By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U specs and performance matter, and Nintendo knows this

selnor said:
Soundwave said:

There will be a pretty significant gap between the Wii U and PS4/720, what we know of the leaked PS4/720 specs show them to be well beyond the Wii U.

It may not be quite as bad as last gen, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pretty large difference.

A lot of hardcore gamers are already biased against Nintendo to begin with, lets be honest, so that doesn't help either. 

If a game like Star Wars 1313 is available on Wii U, 720/PS4 ... and 720/PS4 versions run at 1080p + better graphical effects, higher poly count, higher frame rate, etc. not many people are going to buy the Wii U version, then the excuses from developers will start ("oh the Wii U version didn't sell great, so we're pulling resources away from it"), etc. etc.

This is all so predictable, happens to Nintendo over and over (and over) again.

if the rumours are true about Wii U specs and 720 then the gap will be bigger next gen than this.

Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max.

Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz.

Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p.

Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii.

But those are rumours and we will wait and see.

I can't really comment on the other rumors as I haven't been following them, but the bolded sounds quite far-fetched to me. I mean it's probably going to be at least 5 years from now before you can go into your average electronics store and find a 2160p TV at all, and it will probably be 10 years before people start buying them at the rate they were with 1080p back in 2006.



Around the Network
Soundwave said:
wfz said:
Graphical fidelity and raw power are the most important aspects of video games. That's why the biggest growth area in the gaming industry (for consumers and developers) is the mobile sector, because the mobile devices have the strongest computing power.

Oh, wait a minute...

 

If anything the explosion of mobile gaming has hurt Nintendo. They opened Pandora's Box and profited immensely from it for a few years, but what cell phones have done is co-opt that experience and cheapen it down to a $1-$2 price point and flooded the market with all sorts of Brain Training/crossword puzzle/etc. style apps.

And we've seen pretty dramatic leaps in processing power for cell phone devices in the span of 5 years.

That's why Nintendo is now trying to find some kind of middle ground, by trying to come back towards the core market, where whether you want to admit it or not, visual fidelity definintely matters. Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 are pretty high end visual engines.

If that's not important, then why not just make another 'Just Dance/Wii Sports' console and cut the chipset in half and pocket the profit margin? Because Nintendo knows they can only get so far on that style of gaming (see also: Wii sales falling off a cliff the last two years).


Because Nintendo know Wii was lightning in a bottle and they can't just replicated that again as they please?

Also console sales falling in the last couple of years is the norm for consoles, especially when the company that did most of the supporting has moved on to making software for their new consoles (3DS and WiiU).



selnor said:
Soundwave said:

There will be a pretty significant gap between the Wii U and PS4/720, what we know of the leaked PS4/720 specs show them to be well beyond the Wii U.

It may not be quite as bad as last gen, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pretty large difference.

A lot of hardcore gamers are already biased against Nintendo to begin with, lets be honest, so that doesn't help either. 

If a game like Star Wars 1313 is available on Wii U, 720/PS4 ... and 720/PS4 versions run at 1080p + better graphical effects, higher poly count, higher frame rate, etc. not many people are going to buy the Wii U version, then the excuses from developers will start ("oh the Wii U version didn't sell great, so we're pulling resources away from it"), etc. etc.

This is all so predictable, happens to Nintendo over and over (and over) again.

if the rumours are true about Wii U specs and 720 then the gap will be bigger next gen than this.

Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max.

Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz.

Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p.

Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii.

But those are rumours and we will wait and see.

720 is said to have alot of RAM with a good chunk being for OS, multimedia and multi-tasking. It's probably going to have 2-2.5x the RAM of WiiU dedicated to gaming and that's not a gap bigger than this gen at all. That's more similar to a PS2 vs Xbox gap in RAM.

The 720 will no doubt have a better CPu than WiiU, but once again won't be the same gap as wii vs 360.

You'd be lucky to get 1080P as a standard next gen, don't know why you're pulling 1440p - 2140p out of thin air.

 

Wii was an overclocked GC, which meant it it used tech from the late 90s. It didn't even support programmable shaders.

WiiU won't be the same situation. Saying the gap will be bigger than this gen was in just an outright lie. It won't be anywhere as big.




Viper1 said:
darkknightkryta said:
I still think Nintendo gambled wrong when showing off their third party support. It's not necessarily bad that Batman, Mass Effect, etc are getting ported over, but that's the problem: nothing new. I think once Watch Dogs, or the new Star Wars games gets shown off, most people can stop arguing (Assuming they get shown off).

This is because their initial information release is targeted solely at current Wii owners.  They plan to target current HD console owners over the next couple of months.  That is where you'll see things not yet announced that will interest PS3/X360 owners.


But logic suggests that the vast majority of wii owners who would've been interested in a game like ME3 or Batman would have already purchased a 360/ps3 in the last few years.



Soundwave said:

There will be a pretty significant gap between the Wii U and PS4/720, what we know of the leaked PS4/720 specs show them to be well beyond the Wii U.

It may not be quite as bad as last gen, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pretty large difference.

A lot of hardcore gamers are already biased against Nintendo to begin with, lets be honest, so that doesn't help either. 

If a game like Star Wars 1313 is available on Wii U, 720/PS4 ... and 720/PS4 versions run at 1080p + better graphical effects, higher poly count, higher frame rate, etc. not many people are going to buy the Wii U version, then the excuses from developers will start ("oh the Wii U version didn't sell great, so we're pulling resources away from it"), etc. etc.

This is all so predictable, happens to Nintendo over and over (and over) again.


In theoritical performance there may be a significant gap between the Wii U and the other next generation consoles, in real world results I would highly doubt it ...

If the rumoured hardware of the Wii U is (roughly) accurate, the Wii U should be able to play most current HD console games with modest visual improvements at 1080p@60fps. If developers focused on enhanced graphics there should be a significant jump in quality (compared to current HD console games) by dropping the resolution to 720p and focusing on a frame rate of 30fps; if Sony and Microsoft go really high end on their systems, release a year or two later at $100 or $200 more expensive, they might be able to produce a system that can consistently play these games with moderate graphical improvements at 1080p@60fps.

Ultimately, publishers are going to target the largest audience they can and I doubt you would see the additional performance of Sony or Microsoft's consoles being used for anything other than higher resolution, 3DTV output, or a faster framerate; and to the typical consumer these differences are not important.



Around the Network
teigaga said:
Viper1 said:
darkknightkryta said:
I still think Nintendo gambled wrong when showing off their third party support. It's not necessarily bad that Batman, Mass Effect, etc are getting ported over, but that's the problem: nothing new. I think once Watch Dogs, or the new Star Wars games gets shown off, most people can stop arguing (Assuming they get shown off).

This is because their initial information release is targeted solely at current Wii owners.  They plan to target current HD console owners over the next couple of months.  That is where you'll see things not yet announced that will interest PS3/X360 owners.


But logic suggests that the vast majority of wii owners who would've been interested in a game like ME3 or Batman would have already purchased a 360/ps3 in the last few years.

Unless they have a computer capable of playing them.

Or in my case waiting till I have a computer capable of playing them, i'm not in any rush.



Soundwave said:
wfz said:
Graphical fidelity and raw power are the most important aspects of video games. That's why the biggest growth area in the gaming industry (for consumers and developers) is the mobile sector, because the mobile devices have the strongest computing power.

Oh, wait a minute...

 

If anything the explosion of mobile gaming has hurt Nintendo. They opened Pandora's Box and profited immensely from it for a few years, but what cell phones have done is co-opt that experience and cheapen it down to a $1-$2 price point and flooded the market with all sorts of Brain Training/crossword puzzle/etc. style apps.

And we've seen pretty dramatic leaps in processing power for cell phone devices in the span of 5 years.

That's why Nintendo is now trying to find some kind of middle ground, by trying to come back towards the core market, where whether you want to admit it or not, visual fidelity definintely matters. Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 are pretty high end visual engines.

If that's not important, then why not just make another 'Just Dance/Wii Sports' console and cut the chipset in half and pocket the profit margin? Because Nintendo knows they can only get so far on that style of gaming (see also: Wii sales falling off a cliff the last two years).

This is where I dazzle and amaze you by informing you of the revelation that I never said graphics and power weren't important in my above post.


Shazam!



selnor said:
Soundwave said:

There will be a pretty significant gap between the Wii U and PS4/720, what we know of the leaked PS4/720 specs show them to be well beyond the Wii U.

It may not be quite as bad as last gen, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pretty large difference.

A lot of hardcore gamers are already biased against Nintendo to begin with, lets be honest, so that doesn't help either. 

If a game like Star Wars 1313 is available on Wii U, 720/PS4 ... and 720/PS4 versions run at 1080p + better graphical effects, higher poly count, higher frame rate, etc. not many people are going to buy the Wii U version, then the excuses from developers will start ("oh the Wii U version didn't sell great, so we're pulling resources away from it"), etc. etc.

This is all so predictable, happens to Nintendo over and over (and over) again.

if the rumours are true about Wii U specs and 720 then the gap will be bigger next gen than this.

Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max.

Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz.

Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p.

Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii.

But those are rumours and we will wait and see.

"Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max."

" Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz. "

Looks like most of the ram and CPU power on the x720 is reserved for OS(windows 8)/multimedia features (like heavy multitasking etc), at least 2GBs won't be usable for games.  As for the CPU, no, the WiiU CPU isn't rumoured to be 3.2ghz, it's a lower clock CPU. The most important aspect on the CPU is the architecture and not the number of cores.

"Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p."

Not going to happen. That's why I ask people to go read neogaf and stop making assumptions. It's VERY expensive for devs to put 1080p at 60fps for big budget games. Also, the consensus on neogaf is that we won't even have a lot of 1080p 60fps games next gen due to hardware limitations and expensive costs. And the big difference is between 480->720p->1080p, above 1080p is simply useless and the difference is very small, you can count the number of pixels if you want.

"Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii."

No, they aren't. x360 was 20x more powerful than Wii and you had an SD->HD transition. In order to provide the same difference, x720 needs a 12TFlops GPU, which is just not going to happen. Looks like x720 will be 3~4x more powerful than WiiU so far.

I am sorry if I am being rude but you don't know what youre talking about. Even if it's 8gbs of ram for games alone + CPU focused on games it won't be even close to what we had in the Wii situation. I recommend you to do a research before you talk about it.



teigaga said:
Viper1 said:

This is because their initial information release is targeted solely at current Wii owners.  They plan to target current HD console owners over the next couple of months.  That is where you'll see things not yet announced that will interest PS3/X360 owners.

But logic suggests that the vast majority of wii owners who would've been interested in a game like ME3 or Batman would have already purchased a 360/ps3 in the last few years.

While logic may say that, and to some extent I agree, it does make some sense to classify your audience in 2 categories: Wii only owners and everyone else. 

I do believe they should have swapped around the venues used to present information for those targeted audience.  By that I mean they should have used E3 to target the 'everyone else' crowd and used smaller venues and such to taret the 'Wii only' crowd.

selnor said:

if the rumours are true about Wii U specs and 720 then the gap will be bigger next gen than this.

Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max.

Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz.

Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p.

Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii.

But those are rumours and we will wait and see.

Not only are they rumors but they are largely false on their face.  Nor would it even exceed the gap as found between Wii and X360/PS3 as the gap was not just the gulf between tech specs but the architectures involved.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

Play4Fun said:
selnor said:
Soundwave said:

There will be a pretty significant gap between the Wii U and PS4/720, what we know of the leaked PS4/720 specs show them to be well beyond the Wii U.

It may not be quite as bad as last gen, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pretty large difference.

A lot of hardcore gamers are already biased against Nintendo to begin with, lets be honest, so that doesn't help either. 

If a game like Star Wars 1313 is available on Wii U, 720/PS4 ... and 720/PS4 versions run at 1080p + better graphical effects, higher poly count, higher frame rate, etc. not many people are going to buy the Wii U version, then the excuses from developers will start ("oh the Wii U version didn't sell great, so we're pulling resources away from it"), etc. etc.

This is all so predictable, happens to Nintendo over and over (and over) again.

if the rumours are true about Wii U specs and 720 then the gap will be bigger next gen than this.

Wii U rumoured 1.5 gb ram. 720 rumoured 4gb minimum 6gb max.

Wii U rumoured 3 core 3.2ghz. 720 rumoured 12 core 3.2ghz.

Wii U maybe able to 1080p most games as native atandard. 720 1440p - 2140p.

Those figures are much broader than 360 - Wii.

But those are rumours and we will wait and see.

720 is said to have alot of RAM with a good chunk being for OS, multimedia and multi-tasking. It's probably going to have 2-2.5x the RAM of WiiU dedicated to gaming and that's not a gap bigger than this gen at all. That's more similar to a PS2 vs Xbox gap in RAM.

The 720 will no doubt have a better CPu than WiiU, but once again won't be the same gap as wii vs 360.

You'd be lucky to get 1080P as a standard next gen, don't know why you're pulling 1440p - 2140p out of thin air.

 

Wii was an overclocked GC, which meant it it used tech from the late 90s. It didn't even support programmable shaders.

WiiU won't be the same situation. Saying the gap will be bigger than this gen was in just an outright lie. It won't be anywhere as big.


Its all rumours yes.

But saying the 720 will dedicate the sort of ram you think to OS etc has no basis.

the 360 and microsoft have been praised on the 360 for using such minimal resources for its OS etc. Even though te OS does more than the competition this gen.

I expect next gen to be no different.

My point. I expect Wii U to be behind just the same as the Wii was this gen. Based on rumoured specs of 720. If indeed the claim the dev kits are 12 gb ram for 720, 6 gb ram ( ram being the biggest draw back of 360 & PS3 claimed by devs ) it should help the 720 to be able to achieve alot more than wii u.