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[Terrell]

It's time for a prognostication, or at least an expansion on a previous musing of mine...

WiiU will cause a major industry schism, but not one that you might think.

I see the Japanese development community banking on WiiU in full force, with the exception being those who are only able to sell primarily to the West (see: Hideo Kojima), as a hope to returning to a one-console paradigm in the Japanese market and bringing life back to consoles there (it can not be argued that the decline in Japanese development coinciding with the necessitation of multi-platform game design is the reason for their decline).
Meanwhile, Western devs will either multi-plat as usual or skip the WiiU in favor of selling on the Xbox successor and, therefore, PS4, putting Sony in an awkward position of being a Japanese console with marginalized Japanese sales.

This will cause a huge divide in the gaming population that many predicted would happen with the appearance of the original Xbox, as Japanese gaming will see a surge of activity that puts them back in line with their former glory days and closely rivals Western output. This is what happens when Japan's development community finally bets on a winning horse again in the console arena.

CALLING IT.

 

[goomba]

 

[bgassassin]

Wii Stampede, E3 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeR0fL9ofYY

Wii Line, E3 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGlvLQzvJNA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jruiwAlvWf0

E3 was historic not just for Nintendo's presentation, but for the actions of Nintendo fans who dominated the show floor.. hehe..

My main one was correct then.

That first Line video makes me want to listen to some SF3 music.

 

[HylianTom]

It's time for a prognostication, or at least an expansion on a previous musing of mine...

WiiU will cause a major industry schism, but not one that you might think.

I see the Japanese development community banking on WiiU in full force, with the exception being those who are only able to sell primarily to the West (see: Hideo Kojima), as a hope to returning to a one-console paradigm in the Japanese market and bringing life back to consoles there (it can not be argued that the decline in Japanese development coinciding with the necessitation of multi-platform game design is the reason for their decline).
Meanwhile, Western devs will either multi-plat as usual or skip the WiiU in favor of selling on the Xbox successor and, therefore, PS4, putting Sony in an awkward position of being a Japanese console with marginalized Japanese sales.

This will cause a huge divide in the gaming population that many predicted would happen with the appearance of the original Xbox, as Japanese gaming will see a surge of activity that puts them back in line with their former glory days and closely rivals Western output. This is what happens when Japan's development community finally bets on a winning horse again in the console arena.

CALLING IT.

I already brought this up as well (at least as far as the divide goes)

I also tend to think that Japanese developers would be more open to overtures from Nintendo. In contrast, my impression of many western devs is that if they've made their minds up about Nintendo, no amount of seduction or romancing will change their minds - they've gotta keep their street cred among the dudebro/mountaindew/pseudomaturemiddleschooler gamer crowd, and being seen in public with Nintendo is, like, "not cool," dude!

(Caveat: if MS owns the west and Nintendo owns the east, it might put Sony in a bit of a pickle.)

I can see it happening though.. the divide already seems to be there in some manifestations: game design philosophy, portable-vs-console, genre preferences, software sales, etc.

We're entering an interesting new phase of gaming history where these trends might become even more apparent. Gonna be fascinating.

If Nintendo owns Japan and its developers, and Microsoft leads with America's gamers and developers, with Sony having European gamers.. it still puts Sony in a bit of a pickle, as their base of developer support will crack.
(edit: but they can live on less third-party support as long as they have their incredible first-party stable, right?)

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Since we're designing Flipper 2.0 is this how it would look to you? Certain fixed functions or maybe they are programmable, just either way silicon/transistors are dedicated to them, 400 ALUs, 16-24 TEV 2.0 units, and maybe 16-24 ROPs? Do you think they would go with an equal amount of TEVs and ROPs for something like this?

16 ROPs would be great, 24 would be outstanding. Xenos and RSX each have just 8!
On top of that, no doubt, the ROPs in Wii U would be more advanced.

 

[Terrell]

I already brought this up as well (at least as far as the divide goes)

If Nintendo owns Japan and its developers, and Microsoft leads with America's gamers and developers, with Sony having European gamers.. it still puts Sony in a bit of a pickle, as their base of developer support will crack.
(edit: but they can live on less third-party support as long as they have their incredible first-party stable, right?)

You and I seem to be of similar thought, with the only difference being that I don't speculate IF it will happen, I only speculate WHEN.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Can everyone give a very detailed break down of what everything does and what it implies for reference? Rops, Shaders, RAM types (especially in regards to latency and its relationship with bus width and chip complexity of said bus), Tesselators etc. Would be nice

 

[wsippel]

Since we're designing Flipper 2.0 is this how it would look to you? Certain fixed functions or maybe they are programmable, just either way silicon/transistors are dedicated to them, 400 ALUs, 16-24 TEV 2.0 units, and maybe 16-24 ROPs? Do you think they would go with an equal amount of TEVs and ROPs for something like this?

24 TEVs would be very insane. The whole point of TEVs is that a single TEV unit sports four pixel pipelines (as well as four "ROPs") and one texture unit capable of handling eight texture layers per pass, plus register combiners. I'm not even sure how to convert that to regular TMUs, but at the very least, 24 TEVs would be the equivalent of 96 TMUs, which would lead to a texel fillrate on par with Radeon 78xx GPUs (and for TEVs, texel fillrate = pixel fillrate) - but each pipeline seems to be able to handle two inputs, so feel free to double that figure.

I believe the most interesting aspect of TEVs is that the unit can do up to four blending operations from eight individual inputs (two per pipeline) in a single pass. At least as far as I understand, and I probably don't.

 

[Christine]

My main one was correct then.

Out of curiosity, what were the other idea(s)?

 

[AzaK]

Can everyone give a very detailed break down of what everything does and what it implies for reference? Rops, Shaders, RAM types (especially in regards to latency and its relationship with bus width and chip complexity of said bus), Tesselators etc. Would be nice

I second that, can someone give some links to good introductory sources of modern graphics tech?

I know bg you gave me something a while ago, but I can't find it.

 

[bgassassin]

16 ROPs would be great, 24 would be outstanding. Xenos and RSX each have just 8!
On top of that, no doubt, the ROPs in Wii U would be more advanced.

Exactly. Flipper seemed to have a high number of them so while modern GPUs have gone with fewer compared the amount of TMUs, I figured Nintendo would at least go with an equal amount.

Can everyone give a very detailed break down of what everything does and what it implies for reference? Rops, Shaders, RAM types (especially in regards to latency and its relationship with bus width and chip complexity of said bus), Tesselators etc. Would be nice

I don't know if anyone would give a detailed breakdown, but hopefully someone can give you a better description than I could of what you're asking.

24 TEVs would be very insane. The whole point of TEVs is that a single TEV unit sports four pixel pipelines (as well as four "ROPs") and one texture unit capable of handling eight texture layers per pass, plus register combiners. I'm not even sure how to convert that to regular TMUs, but at the very least, 24 TEVs would be the equivalent of 96 TMUs, which would lead to a texel fillrate on par with Radeon 78xx GPUs (and for TEVs, texel fillrate = pixel fillrate) - but each pipeline seems to be able to handle two inputs, so feel free to double that figure.

I believe the most interesting aspect of TEVs is that the unit can do up to four blending operations from eight individual inputs (two per pipeline) in a single pass. At least as far as I understand, and I probably don't.

And here I thought I was going with a low enough range.

Based on what you're saying eight TEV 2.0 units would be a more likely numbers for what they seem to be going for. And where exactly were the four "ROPs"? Were they in the TEV? I was looking at the flipper die as I made the other post and I seemed to see three. Also what about the rest? I'm sure blu would want to chime in as well.

Here is the key for those interested.

[B]PLL:[/B]  Phase Lock Loop
[B]eFB:[/B]  Embedded Frame Buffer
[B]eTM:[/B]  Embedded Texture Memory
[B]TF:[/B]   Texture Filter
[B]TC:[/B]   Texture Coordinate Generator
[B]TEV:[/B]  Texture Environment
[B]RASx:[/B] Rasterizer
[B]C/Z:[/B]  Color/Z Calculator
[B]PEC:[/B]  Pixel Copy Engine
[B]SU:[/B]   Triangle Setup
[B]CP:[/B]   Command Processor
[B]DSP:[/B]  Audio DSP
[B]XF:[/B]   Triangle Transform Engine
[B]NB:[/B]   Northbridge - all system logic including CPU interface, Video Interface,
      Memory Controller, I/O Interface

Out of curiosity, what were the other idea(s)?

That there was some statement/phrase made that I forgot.

 

[Sadist]

Oh man, I remember the Red Steel reveal for Wii. Ubisoft Paris were still working on souped up Cube devkits.

http://gexnintendo.blogspot.com/2006/04/red-steel-team-show-off-development.html

Hehe... brings back some memories.

 

[bgassassin]

I second that, can someone give some links to good introductory sources of modern graphics tech?

I know bg you gave me something a while ago, but I can't find it.

You're talking about the 360 article and I linked you directly to the page about the eDRAM.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

And where exactly were the four "ROPs"? Were they in the TEV? I was looking at the flipper die as I made the other post and I seemed to see three. Also what about the rest. I'm sure blu would want to chime in as well.

bgassassin, yeah exactly, where is that 4th ROP in Flipper's die?

Anyone know?

 

[bgassassin]

^ I'm guessing what he is talking about are what I would assume to be "pseudo-ROPs" and that they were in the TEV.

Oh man, I remember the Red Steel reveal for Wii. Ubisoft Paris were still working on souped up Cube devkits.

http://gexnintendo.blogspot.com/2006/04/red-steel-team-show-off-development.html

Hehe... brings back some memories.

Seeing that jogged another memory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLnzDw6GgU

 

[Terrell]

^ I'm guessing what he is talking about are what I would assume to be "pseudo-ROPs" and that they were in the TEV.



Seeing that jogged another memory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLnzDw6GgU

I'll see that, and raise you the origin of multitudes of GIFs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpK4Y-mCI0

 

[bgassassin]

I'll see that, and raise you the origin of multitudes of GIFs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpK4Y-mCI0

Thank you! Spiky haired girl was the main one I was trying to find, but I couldn't remember the game. She made it into one of my gifs also.

 

[Agent Unknown]

From a CVG interview with Epic's Mark Rein, posted today:


Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.co...out-we-need-platforms-to-empower-that/?page=1

Nothing new, but nonetheless interesting. The interview in whole is very interesting as it concerns Unreal Engine 4 and related things, so check it out.

Mark Rein has been giving Wii U a lot of nice praise and talking up its power. Take note Kojima, Crystal Dynamic and all you other devs with your pathetic excuses.

 

[BD1]

Concerning the recently trademarked "The Last Ranger"

I'm sorry but it appears it won't be a fantasized J-RPG nor a dreamed of Mach Rider revival for Wii U. A contact told me that when you complete Rolling Western on 3DS and respect some parameters (maybe beating a special boss, or reach an amount of gold, i don't know), it hints toward a sequel named The Last Ranger. I think i've seen someone suggesting that this new trademark could be that, but it was just a guess without data to proof it from what i remember. If this information is true, it's a confirmation. I didn't saw it while reading all the thread pages, or on the dedicated topics.

Dillon in Smash Bros 4, confirmed!

 

[HylianTom]

Thank you! Spiky haired girl was the main one I was trying to find, but I couldn't remember the game. She made it into one of my gifs also.

Ahh.. those were such good times. We got some really strange, iconic references back then. And the old guy in that ad was a harbinger of things to come regarding Wii's nursing home popularity.

The more I look at E3 2006 media, the more I think it'll be near-impossible to top. Such an incredible year.

 

[AceBandage]

Dillon in Smash Bros 4, confirmed!

And it would work so well, too.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

^ I'm guessing what he is talking about are what I would assume to be "pseudo-ROPs" and that they were in the TEV.

Oh so you're saying you think the 'pseudo-ROPs' are contained within the TEV unit?


All I know this that GameCube's Flipper (and thus Wii's Hollywood) had 4 ROPs, it's easy to figure that out because the fillrate on GameCube was 648 Mpixels/sec.
(162 MHz * 4). Hollywood is 50% faster, so its fillrate is 972 Mpixels/sec, slightly higher than the original Xbox.

 

[Terrell]

Mark Rein has been giving Wii U a lot of nice praise and talking up its power. Take note Kojima, Crystal Dynamic and all you other devs with your pathetic excuses.

Apparently, if the rest of GAF is to be believed, Kojima is perfectly justified in his beliefs.

 

[wsippel]

And here I thought I was going with a low enough range.

Based on what you're saying eight TEV 2.0 units would be a more likely numbers for what they seem to be going for. And where exactly were the four "ROPs"? Were they in the TEV? I was looking at the flipper die as I made the other post and I seemed to see three. Also what about the rest? I'm sure blu would want to chime in as well.

Yeah, blu would be a much better person to ask. I don't really get the Flipper architecture. I simply assumed that each pixel pipeline ended in a ROP, and that those ROPs were part of the TEV unit (jumping to conclusions by looking at performance metrics). Now that I look at the die, that's probably not how it worked.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

I hope blu see these recent posts soon, and replies!

 

[HylianTom]

Apparently, if the rest of GAF is to be believed, Kojima is perfectly justified in his beliefs.

Just my take: Kojima is disingenuous when it comes to Nintendo platforms. Talk talk talk, nothing on the shelf. His words are hollow.

If the excuse is at least paper-thin and theoretically works, then many often seem to defer to the developer giving the excuse. And if one excuse doesn't hold-up under scrutiny, another one is usually conveniently available. Either that, or one can be invented.

To quote Gilda Radner: it's always something.

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

I noticed a few things in the floor plans, Wii U is mentioned on a number of occasions, under the following product categories:

Action > Nintendo Wii U

Capcom U.S.A., Inc.
http://www.capcom.com

As the hub appears to be only in the starting phase, I assume much more will be added soon, or perhaps Nintendo wants to have everything under wraps. Though that wouldn't explain why Capcom is listed under "Action > Nintendo Wii U". The Pole To Win America testing group is kinda interesting as well.

http://www.mapyourshow.com/shows/index.cfm?Show_ID=E312

I will only point back towards the rumor list and assume that the 2 things are related.

 

[Krev]

Remember when Gabe Newell's outspoken negativity about the PS3 lead to Sony getting him on stage at their E3 conference to announce the platform would be getting the definitive console version of Portal 2?
Nintendo should learn from that. That is, assuming they even care.

 

[LOCK]

It's time for a prognostication, or at least an expansion on a previous musing of mine...

WiiU will cause a major industry schism, but not one that you might think.

I see the Japanese development community banking on WiiU in full force, with the exception being those who are only able to sell primarily to the West (see: Hideo Kojima), as a hope to returning to a one-console paradigm in the Japanese market and bringing life back to consoles there (it can not be argued that the decline in Japanese development coinciding with the necessitation of multi-platform game design is the reason for their decline).
Meanwhile, Western devs will either multi-plat as usual or skip the WiiU in favor of selling on the Xbox successor and, therefore, PS4, putting Sony in an awkward position of being a Japanese console with marginalized Japanese sales.

This will cause a huge divide in the gaming population that many predicted would happen with the appearance of the original Xbox, as Japanese gaming will see a surge of activity that puts them back in line with their former glory days and closely rivals Western output. This is what happens when Japan's development community finally bets on a winning horse again in the console arena.

CALLING IT.

I see this happening also. Pretty much what is currently happening with the 3DS and Vita.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

It's time for a prognostication, or at least an expansion on a previous musing of mine...

WiiU will cause a major industry schism, but not one that you might think.

I see the Japanese development community banking on WiiU in full force, with the exception being those who are only able to sell primarily to the West (see: Hideo Kojima), as a hope to returning to a one-console paradigm in the Japanese market and bringing life back to consoles there (it can not be argued that the decline in Japanese development coinciding with the necessitation of multi-platform game design is the reason for their decline).
Meanwhile, Western devs will either multi-plat as usual or skip the WiiU in favor of selling on the Xbox successor and, therefore, PS4, putting Sony in an awkward position of being a Japanese console with marginalized Japanese sales.

This will cause a huge divide in the gaming population that many predicted would happen with the appearance of the original Xbox, as Japanese gaming will see a surge of activity that puts them back in line with their former glory days and closely rivals Western output. This is what happens when Japan's development community finally bets on a winning horse again in the console arena.

CALLING IT.

Nice post.

I too, could see this happening.

 

[Agent Unknown]

I don't miss putting up with his bullshit, though, so it's a fair trade-off.

I liked Matt up until after mid way through the GC lifespan. After that it was all "Nintendo needs to be more mature and add stuff like voice acting," (I thought I was gonna have a stroke when he brought up his 'Nintendo games would benefit from full scripted voice acting' spiel at the end of SMG's review), slamming the DS repeatedly in '04/05, predicting doom for being too "weak" and not having media support compared to the PSP. Then after the DS exploded he became an Apple cheerleader which eventually landed him a job. Yeah, his "hints" could be cool for what they were but were always super vague and more sizzle than beef. I honestly enjoyed IGN Nintendo a lot more when Craig took over and I also think Richard George has done a pretty good job so far.

 

[bgassassin]

Ahh.. those were such good times. We got some really strange, iconic references back then. And the old guy in that ad was a harbinger of things to come regarding Wii's nursing home popularity.

The more I look at E3 2006 media, the more I think it'll be near-impossible to top. Such an incredible year.

I don't know. We got a taste last year from Ubisoft so who knows what we'll be seeing this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNt0eiMygQ

And my condolences in advance to anyone trying to get into Nintendo's booth this year based on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKfdUTNi6I

Oh so you're saying you think the 'pseudo-ROPs' are contained within the TEV unit?


All I know this that GameCube's Flipper (and thus Wii's Hollywood) had 4 ROPs, it's easy to figure that out because the fillrate on GameCube was 648 Mpixels/sec.
(162 MHz * 4). Hollywood is 50% faster, so its fillrate is 972 Mpixels/sec, slightly higher than the original Xbox.

Yeah, blu would be a much better person to ask. I don't really get the Flipper architecture. I simply assumed that each pixel pipeline ended in a ROP, and that those ROPs were part of the TEV unit (jumping to conclusions by looking at performance metrics). Now that I look at the die, that's probably not how it worked.

Is a texel unit the same as an ROP unit?

According to a site I've visited multiple times for GC tech info, it has a texel unit for each pipeline.

http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/

 

[BD1]

I liked Matt up until after mid way through the GC lifespan. After that it was all "Nintendo needs to be more mature and add stuff like voice acting," (I thought I was gonna have a stroke when he brought up his 'Nintendo games would benefit from full scripted voice acting' spiel at the end of SMG's review), slamming the DS repeatedly in '04/05, predicting doom for being too "weak" and not having media support compared to the PSP. Then after the DS exploded he became an Apple cheerleader which eventually landed him a job. Yeah, his "hints" could be cool for what they were but were always super vague and more sizzle than beef. I honestly enjoyed IGN Nintendo a lot more when Craig took over and I also think Richard George has done a pretty good job so far.

He was definitely a bleeding edge tech guy, so Nintendo's business model certainly soured him. I think E3 08 broke him.

 

[Anteo]

Concerning the recently trademarked "The Last Ranger"

I'm sorry but it appears it won't be a fantasized J-RPG nor a dreamed of Mach Rider revival for Wii U. A contact told me that when you complete Rolling Western on 3DS and respect some parameters (maybe beating a special boss, or reach an amount of gold, i don't know), it hints toward a sequel named The Last Ranger.

Hmm In the Dillon OT someone said the trailer was called The Last Stand and in the end the mouse said it was a joke.

And by mouse I mean the other main character

 

[HylianTom]

I don't know. We got a taste last year from Ubisoft so who knows what we'll be seeing this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNt0eiMygQ

And my condolences in advance to anyone trying to get into Nintendo's booth this year based on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKfdUTNi6I

I love that second video.

And I suspect that if Nintendo executives saw stuff like this being posted online, they were euphorically high-fiving each other with the knowledge that the show's headlines belonged solely to Nintendo. You can bring the games, the hardware, etc.. but if your competition has mobs of people stampeding to their demo stations, pack it up.. it's over.

If Nintendo execs are smart, they're aiming for a repeat of their E3 2006 situation. A different surprise title or feature every day (remember the Smash surprise?). An incredible show with iconic moments. Stampedes every day at the show's opening, to the point where media soon knew it was coming every morning and had their cameras set-up to capture it happening.

Videos like that got replayed all over the place. Heck, I saw it on an oddball news-type segment on CNN and laughed afterward, seeing how Nintendo got essentially a free advertising segment with that coverage. I could imagine Reggie and Iwata laughing like loons.

He was definitely a bleeding edge tech guy, so Nintendo's business model certainly soured him. I think E3 08 broke him.

Honestly, I wonder if he got tired of hearing shit from his unprofessional co-workers as well. They made no effort to show their disdain for Nintendo during roundtable discussions (and similar events), so I can imagine that it probably got to be damn tiresome after a while. It'd be like working in an office full of Luke Smiths or Robert Summas, constantly sniping.

 

[guek]

And my condolences in advance to anyone trying to get into Nintendo's booth this year based on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKfdUTNi6I

Hah! It'll be amazing if they can recreate the line they had in 2006

 

[Krev]

I don't think they can recreate the E3 2006 hype.
For almost all those people that was the first time using the Wii remote, which had a huge cool factor after the conference. Plus, Nintendo had Mario, Metroid and Zelda on the floor to play on it, as well as Wii Sports.

On the other hand, the Wii U is a known quantity after last year. It simply isn't mindblowing.

 

[Terrell]

Hah! It'll be amazing if they can recreate the line they had in 2006

Theres a snag in this plan: 3rd-parties will have games to demo, as well.

So 2 possibilities: line is not consolidated like 2006, or asks 3rd-parties to demo their games at Nintendo's booth.

 

[Krev]

3rd parties had Wii games to demo in 2006 as well.

 

[Anth0ny]

The line will probably be huge this year if MS/Sony don't reveal their new consoles. What else are people going to want to play on the show floor this year?

Wii U will be on everyone's mind.

Spoiler

and Retro Zelda

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Is a texel unit the same as an ROP unit?

According to a site I've visited multiple times for GC tech info, it has a texel unit for each pipeline.

http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/

Flipper is different than most DX7/8-class GPUs. The TEV is like 4 texel units in one. I think it could 'loopback' to produce 8 texture layers per pixel, but that still requires use of fillrate. Ah, nevermind my post, it's late, i'm sick and tired and probably don't know what I'm talking about. We need someone who's really knowledgeable on the Flipper architecture...

 

[Terrell]

3rd parties had Wii games to demo in 2006 as well.

Ubisoft did. All the rest were held til TGS. I honestly can't recall ANY talk about 3rd-party demos at E3 2006. And that's a problem worth avoiding, if Nintendo plans this right.

 

[Agent Unknown]

He was definitely a bleeding edge tech guy, so Nintendo's business model certainly soured him. I think E3 08 broke him.

Haha. Yeah E3 2008 was hard for any Nintendo fan. But it sure made for some great meltdown posts and hilarious gifs. Every once in awhile I'll go back and randomly browse the epic "Chris Remo Saves E3ikmin Confirmed" thread, classic. Lt. Riker looking depressed at the '08 Nintendo conference stream on the deck of the USS Enterprise and Monty Python/Life of Brian 'Let's give them Pikmin' gifs for life.

 

[guek]

I don't think they can recreate the E3 2006 hype.
For almost all those people that was the first time using the Wii remote, which had a huge cool factor after the conference. Plus, Nintendo had Mario, Metroid and Zelda on the floor to play on it, as well as Wii Sports.

On the other hand, the Wii U is a known quantity after last year. It simply isn't mindblowing.

Yeah it'd be a tough feat to recreate. But we all know the Wii U build of WoW, Counterstrike, and DotA2 eshop titles are going to make em come runnin! Hardy har har!

Spoiler

I'm going to look like such a fool if that rumors turns out to be true. I'm not too worried though

 

[HylianTom]

The line will probably be huge this year if MS/Sony don't reveal their new consoles. What else are people going to want to play on the show floor this year?

Wii U will be on everyone's mind.

Spoiler

and Retro Zelda

For some reason, I don't trust statements saying that there won't be new competing consoles this year, especially in Microsoft's case. My suspicion is that they want folks going to their show thinking, "welp, no new system this year. Probably just a few Kinect games, a few tokens thrown to the hardcore faithful, wrap it up with a Halo 4 preview, and that'll be it. Snore."

Then, when Microsoft shows-off their next xbox, they're banking on the element of surprise to spur claims of "best show EVAR!"

From looking around here, it seems like most have bought into the whole "no new console" claim. So they'd be more susceptible to surprise via low expectations.

But if Microsoft essentially gives Nintendo the show to themselves.. Nintendo had better make the most of it. They know we're all harboring high expectations, so in some ways, their difficulty rating is up.

 

[abstract alien]

I know all games won't, but outside of specialty titles, do you all think each Wii-U game should come with full stream capabilities?

 

[NateDrake]

Yeah it'd be a tough feat to recreate. But we all know the Wii U build of WoW, Counterstrike, and DotA2 eshop titles are going to make em come runnin! Hardy har har!

Spoiler

I'm going to look like such a fool if that rumors turns out to be true. I'm not too worried though

The entire gaming world will look like a fool if that rumor comes true so you'll be in good company at least.

 

[fernoca]

Hah! It'll be amazing if they can recreate the line they had in 2006

I'd love a stampede though.

 

[botty]

Aside from showing new consoles, how could Sony or Microsoft even steal Nintendo's Zapdos level thunder at this e3?

Kinect 2? boring... GoW4? Ok, I guess.

 

[HylianTom]

Yeah it'd be a tough feat to recreate. But we all know the Wii U build of WoW, Counterstrike, and DotA2 eshop titles are going to make em come runnin! Hardy har har!

Spoiler

I'm going to look like such a fool if that rumors turns out to be true. I'm not too worried though

I know all games won't, but outside of specialty titles, do you all think each Wii-U game should come with full stream capabilities?

I'm probably being dense.. what do you mean by "streaming capabilities?"

Streaming online? I could see that, especially if Nintendo thinks it would sell more games. Imagine your buddy playing a game you're on the fence over, and he offers to let you watch him play.. that feature could come in handy. It'd be like YouTube's Let's Play videos, but accessed via console.

Streaming to the controller? In some cases where the uPad's controller functions aren't absolutely essential to the game's mechanics, I could see the game being put on the controller-only. I could also see Virtual Console titles sent to the controller; in fact, I'll be disappointed if this isn't made a feature. Being able to play A Link to the Past, for example, while watching a football game sounds fantastic.

Aside from showing new consoles, how could Sony or Microsoft even steal Nintendo's Zapdos level thunder at this e3?

Kinect 2? boring... GoW4? Ok, I guess.

Stealing Nintendo's shoes? Not gonna happen. If they don't show new consoles, I suspect that MS and Sony fans are going to be upset. They'll see Nintendo fans celebrating and being excited about ringing-in a new generation while they get to look at.. more games, and there might be a jealousy dynamic going on.

And if Microsoft goes Kinect-heavy or non-gaming-features-heavy, it might be ugly. I foresee lots of feelings of regret and/or frustration expressed if MS doesn't unveil new hardware.