Wii U: The good news and bad news after more quality time with Nintendo's new console

I think it'll be obvious how strange this minimal upgrade is when we see the next consoles from Sony / MS.

I wouldn't be so sure. Let's pretend WiiU can run Uncharted levels of stuff at better IQ than the PS3 for example. Very few devs in the world can make assets and presentation like ND. The asset pipeline really starts to become the bottlehole in these AAA type of games. Current gen benefitted greatly from things like dynamic lights, object collision physics and normal maps to make a clear difference to the generation before them. There are no new magic features like that anymore to tap when the next generation hits. Everything will be bigger and smoother and more dynamic, but still way more samey than the gap between Wii and HD consoles.
 
Thank fuck mods are cracking down on all that stupid "herewego.gif" shit. Drives me crazy having to scroll past ten posts in a row sometimes just to see something pertaining to the subject.

Guess I could contribute something. I think the author clearly understands the qualms of demo hardware and is fishing for hits by sensationalizing it all. With all of the "Sure, it COULD be this, but..." stuff, it's pretty blatant IMO.
 
After a bad experience with overheating Wiis, I won't be buying anymore Nintendo consoles at launch. Waiting a couple years ensures I get some quality software and hopefully reliable hardware anyway. As a 360/PS3 and 3DS XL owner, I don't see anything special being offered on the Wii U at launch regardless.
 
After a bad experience with overheating Wiis, I won't be buying anymore Nintendo consoles at launch. Waiting a couple years ensures I get some quality software and hopefully reliable hardware anyway. As a 360/PS3 and 3DS XL owner, I don't see anything special being offered on the Wii U regardless.

I never had this problem
 
Why are they using PS3 version if ass creed to compare. Every game in that series has looked and run better on 360 iirc?

I might be wrong but didn't Ubi achieve perfect visual parity with Revelations ? I played the PS3 version a while back and it seemed fine.
 
Seems interesting I guess. I wonder how much of it is unstable code or or if in fact they're using something close to what they plan to release with. I think they're probably still ironing stuff out. That overheating though....he best be wrong on that. The last thing next-generation needs is another RROD or YLOD or whatever.
 
I remember reading countless articles about consoles crashing and overheating, games not being finished etc, all before the 360 and PS3 launch. It's just the norm. Granted, we did have the RROD and YLOD, but still!

It's worth remembering that the builds of the games on show will likely be months old, likely even the same builds that were at E3. It takes development time to create a demo for an event like this, so they are unlikely to do an updated build when they'll be concentrating all their efforts on the final product right now.
 
After a bad experience with overheating Wiis, I won't be buying anymore Nintendo consoles at launch. Waiting a couple years ensures I get some quality software and hopefully reliable hardware anyway. As a 360/PS3 and 3DS XL owner, I don't see anything special being offered on the Wii U regardless.

Thats the thing I'm worried about.
How will Nintendo handle the overheating problems that plagued this gen's HD consoles?
I hope they learned from the others mistakes because the last thing I want is all three making unreliable consoles. There has to be a way to control heat transfer, especially if the consoles are as compact as the wiiU seems to be. Its worrying.
 
I never had this problem

I did a couple of times. It ended up being something to do with leaving the Internet service always active (Wii Connect) that ended up melting the graphics chip. Nintendo was good about replacing them, but it wasn't any fun dealing with support on those occasions.
 
The article's title does seem inflammatory - as if "Wii U is coming, and here's what's bad about it". As if when released, it's sure to overheat, crash, and the pro pad doesn't work.

It would have worked if it was only about ACIII and discussed the possibility of first gen Wii U ports suffering - that's a valid concern and plenty of people are talking about it.
 
It´s probably because Ubisoft is lazy or they refuse to put extra resources to make a competent port. I expect the same from most multiplatform games honestly.

That wouldn't be good for the system. To get a bunch of worse running/looking games right from the start. That didn't happen with 360/ps3.
 
Yeah, I wonder if Nintendo will have the same hardware problems that seemed to plague the HD twins. And I hope theres a cool acronym we can use for it
 
I know we have, but they have never looked worse than the games on the previous gen. Never. Not that I remember.

I played 'Gun' on 360. I played 'Project Gotham Racing' on Xbox, I played 'Fantavision' on PS2. I'm not going to go back through the annals of history, but let's just say I'm familiar with console launches. I don't ever remember a 'next gen' game looking worse than the previous gen.

Street Fighter: The Movie - the game - on playstation, looked no better than Mortal Kombat on the SNES. There were loads of 2D sprite games on Saturn that same generation. PS2 launched with games like Eternal Ring, that looked like an N64 title in places. We've had terrible looking 3D games on all of the handheld platforms since DS and PSP...

you're calling AC3 a next gen game, when really it's not - it's more like Gun - which as you infer, isn't regarded as the best Xbox 360 title.

We all know the Wii-U isn't a leap above PS360, its a stepping stone to whatevers next, and Nintendo have obviously intentionally positioned themselves that way... but there can be no reason, based off what little we DO know about the hardware, that AC3 should look worse on Wii-U -- other than the developer either not bothering to exploit the machine properly, or simply that this build is an unfinished one, not being at the stage where they've applied the finishing / polishing touches. If it ships that way, then myself and many others will be interested to hear why.
 
Why are they using PS3 version if ass creed to compare. Every game in that series has looked and run better on 360 iirc?

Pretty sure this game is using an updated engine.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 is the better system this time around with games increasingly pushing for more power.

Anyway - I think its just what was there; not very scientific but we've heard a mixture of things about the WiiU version.
 
I think it'll be obvious how strange this minimal upgrade is when we see the next consoles from Sony / MS.

Orbis and Durango will be a generational leap over PS360. WiiU is a generational leap over the Wii (that was a no-leap over the GC) with a better GPU, more RAM and a more modern CPU compared to PS360 (and the thing is translated into launch multiplatform titles developed primarly on PS360 that is some cases could be slighlty worst and in some case slightly better then end-lifecycle PS360 mlutiplatform titles)

So, it's not strange, considering how Nintendo is proposing its hardwares.
We all know that Wii U is not nextgen as Durango/Orbis will be, hopefully sooner or later we'll be able to base our feedbacks on the Wii U graphical performance on this fact.
 
I did a couple of times. It ended up being something to do with leaving the Internet service always active (Wii Connect) that ended up melting the graphics chip. Nintendo was good about replacing them, but it wasn't any fun dealing with support on those occasions.

Strange. My Wii has been connected to the internet almost constantly since 2006 and I've never had any trouble from it. I've never had any trouble with Nintendo hardware. It always just works for me.
 
What about tesselation ? The next-gen console games will certainly make use of DX11 features.

Tesselation it's very expensive, I doubt it wiiU can't handle it. But higher resolution of texture, or framebuffer, I don't see the problem to achieve that in a more recent hardware than 2005...
 
I did a couple of times. It ended up being something to do with leaving the Internet service always active (Wii Connect) that ended up melting the graphics chip. Nintendo was good about replacing them, but it wasn't any fun dealing with support on those occasions.

Maybe because I had Wii Connect off, after I considered it semi-useless
 
The AC3 news does not surprise me. On multiplatform titles, launch games are going to be quick and dirty ports. ZombiU is made ground-up for WiiU and the author had only good things to say about it.

Also, there's no way in hell that Nintendo is launching a console with terrible controller lag.
 
What about tesselation ? The next-gen console games will certainly make use of DX11 features.

Not comparable at all, it can be nice for some games, but unusable in many others. Are there many examples where it looks good on some games now?
 
The article's title does seem inflammatory - as if "Wii U is coming, and here's what's bad about it". As if when released, it's sure to overheat, crash, and the pro pad doesn't work.

It would have worked if it was only about ACIII and discussed the possibility of first gen Wii U ports suffering - that's a valid concern and plenty of people are talking about it.

"The good news and bad news" inflammatory?
 
Strange. My Wii has been connected to the internet almost constantly since 2006 and I've never had any trouble from it. I've never had any trouble with Nintendo hardware. It always just works for me.

Yep. Same for me. I'm surprised to see so many people unwilling to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt. Their hardware is generally pretty solid.
 
I played Coded Arms for the PS3 at the TGS before the hardware launched. They had these big box fans blowing air on the PS3 units running the game because they had been overheating. Of the 12 demo units 4 were marked as out of order. Twice during my 10 minute demo the system locked up and the staff went running back to fix it. Later in the day I noticed the booth had to be shut down because the systems were not responding.

Several other demos, while not as bad at that had problems as well and many companies were not doing hands on at all but showing video clips instead or having only the staff actually handling the controllers. This was less than 2 months before the PS3 launched and I think that machine did fine in the end (at least from a hardware standpoint).

Count me as not worried. The final hardware will be fine. May be underpowered but it will work as it should.
 
I really hope Nintendo won't release a rushed product because they absolutely want to sell it before Christmas. I mean, I fully understand that its a key part of the console's success since it will probably sell like crazy during holidays, but its not better if there tons of lemons and overheating consoles.

Them warranty RMAs can be very costy.
 
Yep. Same for me. I'm surprised to see so many people unwilling to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt. Their hardware is generally pretty solid.

Yeah there's no question at all, that Ninty has the best all around build quality on their consoles in general. (and packaging lol)
 
Not comparable at all, it can be nice for some games, but unusable in many others. Are there many examples where it looks good on some games now?

Crysis 2, Metro 2033, Battlefield 3 off the top of my head. I think tesselation is very subtle in Max Payne 3 but definitely adds something, whether or not you can see it.

Other PC games are to follow (and most likely make good use of it) : Metro Last Light, Medal Of Honor Warfighter, Crysis 3, Hitman Absolution, Assassin's Creed III.

So yeah I really believe tesselation is good. :3 And this is heartening to see many developpers taking advantage of the PC tech.
 
It´s probably because Ubisoft is lazy or they refuse to put extra resources to make a competent port. I expect the same from most multiplatform games honestly.
Don't you think it's just as likely that they haven't had the final devkits long enough to create a competent port? That wouldn't be their fault so let's not throw Ubi under the bus so quickly.
 
I genuinely do not understand why people are surprised that Nintendo doesn't follow Microsoft and Sony's model of taking massive losses for the sake of teh graphix with their hardware when this is what they've almost always done and is part of the reason they have such a massive warchest to work with. This strategy has been hugely successful for them before, why wouldn't they try it again?
 
Don't you think it's just as likely that they haven't had the final devkits long enough to create a competent port? That wouldn't be their fault so let's not throw Ubi under the bus so quickly.

But Darksiders DEV: "at least as good" as PS3, Xbox 360 versions"
 
Disclaimer:This article relates to non-finalized software on non-finalized hardware, all talk -while founded on reality- is speculation.


They should put that up at the heading of these kind of articles.
 
I'm growing into a mindstate that the early part of a console's life isn't that good an indicator of...anything really.

Let alone a pre-release build.
 
Disclaimer:This article relates to non-finalized software on non-finalized hardware, all talk -while founded on reality- is speculation.


They should put that up at the heading of these kind of articles.


They get so many more hits than they otherwise would so why would they? Sensationalism!!!!
 
Crysis 2, Metro 2033, Battlefield 3 off the top of my head. I think tesselation is very subtle in Max Payne 3 but definitely adds something, whether or not you can see it.

Other PC games are to follow (and most likely make good use of it) : Metro Last Light, Medal Of Honor Warfighter, Crysis 3, Hitman Absolution, Assassin's Creed III.

So yeah I really believe tesselation is good. :3 And this is heartening to see many developpers taking advantage of the PC tech.

Tessellation is certainly something that benefits from raw horsepower, but what I've witnessed so far, it's not comparable to something like the advent of normal maps. At all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJymMWcXKcw
 
"The good news and bad news" inflammatory?

Yes. Because it focuses so much on faulty dev hardware, something that should be a given at any console launch. I'm taking the context of the title into account, not just its wording.

As a comparison, I haven't seen ANY other article, by anyone, go on about pre-launch demo units crashing, or the pro controller having input lag - if it is input lag. Some people read lag into games that doesn't exist, and vis versa.

It just seems like the writer needed a "hot" story to get attention... and playing up the angle of "but can Nintendo make the console work?" was selected. He's even careful to back out at the end and qualify that with "oh but of course it's pre-launch".

Just comes off as a bit of a inflammatory package to me.

Like I said, I think he should have focused on launch window porting issues because that's a legitimate concern and something people want to know about.
 
That wouldn't be good for the system. To get a bunch of worse running/looking games right from the start. That didn't happen with 360/ps3.

They did it with the PS3. That´s why almost all multiplaform games on worse on the PS3. I agree with you that it´s not healthy for the system. I don´t think that developers would put extra resources that on the WiiU so they can utilize the pad. It will cost them more money, and i don´t see that happening. At least not a competent port.
 
What's the incentive to make wiiU versions look better? I can't even think of a single one.

Other than for the benefit of wii-u owners. But since when do customers matter in gaming.
 
Tessellation is certainly something that benefits from raw horsepower, but what I've witnessed so far, it's not comparable to something like the advent of normal maps. At all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJymMWcXKcw

I'm can't argue with this at all. Nevertheless it certainly enhances the visuals and I'm all for this ! :D Hopefully next-gen games really make extensive use of tesselation.

It's ok if you are not interested in technology/graphics at all, you might not pay attention to it but it's there.
 
I genuinely do not understand why people are surprised that Nintendo doesn't follow Microsoft and Sony's model of taking massive losses for the sake of teh graphix with their hardware when this is what they've almost always done and is part of the reason they have such a massive warchest to work with. This strategy has been hugely successful for them before, why wouldn't they try it again?

Thats how I feel about it pretty much. I knew the thing was going to be weaker than whatever MS/Sony come up with because that's the only way Nintendo can afford to make it work. they don't have offsetting industries to make up for launch losses. They have to hope to have a hit right out of the box and make money on it right away. That is Nintendo's method of business, and has been for a while. I can only hope its successful enough to get me the kinds of games the wii did.
 
I genuinely do not understand why people are surprised that Nintendo doesn't follow Microsoft and Sony's model of taking massive losses for the sake of teh graphix with their hardware when this is what they've almost always done and is part of the reason they have such a massive warchest to work with. This strategy has been hugely successful for them before, why wouldn't they try it again?
You don't need to take a loss to deliver a console in 2012 that can beat 2005 graphics.
 
If there's one thing to be said in Nintendo's favour they usually have things working well by the time the launch of the console comes around. Out of the box, I have never had any problems with any Nintendo launch hardware. Demo units crash all the time anyway, even for already released hardware, it's not really a very conducive environment. As for the pro controller, you'd imagine for such a technology that's become fairly commonplace that particular hitch will be fixed very quickly, if it isn't been already. Non issue in my view.

The only problem as I see it is that there's no game at the moment which is really showing what the WiiU is capable of graphics wise, we have a few promising titles which have their roots in last generation in ZombieU and Pikmin 3 which look quite decent, a whole host of ports, Nintendo will be hoping that their pretty 2d games in NSMBU and Rayman Legends will be able to impress gamers with the combination of lovely visuals with the new control methods.
 
so the bad news all amounts to 'it's not finished yet'? that'd make the good news 'but it's not supposed to be', then right?

such a pointless set of impressions. i'm sure some of the Wii U multiplats will be lacking at first, espescially around launch, because that's launch for you.
 
I'm can't argue with this at all. Nevertheless it certainly enhances the visuals and I'm all for this ! :D Hopefully next-gen games really make extensive use of tesselation.

It's ok if you are not interested in technology/graphics at all, you might not pay attention to it but it's there.

I am interested in all new tech if it really serves the games. But my original point was, that the returns will indeed diminish as time goes by.
 
so the bad news all amounts to 'it's not finished yet'? that'd make the good news 'but it's not supposed to be', then right?

such a pointless set of impressions. i'm sure some of the Wii U multiplats will be lacking at first, espescially around launch, because that's launch for you.

I was just going to write something similar. It's an interesting enough read, but there isn't much you can really take from it.
 
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