Wii U - Nintendo's Next Console

[KingBroly]

An industry crash would be bad, but it would ultimately be brought upon by those who are top heavy. No one wants Battlefield, COD, Madden and AC every year for forever.

[ddddd]

So... Is still fine to post neogaf rumors? This one's nice:

Apparently, the improved fifth version of the dev kits will be delivered to major third party devs before the end of this month

[cortjezter]

ehh... as long as we don't start getting spam-happy with the off-linking, especially when it isn't really news or verifiable information.

i would like to say there's a limit, but i can't think of any reasonable number or situation that would perfectly cover all rumor-posting.

how about this:

why not just mention what the rumor is, and then either name the source or provide a link.

it would also be better to actually talk about it instead of just posting links.

[Serpent_Seed]

I feel when the console finally is done, it will be 2x to 3x more powerful than 360. You know, i always thought PS3 was more powerful since it used a 50GB disc, I also thought PS2 was the most powerful in it's gen since sold so much. Cannot wait for E3 this year.

[Jack_Atlas]

I think neogaf has lost it.Someone mentioned the Xbox 720 to be 15X more powerful then the Wii U and the entire thread started comparing the next gen to kitchen machines.

[ddddd]

ehh... as long as we don't start getting spam-happy with the off-linking, especially when it isn't really news or verifiable information.

i would like to say there's a limit, but i can't think of any reasonable number or situation that would perfectly cover all rumor-posting.

how about this:

why not just mention what the rumor is, and then either name the source or provide a link.

it would also be better to actually talk about it instead of just posting links.

I see. For this particular rumor, there isn't a whole lot discuss or explain, so what Ive posted is pretty much what the whole rumor post is about (since that guy likes to make long post with too much background details and speculation). The link to the comment is because that thread goes fast.

[Devil_Rising]

Really big wall of text, but you do make a lot of really good points.To be honest the only developer I think that is actually any good now is Masahiro Sakurai because his games still have a lot of quality put into them. Which is strange because I love Zelda to death but I think Aonuma needs to step aside or down and let someone else handle Zelda for once.Because when Ocarina of time came out he was not the directer or producer[he was assistant directer] and depending on how he handled the project it would either turn out fantastic,okay or lackluster[Majora's mask, twilight princess,skyward sword respectively.]

I hate to ask this but does anybody think it would be good for another industry crash? Seeing as the recent rumors are pretty much painting up a picture that none of the 3rd party publishers are smart enough to actually be running a business. If you answer try weighing the pros and cons when thinking about it I thought it would be something like "spring cleaning" so to speak.

I realize it was a long post, but it certainly wasn't filler content, I did follow along one stream of thought, so I wouldn't really consider a few paragraphs to be a "wall of text". Then again, I am an English Major and a writer, so yeah. I'm sure a lot of people just give posts like that the "too long, didn't read" treatment, but you know...they're not the kind of people I'd want to read it anyway.

As to the industry crash question, no, I don't think it would be good. The industry crash before was caused by there being too many consoles, and the market too flooded with unlicensed games. The problem with an industry crash now, is that there is no Nintendo to come in and kickstart the whole thing again. Nintendo would suffer this time if that happened, along with Sony and M$, and none of us (at least who aren't trolls), wants that. I don't think the industry needs a "Crash", I think it needs a reality check.

You're right about Sakurai. He makes games that embody what video games should be. He stuffs them full of content and makes certain they're fun to PLAY, and that they have high re-playability value. But I certainly wouldn't say he's the only one. Other Nintendo teams have proven to have that kind of ability as well. Good Feel, has proven with Wario Land and Epic Yarn that they can make great classic style games. Vanillaware is fantastic at this as well, as is WarForward. Team Ico, even though their games aren't "retro", they DO focus on substance over just pretty graphics, and so far their two games have focused on the gameplay as the centerpiece of their product, not an afterthought. And that's the issue I was talking about. A lot of developers now seem to treat actual gameplay value as an afterthought, and a lot of games PLAY as if that is so.

But the core issue here, is that I don't think the video game industry can thrive if they continue down this road of massive game budgets, and massively expensive overpowered consoles. I still trust that Nintendo is smart. I think the Wii U (or whatever it's going to be called), will be plenty powerful and have all the bells and whistles. But people on here (and elsewhere) need to quit with this line of thought that Nintendo is suddenly going after the "hardcore" gamer again, and abandoning everyone else. That's silly nonsense, and would be financial suicide for them to do so. Some of those "casual" games they made on Wii and DS were/are fantastic games, and they need to continue making products like that, as well. As I've pointed out many times in the past though, they never "abandoned the core" to begin with, and have consistently put out what people would call "core" type games on Wii and DS the entire time. But at the end of the day, their next console is not going to be OVERPOWERED, and it's certainly not going to be overpriced. That just isn't their style. The 3DS would have sold better at it's original price if they had a better launch lineup, and I think they know that. The only reason they did the drastic price drop, is because they wanted to drastically spur sales, which they did. Though it's no coincidence that it also just so happened to coincide with the releases of Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, known system selling franchises.

So yeah. Again, the system is not going to be more than $300. Nintendo knows it can't afford to be.

[ddddd]

Green Hills software just announced via press release that it "has entered into a global license agreement that will enable Nintendo Co., Ltd. to provide Green Hills Software's MULTI® integrated development environment (IDE) to developers that are creating video game software for the upcoming Wii U platform". The MULTI_IDE software is basically an important debugging tool.

Does this has anything to do with the "industry crash" that is being discussed? I think it does.

For anyone keeping tabs, this is the fifth software lincense agreement nintendo has signed to allow third party devs with a WiiU dev kit to use these tools for free.

The licensed tools so far are:

* Havok Physics engine
* Autodesk Scaleform (for 3 dimentional UIs)
* Autodesk Kynapse (artificial intelligence)
* Autodesk HumanIK (character animation)
* GHS MULTI_IDE (for debugging)
(there is another tool that provides insta-loading video playback, for cutscenes, but I cant remember the name nor if its also licensed)

It is clear that nintendo really is pursuing to get the small and middle studios on board. Big studios already own most of this stuff so there is no real benefit for them I guess. With the possibility of cost raising even more, free software that covers pretty much everything except the visual engines (Unreal, Frostbite, CryEngine, Source, etc) should be quite welcomed, plus the possibility of offering full retail size games as downloadable e-shop games. At least the small/middle tier dev studios should find a market in this console.

[Jack_Atlas]

@Devil_Rising

I read both of your comments in full in fact I had a pretty lengthy one ready to be posted but decided not too since some people might think I'm some radical extremist with some of my viewpoints.

As for the developers I forgot about Wayforward,probably because I haven't played too many games by them[and the ones I have played I have lost interest in half way because I tend to do that with all downloadable games.] As for the others I haven't played those games or heard of the development teams before.

[Devil_Rising]

@Devil_Rising

I read both of your comments in full in fact I had a pretty lengthy one ready to be posted but decided not too since some people might think I'm some radical extremist with some of my viewpoints.

As for the developers I forgot about Wayforward,probably because I haven't played too many games by them[and the ones I have played I have lost interest in half way because I tend to do that with all downloadable games.] As for the others I haven't played those games or heard of the development teams before.

If you can, do yourself a favor and play Cave Story. Also, play Muramasa: The Demon Blade on Wii. Both are amazing sidescrollers. And WayForward made a fantastic remake of A Boy and His Blob on Wii as well, which also shares the same kind of great hand-drawn graphics that Wario Land: Shake It and Muramasa have. I personally want to see more of that. I think of a Kirby game or a Metroid game, Castlevania, etc., with that high quality handrawn artwork type graphics...and I drool a bit.

[Jack_Atlas]

I would but I have no way to rent any of those games [I won't use Gamefly because I've had problems with the mail people stealing my magazines with special promotions in them] but I have been wanting to play Muramasa because I think it's by the same publisher who released Senran Kagura [still waiting marvelous.] On your Cave Story suggestion you'll have to be more specific because of the DSI version and the 3DS retail version unless their the same then it doesn't matter. As for A boy and His Blob from what I've read of it in magazines it just didn't interest me for some reason, even though the articles praised it.

I have to ask but do you happen to like Blazblue? Because that game happens to fall in with the "high quality handrawn artwork type graphics" you mentioned at least the 3DS version did.

Sadly, I believe trying to pinpoint my tastes in gaming is going to be really hard especially when i'm the type of gamer who bought both Zelda ocarina of time 3D and Skyward sword on their release days.Played an entire week to 100% Ocarina of time when I could have done it faster. As for Skyward Sword I stopped right at the thunder dragon and I don't even care to actually finish the game even though I know what to do, I just don't care to finish it.

[Serpent_Seed]

Right now I have $350 saved for Wii U. I may spend 50 at the most on other stuff like if Gamestop has a buy 2 get 1 free sale. I'm going to focus on the games i already have so I can keep this money for Wii U. I also have enough points at Gamestop's Powerup for a $25 off anything that is going towards Wii U. I figure I'll have $700 - $800 when Wii U comes. Enough for the system and 3 games I believe.

[LegendofZelda1996]

There is a rumor on NeoGAF that says that the Wii U may use a GPU that is similar to the specs of a GPU from the Evergreen GPU series. http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p= ... ount=11334

If the rumor is true, that means that the GPU of the Wii U is compatible with DirectX 11 & OpenGL 4.1.

Edit: I am not so sure if this counts as a rumor or just mere speculation.

[KingBroly]

It's speculation, but well thought out.

[gtt]

There is a rumor on NeoGAF that says that the Wii U may use a GPU that is similar to the specs of a GPU from the Evergreen GPU series. http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p= ... ount=11334

If the rumor is true, that means that the GPU of the Wii U is compatible with DirectX 11 & OpenGL 4.1.

Edit: I am not so sure if this counts as a rumor or just mere speculation.

that would be sweet. unless they gimped it, any evergreen gpu trounces current consoles. by a lot.

[LegendofZelda1996]

that would be sweet. unless they gimped it, any evergreen gpu trounces current consoles. by a lot.

But I have heard from this user named antonz in NeoGAF that Nintendo needs to seriously tweak the GPU of the Wii U that has with similar specs of Radeon 5550/5570 GPU since they have less raw power than a Radeon HD 4850/4870. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=4402, http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=4418

And I found this comparison between the Radeon HD 4850 which is supposedly only used for the early Wii U development kits and the Radeon HD 6670 which is the rumored GPU for the XBOX 720. http://www.hwcompare.com/10903/radeon-h ... 0-oem-1gb/

[gtt]

that would be sweet. unless they gimped it, any evergreen gpu trounces current consoles. by a lot.

But I have heard from this user named antonz in NeoGAF that Nintendo needs to seriously tweak the GPU of the Wii U that has with similar specs of Radeon 5550/5570 GPU since they have less raw power than a Radeon HD 4850/4870. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=4402, http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... count=4418

And I found this comparison between the Radeon HD 4850 which is supposedly only used for the early Wii U development kits and the Radeon HD 6670 which is the rumored GPU for the XBOX 720. http://www.hwcompare.com/10903/radeon-h ... 0-oem-1gb/

I was thinking more along the lines of a 5870 or 5970. but honestly, any directx 11 part will be a decent bit more than 'on par with or slightly better than' a 360/ps3. unless, of course, they hamstring it.

[Devil_Rising]

It's hard for people to try and make honest comparisons between PC graphics cards, and video game console GPUs. It really is apples and oranges at the end of the day. May be based on similar architecture, it's the same as trying to compare console CPU's and horsepower stats to PCs.

[ddddd]

The gpu will not be comparable to any existing pc card. It has been stated by AMD since the beginning.

[Gulshog]

Xenoblade, and Last Story...and then WiiU! I put everything else away...starting fresh with 2012...I'm even convincing myself those are WiiU games, lol.

Anyway, I'm really finding myself softening to NOA...knew it would happen. Don't like it, but it is what I have to do if I want a Nintendo machine. Those two games will really send the Wii off with a bang, and it will be fun to dive in to WiiU. I haven't bought a machine at launch in a long time, and I really think I'm going to do it with WiiU. I think it will be a great machine, and I just do not care to compare it anymore to anything else. Nintendo have made their own market, and you can't compare it to anything else out there anymore, and have it make sense. The machine lives and dies on their own software, and it's in it's own life cycle...comparisons to Microsoft, Sony, PC, Apple, etc., do not make any sense, and do not matter.

That is a dangerous way to live, but it's what they have chosen, and I give them credit for embracing it, and blazing their own path. So what if they are a generation behind...even if WiiU is just a 360...again...it will be the first time Nintendo has it's games in HD. That's the big difference...no one cares about anything else.

[LegendofZelda1996]

I am not very sure if I am allowed to post this type of information. If I am not, please tell me, so I will not do that again. Anyway, here it goes.

Nintendo is interested to meet with talented game development teams and explore publishing opportunities for original Nintendo 3DS and Wii U game proposals", says Tim Symons, Sales Planning & Strategy, Nintendo.

http://nordicgame.com/?id=130

Is this good news? It seems like very good news to me.

[gtt]

I am not very sure if I am allowed to post this type of information. If I am not, please tell me, so I will not do that again. Anyway, here it goes.

Nintendo is interested to meet with talented game development teams and explore publishing opportunities for original Nintendo 3DS and Wii U game proposals", says Tim Symons, Sales Planning & Strategy, Nintendo.

http://nordicgame.com/?id=130

Is this good news? It seems like very good news to me.

that's just an ad for a conference where a nintendo rep might be there an listen to pitches.

[ddddd]

Not sure if its news worthy, anyway, from the beyond3d forum:

First off, this board is far too educated to presume that developing a console GPU is like shopping at Newegg. Or even determining current component prices, if it was AMD/ATI, Genyo Takeda (IR&D) would not have spent 2yrs.+ in the development process on the Wii U's graphics processor. I realize we are attempting to establish a power as well as an architectural baseline, but this will be an amalgamation of processor capabilities that will yield a very custom proprietary chip. Somewhat defying the current DX metric. (to a degree of course)

What I mean when I say that is this, we cannot assume because it's based off of, or similar to gpu architecture "X," that it is incapable of "Y." Y equaling effects such as tessellation, IBL, real-time GI, deferred rendering, etc. There are certain visual aspects, such as lighting, that are very important to Nintendo. I have heard that, much like the Flipper, Nintendo has incorporated at least partially a portion of the same design philosophies into the Wii U chipset. Features that “automagically” appear during shader code implementation. A post from my early days regarding the GC’s architecture on B3D:

Spoiler:

"However, as mentioned above, a couple of features where added in automagically already, like self-shadowing and tinting for example."

"Per-object self-shadowing can be realized quite nicely on the Nintendo Gamecube. The benefit of doing self-shadowing on a per object basis is that one does not need to be concerned so much with precision."

"One should note that during the shader build many features are activated dynamically. For instance, if an object should get tinted a color multiplication is added to the final output color whatever shader was setup before."

"The results of global lighting can be computed in three different ways: per vertex, per pixel using emboss mapping, and per pixel using bump mapping. All three of these methods come in two variants one with self-shadowing and one without."--Florian Sauer & Sigmund Vik http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20.../sauer_pfv.htm

Also 8 light values came at a very negligible performance cost, because Flipper computed light values in parallel to UV generation. It’s these types of “hardwired” like effects Nintendo I believe has carried over to make modern shader effects with a subset of fixed feature functionality. I’m simply providing examples as I do not know to what extent overall it is, or can be incorporated. (esp. with the gpu being of a modern design) I was told that lighting behaved in this manner, & that lighting was a point of emphasis. As always with a secondhand source, you must always be cautious not to take it as gospel. (though I trust this source, Nintendo's NDAs are the most binding)

Nintendo did make certain alterations to their gpu based upon various 3rd party input, a first. Usually, they tend to develop their gpus & platforms with just simply ATI/Nintendo engineering, consultation, & guidance. Designed around their evolving software strengths, & "the natural flow of the industry."-Genyo Takeda Yes, I am referring to all those benchmark tests Nintendo ran on 3rd party engines for optimization on Wii U hardware.

But make no mistake, Nintendo's footprint is definitely here. You will see a marked performance difference in their proprietary engines, as well as close 3rd parties, & exclusive titles. (UbiSoft, Capcom, etc.) Also, ARM may also be providing their DSP component solution. The nameless devs that are claiming inferiority to the current generation of consoles are either inept, or working with middleware that is still yet unoptimized for the differing Wii U architecture.

I recall that Autodesk has a tool that handles lighting, but nintendo did not licensed that one for devs with wiiu kits, this rumor/leak seems to go in line with that, since this indicates that the gpu would do the lighting by itself. Also I loved the final quote

And form Neogaf, an explanation to these anonymous devs claims

Remember how I recently wrote that a certain engine increased performance by several hundred percent over a couple of weeks? Just found out that another, even more common middleware solution seemingly had it even worse: If you tried to actually use some of the unique hardware features, the engine just crashed. I guess anonymous developer statements should be taken with a ton of salt at this point...

[KingBroly]

And this is what I've thought all along. Anonymous Devs are low level nothings with agendas to fill. They're at fault because they're either new or just plain suck at their job.

[ddddd]

Even though the latest B3D and Neogaf claims are no more valid than the anonymous dev rumors, they should get some widespread too.