Wii U to be quickly outdated?

[MaxiP62]

I was thinking that it would be outdated, but apparently there isn't another Xbox planned for at LEAST 2 years from now, and a new Playstation won't be arriving for about the same amount of time. So I would say they will have about 3 years of being relevant, 2 maybe 3 years of being outdated like the Wii.

The playing field has changed, the success of the Wii shows that, I think the Wii U will be successful, people said the Wii was going to flop, but it clearly didn't. But you can't predict these things, we will have to wait and see.

 

[Treblaine]

I have done the research and shown it to Matthew94 and he's accepted it.

You have not shown your research. You've said "look for yourself".
You have not accounted for how all demonstrated WiiU graphics have been on par with Xbox 360 and PS3.
You have not accounted for WiiU's stats unable to render 1080p with anti-aliasing (same capability as Xboc 360)

As for what kind of tech is in the Wii U, let me refer to two videos linked before in this thread, that got unfortunately widely ignored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnsG11MRE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIbhzMHzrQU

Add to that that Sony as a company is in deep financial trouble. Building and selling a console on par with a state of the art gaming PC at the price of a console (about 500-600$) is too much of a financial risk for them to actually do it realistically.

I will readily admit that MS could just use all their Windows money to sell something like that at a tremendous loss per unit in an attempt to push the competition out of business. I have no doubt that they have the funds to do that.

I don't accept your research. But this has been posted at least once before, around page 4 or 5, and it has been ignored back then.

Oh you "don't accept" my research? So blind denialism.

I have addressed the subject of those arguments made in those videos and you are the one ignoring what I have to add to them.

There are no arguments made in this video. It's a simple side by side comparison of the console's specs, based on confirmed data. If you believe to know better I'm afraid you are the one in denial here.

But let's just address the above points one by one.

"You have not accounted for how all demonstrated WiiU graphics have been on par with Xbox 360 and PS3."

That's a simple one. Just look at the Xbox 360 launch titles compared to the last Xbox titles. It wasn't a quantum leap by any stretch of the imagination. And even more telling, compare those early Xbox 360 titles to the ones from this year. With time, developers learn to use a console more effectively. It's simple as that.

"You have not accounted for WiiU's stats unable to render 1080p with anti-aliasing (same capability as Xbox 360)"

I have no idea how you can know that. You don't happen to have a dev kit, do you?
I ran a search on that and the only thing I found is that first party games are going to 720p for now, but that the console is perfectly capable of rendering 1080p.

I've explained this to you and you've ignored it.

That video makes false speculation on game hardware that I dispute with examples such as the unable to do both 1080p and Anti-aliasing. If you read the thread and my explanation you will also find my source where I know that.

It's pure apologetics that WiiU will get better after a few years, an ACTUAL next generation is coming in a few years.

You are all practising wishful thinking, take this straight from the Horse's mouth, Nintendo themselves:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-05-nintendo-responds-to-wii-u-power-reports

"No, it's not up to the same level as the PS3 or the 360," one developer said of Nintendo's first high definition home console. "The graphics are just not as powerful."

Ah.. I went through everything that article led to, and nothing in there either named a specific developer who made that statement, or showed the source of that so called official Nintendo statement. I did find them saying that they wont comment at that point, and that's not indicative of anything really.

If you don't have anything better to offer, I'm afraid that doesn't sell it to me.

Anyway let's see what I have as far as testimonies goes.

http://uk.gamespot.com/aliens-colonial-marines-2012/videos/aliens-colonial-marines-interview-with-randy-pitchford-6377485/

Gearbox's Randy Pitchford (who is not afraid to put his name to his statement) claims that the Wii U is a true next generation console.

But hey, if anonymous sources are more your speed, how about this?

http://www.develop-online.net/news/39593/Wii-U-twice-as-powerful-as-Xbox-360

An anonymous source said the Wii U is "twice" as powerful as the Xbox 360.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen

Another anonymous source claims that the next Xbox will be "six times" as powerful as the current gen, yet only 20% more powerful then the Wii U.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/wii-u-is-actually-50-more-powerful-than-ps3---report/

Here we have a statement from a one year old report claiming that the Wii U is 50% more powerful then the current generation consoles.


Actually, I haven't seen one official Nintendo statement about the technical specs of the Wii U aside from what they have on their website, which is very unspecific. But hey, obviously your anonymous sources are better then mine, since they reflect more closely what you are willing to believe.

As for games on a system looking better late in a console's life cycle compared to launch titles, compare screenshots from GUN, a Xbox 360 launch title:

http://uk.ign.com/images/games/gun-xbox-360-758695

to Red Dead Redemption, which released in 2010:

http://uk.ign.com/images/games/red-dead-redemption-xbox-360-14320288

Are you gonna tell me that there hasn't been an improvement in graphic fidelity?


And finally, are you telling me that IGN is just blatantly lying about the Wii U's specs on their website?


http://uk.ign.com/wikis/wii-u/Wii_U_Tech_Specs

Let me answer that for you. No. They give sources for all the information they have, about what CPU and GPU is going to be in the Wii U.


I don't really understand why it's so hard to believe that a console based on technology from 2009/2010 is going to be far more potent then a console based on technology from 2005/2006.

Randy says WiiU is next gen in the same way they said people used to say Original Wii was same generation as PS3/360, i.e. without any explicit statement of hardware capability. Being 50% more powerful isn't enough. He was careful with his words "best console version". It can't be next-gen if it doesn't lap the latest PC capability even when it launches. Being a "bit better" is NOT NEXT GENERATIONAL! In the previous generation the Xbox consistently had the "best console version" that doesn't mean the Original Xbox was a generation ahead of PS2 and Gamecube.

Generation =/= iteration

Gun was developed for PS2/Xbox and ported to Xbox 360 late in the development. Not the best example. Compare Call of Duty 2 to the latest CoD games. Very similar graphics. Compare like for like, the same engine. GTA4 was developed for PS3 and 360 since they were first available compare that to Red Dead Redemption that used the same engine but they just got "better at coding for it". Look at the GTA5 trailer, it's a similar story there using the same engine. This is not denial. This is me refuting your argument with logic and examples. Comparing like for like, games using the same engine being of very similar quality from beginning of a console's cycle to more recent.

The main progress has not been in coding for particular engines but developing newer better engines that pass on those benefits to all similar systems, and WiiU seems to have very similar hardware to 360 (IBM cpu, AMD graphics chip, unified video/system memory, unified shaders) that mean today's xbox 360 games look better than those of 2006. Yet you aren't seeing that huge generational leap with WiiU in terms of graphical capability. CoD from then to today looks so similar because it's the same engine but just modified.



Amazingly similar between WiiU and Xbox 360. WiiU is NOT next gen hardware.

IGN is probably right about the vague aspects but they were careful in saying where they were taking a blind unreasoned guess. The leaked data is only as vague as AMD R7xx series which is a WIDE range of graphics chips and is probably not the HD 4800 from how the same source indicates the graphics chip cannot handle 1080p output AS WELL as anti-aliasing. I have explained this already, HD 4800 should be able to output 1080p with up to 8xAA, yet WiiU cannot do 1080p AND anti-aliasing. Also the HD4800 is a very expensive chip while there are much cheaper chipsets from the R7xx series.

IGN and You are unsafe to conclude it is a HD 4800.

"I don't really understand why it's so hard to believe that a console based on technology from 2009/2010 is going to be far more potent then a console based on technology from 2005/2006."

Because Nintendo has insufficient influence in manufacturing and patent licencing compared to Microsoft and Sony who are the richest companies in the world owning tens of thousands of patents, Nintendo cannot get the same tech as cheap as those two big companies can. It may be able to be a little bit more powerful or on parity but for a much higher cost, as indicated by the price. Look how Nintendo spent $160 to manufacture each Nintendo Wii when Microsoft spent only $275 per Xbox 360 (both compared without HDD) for a system hugely more capable.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20061120132150.html

Nintendo can't get as good bang for their buck in manufacturing. Evidence is mounting so high of WiiU being significantly more expensive than the $199 price tag of Xbox 360 while not being that much better.

Also Nintendo Wii hasn't demonstrated any more than subtle graphical advancement like you've seen already on games like Uncharted 3.

Consider when Xbox 360 launched, Call of Duty 2 looked a whole order of magnitude better than anything on PS2, Original Xbox or Gamecube. You didn't have the same excuses back then of "ooh give it a few years, then Xbox 360 will start looking better than that old Playstation 2." No. Right out the gate no one could deny that Xbox 360 looked way better than anything on PS2, Original Xbox or Gamecube.

 

[Davroth]

-snip-

Would you mind pointing me exactly to were it say that the console isn't able to display 1080p and AA? I can't find that.

 

[him over there]

-snip-

Would you mind pointing me exactly to were it say that the console isn't able to display 1080p and AA? I can't find that.

Rumoured tech specs are floating around.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/352365/full-wii-u-specs-allegedly-leaked-at-e3-tri-core-cpu-15gb-ram-8gb-flash/

"32MB high-bandwidth eDRAM, supports 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass."

I will say this. Don't try to argue specs until we get official specs, we don't know what GPU or CPU this will have apart from vague names like "IBM PowerPC" CPU and "AMD GPU".

Just wait for the real specs.

Waiting for the real specs is obvious, at least I hope it is before we start arguing about them. Though I admit I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking about them if I had any idea of what you just posted meant.

 

[him over there]

-snip-

Would you mind pointing me exactly to were it say that the console isn't able to display 1080p and AA? I can't find that.

Rumoured tech specs are floating around.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/352365/full-wii-u-specs-allegedly-leaked-at-e3-tri-core-cpu-15gb-ram-8gb-flash/

"32MB high-bandwidth eDRAM, supports 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass."

I will say this. Don't try to argue specs until we get official specs, we don't know what GPU or CPU this will have apart from vague names like "IBM PowerPC" CPU and "AMD GPU".

Just wait for the real specs.

Waiting for the real specs is obvious, at least I hope it is before we start arguing about them. Though I admit I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking about them if I had any idea of what you just posted meant.

The rumoured specs say that the console will only be able to use AA at 720P, at 1080P it won't be able to do it.

I find this doubtful as games are different and you could easily pull off 1080P with AA on a low powered game even on the PS3 and xbox.

Okay from my extremely layman knowledge AA is anti-aliasing correct? I know that it's one of the many points brought up when comparing pcs to consoles but what exactly does it do?

 

[Treblaine]

-snip-

Would you mind pointing me exactly to were it say that the console isn't able to display 1080p and AA? I can't find that.

Rumoured tech specs are floating around.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/352365/full-wii-u-specs-allegedly-leaked-at-e3-tri-core-cpu-15gb-ram-8gb-flash/

"32MB high-bandwidth eDRAM, supports 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass."

I will say this. Don't try to argue specs until we get official specs, we don't know what GPU or CPU this will have apart from vague names like "IBM PowerPC" CPU and "AMD GPU".

Just wait for the real specs.

Waiting for the real specs is obvious, at least I hope it is before we start arguing about them. Though I admit I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking about them if I had any idea of what you just posted meant.

The rumoured specs say that the console will only be able to use AA at 720P, at 1080P it won't be able to do it.

I find this doubtful as games are different and you could easily pull off 1080P with AA on a low powered game even on the PS3 and xbox.

Yes some PS3 games were 1080p, but those were comparatively basic PS3 games like Wipeout HD that was a narrow and spartan racing game. Also the likes of Gran Turismo 5 didn't actually have 1080p output which is precisely 1920x1080, the native resolution was 1280x1080 anamorphic, so it was stretched horizontally when upscaled, so horizontal resolution was same as 720p (1280x720).

That point of "1080p no AA" really does point to graphics almost identical to PS3/360 in actual rendering capability. Maybe 360 has some unique pathways but ditto for PS3 and 360 relative to each other.

Remember how when PS3 was coming out there were sporadic claims that "ooh, PS3 Is 50% more powerful... no, TWICE as powerful" but turns out they were talking about just one small aspect that was twice as powerful and it didn't have it where it counted in graphics power. You could tell looking at the PS3 before launch it wasn't actually more powerful than Xbox 360. And you can see the same today with the WiiU. No excuses about "it'll get better with time". That didn't work for PS3, it won't work for WiiU. The difference is PS3 was 1 year late. WiiU is SEVEN years too late.

PS3 got sorted by cutting price to parity with Xbox 360 and recruiting a huge number of talented developers to work exclusively on their system, like:
-Naughty Dog
-Insomniac
-Media Molecule
-Santa Monica Studios (God of War)
-Sucker Punch
-Guerilla Games
-Evolution Studios (Motorstorm)
-Ready at Dawn Studios
-Polyphony digital

Nintendo has Miyamoto and anything he isn't working on loses all creative drive or even basic quality: Look at Metroid Other M. Wii had a very slow drip-feed of worth-while exclusives, one per year then giving up for this year. Yes it's building a new R&D building, but that's after they just demolished a building in America.

 

[Treblaine]

snip

Yeah, I don't really care.

I'm just saying. You cannot say "the console cannot do AA at 1080P", that's bullshit. It can do it, I don't care if it is just for Pong. That's what takes credibility from the source. And I am well aware of the tricks they used for Wipeout and the like.

Well if it was a credible source it wouldn't be as banal as saying "yeah it can do 1080p and 8xAA, but only with pong" it is talking about that resolution with at least the current standards of graphic fidelity.

But if this subject is exhausting you it's draining me. Having to explain the same things over and over again and still some people (even the same person) then asks the same thing I just refuted as if it's a "gotcha" question.

Well I'm fed up. Nintendo got undeserved credit for taking on PS3 and 360 as if it had a better product... when all it had was a cheaper one that was competing more with PS2 by its temporal price point and capability.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Look at tech specs for every other console. They never mention anything like that, only the output resolution.

I'm not tired of this, I have just stopped caring. I mean, someone (I won't use the word I am thinking of) thinks the PS4 will have a 7970 in it despite the quoted power in GFLOPS being less than half of the 7970 and lower than the 7850. Never mind the fact that having a 7970 would mean a huge pricetag or a late 2014 release date and it would massive power and heat issues.

Wait for actual tech specs.

Though, I am feeling in a generous mood so I'll give you some ammo just to keep you arguing with people. (You can enlarge the image)

You could argue PS3 has the edge here. This must means so much! Go wild.

Wow, the WiiU actually looks a bit smoother then the PS3 version, though that might be my eyes, and it might be because the Batman is now wearing stomach armor.

 

[Grygor]

The Wii's already outdated.
Nintendo's never really seemed to care about having the beefiest consoles.
They are normally the most indestructable though. Well they used to be.

That's funny, because I seem to recall basically every Nintendo console prior to the Wii being sold specifically on their "beefiness", most particularly the SNES and especially the N64.

 

[Tanis]

Considering the 360 is outdated tech, compared to the PS3, I don't see it.

As long as games sell, there will be ports of games from the PS3/Xbox3 to the WiiU.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[RandV80]

It shouldn't be as bad this time around.

Basically, Nintendo used a relatively straight forward formula for the Wii, and will be doing the same for Wii U:

$300 selling point - extra cost of expensive new controller - small margin of profit = $x.xx for hardware

The PS3 and 360 on the other hand used something more like:

Selling price = cost of top cutting edge technology - complex formula to determine how much they can lose per sale now but come out profitable 5 years from now

For Sony and Microsoft's next console, they're going to be a little more cautious about setting to high a selling price and also selling at a loss. This should handicap the hardware to a certain extent, by how much remains to be seen but they likely won't be nearly as cutting edge as last time around. Actually what may help them the most is if they're launching a year after Nintendo the hardware can be a little better for a little less.

I'm not sure exactly how to measure this but my own prediction/guess is that the next PS/Xbox well have specs that could have been released as cutting edge top of the line consoles 1-2 years ago for $600-800, but the delay will have reduced the costs to a $400-500 selling point.

Bottom line is it will be behind but the Wii-U should be much closer to getting cross-platform games than the last time around. Everyone always seems to overlook this fact but what really hurts the Wii's library isn't so much a lack of games as it is that the PS3 and 360 basically share their libraries. It wasn't Wii vs PS3 vs 360, it was Wii vs PS3 + 360. Going by exclusives only the Wii lineup looks pretty good actually.

 

[Davroth]

snip

Yeah, I don't really care.

I'm just saying. You cannot say "the console cannot do AA at 1080P", that's bullshit. It can do it, I don't care if it is just for Pong. That's what takes credibility from the source. And I am well aware of the tricks they used for Wipeout and the like.

Well if it was a credible source it wouldn't be as banal as saying "yeah it can do 1080p and 8xAA, but only with pong" it is talking about that resolution with at least the current standards of graphic fidelity.

But if this subject is exhausting you it's draining me. Having to explain the same things over and over again and still some people (even the same person) then asks the same thing I just refuted as if it's a "gotcha" question.

Well I'm fed up. Nintendo got undeserved credit for taking on PS3 and 360 as if it had a better product... when all it had was a cheaper one that was competing more with PS2 by its temporal price point and capability.

You base all of your speculations about the Wii U on an anonymous source. I don't see why I should trust that source over the Gearbox developers or Epic Games, who both made the claim that the Wii U is much more powerful then the current generation of consoles.

What you have is some hearsay and one comment from Nintendo that can be interpreted in a number of way. As I said before, that doesn't sell it to me.

 

[the_dude_abides]

I think the wiiU is going to flop and flop bad. I watched the wiiU trailer when it first came out and my first thought was..really? Thats the best you can come up with?

I can draw on my smartphone, I can play simple games with friends on my smartphone. I can make video calls with guess what? My smartphone.

Share photos and videos with friends through my TV? I can already do that using my remote control.

The rest of it looked badly thought out. Why would I spend my time staring at a small screen rather than my 42 inch hdtv? Why are the graphics so similar to my 7 year old xbox? Why were there so few exciting games announced for it at e3?

It would have been an exciting console say, four or five years ago before smartphones and tablets really took hold. In 2012..it just looks tired and dated.

 

[wintercoat]

Look at tech specs for every other console. They never mention anything like that, only the output resolution.

I'm not tired of this, I have just stopped caring. I mean, someone (I won't use the word I am thinking of) thinks the PS4 will have a 7970 in it despite the quoted power in GFLOPS being less than half of the 7970 and lower than the 7850. Never mind the fact that having a 7970 would mean a huge pricetag or a late 2014 release date and it would massive power and heat issues.

Wait for actual tech specs.

Though, I am feeling in a generous mood so I'll give you some ammo just to keep you arguing with people. (You can enlarge the image)

You could argue PS3 has the edge here. This must means so much! Go wild.

Wow, the WiiU actually looks a bit smoother then the PS3 version, though that might be my eyes, and it might be because the Batman is now wearing stomach armor.

There's also a lot more lighting on the WiiU Batman still. The Joker is easier to compare. His hair looks about comparable, though I'd give the edge to the PS3. His eyes look more realistic in the WiiU version, as do his wrinkles. His nose looks comparable in both shots. The lip make-up looks better on the PS3, as does the chapped look of his lips. Not really much else you can compare. I mean, it's really tiny differences in quality as it is.