WiiU Specs unveiled: PC gaming officially cheaper than console gaming.

[Stavros Dimou]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Of course it can't. We are not talking about exclusives or software here,we just comment on that Nintendo makes 200? worth of hardware and charges it 320?. So you don't care that the company in order to make people buy the system lied and said that that they are selling the hardware at a loss,when in fact you pay almost double price for it ?

Dude... how the hell would saying "We're selling the console at a loss" get people to buy the system? Nintendo WAS selling the Wii at a profit but that didn't prevent it from becoming one of the best-selling consoles of all time. Nintendo aren't lying about selling it a loss, because they're not.

You're implying that to create a console one has to simply buy the parts and put it in a box like the PC, but it's not that easy. They're using a proprietary graphics card made for the Wii U, that's equivalent to a consumer GPU on the market today. That doesn't mean they're using that GPU. There's manufacturing costs, shipping costs, the costs for the controller, the packaging costs, the costs to keep the company running, the packed in extras such as Nintendo-land and many many more that I'm not businessy enough to know about. PC gaming doesn't have any of those costs because PCs that you build by yourselves aren't made by one company. Look at the massive price difference between a pre-made PC with a brand name on it and buying the parts separately and you'll get my point.

But the prices of the components I chose for the hardware equivalent PC already have these added costs,as I counted full retail prices,including manufacturing and shipping costs,taxes,and store's income. If I didn't added these costs then the production cost of a WiiU would be even less than 200$

 

[Stavros Dimou]

PC+Wii U+PS3/4 master race reporting in. I don't have to worry about not getting anything except Halo and Gears of War. I have my PC for graphically awesome games and good multiplats, the PS3/4 for console-exclusive multiplats like Metal Gear Rising, and my Wii U for it's awesome exclusives.

Oh, and you seem to be not noticing the big-ass controller with a touch-screen that comes with the package. That adds about $50 onto the price of every Wii U made. You're also not taking into consideration the other absolute musts for PC gaming, a decent Keyboard and Mouse and a decent Monitor which all add £100 to the price if you shop around well and don't get a crappy 15 inch monitor. So a computer with the same specs as the Wii U would still cost about the same due to those added costs.

.
A PC with your graphics card can play at good settings games that WiiU can't even run.
Modern games like Far Cry 3 couldn't run on it even at SD 480p with every setting at "low".

That's simply bullshit. The Wii U is actually more powerful than the two other consoles, and they're able to run FC3 at 720p with medium-ish settings. Go look at the 360's and the PS3's specs, they're shit compared to even mid-range computers today.

Explain me how an IBM POWER6 processor with 3 cores running at 1.6Ghz (WiiU) is more powerful than an IBM POWER 6 processor with 3 cores at 3.2Ghz (xbox360) ?


Oh and no,you dont have to add the costs of the monitor in the computer's price. That's like getting a new TV every time you get a new console,and from what I know more than 90% of the people doesn't.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Of course it can't. We are not talking about exclusives or software here,we just comment on that Nintendo makes 200? worth of hardware and charges it 320?. So you don't care that the company in order to make people buy the system lied and said that that they are selling the hardware at a loss,when in fact you pay almost double price for it ?

Your assuming that only the hardware specs factor into the cost, did you forget about the gamepad, the one with a large touchscreen in the middle that you can play full games on, I imagine that costs quite a bit to manufacture.

My mobile phone (Vodafone Smart 2) has a way better and newer technology touch-screen with higher resolution,more colors projection,and multi-touch instead of WiiU's single-touch, and let alone all the other stuff it has (camera,gps,wifi,bluetooth...) it still only costs 99 euros.

The Vodafone Smart 2 is a phone running on an out of date version of an existing OS(Android), it has a resolution of 320X480 when in comparison all Wii U games are at minimum 720p HD, it can't run anything to the standard of something like Assassin's Creed 3 or Mass Effect 3, it has a single core 832Mhz CPU compared to the Wii U's estimated 1.6 3 core CPU, it has a tiny 130mb of storage compared to the Wii U's 8GB or 32GB, the Wii U has 2 cameras, Wifi support (It doesn't need GPS or bluetooth because it's not a portable system) and it's a goddamn phone made for Facebook, talking to people and texting, not a dedicated gaming console made for HD gaming on a big HD TV with a ton of extra features such as Netflix, Miiverse and Nintendo TVii.

 

[DazZ.]

You said in your original post "I doubt it would take longer until you can", so you're implying at least under 5 years.

No I didn't, I said "long" so wasn't comparing it to anything and not implying any timeframe other than your subjective opinion on the term "long".

The fact of the matter is that the Wii U is a much more complicated and a more powerful system than the 360 and PS3, so if you really think Wii U emulation will come at a time before the next Nintendo console or even a big price-drop and many more games.

I really don't think it is a "much more powerful" system than a PS3/360, which thankfully gets us back on topic of the thread. It is indeed better, but not by much. Although I fear arguing subjective opinions with you will yield numbers and statistics being put in my mouth that I didn't know I was implying.

Compared to the last round of consoles, top end PC hardware this generation is going to be much more advanced than what they were at the last round, meaning where it needed a beefy computer to get stability in the early Wii emulation, I don't think it'll need quite the heft and I'd wager it would run on today's average hardware. Obviously I'm not a time traveller so this is speculation.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Of course it can't. We are not talking about exclusives or software here,we just comment on that Nintendo makes 200? worth of hardware and charges it 320?. So you don't care that the company in order to make people buy the system lied and said that that they are selling the hardware at a loss,when in fact you pay almost double price for it ?

Your assuming that only the hardware specs factor into the cost, did you forget about the gamepad, the one with a large touchscreen in the middle that you can play full games on, I imagine that costs quite a bit to manufacture.

My mobile phone (Vodafone Smart 2) has a way better and newer technology touch-screen with higher resolution,more colors projection,and multi-touch instead of WiiU's single-touch, and let alone all the other stuff it has (camera,gps,wifi,bluetooth...) it still only costs 99 euros.

The Vodafone Smart 2 is a phone running on an out of date version of an existing OS(Android), it has a resolution of 320X480 when in comparison all Wii U games are at minimum 720p HD, it can't run anything to the standard of something like Assassin's Creed 3 or Mass Effect 3, it has a single core 832Mhz CPU compared to the Wii U's estimated 1.6 3 core CPU, it has a tiny 130mb of storage compared to the Wii U's 8GB or 32GB, the Wii U has 2 cameras, Wifi support (It doesn't need GPS or bluetooth because it's not a portable system) and it's a goddamn phone made for Facebook, talking to people and texting, not a dedicated gaming console made for HD gaming on a big HD TV with a ton of extra features such as Netflix, Miiverse and Nintendo TVii.

I didn't compared the phone to the main console WiiU,but solely to its gamepad.
And my point was,that even with the cost of the gamepad,the overall retail price of the WiiU is still more than the manufacturing and shipping costs that Nintendo has to pay. Because one of the many points of this thread was to discuss Nintendo's statement that the WiiU is so expensive for them to produce that they loose money with every console they sell.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Explain me how an IBM POWER6 processor with 3 cores running at 1.6Ghz (WiiU) is more powerful than an IBM POWER 6 processor with 3 cores at 3.2Ghz (xbox360) ?


Oh and no,you dont have to add the costs of the monitor in the computer's price. That's like getting a new TV every time you get a new console,and from what I know more than 90% of the people doesn't.

Alright, so the CPU may be less powerful (but we still don't know because console CPUs aren't as simple as computer CPU's), but it's been confirmed that the GPU is more powerful and you can see this in the Wii U's version of Trine 2, a GPU heavy game. It runs at a standard much, much closer to the PC than the 360's version which looks crap compared to the PC version. It's also been confirmed to have much more RAM than the 360, the 360 has 512mb of shared RAM and the WII has 2gb of RAM (1gb for the games, 1 for the OS), and it's been confirmed to have Nintendo's equivalent of Blu Ray discs compared to the Xbox still uses their equivalent of DVDS (The reason LA Noire came on 3 discs on the 360, compared to 1 on the PS3).

Oh, and are you taking every single thing you need to build a PC into consideration? Here's what you need to build a PC:
.CPU
.GPU
.Motherboard
.Case
.Hardrive
.OS
.Thermal glue
.Fans
.Network card
.It's recommended you get a Disc-Drive
.Keyboard
.Mouse

I can confirm that you can't get a PC of equal or better power for $350.

You're also implying that everyone owns a decent, 1080p monitor. Unless you want to use your PC on your TV you'll have to buy a monitor. Most people buying a desktop PC for the first time don't own a monitor, yet pretty much everyone owns a TV. It's sensible to take that into consideration.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Snip

You're simply pulling facts out from thin air because the CPU isn't overly powerful. If Nintendo says they're selling it at a loss, they're goddamn selling it at a loss. Why do you trust your own limited view of how many costs go into building and selling consoles over the word of the president of Nintendo himself? There are a LOT of costs to making one singular piece of tech, and I can guarantee you that you can't get a PC that could run games like Black Ops 2 at 720p at 60fps for under $300.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Explain me how an IBM POWER6 processor with 3 cores running at 1.6Ghz (WiiU) is more powerful than an IBM POWER 6 processor with 3 cores at 3.2Ghz (xbox360) ?


Oh and no,you dont have to add the costs of the monitor in the computer's price. That's like getting a new TV every time you get a new console,and from what I know more than 90% of the people doesn't.

Alright, so the CPU may be less powerful (but we still don't know because console CPUs aren't as simple as computer CPU's), but it's been confirmed that the GPU is more powerful and you can see this in the Wii U's version of Trine 2, a GPU heavy game. It runs at a standard much, much closer to the PC than the 360's version which looks crap compared to the PC version. It's also been confirmed to have much more RAM than the 360, the 360 has 512mb of shared RAM and the WII has 2gb of RAM (1gb for the games, 1 for the OS), and it's been confirmed to have Nintendo's equivalent of Blu Ray discs compared to the Xbox still uses their equivalent of DVDS (The reason LA Noire came on 3 discs on the 360, compared to 1 on the PS3).

Oh, and are you taking every single thing you need to build a PC into consideration? Here's what you need to build a PC:
.CPU
.GPU
.Motherboard
.Case
.Hardrive
.OS
.Thermal glue
.Fans
.Network card
.It's recommended you get a Disc-Drive
.Keyboard
.Mouse

I can confirm that you can't get a PC of equal or better power for $350.

You're also implying that everyone owns a decent, 1080p monitor. Unless you want to use your PC on your TV you'll have to buy a monitor. Most people buying a desktop PC for the first time don't own a monitor, yet pretty much everyone owns a TV. It's sensible to take that into consideration.

To be honest,I didn't added a hard drive to the system,because there are no comparable 8gb drives in the market. The drive with the shortest capacity I could find is 256gb (32 times more capacity) and costs 40 euros. I also completely missed the OS.
Now every manufacturer that respects itself adds network cards embed on the motherboards,and every case have a fan.

Also I forgot to note something. Please note that for the comparison I did,I used European prices.
In Europe PC hardware tends to have the same value in Euros as it has in the U.S.A.,but Nintendo prices WiiU at a much higher price in Europe than it does in the U.S.A.
Europe's price for the standard WiiU pack is 320 euros,which is equivalent to 433.18 US dollars.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

PC+Wii U+PS3/4 master race reporting in. I don't have to worry about not getting anything except Halo and Gears of War. I have my PC for graphically awesome games and good multiplats, the PS3/4 for console-exclusive multiplats like Metal Gear Rising, and my Wii U for it's awesome exclusives.

Oh, and you seem to be not noticing the big-ass controller with a touch-screen that comes with the package. That adds about $50 onto the price of every Wii U made. You're also not taking into consideration the other absolute musts for PC gaming, a decent Keyboard and Mouse and a decent Monitor which all add £100 to the price if you shop around well and don't get a crappy 15 inch monitor. So a computer with the same specs as the Wii U would still cost about the same due to those added costs.

.
A PC with your graphics card can play at good settings games that WiiU can't even run.
Modern games like Far Cry 3 couldn't run on it even at SD 480p with every setting at "low".

That's simply bullshit. The Wii U is actually more powerful than the two other consoles, and they're able to run FC3 at 720p with medium-ish settings. Go look at the 360's and the PS3's specs, they're shit compared to even mid-range computers today.

Explain me how an IBM POWER6 processor with 3 cores running at 1.6Ghz (WiiU) is more powerful than an IBM POWER 6 processor with 3 cores at 3.2Ghz (xbox360) ?

I actually posted a link to the original Neogaf thread a few posts above you, where they do exactly that. Kindly read it. It will explain things much better than I could, regarding the Wii U's memory management, optimisation, higher amounts of RAM, and the fact that the hardware is almost completely custom.

Slightly more on-topic: My other objection with the DF/Eurogamer piece is how it completely misrepresents how information about console specs is obtained.

It took an extraordinary effort to get this far and you may be wondering quite why it took a reverse engineering specialist using ultra-magnification photography to get this information, when we already know the equivalent data for Durango and Orbis. The answer is fairly straightforward - leaks tend to derive from development kit and SDK documentation and, as we understand it, this crucial information simply wasn't available in Nintendo's papers, with developers essentially left to their own devices to figure out the performance level of the hardware.

This is bullshit. The reason we didn't learn anything about the Wii U's specs is because of NDAs. Anyone working in the games industry has to sign an NDA if they want to work on next-gen/unreleased hardware. This basically means, if you get caught leaking anything, you will get the living shit sued out of you and never work in the games industry again.

Those AMD workers who got caught leaking hardware documents for the Nextbox and PS4? AMD is currently suing them to oblivion.

We don't have any confirmed, nailed-down specs for the PS4 and Nextbox. All we have is a bunch of rumours and possible out-of-date documents, which may or may not have come from people breaking their NDAs. Just because a console doesn't get much in the way of specs leaked, that doesn't mean anything. Developers may simply think its not worth getting sued just to put another anonymous rumour up on the internet. Who knows? But acting as if this is some specific flaw of Nintendo's, when it's actually an industry wide practise, is just foolishness.

Sorry for not replying earlier,I'll read the link right now.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Snip

snip

Because the president of Nintendo has a motive to lie: money. His mission is to make it so Nintendo gets as much money as it can. But I don't have a motive to lie,so that's why I trust myself more than Nintendo's president.
The truth is that I tried to find which parts equal similar performance to those of WiiU,and I found out that parts with such specs are so old you can't even find them in stores any more. So by buying the cheapest parts I could find (cpu,gpu,etc..) they would still be more powerful than those used by WiiU.
If you don't believe me and you think that WiiU is a powerhouse,then OK.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Snip

snip

Because the president of Nintendo has a motive to lie: money. His mission is to make it so Nintendo gets as much money as it can. But I don't have a motive to lie,so that's why I trust myself more than Nintendo's president.
The truth is that I tried to find which parts equal similar performance to those of WiiU,and I found out that parts with such specs are so old you can't even find them in stores any more. So by buying the cheapest parts I could find (cpu,gpu,etc..) they would still be more powerful than those used by WiiU.
If you don't believe me and you think that WiiU is a powerhouse,then OK.

You really think the CEO who took a massive pay cut because the 3DS wasn't selling well, who admitted the Wii U didn't have many good games released over Christmas and said sorry for it would say they're losing money on a console just to get more money? Explain to me how "We're selling it at a loss" is a legitimate business practice, because if it was why didn't Nintendo do it for every other of their systems. The truth is, selling at a loss is a very negative thing for a company and share-holders and investors do NOT like it because it means they get much less money. Why would Iwata lie about something that negative just to get a few sympathy buys? You haven't answered that yet.

When did I say I think that it's a powerhouse? It's not, my PC is a powerhouse and my Wii U is my Nintendo exclusive machine.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Snip

snip

Because the president of Nintendo has a motive to lie: money. His mission is to make it so Nintendo gets as much money as it can. But I don't have a motive to lie,so that's why I trust myself more than Nintendo's president.
The truth is that I tried to find which parts equal similar performance to those of WiiU,and I found out that parts with such specs are so old you can't even find them in stores any more. So by buying the cheapest parts I could find (cpu,gpu,etc..) they would still be more powerful than those used by WiiU.
If you don't believe me and you think that WiiU is a powerhouse,then OK.

You really think the CEO who took a massive pay cut because the 3DS wasn't selling well, who admitted the Wii U didn't have many good games released over Christmas and said sorry for it would say they're losing money on a console just to get more money? Explain to me how "We're selling it at a loss" is a legitimate business practice, because if it was why didn't Nintendo do it for every other of their systems. The truth is, selling at a loss is a very negative thing for a company and share-holders and investors do NOT like it because it means they get much less money. Why would Iwata lie about something that negative just to get a few sympathy buys? You haven't answered that yet.

When did I say I think that it's a powerhouse? It's not, my PC is a powerhouse and my Wii U is my Nintendo exclusive machine.

Are you kidding me ?
By saying that they sell the system at a loss and hiding the true specs of the system,they make you believe that its much more powerful than what it really is,so you get a perception of value that is fake. Thinking that a product has good value for its money is a very important factor that drives sales. And WiiU simply put,doesn't have a value/money ratio good enough for the costumers.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Of course it can't. We are not talking about exclusives or software here,we just comment on that Nintendo makes 200? worth of hardware and charges it 320?. So you don't care that the company in order to make people buy the system lied and said that that they are selling the hardware at a loss,when in fact you pay almost double price for it ?

They have to pay people you know. You're not thinking about the rest of the parts either. They said they have to sell one game to make up for the loss, I'm standing by that, plus it's a custom.
Pc gaming has been cheaper than consoles since 2005 at the least I don't see why you even bothered with this besides trying to get a response out of people.

The games can look good, I dunno what more you want.

Snip

You're simply pulling facts out from thin air because the CPU isn't overly powerful. If Nintendo says they're selling it at a loss, they're goddamn selling it at a loss. Why do you trust your own limited view of how many costs go into building and selling consoles over the word of the president of Nintendo himself? There are a LOT of costs to making one singular piece of tech, and I can guarantee you that you can't get a PC that could run games like Black Ops 2 at 720p at 60fps for under $300.

I doubt you can get a pc the size of a wii U at the cost of 300$ that's for damn sure.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Snip

snip

Because the president of Nintendo has a motive to lie: money. His mission is to make it so Nintendo gets as much money as it can. But I don't have a motive to lie,so that's why I trust myself more than Nintendo's president.
The truth is that I tried to find which parts equal similar performance to those of WiiU,and I found out that parts with such specs are so old you can't even find them in stores any more. So by buying the cheapest parts I could find (cpu,gpu,etc..) they would still be more powerful than those used by WiiU.
If you don't believe me and you think that WiiU is a powerhouse,then OK.

You really think the CEO who took a massive pay cut because the 3DS wasn't selling well, who admitted the Wii U didn't have many good games released over Christmas and said sorry for it would say they're losing money on a console just to get more money? Explain to me how "We're selling it at a loss" is a legitimate business practice, because if it was why didn't Nintendo do it for every other of their systems. The truth is, selling at a loss is a very negative thing for a company and share-holders and investors do NOT like it because it means they get much less money. Why would Iwata lie about something that negative just to get a few sympathy buys? You haven't answered that yet.

When did I say I think that it's a powerhouse? It's not, my PC is a powerhouse and my Wii U is my Nintendo exclusive machine.

Are you kidding me ?
By saying that they sell the system at a loss and hiding the true specs of the system,they make you believe that its much more powerful than what it really is,so you get a perception of value that is fake. Thinking that a product has good value for its money is a very important factor that drives sales. And WiiU simply put,doesn't have a value/money ratio good enough for the costumers.

You know what gets more sales than saying that something's being sold at a loss? Pricing the damn thing at a lower price. Nintendo's extremely clever with pricing, they wouldn't create an elaborate ruse of selling things at a loss if they could price the thing lower and therefore get more sales. And like I said, investors and shareholders absolutely despise things being sold at a loss. Why would Nintendo willingly piss of them and make price their console higher than it should? You seem to have a really bad grasp of basic econimics, because selling at a loss=VERY bad. If they were lying I think we'd know by now, because there is a ton of people who know the cost of the console Nintendo who could easily come out and sue them over false statements. What you're accusing Nintendo of doing is highly illegal, so if you really believe they're doing it go to the courts. You have no evidence except "He's a CEO who wants money, and I don't want money!", whereas the evidence that they actually ARE selling it at a loss comes straight from the CEO himself.

 

[amxn]

What most of you are missing is that, this is a piece of Application specific hardware. It doesn't require to run Windows or deal with other overhead.

WiiU might be similar to a mid-range PC. But a same game would run better on it because

a) Nintendo / Third-party devs actually optimize console games, unlike PC Games which are developed to run on an range of architectures instead of a particular spec.

b) Console Devs actually do not need to deal with unrelated platform B.S. (Audio drivers / GFX drivers / Third-party apps breaking APIs), etc. While most if not all of this is common on a PC game during the play test stage. (and in some horrible cases on actual launches!)

 

[Kusy]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Thread is too long so I don't know if anyone already said this... but... inb4 Dolphin U.

 

[The White Hunter]

Can the PC play Super mario, smash bros, Zombie U, Monster Hunter, Rayman Legends, Pikmin, or Legend of Zelda; no? Then I'll stick with the Wii U thank you very much.

Of course it can't. We are not talking about exclusives or software here,we just comment on that Nintendo makes 200? worth of hardware and charges it 320?. So you don't care that the company in order to make people buy the system lied and said that that they are selling the hardware at a loss,when in fact you pay almost double price for it ?

I enquired about a gamepad repair just for curiosity and to get an estimate for the price and I gotta say, the gamepad is the expensive bit. A minor repair was £93 if it was out of warranty and a major repair was £140. So I think that needs to be factored into the whole thing aswell.

Though the console itself, Nintendo is almost definately making profit on. When did they say they were selling it at a loss? Nintendo have sold most of their recent machines at profit for some time now.

And gaming PC, at 1080p, which good framerates, in every game, for £300? Not bloody likely.

Gaming PC at 720p with good framerates for £300? Plausible.

This all said I'm running a Pentium e5700 dual core and an ATI 4770 and most things up until 2011 play fine. Except GTA4. Which runs like arse no matter what I do. It will be upgraded to an i5 and GTX 600-series when I actually have a job again....

(If anybody is wondering I play games on near every format going from the past 2 generations (currently ready to switch on and play: PS3, Wii, Wii U, PS2, PS1, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Mega Drive, Master System, PC) except the Xbox because meh not paying for a £140 machine and £50 live subscription to play Halo.)