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[XtremeXpider]

Too bad then it's being developed in France and not Poland.

If we stick to the "same devs, same genre" notion AS put forward, the team's last fps was King Kong 360.

CD Projekt are not a "big budget" development studio, and they made The Witcher 2. Good developers = great games even with great visuals. Not too good developers = great games but not always great visuals ("not too good" applied to visuals ).

 

[Samurai_Heart]

The "8GB in the future" bit never came from Nintendo, that was a leak from the card manufacturer iirc. All Nintendo said was 2GB max at launch.

Think so far the largest size is 4GB, think it was Metal Gear Solid 3DS Snake Eater that pushed for it because Kojima's team asked for it, due to the amount of voice work in Snake Eater.

 

[Gleethor]

CD Projekt are not a "big budget" development studio, and they made The Witcher 2. Good developers = great games even with great visuals. Not too good developers = great games but not always great visuals ("not too good" applied to visuals ).

The Witcher 2 was also developed on hardware thats been available for years, ZombiU is being developed on brand new hardware and being rushed for launch.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

CD Projekt are not a "big budget" development studio, and they made The Witcher 2. Good developers = great games even with great visuals. Not too good developers = great games but not always great visuals ("not too good" applied to visuals ).

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here? Budget has no relation to production values? Location doesn't impact budget? Developer ability is universal?

Why are you comparing ZombiU to The Witcher 2 in the first place?

 

[frankie_baby]

Think so far the largest size is 4GB, think it was Metal Gear Solid 3DS Snake Eater that pushed for it because Kojima's team asked for it, due to the amount of voice work in Snake Eater.

The first 4gb card was revelations

 

[cyberheater]

The Witcher 2 was also developed on hardware thats been available for years, ZombiU is being developed on brand new hardware and being rushed for launch.

And so was PGR3 and Kameo and they both demonstrated a big leap over the current gen.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Think so far the largest size is 4GB, think it was Metal Gear Solid 3DS Snake Eater that pushed for it because Kojima's team asked for it, due to the amount of voice work in Snake Eater.

Yeah 4GB is the current largest, though RE Revelations was the first to use it.

The only 2GB launch games were SSF4 3D Edition and Samurai Warriors Chronicles.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

And so was PGR3 and Kameo and they both demonstrated a big leap over the current gen.

A moderate, dissapointing leap really. Though still more of a leap than we've seen from pre-release Wii U demos/media for sure.

 

[AOC83]

The Witcher 2 was also developed on hardware thats been available for years, ZombiU is being developed on brand new hardware and being rushed for launch.

There´s nothing brand new about the WiiU. Standard low end hardware.

 

[Saint Gregory]

I'm confused about what the last few pages of debate are about. The WiiU isn't the same leap in power over current gen that the PS3/360 were over last gen.

But the issues that Sony and MS caused themselves by going for that much power makes it hard for me think that Nintendo should have followed their lead.

 

[Gleethor]

And so was PGR3 and Kameo and they both demonstrated a big leap over the current gen.

Except a lot of Kameo development was done on the gamecube/xbox. And I'm not claiming that the Wii U is a big leap over current gen because it isn't, it is however more powerful. PS3 and 360 were not doing games like AC3 and Arkham City at launch.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Except a lot of Kameo development was done on the gamecube/xbox. And I'm not claiming that the Wii U is a big leap over current gen because it isn't, it is however more powerful. PS3 and 360 were not doing games like AC3 and Arkham City at launch.

Like I already said, when PS3 and 360 were released, devs had not much experience with multicore cpus and gpus with shader support. They had to develop completely new engines, and adapt to a new workflow. With the Wii U, we won't see such dramatic changes, because there is no exotic or revolutionary hardware inside. But that also means that we probably won't see such big improvements like we have seen on PS3 / Xbox 360 launch titles vs. games now.

 

[TheNatural]

I'm confused about what the last few years of debate are about. The WiiU isn't the same leap in power over current gen that the PS3/360 were over last gen.

Fixed.

Seriously, power or not, you can go back to 1996 with the same damn arguments for or against purchasing a Nintendo system. If you care about Nintendo franchises and games and a handful of exclusives, then people are going to buy it; if not, they're not.

So I don't see why people bitch about it. The decision has already been made.

 

[cyberheater]

Except a lot of Kameo development was done on the gamecube/xbox. And I'm not claiming that the Wii U is a big leap over current gen because it isn't, it is however more powerful. PS3 and 360 were not doing games like AC3 and Arkham City at launch.

As others have already said. It's because they know how to do games like AC3 and Arkham City now so doing a port is relatively easy because they don't have to invent all the new ways to do stuff.

It's got nothing to do with WiiU power other then to say it's on par with current gen.

 

[wsippel]

Is that screenshot further up representative of the current IQ of NintendoLand? I'm just wondering if they are really going with 720p and no AA.

The Japanese screens show AA, the US ones don't. I guess the Japanese screens are bullshots or the US screens are from an older build. Early NSMBU screens also didn't have any AA, new screens do.

 

[lednerg]

Like I said before, publishers are by and large in the multiplatform business. Expecting them to blow their wads on a game for one console with under a year of dev time is completely unrealistic. They've started their next-gen projects with a fixed budget in mind and a timetable that most likely ends in late 2013 / early 2014 at the very soonest in order to be close to the PS4/720 launches. We're not going to be seeing the results of these projects until around then, but these developers will have had enough time with the Wii U to be able to port the games over if the publishers decide to.

 

[plagiarize]

Like I already said, when PS3 and 360 were released, devs had not much experience with multicore cpus and gpus with shader support. They had to develop completely new engines, and adapt to a new workflow. With the Wii U, we won't see such dramatic changes, because there is no exotic or revolutionary hardware inside. But that also means that we probably won't see such big improvements like we have seen on PS3 / Xbox 360 launch titles vs. games now.

by this same logic you expect developers to get the PS4 and Xbox Loop to perform at their best at launch then?

 

[XtremeXpider]

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here? Budget has no relation to production values? Location doesn't impact budget? Developer ability is universal?

Why are you comparing ZombiU to The Witcher 2 in the first place?

Budget is not always used in development.

 

[Mastperf]

by this same logic you expect developers to get the PS4 and Xbox Loop to perform at their best at launch then?

Quite the leap of logic. He didn't say the WiiU was performing at it's best at launch. He said that this generation is far more matured and the system is benefiting from it. His logic is sound and factually correct.

 

[Lord Error]

And so was PGR3 and Kameo and they both demonstrated a big leap over the current gen.

Yep. Somehow people always seem to forget about those two, and concentrate on Gun or The Box Guy. Not to mention that even those worst cases of launch games still ran at multiple times higher resolution over their previous gen incarnations.

 

[Durante]

The Japanese screens show AA, the US ones don't. I guess the Japanese screens are bullshots or the US screens are from an older build. Early NSMBU screens also didn't have any AA, new screens do.

I somehow can't imagine Nintendo doing bullshots, so I assume it's an old build.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Budget is not always used in development.

What does that even mean? It doesn't make sense?

 

[Saint Gregory]

Fixed.

Seriously, power or not, you can go back to 1996 with the same damn arguments for or against purchasing a Nintendo system. If you care about Nintendo franchises and games and a handful of exclusives, then people are going to buy it; if not, they're not.

So I don't see why people bitch about it. The decision has already been made.

That's pretty much what it boils down to. When they announced their decision to stick with cartridges for N64 I made the decision to sit out that Nintendo generation.

Anyone who feels that the WiiU isn't up to par with what they'd expect from a next gen console should do the same.

 

[plagiarize]

Quite the leap of logic. He didn't say the WiiU was performing at it's best at launch. He said that this generation is far more matured and the system is benefiting from it. His logic is sound and factually correct.

the same remains true of PS4 and Xbox Loop though as far as we know yes? so we also shouldn't expect to see large improvements on those right? i'm just making sure we're all on the same page here.

 

[XtremeXpider]

What does that even mean? It doesn't make sense?

You can use the budget in promotion, orchestrated music, expensive motion capture systems, etc.

If you focus the budget in the development area, you can reach a lot of things with low budgets

 

[Backfoggen]

Well, that's not entirely true. Digital Foundry commented on various lighting, shading and processing effects in Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3 and ZombiU in the E3 builds that they deemed "true next gen" or something to that effect

More recently we also had Ancel mention a new "next gen" lighting engine for his ground up Rayman game, which presumably wouldn't have been feasible previously.

There's enough footage of all the games you named out there, probably from newer builds too and none if it shows any major technical step up from current-gen games.
For a true next-gen bump I would have expected to see things like global illumination, tessellation or elaborate physics effects. Not across the board, just small instances where we would see the devs actually putting the alleged hidden power of the Wii U to use, just like they did on 360 in the cases I've named.

And Ancel didn't mention "next-gen" at all, since it's a 2D lighting engine it's more of a new way to introduce lighting and shading to 2D sprites instead of something that really requires hardware power.

 

[BlockheadBrown]

Anyone who feels that the WiiU isn't up to par with what they'd expect from a next gen console should do the same.

Good point. For my family, we're going to get Wii U at launch and are more likely to wait on the PS4/720. Let it build up. Let the initial release of games for those systems come down in price and then get one (or both?) of them and less expensive entertainment to go with it. For the Wii U, Nintendo does keep it's prices on 1st party releases fairly high. Knowing that, we don't mind getting in early with the system and getting 1st party titles as we like.

We are interested in getting 3rd party titles as well. I'm just not sure how soon we'll bite and how many we'd get. eShop titles will be interesting to get as well.

 

[jerd]

And so was PGR3 and Kameo and they both demonstrated a big leap over the current gen.

I don't think people should be trying to argue that the Wii U is not going to be a full "generational leap" graphically. It is just not likely (read: not going to) happen imo.

the same remains true of PS4 and Xbox Loop though as far as we know yes? so we also shouldn't expect to see large improvements on those right? i'm just making sure we're all on the same page here.

Off topic, but where is this Xbox Loop stuff coming from? New leak or something? I've been kinda distant from Gaf and I didn't hear anything, but many people have began calling it Loop now.

 

[Zoramon089]

There's enough footage of all the games you named out there, probably from newer builds too and none if it shows any major technical step up from current-gen games.
For a true next-gen bump I would have expected to see things like global illumination, tessellation or elaborate physics effects. Not across the board, just small instances where we would see the devs actually putting the alleged hidden power of the Wii U to use, just like they did on 360 in the cases I've named.

And Ancel didn't mention "next-gen" at all, since it's a 2D lighting engine it's more of a new way to introduce lighting and shading to 2D sprites instead of something that really requires hardware power.

1. How do we know some games don't use global illumination?
2. Tesselation isn't really something the gamer would notice, is it? It'd be a tool devs could use but for the gamer there wouldn't really be much of a perceivable difference

 

[XtremeXpider]

Off topic, but where is this Xbox Loop stuff coming from? New leak or something? I've been kinda distant from Gaf and I didn't hear anything, but many people have began calling it Loop now.

Xbox Loop, Xbox 8, Xbox 720, a lot of names, none is official.

1. How do we know some games don't use global illumination?

Because we don't see it in games?

2. Tesselation isn't really something the gamer would notice, is it? It'd be a tool devs could use but for the gamer there wouldn't really be much of a perceivable difference

Yes, you can notice tesseletion.

 

[jerd]

Xbox Loop, Xbox 8, Xbox 720, a lot of names, none is official.

Cool thanks. Must have just not heard Loop until now.

 

[Alexios]

You can use the budget in promotion, orchestrated music, expensive motion capture systems, etc.

If you focus the budget in the development area, you can reach a lot of things with low budgets

We were clearly talking about development budget here, why bring up marketing at all?

Most devs/pubs give dev budgets if any. Occasionally we hear about x amount of marketing campaign millions too, separately.

Also, what Backfoggen would expect of next gen doesn't mean anything to anyone other than him.

WiiU could be an overclocked Wii and it would still be a next gen system. Why even discuss this though? All people are saying is launch games aren't necessarily representative of what a system can do. Whether what it actually can do is within a person's next-gen threshold or not, nobody can say, or care, other than said person. I don't know how this is still argued against.

I mean, what's the discussion here at this point, everyone jumps to add a bit here or there, someone will be talking about if a system is or isn't next gen, then add a bit in a discussion talking about if the system is or isn't fully utilized already, then add a bit on if Metroid U should look better than Halo 4, and somehow actually feel they've confronted a particular issue with logical points, when in reality it's just become a mess of people talking each about different things from different angles...

 

[Dark-Cloudz]

So I don't get the argument here. Are all the naysayers saying the Wii U looks like shit?

Should we all now instantly stop playing xbox 360 games because the tech is 7 years old?


Just don't get what people are trying to say about Wii U graphics... That's it's not worth $350 dollars?

Please explain.

 

[XtremeXpider]

We were clearly talking about development budget here, why bring up marketing at all?

We can't be sure how much budget is used in marketing and how much is used in development

WiiU could be an overclocked Wii and it would still be a next gen system. Why even discuss this though? All people are saying is launch games aren't necessarily representative of what the system can do. Whether what it actually can do is within your next-gen threshold or not, nobody can say, or care, except you.

Wii U is a Next Gen console.

. Are all the naysayers saying the Wii U looks like shit?

What?

 

[Nibel]

The Halo 4 comparisons, the whining about Nintendoland

This thread deserves a better caliber of posters and I will give 'em to it

 

[Mastperf]

the same remains true of PS4 and Xbox Loop though as far as we know yes? so we also shouldn't expect to see large improvements on those right? i'm just making sure we're all on the same page here.

The same can be said that the next Xbox and PS4 will benefit from coming in with similarly powered hardware and benefiting from a generations worth of experience? No, that can't be said.

The WiiU hardware appears to be at a similar level as the 360 and PS3. Most expect games to be similar with some or most advantages going to the Wiiu. The next consoles are expected to be a large jump over what we currently have and will thus require new tools/engines to properly utilize the power. Current engines are perfectly fine for showing the WilU's true capability but UE4 and other new engines are needed to properly utilize more high-end hardware. Developers should have less trouble pushing the next systems early on, but there's still the learning curve that comes with a new development environment.
The WiiU isn't "brute forcing" it's way through 360 and PS3 software. It's running ports of games from similar hardware the same way the 360 and PS3 handle ports from one another.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Good point. For my family, we're going to get Wii U at launch and are more likely to wait on the PS4/720. Let it build up. Let the initial release of games for those systems come down in price and then get one (or both?) of them and less expensive entertainment to go with it. For the Wii U, Nintendo does keep it's prices on 1st party releases fairly high. Knowing that, we don't mind getting in early with the system and getting 1st party titles as we like.

We are interested in getting 3rd party titles as well. I'm just not sure how soon we'll bite and how many we'd get. eShop titles will be interesting to get as well.

I'm wondering what is going to happen with game prices whe the new next gen systems launch. Nintendo kind of surprised me by raising the base price of their games to $60, which is a little bit out of mass market range to me, so will that stay the new base or will game prices go even higher?

I thought the entire purpose of Nintendo keep their specs out of bleeding edge range was to make game production more affordable so why the need for $60 price points? Especially considering that their games tend to never get marked down aside from the occasional mega-bomba.

 

[XtremeXpider]

The Halo 4 comparisons, the whining about Nintendoland

This thread deserves a better caliber of posters and I will give 'em to it

maybe you should read all the threads...

 

[Dark-Cloudz]

We can't be sure how much budget is used in marketing and how much is used in development



Wii U is a Next Gen console.



What?

I just don't get why people are questioning the value.


Xbox 360 = $200

Wii U + a tablet (which has to have a value of about $150) = $350

It seems to me that for the price of a 360 and a (very) budget tablet you can get a wiiU, which will more than likely recieve most of the forthcoming multiplat titles.

Am I missing something here? a console position somewhere between gens with a 'tablet' thrown in seems good value to me. Not too bothered that it is between gens.

 

[JordanN]

I'm wondering what is going to happen with game prices whe the new next gen systems launch. Nintendo kind of surprised me by raising the base price of their games to $60, which is a little bit out of mass market range to me, so will that stay the new base or will game prices go even higher?

I thought the entire purpose of Nintendo keep their specs out of bleeding edge range was to make game production more affordable so why the need for $60 price points? Especially considering that their games tend to never get marked down aside from the occasional mega-bomba.

Uh, Wii games cost far less to make than Wii U games.

It's the same reason why 3DS games went to $40 instead of staying at $30 like the DS. The budgets were no longer just a couple thousand dollars but millions.

 

[cyberheater]

I don't think people should be trying to argue that the Wii U is not going to be a full "generational leap" graphically. It is just not likely (read: not going to) happen imo.

Nor do I. It's just not going to happen.

 

[A Twisty Fluken]

Fixed.

Seriously, power or not, you can go back to 1986 with the same damn arguments for or against purchasing a Nintendo system.

Fixed.

That usenet thread was a real trip.

 

[KojiKnight]

What?

Yes, you basically distilled his entire post down to one word... any idea as to an answer to it

 

[Dark-Cloudz]

Yes, you basically distilled his entire post down to one word... any idea as to an answer to it

Let me make myself clear. People seem to be complaining about the power/definition/shaders/tool set/RAM Etc...

But it's positioned between generations at a price cheaper than the opposition will launch at.


It has a tablet thrown in, so it still represents relatively good value compared to its current gen rivals.

 

[Man God]

I just don't get why people are questioning the value.


Xbox 360 = $200

Wii U + a tablet (which has to have a value of about $150) = $300

Wii U + a tablet+a 60 dollar game= $350

It seems to me that for the price of a 360 and a (very) budget tablet you can get a wiiU, which will more than likely recieve most of the forthcoming multiplat titles.

Am I missing something here? a console position somewhere between gens with a 'tablet' thrown in seems good value to me. Not too bothered that it is between gens.

Fixed for you there.

 

[XtremeXpider]

I just don't get why people are questioning the value.


Xbox 360 = $200

Wii U + a tablet (which has to have a value of about $150) = $350

It seems to me that for the price of a 360 and a (very) budget tablet you can get a wiiU, which will more than likely recieve most of the forthcoming multiplat titles.

Am I missing something here? a console position somewhere between gens with a 'tablet' thrown in seems good value to me. Not too bothered that it is between gens.

I will buy Wii U, but now, with launch games, I can't see a leap against current gen. The console price is ok for me. EDIT: And Im not saying Wii U games look like shit.

 

[Saint Gregory]

DP

 

[Durante]

I just don't get why people are questioning the value.


Xbox 360 = $200

Wii U + a tablet (which has to have a value of about $150) = $350

I'd rather doubt that. $80 buys you a tablet with a capacitive touch screen of similar resolution, and actual processing capabilities.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Uh, Wii games cost far less to make than Wii U games.
It's the same reason why 3DS games went to $40 instead of staying at $30 like the DS. The budgets were no longer just a couple thousand dollars but millions.

Of course, but current generation games have been developed since 2005. You'd think that those costs would have leveled off a bit by now so the $10 surcharge shouldn't be necessary just as it wasn't prior to this gen.

Nor do I. It's just not going to happen.

But Nintendo 1st party games will be a huge leap from their current gen, which is the point no?

 

[frankie_baby]

I'd rather doubt that. $80 buys you a tablet with a capacitive touch screen of similar resolution, and actual processing capabilities.

I'd hardly call that a tablet its smaller than decent phones are these days