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archbrix on 17 November 2011
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HappySqurriel said:
crissindahouse said:


i think they will hope for more mature content from other developers  that's why the next xbox/ps4 have to have much better specs than wii u. if not wii u will get the same games as next xbox and ps4 which wouldn't be so good for them then with this lineup + nintendos great games. and maybe they will do a great horror game one time i don't think nintendo will make realistic racers/shooters but i really can think about a horror game from them don't know why.


... and what specs would those be?

Realistically, I wouldn't expect a significant enough difference between the Wii U and Sony or Microsoft's next generation consoles to prevent the Wii U from getting the bulk of third party multi-platform games.

The reason for this is quite simple, the games don't have to be equal in resolution, framerate, draw distance or detail to be released on both consoles. The average gamer would have difficulty telling the difference between a game playing at 720p@30fps and the same game playing at 1080p@60fps (even if there were minor graphical downgrades in detail and draw-distance to the 720p version) and yet the difference in processing power to produce the games at those performance levels is drastically different. For the vast majority of customers, if you had this difference in output resolutions and framerates the more powerful console could be 4 or 8 times as powerful and the perceived difference between the two systems would probably be smaller than the perceived difference between the PS2 and the Gamecube/Xbox; and if you consider that the Wii U is probably already at least 4 times as powerful as the HD consoles, Sony and Microsoft will not be able to release an affordable system that can outperform the Wii U by enough to prevent cross platform game development.

Completely agree.  :)

The recent interview with John Carmack points to this as well, where he said don't expect an exponential leap in graphics/performance for the next generation.  Even if the jump in tech is comparable to before, the results probably won't be as noticable without making a prohibitively expensive console.

This is why I see Nintendo in a great position.  Their performance this gen has the potential to put them in a great position next gen.  While Nintendo fans are looking to upgrade from the Wii (GC tech, 480 res), the 360 and PS3 fans may not be as anxious for a new Xbox or Playstation, particularly the people who just purchased their HD console in the last couple of years.

Bottom line, unless Microsoft and Sony make really expensive systems and/or are planning on launching much later than we think (2014+), I don't believe that the Wii U's performance will be dwarfed by the 1080/PS4 to the point of making cross-platform games impossible.