Wii U - Zelda HD, Shield Pose, Battle Mii, Chase Mii Hands On Vids - Post #1

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Nintendo do have a history for being cheap cunts who will cut any corner they think they can get away with ... and then some. So it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest really. And then they will probably still sell a shitload anyway.

[scottcr]

anyone who thinks that this is going to be less powerful than a 360 is mental.

really.

the anonymous game developer stories are as reliable as my family anecdotes!

[simms]

I bet you if that anonymous dev has said 100 times more powerful you would have ran with that and be shouting from the rooftops

[Comrade]

Thing is, I can very much believe that the WiiU will be that relatively puny. None of us expected the Wii to be a slightly-more-powerful GameCube, after all. I concede that expecting the WiiU to clobber the 360 and PS3 in terms of raw power is just wishful thinking on behalf of us nerds.*

* by nerds, I mean Nintendo fanboys.

Yeah, but by your own admission, the Wii is "slightly more" powerful than the GC - if it were slightly less, that would just be insane.

[Rayn]

Ack, you don't need much power to make Mario and Zelda games look pretty. I'm sure everything will be absolutely fine.

But wasn't one of Nintys major points being that they've got shitloads of third party devs on board, making a Wii U version of Xbox and Playstation games for them? If that's true, it means the Wii U goes directly head to head with their competitors on a technical level, and if the Wii U fails to deliver the same technical quality, what will it matter if Mario and Link looks prettier than they did on our current Wii?

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

But wasn't one of Nintys major points being that they've got shitloads of third party devs on board,

They do that every time though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.

[squirtle]

They do that every time though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.

Which of the major third parties didn't make games for the Wii then?

[DC Lemon]

"the experience of playing will always be more important than raw numbers"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-05-nintendo-responds-to-wii-u-power-reports

That clears that one up, then. The Upocalypse is here.

[Massive Invisible Dog]

That doesn't clear anything up. Still, it's fairly obvious that it's going to be a slight notch above the current generation and no more. That's what the majority of supposed leaks have been saying up to this point, the "less powerful than PS3/360" rumours seem about as credible as the "it's ten times more powerful than the PS3/360" ones that floated around a few months ago.

[Harsin]

Which of the major third parties didn't make games for the Wii then?

Oh they made games, just a shame most of them were along the lines of Imagine: Marmosetz while they kept the good stuff for the 360 and PS3.

[Yoshimax]

Which of the major third parties didn't make games for the Wii then?

Epic.

id.

Infinity Ward

Bethesda

I'm quite sure the list could run & run.

[scottcr]

anyone who expects any kind of major leap in graphics technology of the kind that we saw on the move to HD is mental. It's not where the money is. The money for MS and Sony is in providing the services that people want - surely MS' dashboard update has demonstrated that to you? The money for Nintendo is in providing you ways to play games you can't get anywhere else.

Neither of these require ultra graphics. Meanwhile - it's getting easier and easier to shove a PC under the telly

[rgraves]

It's looking more and more like

PS3/360 = 1

Wii U = 1.5

Orbis/Durango = 2

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/04/gearbox-boss-says-impressive-wii-u-a-really-nice-bridge-to-the/

"Nintendo still has a lot to announce with their platform, and it's not up to us to go ahead of them," he told Joystiq. "I think it's a great platform and I'm really excited about it, particularly with this game, there's a lot of exciting opportunities like, 'Wow, my motion tracker is there, and I can move it like this!'" he said as he moved his arms side to side. "There's just so much cool stuff."

Brian Burleson, the game's producer, was a lot less forthcoming with details on the Wii U version, but he was still positive about it. "You'll have to wait," he told us. "But I play it all the time, and it's really good."

That's great for this particular game, but what about the system in general? How does an acclaimed developer like Gearbox feel about it? "There's a lot that we can do with that screen," Pitchford said. "It's a really cool system -- it's pretty powerful. I want to be careful, because I don't want to risk any sensitive information that Nintendo's not ready to share yet, but in our experience it's a great system. I think it's a really nice bridge to the next generation. I think people will be surprised. I don't know off the top of my head how many of the specs they've released, so I want to be very careful not to jump the gun, but we're very pleased with the hardware. And even since they gave us our first alpha kit, our very first 'pre-prototype' development hardware that they kind of let us play around with, they've done so many things to make the platform better. So it's getting better for us as developers."

[scottcr]

Let's face it guys, the WiiU is going to be really good. The PS4 and Xbox won't be that much more powerful - to the point that to the layman, it'll be pretty difficult to tell.

It's game on for the next gen... I think Nintendo have and continue to carve their own niche. They'll let platform holders do pretty much they want to do through their own online services... Sony will offer their own complementary stuff as well.

MS will continue to make you pay to get access to stuff that you can get for free on the other platforms and I think their more closed and less flexible online service may start to go against them...

oh - and Kinect.

[rgraves]

I think a key thing will be if they follow Nintendo down the 'controller with screen' avenue - having to power that (in terms of rendering the extra screen) is clearly a resource drain, so if they don't do it it opens up some power for them to distance themselves even further graphically.

I love the build up to E3 when new hardware is on the horizon!

[squirtle]

Epic.

id.

Infinity Ward

Bethesda

I'm quite sure the list could run & run.

What have Epic released bar GOW and Unreal?

Id released one game this generation.

Infinity Ward? Modern Warfare was on the Wii. The only COD not on the Wii is MW2.

Bethesda? Fair enough, but again, only four titles this generation.

The three biggest 3rd party Software Houses, Activision, EA and Ubisoft all released shit loads of stuff on the Wii. It just may not have been to the core's taste, but to say the Wii had no 3rd party support is a little disingenuous.

[utopastac]

Nintendo's recent output has been hands-down without exception incredible. Not since the N64 have they had such consistent excellence across all of their releases, they've really not missed a beat. As always, I'm going to be really happy seeing the Wii-U as a Nintendo player and I can't wait to see what they show at E3. To be honest, I'd probably be happy with just an extended version of Wii golf.

[rgraves]

EA have been suspiciously quiet since initially making a lot of noise about the Wii U online infrastructure - many of their franchises clearly fit the Wii U very well, stuff like Madden is a no brainer. If they don't unveil significant support at E3 I'll be very, very surprised.

[scottcr]

The problem with using non bundled stuff as a controller with a screen (be it a controller-less tablet for MS or the Vita for Sony) is that if it's not there from day one - it won't get the support. Therefore, what you'll get on them will be a port of what they have done for the WiiU.

[rgraves]

Therefore, what you'll get on them will be a port of what they have done for the WiiU.

Or they will just not bother at all - which is a very real risk that Nintendo will have to work hard at avoiding if both Sony and MS don't have any kind of additional screen component.

[scottcr]

then the fall back will be the ability to stream it to the handheld anyway... a feature I'm VERY KEEN on btw since I'm pussy whipped and don't get to play games.

[utopastac]

I've said it enough in the Vita thread, but that's one of the key reasons why I've loved the Vita so much. It's not so much being pussy-whipped, more that our flat is pretty small so I can't really have a dedicated 'games' space. It's fantastic to have console-level games on a big-ish but personal screen.

[rgraves]

then the fall back will be the ability to stream it to the handheld anyway... a feature I'm VERY KEEN on btw since I'm pussy whipped and don't get to play games.

GPWM!

[shynra]

Wii u rumor roundup me do:

- Nintendo wants to stick with the name Wii U, but there may be some sort of legal issue with that name

- Nintendo isn't too happy about the analyst commentary on the Wii U's power

- top-tier publishers are keeping quiet on the Wii U due to NDAs

- the Nov. 18th release date isn't 100% concrete right now

- the discussion of haptic feedback has been discussed at Nintendo, but may not be part of the final Wii U controller

The following information comes from a source supposedly closely involved with manufacturing and distributing Nintendo products...

- total cost of materials to manufacture the Wii U console (includes cost of controller) is estimated to be around $180

- controller’s total bill of materials and components costs no more than $50

- Wii U will be no less than $300 when it launches

“Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo’s main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U’s hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition.”

- NFC capabilities for each new Wii U controller costs no more than $5 to implement

- price of NFC implementation in mobile devices is expected to fall below $1 in the near future

“NFC capabilities are a drop in the bucket for Nintendo. As NFC becomes more mainstream in mobile devices, the price for NFC implementation will rapidly decline. Nintendo is jumping on NFC because of a projected cost decline in the technology.

The cameras in the Wii U controller are an estimated manufacturing cost of $6. They are slightly better quality than the 3DS and DSi cameras. The touch screen has a manufacturing cost estimated at $14.”

- Microsoft’s Kinect cost $56 after tearing it apart

- controller’s cost of materials would be slightly less than what Kinect cost

“Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today’s current consoles, but keep hardware costs down to maximize profits. Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news.”

E3 cannot come.soon enough

[Nespresso]

Anyone expecting a visual power house will be sorely disappointed when Nintendo starts drip feeding us trailers and what not. I'm sure that with the improvement in tech first party titles will obviously look even better than they are now, even when compared against their 'full HD' competitors but still... I was hoping Nintendo would at least make sure the Wiii U up to snuff in the tech department, ensuring that it could run something like BF3 at 1080p at 60fps (which quite honestly, wouldn't be that expensive or hard to do with todays' hardware costs).

It seems however that this will not turn out to be the case.

[Stanley]

I think that's exactly the kind of power we are expecting, and will end up with. Pretty much all evidence abs common sense points to that.

[___]

I, too, expected Nintendo to have technical performance of an online military shooter in mind as their baseline when designing the successor to the Wii.

Pretty sure the reason GAF is up to 3 Wii U speculation threads is that they all eventually become a flood of "But will it run UE4? If not: DOOOOMED!" posts.

[Harsin]

Well considering that they've stated on multiple occasions that one of the aims of the Wii U is to try and recapture the 360/PS3 audience that they feel they lost with the Wii, expecting them to take consideration of the most popular genre by far from those consoles when designing it is hardly in the realm of lunacy.

[kensei]

Nintendo need to have enough power to run the next gen of engines or they are fucked and in the exact same position as the Wii - lacking key 3rd party software. Doesbt matter if it doesn't quite match up, it just has to be competitive for long enough.

A 360 with a screen controller will not cut it. I'll buy it, but the people that bought the Wii won't and why would the 360 crowd. If the rumours above are true, they are penny wise, pound foolish.

I believe it like, but just don't get them making the exact same mistake after explicitly stating they want a bit of the 360 market.

[Marlowe]

- total cost of materials to manufacture the Wii U console (includes cost of controller) is estimated to be around $180

- Wii U will be no less than $300 when it launches

“Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo’s main concern with the Wii U. ”

It seems like when Nintendo design their consoles these days they sit down and figure out the minimum specifications that they can get away with. Compare this to Microsoft and Sony, who if anything calculate the maximum power they can pack into their boxes while still breaking even/taking a slight loss.

No doubt someone will point out how profitable this approach was with the Wii, but the point is that from a consumer point of view you're getting screwed over.