Nintendo Wii U

[Super Craig]

Who's being pissed off if you offer up both?

The licensing issue comes into play again. Someone who has the rights for release in the EU but not the US isn't going to allow a US version to be released if the money is going elsewhere. If companies like Nintendo, Sony and Capcom go ahead and do it, it's going to make the games where you've only got a 50Hz version stand out in a negative way. I don't think that there's a solution that will please everyone sadly.

[Dandy_Sephy]

You keep saying language issues aren't a concern, but who wants to play games in another language? Super Metroid's forced subtitles are a nuisance to give you one example. It would be stupid to piss off customers just to placate a minority in the UK.

I've specifically mentioned text heavy games are obviously different. For the majority of games it's probably not an issue.

[SMD]

The licensing issue comes into play again. Someone who has the rights for release in the EU but not the US isn't going to allow a US version to be released if the money is going elsewhere. If companies like Nintendo, Sony and Capcom go ahead and do it, it's going to make the games where you've only got a 50Hz version stand out in a negative way. I don't think that there's a solution that will please everyone sadly.

They could label it clearly as a game that 'supports' 50 and 60Hz, just like plenty of Gamecube and PS2 games offered both but not as standard.

[Meh]

This is not aimed specifically at you but there is a portion of the games players who think NTSC was better than pal purely because of shitty ports.

PAL had much better colour reproduction(NeverTheSameColour = NTSC)

And it had far better resolution.

NTSC was a bag of shite compared to PAL but lazy games ports colour gamers opinions unjustly. We should be proud of pal

NTSC's colour woes vanished as soon as you plugged in an RGB SCART cable, though. Once you take away that problem, PAL just has the added resolution, and a lot less frames per second. I'll take the smoother game any day.

[geldra]

I'll take the smoother, faster, full screen game any day.

If people are happy with the 50hz VC games then that's cool, cos that's exactly what you're getting. I think it's fair for people to be disappointed that there's no 60hz versions in this day and age, admittedly we can see why it wouldn't happen.

Ultimately though its not what most people have bought the WiiU for (I hope!) it'll be nice to play the VC stuff on the Gamepad. It'd be a nice bonus to have none gimped versions.

[jonnyalpha]

Well I'm happy anyway since, after I deposited a load of unplayed games and some old tech that had been sitting in a drawer at CEX, I now have a brand new WiiU Premium. It was completely unused and had never been unpacked and it slightly baffles me why someone traded it in but never mind..... anyway got all the updates done, played some Nintendoland and am now watching the Pikmin move my wii data across before having a better look at the eshop and possibly treating myself to a couple of the cheaper games.

These Pikmin are bloody slow though.

[Clipper]

NTSC's colour woes vanished as soon as you plugged in an RGB SCART cable, though. Once you take away that problem, PAL just has the added resolution, and a lot less frames per second. I'll take the smoother game any day.

As i already said it is easy to think that pal was inferior if you ONLY consider games.

As a broadcast standard pal shat all over NTSC. More lines and better colour reproduction. And if coded properly pal games could look better than NTSC.

The only reason pal is a problem for games is because early consoles were coded for the larger market with inferior display. The smaller pal market had to put up with shit versions as there was no budget to do it properly.

[Clipper]

Consoles in early to mid eighties were shit compared to the mastery of

C64

Spectrum

Bbc

Etc

Even in 16 bit era I preferred Amiga to mega drive and snes

Mario on NES? No ta , I'll take wizball on the C64

There seems to be a weird revisionism in UK over what was ubiquitous in 80s, no bugger had a NES in the mid 80s it was all c64s and speccys with the odd BBC owning spod

So fuck the 50hz NES issue

[Not Thread Owner]

Well I'm happy anyway since, after I deposited a load of unplayed games and some old tech that had been sitting in a drawer at CEX, I now have a brand new WiiU Premium. It was completely unused and had never been unpacked and it slightly baffles me why someone traded it in but never mind.....

Because they got it from Zavvi for £225 and CEX gave them £250?

[Meh]

As i already said it is easy to think that pal was inferior if you ONLY consider games.

As a broadcast standard pal shat all over NTSC. More lines and better colour reproduction. And if coded properly pal games could look better than NTSC.

The only reason pal is a problem for games is because early consoles were coded for the larger market with inferior display. The smaller pal market had to put up with shit versions as there was no budget to do it properly.

Yes, but they'd still not be as smooth - and in the PS1/Saturn era, fps were precious things to gain.

[JPickford]

Consoles in early to mid eighties were shit compared to the mastery of

C64

Spectrum

Bbc

Etc

Even in 16 bit era I preferred Amiga to mega drive and snes

Mario on NES? No ta , I'll take wizball on the C64

There seems to be a weird revisionism in UK over what was ubiquitous in 80s, no bugger had a NES in the mid 80s it was all c64s and speccys with the odd BBC owning spod

So fuck the 50hz NES issue

The NES never really took off in the UK but it was huge in the USA. It was after the 8 bit computer era really though. My company switched from developing Amiga & ST games to NES. And despite the primitive graphics on the NES it was a better machine than even those 16 bit computers for the scrolling + sprite games of that era. The ST simply couldn't do smooth scrolling at 60hz and while the Amiga could do it - it wasn't trivial. The NES was built for it and you could focus on gameplay. It was a cracking machine in its time. Computers were better at other styles of games which involved manipulating a bitmap screen (early 3D etc.)

The NES controller was a revelation compared to the joysticks we were using on computers. I remember scoffing when I first saw it but quickly realising how much more practical and responsive it was compared to a joystick.

Most computers had large borders around the programmable screen area so any advantage of extra lines in PAL was moot. Not sure about 'colour reproduction' I don't think that really affected anything. Ultimately you're down to framerate vs cpu power. PAL with a slightly more flickery framerate at least gave you a bit more CPU power per frame. An advantage sure but a tradeoff too.

[Not Thread Owner]

Why is it that NES games have that weird flickery-flicky vertical scroll "thing" that other consoles don't?

[JPickford]

Why is it that NES games have that weird flickery-flicky vertical scroll "thing" that other consoles don't?

Not sure what you mean.

[Meh]

Unless he means diagonal scrolling. Wasn't it impossible to do properly until SMB3?

[JPickford]

I think later carts had extra gubbins which helped in all sorts of ways. Mario 3 could page areas of the cart directly into character space - hence lots of animating stuff in the backgrounds etc. Not sure about scrolling but you could do it on a basic cart. You might see some garbage at the edges but that wouldn't have been visibile on many TV's of the day. Similar to the reason for the massive borders on early computers.

[Clipper]

The NES never really took off in the UK but it was huge in the USA. It was after the 8 bit computer era really though.

I was referring to the vibrant home computer market in UK. I am obviously aware that consoles were ubiquitous in US and Japan. I was simply referring to the revisionism in UK that seems to be rife now.

My company switched from developing Amiga & ST games to NES. And despite the primitive graphics on the NES it was a better machine than even those 16 bit computers for the scrolling + sprite games of that era. The ST simply couldn't do smooth scrolling at 60hz and while the Amiga could do it - it wasn't trivial.

Andrew Braybrook (among others) did it on Uridium and Paradroid (which was 8 way smooth scrolling) so the 8 bits didnt do so badly.

The Amiga by comparison did it all over the place. And I'm not getting into lists but the games on Amiga were certainly technically superior to NES.

The NES was a very very good 8 bit machine dont get me wrong and technically superior to 8bit computers...

The NES controller was a revelation compared to the joysticks we were using on computers. I remember scoffing when I first saw it but quickly realising how much more practical and responsive it was compared to a joystick.

And yet the most annoying thing about trying to play old 8 bit and 16 bit computer games is the fact you have to use a dPad. The Konix Speedking was king for me Yes if you compare it to a shitty Quickshot 2 or Atari controller with spongy sensors then it is better but if you are talking microswitched decent joysticks then no contest

It is the fact that the games were built to suit the controller as they should for modern consoles as well. Lots of NES games were arcade conversions asnd yet arcade machines used joysticks, if dpads etc were the way to go then why didnt arcades use them?

[scottcr]

The Konix Speedking was the joystick of champions... I loved that thing,

[Clipper]

The Konix Speedking was the joystick of champions... I loved that thing,

I still have one for my amiga they arent as easy to come by now sadly. Would kill for one that worked with the 360 so I can play SWOS properly

[scottcr]

it had MICROSWITCHES.

(click click clicky click click click)

[JPickford]

The Amiga by comparison did it all over the place. And I'm not getting into lists but the games on Amiga were certainly technically superior to NES.

The NES was a very very good 8 bit machine dont get me wrong and technically superior to 8bit computers...

I wrote 8 way scrollers on the Amiga myself. I'm not claiming the NES was technically superior - I'm saying it was much easier to make the kind of scrolling + sprite games that were popular at the time. Getting a good 8 way scroller on the Amiga wasn't trivial although perfectly do-able.

The Amiga was an amazing machine but really it was designed as a graphics workstation.

I was referring to the vibrant home computer market in UK. I am obviously aware that consoles were ubiquitous in US and Japan. I was simply referring to the revisionism in UK that seems to be rife now.

I'm just talking about timelines really. The NES was at it's peak in the Amiga era rather than the speccy/N64 era. Despite being closer to the 8 bit computers tech wise.

[JPickford]

It is the fact that the games were built to suit the controller as they should for modern consoles as well. Lots of NES games were arcade conversions asnd yet arcade machines used joysticks, if dpads etc were the way to go then why didnt arcades use them?

Nintendo invented the d-pad it for their home devices. Arcade joysticks were fine (and still beloved of course) but the d-pad is more robust and allowed for a bit more dexterity than the home joysticks we had at the time.

[The Mighty Ash]

Playing NSMB U yesterday and the Wii U shut itself down. We were playing on wiimotes and the gamepad hadn't been used for an hour. Would the auto off have kicked in after an hour if the gamepad was not used, even though we were using wiimotes?

Turned auto off to inactive with the swiftness after that!

[Clipper]

Nintendo invented the d-pad it for their home devices. Arcade joysticks were fine (and still beloved of course) but the d-pad is more robust and allowed for a bit more dexterity than the home joysticks we had at the time.

I know which I'd prefer to play SWOS on

[Clipper]

I wrote 8 way scrollers on the Amiga myself. I'm not claiming the NES was technically superior - I'm saying it was much easier to make the kind of scrolling + sprite games that were popular at the time. Getting a good 8 way scroller on the Amiga wasn't trivial although perfectly do-able.

The Amiga was an amazing machine but really it was designed graphics workstation.

As you know the NES had architecture built for the purpose.

But as far as I know the Amiga had custom chips which aided in scrolling and fast video ram copying the Agnus chip especially. The blitter was incredibly useful in this regard too.

ST didnt have comparable custom chips so struggled with scrolling as the 68000 was basically doing everything

However I do bow to your hands on knowledge as to which set of custom chips was easier to work with

[JPickford]

As you know the NES had architecture built for the purpose.

But as far as I know the Amiga had custom chips which aided in scrolling and fast video ram copying the Agnus chip especially. The blitter was incredibly useful in this regard too.

ST didnt have comparable custom chips so struggled with scrolling as the 68000 was basically doing everything

However I do bow to your hands on knowledge as to which set of custom chips was easier to work with

The original Amiga was a funny one really. Incredibly highly specced but not all that fast as a result. I wrote a game that used all the hardware pretty well - 8 way scrolling, parallax starfields, large blitted sprites etc. It all ran smoothly at 50hz. I ported the game to ST and all the same stuff in software was manageable at 25hz. The main benefit of the blitter wasn't so much speed as the fact it provide a free way to horizontally shift graphics. On the ST you had to store shifted versions of everything if you wanted smooth horizontal scrolling and of course sprite positioning.

The Amiga was basically an amazing graphics workstation (way ahead of its time) which happened to be quite good at games.

[Clipper]

um to drag this back on topic.. Balloon Fight was OK

for 30p

[Petrousgyre]

The Amiga was basically an amazing graphics workstation (way ahead of its time) which happened to be quite good at games.

Yup, DPaint in particular was amazing, changed the course of my life (for better or worse, jury's out).

[Not Thread Owner]

Not sure what you mean.

Vertically scrolling (mainly platform) games on the NES often had flickery borders while they, and many games (like Mario 2) had a stop-scroll-start way of scrolling vertically. Mario 3 avoided the latter, but still had flickery borders and odd background artifacting (almost like Speccy colour clash) on the far left and right edges, seemingly when there was a partial "tile" drawn.

Alex Kidd on the MS was a revelation as it didn't have any of that!

[pulsemyne]

I cannot help but laugh at the tomb raider devs excuse for not bring the game to the WiiU. I have heard some bullshit excuses before but this one was amazing.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/28/3924106/wii-u-misses-out-on-tomb-raider-due-to-unconventional-controller

Unconventinal controller. Yeah I mean the nintendo DS and 3DS don;t use two screens do they. What a crock of horse shit.

[scottcr]

They could have at least said 'we don't have the money and don't want to take the risk'