Thanks for putting words in my mouth. Appreciate it.
I didn't say it wasn't normal. Again, something fans keep reiterating over and over again as if it means anything.
You CAN NOT determine ANYTHING about the Wii-U with that stupid zelda "demo." Period. You might as well try to determine what square soft was able to accomplish by showing the FF8 fmv in real time on the PS2 (or the Bouncer real-time fmv). It means absolutely, positively nothing. Nada, zilch. It only shows what Nintendo can do if they didn't have to make a game...and on theoretical hardware. And what they showed was comparable to what you have seen on a 360 or PS3. So, to say that it proves Nintendo isn't 5 or so years behind HD development is not only premature, it's also wrong. As I already stated, the competition isn't going to stand still, and the poster couldn't even admit that it looks anything above and beyond AAA titles of the past 4 or more years...on a "next-gen" system. What is defined as 5 years behind now is not going to be 5 years behind X years from now.
Nintendo may not be 5 years behind, but they may be. We have NO idea thanks to the lackluster showing of the console. Saying otherwise (and then showing a short gif of a minimally interactive demo) is straight up rose-tinted nonsense. But that's *normal* as well, isn't it?
I would say that of the demos they showed that had global illumination, it would certainly put the current gen systems in a hard place. But as an aside, unlike FMVs this was rendered in realtime. Both in HD on the console, and in SD on the tablet from a different angle (i.e. 2 scenes). I'm not going to sit here and calculate pixels like a B3D post. Are you trying to claim, however, that the demos they showed could run "as is" on the PS360?
I can't expect to speak for others, but I think in regards to "Zelda demo" - they were trying to point out that the pre-console Zelda demos always looked worse than whatever they put out as the actual game. In general, that is a pattern with Nintendo. They sparingly use CG, which differs from the strategy of many other studios (including EA, MGS, SCE, etc). When MS and Sony unveil their next systems at E3, I know I'm going to see healthy amounts of unattainable footage done in CGI renders.
What I do agree with you on, however, is that it proves nothing in regards to "HD development" - we simply won't know until the games start pouring out. I would hazard to say, however, that they haven't been pouring money into that R&D - they have. We just won't know the results for another year or two.
A blu-ray drive is a $50 to $60 part (remember, these are often sold as loss leaders):
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...Blu-Ray-Drives
and a 500 gig laptop hard drive (this is a reasonable assumption for what would be included) is rather variable at the moment but bottoms out at $54, but that's the abberation on this particular list - once again sold often as a loss leader:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...d=1&name=500GB
Same pattern holds if we go to desktop hard drives at 500 gig:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...d=1&name=500GB
Even assuming that hard drive prices flatten back to their prices 6 months ago, we're still talking about $110-$120 in parts, not including about $10 in minor incidentals. $150 would be a low margin sale of the combined parts + distribution + retailer markup.
Has MS ever been known for their low-margin accessory pricing?
While nobody will be getting a bulk deal on HDs anytime soon, I think a large-scale order of Blu-Ray drives would cost less than an OEM kit from Newegg, wouldn't they? The Xbox 3 will have some kind of a blu-ray drive in it, whether it's just blu-laser based or has the movie playback license. Which, btw, some bare OEM drives do not. (The playback license is something you pay for when you buy software).