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Wii 2 (Project Cafe): Officially Announced, Playable At E3, Launching 2012 [Updated]
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nephilimdj
Member
Juice said:
They sell 7" Windows CE netbooks for 70 on ebay, screens aren't that expensive.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
DoomXploder7 said:
The entire screen is the select button. The X button also works perfectly as a select button. No need to clutter the device with too many buttons.
Kintaco said:
To match the iPod Touch description I've been reading about.
This is very similar to what I've had in my head, the analog sticks/nubs are in the perfect spot when you think about how you'd be holding the device too.. The people posting stick layouts ala the XBOX 360 should think about this, it'd be uncomfortable if the sticks were in different positions on a tablet-like device.
Sneaky Gato
Member
You know what would work really well with this if the rumours are true? Tabletop RPGs. You could have the game master with a tablet and the rest of the players could play out the rpg on the their own screen.
wonderfuldays
Member
Stephen Colbert said:
That's what I believe too. That's why they have to wait till 2012 since 28nm not ready for mess production this year.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Reallink said:
They aren't still building them, but they can get them built whenever they want. They just place an order for them at a manufacturer, ship them the specs and they build it.
Also, they said "R700 family GPU". Certain people who I won't name were very anal about this and go "hurr there is no R700 family there is just the R700 card which was dual GPU", but that is obviously not what the leak in question meant, since they used the word "family". They obviously mean GPUs with the R7XX designation, aka the Radeon 4000 series of cards.
They might have meant literally an off the shelf version of any one in this series, or they might have been referring to architecture, or they might have just been saying it was equivalent in power or featureset to these cards. Take your pick. If these people have had dev-kits for months like they claim, then a devkit 14 months before launch isn't necessarily using the final GPU solution they are planning to go with, a GPU that may well not even exist yet.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
IGN's article never once used the word family, anywhere. Not sure where you got that word from.
Reallink, we are talking about IGN's source that told them that the Wii 2 will have an R700 gpu.
R700 can refer to one of two things, both from 2008. One of them is that gpu I mentioned above, it's name is R700.
I'm hopeful that's what ends up in the Wii 2, built on 28nm or 32nm.
Reallink, we are talking about IGN's source that told them that the Wii 2 will have an R700 gpu.
R700 can refer to one of two things, both from 2008. One of them is that gpu I mentioned above, it's name is R700.
I'm hopeful that's what ends up in the Wii 2, built on 28nm or 32nm.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Stephen Colbert said:
Exact quote from IGN is:
You don't really refer to "an architecture" if you mean a specific video card. Other sites reported IGN's story as saying "r700 family".
And honestly, you are a crazy person if you think they would go with a dual-GPU solution, instead of a single, faster GPU.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
IGN's wrote an article last December confirming the existance of the Wii 2 and hinting that it will debut at E3 2011.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/113/1135489p1.html
On page 2, they strongly hint that Nintendo will find a way to implement steroscopic 3D into the console.
And they are repeatedly hinting that there is one last big surprise not yet reported on, that they are saving for E3.
If I was a betting man, I would bet that the controllers 6 inch screen will be 3D, just like the 3DS's screen.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/113/1135489p1.html
On page 2, they strongly hint that Nintendo will find a way to implement steroscopic 3D into the console.
And they are repeatedly hinting that there is one last big surprise not yet reported on, that they are saving for E3.
If I was a betting man, I would bet that the controllers 6 inch screen will be 3D, just like the 3DS's screen.
Wolves Evolve
Member
I think it is extremely unrealistic to think that Nintendo will be using a GPU anything like the actual R700. It would be the biggest leap in hardware specs in the history of games, wouldn't it? Its clearly going to be much lower-powered than that - a custom-built variant of the r700 chipset in keeping with their unbroken-since-1988 corporate model of making cheap hardware and raking in the cash. Even a difference of 10 bucks per console is a massive heap of money that won't necessarily mean greater returns, as we've just seen.
That said, while we have no idea what they're aiming at, they will want to really wow us with HD Nintendo art design on the games they show. If the games are playable in six weeks, we will see at least 4-5 videos of Nintendo games and a trailer reel of others. Those 4-5 games will have to sell us on being both the most powerful machine on the market (maybe) and a successor to the rich Nintendo legacy. So its going to be VERY interesting what they show and what they don't. How we are supposed to go from Wii Fit and Wii Sports to ... Zelda TouchStone Spirit (or whatever) makes no sense to me yet.
I think they will lead with 2 ULTRA casual games, like more casual than Wii Sports, 2 Nintendo properties we know, and something from a third party.
Goddamnit the wait is hell.
That said, while we have no idea what they're aiming at, they will want to really wow us with HD Nintendo art design on the games they show. If the games are playable in six weeks, we will see at least 4-5 videos of Nintendo games and a trailer reel of others. Those 4-5 games will have to sell us on being both the most powerful machine on the market (maybe) and a successor to the rich Nintendo legacy. So its going to be VERY interesting what they show and what they don't. How we are supposed to go from Wii Fit and Wii Sports to ... Zelda TouchStone Spirit (or whatever) makes no sense to me yet.
I think they will lead with 2 ULTRA casual games, like more casual than Wii Sports, 2 Nintendo properties we know, and something from a third party.
Goddamnit the wait is hell.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
ThoseDeafMutes said:
What sites used that word exactly? Can you link to any of them?
My point was that IGN never used the word family where as you were quite adamant that...
ThoseDeafMutes said:
You pulled that out of this air.
Do you know anything about dual gpus? It doesn't sound like it. If they can built it on 32 or 28 nm and thus use around a 100 watt of power, there is no real drawback with going with a dual gpu solution, and several advantages to going that route, including improved heat dissipation.
As far as the word architecture goes, yes, specific gpu designs are architectures too. The use of the word architecture is not synonymous with family.
Wolves Evolve said:
Not at all. Hell, the DS to the 3DS was a much bigger leap than this. They would be using an artitecture from 2008. The only reason it seems like a significant leap is because the Wii was essentially using a gpu from 2001. But it would be downright stupid for Nintendo to using something from 2006 just because their previous console's hardware was so dated.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Wolves Evolve said:
They can still be profitable with powerful hardware by charging more for it. The 3DS is ample demonstration that they are comfortable with high price-points, and at ~349.99-399.99 USD, they can put out quite the beast in hardware terms and turn a nice profit too.
If Nintendo has learned anything from the Wii's recent downturn, it's that being a whole generation behind the competition such that you alienate third parties is an undesirable thing in the long run. By using a modern GPU that will only be a bit behind what the competition puts out a year later, they can avoid this alienation. They also get more of a wow-factor for people that see the console in action when it first hits the market.
I'm not sure whether they will do this, but it's certainly not impossible or even highly implausible. We cannot simply assume Nintendo is stuck in a rut where they can't ever behave in new ways.
"No disadvantages"? Do you know what microstuttering is? Unless the GPUs scale 100%, using a single GPU that is twice as powerful will give you far better performance. If they are going with an older architecture (modern Radeons are much better at scaling performance in CF configurations) this makes less sense. Dual GPU solutions also double up on memory, which is quite wasteful, since both GPUs need to have a copy of the instructions.
There's about 5 instances of exactly this on page 1.
Stephen Colbert said:
All the support they have is a quote from Konno in which he talks generally about Nintendo's never ending experiments with 3d. More recently Iwata has said 3d will not be a selling point or main feature of the new console because of the lack of penetration of 3d TVs. If they put a 6" 3d screen on the controller it really would put itself in competition with the 3ds (yes even if one can be taken out of the house and the other can't). It would make the 2 products too similar and might even devalue the 3ds as a unique product from the consumer standpoint.
Long story short, no I don't think the N6 will have a small 3d screen but I do think the console will be enabled for 3d output like the gamecube was.
Wolves Evolve
Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
Good point. I don't think Nintendo doesn't change its approach, but I do think a fundamental business model around which a multinational organises cashflow and manufacturing and supply is the sort of thing that's change-resistant, generally speaking. I do agree that this is likely to be Nintendo's most expensive console.
You're a horrible betting man then lol. Nintendo confirmed yesterday no 3D involvement in the console.(but you know of course the 3DS will connect)Stephen Colbert said:
Nintendo was just testing things out and apparently the 3D screen was canned most likely due to costs. They're not just working on one idea for a console at a time.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
ant1532 said:
I haven't seen that quote or that reported. Can you link to it? I was in the conference thread this morning and didn't remember any mention of 3D.
What I do know is that IGN has reported that there is one last big surprise that is being saved by Nintendo for E3. The screens being 3D certainly seems to fit better than any of the other theories people have thrown out.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
ThoseDeafMutes said:
And where did you get the idea that the 4870x2 won't scale well, especially when the game is programmed to make use of it.
This graph if anything shows that the 4870 scales just fine.
If the 4870 architecture was cheaper to license (it should considering it's 3 years old), or Nintendo was concerned about heat dissipation, then going with a dual 4870 gpu rather than one big gpu with twice as many transistors probably makes a lot more sense for them.
If Nintendo is planning to play 3d content on 4 controllers and your tv at the same time then I could see the need for something like a 4870x2 gpu. Would still be expensive though and unless they are able to use some sort of shared memory for the gpus they'd waste a lot of memory when just outputting 3d content to the tv.
Antagon said:
I dont think they would be streaming the same image on the TV to the controllers at the same time, what would be the point? It makes more sense to be one or the other at a time, ie if your streaming to the controller than than it doesnt show up on the TV and vice versa.
Death Dealer
Member
100w thermal for a Nintendo GPU sounds high. I think it's wildly optimistic to expect a literal R700 aka RV770x2 inside Stream. A single RV770, RV740 or a console-ized derivative of those GPUs is more realistic.
Yeah it's a nice jump from current generation GPUs, but I expect Sony and MS's consoles to use something from 2011-2012 at the oldest, maybe one of them will go all out and use technology only a year old (2013) at the launch. If that's the case, they wouldn't need to use the upper tier product, the mid tier would suffice. Stream will probably end up being halfway between this generation and whomever has the most powerful system in the 8th generation.
Yeah it's a nice jump from current generation GPUs, but I expect Sony and MS's consoles to use something from 2011-2012 at the oldest, maybe one of them will go all out and use technology only a year old (2013) at the launch. If that's the case, they wouldn't need to use the upper tier product, the mid tier would suffice. Stream will probably end up being halfway between this generation and whomever has the most powerful system in the 8th generation.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Stephen Colbert said:
Stephen Colbert
Banned
Crysis was never designed to take advantage of dual gpus. GRID was. And it's safe to assume that any game specifically made for the Wii 2 would be designed to take advantage of dual gpus as well.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
Antagon said:
IGN is reporting that based on the manufacturing costs, they expect the console to cost atleast $350, which is significantly more than any Nintendo console in the past.
They are also reporting that the console is as big as a 360, which is significantly larger than any Nintendo console in the past.
Both factors suggest that this console will use a beefy and slightly more expensive gpu with a higher power draw than previous Nintendo consoles.
There's no reason why they can't configure it with shared memory as well.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Also it seems GRID is at a much higher resolution.
Edit- And with 4x the AA as well.
Edit- And with 4x the AA as well.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Stephen Colbert said:
Yes, but I'm sure developers would be happier if they didn't have to cater their games to them, like they don't for other platforms. It's not as bad as weird-ass Cell processor in the PS3, but I'm not seeing how the benefits outweight the costs regarding Multi-GPU vs more modern GPU. So far the only benefits we've got are your claims of heat dissipation (which I'm not really sure is accurate anyway) and speculation about licensing fees, but we've also got other things that are drawbacks regardless of which way you cut it like redundant memory and microstutter.
Stephen Colbert said:
Unified memory pool is 99.999999999% certain if they want to be friendly to the third parties already invested in making 360 games.
No console is going to be running out-dated dual GPUs. Even if they wanted that level of performance it would be more efficient to use a single more powerful core. Technology has come a long way from the 4800 series. It will be interesting if it ends up being an off the shelf part or if they choose a specific design for the platform.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Shambles said:
My working hypothesis is that if they were referring to the 4870x2 (I still don't think they were, but w/e) then it was because that was the approximate level of performance the custom part they are making is expected to have.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
Don't get me wrong. I honestly would much prefer that Nintendo went with a current gen gpu, rather than four year old gpu in dual configuration.
Yet all the reports are saying that they didn't opt for a current gpu. I can think of two reasons why they may not have.
One is cost. I would guess the 4870 is much cheaper to license considering how old it is. The second is heat. A dual gpu would do a much better job of dissipating heat than a single beefy gpu with twice as many transistors.
I think assuming that Nintendo did opt for an archtecture from 2008, as is being reported, the most sensible thing for them to do would have been to use something like the R700, but built on a 28nm process rather than a 55nm process.
I would hope they had the good sense to atleast use something that powerful if they want to even have a small chance of running downscaled versions of the engines designed for the PS4 and Xbox 720.
Yet all the reports are saying that they didn't opt for a current gpu. I can think of two reasons why they may not have.
One is cost. I would guess the 4870 is much cheaper to license considering how old it is. The second is heat. A dual gpu would do a much better job of dissipating heat than a single beefy gpu with twice as many transistors.
I think assuming that Nintendo did opt for an archtecture from 2008, as is being reported, the most sensible thing for them to do would have been to use something like the R700, but built on a 28nm process rather than a 55nm process.
I would hope they had the good sense to atleast use something that powerful if they want to even have a small chance of running downscaled versions of the engines designed for the PS4 and Xbox 720.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
A 4870x2 equivalent GPU would take a giant, steaming turd all over both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in performance. There is absolutely no way any developer worth their salt could even put the graphics processing in the same ballpark as the PS3/360.
I dont believe it to be true, but if it is, whoever told 01net and co that the system is "just a nudge" more powerful than the 360 either has access to severely gimped devkits, or is a colossal fucking moron.
I dont believe it to be true, but if it is, whoever told 01net and co that the system is "just a nudge" more powerful than the 360 either has access to severely gimped devkits, or is a colossal fucking moron.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
There was an interesting article someone posted/linked to about the 360 on neogaf (If someone knows which post I'm refering to, a link would be helpful).
When MS was showing the 360, two publishers were shown two different games, one which looked considerably better than the other. That publisher told the rumor sites that the 360 wasn't much more powerful than the original Xbox, while the other publisher told the rumor sites a very different story. Neither was lying, they were both just going based off of what they were shown.
It atleast seems plausible that the people IGN is talking to, that told them the Wii 2 is significantly more powerful than the 360, were shown different footage than the people that 01net were talking to, who told them the Wii 2 was a notch above the 360. The term notch itself isn't very well defined either.
When MS was showing the 360, two publishers were shown two different games, one which looked considerably better than the other. That publisher told the rumor sites that the 360 wasn't much more powerful than the original Xbox, while the other publisher told the rumor sites a very different story. Neither was lying, they were both just going based off of what they were shown.
It atleast seems plausible that the people IGN is talking to, that told them the Wii 2 is significantly more powerful than the 360, were shown different footage than the people that 01net were talking to, who told them the Wii 2 was a notch above the 360. The term notch itself isn't very well defined either.
I'm starting to like less an less this idea of a controller, it just seems so complicated, and if games don't use the screen it will just feel cumbersome, and distracting, and I would hate games to get touchscreen forced into them just because. And what I don't get is how it is possible for the wii remote and nunchuck to still be used for games, when there's such a wide gap between a separated, small and simple controller and a traditional controller with a huge screen in between. If it ends up being a detachable, modular type of thing, it will just seem like an accessory overload, with screens and nunchucks and all kind of stuff lying in your room floor.
I really hope the surprises that are yet under wraps are amazing, I'm not entirely sold on this one yet, it just doesn't feel accessible at all.
I really hope the surprises that are yet under wraps are amazing, I'm not entirely sold on this one yet, it just doesn't feel accessible at all.
Wolves Evolve
Member
If a developer was shown footage of a Nintendo game with Nintendo art direction, its plausible they thought it was a 'nudge' above 360 based on what they saw.
Stephen Colbert said:
Well brain_stew had an interesting post in another thread regarding the relative efficiency of the 4xxx series vs. the more modern 5xxx series. The 5xxx series has far and away more transistors but does not perform as fast as you would expect because much of the changes were to support DirectX11 and that features such as tesselation were already present, though a different implementation than what DirectX11 offers. Would be interesting that with tweaks, you get a very similar feature set and comparable speed with a far less complex GPU. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I think I remember that post. If I recall correctly the examples were some Need for Speed game and Project Gotham, the latter looking leagues better than the other.
I'm just saying. I'm trying not to lump Nintendo into the "conservative" camp, but a 4870 would be an extremely impressive leap over the 360/PS3 tech.
I'm just saying. I'm trying not to lump Nintendo into the "conservative" camp, but a 4870 would be an extremely impressive leap over the 360/PS3 tech.
Stephen Colbert
Banned
EatChildren said:
Yes it would. But again, assuming IGN's source was accurate when he reported that the console will be atleast $350, and will be as large as the Xbox 360, it doesn't sound like Nintendo is taking the conservative route.
It really doesn't make sense for them to take the conservative route. They no longer have an exclusive gimmick like motion controls to make a headway into the casual market, both the PS3 and 360 offer motion controls.
Plus they lost out on so many multiplatform titles with the Wii because their console was so much weaker than the competitors. This graphics disparity also lost them core gamers and is the main reason why the Wii peaked so early and has declined so rapidly over the past two years. If they do the same thing again, and make something a full generation behind the PS4 and 720, they can probably kiss core gamers goodbye.
Log4Girlz said:
Yes, I recall reading that too. That's another reason why them opting out of a modern GPU and using the R700 makes sense to me.
Maxwell House
Member
Even if the gpu really is the dual gpu r700, that is still technology from 2008 that is releasing on a console debuting in 2012, meaning it's already four year old technology. And from the sound of things, the r700 is a best case scenario. The gpu could be any of the less powerful cards in the r700 family.
I would assume that the Wii 2 will look pretty damned underpowered when the next Xbox and Playstation come out in 2013 with technology from 2013. Both the 360 and PS3 had cutting edge components when they debuted and expect the same with their successors.
I would assume that the Wii 2 will look pretty damned underpowered when the next Xbox and Playstation come out in 2013 with technology from 2013. Both the 360 and PS3 had cutting edge components when they debuted and expect the same with their successors.
The Wii consumed 17 watts, the PS3 consumed 171 at launch and the 360 was over 190 at launch. There's no question that they went for the older generation GPU to save on heat, and if brain_stew was right, then with tweaks that GPU could still be impressive. Depends on how much power Nintendo wants to toy with. Please go for at least 120 watts...this will guarantee some power!
Yea not happening.
Yea not happening.
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