve around 200 people in large and small capacities who all like to be paid for the work they do.

Look at Shin'en; they consist of maybe 5 folks, and they can pump out some serious shit with whatever hardware they're working on, surely they are as some would say the exception to the rule. I'd say that pretty much everything they make is profitable, because they don't have to worry about paying hundreds of people and they use their own tech IIRC. We're not worthy!

 

[DCKing]

Just to be clear I don't mean customizing that particular GPU. It's just very similar to what I envisioned Wii U's GPU that has extra functions to look like as the baseline.

Z0m3le. That should be the TDP for whole MCM, yes. Also I sincerely doubt Nintendo will use a 700Mhz+ clock on their GPU. Nintendo would be more likely to increase the ALUs than the clock. At 600Mhz my guess would be that 640 will probably be the highest they would go. At the same time the idea is that the extra function eliminate the need to push the GPU like that (e.g. more than 640 ALUs, clocked higher than 600Mz). My original 640-800 ALU speculation (and clocks) was based on the GPU taking a more traditional route. Knowing for sure that it is not traditional, a 640 ALU, 600Mhz GPU would be the max we'd see IMO.

If they aren't using GCN, which I don't expect, I would eliminate 28nm. At the same time MS and Sony will be using GCN in their GPUs even if it is customized in some fashion. What BP posted is the target spec for the PS4 and the Xbox 3 guess is similar to how I envision it to be.

It's actually cheaper to go for high clockspeed + less shaders than low clockspeed + more shaders due to chip size costing more money than cooling and power supply, especially in the long run. I agree that GCN will probably be too big, but I'm not yet ruling out 512 SPUs based on VLIW4.

Someone brought up the HD7770 die size for comparison, but if Nintendo doesn't go GCN which does seem more likely at this point, the best comparison would be the RV740 chip. The HD7770 is 123mm^2 on 28nm, but the RV740 was just 137mm^2 on an older 40nm process. Shrunk down to 32nm the RV740 would be just 97mm^2 in size, indicating that a GPU with 640 traditional shaders should fit within the 100mm^2 envelope. Of course, the Nintendo design will be completely custom but the point is that AMD can fit a lot of VLIW5 (and VLIW4) shaders on a small area.

This is excellent for Nintendo because that cuts down costs. A 100mm^2 chip is less than half the size the original RSX was in the PS3 and actually quite comparable to what was in the GameCube (Flipper was 106mm^2 although that had big chunks of memory embedded). Furthermore, AMD has already demonstrated that these chips fit within the 50W power consumption envelope even on an older, less efficient 40nm process (the Mobility HD4830 and HD4860 consumed less than 50W).

Knowing for sure that it is not traditional, a 640 ALU, 600Mhz GPU would be the max we'd see IMO.

Can you tell me more about that?

And I definitely don't see Wii U being able to run a 1080p Xbox 3 game with the same IQ at 720p.

Agreed. There will have to be scaling back of IQ, although the gap between GPUs won't be generational.

 

[Oddduck]

I really want THQ to stay alive next gen.

Okay fine, most of their games in the past were Nickelodeon or WWE games.

But they have improved so much. And their support for Wii U is top notch. They could have given excuses on why Metro and Darksiders won't come to Wii U, but they didn't do that.

Darksiders 2 and Metro: Last Light are excellent ways to support Wii U.

And based on Linkedin, looks like we'll see 2 more big titles announced from them.

In other words, I hope THQ can turn things around.

And I hope we see that South Park RPG on the Wii U from THQ/Obsidian.

 

[Spieler Eins]

I had another E3 Wii U dream last night.

The conference lights dimmed, a announcer said to welcome Shigeru Miyamoto to the stage. The lights haven't started coming on when he comes out holding what appears to be the final form of Wii U. I watch from my iPad in my bed and am sad that it looks blocky, as in the same shape as the Wii excet maybe double its size. However, the stage is only silouted since the lights still haven't come on.

I can hear Miyamoto starts talking, but it doesn't sound like him. Since the speaker speaks english and doesn't have the Miyamoto voice. The stage lights come on and it is not Miyamoto but...uh...some other Japanese dude that I don't recognize. The person is not holding the Wii U in his hand but a huge DVD player that has a Sony logo on it.

This person is grinning, it almost feels as if Nintendo is trolling sony for some reason, but I can't figure out why they would hold a DVD player. It doesn't make any sense.

Then I wake up.

So yea...E3 needs to get on already!

lol, I also had an E3 dream last night. About the conference, in which Iwata starts by announcing Wario & Waluigi Ice-skating. Then I wanted to watch the rest on a better monitor, but I seemingly can't find the stream again and everything I type into Google doesn't make sense, which makes me rage and yell at random people showing up in my room for no reason... (I had nothing to do and watched the 2004 conference before I went to sleep, an apparently bad idea)

 

[Linkhero1]

I really want THQ to stay alive next gen.

Okay fine, most of their games in the past were Nickelodeon or WWE games.

But they have improved so much. And their support for Wii U is top notch. They could have given excuses on why Metro and Darksiders won't come to Wii U, but they didn't do that.

Darksiders 2 and Metro: Last Light are excellent ways to support Wii U.

And based on Linkedin, looks like we'll see 2 more big titles announced from them.

In other words, I hope THQ can turn things around.

And I hope we see that South Park RPG on the Wii U from THQ/Obsidian.

Same. I honestly don't want them to go. I enjoy Saints Row and I don't know what would happen to the series once they're gone. I don't want to live in a gaming world with only EA, Ubisoft, and Activision are the main source of third party games.

 

[Oddduck]

I had another E3 Wii U dream last night.

The conference lights dimmed, a announcer said to welcome Shigeru Miyamoto to the stage. The lights haven't started coming on when he comes out holding what appears to be the final form of Wii U. I watch from my iPad in my bed and am sad that it looks blocky, as in the same shape as the Wii excet maybe double its size. However, the stage is only silouted since the lights still haven't come on.

I can hear Miyamoto starts talking, but it doesn't sound like him. Since the speaker speaks english and doesn't have the Miyamoto voice. The stage lights come on and it is not Miyamoto but...uh...some other Japanese dude that I don't recognize. The person is not holding the Wii U in his hand but a huge DVD player that has a Sony logo on it.

This person is grinning, it almost feels as if Nintendo is trolling sony for some reason, but I can't figure out why they would hold a DVD player. It doesn't make any sense.

Then I wake up.

So yea...E3 needs to get on already!

Strangely enough, I had an E3 dream about a week ago.

I remember two things from the dream.

I remember seeing Mach Rider, but it was a girl behind the costume instead of a guy. She was driving through a dark futuristic grim planet world and chasing/attacking enemies with a machine gun and a chain as she was driving. She could leave her motorcycle for certain missions and fight enemies on foot with machine gun and chain. It had a very Blade Runner feel to the atmosphere and the world.

Everyone went nuts when this game was shown at the conference. It looked like the adult IP Nintendo had always needed. It got cheers as loud as Zelda: Twilight Princess did when it was first revealed which is weird because most people don't know what Mach Rider is. But the game looked like it was oozing with gritty surrealism and had a stylish art style. The game was developed by Platinum Games or Treasure. I forget.

The other part of the dream was a Donkey Kong Country game except it was done in the vein of DK64. The level was inside of a ruins/mines/pyramids type level with Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong trying to jump over traps and obstacles. I remember they were swinging on a rope over a large pit of snakes.

 

[wsippel]

I'm not saying they should or will. I'm just giving an example of the IHV cutting corners with respect to power consumption. In the mobile space, it's unlikely you'd be saturating the PCI-E bus or even require that much bandwidth, so they just go with the less complex solution and shave some wattage. The laptop coolers have enough to deal with, and they're not likely to be very cost effective. Every little bit helps, but it's not so great an optimization that they should alter the specs drastically.

edit: The same thing goes for OEMs tending to use DDR3 instead of GDDR5 (low/mid-end), though you obviously have the RAM cost thrown in there. For that target, a DDR3 controller will be less complex (smaller) than GDDR5 as there will not be a need to support the higher clock frequencies and increased power requirement, so they can ditch GDDR5 support as an optimization of their needs.

But I digress...

----

As I explained on the last page, even the 360 uses a couple PCI-E lanes for connection to the southbridge (audio and I/O purposes). I'm not really sure, but with a kinect successor in mind, they might have some use to go with more lanes/bandwidth, especially looking beyond USB2.0 and the sort.

No idea what Microsoft's going to do, but Nintendo uses AMBA AHB for all things IO.

 

[BlackJace]

It's probably not going to happen, but why the "HELL no" on Saturn emulation on Wii U VC? You got something against Saturn? Have you looked at how functional Saturn emulators are lately?

Ok, maybe my "hell no" was an overstatement, but I personally don't believe the addition of the Saturn would add enough value to the Virtual Console. It was Sega's least profitable console wasn't it?

 

[GameplayWhore]

Ok, maybe my "hell no" was an overstatement, but I personally don't believe the addition of the Saturn would add enough value to the Virtual Console. It was Sega's least profitable console wasn't it?

Wasn't Saturn considered tremendously difficult to emulate in the general emulator community?


edit: I mean, I know that noncommercial emulators eventually turned out pretty good, but Nintendo and Sega would be starting from scratch here, and there were a few quirks in even their emulators for the easy to emulate systems on the VC this gen, weren't there?

 

[Instro]

I really want THQ to stay alive next gen.

Okay fine, most of their games in the past were Nickelodeon or WWE games.

But they have improved so much. And their support for Wii U is top notch. They could have given excuses on why Metro and Darksiders won't come to Wii U, but they didn't do that.

Darksiders 2 and Metro: Last Light are excellent ways to support Wii U.

And based on Linkedin, looks like we'll see 2 more big titles announced from them.

In other words, I hope THQ can turn things around.

And I hope we see that South Park RPG on the Wii U from THQ/Obsidian.

Personally I am quite interested to see what their exclusive WiiU title is.

 

[WiiRevolution1]

Are you the guy who does the Neogaf News vids?

Yes. I'm also gonna make a YouTube News video of Wii U Speculation Thread VI when it goes up and post it in the thread

Since everyone else has started sharing their dreams I have one more that I also had last night but completely forgot about till now.

It starts with me in my room again. I am looking at my iPad but this time its a few hours before the conference and I am viewing this forum. A gaffer apparantly has broken into a E3 Wii U warehouse and has posted pictures of the Wii U OS. It looks excacly like the 3DS OS except its in much better resolution and has a few more buttons by the manual button. One of The new buttons apparantly lets you copy the app's url or something.

It was wierd.

The guy also leaked New Super Mario Broa. Mii OST...lol.

The dream shifts to the actual warehouse where it is revealled that the NeoGaffer is none other than Dave from The Secret World of Alex Mack!

Then I woke up again...

Oh, my YouTube News video for today is done uploading (Its about InFamous) finally! Now I don't have to deal with slow loading times while browsing NeoGAF anymore.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Mach Rider would be a cool series to revive just because I want to see someone try and do a vehicle-based shooter properly. Like, to have it so you've got decent control over both the vehicle and the aiming of the weapon at all times. Probably a tad unrealistic, but it doesn't have to be a realistic concept.

 

[Oddduck]

Personally I am quite interested to see what their exclusive WiiU title is.

Same.

A few people here have argued "Oh THQ will just throw something kiddy on Wii U for an exclusive".

But I think Nintendo has been moneyhatting exclusives. Remember how Goldeneye 007 was exclusive to Wii for a limited amount of time? I expect the same happening for Wii. We will see limited timed exclusives from THQ, Activision, Ubisoft (Killer Freaks), Square Enix (Dragon Quest X), etc etc. And THQ has been very, very clear about not wanting to do licensed kiddy games anymore. That's not part of their business strategy for any consoles right now.

 

[HylianTom]

Same. I honestly don't want them to go. I enjoy Saints Row and I don't know what would happen to the series once they're gone. I don't want to live in a gaming world with only EA, Ubisoft, and Activision are the main source of third party games.

I want third parties to make smarter choices this time around. If they don't, I'm not going to weep for them for very long.

Gamers collectively aren't helping, either, expecting financially unrealistic business models and whining when companies don't comply with those expectations.

 

[GameplayWhore]

I want third parties to make smarter choices this time around. If they don't, I'm not going to weep for them for very long.

Gamers collectively aren't helping, either, expecting financially unrealistic business models and whining when companies don't comply with those expectations.

"What? Why are they selling this product for more than it cost them to make? Dumb big businesses, trying to rip us off again!"

 

[BlackJace]

Wasn't Saturn considered tremendously difficult to emulate in the general emulator community?


edit: I mean, I know that noncommercial emulators eventually turned out pretty good, but Nintendo and Sega would be starting from scratch here, and there were a few quirks in even their emulators for the easy to emulate systems on the VC this gen, weren't there?

That's what I'm saying. Emulating the Saturn would be more of chore than its worth.

 

[Linkhero1]

I want third parties to make smarter choices this time around. If they don't, I'm not going to weep for them for very long.

Gamers collectively aren't helping, either, expecting financially unrealistic business models and whining when companies don't comply with those expectations.

They kind of missed the boat on the Wii. My care for a lot of Japanese developers has gone down the hole this past generation. I've never disliked Kojima more than I have this generation.

If they ignore the Wii U, I won't care if they start to die out too. I just like THQ a lot so I don't want to see them go

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Kojima, FromSoft, Square. Only 3 companies I hope fully support the wiiU with their next games (or in Kojima's case, next next game since he might be too far along in his current one).

 

[Instro]

Same.

A few people here have argued "Oh THQ will just throw something kiddy on Wii U for an exclusive".

But I think Nintendo has been moneyhatting exclusives. Remember how Goldeneye 007 was exclusive to Wii for a limited amount of time? I expect the same happening for Wii. We will see limited timed exclusives from THQ, Activision, Ubisoft (Killer Freaks), Square Enix (Dragon Quest X), etc etc. And THQ has been very, very clear about not wanting to do licensed kiddy games anymore. That's not part of their business strategy for any consoles right now.

Yeah myself and some other poster were speculating that it could be related to this trademark: http://games.ign.com/articles/122/1220815p1.html

They also just opened their new Montreal studio as well which is being headed by Patrice Desilets. Probably setting my sights too high, but who knows. If Nintendo is really out moneyhatting games, then something like this from THQ is certainly possible.

 

[Linkhero1]

Has Bethseda commented on the Wii U at all? I'm hoping that Fallout 4, when it's announced sometime in the future, comes to the Wii U. I think it's the only third party title I really care about at the moment. I'm replaying through New Vegas right now and I can see so much being done on the Wii U Controller. A pipboy on my subscreen would be amazing.

 

[HylianTom]

They kind of missed the boat on the Wii. My care for a lot of Japanese developers has gone down the hole this past generation. I've never disliked Kojima more than I have this generation.

If they ignore the Wii U, I won't care if they start to die out too. I just like THQ a lot so I don't want to see them go

My like for THQ will depend on what they bring to the U. If I had to go by last generation {*..looks at Wii releases, looks at PS360 releases..*}, I wouldn't care one bit. But this generation's start looks a bit more promising with Darksiders 2 as a headliner title. If they can keep-up the non-crap releases, I'd like to see 'em stick around.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Can Nintendo demand publishers not release their games at launch? I guess they could pay them to not do so, but since it will mean missing a holiday, that might get expensive.

I just dont want another Vita situation where there is a pretty good launch followed by almost nothing. Unless Nintendo themselves only plan on releasing 2 big games and saving the rest for early next year, then i guess it wont matter so much as momentum is concerned.