Kotaku: The Wii U Won't Be Getting Unreal Engine 4

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The gamecube also sold little compared to the Wii and was still profitable for nintendo. I see the same happening for this gen as well. Sure third parties have abandoned nintendo, but Mario will sell consoles, Zelda will, Metroid may depending on who develops it, Smash Bros will. You cannot bet against those franchises and everybody that has, has been wrong to do so. People were calling singing the swan song for the 3ds just like they are for the Wii U, but guess what? Nintendo turned it around. Do I see the same results for the wii U? no actually I dont, but it most likely will sell alright when nintendo gets some games to the damn thing.

There are different expectations now. Gamecube #s weren't a huge drop from N64 #s. However, returning to GC #s after the 100 million unit moving Wii is devastating. And is the reason Iwata is on borrowed time.
 
If they treat them as a wide variety of inputs for developers to choose from, a developer will do fine.

But no, modern gamers seem to think that Street Fighter 2 must've had light guns, a dance mat, a steering wheel, a flight stick and boxing gloves. Because all arcade games supported every interface invented for arcade cabinets.
I don't see how that makes things better. It's still nintendos fault for not meeting the debs demands.
 
So this thread finally winds down, but, why do I have a feeling this is just the beginning?

No matter the evidence shown, there's still going to be a bandwagon of people who defend low power hardware, and they'll keep shouting "gamecube" as a war cry.

2013,2014,2015,2016,2017 till the next Nintendo consoles comes out and the cycle of stupid begins again.

It's pretty lame that the gaming industry, of all business industries, has to put up with this.

If someone told you a car company was releasing a car with no wheels, you'd think they're insane.
 
Tell that to Wikipedia. Generation isn't power or release date or sequence position. It's era. 2600 and 5200 were still both Gen2, so I don't wanna hear this "if Nintendo made five consoles they'd be on Gen13" excuse.


Yeah, if you wanna just consider Gen7 the PS3 vs. 360 clone war and PSP making a fool of itself for the first five years of its life. Or are touch screens and motion controls not considered part of Gen7 because the "no cooties allowed" gamer club still doesn't want to admit they succeeded? Generation is era. The zeitgeist of the industry. Yet more triangles are no more valid an advancement than a touch screen.

Wii missed out on Borderlands and Killzone just as much as 360 and PS3 missed out on Bit.Trip and Super Mario Galaxy. One isn't more worthy than the other.

Yeah, no. Generation for humans is different than generation in technology. A new generation in technology has always meant and will always mean a massive leap in power, regardless how much spin you and others put, the result will be the same. The WiiU is current gen together with the PS360, deal with it.
i go by date and not power. i just wish people would stop trying to change my opinion
It´s not up to you to decide that. Technology has decided that long time ago.
 
Yeah, no. Generation for humans is different than generation in technology. A new generation in technology has always meant and will always mean a massive leap in power, regardless how much spin you and others put, the result will be the same. The WiiU is current gen together with the PS360, deal with it.

It´s not up to you to decide that. Technology has decided that long time ago.

So lets just say this, lets say your 30 years older than this 20 year old, but the 20 year old is as strong or stronger than you, does that make you the same generation as the 20 year old?
 
Okay stop. I can sort of understand this post if I do some really roundabout thinking:

It can be argued that the kind of gaming Nintendo is trying to promote is completely different from what companies like Epic/DICE/etcl are used to. Nintendo just has different ideas about where console gaming should go and they want to offer an experience different from what the other two console want. They may not even give a fuck about Frostbite 3 and UE4.

I could maybe see Nintendo's mission right now as an ideological battle against the kind of gaming that's prevalent on PlayStation and Xbox. If Epic counts themselves along with the Unreal Engine as being on one side of that battle, Nintendo can count itself as being on the other.

I mean, what are we really looking at the Wii U's loss of Unreal Engine 4 as here? A lack of competence on Nintendo's part? That they couldn't convince Epic to support their platform with the engine? Or that they simply decided they didn't to go for the kind of gaming that UE4 is supposed to support?

I'd definitely agree with the last one. Gaming is already becoming an art field and most art fields have settled on industry standard tools that even the up-and-coming students can use. Unity has a great program for getting newcomers into their program and they even sat next to Nintendo at GDC. This comment from Epic might even be a direct response to that close relationship. I think most people here see it as Nintendo incompetence, though. That's something that I'll never get because Nintendo has always came off to me as highly competent, just with a different set of priorities.
 
Yeah, no. Generation for humans is different than generation in technology. A new generation in technology has always meant and will always mean a massive leap in power, regardless how much spin you and others put, the result will be the same. The WiiU is current gen together with the PS360, deal with it.

Compared to Nintendo's last Gen offering the WiiU is vastly more powerful.

Thus by your logic being Next gen, I'm glad we can agree :)
 
The generation debate remains the stupidest and useless debate on gaf. Who gives a shit if it is or isnt? Like seriously does it hurt some people mentally to say that it is or vice versa?
 
In retrospect I think the safest thing Nintendo could have done was "New Wii! Use your old Wiimotes for new games!" That NSMB New star over Wii, make it known that your old controllers work and it plays advanced games.

Have a Wii Sports alike title ready for launch. And stick to the Wii pricing.

I actually totally agree. They had successfully sold the premise and potential of the Wiimote. They should of doubled down. What they needed was Wii Sports Plus with amazing online and social integration.
 
The generation debate remains the stupidest and useless debate on gaf. Who gives a shit if it is or isnt? Like seriously does it hurt some people mentally to say that it is or vice versa?

I'm suprised its not banned on the forum yet. The argument serves no other purpose other than to derail threads.
 
I don't see how that makes things better. It's still nintendos fault for not meeting the debs demands.
Nintendo screwed up. That's a fact. That doesn't excuse developers publishers' skewed logic about having to oblige every control option for every game though.

A solid port could be appreciated, even if the only addition was off-TV play. The pad has traditional controls. There's a seperate traditional controller. The Wiimote can simulate steering and aiming. The screenpad can reproduce Silent Scope's interface. Every 3rd-party game does not need every feature.

Wait. Maybe it is Nintendo's fault. Their Pokemon team apparently refuses to make a new Pokemon Snap.
 
I've been thinking about this, how much trouble is Nintendo really in? Even if they don't sell a lot of consoles they will probably be profitable. I'm wondering how much they really had to gain by beefing up the console for third parties that they already have poor relations with. The sales are absolutely abysmal right now, but the entire selling point of the console is not even on the market yet: Nintendo games. Once the heavy hitters are out and it still sells like shit I would be worried.

This is all in terms of dollars, obviously. In terms of being a well-rounded console it looks like that ship has already passed.
 
I've been thinking about this, how much trouble is Nintendo really in? Even if they don't sell a lot of consoles they will probably be profitable. I'm wondering how much they really had to gain by beefing up the console for third parties that they already have poor relations with. The sales are absolutely abysmal right now, but the entire selling point of the console is not even on the market yet: Nintendo games. Once the heavy hitters are out and it still sells like shit I would be worried.

This is all in terms of dollars, obviously. In terms of being a well-rounded console it looks like that ship has already passed.

It's too early to tell. After all, the system only launched 4 months ago. Come back Holiday 2013 / March 2014, and we'll have the first indications as to how much a lack of core support for the Wii U will really hurt Nintendo's bottom line.
 
Seems Nintendo got the worst of both worlds this time around: an underpowered system without an interesting gimmick that they could fall back on. They should have went with a powerful system and ditched the tablet or whatever's supposed to be the hook for the Wii-U.
 
So lets just say this, lets say your 30 years older than this 20 year old, but the 20 year old is as strong or stronger than you, does that make you the same generation as the 20 year old?

Compared to Nintendo's last Gen offering the WiiU is vastly more powerful.

Thus by your logic being Next gen, I'm glad we can agree :)

It´s funny how next gen expression means massive leap in technology everywhere in the electronic and engineering industry, but apparently that does not apply to Nintendo. The PS4 and Durango will be massive leap over the PS360 therefor they are next gen.

Spin as much as you want the fact still remains the same. The WiiU is current gen together with the PS360.
 
for a lot of developers its clear what they mean by "generation" is in terms of power/technology, while for many gamers here it means time/cycle thing.
 
It´s funny how next gen expression means massive leap in technology everywhere in the electronic and engineering industry, but apparently that does not apply to Nintendo. The PS4 and Durango will be massive leap over the PS360 therefor they are next gen.

Spin as much as you want the fact still remains the same. The WiiU is current gen together with the PS360.

Expect we are not spinning it, Wii U is next gen if you like it or not.

If the Wii 3 was more powerful than the PS5, the PS5 would still be a 9th gen system.

The N64 was a lot more powerful than the PS1/Saturn, that doesn't mean the PS1/Saturn were 4.5 gen while N64 was true 5th gen.

And wouldn't technology also mean controller? From what I can see the Gamepad is more "next gen" than the DS4.
 
Agreed.

What was the problem? Incompetent leadership? No vision for the future? Greed? Arrogance? A mixture of all?

I would would say a mixture of all. It´s dumb that Nintendo was not prepared for HD development even though HD development has been around for 6 years. They should have known how much studios have struggled with delays etc.... to get their games out for the PS360, yet they apparently did not notice or chose not to do anything about it.

Expect we are not spinning it, Wii U is next gen if you like it or not.

If the Wii 3 was more powerful than the PS5, the PS5 would still be a 9th gen system.

The N64 was a lot more powerful than the PS1/Saturn, that doesn't mean the PS1/Saturn were 4.5 gen while N64 was true 5th gen.

And wouldn't technology also mean controller? From what I can see the Gamepad is more "next gen" than the DS4.

Except it´s not next gen. It´s funny how next gen in technology applies to everything but Nintendo.
 
Except it´s not next gen. It´s funny how next gen in technology applies to everything but Nintendo.

Gaming generations have always been based on cycles. Unfortunately you cannot change this and it would go the same for Sony or MS if they launched a newer console with less intensive specs.
 
Did you read my post?

I'm done with this, this whole "Is Wii U next gen?" talk is getting so old, that I think I quit.
I´m done too.
Gaming generations have always been based on cycles. Unfortunately you cannot change this and it would go the same for Sony or MS if they launched a newer console with less intensive specs.

False.

Word for thoughts, if the WiiU is next gen, then why EA, Epic and probably rest of the industry consider it last gen?
 
A price cut and new Mario Kart will breath some life into this thing eventually, perhaps come November. But overall I think it's safe to say the WiiU is finished.

In midst of the PS4, Next-box, cellphones, and tablets? It'll sell to those hardcore ninty fans like you said. But I don't even know if the casuals will pick it up for mario kart at this point, and considering both the PS4 and Nextbox have cameras in the box, dance games are out of the question for the WiiU as well. There will be little to nil media attention on this console come the holiday. People will be blasted with articles on the PS4/Nextbox, not to mention any newer, more powerful tablets/phones.
 
When people talk about next generation engines, they're talking about hardware power. Wii U is not next gen hardware to the extent of PS4 and presumably 720. That's just the fact. You can argue about console generations and whatever all you like, but in this case Wii can not be called next gen.
 
Mario will sell consoles.
Mario is already on the system.
Expect we are not spinning it, Wii U is next gen if you like it or not.
Who gives a shit. Call it whatever you like.

  • It's still not a technological improvement traditionally associated with a console transition.
  • It's still comparable in power to the current generation systems.
  • UE4 isn't on it. Frostbite 3 isn't on it. Fox Engine isn't on it as far as one can tell. And so on.
  • It's likely not getting comparable games to the PS4 and Durango.
The generation debate remains the stupidest and useless debate on gaf. Who gives a shit if it is or isnt? Like seriously does it hurt some people mentally to say that it is or vice versa?
People like to argue semantics instead of addressing the actual meaning.

When someone says "Wii U is not next gen" everyone knows what someone is saying is:
  • It's not a traditional leap in power.
  • It's comparable to the current gen systems in power.
And by corollary, what we all know:
  • It's not going to be getting the the same games as the Gen4, or whatever one wants to call them, systems.
It's short-hand essentially.

While, conversely, someone insistent on calling the Wii U "next gen," can only really be saying:
  • It's a new Nintendo console.
  • It's chronologically releasing quite a lot later than the PS3 and 360.
  • It's more powerful than the PS3 and 360, however, marginally so.
And what they want to tell themselves from that is:
  • It will get support and next-gen games alongside the PS4 and Durango.
When it's becoming more and more apparent that this isn't the case.
 
I´m done too.


False.

Word for thoughts, if the WiiU is next gen, then why EA, Epic and probably rest of the industry consider it last gen?
Developers sometimes classify generations by hardware power, because they are actively working to create the best visuals for the hardware. If a console is more similar to older consoles it'd make more sense to classify it in the same area as those other consoles (so you'd know where you could port your games to and which machines could approx handle it).

Gamers and the industry as a whole have generations in cycles, and thus are decided by time. Any other factors like hardware aren't what decide it. Unless you're a developer it makes no sense to classify it by power.

*insert definitions of the words 'next' and 'generation'*
 
Just came to post this and say that developers that aren't Epic and EA think the Wii U is next gen.

Team Ninja: Wii U Is "Definitely Next Generation"

Gearbox

And the weirdest thing of all even though EA comment might not matter now.

EA Says Wii U Is “Absolutely” Next-Gen

Ok now I just wanted to say that, I am done.

I clicked your first link

"If you’re basing this simply on processor speed, then it’s not next generation. If you’re basing this on Wii U being a new idea that challenges existing platforms, then it definitely is next generation. "

Did you even read this shit or did you just try to find headlines to prove your predetermined opinion?
 
Mario is already on the system.

you're both right. mario is selling consoles, going by sales. last month the game sold almost 1:1 with hardware sales in the us. i think people need a bit of the spectacle that ead tokyo provides. so a shiny new 3d mario alongside other more concise wii u information would probably do the system good. although to be fair, that spectacle would have come in handy a year ago when they were trying to make their new console look good at e3.
 
EA refers to the PS4 and Durango "Gen 4" internally. They do not ascribe such term to the Wii U.
you're both right. mario is selling consoles, going by sales. last month the game sold almost 1:1 with hardware sales in the us. i think people need a bit of the spectacle that ead tokyo provides. so a shiny new 3d mario alongside other more concise wii u information would probably do the system good. although to be fair, that spectacle would have come in handy a year ago when they were trying to make their new console look good at e3.
I simply don't see more Mario to be a panacea against the wholesale lack of third-party support we're seeing. I do not think, regardless of how strong people think Nintendo's first-party is - and to an extent I agree there is strength - that it is sufficient to sustain a home console.

I just really don't see how the people who would buy a system for Super Mario Universe, aren't essentially the same people who are currently buying a system for NSMBU.
 
The generation debate remains the stupidest and useless debate on gaf. Who gives a shit if it is or isnt? Like seriously does it hurt some people mentally to say that it is or vice versa?

tumblr_lti76f3mvn1r4ghkoo1_500.gif
 
I clicked your first link

"If you’re basing this simply on processor speed, then it’s not next generation. If you’re basing this on Wii U being a new idea that challenges existing platforms, then it definitely is next generation. "

Did you even read this shit or did you just try to find headlines to prove your predetermined opinion?

Processor speed means GPU, ram amount, etc?

Edit: Dat Dave Meltzer putting me in this thread again lol.
 
EA refers to the PS4 and Durango "Gen 4" internally. They do not ascribe such term to the Wii U.
I simply don't see more Mario to be a panacea against the wholesale lack of third-party support we're seeing. I do not think, regardless of how strong people think Nintendo's first-party is - and to an extent I agree there is strength - that it is sufficient to sustain a home console.

nintendo might be able to sustain a console all on their own, but they'd need to drop their handheld to do it. but that's beside the point.

i agree that the lineup that did so well on the wii won't make much of a dent in the market on the wii u. i think there's a ton of not even market confusion, but unawareness regarding the console, and that it will be quietly forgotten as it tries to get its footing this holiday with two or three new consoles launching.
 
This too. I'm not one of the "out there" Nintendo fans who randomly thinks that Durango and PS4 will sell as poorly as the Wii U, but when the entire industry's contracted by ~20% two years in a row and Square-Enix loses enough money that they have to restructure the company because their three latest AAA games only sold a combined total of 7 million copies, there are things to worry about.

The industry contracted because the WiiU is selling like shit, and the 3DS is selling less YOY. The Vita is barely selling. That´s what shrunk the market. When next gen come, the contraction would be much smaller due to higher priced consoles alone. That´s not taking into consideration how much they will sell. If the PS4 and Durango sold a million each this holiday, then the overall market will produce more money due to higher prices, and a lot of new software.

For further info click here, and here.
 
The industry contracted because the WiiU is selling like shit, and the 3DS is selling less YOY. The Vita is barely selling. That´s what shrunk the market. When next gen come, the contraction would be much smaller due to higher priced consoles alone. That´s not taking into consideration how much they will sell. If the PS4 and Durango sold a million each this holiday, then the overall market will produce more money due to higher prices, and a lot of new software.

Everyone sold less hardware and less software overall. It's true that the Wii U and Vita are doing really terribly and the 3DS has slipped as well, but you can't pin this solely on them. Look at the actual NPD numbers from year to year if you don't believe me.
 
Found EA's quote.
I wouldn't say that we see much correlation between the results that Nintendo have just shown with the console debut of the Wii U and what we see coming. We see a pretty sharp distinction and unfortunately I'm unable to go any further than that.

Ours is an industry where a lot of devices come in and represent themselves as the next generation or the next generation after that. You know in many ways, we would argue that the gen — what we're describing as "Gen 4" — is yet to come, and it's that we're excited about, and that's what we're investing in, and frankly we've been quite consistent with that for some time, recognising the frustration our inability to articulate precisely why, causes for you.
DICE apparently defines generations from the emergence of 3D on consoles. Presumably:
Gen 1: PS1, Saturn, N64
DC?
Gen 2: PS2, GCN, XBOX, Wii
Gen 3: PS3, 360, Wii U
Gen 4: PS4, XBOX3
nintendo might be able to sustain a console all on their own, but they'd need to drop their handheld to do it. but that's beside the point.

i agree that the lineup that did so well on the wii won't make much of a dent in the market on the wii u. i think there's a ton of not even market confusion, but unawareness regarding the console, and that it will be quietly forgotten as it tries to get its footing this holiday with two or three new consoles launching.
I partially agree. While, to a degree, there may be a lack of awareness, I think people citing a lack of awareness as the key issue are really ignoring problems with the product itself. I think potential consumers who are currently aware of it simply do not find it an appealing product, and that even when more potential consumers are made aware of it, they similarly won't.
 
Everyone sold less hardware and less software overall. It's true that the Wii U and Vita are doing really terribly and the 3DS has slipped as well, but you can't pin this solely on them. Look at the actual NPD numbers from year to year if you don't believe me.
More 7th gen home consoles sold this January and February NPD than the number of 6th gen home consoles sold in the equivalent January and February of the XBOX 360's launch 7 years ago, and those 6th gen systems were less long-in-the-tooth.

EDIT: Oops double post.
 
The meaning behind any word is malleable and tends to change depending on context. Debates over finite definitions are never solvable because a perceived difference between "what is said" and "what is real" will always remain.

Calling the Wii U "next gen" is, for some, calling it a competent modern advancement over its previous generation - the Wii. This would include added functionality (Gamepad), improved abilities (eshop, miiverse, OS, etc), and more modern technology.

For others, the Wii U would only be next-gen if it matched specific bench marks provided by its nearest competitors, in this case the PS4 and Durango. The evidence that the most modern development tools are, one by one, not debuting on the Wii U is enough to convince many that it does not meet those bench marks.

In either scenario, both use the same language to describe something that is "real," and yet there is a perceived difference as to the meaning between the two groups. However, I would like to add my opinion that basing a word off ANY fixed definition of inferiority and not allowing others to input their opinions has historically led to some horrific events mostly to do with "ethnic cleansing."

[Edit] When you guys read my stuff, does it come across as boring as I just imagined? I need to stop writing at night when everything I think is long and drawn out. @_@
 
The industry contracted because the WiiU is selling like shit, and the 3DS is selling less YOY. The Vita is barely selling. That´s what shrunk the market. When next gen come, the contraction would be much smaller due to higher priced consoles alone. That´s not taking into consideration how much they will sell. If the PS4 and Durango sold a million each this holiday, then the overall market will produce more money due to higher prices, and a lot of new software.

Yeah, people fail to take into account where the contraction happened. The handheld console market has pretty much collapsed, and the Wii sensation ending. PS3 and 360 year over year figures are normal when looking at past generations.

Despite all of the hype, tablets haven't had any visible impact on console sales.
 
Going by some people here we would then have re-adjust every generation since the 2600.. but lets not go that far back for example and time sake since I need sleep ....the xbox had double the ram, a more powerful gpu / cpu and a harddrive so does this mean it is not from same gen as the ps2?
 
There's no need to even talk about what generation a console is if you're just defining it by release date. So when anybody says Wii U isn't next gen, it's obvious what they mean, and pretty undeniable at this point they're right.
 
Everyone sold less hardware and less software overall. It's true that the Wii U and Vita are doing really terribly and the 3DS has slipped as well, but you can't pin this solely on them. Look at the actual NPD numbers from year to year if you don't believe me.

Please read those threads for further info.
For further info click here, and here.

So I did a few calculations with these figures.

Total sales Jan 2012 - 2778
Total sales Jan 2013 - 2111

Market decrease of 26%

Now let's look at the detail.

Nintendo vs non-Nintendo:

Total Nintendo platform sales in Jan 2012 - 999k
Total non-Nintendo platform sales in Jan 2012 - 1779k

Total Nintendo platform sales in Jan 2013 - 467k
Total non-Nintendo platform sales in Jan 2013 - 1644k

Nintendo YoY decrease - 53.3%
Non-Nintendo YoY decrease - 7.6%
Non-Nintendo YoY decrease consoles only - 3.5%

So, is it the UK market that's dead, or Nintendo that's dead in the UK?

I hope this myth that gaming is dead in the UK ceases to exist, it's Nintendo that are in serious decline. A new generation of consoles from Sony and MS would more than fix the current problems for their own decline.

Of course the PS360 are not selling as well as previous years but that does not mean that next gen consoles won´t sell well nor that the VG market value will continue shrinking.
 
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