Wii U - Fail?

[Welch]

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2012 ... n-revealed

Seems to me that with a DX 10 (Not 10.1 and surely not DX 11) that its just one of the fails of the device. 1gb of ram..... My god, with DRAM prices at an all time low and supposedly ready to drop again, how can they justify not dropping at least 2gb into it, or a lot more? Just talking retail prices, DDR3 1333 or 1600 2gb sticks can be had for $12.99 all day long. That is retail and not what a vendor with a large number of consoles to produce would pay. Even taking into account specialized RAM and all, being purchased in bulk you'd imagine that this is a huge oversight.

Then again if you look at the CPU, its purportedly less powerful than the XBoX 360 or PS3. How you can release a console THIS long after the other two and make it a competitor to them instead of a competition to the next generation stuff MS and Sony have to offer is beyond me. It almost feels like they are riding on the hope that a lot of people will buy it out of nostalgia... I mean COME ON... Its Nintendo!

[SecretSquirrel]

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2012/08/the-wii-us-final-specs-have-been-revealed

Seems to me that with a DX 10 (Not 10.1 and surely not DX 11) that its just one of the fails of the device. 1gb of ram..... My god, with DRAM prices at an all time low and supposedly ready to drop again, how can they justify not dropping at least 2gb into it, or a lot more? Just talking retail prices, DDR3 1333 or 1600 2gb sticks can be had for $12.99 all day long. That is retail and not what a vendor with a large number of consoles to produce would pay. Even taking into account specialized RAM and all, being purchased in bulk you'd imagine that this is a huge oversight.

Or the hardware design was done two to three years ago. Don't forget that the consumer electronics you buy today have been in the design manufacturing pipeline for at least six months and the design pipeline for probably 18 months prior to that.

Then again if you look at the CPU, its purportedly less powerful than the XBoX 360 or PS3. How you can release a console THIS long after the other two and make it a competitor to them instead of a competition to the next generation stuff MS and Sony have to offer is beyond me. It almost feels like they are riding on the hope that a lot of people will buy it out of nostalgia... I mean COME ON... Its Nintendo!

And this is exactly what people said about the original Wii. Look at how well it did. Nintendo isn't targeting the XBox and PS3 segment. They are after casual gamers who burn 30 minutes here and there to relax.

All that said, I haven't been particularly excited about the Wii U and don't have any real plans to get one.

--SS

[Digex]

Have been waiting for a discussion topic about this. The Wii U is a snoozer. The controller gimick looks so lame to me. The system is so tailored for kids 5-12yrs old. Gotta wait another year for an adult console like the PS4. Only if and only this will I buy a Wii U. When Super mario world comes out and the console is $120 bucks.

Proud owner of PS3 (Grade A titles). Mainly a PC gamer though but I like certain titles for each console. Sole my Xbox 360 to my nephew.

[superjawes]

You could also add that the iPhone and other smartphone platforms are grossly underpowered with respect to other available hardware...point being that it's not necessarily the power that is needed for innovation. I am a bit excited about what could be done with a tablet as a controller. Granted, I would have preferred they try to do DS connectivity first, but I still think there will be some cool ideas that come from this.

[Scrotos]

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2012/08/the-wii-us-final-specs-have-been-revealed

Seems to me that with a DX 10 (Not 10.1 and surely not DX 11) that its just one of the fails of the device. 1gb of ram..... My god, with DRAM prices at an all time low and supposedly ready to drop again, how can they justify not dropping at least 2gb into it, or a lot more? Just talking retail prices, DDR3 1333 or 1600 2gb sticks can be had for $12.99 all day long. That is retail and not what a vendor with a large number of consoles to produce would pay. Even taking into account specialized RAM and all, being purchased in bulk you'd imagine that this is a huge oversight.

Then again if you look at the CPU, its purportedly less powerful than the XBoX 360 or PS3. How you can release a console THIS long after the other two and make it a competitor to them instead of a competition to the next generation stuff MS and Sony have to offer is beyond me. It almost feels like they are riding on the hope that a lot of people will buy it out of nostalgia... I mean COME ON... Its Nintendo!

XBox360
3-core 3.2 GHz PPC (6 threads)
512 MB RAM

PS3
7-core 3.2 GHz PPC (yes, I know one general-purpose and 6 vector units)
256 MB RAM
nvidia 7800-ish graphics?

Wii
1-core 730 MHz PPC
88 MB RAM (?)

Wii U
3-core PPC based on POWER7, 3 GHz? (4 threads per core?)
1 GB RAM
ATI 7000-series-ish graphics w/512 MB RAM?

Ok, so... the Wii U will be about on par with the current "real" consoles and will have better graphics abilities. It's far better than the Wii it's supplanting. Do you think that the games on the PS3 and XBox360 have sucked because they don't have enough RAM? Consoles don't push the limits, PCs do. This was already spoken to due to development lead time and all that jazz. I just don't see that the PS3 I'm playing on sucks because it doesn't have DX11 graphics. Heck, it doesn't even have DX10!

You list some technical stuff as fails. That seems harsh to me. The Wii was a backward piece of junk. The games were fun and novel and popular. It's not the specs that make a game system fun, it's the games. It's not the effects a game engine can use, it's the overall art direction. I still get a blast out of playing GTA3:San Andreas and the graphics are old and busted.

I could care less what's inside a game console as long as it does what I want it to. No one knows yet what the games are like so you can't just claim fail based on some specs.

Even if the PS4 and XBox720 (or whatever) is much better, hardware-wise, what will it really matter? PC gamers still get along with 3 GHz Core 2 Duos and nvidia 8800's. It's about the experience, not the hardware. If the Wii U provides that and the PS4 doesn't, that's what matters.

I don't have a vested interest in any of the consoles. I own a PS3, XBox360, Wii, DreamCast, PS2, XBox, Sega Saturn. I'm not eagerly awaiting the next generation. This isn't an OMG YOU BASED THE WII fanboy response. I just think you're fixating on the wrong thing to make a premature declaration.

[Chrispy_]

My biggest gripe with the Wii U is that it uses a touchscreen.

No thank you, touchscreens have made precisely zero games better, ever.

[superjawes]

My biggest gripe with the Wii U is that it uses a touchscreen.

No thank you, touchscreens have made precisely zero games better, ever.

I think there have plenty of games that have benefitted from having a touchscreen--primarily because you can have conditional controls. Especially with a console, you are limited to your possible inputs, but being able to change as needed could be a major plus.

[ChronoReverse]

Hmm, I don't think that's the real issue with the Wii-U. I feel that the problem is that interest in consoles right now are relatively low. During the buildup for the PS3, 360 and Wii, the excitement over what they could be was palpable (dashed by reality in many regards), but there's not nearly the same amount of talk about the PS4, 720 or Wii-U.

[Zoomastigophora]

The tablet controller will cost a pretty penny to manufacture, which means they need to cut costs somewhere to keep the product in a reasonable price range. Launching with an $800 price tag just so they can have better hardware probably won't do their sales any favors as I'm sure they've learned from the 3DS.

[Scrotos]

I agree with Chrono. The hype is what made the last gen so neat. The promise of it all. Now we're all jaded because it took several firmware and hardware revisions to get to what we thought was originally promised. That and with the PS3 we lost some stuff that made it cool. The Wii with its magical motion stuff, whoaaa!

Now? Meh. Everyone's expecting incremental updates. The leap from PS2/XBox to PS3/XBox360 was a decent one for graphics but even looking at PC games, I don't see a huge leap going from PS3/XBox360 to the PS4/XBox720. Sure it'll look better and stuff but I don't think it'll be anything groundbreaking for consoles. They'll still just be unexpandable PCs with slightly dated tech when they get released.

[Chrispy_]

The problem with the touchscreen will be that games will be tailored to use the touchscreen as much as possible, even for situations where it's frustrating and a normal controller would be better.
Potentially good games will be ruined by design choices to do things with the new "gimmick" feature instead of in a way that is best for gameplay.

Take any original Wii game that tried to use the sensor in a new and interesting way, and they just fell flat on their face. Mario Kart was arguably more fun with the Wii, but after a while you realised that it was just much easier/better to use the D-Pad and buttons like you always used to. Any of the FPS or third person games using nunchucks or the wiimote for weapon swings was a pretty huge disaster too. Everyone I know who owned one (including a housemate which is why I have experience with it) basically gave up on the Wiimote.

[Welch]

I didnt mean to say the console as a whole would be fail as Nintendo titles are exclusive. However i do feel like they are milking it for all its worth and there games are more gimmicky than ever. Perhaps its because I've grown up from those specific game genres that they are so famous for.

Im not asking for them to release the console at 800 bucks. The gpu may be ok, we only know its in the 7000 series family (unless i missed an update). But the system ram is going to be the largest thing holding back developers. We are quite aware that the design for these devices dates back 3-4 years ago.. but by that standard we should have more than 1/4 of what a typical computer had in ram. Perhaps there is something in design that I dont understand that would make the extra gig or more of ram = little to no performance gains. I mean these games are locked for there graphical settings, so its understood that the developers design around the hardware to make it work with the specs. It just seems ridiculous to save maybe 5 bucks and seriously gimp the console. It does'nt provide it much longevity.

I think even more dissapointing is knowing that while consoles are designed for the masses, that this particular console isnt taking into account that most families even if they are damn near broke have a 1080p TV nowadays and a good amount may have 120"+" hz ones as well... but its going to cap at a hardware 720, mostly because the rest of the specs couldnt begin to run 1080 with decent frames and avoiding choppy gameplay. Its just sad. There are tradeoffs to keep consoles low in price, but some of the things being skimped over are just standards these days. Hell most phones can output to a TV at 1080p while playing games like Dungeon Defenders.

[Jakubgt]

Remember, the system is not out yet nor are there any official announcements from Nintendo. Remember all the iPhone 4S rumors? I was almost convinced it would be a tear shaped designed, a curved glass, a bigger home button, and lots of other features. Just wait and see what the actual specs are.

You never know, Nintendo might surprise us all in the end.

[Diplomacy42]

Or the hardware design was done two to three years ago. Don't forget that the consumer electronics you buy today have been in the design manufacturing pipeline for at least six months and the design pipeline for probably 18 months prior to that.

people keep saying that, like it takes some massive redesign to take one ram chip and replace it with another. if you are Sony and custom designing your own multicore processor architecture, yeah, okay. but ram/ storage space? you place an order 6 months before the console comes out tops.

[Hattig]

Well it comes with 2GB, which makes the current leaks look quite dubious as they've all been saying 1GB.

Apart from that, there really is still no concrete technical information about the CPU and GPU, beyond PowerPC CPUs and AMD HD GPU.

Graphics must be more powerful than 360 to drive 1080p60 gaming natively, and the TVii thing will be a nice bonus for those that can make use of it.

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah not much information but if it really can do 1080p60 then it's at least 4x as powerful as the 360 (and accordingly we already know it has 4x the RAM lol).

TVii actually looks interesting especially if it's not a pay service for everything (I'm looking at you 360, a Gold account just to use Youtube? No thanks).

Pricing was a surprise too. $300 for the 16GB model (expandable via USB) was lower than I expected.

[superjawes]

I think TVii sold it for me...I like some of the things that can be done in games, and this might serve my need for a media box nicely.

[drfish]

This is awesome.

The Nintendo Wii U may only have 8 to 32GB of internal memory, but the company's taking a decidedly open approach to expanding that memory: add your own. "You can plug in a full-on three terabyte hard drive if you want. I'll love you as a digital consumer," Nintendo America CEO and president Reggie Fils-Aime told us during a post-press conference investor Q&A. Much like Sony's PlayStation 3, the Wii U allows for expansion of memory via USB, whether that memory be Flash or otherwise. Fils-Aime explained that, with the continuously dropping price of memory, there was little reason to offer pricing for the Wii U -- available in $300 and $350 -- tied to an evolving hardware model.

"The reason we did it that way is that the cost of that type of storage memory is plummeting. What we didn't want to do is tie a profit model to something that's gonna rapidly decline over time. We'll let the consumer buy as much as they want, as cheaply as they want," Fils-Aime said.

That's how it should be done. I love how he phrases it as well.

Overall I'm very much looking forward to the Wii U.

Edit: ...and its pre-ordered with Gamestop (probably the only money they'll get from me for the next 5 years, lol). I'm very impressed they are doing a pre-order than isn't subject to a crappy bundle.

[Game_boy]

This thread is too focused on the tech. If the games are fun - who cares? NSMB U will be great.

The biggest PC gaming successes of the past few years have been Portal, TF2, LoL, Minecraft, DayZ, Diablo ... all of which could run on Wii hardware never mind Wii U.

[codedivine]

I read the headline as "Will U - Fail" and was contemplating my failures for a moment