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

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U: If You'd Designed the Wii U, How Would You Make it More Appealing as a system/SKU?

Eddie_Raja said:
CarcharodonKraz said:
WagnerPaiva said:
500GB HDD: Instant buy for me. I hate that 32GB crap.


you know you can just buy an external hard drive right?  It helps them keep the cost of the system down and if you don't need the storage you don't have to add the price of a hard drive. 


THAT DOESN'T FIX THE ISSUE!  The Wii U can't be marketed with 32GB and then have a cheaper console with 100's of games and equal graphics sold for less right next to it!  People like to see bigger numbers when they spend more money.

Also devs have to assume most people will just have 8GB and as such games like BF3 will never come to it since they require multi GB updates.  

i'd say the hard drive isn't the issue then.  The gamepad and games are SUPPOSED to be the reason for you to spend more, but obviously the pricepoint isn't right.  Also, does battlefield really have multi gig updates to the main game?  or are you just talking about map packs and add-ons?  If the patches are multi-gig then i'd say they need to ship a finished product. 



Around the Network
CarcharodonKraz said:
Eddie_Raja said:
CarcharodonKraz said:
WagnerPaiva said:
500GB HDD: Instant buy for me. I hate that 32GB crap.


you know you can just buy an external hard drive right?  It helps them keep the cost of the system down and if you don't need the storage you don't have to add the price of a hard drive. 


THAT DOESN'T FIX THE ISSUE!  The Wii U can't be marketed with 32GB and then have a cheaper console with 100's of games and equal graphics sold for less right next to it!  People like to see bigger numbers when they spend more money.

Also devs have to assume most people will just have 8GB and as such games like BF3 will never come to it since they require multi GB updates.  

i'd say the hard drive isn't the issue then.  The gamepad and games are SUPPOSED to be the reason for you to spend more, but obviously the pricepoint isn't right.  Also, does battlefield really have multi gig updates to the main game?  or are you just talking about map packs and add-ons?  If the patches are multi-gig then i'd say they need to ship a finished product. 

Yes they really are.  Also the product is finished as it launched with over twice as many weapons and arguably twice as many maps (Considering the size and variable parts you can fight in) as COD.  There is nothing wrong with adding more awesome!  

And before you blame the game realize that MANY other games do the same thing.  The Wii U is the odd one out for not having an actuall HDD in 2012!!!



Prediction for console Lifetime sales:

Wii:100-120 million, PS3:80-110 million, 360:70-100 million

[Prediction Made 11/5/2009]

3DS: 65m, PSV: 22m, Wii U: 18-22m, PS4: 80-120m, X1: 35-55m

I gauruntee the PS5 comes out after only 5-6 years after the launch of the PS4.

[Prediction Made 6/18/2014]

Eddie_Raja said:
CarcharodonKraz said:
Eddie_Raja said:
CarcharodonKraz said:
WagnerPaiva said:
500GB HDD: Instant buy for me. I hate that 32GB crap.


you know you can just buy an external hard drive right?  It helps them keep the cost of the system down and if you don't need the storage you don't have to add the price of a hard drive. 


THAT DOESN'T FIX THE ISSUE!  The Wii U can't be marketed with 32GB and then have a cheaper console with 100's of games and equal graphics sold for less right next to it!  People like to see bigger numbers when they spend more money.

Also devs have to assume most people will just have 8GB and as such games like BF3 will never come to it since they require multi GB updates.  

i'd say the hard drive isn't the issue then.  The gamepad and games are SUPPOSED to be the reason for you to spend more, but obviously the pricepoint isn't right.  Also, does battlefield really have multi gig updates to the main game?  or are you just talking about map packs and add-ons?  If the patches are multi-gig then i'd say they need to ship a finished product. 

Yes they really are.  Also the product is finished as it launched with over twice as many weapons and arguably twice as many maps (Considering the size and variable parts you can fight in) as COD.  There is nothing wrong with adding more awesome!  

And before you blame the game realize that MANY other games do the same thing.  The Wii U is the odd one out for not having an actuall HDD in 2012!!!

simply never heard of an external hard drive being such a big deal.  And what exactly is this "more awesome" you talk about? I'm curious.



I think any scenario where the Wii U wasn't a huge upgrade over the PS3/360 hardware wise or didn't have the most revolutionary controller of the last 30 years (like the Wii did) was doomed to struggle no matter what.

Everyone has a PS3/360, they don't want another one.

If the Wii was another PS2/GCN/XBox level hardware but didn't have such a revolutionary controller, it would've flopped too.

If you are going to go the whole "lower tech + but with new innovative control input!", the controller has to be so spectacular that it brings in a whole new audience. No ifs, ands, or buts.

When the R&D department couldn't come up with anything more interesting than basically a regular controller with touch screen in the middle of it, Nintendo should've gone back to the drawing board with the hardware chipset and maybe asked AMD to give them something like a customized off-the-shelf PC GPU that was more powerful.



Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with the design of the system OR the controller.

I just think the thing needs fuckin GAMES. Any console that lacks a steady flow of quality software is going to have problems, which describes the situation with Wii U succinctly. I think Nintendo should have had some of the launch OS bugs and whatnot ironed out PRE-launch, but otherwise, I don't think there's anything wrong with the system itself. I just think they put too much time and effort into 3DS, and it wound up hurting their Wii U development, which they obviously thought would come along faster than it has.



Around the Network
DevilRising said:
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with the design of the system OR the controller.

I just think the thing needs fuckin GAMES. Any console that lacks a steady flow of quality software is going to have problems, which describes the situation with Wii U succinctly. I think Nintendo should have had some of the launch OS bugs and whatnot ironed out PRE-launch, but otherwise, I don't think there's anything wrong with the system itself. I just think they put too much time and effort into 3DS, and it wound up hurting their Wii U development, which they obviously thought would come along faster than it has.


Yep I agree with this. Honestly delaying the console wouldnt have been terrible.

Launch Nov 2013 with Spring and Summer updates from the get go and have virtual console ready.

32gb w/Nintendo Land-$299, no basic sku

Launch games, Mario 3D World, DKC, Wii Fit U, Watch Dogs, Assassins Creed 4, COD Ghosts, Arkham Origins, Skylanders, Just Dance, EA Sports (fallout probably wouldnt have happened if Wii U wasnt out yet), and a few others.

Pikmin 3, W101, Party U as Q1 2014 titles, with Mario Kart 8 in April.

The only downside would be Wii have an extra year of neglect but maybe Pikmin 3 could have remained a Wii title and been a holiday 2012 release and Lego City Undercover could have been a Wii game.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Sell the 32 GB unit at 199.99 with a Wii Mote and pro controller bundled. Make the tablet controller optional, but require all games have the ability to stream to the controller so early adopters do not suffer. Eliminate the 8 GB version altogether, 1 SKU only is better.



Lifetime Sales Prediction - 6/29/2013
Wii U - 38 million
XBOX One - 88 million
Playstation 4 - 145 million

catofellow said:
Sell the 32 GB unit at 199.99 with a Wii Mote and pro controller bundled. Make the tablet controller optional, but require all games have the ability to stream to the controller so early adopters do not suffer. Eliminate the 8 GB version altogether, 1 SKU only is better.


Sorry, but fading the GamePad (IE "tablet") controller out, is not a good idea at all. And what, do you want Nintendo to just bleed money? A $50 price drop would be enough to do it. And why includign a Wii mote or pro controller if not every game uses them?



I would've axed the tablet controller and made the pro controller standard from the start of console design.

Cut to 16GB Flash storage. (2 SKU's, white & black, same storage)

Axe the eDRAM and go with a stonger GPU w/ 2GB GDDR5 (one unified pool and perhaps, still, 1GB for OS)

Bluray drive for expanded multimedia.

-----

No tablet controller would have dropped the price to $249 (based on Iwata's claim). Cutting the storage by half and removing the embedded RAM would cancel some of the costs of an improved GPU w/ GDDR5 RAM. Also, another drop in cost would be removing the docks (no more gamepad) and removing the pegs to stand the console. A stand can be sold separately.

Therefore, price at $299 for guaranteed profit or break even.



e=mc^2

Gaming on: PS4 Pro, Switch, SNES Mini, Wii U, PC (i5-7400, GTX 1060)

1. At least pack in a game worth wanting. Nintendo Land is OK, but it obviously didn't have the appeal of Wii Sports. They should have tried some sort of spiritual sequel to Wii Sports because when people hear that name, they can recognize it. If they hear about some successor to it with integral Gamepad experiences, then the system would have captured some of the Wii owners.

 

2. The Name. Wii U isn't too bad of a name, but not being clear about whether it's simply an addon for Wii for the common consumer makes them confused. They should have gone with something like Super Wii, or Wii 2, something that makes it sound like an upgrade from Wii. "Wii" is a brand name, but adding a "U" after it won't make people think "successor". What is this "U"?

 

3. The Specs. After all is set and done, the MCM is obviously one of the more expensive parts of the system, and it's very well designed for what it can do. If the Gamepad (according to Miyamoto) easily adds ~100 US dollars to the price, then the system itself is likely around 200-ish to produce (since it's sold at a loss). Probably 100+ dollars for the CPU and GPU MCM, and that seemed to be wasted on low tdp than high performance. For 33watts, the system is impressive, but I'm sure making it at least 10-15W more would have allowed for higher clocks, and perhaps more overall horsepower. They can keep the Broadway architecture for Espresso if they like (they probably already planned to continue on with the PowerPC line, and I wouldn't be surprised if their next console has something like 3 enhanced Espresso CPUs (9 cores)), but they should have enhanced it further with beefier SIMD, and further increased performance per core. The upgrades they made from Broadway aren't too significant. Making it a quad core wouldn't have been bad either, it's already a very small chip. The Memory of the CPU is fine, 3MB is not a bad thing, it's just 1MB less than PS4 / X1 CPUs, but it's organized very oddly. The GPU should have been more than what it is now, more than 2x the power of Xenos. An HD 4770 in terms of overall horsepower would have easily ran 7th generation games in 1080p with perhaps some graphical enhancements and better IQ. Not that Latte can't run 7th gen games at 1080p natively (I believe it has enough power to do that, but it'll need to be close to maxed out for that, and that's not happening anytime soon), but it should have had enough raw power to brute force 1080p, not reach that until devs finally max out the GPU. Or maybe not even at the 960 GFLOPS a 4770 has, a little less, maybe 700 - 800 GFLOPS (since they would like a low-ish wattage) would have been a bit more respectable, and would make ports from next-gen easier. At least 1 or 2 more GB of RAM would have been fine, DDR3 is very cheap right now, and I'm sure it wouldn't have cost them all that much more of a loss. 

 

A Quad Core beefier Espresso, 700 - 800 GFLOPS Latte, 2 - 3GB RAM for games, 1GB for OS, plus Gamepad, plus at least 64GB Flash memory (flash memory is faster than HDDs, but isn't cheap in large quantities, so not too much!!), 40 - 50 Watts, slightly larger console, plus Nintendo Land, plus several key Nintendo games available for purchase, plus 3rd party games from 7th generation being "definitive" versions for Wii U, and the $349.99 price tag would seem a lot more acceptable. Without the gamepad, selling it for $249.99 would definitely be worth those specs. I think Nintendo wasted too much effort on reaching low wattages, I'm almost positive that they can sell a console similarly to how it's priced now with better specs.