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The_Yoda on 06 April 2015
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binary solo said:
The_Yoda said:
binary solo said:
So why did Nintendo bother with a blu-ray drive? If 99% of Wii U games will fit on a dual layer DVD, what's the point in having 50GB disc technology?

It is amazing how little data is used with actual gameplay content if you stick with a low res visual style. All those 20GB + games that are 60% non-core gaming content. But still I likes me some good fmv, voice acting, fine detail stuff.

@ bolded are you being facitious? Disc size was one of the reasons (valid or otherwise) third parties slammed the gamecube.  The Wii U was supposed to draw in third parties (although outside of indies it hasn't done a good job) so I'd imagine that's why they went with a medium that would be 3rd party friendly.

Someone should have told them 8GB or 32GB of storage space wouldn't make 3rd parties happy either. So Nintendo made a console with their programming discipline in mind, and threw 3rd parties a pretty pointless bone by putting a Blu-ray drive in. If it's not possible to install more than 2 bloated 7th gen 3rd party games on the storage space of the base Wii U then it makes Blu-ray capacity redundant. If Nintendo wants to make their console 3rd party friendly they have to design the whole thing to be 3rd party friendly, not just one bit of the machine. It might be a fair criticism that 3rd parties are bad at efficient programming to minimise the footprint, but when you have 3 mediums throwing copious space at 3rd parties (PC included) Nintendo is in no position to demand greater programming efficiency. I guess this has always been Nintendo's problem. They design their machines with only their programming efficiency in mind and they expect everyone else to follow. But they don't.

I'm sure they knew it wasn't going to be enough thus day one memory expansion capabilities. The initially memory was only going to be a problem for 3rd parties looking to deliver digitally if one chose not to upgrade their memory. To be honest after looking to "offically" upgrade the 360 I was appalled by the price of the Microsoft hard drives, and very pleasantly suprised Nintendo didn't go the propritary memory expansion route. Nintendo is/was as bad as Sony ELECTRONICS when it comes to propritary connections and media.

Personally I knew it wasn't going to be enough and had a hard drive ready (stuff I already had laying around I might add) before I even bought the Wii U. I learned my memory upgrade lessons last gen with the 360 and PS3.  That underlined part said I still didn't plan well enough. I initially went with a 160 GB drive (thinking it was a 500)and had to jump to a 4GB drive (dual enclosure with a fan). I am pro-physical media when it comes to console games and had no idea I'd embrace digital content like I have with the Wii U.