Support NeoGAF

[Littlegator]

I really hate Agni's Philosophy. I'm sure machines will be able to push those graphics, as the environments and everything aren't actually all that impressive, but the assets in that tech demo will simply cost too much to fill an entire game with.

Actually, it's just tech demos in general. They always use little shortcuts, tips and tricks, and cinematography to trick the audience.

 

[Loghorn150]

Beefier tech isn't going to automatically price out a lot of studios from developing for these consoles. It would really only happen if the developers are so incredibly inefficient that they can't cope with the natural progression of technology.

I don't believe that. The more beefier tech that you put inside of a console, the higher costs of developing a game for that certain system will be. Look at what happened with the PS1/N64/Saturn era. PS1 managed to have a lot of 3rd party support because they used CD's for their console, & because of lower development costs for it, where as N64 lost most 3rd party support because of them sticking with carts & because of higher software development costs of making games for it, as well as with Sega with Sega Saturn, making their console far too expensive for development & making it incredibly hard for 3rd party developers to make games for it.

Besides, I heard this same song and dance with the Wii. That developing for the 360/PS3 was getting "prohibitively expensive", that developers were going to look to cut costs, that it was going to make it all the more attractive for publishers to release games on the Wii because it kept budgets "under control", etc. And nothing of this came to pass. It wasn't the 360/PS3 being ahead of the curve, it was the Wii behind it. All signs are pointing to history repeating itself on that front.

As far as that goes, I would have to agree with this poster's opinion about it (see here). They were treating the Wii like a red-headed stepchild, the console with the lowest development costs with a higher install base, while treating the PS3/360 like A-list celebrities, the consoles with higher development costs, with lower install bases. The result? Most of the studios suffered in profits, while other studios went under.

That's why they're being very cautious about next gen, especially with PS4/720.

Nintendo can make a shitload of money without 3rd parties, but 3rd parties haven't done wisely to avoid the money they've left on the table with the Wii. Can they afford to make that same mistake again with WiiU?

Games looking like that S-E tech demo are going to cost tens if not hundreads of millions of dollars, which is way over any reasonable budget. And if your game sells poorly after that... Well, just update this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=459131

Exactly what I've been saying.

 

[SapientWolf]

I really hate Agni's Philosophy. I'm sure machines will be able to push those graphics, as the environments and everything aren't actually all that impressive, but the assets in that tech demo will simply cost too much to fill an entire game with.

Actually, it's just tech demos in general. They always use little shortcuts, tips and tricks, and cinematography to trick the audience.

SE already makes those assets for their overdone CG, so it might actually save them money.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

I'll definitely concede the point that skyward sword and the wiiu demo have different artstyles.

My point was really that the tech demo showed what a more up to date zelda could look like.

Even if you go for a painteresque artstyle like Skyward Sword, It should really benefit just as much from better hardware. Going for an artistic style over realism really shouldn't limit what you can do visually. One could even argue it gives you more freedom to go crazy, visually. As you're not bound, trying to make it look real.

I don't disagree with any of these points.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

SS would benefit A LOT from more hardware, and I'm not talking about Graphics.

Hardware specs are very important, its not about how a game looks like and much more about how the game behaves, an aspect I feel most people here ignore.

Along with a lot of developers.

One thing I give to Crytek. Their art style borders on generic, but they have an eye for animation.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I'm not insulting Nintendo fans. I'm pointing out how fanboyish it is of someone to defend Nintendo's decision to cheap out on hardware yet again, when it unfairly limits their development talent. I'm a fan of Nintendo games, not their management.

One sees the "think of the poor talent" argument a whole lot. I know in hardcore gamerland we are fond of treating people who make games like saints and sometimes near religious icons (if you're a fan, the devil if you're not). But, we do remember that the purpose of these companies is to be profitable right?

The industry has run a lot of stuff into the ground, bankrupted studios (which puts 'the talent' out of a job), and bloated the cost of development through the roof, by focusing on technology as the primary selling point.

People seem either perplexed, or offended, by fact that Nintendo likes to remain profitable and balanced in a business sense. And by how they would really rather not large swaths of the industry crash and burn.

I know to the enthusiast gamer, Nintendo not making a four or five hundred dollar box is "cheaping out and insulting us, and insulting their own employees".

I do think their employees appreciate job security and working at a company that doesn't fire your entire team when your latest game gets a 79 on Metacritic.

The funny part when this always comes up, is that some of the other big companies who really make games for the mass market, within their respective spheres, also don't fixate on technology for its own sake, despite mythologies about 'setting developers free to soar on wings of pure imagination and 16 gigs of ram'. Valve and Blizzard for instance, or, ha ha, Pop Cap, do not exactly make Crysis. To draw a comparison, if they were console companies making set top boxes, it sure seems their philosophy on technology would more mirror Nintendo's, than Crytek or Epic.

To be fair, I have heard PC gamers ranting about how 'cheap' Blizzard, or Valve is, for their shitty old engines and their shitty cheap graphics that don't give us the real ultimate power we deserve like Cry Engine, etc.

And hey, let me say... I think last time, Nintendo low balled a bit too much with the Wii, because they themselves weren't sure if it'd really work. If they'd had a clue what was about to blow up, they very well might have not been so conservative. Plus, it seems never taken into account that this generation marked a sea change in technology. We moved from arcane, customized pieces of hardware that were each drastically different from one another, to essentially set top box PCs. With relative homogenized tech, and development environments. That seems to make it easier for Nintendo to do what they do going into next gen. If their box is less powerful than someone else's box, it won't be an entirely disparate type of technology.

If someone actually is a specific Nintendo fan, I wouldn't say they "don't care about graphics". That's a false dichotomy, a binary created apparently merely to insult people or dismiss them as having invalid opinions because they're not real gamers or something. I think it's more that Nintendo fans, like Pop Cap fans, or Valve fans, or Blizzard fans, care a bit more about the content of the product, the mythology contained in it, and the overall package those companies tend to create that's unique, than just graphics alone.

 

[sp3000]

To take advantage of more polygons, higher res textures, better lighting, effects like tesselation, etc., requires a lot of money. A game console could be powerful enough to render a Pixar movie in realtime, but guess what, Pixar movies cost over $100 million to make, and all they are doing is making and animating models. Most games aren't going to have those huge budgets. We already only have a couple games a year looking anywhere near as good as Uncharted and Gears of War on current-gen systems, that are obviously capable of that quality graphics. So what do you think is going to change by the systems being capable of even more detail?

A game with a $1-2 million budget (you know, most games) isn't going to look any better if the game console is capable of 10 times the polygons, quadruple-sized textures, amazing lighting. Sure, the 1 or 2 games a year that get made with HUGE budgets will look amazing, but I stick by my statement that most games won't look any better than current-gen games no matter the power of the game console.

The only difference will be if some new technology comes out that somehow makes it a LOT cheaper to add all that detail, but looking at the way gaming technology is advancing, that's just not happening. The most advanced PC games and demos being made to show off the highest-end systems, which some people are assuming will be what the high end next-gen console games will be like, are made exactly the same way games have been made all this generation, meaning it costs more money for that kind of detail.

Hard Reset and Witcher 2 look better than Uncharted 2 and Gears of War, and they were made on a fifth of the budget.

 

[EatinOlives]

I don't believe that. The more beefier tech that you put inside a console, the higher costs of developing a game for that certain system will be. Look at what happened with the PS1/N64/Saturn era. PS1 managed to have a lot of 3rd party support because they used CD's for their console, & because of lower development costs for it, where as N64 lost most 3rd party support because of them sticking with carts & because of higher software development costs for making games for it, as well as with Sega with Sega Saturn, making their console far too expensive for development & making it incredibly hard for 3rd party developers to make games for it.

It's not a linear relationship, especially now that things like UE4 with engines specifically designed to speed up the development process as well as studios becoming better equipped to deal with said "beefier tech". There's no reason to assume that this coming generation in particular is going to push costs into the stratosphere, especially after 7+ years of the industry working on the same hardware from 2005. There's more than enough studios and publishers ready to make a leap. Lower development cost does not always results in better or more plentiful support. Again, look at the Wii's lack of 3rd party support and go from there.

As far as that goes, I would have to agree with this poster's opinion about it (see here). They were treating the Wii like a red-headed stepchild, the console with the lowest development costs with a higher install base, while treating the PS3/360 like A-list celebrities, the consoles with higher development costs, with lower install bases. The result? Most of the studios suffered in profits, while other studios went under.

That's why they're being very cautious about next gen with PS4/720.

Nobody was treating anything like a "red-headed stepchild", studios don't pledge allegiance to consoles the way many consumers do. Studios were interested in creating particular games that the Wii's hardware was not able to realize. Developing for the 360 and PS3 did not in and of itself result in studios suffering in profits, many studios went under for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with the development platforms of choice. Similarly, there's zero reason to believe that this wouldn't have happened had those studios chosen to support the Wii. They would've had to create almost entirely different games, and there was no guarantee that those games would've sold that much better.

I don't believe for a second that the Wii was neglected because it was not "hot shit", that's not how the industry works, and I don't believe that it would've saved any studio had that been their chosen platform instead.

 

[Loghorn150]

@EatinOlives:

If you say so. Just don't say that I didn't warn you about it should more bad things happen to publishers/developers later on in the future should they stick to their old "Fuck the Wii/Wii U, let's kill ourselves by publishing/developing our games on consoles with better graphics & with higher software costs instead!" mentality.

 

[phosphor112]

@EatinOlives:

If you say so. Just don't say that I didn't warn you about it should more bad things happen to publishers/developers later on in the future should they stick to their old "Fuck the Wii/Wii U, let's kill ourselves by publishing/developing our games on consoles with better graphics & with higher software costs instead!" mentality.

Higher tech engines that allow full dynamic lighting reduces hundreds of hours of baking and re-baking fake lighting.

 

[Gummb]

One sees the "think of the poor talent" argument a whole lot. I know in hardcore gamerland we are fond of treating people who make games like saints and sometimes near religious icons (if you're a fan, the devil if you're not). But, we do remember that the purpose of these companies is to be profitable right?

The industry has run a lot of stuff into the ground, bankrupted studios (which puts 'the talent' out of a job), and bloated the cost of development through the roof, by focusing on technology as the primary selling point.

People seem either perplexed, or offended, by fact that Nintendo likes to remain profitable and balanced in a business sense. And by how they would really rather not large swaths of the industry crash and burn.

I know to the enthusiast gamer, Nintendo not making a four or five hundred dollar box is "cheaping out and insulting us, and insulting their own employees".

I do think their employees appreciate job security and working at a company that doesn't fire your entire team when your latest game gets a 79 on Metacritic.

The funny part when this always comes up, is that some of the other big companies who really make games for the mass market, within their respective spheres, also don't fixate on technology for its own sake, despite mythologies about 'setting developers free to soar on wings of pure imagination and 16 gigs of ram'. Valve and Blizzard for instance, or, ha ha, Pop Cap, do not exactly make Crysis. To draw a comparison, if they were console companies making set top boxes, it sure seems their philosophy on technology would more mirror Nintendo's, than Crytek or Epic.

To be fair, I have heard PC gamers ranting about how 'cheap' Blizzard, or Valve is, for their shitty old engines and their shitty cheap graphics that don't give us the real ultimate power we deserve like Cry Engine, etc.

And hey, let me say... I think last time, Nintendo low balled a bit too much with the Wii, because they themselves weren't sure if it'd really work. If they'd had a clue what was about to blow up, they very well might have not been so conservative. Plus, it seems never taken into account that this generation marked a sea change in technology. We moved from arcane, customized pieces of hardware that were each drastically different from one another, to essentially set top box PCs. With relative homogenized tech, and development environments. That seems to make it easier for Nintendo to do what they do going into next gen. If their box is less powerful than someone else's box, it won't be an entirely disparate type of technology.

If someone actually is a specific Nintendo fan, I wouldn't say they "don't care about graphics". That's a false dichotomy, a binary created apparently merely to insult people or dismiss them as having invalid opinions because they're not real gamers or something. I think it's more that Nintendo fans, like Pop Cap fans, or Valve fans, or Blizzard fans, care a bit more about the content of the product, the mythology contained in it, and the overall package those companies tend to create that's unique, than just graphics alone.

*clap clap clap*

I think that the most critical consumers of Nintendo's products are Nintendo fanboys. They are not blind to the fact that games like Skyward Sword could look better, in fact, they desperately want their Zelda games to look ridiculously good. It often appears that Nintendo defense teams will blindly defend their favorite games without reason, but that is often in the context of absurd criticism and attack by those who do not consume Nintendo products at all. Popular representations of Nintendo fans will continue due to Nintendo's prevalence in the industry, but those who attack Nintendo fanboys should ask their opinion on different matters without the criticism.

 

[Lathentar]

Hard Reset and Witcher 2 look better than Uncharted 2 and Gears of War, and they were made on a fifth of the budget.

A fifth of a budget in Europe, big difference in costs (salaries, corporate costs). I wouldn't compare Hard Reset to something like the scope of Uncharted.

Also, just because one or two teams might be able to keep costs down, clearly a huge percentage of the industry hasn't figured that out.

 

[squidyj]

You don't understand the art style difference here? Skyward Sword would look better on better hardware already because of the better resolution, but it wouldn't magically change the visual style to this:

Noah taylor?

 

[theviolenthero]

Nintendo can make a shitload of money without 3rd parties, but 3rd parties haven't done wisely to avoid the money they've left on the table with the Wii. Can they afford to make that same mistake again with WiiU?

The Wii got TON'S of support from 3rd parties & the most exclusives of this generation but 90% of those games flopped. Anyone who's actually owned a Wii & one of the HD systems will tell you that they didn't even consider the Wii version of multi-platform games because of the under-powered hardware.
If ZombiU, Assassin's Creed 3 & Mass Effect 3 sell on the Wiiu then 3rd parties will flood the system with content.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

The Wii got TON'S of support from 3rd parties & the most exclusives of this generation but 90% of those games flopped. Anyone who's actually owned a Wii & one of the HD systems will tell you that they didn't even consider the Wii version of multi-platform games because of the under-powered hardware.
If ZombiU, Assassin's Creed 3 & Mass Effect 3 sell on the Wiiu then 3rd parties will flood the system with content.

Depending on how well the system sells I could see two of those titles finding a degree of success.

I really don't see how ME3 finds success when a Nintendo fan and Mass Effect junkie like me has no plans for it.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

Higher tech engines that allow full dynamic lighting reduces hundreds of hours of baking and re-baking fake lighting.

We still don't have an idea how far that can scale yet.

But this is one way in which game development itself is improved by hardware. Making it really easy to do something. For all their bluster about being 1080p capable I doubt Nintendo will deem it cost effective to make all those pixels perty. They'll probably give their devs a significantly larger canvas than they had prior to paint on, but far below what is possible even on the relative low resolution of "HD" televisions.

edit: I doubt Nintendo shoots for any higher than 720p for the majority of their titles is what I mean.

 

[Grinchy]

Go ask a Halo/FF/MGS fan how would he feel if his favorite series was stuck in a console that, spec-wise, was a whole generation behind the competition. Personally, that's how I feel about Zelda and Metroid.

Graphics and specs may be irrelevant when it comes to games such as Wii Sports and Nintendoland, but a game like Zelda, Metroid, Xenoblade etc. would definitely benefit a lot from them.

As a MGS fan, I would be pissed if the PS4 was just a re-wrapped PS3 and Sony moneyhatted an exclusive MGS for it. I think you make a good point.

 

[Nealand Liquor]

I never obsessed or even been slightly interested in the power of the system tbh. I have however taken an interest in seeing how this whole thing played out after reading post after post from fanboys not just foming at the mouth when people question its power, but go on to write that it'll be on par, if not more powerful than current gaming PCs. In this regard, its been a slow moving train wreck I couldn't help but watch.

 

[J@hranimo]

Because this:

The only answer, ever.

 

[zoukka]

As a MGS fan, I would be pissed if the PS4 was just a re-wrapped PS3 and Sony moneyhatted an exclusive MGS for it. I think you make a good point.

Graphics were the least of MGS4's problems.

 

[walking fiend]

Graphics were the least of MGS4's problems.

I think the graphics were quite good actually; but the game was a total disappointment otherwise

 

[Thrakier]

Hard Reset and Witcher 2 look better than Uncharted 2 and Gears of War, and they were made on a fifth of the budget.

Well, with much more powerful hardware in mind and TW2 360 certainly does not look better than UC2. GoW never lookd great to begin with, it's just Unreal Engine.

Also the discussion in here is stupid. We will achieve photo realism or virtual reality sooner or later. And that's good. Humanity in 2018 or 2010 will not be satisfied by tech from 2006. That's just how the world goes. Production costs may rise or not, we'll see. There is a high chance that somewhere, someone will find new methods to programm games to lower the higher production costs. It's all inventions people.

Nintendo does them too, just a bit different. While I think Wii was a genius product in concept with a clear target audience in mind, WiiU imo is just a mess, beginning from the very first unveiling. The graphical power surely isn't the problem here, it's the overall concept which is nothing exciting at all. I guess it'll fail (meaning: performing way worse then Wii) but I'm ready to eat crow, because, you know, people.

 

[zoukka]

Also the discussion in here is stupid. We will achieve photo realism or virtual reality sooner or later. And that's good. Humanity in 2018 or 2010 will not be satisfied by tech from 2006. That's just how the world goes. Production costs may rise or not, we'll see. There is a high chance that somewhere, someone will find new methods to programm games to lower the higher production costs. It's all inventions people.

...

The people of 2010 were quite happy playing games made on 2006 technology. Just as they are now in 2012. If the videogames market was about to crash, you might have a point.

 

[whalleywhat]

Man, I must be sick...first thing that came to mind when I saw this was...goatse...

What the hell is wrong with you?

 

[Thrakier]

...

The people of 2010 were quite happy playing games made on 2006 technology. Just as they are now in 2012. If the videogames market was about to crash, you might have a point.

Well, what if in the future games are produced like movies and then interactivity is added afterwards, for example? The options are limitless, engineers just need to find them. All that doomsday speech all the time. Will the market crash? Maybe, it happens to a lot of markets. And then it's build new again with better ideas. Will we stick to 2006 tech for the next 100 years? Certainly not. So what are you guys discussing in here? Tech change *will* come, all what Nintendo does it make it come later to have more profit now.

It's not like "let's do it like Nintendo and the market won't crash" - if we do it just like Nintendo, without Sony and MS doing there thing, the market may crash for other reasons. Humans always need progression and progression in technology is a big thing, not only on the console market.

Also, the people who still played Wii in 2010 imo were people who didn't care much about graphics quality or who valued gameplay quality very high. That's fine, those people will always exist, but they won't drive the market forward at least in the tech departement. But tech will go forward, because it always does.

 

[Perkel]

a) Because they are trying to release current gen console in 2012 hoping their new controller will get them public like Wii did (it's 50% chance)
b) If ps4 or X720 will come out whole industry will go to next gen platforms meanwhile WiiU will be feed with worse ports of bigger brothers.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Because its a new console and people want information on it...

 

[zoukka]

Well, what if in the future games are produced like movies and then interactivity is added afterwards, for example? The options are limitless, engineers just need to find them. All that doomsday speech all the time. Will the market crash? Maybe, it happens to a lot of markets. And then it's build new again with better ideas. Will we stick to 2006 tech for the next 100 years? Certainly not. So what are you guys discussing in here? Tech change *will* come, all what Nintendo does it make it come later to have more profit now.

It's not like "let's do it like Nintendo and the market won't crash" - if we do it just like Nintendo, without Sony and MS doing there thing, the market may crash for other reasons. Humans always need progression and progression in technology is a big thing, not only on the console market.

Also, the people who still played Wii in 2010 imo were people who didn't care much about graphics quality or who valued gameplay quality very high. That's fine, those people will always exist, but they won't drive the market forward at least in the tech departement. But tech will go forward, because it always does.

There are so many contradictions in this post that I'd need a machete to cut through them all.

There does not exist a standard of how consumer electronics should advance. That is entirely for the consumers to decide. A jump like Wii-U might be enough or not, that is to be seen when people vote with their wallets.

And this meme of "graphics or gameplay" is stupid. Everyone who plays with their Wii, does care about graphics. They are a big part of any videogames functionality. But whether a game like Mario Galaxy or Wii Sports would've sold a single copy more with "better graphics" is questionable. I mean the visuals in those games work perfectly given the context of gameplay and the core ideas of those games. Which is the most important thing when designing videogame graphics.

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Sony & MS fanboys hate Nintendo. That's all it is.

That´s ironic coming from you, who post more about the vita and bash it than people who actually own the hardware. You crack me up guy.

 

[DR2K]

Because Nintendo won't say a darn thing in regards to them, leaving room for chaos and anarchy.

 

[Thrakier]

There are so many contradictions in this post that I'd need a machete to cut through them all.

Sorry, but no, it's quite logical. My english isn't the best so maybe I fail to explain it properly. I try again to explain it again.

Nintendo does the same like MS and Sony. They are just a generation behind. So if any of those problems you guys are discussing really come true (which I don't believe, there will be solutions), they will come true for Nintendo also - just later. Because of natural tech progression which is needed to maintain interest over a longer period of time for a larger target audience even Nintendo can't afford to stick to *one* console tech for the next 50 years.

Nintedo does improve graphics too. And they will keep doing it. Till the point we achieve photo realism or virtual reality and the way we're playing games will change completly. There is no way around it because what humanity always demands is progression. No one can change that rule just diversify the form of progression but only to a certain point (f.e. you can make cars faster or more energy efficient, but when cars start flying, all cars start flying).

 

[zoukka]

I understood you the first time, and I still think you are very detached from the reality of videogames industry and don't have a very good understanding of how games are made or what drives the progression forward. Photorealism and VR have nothing to do with the present day and the not-so-near future.

 

[gofreak]

Higher tech engines that allow full dynamic lighting reduces hundreds of hours of baking and re-baking fake lighting.

Saw an interesting comment in that gamescom panel, I think from the guy making The Unfinished Swan. He talked about how it took them months to fix the shadows in the game. With more powerful hardware he wouldn't need to worry about stuff like that. It would let them do stuff in a lazy, non-optimal - and cheap - way instead of spending lots of time hacking things to get them to work within a smaller performance envelope. He, and others like him with small teams, could take for granted the ability to do fairly sophisticated stuff because they could run with 'lazy' approaches to them.

I think the dev cost vs power issue ultimately boils down to this - do you want to reduce dev costs by capping developers' technical ambitions from the start (relatively lower-powered hardware), or do you want to reduce dev costs by making it cheaper to be technically ambitious (relatively higher-powered hardware)?

I don't think next-gen budgets are going to scale on the high end commensurate with the power increase. They'll go up, but I think over the coming gens, the rate at which they'll go up will slow. I think the more linear scaling will be in the tech-quality increases that power will allow smaller devs and budgets to achieve.

 

[Thrakier]

I understood you the first time, and I still think you are very detached from the reality of videogames industry and don't have a very good understanding of how games are made or what drives the progression forward. Photorealism and VR have nothing to do with the present day and the not-so-near future.

Well, you know, arguments would be nice. How is Nintendos approach fundamentely different than what MS and Sony are doing? I think it's pretty much the same, only the reduce on the power and try to compensate that with a innovative input method. Though MS and Sony do the latter now as well. It's still quite similar and IF MS and Sony get into trouble because of production costs, Nintendo will face the same problem sooner or latter.

If they just changed the Wii controller and sticked to the original Wii hardware, well, THAT would've been a change.

 

[zoukka]

Well, you know, arguments would be nice. How is Nintendos approach fundamentely different than what MS and Sony are doing? I think it's pretty much the same, only the reduce on the power and try to compensate that with a innovative input method. Though MS and Sony do the latter now as well. It's still quite similar and IF MS and Sony get into trouble because of production costs, Nintendo will face the same problem sooner or latter.

If they just changed the Wii controller and sticked to the original Wii hardware, well, THAT would've been a change.

You've lost your original point, which was that people in general can't be happy with lesser tech, than what is available somewhere. I just pointed out that they in fact are happy and will be happy in the future as well.

 

[Thrakier]

You've lost your original point, which was that people in general can't be happy with lesser tech, than what is available somewhere. I just pointed out that they in fact are happy and will be happy in the future as well.

I never said that. "Lesser tech" is a question of perception and perception is often a question of awareness. My main point was, that there needs to be progression. That's the general rule which also applies to Nintendo.

 

[zoukka]

I never said that. "Lesser tech" is a question of perception and perception is often a question of awareness. My main point was, that there needs to be progression. That's the general rule which also applies to Nintendo.

Of course there's progression, but like I said, there does not exist a fixed standard for that progression nor there ever should be.

 

[Thrakier]

Of course there's progression, but like I said, there does not exist a fixed standard for that progression nor there ever should be.

I'm pretty sure there is at least a fixed margin. How would you think about WiiU if it really just was an controller upgrade for Wii?

 

[whalleywhat]

Nintendo made a bet on the Wii that there were plenty of people who hadn't made the transition to HD yet, and it was clearly the correct bet. Now they're updating their shit, but they aren't future proofing it because that isn't a race they're interested in involving themselves in.

 

[FyreWulff]

Nintendo made a bet on the Wii that there were plenty of people who hadn't made the transition to HD yet, and it was clearly the correct bet. Now they're updating their shit, but they aren't future proofing it because that isn't a race they're interested in involving themselves in.

They still haven't. MS and Sony stopped shipping HD cables with their consoles years ago. Both of them only include composite out of the box.

The Wii U, just like the 360 and PS3 and 720 and PS4, will be capable of outputting 720p or 1080p, with 720p still being the most common HD resolution anyway. This fact alone should solve a lot of problems for people, as an issue the Wii has is that it has to go through everyone's terrible scaler in their TV to be output at the native resolution. The 360 sidestepped the shitty scaler issue by doing it's own scaling at all resolutions.

Let us not forget that Microsoft will finally ship the first true-720p Halo title since the Xbox 360 came out, later this year, 7 years after the launch of the console. The most popular game of the moment, Call of Duty, is sub-HD. Most people don't care because the 360 upscaled it up to 720p for them. Even if the Wii U is 720p baseline across the board, that's still much better than what the 360 and PS3 are doing.

 

[zoukka]

I'm pretty sure there is at least a fixed margin. How would you think about WiiU if it really just was an controller upgrade for Wii?

Then they would sell it as just a controller add-on to Wii?

Personally I don't care. I have my PC for potential balls to the walls tech monster games, but my favourite games tend to not be such games.

 

[MYE]

Or to those who don't want to see a repeat of this:

What is the issue here?

 

[Thrakier]

Then they would sell it as just a controller add-on to Wii?

Personally I don't care. I have my PC for potential balls to the walls tech monster games, but my favourite games tend to not be such games.

So you can see yourself having fun with Wii graphics/tech (mind you, it's not just graphics that get calculated) from 2000 in, say, 2015 or even 2020, just because the controller has a screen on it?

When you are playing on another console/pc to fullfill your graphics need, then this would actually confirm my theory.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Does it really matter? All the screenshots I've seen look good. I'm sure the next PS and Xbox will look good too. Just go with the console which offers the flavor of games you want, folks.

And seriously, if you're really that obsessed with graphics, get a gaming PC. What's the point of dissing a system's tech and then settling for the next PS and Xbox?

It's new hardware. That comes with the territory. The same will happen with Microsoft and Sony's next generation consoles.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Obfuscation breeds curiosity.

 

[PubbyMcbrosef]

Oh please stop with the gameplay quality statement. The Wii is a shovelware minigame shitfest of a platform. There's a smattering of games released every year that have a significant amount of gameplay that one could actually discuss. most of those are nintendo developed and rehashes of an old franchise. The controller is still consistently inaccurate, requires large movements that have significant delays compared to button presses, and is generally not well suited to improve the quality of gameplay. Furthermore the amount of shitty plastic stuff that you can shove the Wii mote into is staggering, and none of it is fun to use. So please, don't bring up gameplay as the Wii's saving grace.

Allow me to give you all of the nintendo Wii releases currently available in my region. Because it's always fun to prove arguments.

• Last Story= Actual Game. Better on Dolphin.
• Brave = A licensed pixar game, probably shovelware.
• Wild West Shootout = Shovelware lightgun style party game. Gun included
• Chicken Shootout = Shovelware lightgun style party game. Gun included
• Beat Beat rhythm paradise = Mini game collection, shovelware.
• Tomb raider underworld =Shitty port, bad graphics, bad controls.
• Project Zero = Actual game.
• North American Hunting Extravaganza = Shovelware lightgun style party game.
• Ice age 4 = Licensed Fox animation game, confirmed mini game style shovelware.
• Amazing Spiderman = Shitty port, bad graphics, bad controls.
• Lego Batman 2= Shitty port, bad graphics, bad controls.
• Madagascar 3= Licensed Dreamworks game, probably shovelware
• MIB - Alien Crisis=Bad on every single platform.
• Farm animal racing= Shovelware mario kart knock off. Steering wheel included.
• Bit.Trip Complete= Ok on Wii, marred by latency from upconversion to reasonable resolution. Better on pc.
• Dino Strike= Awful lightgun game, shovelware. Gun included.
• Pandora's tower= Actual game, I think, Not aware of quality
• Just dance the best of= The 15th! release for this franchise. All semi shovelware partygames for kids.
• We sing= Singstar for the poor.
• Pokepark= Pokemon collectathon. Has the deepness of a shallow pond
• 007 - Golden eye= Yeah this thing, it's overrated based on nostalgia
• Mario Party 9 = The ultimate mini game collection. If you're going to waste time with these just get this one. I guess.
• Zumba Fitness 2 = Ooh yeah, fitness shovelware. God I love motion controls.
• Family Train = Mini game collection, includes some sort of mat
• Kirby's Adventure= It's kirby
• Rayman Origins= Dear god get this game on another platform please. It's great but not on Wii
• Abba You can dance= Just dance reskin
• Wii sports resort= Minigame collection, Wii remote+ pack in
• Stunt flyer heroes of the sky= Shovelware, Flight controller pack in
• uDraw Marvel heroes= THQ bankruptcy levels of bad on all platforms
• uDraw Studio= THQ bankruptcy levels of bad on all platforms
• Lego Harry Potter= Better on other platforms.
• Zelda Skyward Sword= Actual game. Put on the nostalgia goggles lets go on another round of zelda.
• Need for speed the run= Awful port of average street racing game
• Mario&Sonic Olympic games london= Mini-game collection, quick cash in on the olympics game
• Black eyed peas experience= Just dance, reskin
• Call of duty MW3= Imagine being the kid at school stuck playing this on the Wii.
• Just Dance Kids= Just dance, reskin
• Vacation Island = Wii Sports Resort shovelware rip off
• Disney Universe = Disney Licenced shovelware
• The adventures of tintin = Better on any other platform
  [*]Skylanders = Better on other platforms, also horrible abusive collectathon that make parents spend absurd amounts of money. This game is like the kids version of taking part in a study on pavlovian conditioning
  [*]Just dance 3 = Just dance, reskin
  [*]Wii Fit+ = Completly ineffective excersize instrument
  [*]Fifa 12 = Yeah, You want this on another platform
  [*]Phineas and ferb = I honestly don't know what this is, if anyone knows chime in.
  [*]Driver San Fransisco = Worst version out of all available again.
  [*]Sonic and the secret rings = More sonic
  [*]Smurfs Dance Party = Just dance, reskin 10
  [*]Cars 2 = Pixar movie licence shovelware
  [*]Studio 100 speeleiland = Region specific uber shovelware
  [*]Lego Pirates= Better on every other platform
  [*]Udraw Spongebob Squarepants= 1 word, bankruptcy
  [*]Just dance= Yeah the original version, they're still selling it
  [*]Lego Star Wars= Better on every other platform
  [*]uDraw Dood's Big Adventure= More uDraw shovelware
  [*]101 in 1 sports= Atleast action 52 had cheetahmen. Another minigame shovelware fest
  [*]We Sing Robbie Williams= It's like they're saying Take That to singstar.
  [*]Wii Party= Hey this is still in stores, mini game collection.
  [*]Def Jam Raps= Is Def jam still around ? This game still is
  [*]MegaMind= Dreamworks animation shovelware
  [*]Donkey Kong Country Returns= Actual game. Let's ride the donkey kong train some more.
  [*]Rapunzel= Movie tie in shovelware.
  [*]Dora's Big Birthday adventure.= Dora the explorer shovelware.
  [*]NFS: Hot pursuit= Better on every other platform.
  [*]Call of Duty Black Ops= Get this on anything else if you're craving dudebro shooting
  [*]The Sims3= Stay far away from this on any console.
  [*]Monopoly streets= It's monopoly.
  [*]Hasbro Family Game Night= Mini game Collection, shovelware
  [*]Sniper Elite= Lightgun shovelware, includes plastic remote holder shaped like sniper rifle
  [*]Metroid- Other M= Yeah this thing, I guess it's an Actual game.
  [*]Tetris Party Deluxe= Yeah, this is just tetris. The billionth version.
  [*]Super Mario Galaxy 2= Actual game.
  [*]NSMB Wii= Actual game So bored of Mario though.
  [*]Call of Duty MW2= The most awful of awful ports
  [*]Super Mario Galaxy= Actual Game.
  [*]Zelda Twilight Princess= Actual Game.
  [*]Super Smash Bros= Not my cup of tea, but it is an actual game
  [*]Mario Kart= Actual Game. Plastic Wheel shaped remote holder.
  [*]Pokemon Battle Revolution= Pokemon collectathon
  [*]Mario Party 8= Mini Game collection
  

Are these all of the games ever released for the Wii, nah probably not. This is what you can currently buy in my region though. This is what is in stock. Shovelware, stacked upon shovelware with a sprinkling of mini game and awful light gunning. Nintendo never releases anything new. And nostalgia is all that carries this platform.
So I believe, nay I guarantee! If the Wii-U is significantly slower and gets outperformed by the competition this is what will happen yet again. And that is why I care about it's graphical prowess. It has to be capable of keeping contact with whoever the market leader in hardware may be in order to attract actual third party interest. If it can't this console is doomed regardless of whatever gimmick is attached to the controller.

 

[zoukka]

So you can see yourself having fun with Wii graphics/tech (mind you, it's not just graphics that get calculated) from 2000 in, say, 2015 or even 2020, just because the controller has a screen on it?

When you are playing on another console/pc to fullfill your graphics need, then this would actually confirm my theory.

Yes I can have fun with tech from 85' holy shit! Diversity is good. Not everyone needs to move at the same pace and on the same path.

 

[KageMaru]

Saw an interesting comment in that gamescom panel, I think from the guy making The Unfinished Swan. He talked about how it took them months to fix the shadows in the game. With more powerful hardware he wouldn't need to worry about stuff like that. It would let them do stuff in a lazy, non-optimal - and cheap - way instead of spending lots of time hacking things to get them to work within a smaller performance envelope. He, and others like him with small teams, could take for granted the ability to do fairly sophisticated stuff because they could run with 'lazy' approaches to them.

I think the dev cost vs power issue ultimately boils down to this - do you want to reduce dev costs by capping developers' technical ambitions from the start (relatively lower-powered hardware), or do you want to reduce dev costs by making it cheaper to be technically ambitious (relatively higher-powered hardware)?

I don't think next-gen budgets are going to scale on the high end commensurate with the power increase. They'll go up, but I think over the coming gens, the rate at which they'll go up will slow. I think the more linear scaling will be in the tech-quality increases that power will allow smaller devs and budgets to achieve.

Yup, been saying this since last year. With faster hardware, devs can create a more efficient dev pipeline, which should help the cost.

With the entirely real time approach we're going to be seeing from engines like UE4, we could be seeing a rise in game design since iterations won't cost the team nearly as much time.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I think the counter argument to that point that I've seen floating around is that even if some parts of the product pipeline become more efficient developers/publishers will still find a way to drive up costs with more powerful hardware by trying to push that hardware in other ways.

I.e. devs clearly can't control themselves, given shiny new toys.

Or alternatively, "Nintendo knows best, can't wait for the crash."

 

[TheD]

A console sold against other consoles does need to be able to keep up with it's competitors, very much so in this day of heavy multiplatform development (a console being less powerful could even increase costs due to different art assets, maybe different levels and work to cut down the game so it runs well ect.).