Guts of the Wii U: Facts & Rumors

[gtt]

Ninty have made aslim console,that is really a current gen console,720/ps4 will be bulky beasts until slim comes along.

this is true. the slimming of the next gen consoles will come with a smaller process for the chips, which will reduce the heat, which reduces the size of heatsink and fan needed.

[coffeewithchess]

I'm still not seeing where that ethernet port is on it. Maybe they have it buried in the disc drive?

Why Nintendo, why?

Remember that adapter the GameCube had? Remember that it sold badly?

That's why.

What? I'm talking an Ethernet port, where I can plug the cable directly into the system, without using a USB adapter for it. What does the adapter for the GameCube, that had basically no online support, have to do with the Wii U not having an Ethernet port on it?

Did you miss understand what I was talking about?

[ddddd]

It means that unless millions of people care about some tech (ethernet port this time) Nintendo wont add it to their consoles.

[gtt]

I'm going to say it costs more then two cents to put in an ethernet port. Remember when the digital AV out was removed from the Gamecube,... to save 2 cents.

I doubt it. I mean, they would be buying them in massive quantity from a Chinese company. it wouldn't change assembly at foxcon more than adding a few seconds to each unit. I'd actually be shocked it was any more than 3 cents per unit.

they look at it like this, they can't not have wireless, so adding an ethernet jack would cost them 1.5M(at 3 cents a unit, assuming 50M units sold lifetime). but if they sell usb lan adapters, at 3$ a unit to produce and sell them for 10$ wholesale, man look at those profits!

[LegendofZelda1996]

Note: I am not trying to be a troll nor I want to be one. I just want to ask a question and nothing else.

Apparently, there are a few users on NeoGAF who are angry at Satoru Iwata for not making the Wii U noticeably more powerful than the XBOX 360 & the PlayStation 3 due to the Wii U using a Samsung DDR3 RAM running at a maximum speed of 17 GB/sec. I think this is expected considering the reputation NeoGAF has.

Well, this is what Nintendo has become under Iwata management, cheap and obsolete hardware for easy profits, this is his management's trademark. As long there's people who'll buy Nintendo hardware, no matter how weak it is, just for Nintendo games, it'll keep it that way and will guarantee Iwata's profits.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=887

Iwata being cheap to exploit hardcore Nintendo fans who will buy Nintendo no matter what does not jive with Iwata's first big project being the Wii - which was aimed at a non-game playing audience who had no fanatical loyalty to exploit.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=924

And TreasureHunterG seems to doubt that Satoru Iwata will stay as the Global President and CEO of Nintendo for long. After Lonely1, a NeoGAF user said the Wii U is being sold at a loss, TreasureHunterG said this.

Well, 3DS too, huh? Let's see for how long Iwata will last then.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=898

Do you think Satoru Iwata should resign his position as Global President & CEO of Nintendo due to Nintendo releasing video game consoles that are disappointingly weak including the Wii U (people in NeoGAF have recently been saying that the Wii U seems to be only on par with the XBOX 360 & PlayStation 3 in terms of power) under the leadership of Satoru Iwata?

[CrispyGoomba]

Do you think Satoru Iwata should resign his position as Global President & CEO of Nintendo due to Nintendo releasing video game consoles that are disappointingly weak including the Wii U (people in NeoGAF have recently been saying that the Wii U seems to be only on par with the XBOX 360 & PlayStation 3 in terms of power) under the leadership of Satoru Iwata?

Of course not. Nintendo is a business trying to make profit. They're not out there to be the most powerful, however they could if they want to, but just because their console is weak compared to the competition doesn't mean that he should resign. If a consumer wants the most powerful console out there, then obviously the Wii U is not for them. And just because some people on the internet complain about it, doesn't mean they should start doing the opposite. In the end, as long as Nintendo's systems are selling, I'm sure his job is secured.

[ddddd]

If third party games once again do not come to WiiU due to its awfull hardware as a reason... I dont know if I really want him fired, but a slight change of plans wouldnt hurt (like making a console that is not weaker than current gen in any component!)

All I know is that I dont want to know the rest of the specs of the wiiu, to avoid more disappointment.

BTW, lets quit the "GAF says this" please, is not just GAF users who think like this.

[Devil_Rising]

Does this mean the CPU is under powered,im sure one rumour claimed that each core can do 4 threads per core 16 threads.

It's a modified version of that CPU, but it seems like it was modified more then some people though.

So what is it then,3 cores/9 threads like 360 or 12 threads between 3 cores.In all honesty CPU is not the biggest concern it is the ram and the GPU.The Wii U to me is a 360 and ps3 hybrid,the Ps3 really needed 1GB ram for that CPU and i think Nintendo calling it a proper next gen to compete agaisnt 720 and ps4 is an over statement.
But im really looking forward to gett ing into some upto date Ninty action in HD.

I think the general idea, is that the way they designed the hardware, the CPU and GPU are supposed to work in tandem, meaning the GPU has some CPU like capability as well, to lend a hand to the main CPU unit. I would imagine this means that when certain developers understand the hardware correctly, and know how to max it out, you'll be seeing some "NEXT GEN" stuff that really amazes you. Naturally, launch titles are not going to show this. People might selectively choose not to remember, but the PS3 and 360 launch lineups HARDLY showed a fraction of what the respective hardwares could really do either. With launch lineups, you're always going to have a couple of things:

1. Ports, that are by and large not going to be a huge departure (or improvement) over their counterparts, because developers don't want to or have the time and money to spend to make a SIGNIFICANTLY better port. Though from what I understand, at least for a couple of the Wii U titles, that is the case.

2. Not every developer is created equal. Some suck worse than others. So if a certain port of a certain game isn't quite up to snuff with a counterpart version, that is likely on the dev, not the console. Keep in mind that many later Wii ports were great, considering the power disparity. Wii U IS more powerful than the PS3. Maybe not by a lot, but it still is, and that matters. Early games like Zombi U, for example, are not going to scream "NEXT GEN", because a company like Ubisoft probably doesn't have a firm handle just yet on how to take full advantage of the hardware.



I really wouldn't worry about it, as much as people on internet forums seem to love doing this "THE SKY IS FALLING" dance as often as they can. As Broly said, I'm pretty sure you're going to see things on Wii U, in time, that are going to amaze you, both graphically and otherwise, even compared to the inevitable other console that come out. And they won't ALL just be from Nintendo.

[Eternal Rain]

Graphics are getting to a point where we're starting to not see as huge gaps as we used to. Even Unreal Engine 4 isn't the biggest step up from UE3 from what I saw in the tech demo.

Anyway, as for the Wii U specs, it's really hard for a non techhie like me to really tell what's "good" and what's "bad." Developer statements are also hard to go by since we get conflicting reports, some saying it's "better" than current gen, and other saying it's only on par.

The way I see it, as long as the situation is more like how it was with the PS2 vs the Xbox and Gamecube then we'll be fine. Ps2 was weaker than the other two, but still got tons of ports without huge sacrifice.,

[KingBroly]

Do you think Satoru Iwata should resign his position as Global President & CEO of Nintendo due to Nintendo releasing video game consoles that are disappointingly weak including the Wii U (people in NeoGAF have recently been saying that the Wii U seems to be only on par with the XBOX 360 & PlayStation 3 in terms of power) under the leadership of Satoru Iwata?

Why would they get rid of him? They had their 2 most successful platforms in history (Wii, 3DS) under his tenure. The Wii U will do just fine.

Yes, they did. But unfortunately Nintendo failed to capitalize on that wave of success, and are back the position they were in before the Wii launched, which is extremely vulnerable.

I feel that they may have put too much at stake behind the power and gadgets in the controller (the gimmick) than the console itself, which they haven't conveyed well that it is.

[RD3AV5]

I appreciate the input, and agree it's not all about super high specs any more. There was a huge jump between the SNES & N64, & again between the N64 & GCN there was a huge jump. Since the Cube it's all been a matter of simply polishing the same thing. The Wii U and PS360 are a step up from the Cube/PS2/Xbox, but not by as huge a gap as in the past. The gap between the Wii U/PS360 and the NextBox/PS4 will continue the trend of lower hardware evolution.

Yes, very well put. I still say the same thing when I do my "Battlefield 3 test" with people. If you put on BF3 from a 360 on an HDTV, then have people play it on a killer PC with a GTX 680, which is, in terms of "generations more advanced", (well DX 9 on xbox and DX11 on PC) most people can NOT tell a difference. It's only side by side running at the same time, running on the same TV can you tell the difference. We will not have the same Wii vs 360 vs PS3 again this gen. The most you'll see is Modern warfare 74 running at 60 FPS at full 1080p on PS4/X720 and the Wii U at 30 FPS and 720p, with the same engines and particle effects intact.

[LegendofZelda1996]

I know that I shouldn't take comments from the Internet (or NeoGAF specifically) seriously, but I just can't help but share someone's opinions towards Satoru Iwata after the Wii U launch.

Nope! Not a word. Just showing an example of over-hype which, myself included, many people fell into with the Wii U. The only good I can see of Nintendo releasing ANOTHER massively-underpowered console is, if it bombs and it only sells 20 million units, at least Iwata could get fired and someone who understands that devs need powerful consoles to work with.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=9702

Looks like someone wants Satoru Iwata fired as soon as possible. So much melodrama.

But there's more.

I want Iwata fired too. He nearly destroyed the nintyfan in me with that thing people call Wii.
why should I play videogames waving an uncomfortable remote rod which also needed adds on to be more effective on a system that in 2012 was on par with a PS2?
and while my friends were playing skyrim, I had to deal with Crysis: the day of the disaster.
what a killer application.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=9713

How much more melodrama will the Wii U get?

[Eternal Rain]

All I can say is this: wait about a year or two. Launch time is never a great indication of a system's power, it's usually only about 1 or 2 years into the life of a system you start to see major advancements. Compare Quake 4 to Halo 3, released two years later, and then FEAR 1 to FEAR 2 (released 3 years later), or compare a game like Red Steel to Metroid Prime 3, or Call of Duty 3 to World at War or Black Ops 1.

Like I said, I highly, highly, doubt things will be like how it was this past gen where the gap in power was really notable. I predict it'll be more like the Ps2/Xbox/GC gen, with the Wii U acting as the PS2. Weaker system, but not TOO weak, so it still gets it's own versions of games made for multiple platforms without too huge of sacrifices, and who knows maybe even games made for Wii U first simply because of production costs (during that gen there were situations where devs actually made games on PS2 first because it was easier and cost less, and then ported it over to Xbox and GC with some minor enhancements).

[Devil_Rising]

At this point, I'd love for Nintendo to ATTEMPT to get multiplatform games.

While doing that I'd love to see them get really good 3rd party exclusives (I think SimCity would work really well) to separate it from the PS3 and 360 as something different, but not something gimmicky like the Wii.

Alright.

Multiplatform - Darksiders 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Assassin's Creed 3, Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City, Ninja Gaiden 3, Madden 13, FIFA 13, Avengers: Battle For Earth, Sonic Racing, Aliens: Colonial Marines, CoD: Black Ops II, NBA2K13, Epic Mickey 2, Skylanders: Giants, 007 Legends, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Ghost Recon Online.

Exclusive - Zombi U, Rayman Legends, Lego City Undercover, The Wonderful 101, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Dragon Quest X, Bayonetta 2.


How's that sit with you so far? Seems pretty solid to me.


And keep in mind, these are just games already released, or officially confirmed as coming out. There will be plenty more.

[jlatimer11]

At this point, I'd love for Nintendo to ATTEMPT to get multiplatform games.

While doing that I'd love to see them get really good 3rd party exclusives (I think SimCity would work really well) to separate it from the PS3 and 360 as something different, but not something gimmicky like the Wii.

Alright.

Multiplatform - Darksiders 2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Assassin's Creed 3, Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City, Ninja Gaiden 3, Madden 13, FIFA 13, Avengers: Battle For Earth, Sonic Racing, Aliens: Colonial Marines, CoD: Black Ops II, NBA2K13, Epic Mickey 2, Skylanders: Giants, 007 Legends, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Ghost Recon Online.

Exclusive - Zombi U, Rayman Legends, Lego City Undercover, The Wonderful 101, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Dragon Quest X, Bayonetta 2.


How's that sit with you so far? Seems pretty solid to me.


And keep in mind, these are just games already released, or officially confirmed as coming out. There will be plenty more.

I think I probably should have fleshed my point out a bit more.

If the specs we keep seeing are true, and this is not a PS3/360 killer (spec-wise), I'd rather they lean more towards 3rd party exclusive games than try to port OLDER PS3 and 360 games to the Wii U.

Going forward they can (possibly) release the same games as the other platforms, but I would hope that they're not going to rely on 1st party games and PS3/360 ports to sustain them.

The list you game was great, thanks. I wasn't aware that a lot of these games were in the pipe.

[cortjezter]

guts?

all off-topic content is being trimmed. if your post disappeared. that's why.

as the rules state: post off-topic at your own risk of being deleted.

[Devil_Rising]

I think I probably should have fleshed my point out a bit more.

If the specs we keep seeing are true, and this is not a PS3/360 killer (spec-wise), I'd rather they lean more towards 3rd party exclusive games than try to port OLDER PS3 and 360 games to the Wii U.

Going forward they can (possibly) release the same games as the other platforms, but I would hope that they're not going to rely on 1st party games and PS3/360 ports to sustain them.

The list you game was great, thanks. I wasn't aware that a lot of these games were in the pipe.

I appreciate what you're saying. However, this merits a bit of attention. Official release dates:

Assassin's Creed III: PS3/360 - Oct. 30th, Wii U - Nov. 13th
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: PS3/360 - Sep. 11th, Wii U - Nov. 18th
Darksiders II: PS3/360 - Aug. 13th, Wii U - Nov. 18th
CoD: Black Ops 2: PS3/360 - Nov. 13th, Wii U - Nov. 18th
FIFA 13: PS3/360 - Sep. 30th, Wii U - Nov. 18th
Madden 13: PS3/360 - Aug. 28th, Wii U - Nov. 18th


At most, we're really talking about a difference of 1-3 months, tops. And at any rate, those games had no chance of releasing earlier for Wii U than it launched anyway. And it's certainly better to have those games available on the console, than to not get them at all because they came out a couple months ago on the other systems, wouldn't you agree? The Wii launch compared to the Wii U launch is rather incredible.

And even in the case of Ninja Gaiden 3, or Mass Effect 3, or Batman, which came out anywhere from half a year ago to a full year even, it's still nice to have those games, and in each case they have all the DLC and exclusive Wii U only content added. I agree that Wii U needs to have third party exclusives. But the N64 had almost nothing but exclusives, with not enough ports. GC had the opposite problem, with many ports, but not enough exclusives (even when certain games, like RE4 and Viewtiful Joe, were supposed to stay GC exclusive). The Wii had a better balance of both, but because of hardware limitations and extreme laziness on many developer's parts, it still didn't get the lion's share of multi-console games. I think the Wii U will strike the strongest balance we've yet seen, since the SNES days.


At any rate (BACK ON TOPIC), I think the "guts" of the system are better than people think they are right now, and we'll see that play out when more games come out down the road that really use the system's power and potential. After all, a lot of people honestly (and wrongly) thought that the Wii was "basically just a Gamecube", until games like Metroid Prime 3, and Mario Galaxy, etc. came out and proved them wrong. It always takes a "generation" or so of waves of console software before you REALLY start seeing what a console is fully capable of.

[ddddd]

I'll leave this here...



BTW, I sent a reply to him, hopefully he'll give more insight into this.

[jlatimer11]

I'll leave this here...



BTW, I sent a reply to him, hopefully he'll give more insight into this.

Did you ask him what effect the Wii U separately processing audio vs. the 360 using the CPU would have on usage?

[ddddd]

I forgot to ask that!

[LegendofZelda1996]

It's interesting that Gustav Halling is not complaining about the Wii U's RAM. In fact, he has something nice to say about the Wii U's RAM.

@JayLeemin GPU and ram is nice to have shaders/textures loaded.

https://twitter.com/gustavhalling/statu ... 7027895298

And what Gustav Halling has to say about the Wii U's CPU.

@dampflokfreund @JayLeemin I don't actually know what makes it slow, but enough "tech" people I trust in world are saying the same things.

https://twitter.com/gustavhalling/statu ... 3389162497

Yes, it's disappointing that the Wii U's CPU is low clocked and weak, but at the same time, I expected that.

In fact whenever Nintendo releases a new console, there's one or more things that Nintendo screws up on.

- The biggest downfall of the NES was that third party developers had to follow Nintendo's strict censorship policy.

- The biggest downfalls of the SNES was the low clocked and weak CPU, yet the SNES had fantastic third party support, and again, third party developers had to follow Nintendo's strict censorship policy.

- The biggest downfall of the Nintendo 64 was that cartridges were used instead of CDs which was a problem since cartridges have lower storage size than CDs and are more expensive to produce than CDs.

- The biggest downfalls of the Nintendo GameCube was the Nintendo GameCube uses GameCube Game Discs instead of regular CDs which was criticized by third party developers for low storage space (1.7 GB storage) and the Nintendo GameCube had very little to no online support from Nintendo which led to the Battlefield series never appearing on the Nintendo GameCube: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/28480

- The biggest downfalls of the Nintendo Wii was the Wii's architecture was drastically different than the XBOX 360's & PlayStation 3's architecture, therefore the Wii is incapable of running in 720p, third party developers have a harder time developing games for the Wii, and the Wii's online infrastructure was a complete mess (40MB file size limit for Wiiware, you can only connect to the Internet via Wi-fi (unless you have a Wii LAN adapter which is not ideal), not ethernet port, etc).

- And it seems like the biggest downfalls of the Wii U so far is that the Wii U's CPU is low clocked and weak CPU (like with the SNES) and you can only connect to the Internet via Wi-fi (unless you have a Wii LAN adapter which is not ideal and it's like the Wii).

Keep in mind that I could make some mistakes here, so please kindly correct me if I do make mistakes.

[KingBroly]

The problem between the SNES and Wii U is that it's being put up against the PS4/720, not the Genesis. You're talking about a CPU difference of 5x-10x here instead of 0.5-2x. It's a major difference that will ultimately cost Nintendo games 3+ years down the line.

If Nintendo removed 1, maybe 2 features of the Gamepad, you could've had enough cost to put in a beefier CPU. Alternatively, they could've gone for cheaper but faster RAM (of the same 2gb allocation) without trying to save so much on power. 33w of usage from a game to 40w of usage for a game isn't that big a jump considering PS3/720 are both over 100w consistently.

The ONLY thing that could get Wii U 3rd party ports from next gen games is if...
A - It gets a good lead early
B - The costs for PS4/720 are much higher than expected from Rein's 'double what current gen is'
C - Third parties go bankrupt again on PS4/720 because they aren't making bank while Nintendo is

[Eternal Rain]

The main thing we can hope for right now is that the PS4 and Xbox 720 aren't as huge of a leap as some people are making them out to be. I'll kinda explain this in terms of PC games:

Xbox 720 and PS4 will be like a PC that can play games at highest settings. They'll have full AA, better textures, and possibly better speeds. Wii U will be more akin to a PC that can play games at Medium or a high Medium (high medium is something like minimal AA but still good antiscopic filtering and textures). As long as the difference in power is not large enough to where it makes porting impossible, then I think Wii U will avoid the Wii's problem of being so underpowered that devs don't want to spend the money to make a downgraded port (the only companies I can think of who were willing to do that were Treyarch with all of their CoD games, and Eidos with all the Tomb Raider games from this past gen, and those actually turned out really well).

I've used this comparison a thousand times already but I'll say it again: if the difference in power is similar to the PlayStation 2 vs the Xbox and Gamecube then we'll be fine. PS2 had a weaker CPU and GPU and still got plenty of ports, and even lots of games made for it first and then ported to other systems thanks to the lower costs of making the games on a lower end machine first. It seems like the winner of many console gens is usually always the system that's weaker in some respects (N64 had twice the raw power of the PS1, but was on in 2nd place thanks to it's dwindling 3rd party support, and PS2 is one of the best selling non-Nintendo consoles of all time).

Some of the problems we're seeing now with launch games could only be because most devs got finalized kits late, but some of these issues can probably be patched (like the texture issues in Batman). Launch games never give you the best indication of a system's true power, especially if a decent amount of these games are ports of previous gen titles, so you kinda just have to wait and see. Quake 4, a launch game on the Xbox 360, had really bad framerate problems despite running off of the same engine that powered Doom 3 and not looking that much better, but Halo 3, released two years later, had much better textures, lighting, detailing, and whatnot, and ran at a smooth framerate the whole time.

[gtt]

The difference between Quake 4 and Halo 3 was the extra time that had gone into creating a more optimized engine.
I wonder if Nintendo will make their own Wii U engine available to third parties? I believe Retro is making their own engine for whatever project they're working on. What I'm thinking is that if they can create a highly optimized engine for Wii U then allow third parties to utilize it that could help bring the overall quality of Wii U graphics/physics/frame rates up.
Retro my even by working on optimizing the Unreal Engine like they did for the Prime games, this would get a lot of the optimization work done upfront if they are.

there is only so much optimization you can do. at some point, you need to do more calculations in 1/60th of a second than a part can do.

[Eternal Rain]

I wonder if it'll be a Nintendo game or a third party game that'll first show us how much power the system can push. Most likely Nintendo, it's pretty much always a first or second party game that shows off how well to make use of a system's insides.

Best looking games on Ps1? Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Syphon Filter, and some more that were made by companies closely affiliated with Sony. Best looking on N64? Pretty much anything made by either Nintendo or Rare (games like Conker and Zelda). Same for this past gen. Best looking Xbox 360 titles were usually made by companies closest to Microsoft like Bungie or Rare (say what you will about the gameplay, but Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a pretty looking game), and now 343 Industries, and the best looking Wii games were usually from Nintendo (Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, DKC: Returns, Skyward Sword, etc).

Not saying third parties can't make games that look as good, but really it's pretty much always going to be the company that made the system in the first place who will put out the system's best looking games (especially if during the first year, like the Wii).