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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Wii U graphics power finally revealed - "we can now finally rule out any next-gen pretensions for the Wii U"

baph7667 on 06 February 2013
Podings said:
baph7667 said:

Wii U 7.5 Gen confirmed!  Just like Wii was a 6.5 Gen, Dreamcast a 5.5 gen, and 3DO and Jaguar 4.5 Gens.  Expect the next Ninty console in late 2015 about the time when Wii U's sales realy fall off due to all the Top Third Party titles being 720 and PS4 exclusives!

Where's the evidence to this though?

If it's in th same situation as the Wii, why wouldn't live as long as the Wii, or any other Nintendo system for that matter?

What you're saying is what Pachter said about Wii HD, which didn't actually happen.


The evidence is in the line in the article that says in comparison to the PS4 and 720 specs it's definitely not a Next Gen console.

 

Because it's not going to sell like Wii.  It will sell a lot more like the Gamecube than the Wii and the Gamecube was retired after ~3 1/2 years.



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Podings on 06 February 2013
baph7667 said:
Podings said:
baph7667 said:

Wii U 7.5 Gen confirmed!  Just like Wii was a 6.5 Gen, Dreamcast a 5.5 gen, and 3DO and Jaguar 4.5 Gens.  Expect the next Ninty console in late 2015 about the time when Wii U's sales realy fall off due to all the Top Third Party titles being 720 and PS4 exclusives!

Where's the evidence to this though?

If it's in th same situation as the Wii, why wouldn't live as long as the Wii, or any other Nintendo system for that matter?

What you're saying is what Pachter said about Wii HD, which didn't actually happen.


The evidence is in the line in the article that says in comparison to the PS4 and 720 specs it's definitely not a Next Gen console.

 

Because it's not going to sell like Wii.  It will sell a lot more like the Gamecube than the Wii and the Gamecube was retired after ~3 1/2 years.

 

Only it wasn't.

GameCube was release in fall 2001 in Japan and spring 2002 in Europe, the Wii was released for Christmas in 2006, giving the GameCube just about 5 years in all regions.

Nintendo even released a big game for it on the release date of the Wii (can you guess which one?,) and the GameCube continued to receive the annual multiplat sports updates until 2007.



curl-6 on 06 February 2013
Podings said:
ninjablade said:
black ops 2 ran sub hd on the wii u, just like 360 and ps3. i'm sure nintendo will make some nice looking games, i'm not sure they will be stunning us cause they are new to hd graphics and might need sometime to get used to it, many japanese devs failed to deliver amazing garphics in the hd era, i'm interested to see how nintendo games look.

Really? I can only seem to find evidence to the contrary. I'd very much appreciate a link to something about this.

 

I think many felt they had to appeal to western gamers on what was typically popular over here, so they stopped experimenting as mush with stylization, and their games became rather bland looking as a result. Hopefully even more power on competing systems will also have other developers worry less about tech and more about art.

Black Ops 2 on Wii runs in the same 720x880 resolution as the PS3 and 360 versions.

However, it's also running a second screen at 480x854, making for a total of 1,034,520 pixels on Wii U versus 633,600 on PS3/360. Plus the fact that the PS3/360 version is the result of 6-7 years of experience with the hardware while the Wii U is a launch title.



greenmedic88 on 06 February 2013

I'm a bit surprised, but then again not really now that the hard numbers and specs are available.

I had figured on HD4850 level GPU processing power while the ever optimistic were assuming HD4870, despite the fact that the 4870 alone draws more power (wattage) than the Wii U under load. So that was pretty pie in the sky.

In retrospect, even the 4850 guestimate was too optimistic and maybe I shouldn't be surprised as again, it draws about the same power (wattage), maybe a bit more than the Wii U.

At the bare minimum, we'll get to see the next gen of Nintendo games in HD, like many would have liked to have seen last gen.

On the flip side, this is going to make 8th gen ports an issue with 3rd party developers and I would not be surprised to see their releases aping that of the Wii's with respect to the PS3 and XB360.

At any rate, I would sincerely hope any optimistic talk about the processing potential and graphical prowess of the Wii-U can now be put to bed and the focus for Nintendo fans can return to the games themselves as was the case with the Wii.



baph7667 on 06 February 2013
Podings said:
baph7667 said:
Podings said:
baph7667 said:

Wii U 7.5 Gen confirmed!  Just like Wii was a 6.5 Gen, Dreamcast a 5.5 gen, and 3DO and Jaguar 4.5 Gens.  Expect the next Ninty console in late 2015 about the time when Wii U's sales realy fall off due to all the Top Third Party titles being 720 and PS4 exclusives!

Where's the evidence to this though?

If it's in th same situation as the Wii, why wouldn't live as long as the Wii, or any other Nintendo system for that matter?

What you're saying is what Pachter said about Wii HD, which didn't actually happen.


The evidence is in the line in the article that says in comparison to the PS4 and 720 specs it's definitely not a Next Gen console.

 

Because it's not going to sell like Wii.  It will sell a lot more like the Gamecube than the Wii and the Gamecube was retired after ~3 1/2 years.

 

Only it wasn't.

GameCube was release in fall 2001 in Japan and spring 2002 in Europe, the Wii was released for Christmas in 2006, giving the GameCube just about 5 years in all regions.

Nintendo even released a big game for it on the release date of the Wii (can you guess which one?,) and the GameCube continued to receive the annual multiplat sports updates until 2007.


It really shouldn't bother you Ninty fans too much that it's just a 7.5 like the Wii was a 6.5, etc were in their gens.  You'll still get new iterations of the the big Ninty franchises you guys and gals enjoy.  Meanwhile 720 and PS4 fans will get to enjoy all the Best True Next Gen games Exclusively on 720 and PS4 ( plus all the top 1st party games they enjoy from MS and Sony).



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Podings on 06 February 2013
baph7667 said:
It really shouldn't bother you Ninty fans too much that it's just a 7.5 like the Wii was a 6.5, etc were in their gens.  You'll still get new iterations of the the big Ninty franchises you guys and gals enjoy.  Meanwhile 720 and PS4 fans will get to enjoy all the Best True Next Gen games Exclusively on 720 and PS4 ( plus all the top 1st party games they enjoy from MS and Sony).

I'm not bothered. What you're saying has nothing to do with what we were talking about, though.

I'm not arguing against where you want to place Wii U in the generations. You were just stating random wrong facts and baseless assumptions, and I wanted to help you out a bit.



RazorDragon on 06 February 2013
greenmedic88 said:
I'm a bit surprised, but then again not really now that the hard numbers and specs are available.

I had figured on HD4850 level GPU processing power while the ever optimistic were assuming HD4870, despite the fact that the 4870 alone draws more power (wattage) than the Wii U under load. So that was pretty pie in the sky.

In retrospect, even the 4850 guestimate was too optimistic and maybe I shouldn't be surprised as again, it draws about the same power (wattage), maybe a bit more than the Wii U.

At the bare minimum, we'll get to see the next gen of Nintendo games in HD, like many would have liked to have seen last gen.

On the flip side, this is going to make 8th gen ports an issue with 3rd party developers and I would not be surprised to see their releases aping that of the Wii's with respect to the PS3 and XB360.

At any rate, I would sincerely hope any optimistic talk about the processing potential and graphical prowess of the Wii-U can now be put to bed and the focus for Nintendo fans can return to the games themselves as was the case with the Wii.

Actually, there will be no problem making 8th gen ports on Wii U. The last gen was an extreme case, fixed-function GPU(Wii) vs programmable shaders(360/PS3). The reason Wii didn't receive most of the 3rd party games was because engines that worked with programmable shader don't work in a fixed-function GPU, so that made ports costlier, because it would be necessary to create a new engine to make Wii games. In this 8th gen, the case will be programmable shaders vs programmable shaders and focus on GPGPU, so no problems to run 3rd party games at all, is just a question of adjusting the game from "high settings" to "low settings". Just like the PS3 and 360 got ports of Battlefield 3 PC, Wii U will be able to get ports from PS4/Nextbox.



o_O.Q on 06 February 2013
richardhutnik said:
pezus said:
Metallicube said:

I don't know what exactly people are expecting Sony and MS's next console graphics to look like, but I can guarantee they won't look that much better than Wii U. Sure there will be a huge gap in horsepower as there was this gen, but graphics are getting to the point where there won't be that big of a noticable change to the human eye, at least not to warrant the extra money their next consoles will probably cost. At best, you'll get probably more enemies on screen at once, and detailed shaders/textures and things like that. 

People keep saying this over but it's simply not true. Graphics could improve SO much it's (ironically) unbelievable. Not only the graphics, but also physics can be drastically improved (seriously, physics today in games are mostly crap or nonexistent), AI (same here...) and so on. We are nowhere close to the top leve.

AI maybe, but exactly what does better physics mean for a game being controlled with a pad controller?  And, exactly how does buffing up the graphics engine end up meaning better physics for gameplay?

As for the physics point, which game plays better, Super Mario Bros. or LittleBigPlanet?  And guess which one has better physics?

what does physics in game have to do with the controller used?

 

"exactly how does buffing up the graphics engine end up meaning better physics for gameplay?"

to my knowledge no one said so but obviously more power at hand can lead to more complex physics in addition to better graphics ( i believe that to be the point )

 

"As for the physics point, which game plays better, Super Mario Bros. or LittleBigPlanet?  "

tbh i don't think i've ever seen a more pointless comparison, the developers of lbp chose a certain style for the game and sackboys jumps reflect that

that's like me asking you which game physics wise is  better gt or mario kart?

regardless of that we all know the ps3 and 360 are capable of more complex physics than the wii because of the tech inside them, comparing a single game from a vast library of games from either console and the wii's library does nothing to change that



richardhutnik on 06 February 2013
BlueFalcon said:
richardhutnik said:
And checking the prices.  Say all that is true.  So, you will end up getting people on here talking about THE POWA!  And then average folks looke at $400-$500 range and go, "ARE YOU FREAKING NUTS!"  Do people seriously expect to get sufficient numbers of sales at the $400-$500 range to be able to turn the current sagging generation software sales around?

The 'average' folks are what's killing gaming in general - dumbed-down mainstream games with a focus on QTEs and cinematics over gameplay, short SP campaigns, truckloads of DLC/Season Passes, rehashed sequels, health regeneration in games, most games are way too easy, etc. All of this started once consoles went mainstream. If these so called 'average' mainstream gamers stopped buying consoles because they are too expensive for them, only the hardcore gamers would remain. Ironically, console gaming would be better anyway.

These 'average' consumers have no problems with buying $300 tablets and iPhones on a 2-year contract but then complain about $400-450 prices for next gen consoles. If they don't want next gen consoles, let them leave so developers focus more efforts on fewer high quality games like was the case in the past. Steam does just fine with a much smaller # of PC gamers (50 million users), which means you don't need a base of 240 million consoles to be profitable. If companies are spending $130+ million on developing a game and then $150 million on marketing it, they are doing it wrong. When small studios like Crytek and CD Projekt Red were able to make stunning games on small budgets (Crysis 1, Witcher 2), there are no excuses why great games cannot be made for a fraction of COD Blacks Ops 2 budget. The indie PC developers are thriving, which lands more evidence you can make good games for 1/10th the cost. Trine 2 - awesome game made by a small studio.

In the context of historical console pricing, $400-450 isn't that expensive assuming the hardware is next generation and there are new exciting games/IPs that take advantage of new technology.

If people don't want to pay $400-450+ for a next generation console, they can always wait 2 years for prices to drop. This is actually not a bad idea since bugs get worked out and the console's gaming library expands.

The funny part is the same people who complain about $400+ hardware don't talk about what is often an greater cost of console ownership over its useful life -- software. For instance, games like COD:BO2 cost $59.99 and then come with $30-40 of DLC. Borderlands 2 was what $59.99 and had $29.99 of Season Pass?

The average person in NA doesn't even blink at $60 a month + $199-299 2-year smartphone plans but then complains about spending $400 on a console that will last 6-7 years with 0 upgrades. The same people also pony up $ for Xbox Live Gold fees and amass a collection of 50+ videogames over 6-7 years. If someone purchased Xbox 360 on launch day and paid $40-50 a year on Xbox Live, by now they would have spent $280-350 on Xbox Live alone.

On another note, when Xbox 360 250GB bundle (a 7+ year old console) is still selling for $299.99, it's mind-boggling people are complaining about possibly paying $400-450 for next gen consoles. 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Microsoft+-+Xbox+360+250GB+Bundle/6693058.p?id=1218782894450&skuId=6693058&st=xbox%20360%20250gb&cp=1&lp=2

I am guessing mathematics and capital budgeting decisions are not strong points of the average console gamer!

Furthermore, videogaming is among the cheapest hobbies, compared to just about anything else out there. The average family spends > $400 on attending a single Football game. What about learning to play sports like tennis, golf, skiing/snowboarding? All way more expensive than videogaming. Gun ownership/shooting range, learning how to fly a plane, sailing, traveling, photography, wine tasting/China collecting? All more expensive than console gaming.

We are back to the casuals issue and what ends up making up the bulk of the sales.  People end up using tablets and smart phones as a need, with this, comes games at a much lower price point to.  When this ends up sucking off revenues, you are going to get "NO WAY AM I SPENDING AN ADDITIONAL $400 FOR VIDEOGAMES!"  That is the reality now.  You can speak of historically this or that, but reality is that it is different now, with viable alternatives out there.  And I did delete the graphs to save space.

On that note, do you SERIOUSLY think Nintendo released at $350 on the high end, out of giggles, and because they wanted to be cheap?  They had to do research and see that is as much as the market can bear.  And the issue here isn't horsepower.  Do you SERIOUSLY think the average person thinks they need additional horsepower, so they can then drop $400-$500 or more?  How big is the power PC gamer market?  There is a market out there already that goes into gaming rigs.  That market is not that large.  It is viable.  

Reality, there is cheaper to play options out there, per game experience, than consoles.



ninjablade on 06 February 2013

for anybody asking about blops 2 on wiiu it was the worst version by far http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-black-ops-2-wii-u-face-off read.