Developers discuss the next-gen nature of the Wii U

[robometal cowboy]

Developers discuss the next-gen nature of the Wii U
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ZombiU senior scriptwriter Gabrielle Shrager:

“Next-gen? Or Next-next-gen? Depends what you mean by that. With the Wii U, Nintendo has definitely recognized the importance of fast chips speeds and cutting-edge graphics, but that is not the hart and soul of the machine.”

Frozenbyte’s Mikael Haveri:

“Wii U is next-gen in the way the Wii was. Clearly revolutionary in many ways, but possibly slightly less on the pure power side. It is a reasonable guess that the next round of competition will trump the specs by a bit, but the important question is if they will also implement a touch interface. So in this way the GamePad is the most important new addition, clearly combining the console experience with the now-very-popular tablets. All of the games are designed whit the GamePad as an integral part, and if that proves to be even nearly as popular as the Wii Remote, then Nintendo might actually define next gen.”

FIFA 13 line producer Matt Prior:

“The Wii U is an exciting new piece of hardware that offer opportunities that other consoles can’t, simply because of the uniqueness of the platform, in particular the GamePad. We wanted to ensure that we utilized that uniqueness and delivered features that utilized the GamePad, not just in a gimmicky way but in ways that added real value and improvements to the game. Just as important, we wanted to use the power of the GamePad to open up the game to more gamers. Graphically, the Wii U is on par with the Xbox 360 and PS3, and we were even able to make some key graphical improvements.”

Mass Effect 3 external producer Melanie Faulknor:

“The way that the GamePad works, where you can take the game that you’re playing on the TV and instantly transition it onto the GamePad, I think that in itself is going to become a household standard, because if you are sharing a television, this constant fight for the TV is no longer an issue.”

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[LegendofSantiago]

The gamepad is amazing, easily the best controller I have ever used. I can't say much about it's garphical capabilities, but it should be able to surpass what other consoles can do, even if it's not by much. Seeing as I just got an HD TV for gaming that's enough for me, I'm looking forward to seeing what Nintendo will be able to pull off with it in terms of visuals and gameplay

[Entity]

The gamepad is amazing, easily the best controller I have ever used. I can't say much about it's garphical capabilities, but it should be able to surpass what other consoles can do, even if it's not by much. Seeing as I just got an HD TV for gaming that's enough for me, I'm looking forward to seeing what Nintendo will be able to pull off with it in terms of visuals and gameplay

Let's see what Retro has up their sleeves. And from what I have seen from Rayman Legends, I sure can imagine Ubisoft do some magic further down the line. Capcom can usually push hardware pretty far. I guess that from a year from now we'll see better looking games.

[RD3AV5]

The gamepad is amazing, easily the best controller I have ever used. I can't say much about it's garphical capabilities, but it should be able to surpass what other consoles can do, even if it's not by much. Seeing as I just got an HD TV for gaming that's enough for me, I'm looking forward to seeing what Nintendo will be able to pull off with it in terms of visuals and gameplay

Let's see what Retro has up their sleeves. And from what I have seen from Rayman Legends, I sure can imagine Ubisoft do some magic further down the line. Capcom can usually push hardware pretty far. I guess that from a year from now we'll see better looking games.

Absolutely. People tend to forget how "not so great" looking the launch games were for 360/PS3, and I have been pleasantly happy with the graphical capabilities for the Wii U launch titles.

[shmuga9]

Let's see what Retro has up their sleeves. And from what I have seen from Rayman Legends, I sure can imagine Ubisoft do some magic further down the line. Capcom can usually push hardware pretty far. I guess that from a year from now we'll see better looking games.

I don't own it, but I've seen gameplay footage of Resident Evil Revelations and the game looks great! The models are very clean and every other 3DS game that comes I hold it up against RE:R and unfortunately they do not look that good against a lot of games (not the big third parties though, they do look good very good).

[Entity]

Remember what Red Steel looked like? Pretty crap compared to Red Steel 2 Just saying!

[metalpants]

Between Trine 2, Nintendo Land, and Arkham City I'd say all my graphical power worries have vanished. Epic said that UE 4 is "supremely scalable" (even to iPhone level) which obviously means Wii U can use it. But if UE 3.9 is any indication ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhhlt8 ... OEY3WyoE4c ) and Arkham City already gives off that UE 3.9 kind of vibe, then I expect Wii U games to look incredible down the line.

[shingi70]

Between Trine 2, Nintendo Land, and Arkham City I'd say all my graphical power worries have vanished. Epic said that UE 4 is "supremely scalable" (even to iPhone level) which obviously means Wii U can use it. But if UE 3.9 is any indication ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhhlt8 ... OEY3WyoE4c ) and Arkham City already gives off that UE 3.9 kind of vibe, then I expect Wii U games to look incredible down the line.

Two ports and nintendoland aren't the best indication of it. Also epic still is just saying that unreal 3 is good enough for the Wii U which is sad.

I dunno I guess having 3.9 is fine but with rumors of Microsoft working with unreal4 for launch titles it doesn't make me confident of the Wii U's longevity.



Hopefully I'm wrong,

[andrelol3]

I think I'm going to write a tutorial explaining "how to ask questions", because these journalists don't know how to do it.

Lesson 1: How to ask if the Wii U is a next-gen console or not.

- So, the Wii U a next-gen console? Look, I don't wanna know about the Gamepad, I don't wanna about the philosophy behind your game, I just want to know if the Wii U can do better visuals than the Xbox 360 and PS3. How powerful is it?

Lesson 2: How to interview Reggie.

- So, Reggie, Xenoblade sold very well and Last Story was the biggest commercial success of XSEED Games. And, as a bonus, these two titles didn't have any kind of marketing here. You didn't spend one cent to promote them. So, I think that it's absolutety clear that Japanese games can sell very well here. With the Wii U, are still going to support Japanese games? It's a YES or NO question. If your answer is NO, tell me why, what's your reason act this way? Because, c'mon, you don't even need to translate the freakin' games, Nintendo Europe always do this for us. So, why you still don't want to release them? Why?

- Ok, Reggie, we didn't get Disaster, we didn't get Pandora's Tower, we didn't get Fatal Frame 4 and Fatal Frame 2 Remake. When are you going to release these games in HD for the Wii U? I'm not asking if you are going to do this, I'm asking WHEN are you going to do it? These would sell well, the Wii U don't have many games, so it's easy money for you and great games for us. When are you going to do it?

That's how a real journalists should act. Ask want the people want to know.

[void3953]

Two ports and nintendoland aren't the best indication of it. Also epic still is just saying that unreal 3 is good enough for the Wii U which is sad.

I dunno I guess having 3.9 is fine but with rumors of Microsoft working with unreal4 for launch titles it doesn't make me confident of the Wii U's longevity.



Hopefully I'm wrong,

I think he was saying that he was happy with how those ports turned out and that he's expecting even better in the future.

As for UE4, that's an issue with Epic. See, Nintendo isn't one to push hardware and Epic makes most of their money from selling engines that need that extra power in order to sell. Without that power, there would be no reason for UE4 to exist let alone for any developers to actually pay for it. That's why they don't want to bring it to Wii U. Not because it can't handle it but because Nintendo isn't pushing the power angle and without that angle UE is kind of pointless.

The reason it's on phones, even though it's not going to be the same engine, not really, is because they know that a lot of smaller developers don't have the funds to make their own engines and that at the speed that graphics are developing on phones it's going to be even harder for them to keep up as time goes on. So they release a cut down version because they're trying to get in on the ground floor of what they hope will be a very lucrative market. Of course someone forgot to mention to them that phone advancements are going to start slowing to a crawl unless someone comes up with a major breakthrough in battery life soon.

Either way everyone knows the engine would run perfectly fine on the Wii U, but they don't want to port it because they don't see it selling well enough, which is simply idiotic but when your product depends on power alone to sell you tend to do stupid things.

[Entity]

@andrelol3

Don't think Disaster sold any good. And from the looks of it, neither is Pandora's Tower. Nice game though.

And from you grammar I don't think you should pick up journalism Let's game!

[rahnyc4]

pretty sad that nintendo didn't future proof its console. make the console a step above xbox 360 and ps3 by making it be more stable and handle multiplatform games is a much more efficient way. same with the 3ds, which i think should of had a higher resolution than what it has now. nintendo personally in my opinion make bad decisions.

[RD3AV5]

pretty sad that nintendo didn't future proof its console. make the console a step above xbox 360 and ps3 by making it be more stable and handle multiplatform games is a much more efficient way. same with the 3ds, which i think should of had a higher resolution than what it has now. nintendo personally in my opinion make bad decisions.

Them having over $10 billion in cash and Wii/DS dominating everything else last gen may say otherwise about "bad decisions".

[andrelol3]

@andrelol3

Don't think Disaster sold any good. And from the looks of it, neither is Pandora's Tower. Nice game though.

And from you grammar I don't think you should pick up journalism Let's game!

These two games didn't get any marketing in Europe, so, yeah, bad sales are expected. With some marketing they could sell very well. Last Story, for example, didn't do very well in Europe, but it sold a lot more here (and it was publish by a very small company). How about that?

And I'm sorry to inform you, but I'm not a native English speaker, I don't live an English speaking country, what a wrote was comment on the Internet not a formal text (so I didn't review it) and I'm not aiming to be a journalist in a English speaking country; so, yeah, don't worry about my grammar, people can understand what I write just fine.

And just to let you know, what you did there talking about my writing is called "argumentum ad hominem". I don't think you should be doing that, it's pretty stupid.

[RD3AV5]

@andrelol3

Don't think Disaster sold any good. And from the looks of it, neither is Pandora's Tower. Nice game though.

And from you grammar I don't think you should pick up journalism Let's game!

These two games didn't get any marketing in Europe, so, yeah, bad sales are expected. With some marketing they could sell very well. Last Story, for example, didn't do very well in Europe, but it sold a lot more here (and it was publish by a very small company). How about that?

And I'm sorry to inform you, but I'm not a native English speaker, I don't live an English speaking country, what a wrote was comment on the Internet not a formal text (so I didn't review it) and I'm not aiming to be a journalist in a English speaking country; so, yeah, don't worry about my grammar, people can understand what I write just fine.

And just to let you know, what you did there talking about my writing is called "argumentum ad hominem". I don't think you should be doing that, it's pretty stupid.

Most people don't understand what it's like to have to communicate in a different language and they don't know how hard it is. Great job on your English thus far and keep it up.

[kdognumba1]

I'd like to see what Retro and Monolith are doing and I'd also like to see what we can expect to see in the future on the hardware when developers are making full use of the system, rather then quick ports and games rushed for launch.

I know for a fact what we've seen so far doesn't really use the gpu/cpu combo the way the system was designed to, so I'm personally really looking forward to seeing what's next.

[MetroidMan5000]

Sadly, most people do not consider the Wii U to be next gen. In fact, I STILL get surprised expressions when people find out I play games like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed on the "Wii."
And other gamers just laugh.


Nintendo really hurt themselves with the casual movement but I still support them and hope the general population comes around.

On another note, I'm really tired of people saying Rayman Origins is a title that shows the power of the Wii U.
Yes, it's beautiful but don't fool yourselves. It's a 2D platformer. A game like that could be made in Flash or HTML 5.

[Entity]

@andrelol3

Don't think Disaster sold any good. And from the looks of it, neither is Pandora's Tower. Nice game though.

And from you grammar I don't think you should pick up journalism Let's game!

These two games didn't get any marketing in Europe, so, yeah, bad sales are expected. With some marketing they could sell very well. Last Story, for example, didn't do very well in Europe, but it sold a lot more here (and it was publish by a very small company). How about that?

And I'm sorry to inform you, but I'm not a native English speaker, I don't live an English speaking country, what a wrote was comment on the Internet not a formal text (so I didn't review it) and I'm not aiming to be a journalist in a English speaking country; so, yeah, don't worry about my grammar, people can understand what I write just fine.

And just to let you know, what you did there talking about my writing is called "argumentum ad hominem". I don't think you should be doing that, it's pretty stupid.

Hey! I didn't mean to insult you. Was just a bad joke. Please accept my apologies. Really.

I have no idea why The Last Story sold so poorly though (here in Europe. I live in Norway). It's a great game and there are loads of Wii owners who would dig that game. And Xenoblade. Darn I love that game. But did it sell enough?

Anyways, back on-topic: The U is the first console in the next-gen, yes! End of story. Doesn't matter about the specs, Nintendo have started this-gen (now).


@ MetroidMan5000

Rayman is NOT the proof of hard specs on the U, but it shows that developers like UBi are already starting to understand some aspects of the system. Ancel was praising the memory and the GPU, so there might be something there? Give developers like those I mentioned a year, or even two, and we'll see better looking games (and not rushed for release). I know....We all know that Retro will be bringing some shiny eye-candy when we finally see their game! By that time we will have at least one more console on the market that will be somewhat stronger. But will those new consoles really be that much stronger than last-gen (PS360, since Wii U is this gen now )

[stoopeed]

I think I'm going to write a tutorial explaining "how to ask questions", because these journalists don't know how to do it.

Lesson 1: How to ask if the Wii U is a next-gen console or not.

- So, the Wii U a next-gen console? Look, I don't wanna know about the Gamepad, I don't wanna about the philosophy behind your game, I just want to know if the Wii U can do better visuals than the Xbox 360 and PS3. How powerful is it?
(...)
That's how a real journalists should act. Ask want the people want to know.

I don't like that aproach to interviewing people, like they owe you something. If I was a developer and some 19 year old blog writer came to me like that, I'd say "no more questions from this gentleman" and talk to journalists with social skills instead.

By the way, if you go into a thread all talking large ("I'm going to write a tutorial", "these journalists don't know how to do it", "that's how real journalists should act") you can't act like a shrinking violet if someone comments on your writing skills.

[MetroidMan5000]

@ MetroidMan5000

Rayman is NOT the proof of hard specs on the U, but it shows that developers like UBi are already starting to understand some aspects of the system. Ancel was praising the memory and the GPU, so there might be something there? Give developers like those I mentioned a year, or even two, and we'll see better looking games (and not rushed for release). I know....We all know that Retro will be bringing some shiny eye-candy when we finally see their game! By that time we will have at least one more console on the market that will be somewhat stronger. But will those new consoles really be that much stronger than last-gen (PS360, since Wii U is this gen now )

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. I love Ubi for supporting the Wii U. I just got AC3 and plan on buying ZombiU this week as well as Rayman when it comes out.

I just think it makes us look silly when we're running around using a 2D platformer as our claim to power.

[BowsersLoveChild]

I recognise this from Games TM; I picked it up as it was the Wii U launch issue, and it's mostly one of the more reasonable publications out there. However, their articles of late have been disappointing to me, as have those of EDGE, as have those of Gamesmaster & CVG. I don't know why the games journalism world is so focused on power that they actually believe Wii U has no grunt behind it, and is a simple step up from current systems. Every issue of said publications I have read makes clear sweeping generalisations about specs and such (even Games TM stated that Rayman will have NFC features when it's not confirmed), to the point that by the time they are out, they are DEAD wrong. They use terms like 'embarrass' and 'steam-roll' when describing the next wave of consoles to hit, without even knowing the score with that hardware, not even 1%.

The Wii U does things differently. For gawd's sake it has enough power to run 2 screens, relies more on the GPU, out of order execution etc..... People need to give things a chance. It's no wonder the gaming world is turning on journalism they way it is, it seems filled with non-veterans and power whoring children of the 360.

[kevynwight]

It's clearly 8th Generation in terms of timing. See the Wikipedia entry about console generations. However, I also think it's clearly within the realm of PS3 and 360 graphical prowess. It shows the effects of a few years' advancement -- more / slower RAM, faster GPGPU / slower CPU, nice tidy ICB, low power cosumption, etc.

But I think the evidence we've been presented with *SO FAR* shows it to be on par. Had it arrived in 2006, or had it been the Wii's hardware, it would have proven a worthy competitor to the others. Maybe upcoming first-party games will prove otherwise, but so far it seems to do about what the other machines do, with a 720p / 30fps / little to no anti-aliasing goal being common.

To be "next gen" in terms of power, I think, you're looking for nearly a level of magnitude increase. Somewhere on the order of 100% to 1000% as powerful. Give me 8 times the RAM (from 64MB to 512MB and from 512MB to 4GB *available for game content*), 8 times the fill rate, 8 times the polygon-handling, etc. The Wii U seems as if it might be 20% more powerful, far short of a doubling (100%) in power or a level of magnitude (1000%) increase in power. We'll see.

Of course we also don't know what an XBox 720 or PS4 game will look like. They could fall short of PC games and hardware you can go buy on 12/31/12. And in Nintendo's defense, it would have been quite a feat to handily leapfrog into XBox 720 territory in 2012 given that the Wii was about on par with the *first XBox*.

[void3953]

But I think the evidence we've been presented with *SO FAR* shows it to be on par.

- Wii U just released
- industry where developers don't take Nintendo hardware seriously
- running current PS360 software at launch
- AC3 cost a million or less to port (according to a Ubi rep who stated that none of their Wii U ports cost more than a million).

- 360 on it's 7th year
- PS3 on it's 6th year
- with early dev kits developers have had 8-9 years working with their hardware
- industry where anything Sony and MS do is taken seriously
- untold billions of dollars dumped into development
- high end games costing tens of millions of dollars to develop
- current games easily ported to Wii U at launch

Yeah...

It's certainly on par.

[Zanreo]

Lesson 1: How to ask if the Wii U is a next-gen console or not.

- So, the Wii U a next-gen console? Look, I don't wanna know about the Gamepad, I don't wanna about the philosophy behind your game, I just want to know if the Wii U can do better visuals than the Xbox 360 and PS3. How powerful is it?

but next-gen... doesn't only have to do with graphics?

(unless your post was sarcastic? I honestly can't tell)

[komicturtle92]

I'm not going to take anything EA says seriously or with any credibility. I say this because last year, they were ALL up Nintendo's ass. Then, they're silent. I believe that fallout between Nintendo and EA did happen, so any plans for some good support from that company is pretty much going to be nearly non-existant. Gearbox Software already confirmed that the Wii U is ahead, so this whole "on par" with PS360 isn't true and needs to be left behind. We're over that and it has already been proven.

Anyhow, in regards to Wii U 3rd Party support, I wish it was the same and amazing as it was on DS and currently 3DS. Nintendo's handhelds tend to get the better and best games (and support) vs their home console. If only that same mindset and confidence was applied to Nintendo's home consoles...