Support NeoGAF

[KHarvey16]

The insufficient cooling leading to lockups when the hardware is not underclocked

That doesn't really apply to his point though, since the overheating could be fixed by a component change. He's saying the new dev-kits will have the same specs as the old kits because a component change can only be done once the current platform is stable and completely debugged. If Nintendo designs their hardware like any other company the development units are meant to simulate the development environment so software work can begin, it is not(primarily) to prototype final hardware. An unstable dev-kit with off-the-shelf or early revision parts will certainly not impede them swapping in production hardware when it's ready.

 

[Eteric Rice]

Its impossible for it to be the same situation again because all consoles will be using cryengine 3 etc. It will be upto developers to develop fun features for the controller to warrant buying the games of course.

Wii was screwed because it was stuck in the dinosaur era with fixed shader features etc.

Nintendo is finally joining the modern world with programmable shaders, modern engines etc

And how do we know that the next jump for MS and Sony won't make the Wii U look like a dinosaur?

Shit, if the Wii U has like 1 gig of RAM or less, and the new consoles have two, that alone would fuck up with the Wii U big time. This isn't counting processors and what not.

 

[Luckyman]

Not necessarily. R700 is DX10.1 with a few DX11 features. Sony and Microsoft will probably go for a DX11 solution. The systems are still very close, architecture wise. They'll all run the same engines and can use the same assets. The Wii situation was completely different. It wasn't just less powerful, it was a completely different and horribly outdated architecture requiring different engines and assets.

Even if it were to run "same" games which is in no way guaranteed because memory difference alone will be substantial.. The sales of such ports would be so bad nearly nobody will bother.

 

[wsippel]

Even if it were to run "same" games which is in no way guaranteed because memory difference alone will be substantial.. The sales of such ports would be so bad nearly nobody will bother.

Quite a few assumptions for such a short post. We'll see about that.

 

[Truth101]

Even if it were to run "same" games which is in no way guaranteed because memory difference alone will be substantial.. The sales of such ports would be so bad nearly nobody will bother.

Not really. The difference would be something such as a PC game at max compared to one at about Mid, a lot of everyday consumers would not even be able to tell the difference.

 

[antonz]

Not really the difference would be something such as a PC game at max compared to one at about Mid, a lot of everyday consumers would not even be able to tell the difference.

Its amazing how quickly graphical appearance matters to some people when its console wars. PC has superior controls and graphics yet they dont go swarming to that.

 

[Jin34]

And how do we know that the next jump for MS and Sony won't make the Wii U look like a dinosaur?

Shit, if the Wii U has like 1 gig of RAM or less, and the new consoles have two, that alone would fuck up with the Wii U big time. This isn't counting processors and what not.

That really is nothing that would fuck the WiiU to even the same ballpark of a degree as the Wii to the 360/PS3.

 

[Alex]

Niche B-tier title selection on Wii is horrible. Even the stuff on the HD consoles, diminished as it may be to the portables compared to the PS2-era, absolutely tears it apart not even including download services.

It's like these little straw-grasping lists are made by people who have never gone outside of a Nintendo console, not even to a portable before. The only thing the third party output, niche or otherwise, on the Wii stands up to in any regard is the Gamecube or N64.

On the actual topic, I really, really don't think we'll be seeing full blown games equivelent to Epic's tech demo for good while after the next line of consoles launches. I think it'll be closer to what we have now going into the twilight of the generation, but with the ol' PC touches on them. Budgets and asset creation are just getting too high. There was a good bit on The Cruncheons podcast recently about the diminishing returns of it all that I really thought was quite logical.

Nintendo is going to wind up dated as the years tick on though, still, but on the nice side of things with the build theyre going for and said diminishing returns they will at least wind up in a hell of a lot better position than they did with the Wii.

I still don't think they'll get many more original titles or attract the original B-tier devs or indie scene with their quirk away from the typical outlets, though, I just think they'll get back to having a more Gamecube-like presence in actually seeing some of the multiplatform titles.

 

[unintelligentgenius]

And how do we know that the next jump for MS and Sony won't make the Wii U look like a dinosaur?

Shit, if the Wii U has like 1 gig of RAM or less, and the new consoles have two, that alone would fuck up with the Wii U big time. This isn't counting processors and what not.

I think you misunderstand the problems that led to the lackluster 3rd party support on the Wii. It was not that the system was terribly underpowered compared to its competitors (though, that did not help the Wii's case, ether- cause it was very underpowered), but rather the architecture of the system was HORRIBLY out of date and could not support most modern rendering structures and pipelines. This will most likely not be the case with Wii U. Even if the current rumors are to be believed, the 2008-2010 tech should be sufficient and, for the most part, up to date to practically anything Sony and Microsoft dish out. Sony/Microsoft's box may

Spoiler

will

be much further along tech wise, but the core architecture and rendering pipelines will be much closer, allowing 3rd parties to properly support all three consoles.

Spoiler

3rd parties are still gonna be dragging along on Nintendo's box, so I don't expect the "definitive" version to find its self on Wii U that much.

 

[Buddha Beam]

The only human decision came from Nintendo. They made the decision to forgoe third party support when they decided to put out wholly inadequate hardware. It was in no way "fine" having hardware that required a completely different development paradigm from the industry standard. The Wii's third party situation was architected by Nintendo themselves.

I would argue that prior to this generation, there WAS no "industry standard". That's a thing of recent history. Insofar as consoles were "standardized" in the previous generations (meaning that they were all in the same ballpark, technically), it didn't matter - third parties ignored them almost entirely in favor of targeting the market leader. Indeed, one of the biggest surprises this generation is the way third parties all of a sudden adopted a multi platform strategy.

 

[Mastperf]

I would argue that prior to this generation, there WAS no "industry standard". That's a thing of recent history. Insofar as consoles were "standardized" in the previous generations (meaning that they were all in the same ballpark, technically), it didn't matter - third parties ignored them almost entirely in favor of targeting the market leader. Indeed, one of the biggest surprises this generation is the way third parties all of a sudden adopted a multi platform strategy.

They had to due to increased dev costs. It was also the perfect opportunity to increase their fan-base on other hardware.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

I think you misunderstand the problems that led to the lackluster 3rd party support on the Wii. It was not that the system was terribly underpowered compared to its competitors (though, that did not help the Wii's case, ether- cause it was very underpowered), but rather the architecture of the system was HORRIBLY out of date and could not support most modern rendering structures and pipelines. .[/spoiler]

Yeah, Wii's architecture dates back to the late 1990s. Wii is little more than an overclocked, tweaked GameCube with more RAM. The Flipper GPU is 1999 technology (thus so is Hollywood) and the Gekko CPU is even older (thus so is Broadway). The only thing modern in Wii (as far as core hardware) was the 64 MB of GDDR3 RAM. Both GameCube and Wii GPUs are fixed function pipelines, DX7 class, although Wii has greater real-world performance than probably any DX7 GPU.

 

[AceBandage]

Niche B-tier title selection on Wii is horrible. Even the stuff on the HD consoles, diminished as it may be to the portables compared to the PS2-era, absolutely tears it apart not even including download services.

It's like these little straw-grasping lists are made by people who have never gone outside of a Nintendo console, not even to a portable before. The only thing the third party output, niche or otherwise, on the Wii stands up to in any regard is the Gamecube or N64.

On the actual topic, I really, really don't think we'll be seeing full blown games equivelent to Epic's tech demo for good while after the next line of consoles launches. I think it'll be closer to what we have now going into the twilight of the generation, but with the ol' PC touches on them. Budgets and asset creation are just getting too high. There was a good bit on The Cruncheons podcast recently about the diminishing returns of it all that I really thought was quite logical.

Nintendo is going to wind up dated as the years tick on though, still, but on the nice side of things with the build theyre going for and said diminishing returns they will at least wind up in a hell of a lot better position than they did with the Wii.

I still don't think they'll get many more original titles or attract the original B-tier devs or indie scene with their quirk away from the typical outlets, though, I just think they'll get back to having a more Gamecube-like presence in actually seeing some of the multiplatform titles.

I dunno. I can't think of really anything that comes close to NMH, Little King's Story, Muramasa or Boy and His Blob on either of the HD twins, as far as super niche games go. At least, nothing that was released internationally.

 

[guek]

I dunno. I can't think of really anything that comes close to NMH, Little King's Story, Muramasa or Boy and His Blob on either of the HD twins, as far as super niche games go. At least, nothing that was released internationally.

or Zack and Wiki, a game that deserved to sell a billion, jillion, megaquintillion copies but was completely ignored

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

You guys are getting into subjective opinion now.

 

[StevieP]

I'm not even sure where to start with this post.

Vice versa people seem to ignore that Microsoft and Sony being businesses that aren't just games and console makers also means that they have motives other than just making a profit from the system itself. It's often helped in other divisions or played the role of stalking horse.

Even when Sony was bleeding money from the ps3 they simultaneously were winning a format war thanks to bluray inclusion and gaining royalty fees for sales of blu rays and blu ray players.

Sony earns next to nothing from Blu Ray. A tiny tiny tiny drop in the bucket compared to what they've bled. The real figures were calculated on this very forum a few months back, though I'm not sure where to look for these particular figures. Regardless, "winning" the format war hasn't done anything for them. Not to mention Blu Ray is tanking as a format in comparison to its predecessor.

Even though the 360 was losing money it was simultaneously helping ensure that windows operating systems would continue to be a mainstay in peoples homes and in developers minds because it so dominates the field. It was also setting up a online network that helped drive revenue for other divisions and create a whole new revenue stream altogether.

What? I can see your argument on XBox Live, as much as I despise people having to pay for P2P matchmaking... it's a great revenue driver. But... Windows? The XBox 360 is not booting into Win 7 here. There is no "Windows in the living room". Hell, MS is purposefully holding back porting some of its top games TO its OS because they want people to buy the XBox instead.

Even if it were to run "same" games which is in no way guaranteed because memory difference alone will be substantial.. The sales of such ports would be so bad nearly nobody will bother.