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The new [Nintendo] Thread: Screens, screens as far as the eye can see.
Lanz
...Za?Registered User regular
...Za?Registered User regular
So, Nintendo. Love them, hate them or be completely indifferent to them, they have a couple systems out this generation that are causing all kinds of buzz.
WiiU
The successor to the Wii, the WiiU's central feature is that it's default controller, the GamePad, features a tablet-esque screen in the middle of the device, allowing for DS-style gameplay experiences when coupled with your TV and Off-TV play for those moments that you can't use the TV. Nintendo has also demonstrated the controller as a sort of "Game Master" style interface for multiplayer experiences, manipulating the game world while friends play normally with either remotes or controller pros.
The system still supports the Wii remote for gameplay, and even features a sensor bar located in the GamePad for utilizing both devices.
GamePad
The GamePad includes not only the screen interface, but NFC, microphone, speakers, camera, motion sensors, headphone jack and, of course, now-traditional game control interfaces: Dual analog sticks, D-Pad, four face buttons, two pairs of shoulder buttons, Start, Select and a Home Button. The device also functions as a universal TV remote, to take advantage of the "TVii" service.
Pro Controller
It's basically a GamePad with the screen, NFC, mic, speakers, etc. removed.
Wii Remote(Plus)
The Classic Wii remote: A motion sensing wand that allows for motion-control gaming.
Backwards Compatibility
The WiiU is backwards compatible as far back as the Wii via a special channel, with Virtual Console support included within the Wii Channel, with Native WiiU Virtual console support coming soon. For games a person already owns, these titles will cost a dollar or couple dollars to upgrade to the WiiU version, which will feature GamePad support, customizable controls, save states and MiiVerse communities. It will also include Game Boy Advance titles to be added to the library, along with NES, Super NES and other systems coming later.
Online
First Off: Friendcodes are gone. Nintendo has moved on to the standard Username account system and have integrated that with what they call "MiiVerse" a Nintendo Social Network about all the games and apps available within the WiiU's ecosystem. Finding a friend can be as easy as knowing their name, searching for them in MiiVerse and sending a friend request. No code exchange necessary.
The WiiU's online multiplayer is a free service, like on the PS3 and most PC games. Grab a game, hop into multiplayer and carry on. It also features SpotPass, which allows the WiiU to automatically download updates over WiFi.
eShop
Nintendo's eShop has made it from from the 3DS to the WiiU, with the ability to buy online-only titles and digital releases of retail games (as supported by publisher).
Storage
Nintendo's two SKU's both have onboard storage, 8GB for the Basic Unit and 32GB for the Deluxe model. They allow for storage expansion via SDHC and external hard drives, with the latter being supported up to 2TB via USB 2.0 [3.0 drives are supported, but only work at 2.0 speed]
SKUs
The US currently has Three bundles:
Basic: Comes with the system, GamePad+charger and Sensor Bar, along with power supply and HDMI cable
Delux: Includes system, AC Adapters, Charge Cradle for GamePad, Gamepad stand, system stands, Sensor Bar, HDMI cable and an eShop discount program.
3DS
Section coming soon
The question now is, Where does the WiiU fit in the upcoming Console market? The system is said by many to not be as advanced as the upcoming offerings from Sony or Microsoft, so many have surmised that will repeat the past of the Wii: A lower power system that will see little 3rd Party support as developers flock to the newer systems; at best, a home for Nintendo first party titles with little else. Lately, the Wii U has seen abysmal January sales and it's formerly exclusive Rayman Legends has seen a controversial delay from the end of February to September along with ports coming to the 360 and PS3.
Will the Wii U be a success? If so, in what way. If not, how so? And even in the midst of all this, what possibilities does the GamePad open up for gaming?
WiiU
The successor to the Wii, the WiiU's central feature is that it's default controller, the GamePad, features a tablet-esque screen in the middle of the device, allowing for DS-style gameplay experiences when coupled with your TV and Off-TV play for those moments that you can't use the TV. Nintendo has also demonstrated the controller as a sort of "Game Master" style interface for multiplayer experiences, manipulating the game world while friends play normally with either remotes or controller pros.
The system still supports the Wii remote for gameplay, and even features a sensor bar located in the GamePad for utilizing both devices.
GamePad
The GamePad includes not only the screen interface, but NFC, microphone, speakers, camera, motion sensors, headphone jack and, of course, now-traditional game control interfaces: Dual analog sticks, D-Pad, four face buttons, two pairs of shoulder buttons, Start, Select and a Home Button. The device also functions as a universal TV remote, to take advantage of the "TVii" service.
Pro Controller
It's basically a GamePad with the screen, NFC, mic, speakers, etc. removed.
Wii Remote(Plus)
The Classic Wii remote: A motion sensing wand that allows for motion-control gaming.
Backwards Compatibility
The WiiU is backwards compatible as far back as the Wii via a special channel, with Virtual Console support included within the Wii Channel, with Native WiiU Virtual console support coming soon. For games a person already owns, these titles will cost a dollar or couple dollars to upgrade to the WiiU version, which will feature GamePad support, customizable controls, save states and MiiVerse communities. It will also include Game Boy Advance titles to be added to the library, along with NES, Super NES and other systems coming later.
Online
First Off: Friendcodes are gone. Nintendo has moved on to the standard Username account system and have integrated that with what they call "MiiVerse" a Nintendo Social Network about all the games and apps available within the WiiU's ecosystem. Finding a friend can be as easy as knowing their name, searching for them in MiiVerse and sending a friend request. No code exchange necessary.
The WiiU's online multiplayer is a free service, like on the PS3 and most PC games. Grab a game, hop into multiplayer and carry on. It also features SpotPass, which allows the WiiU to automatically download updates over WiFi.
eShop
Nintendo's eShop has made it from from the 3DS to the WiiU, with the ability to buy online-only titles and digital releases of retail games (as supported by publisher).
Storage
Nintendo's two SKU's both have onboard storage, 8GB for the Basic Unit and 32GB for the Deluxe model. They allow for storage expansion via SDHC and external hard drives, with the latter being supported up to 2TB via USB 2.0 [3.0 drives are supported, but only work at 2.0 speed]
SKUs
The US currently has Three bundles:
Basic: Comes with the system, GamePad+charger and Sensor Bar, along with power supply and HDMI cable
Delux: Includes system, AC Adapters, Charge Cradle for GamePad, Gamepad stand, system stands, Sensor Bar, HDMI cable and an eShop discount program.
3DS
Section coming soon
The question now is, Where does the WiiU fit in the upcoming Console market? The system is said by many to not be as advanced as the upcoming offerings from Sony or Microsoft, so many have surmised that will repeat the past of the Wii: A lower power system that will see little 3rd Party support as developers flock to the newer systems; at best, a home for Nintendo first party titles with little else. Lately, the Wii U has seen abysmal January sales and it's formerly exclusive Rayman Legends has seen a controversial delay from the end of February to September along with ports coming to the 360 and PS3.
Will the Wii U be a success? If so, in what way. If not, how so? And even in the midst of all this, what possibilities does the GamePad open up for gaming?
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So... I guess at least Ubisoft hasn't given up on it altogether yet.
Now to wait and see if any third-parties feel like releasing AAA exclusives for the upcoming consoles when they need brazillions of sales just to break even, or if we're going to have an extended period where games just come out for everything.
Sony seemed intent on showing people that when it streets there will be actual games for it that people may want to play.
Overall: Significantly improved, but not really anything new. About what I think we all expected.
I'm still interested in hearing what Sony's exact plan is for the Eye and Move integration.
I guessing a price point in the $400-$500 range. Still, I can't see this helping the WiiU any with the hardware power gap at hand.
Plus, the PS4 may be looking at pulling something similar to the 360s (and presumably the 720s) strategy of selling the console for cheap and requiring a few years subscription to their online service. In which case the price point really leans against the WiiU.
But now the thread titles won't be hilariously antagonistic!
On topic though, the Wii U does have a bit to worry about in terms of RAM. It only has 1GB that games are allowed to access, so if the new amount to target becomes 4GB and up, ports become substantially more difficult. Slashing your memory budget by 75% can be hard.
That still doesn't mean we'll get Wii U versions, though. Lots of multiplatform titles missed the GC despite it's parity in power simply because publishers didn't see the demand for them.
I'm not entirely sure publishers have the luxury of keeping big games off of the established consoles at this point, at least for some months immediately after launch.
They can (and will) stop making them for WiiU if that console keeps selling 50k a month and the only titles people are buying for it are made by Nintendo.
My guess is you won't see Destiny 2 on the thing in 2015
Considering that the top-selling 3rd-party games of the last generation still only sold around one copy for every six consoles, and the Wii U is on pace to sell around a half-million consoles this year, I don't think there's a major developer on the planet that's going to be happy with selling <100k copies of anything. Most developers need to sell two or three million copies just to break even on development costs.
I get the feeling Sony and Microsoft are going to give us the same damn thing we got last generation, only slightly prettier. Yay?
This is not a terribly erroneous assumption to make.
Except "slightly" might be exchanged for "substantially."
As for more widespread reaction it seems like the general public that's remotely interested in games know there's new console coming from Sony. That's a lot more then Nintendo achieved with the WiiU.
Well, except for the fact that the Wii U does that out of the box for $350 and Sony will charge you $400-500 for your PS4 and another $200 for your Vita, but yes, it brings things closer to parity, especially for people not so inclined to buy the Wii U anyway except for its portability.
The cost of porting to multiple gens won't be as bad as last gen was. Like putting a 360 game on an original Xbox was hard because of the huge disparity in hardware and the SD/HD hurdle. The 360/720 split is going to likely be less pronounced and they're both HD. Render engines are more uniform now too. So you swap out for lower res textures, cut down on area sizes, and nix some of your fancier effects and a launch 720 game will probably play ok on a 360.
Really not much different than what PC ports to 360/PS3 do already
I mean, Killzone was gorgeous. If we can get that running at a clean 30fps at 1080p, it's going to be more than slightly prettier as compared to current PS360 games. If we get that with the same choppy, shitty shadows and stuttering frame rates at a scaled-up 540p, it's going to be kinda weak.
Well, it's hard to be "behind" on a product you don't even offer. And PSN doesn't really make it worth your while to get a Plus membership unless you play a fuck-ton of games.
Yeah, PSN's getting absolutely spanked by XBLA in terms of making money. Microsoft's done such a better job of getting ads, movies, streaming TV and such it's not even funny. I remember Sony saying that PSN was on track to make a profit for the first time in 2011... though that was before the great PSN hack that surely derailed that goal.
Though PS Plus has really surprised me, as they've been offering subscribers a fuckton of free and actually good games. I'm baffled as to why Sony hasn't tried advertising the concept.
Whoa whoa, we're still not at the point where games have to sell millions of copies per console to break even; they just have to sell millions spread out across however many platforms they release on. If third party games needed to sell evenly across all platforms, we'd probably be seeing way fewer PS3 titles right now (and probably no releases of Just Dance for the PS3 or 360 either, since we all love that game).
Again that doesn't mean that selling 100K (just using your number, without comment about how you arrived to it) would always be worth the trouble either - but it doesn't seem to be bothering Ubisoft with Watch_Dogs right now.
Other than some interesting RAM choices, the PS4 is basically equivalent to a current, medium-spec PC. I'm sure games will continue to look better as developers with large budgets work with it, and it will benefit from being a dedicated machine and fixed target, but we've generally seen what's capable with this level of hardware for a year or two now.
I mean, I get that. I can appreciate that appeal, but it seems like it wouldn't take very much beyond good marketing and a standardized, ready-to-play out of the box Steambox style PC to easily compete with this generation, and soundly beat it on the terms Sony defined.
Nintendo, like or not, is going to be offering a Nintendo-style experience. I can respect loathing all that a Nintendo experience suggests, but at least that's their pitch. They're selling Nintendo, which can't be replicated on a hardware / software agnostic platform. Sony wants to sell me a PC I can't ever open or install Word on.
Everything I've seen so far has been visually appealing, but very limited. I guess I'll have to wait until E3 or dev videos come out to make that decision.
The devs at the conference certainly seemed to be happy with the hardware.
This is fairly impressive (jump to 2:50).
Still, that's a much smarter approach than tying everything to a single device. If you want a screen, just code for everyone's smartphones. I mean, I know Nintendo likes selling every console owner 5-10 accessories, but c'mon.
I think the whole "like a PC, but easier" is a pitch to developers, not consumers. Keep in mind Cell was an absolute bitch to program for. With a PC architecture, it'll be easier to port things. They weren't saying they were going to make the end product like a PC.
@eggytoast, Keep in mind Microsoft introduced Smartglass, which is also an iOS/Android thing for extra stuff, and pretty much no one uses it.
It was also introduced just a few handful of months ago, when everyone was already talking about the upcoming generation.
Will it have more impact when it is an SDK available right from the start? Who knows.
But hundreds of millions of iOS and Android devices out there means that there will be enough of an install base to at least consider using it on the few titles and media apps where it makes sense (two screen experience on HBO Go or Netflix, for instance)
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Which, whatever, I can see Sony needing to make that argument, but it was a bit of a bait and switch for them to hype the thing the way they did but not show the console or mention pricing or release dates.
Also, don't forget that theexact moment hype for the PS3 went from white hot to zero was when they announced it would launch at $599.
This has been true of every console launch ever, though. The 360 and PS3 at launch didn't look nicer than medium-spec PCs. It's always been the case that if you want the very best graphics, you build a PC.
I agree with @Edd about Sony needing a better pitch, though. Last gen, their pitch was "buy our console and you get a BD player, too." Which is why a bought a PS3. Nintendo has "buy our console if you want Nintendo games." Which is why I bought a Wii, and will probably someday buy a WiiU. MS has "buy our console because XBL is fucking off the hook". Sony with the PS4 has... I have no idea. "Buy our console because we'll offer you everything that MS will also offer you"? If the only reason Sony kept parity with MS last time around was because they offered a distinct advantage with BD, and if they will not have that advantage this time around, I'm not sure what their gameplan is. They did not mention a single feature that I expect to be unique to the PS4 except maybe a handful of exclusive titles.
Basically, the Sony conference just made me more excited to buy an Xbox Infinity. I'm skeptical that's what they were shooting for.
You're right, that was an appeal to the third parties who struggled against some dumb proprietary hardware, but the rhetoric of integration, customization, openness, networking, and extremely high performance - it speaks to what has traditionally been at the core of the PC gaming experience. I guess I'm left wondering what Sony would say to convince me not to just invest a good PC that's more capable of providing nearly everything they want me to be excited about, with virtually the same library of games.
Their success this generation is going to have at least something to do with the fact that PC gaming is still treated like a niche hobby for specialists as opposed to a viable alternative to the major consoles. There is no centralized advocacy for PC gaming, and no single product to champion. I would love to see Valve try to pull an upset here, especially with a major marketing campaign that tells a comparatively general audience that "Yeah, you can be a PC gamer, too. Better performance, more options, huge library of cheaper games. And right in your living room."
Nintendo, for their part, has consistently been attempting to define the uniqueness of their gameplay experiences through a standardization of what would have otherwise been bizarre, unused peripheral features. For better or for worse is a different argument.
Don't forget there's always the whole "convenience" thing. Though things have improved a lot, gaming on PC still involves having to mess around with settings and drivers and every few years trying to figure out which video card is better when they all have names like cats on keyboards. Granted, most people here can handle that reasonably well but the market as a whole generally enjoys being able to plop a disk in and have it run with no additional fuss.
Though the fact that there's no centralized agency for PC gaming is a major handicap. I remember Microsoft trying for a while, and one of the things they were begging for were less confusing video cards. If only that actually happened.
My brand-new machine could run some games like a dream and it couldn't even play others due to compatibility issues.
Perhaps they didn't look much better, but the hardware of the 360 was fairly high-end at the time of its release. The Xenos GPU was basically intended to be ATI's flagship PC GPU and was basically released concurrently with the 360 as the X1800. Even then, the Xenos had some special work done with it that put it ahead of that card (like unified shaders) that wouldn't be seen in ATI's PC stuff for another year or so.
The Xenon processor was a three core CPU released when multicore processing in PCs was barely heard of. It again would take a year or so before we started even seeing dual core processors become common on the PC.
The PS4's hardware is basically off the shelf. Like, the Best Buy, you-can-go-there-right-now shelf. There isn't much at all cutting edge about it, by a stretch of about two years.
GDDR5 for main CPU functions is pretty unheard of.
I don't even know if you CAN build a PC that uses it like that.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
As I noted in my post before that, the RAM situation is unique, and considering the 360 and PS3 it's good they didn't skimp. It does not, however, suddenly make an older Jaguar core into a new Bulldozer, for example.