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HappySqurriel on 02 January 2012
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thismeintiel said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
"I've read that some companies are making very basic tablets for dirt cheap around the prices he mentioned, now considering the U controller will have no processer and such and just stream I think he's on the ball here. The controller will have a camera, touch screen and probably a place for headsets to be plugged in but not much else as it's a wireless controller that just streams, people shouldn't think of ipads and so on as those have much more going in them."

"some companies" does NOT mean "every device". Durability and stability need to be maintained for this, and the low end stuff tends to not be good in that regard.

As for not having a processor, that's impossible. It has to accept a streaming signal and turn it into an image. That requires more than just a screen, receiver, and controller parts.

Exactly.  People keep pointing to the tablet in India that is selling for $35.  The only reason it's just $35 is because its being subsidized by the government.  When the subsidizing ends, it's going to cost $60.  And at that price, it's probably not that great of a tablet.  I doubt it could handle streaming video games without considerable lag.  It's case is probably a cheap generic one, so durablity and cost won't be that great.  The Wii U's controller, on the other hand, is going to be made from a better plastic, as well as being a custom mold, so its obviously going to cost more just for the casing. 

Have to laugh at his claim it won't have a processor, too.  All controllers have processors, otherwise it couldn't take button inputs and turn them into a signal to send to the console.  And the Wii U controller is going to be handling a wireless feed that needs to be turned into a video image on a 6.2" screen, as well as touchscreen and button inputs that need to be output to the Wii U at the same time.  So to do this without considerable lag, it will need a decent processor.  And if the rumors are true that the Wii U will be able to run certain apps seperate from the console, it will definitely have good processor, as well as some form of internal storage.  In short, the Wii U controller isn't going to be cheap.

You miss the point of the tablet comparison, the Wii U controller and the Aakash tablet both share a 7-inch 800x480 resistive touchscreen but the Wii U controller doesn't have the CPU, RAM, Internal Flash Storage, SD Card slots and (many) other components that are required to make a functional tablet. Essentially, the Wii U controller is a much simpler device that should cost significantly less to manufacture than the Aakash tablet.

Whether or not the device makes for a good tablet or not is irrelevant. The point is that it demonstrates that the components required to make a device like the Wii U controller are not as expensive as some people suggest.

 

 

Another way to look at it is this, the Wii U controller could be seen as being similar to an XBox 360 or PS3 controller with the addition of a 7 inch resistive touch screen. While the addition of the touch screen may increase the manufacturing cost of these devices by 50% to 100% the cost of production of these devices have come down dramatically over the past couple of years; and the volume discounts Nintendo will (likely) be able to get could lower the cost even further. On top of this, being that the costs of these devices will (likely) continue to fall further in the near future, it is unlikely that Nintendo would need to turn a massive profit on day one to justify the cost; because the profit margin would continue to grow over time.

This isn't to say that the Wii U Tablet won't be the most expensive controller for a major console (it probably will be) but I think people who believe it will be (significantly) more expensive than $100 at retail are delusional.