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Wii U Community Thread

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G

GhostTrick

Banned
The more we got informations on wii U hardware, the less I got hyped.:(
Seriously, we came from a 3 or 4 core Power7 and 1 Tflops GPU based on HD4850 to a 1 Power 7 core coupled with 2 single threaded core and 400Gflops based on HD4650.:(
 
A

AzaK

Member
GhostTrick said:
The more we got informations on wii U hardware, the less I got hyped.:(
Seriously, we came from a 3 or 4 core Power7 and 1 Tflops GPU based on HD4850 to a 1 Power 7 core coupled with 2 single threaded core and 400Gflops based on HD4650.:(
Click to expand...

Yeah it's a bit of a bummer at the moment that's for sure.
 
B

BlackJace

Member
I dunno, I see the Wii U getting a lot of Japanese support. The 3DS seems to be getting a steady flow of it, and the DS got lots of it.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Seeing as reverse engineering on the SDKs is prohibited and opening the case isn't recommended (for other than debug/repair purposes), I assume the manufacturer of the RAM is still unknown, or is that documented in the white papers?

Shame to see that nobody has asked (that's has been documented) either Reggie or Iwata why they dropped their MoSys support. It's probably because of the change in licensing, but why not continue with 1T-SRAM memory under new terms, too expensive maybe? And yeah, is memory type (main memory) known?
 
S

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
BlackJace said:
I dunno, I see the Wii U getting a lot of Japanese support. The 3DS seems to be getting a steady flow of it, and the DS got lots of it.
Click to expand...

I'm probably annoying people repeating myself, but IMO the realistic best case for 3rd party support would be A- non-gimped, credible versions of the big western franchises (CoD, Madden, FIFA), and B- very good Japanese support.

That would personally be enough for me, though not for others of course.
 
T

Terrell

Member
Rösti;38749296 said:
I've been thinking more about how branding is going to look like regarding the Wii U cover inlays. As I got hold of a Wii U logo in vector format (Nintendo rarely supplies these through press kits etc., but someone made a mistake) I have been trying to fit it with many geometric shapes. I have written this before, but I think it should be stressed, the Wii U logo does NOT go well together with the header graphic of the Wii U covers! If Nintendo intends to simply have that graphic reversed horizontally (like with the 3DS covers) the confusion will be immense among casuals and CNN writers at least. So, what shape is the best then for the Wii U logo (if it should go on a keep case/ Blu-ray single case format that is)?

Well, if we are to take design ideas from past Nintendo systems, the general design we have now originates from what I can tell the Japanese Nintendo 64 covers. Unlike the EU/US covers, these are vertical and not horizontal. A vertical format has since been what Nintendo has chosen, though in various sizes. The Nintendo 3DS cover design is very simple but works well (at least by now) and a simple design is very like for the Wii U boxes as well. What I have found works really well with the Wii U logo is something similar to the elliptical half that was used for EU/US GameCube covers. In the below example, I have used a design similar to that and added/modified the "border" below the element. It's transparent here, though I found that is not the best option:



GameCube I doubt anyone would confuse this with, that system is not even supported by Nintendo anymore (except for with repair etc.) and not many chains carry products for the format. Besides, the header graphic of GameCube is black and not white.

I think it looks nice and is clearly different from Wii. However, it is also quite generic and I wonder if Nintendo perhaps could do something special in this department to drive sales and also help developers. The best they could do is having the Wii U logo separate in the upper left corner without any elements except for artwork surrounding it. Now that of course poses a problem seeing as it can be overlooked and mistaken for a DVD movie or a book even; now with a very specific case size that wouldn't be a problem but I doubt Nintendo wants to go to any extremes for that.

Well, should probably stop rambling there, but branding I find very fascinating. It's not what it was in the '80s/'90s where every system basically had different game case sizes. Now it's mostly keep case, though with a few bold moves now and then (PS Vita's game cases are nice I think). What do you think, will Nintendo play it safe and alter the Wii U branding for game cases very little over Wii, or will they present something truly revolutionary?

Oh, and the game is of course a mockup, though it represents what I believe could become quite common on Wii U.
Click to expand...

They'll probably go minimalist again.

I think that they will do WiiU games in matte white Blu-Ray cases, and in the "dead space" at the top of the case, they'll have the WiiU logo etched and painted into the plastic, with the rest of the game case being the cover art.
 
N

Nilaul

Member
Terrell said:
They'll probably go minimalist again.

I think that they will do WiiU games in matte white Blu-Ray cases, and in the "dead space" at the top of the case, they'll have the WiiU logo etched and painted into the plastic, with the rest of the game case being the cover art.
Click to expand...

Glow in the dark plastic.
 
I

Indyana

Member
Glorified G said:
Is that average female or grandmother going to buy the latest & flashy fps or sports game or whatever third party game is dominating the top of the ndp charts? If not, I don't see why sony or ms cares if they buy a wii u or not at a cheaper price.
Click to expand...
If they don't care, why have they launched Kinect and Move?
 
S

Snakeyes

Member
Nilaul said:
IM starting to think to get another 3GB hd radeon 7970 instead... :-(
Click to expand...

Same here... After this dismal E3 showing and lack of solid 3rd party support, I'm set on not getting suckered into buying this system based on "potential" like the Wii. They can have my money when a strong core lineup will be available (F-Zero, Sin & Punishment 3, etc...).
 
E

Effect

Member
The big concern I have with the Wii U maybe getting a lot of Japanese support and limited western 3rd party support is the localization of said Japanese games. The long wait times or the chance many games won't be localized at all thus leaving Wii U owners outside of Japan just hanging is a huge negative. That more then anything is why I wanted Nintendo to beef up the Wii U. I really do not want to go through another Wii where I ended up buying a 360 and then a PS3 to get access to other types of games. I can't. Do to how my gaming time is going forward and not wanting to spend a lot of money on gaming anymore (mulitple consoles is expensive and takes to much time to get the most out of them) I'm going to be a one console owner going forward. So just my 3DS and then hopefully the Wii U.

Edit:

Anyone else see this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA77Ida_ITw

Assassin's Creed 3 footage comparing both the PS3 and Wii U versions. The PS3 footage is direct feed and the Wii U is off screen.
 
G

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
Thraktor said:
I understand this, but I still don't know why Nintendo and EA were so hesitant to even confirm the existence of games like FIFA and Madden. It's not as if the platform getting a FIFA game and a Madden game is some sort of earth-shattering megaton. The same with Blops 2 and Skylanders, I really don't understand Nintendo's strategy in not allowing Activision to even talk about these.

I'm also a bit surprised that EA and Activision are willing to go along with Nintendo with this degree of secrecy post-E3. The only guess I could make would be that the launch window titles not shown yet are the ones Nintendo will be contributing to the advertising spend on, as I'm sure a seven-figure sum to spend on advertising would encourage them to keep quiet.
Click to expand...

It could be a situation where Nintendo wants to reward Ubisoft, as they have actual exclusive games and brought them ready to play on the show floor. EA and Activision may be asked not to talk about their games until they are ready to be shown off and demoed to journalists. That's one theory, but who knows what the truth is? *Shrugs*
 
G

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
Why does the PS3 footage seem to have a much more narrow color pallet?
 
S

StreetsAhead

Member
Effect said:
Anyone else see this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA77Ida_ITw

Assassin's Creed 3 footage comparing both the PS3 and Wii U versions. The PS3 footage is direct feed and the Wii U is off screen.
Click to expand...

Clearly looks worse than PS3, Wii U is last gen confirmed, blue filter vs brown filter etc.

Also, going by history we're due for a Nintendo Direct between the 25th and 29th of this month (at least in Japan), so, there's (maybe) that to look forward too, even if it's just more info on NSMB2 and Brain Training.
 
T

Terrell

Member
Gahiggidy said:
Why does the PS3 footage seem to have a much more narrow color pallet?
Click to expand...

Some have speculated, perhaps falsely, that part of the reason for use of reduced color palettes is to hide imperfections in the visual design. I don't believe it personally, but it's something to think about, at least.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
Sadist said:
Nah, that won't happen.

I wouldn't be surprised if Platinum ends up doing some work on Smash Bros. Wii U. Sakurai visiting Platinum a few weeks ago was most likely a trip to see Project P-100, but I've got a gut feeling that Sakurai might be looking for dev teams in helping him developing Smash Bros.
Click to expand...

I've been saying for a while now that they'd be the team to go to for a decent adventure mode.
 
G

gamergirly

Member
StreetsAhead said:
Clearly looks worse than PS3, Wii U is last gen confirmed, blue filter vs brown filter etc.

Also, going by history we're due for a Nintendo Direct between the 25th and 29th of this month (at least in Japan), so, there's (maybe) that to look forward too, even if it's just more info on NSMB2 and Brain Training.
Click to expand...

x_X
 
S

StreetsAhead

Member
gamergirly said:
x_X
Click to expand...

I wasn't being serious, but I've seen people post almost the exact same thing.

Also, I believe there was someone who tried to argue that you couldn't compare them/say Wii U's was better as they were direct feed vs. off-screen, as if the Wii U version would somehow look worse if we had direct feed of it.
 
A

Agent Unknown

Member
Thraktor said:
We know that partially optimized audio middleware performs at least as well on the Wii U's CPU as on Xenon. Three overclocked Wii cores simply wouldn't be able to do that.
Click to expand...

I hope that's the case because that post has me scared too. It'd be a real shame if Nintendo went cheap on the hardware again.
 
A

AzaK

Member
Effect said:
The big concern I have with the Wii U maybe getting a lot of Japanese support and limited western 3rd party support is the localization of said Japanese games. The long wait times or the chance many games won't be localized at all thus leaving Wii U owners outside of Japan just hanging is a huge negative. That more then anything is why I wanted Nintendo to beef up the Wii U. I really do not want to go through another Wii where I ended up buying a 360 and then a PS3 to get access to other types of games. I can't. Do to how my gaming time is going forward and not wanting to spend a lot of money on gaming anymore (mulitple consoles is expensive and takes to much time to get the most out of them) I'm going to be a one console owner going forward. So just my 3DS and then hopefully the Wii U.

Edit:

Anyone else see this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA77Ida_ITw

Assassin's Creed 3 footage comparing both the PS3 and Wii U versions. The PS3 footage is direct feed and the Wii U is off screen.
Click to expand...

Anyone have a non youtube version?
 
M

Metroid Hunter

Banned
So who is Tatsumi Kimishima? I saw him in the audience during the Nintendo 3DS Software Showcase. Apparently, he's the CEO of Nintendo of America Inc. and the chairman of the board of directors for both Nintendo of America Inc. and Nintendo Co, Ltd.

So, doesn't this make him Reggie and Iwata's boss? I thought Reggie was the boss of NOA and Iwata was the boss of NCL? Can someone clarify this for me please?

Tatsumi_kimishima_keyboxart_160w.jpg


BTW, Nintendo's 2008 E3 page lists him as the CEO of NOA. So Reggie is not the boss of NOA? And if he's chairman of NCL, then what is Iwata on the board? And why is Iwata only ever listed as President, but never CEO?

NOA
Mr. Kimishima
Chairman and CEO

Reggie Fils-Aime
President and COO

Cammie Dunaway
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing

Denise Kaigler
Vice President, Corporate Affairs
Click to expand...
 
L

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
GhostTrick said:
The more we got informations on wii U hardware, the less I got hyped.:(
Seriously, we came from a 3 or 4 core Power7 and 1 Tflops GPU based on HD4850 to a 1 Power 7 core coupled with 2 single threaded core and 400Gflops based on HD4650.:(
Click to expand...
Wait, we got more concrete info!? Link plz!
 
E

Eradicate

Member
http://weekly.ascii.jp/elem/000/000/092/92945/

I guess this isn't speculation, but it is interesting survey statistics about what age groups and genders are most interested in picking up a Wii U in 1-2 years. There is also data to compare that to the Vita. I'll post them in order of Wii U then Vita below:

IpG6l.jpg


NXjRq.jpg


I guess this data can speak to how the product is viewed so far in Japan. It is a fairly large-N study, which I always like.

I just feel I'd rather share the Wii U news and information I can find in this thread instead of starting one in the main gaming page. Some of those people make it too hard to talk about anything. Anyways, I just wanted to share this.

Also, in relation to the hardware, it is kind of odd that the cache size for that one core is so much larger than the other cores. What does the AltiVec technology do?

Also, Rösti, I like you box design a lot! If I get the chance, I'd love to take a similar crack at some possibilities with what you had to see what it looks like!
 
T

Terrell

Member
jonny_boi said:
So who is Tatsumi Kimishima? I saw him in the audience during the Nintendo 3DS Software Showcase. Apparently, he's the CEO of Nintendo of America Inc. and the chairman of the board of directors for both Nintendo of America Inc. and Nintendo Co, Ltd.

So, doesn't this make him Reggie and Iwata's boss? I thought Reggie was the boss of NOA and Iwata was the boss of NCL? Can someone clarify this for me please?

Tatsumi_kimishima_keyboxart_160w.jpg


BTW, Nintendo's 2008 E3 page lists him as the CEO of NOA. So Reggie is not the boss of NOA? And if he's chairman of NCL, then what is Iwata on the board? And why is Iwata only ever listed as President, but never CEO?
Click to expand...

He's Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO. A chairman is obviously the man in charge of the board, and they serve essentially as individuals who help plan annual strategy. They are also the ones who field requests from shareholders and act as the direct representative of shareholders to the executive and operations branches of a company.

A CEO is typically the man who decides who will control the executive chain. Basically, to fire a high-ranking executive, the board and CEO have to decide to do it and take it to a vote.

However, most responsibilities of operating the company fall to the president. This is why you often see executives hold both the title of President and CEO.

I'm not making this any clearer, am I?

Eradicate said:
Charts
Click to expand...

First of all, the sheer amount of people buying WiiU is astounding, with the whole 16-40 age bracket pretty much locked down for both genders.

Equally shocking, though, is the Vita numbers and how their demographic is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller, with it being most focused in the category of mid-20s males. You very rarely see such a marginalized demographic group, even in video games. No wonder it's not selling.
 
D

Dreamwriter

Member
jonny_boi said:
So who is Tatsumi Kimishima? I saw him in the audience during the Nintendo 3DS Software Showcase. Apparently, he's the CEO of Nintendo of America Inc. and the chairman of the board of directors for both Nintendo of America Inc. and Nintendo Co, Ltd.

So, doesn't this make him Reggie and Iwata's boss? I thought Reggie was the boss of NOA and Iwata was the boss of NCL? Can someone clarify this for me please?

Tatsumi_kimishima_keyboxart_160w.jpg


BTW, Nintendo's 2008 E3 page lists him as the CEO of NOA. So Reggie is not the boss of NOA? And if he's chairman of NCL, then what is Iwata on the board? And why is Iwata only ever listed as President, but never CEO?
Click to expand...

N-Sider personnel overview
Kimishima Takes Over As Nintendo Of America CEO news story
 
B

bgassassin

Member
Thraktor said:
Yeah, in thinking about what might require that large a cache, I could only think of three things:

1. One core has a higher clock-speed
2. One core is capable of handling more threads simultaneously
3. One core has more data-hungry functionality

Now, the first we can throw out straight away, as although it's technically possible, it doesn't make a bit of sense. The second is just about possible, but for the cache quantities to make sense, IBM would have to have paired a 4-way SMT core with two single-threaded cores, which is a little crazy compared to just using 3 symmetric 2-way SMT cores.

This leaves us with the third option. Now, most execution units on these cores are going to be fairly standard, and even heavily customized wouldn't require a large chunk of extra cache feeding them data. The only exception to this is the AltiVec unit, which is going to be heavily customized, and is going to be going through a lot of data.

My logic would be that, early on in the design process, IBM and Nintendo came up with some SIMD functionality that would be very useful, but very expensive in terms of transistors. It's possible that they decided to compromise, and either have one core with the extra functionality and two with more basic AltiVec units, or even two AltiVec-less cores combined with one core with a sort of monster AltiVec unit. Either case would account for the heavily asymmetric cache.

This could cause problems in development, though, for instance if you accidentally try to run AltiVec-dependent code on a core without an AltiVec unit.

Of course it's also possible that the extra cache is purely for some "master core" functionalities, but the sheer amount of extra cache is just a bit surprising if that's the case.
Click to expand...

A hybrid of 2 and 3 sounds like both of our ideas. And yeah that is a large amount of cache just for a "fake" master core.

EloquentM said:
That's true! I've seen the document however I thought espresso was a developer =/
Click to expand...

I don't doubt Espresso has dev kit access, but at the same time lherre and the person I got the PS4 specs from both said it had 3 cores and two threads per core. I'm going to go with them until it's clearly known otherwise.

GhostTrick said:
The more we got informations on wii U hardware, the less I got hyped.:(
Seriously, we came from a 3 or 4 core Power7 and 1 Tflops GPU based on HD4850 to a 1 Power 7 core coupled with 2 single threaded core and 400Gflops based on HD4650.:(
Click to expand...

I understand how you feel, but it's better to try and know what Wii U is truly capable of as soon as possible than have some lofty expectations that aren't met.

Rösti;38749822 said:
Seeing as reverse engineering on the SDKs is prohibited and opening the case isn't recommended (for other than debug/repair purposes), I assume the manufacturer of the RAM is still unknown, or is that documented in the white papers?

Shame to see that nobody has asked (that's has been documented) either Reggie or Iwata why they dropped their MoSys support. It's probably because of the change in licensing, but why not continue with 1T-SRAM memory under new terms, too expensive maybe? And yeah, is memory type (main memory) known?
Click to expand...

I think that is still (publicly) unknown on who make he memory. And I don't think we would want to ask Reggie about that. :p

jacksrb said:
There is this short video on "Nintendo E3 All Access!" that doesn't have much new, except for a short glimpse at the tracker on the gamepad.

http://e3.nintendo.com/videos/#/Developer-Interview-Aliens-Coloniel-Marines
Click to expand...

Nice. Thanks.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
GhostTrick said:
Yep, I'm starting to think of ruling out 3rd party support in the next 3 years...:'(
Click to expand...

Think about it this way:

Next holiday season when PS4/720 drop, they're gonna get Call of Duty. However, Activision would be silly to ignore the PS3/360/Wii U install bases.

Will the Wii U version of COD more resemble the PS3/360 version, or the PS4/720 version? What about in 2014? 2015?
 
B

bomma_man

Member
Terrell said:
He's Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO. A chairman is obviously the man in charge of the board, and they serve essentially as individuals who help plan annual strategy. They are also the ones who field requests from shareholders and act as the direct representative of shareholders to the executive and operations branches of a company.

A CEO is typically the man who decides who will control the executive chain. Basically, to fire a high-ranking executive, the board and CEO have to decide to do it and take it to a vote.

However, most responsibilities of operating the company fall to the president. This is why you often see executives hold both the title of President and CEO.

I'm not making this any clearer, am I?



First of all, the sheer amount of people buying WiiU is astounding, with the whole 16-40 age bracket pretty much locked down for both genders.

Equally shocking, though, is the Vita numbers and how their demographic is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller, with it being most focused in the category of mid-20s males. You very rarely see such a marginalized demographic group, even in video games. No wonder it's not selling.
Click to expand...

Iwata seems to be referred as the president or CEO interchangeably by the media but there's no official indication that he's anything but the president. Which seems weird, as he certainly acts like a CEO. Maybe corporate structure is different in Japan?
 
T

Terrell

Member
bomma_man said:
Iwata seems to be referred as the president or CEO interchangeably by the media but there's no official indication that he's anything but the president. Which seems weird, as he certainly acts like a CEO. Maybe corporate structure is different in Japan?
Click to expand...

It's likely that he has more power deferred to him by the board of directors than most presidents. And as said, most presidents also typically hold the CEO title.
 
A

Antioch

Member
So what do people expect from Nintendo's first party line-up following the launch window? I think if the Wii U launches in November, the launch window would go until the end of February.

I would predict:
Pre-E3 (March-June):
Mario Sports Mix 2
Good Feel's game (Yoshi's Island?)
Monster's game
Art Academy U

Q3:
Metroid U (Project M)
Pokemon Stadium like game
Big Brain University

Q4:
Retro's game
Donkey Kong U (NST, I think they'll be the DK devs from here on out, and they didn't show any 3DS DK so I think it's possible they're working on a Wii U game)
Wii Sports U
Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games

I think Monolith's Wii U game will release next year in Japan, but won't come out in the west until some point in 2014. I also think the next 3D Mario will come out Summer 2014, after being announced at E3 2013, so a similar announcement to release timeline as Super Mario Galaxy 2.
 
C

Captain Smoker

Member
Effect said:
(...)

Edit:

Anyone else see this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA77Ida_ITw

Assassin's Creed 3 footage comparing both the PS3 and Wii U versions. The PS3 footage is direct feed and the Wii U is off screen.
Click to expand...
I still don't understand why people compare the PS360 - ports with the Wii U, is here anyone who thinks that the devs are going to make some effort? xD


At the moment, the only games which are representative are Nintendo Land, Project P-100, Lego City and Zombi U. All games have great lighting, good textures, DOF, etc.
(Pikmin 3 is an upscaled Wii-game and NSMBU too)

And noone talks about them.
 
G

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
Captain Smoker,

Lego City looks great but they need to clean up the screen tearing, frame rate and pop-in. The missing anti-aliasing is an obvious problem too. (I blame MATTY B00SH).

Though looking like a rough build, Zombi U has some very nice atmospheric lighting and effects (to my eye). I love the cold hue cast off from the flashlights and spotlights. And the outside area has ever present mist floating through the scene which is highlighted as it passes in front of the spotlights.

--------

Here is the best representation of the game I've seen. It is a good 16+ minutes and the guy playing is pretty funny as he gets scared at everything that jumps out at hime yet somehow manages to kill off the zombi in the nick of time. He uses the same survivor the whole time in this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6PJpcBh7mU&feature=player_embedded
 
C

Captain Smoker

Member
Gahiggidy said:
Captain Smoker,

Lego City looks great but they need to clean up the screen tearing, frame rate and pop-in. The missing anti-aliasing is an obvious problem too. (I blame MATTY B00SH).

Though looking like a rough build, Zombi U has some very nice atmospheric lighting and effects (to my eye). I love the cold hue cast off from the flashlights and spotlights. And the outside area has ever present mist floating through the scene which is highlighted as it passes in front of the spotlights.
Click to expand...
Yeah I noticed this things in the Nintendo World - video, they have to get rid of this. Especially the pop-ups. xD

Is there any reason why the Wii U seems to make good lighting effects in every game?
Like I said, this is jus a small example, but it looks really good (realistic) to me, the soft shadows on the left (on this green thing), the bright light on the F-Zero car, the shadows of clouds, the shiny metal on the ground, etc.
 
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