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[lwilliams3]

Gross sentence

I do have other infos but i'm thinking of another way to disclose them. And it's obviously not to the level of 2 gamepad support or no system redesign, a lot of things were confirmed or revealed at E3, some others not (the OS other than Miiverse, online service, and storage approach). I'll have more info about the other systems i think.

Hey Ideaman. Thanks for your previous and future contributions.

Is it possible to ask your sources about the CPU/GPU balance of the Wii U?

 

[IdeaMan]

btw, Iwata just confirmed the "unprecedented tutorship/close monitoring of foreign studios's specific efforts to develop games tailored for the Wii U" that i hinted at (yeah, another cheesy "i told you so" moment) while discussing with ace some months ago (1, especially 2 and 3, 4)

Question

Evaluations in interactive entertainment have come down significantly. Nintendo has the strongest balance sheet of any of the companies directly involved in interactive entertainment. Is there an opportunity today to employ that balance sheet? I know asking about share buybacks is not a popular question, but if not for share buybacks there’s an opportunity strategically for other acquisitions or, as Microsoft has done with their balance sheet, co-promotions with third-party publishers, with buying exclusive rights. Is there a way to creatively leverage your balance sheet strength in the interactive entertainment industry, which is a relatively depressed environment?



Iwata:

First of all, I do see that there are a variety of possibilities in which we could use our financial resources. Having said that, please understand that due to fair disclosure rules I can’t go into detail on any of those possibilities today.

Then the question becomes some of the specific examples that you raised such as the question of obtaining exclusive rights. While Nintendo is not entirely opposed to exploring that option, I don’t think it would be an appropriate course of action for Nintendo to get into a battle with a company like Microsoft over the cost or the expense of trying to go head to head in a situation to try to obtain exclusive rights. However, now we have a totally new device, the Wii U GamePad. If a third-party developer or publisher has come up with an idea of a potentially very unique use of the Wii U functionality with such a device, there is a high possibility that Nintendo will be a partner with that third party in an unprecedented manner (thereby reducing their development risk significantly). I do intend to work hard so that next year you will not criticize Nintendo’s use of its resources.

source

Don't hesitate to take the time to read all the 2012 E3 Analyst Q & A Session, it's rather interesting.

 

[Shadow Hog]

Hopefully it doesn't exist.

But what if it turned out to be something awesome like World of Monkey Island or something? D:

(Well, except that it's already been implied to just be another Star Wars MMO - apparently Galaxies and The Old Republic didn't do badly enough for them...)

 

[Tim-E]

But what if it turned out to be something awesome like World of Monkey Island or something? D:

(Well, except that it's already been implied to just be another Star Wars MMO - apparently Galaxies and The Old Republic didn't do badly enough for them...)

I don't understand how a company can rationalize making an MMO whenever nearly all of them faily miserably after a few months. And another Star Wars MMO at that? I miss 90s LucasArts.

 

[GameplayWhore]

How many people here are going to get ZombiU first day? It's a must buy for me after reading some of the impressions and watching a lot of the footage. I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you Ubisoft for something good.

ZombiU is shockingly right in the middle of my lanes of interest. It's early to tell for sure, but it looks to be perhaps the most well-suited 3D non-rails shooter for my particular tastes since TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. The only real downside is that I suspect it's not going to be so great from a symmetric local multiplayer* perspective. That and Rayman Legends are the two most interesting Wii U games (maybe the two most interesting console games period) to come out of E3. So you get an idea where I'm coming from, the others to perk my ears were -- in descending order of interest -- SimCity, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Tomb Raider, NSMBU, God of War Ascension, Lego City Stories, Pikmin 3, The Last of Us, PSASBR, South Park, Assassin's Creed (the latter few really depend on seeing more, though).

I just wish 2D Mario looked as good as Sonic Generations. The little I played of it really impressed me. It really had the spirit of the 16 bit games in polygonal form.

Hasn't 2D Mario looked fine enough for two decades? The things that have kept it fun have been the actual mechanics and new ideas it's brought in. While increased processing capability has made some of that new stuff available, I suspect that most of those features in the NSMB series (like the awesome, awesome moving terrain, or the many-screens-high drill thwomp things that NSMBW brought in) could be done with a far slower processor

"Wii U getting achievements, cloud storage, social networking"

The achievements sound lame. "Hey, you get points, and then you get stuff!". Same as everyone else, same situation where shitty games get great sales by populating their game by being easy point-builders. I will have to wait another generation for something nifty, like cross-game unlockables, to appear. D:

Cloud storage is great as long as it doesn't prevent saves to physical media. My friend at whose home I play doesn't get reliable Wifi in his room, as the access point is across the house, and they're pretty lazy about improving it.





* Ye gods, every generation I have to add another adjective to describe what my mind previously saw as simply "multiplayer".

 

[Anth0ny]

Q: Without Friend Codes, can consumers be connected easier than now?

Iwata:

We’re not completely getting rid of Friend Codes, but a function of the “Miiverse” will simplify the process of making friends with another user in the platform by eliminating the need to input Friend Codes.

So... it sounds like if you meet someone over Miiverse, you don't need to enter friend codes. Still, I wonder if it's a per game thing...

 

[Tim-E]

btw, Iwata just confirmed the "unprecedented tutorship/close monitoring of foreign studios's specific efforts to develop games tailored for the Wii U" that i hinted at (yeah, another cheesy "i told you so" moment)

Please stop doing this. People appreciate the information you share, but no one likes to read about how proud you are that you had Hot Scoopz.

 

[IdeaMan]

Hey Ideaman. Thanks for your previous and future contributions.

Is it possible to ask your sources about the CPU/GPU balance of the Wii U?

you're welcomed

I already touched upon those components here & there. From what i've heard, the CPU is definitively not a 0,6X Xenon. It's at the very least 1x, and certainly more powerful once studios take advantage of its more modern architecture, out of order nature, cache, and spare it of some burden to the DSP & I/O chips. BUT, some benchmarks, some tests results, running on not totally optimized hardware, software suites, sdk, whatever, COULD and WERE in several cases inferior on it than on Xbox 360 CPU, so i bet some people could say "hey, it's weak", weak because it doesn't match with what they thought it will be in comparison to the many years older Xenon. It's obviously not the main area where the boost from the previous generation is the more apparent, compare to the ram quantity for example.

 

[Vinci]

So... it sounds like if you meet someone over Miiverse, you don't need to enter friend codes. Still, I wonder if it's a per game thing...

If you meet someone through Miiverse, why would it tie you to that person through a specific game only?

 

[wsippel]

Damn, this was posted 4 days ago? I'm truly behind the times. Thanks for the interesting analysis/speculation as usual, wsippel.

One question: How does this theory fit with the tidbit you dug up previously - namely that the CPU was designed to run at anywhere from 1-4 Ghz? (I believe those were the numbers you gave, but correct me if I'm wrong.)

Certain subsystems of the chip were seemingly designed to reach speeds up to 4GHz. Doesn't mean that the whole chip can or will be clocked that high. Maybe there'll be some sort of TurboCore mode or something, though. Combining CMT (Clustered Multithreading) and TurboCore could be quite interesting.

 

[IdeaMan]

Please stop doing this. People appreciate the information you share, but no one likes to read about how proud you are that you had Hot Scoopz.

you have to take that at 3rd degree, i've written that to avoid in advance people saying it, but i see it failed lol

Nevertheless, it's a pretty interesting subject to talk about, this Nintendo approach, policy, with foreign studios, applied in an unprecedented level. I was impressed by their level of involvement with the sole example i'm aware of, so imagine that, worldwide, with several companies.

 

[Anth0ny]

If you meet someone through Miiverse, why would it tie you to that person through a specific game only?

Notice how Miis are grouped under what games they're playing?

I can totally see this scenario playing out:

"Bill is playing Mario Kart. Would you like to add him to your Mario Kart friends list?"

 

[nordique]

I go away for an hour to see Apple's new scheme to take all my money, and all of a sudden everyone thinks the Wii U's got an overclocked Broadway in it. Allow me to quote myself from a few pages back:



This is a fact, from the developer's own release notes. It's not a vague statement from someone who may or may not be the janitor for a legal firm which does some work for a developer. We don't know much about the CPU, but we know it isn't substantially less powerful than Xenon in real-world terms.

I may as well make a few comments on the CPU and GPU tech from this past gen. In this past gen, both Sony and MS went for in-order, high-clock, small cache CPUs with many threads and poor IPC. If there's one thing in-order, high-clock, small cache CPUs with many threads and poor IPC are good at, it's physics. If there's one thing they're bad at, it's pretty much everything else. The thing about this coming generation is that, as some have already mentioned, a lot of physics work is going to be offloaded to the GPU, and there's no point sticking in another CPU like we had last gen when it's not even going to be doing the main thing it's good at.

There's also the problem that both Sony and MS this gen simply had too powerful CPUs relative to their GPUs. The PS3 is an obvious example of this, where the most impressive games had many of the SPEs doing graphical work. Sony would have been much better served with a more modest CPU, and spending the money on a more powerful GPU instead. It's true to a lesser extent for the XBox 360, but still the case that the console was balanced too heavily towards the CPU.

We've already seen the change in strategy with the leaked specs for the PS4. Here we've got a CPU which is actually less powerful in raw flops terms than the PS3's Cell, but a much better fit for the console. I wouldn't be surprised if MS take the same route with the next XBox, and go for an out-of-order CPU with a good size cache, instead of chasing clock-speeds (although this may depend on how they're approaching BC).

Very informative, thanks Thraktor

 

[nordique]

Funny how some of the unimpressive results that make people call the Wii U a beefed up current gen Sony/MS console seem actually to be growing pains due to design differences making it more like a junior next gen Sony/MS console. If they'd not bothered with this GPGPU stuff or other newer features we'd probably be able to have more impressive launch ports but the advantages wouldn't last.

Exactly. This bodes very well for the future of Wii U, in fact much better than previously thought.

 

[Linkhero1]

ZombiU is shockingly right in the middle of my lanes of interest. It's early to tell for sure, but it looks to be perhaps the most well-suited 3D non-rails shooter for my particular tastes since TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. The only real downside is that I suspect it's not going to be so great from a symmetric local multiplayer* perspective. That and Rayman Legends are the two most interesting Wii U games (maybe the two most interesting console games period) to come out of E3. So you get an idea where I'm coming from, the others to perk my ears were -- in descending order of interest -- SimCity, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Tomb Raider, NSMBU, God of War Ascension, Lego City Stories, Pikmin 3, The Last of Us, PSASBR, South Park, Assassin's Creed (the latter few really depend on seeing more, though).

I see where you're coming from. It's the first FPS in a while that doesn't rely on what we see in modern shooters. ZombiU is more of a survival horror than anything I've seen on consoles in the past few years. Ubisoft seems to be doing one hell of a job developing the game, so it that's why it stood out compared to a lot of what we saw this past E3. I agree with your point on multiplayer. I'm afraid no FPS multiplayer will be as fun as Timesplitters once was.

 

[nordique]

Oh fucking great.

Its actually good news, though at first it doesn't seem like it

Good because of the indication that the GPU is in fact a GPGPU. For all intents and purposes, this is equivalent to a true "next gen" GPU and not something simply "on par" with the current HD consoles (in terms of feature set)

 

[nordique]

XD



Now you all are finally able to have a tangible idea of what I was talking about in the past and the gap between the consoles. It will be smaller than the gap between PS360 and current high-end PCs.



I'm more giddy now than I was before. Now that we seem to have a reason why the CPU is the way it is, it's not the same level of issue as before. After all why should we give so much importance to PS360 ports when their successors are right around the corner? That's a sacrifice I'm happy to see.

I know. This is the best news to come out of the Wii U post E3. Funny how this has been completely overlooked in general by released statements, developer infos, etc... that we have come across so far.


Btw, how long have you known? (out of curiosity; the bolded)

 

[Tim-E]

you have to take that at 3rd degree, i've written that to avoid in advance people saying it, but i see it failed lol

Nevertheless, it's a pretty interesting subject to talk about, this Nintendo approach, policy, with foreign studios, applied in an unprecedented level. I was impressed by their level of involvement with the sole example i'm aware of, so imagine that, worldwide, with several companies.

I agree. I think it's what they'll need to get an advantage in interesting software going forward and overcoming the stigma Nintendo has among third parties. If third parties are hesitant about putting their games on Nintendo hardware, then show you're actually willing to give it an effort and Nintendo will funnel money in your direction. It seems like Nintendo did something similar to this during the Gamecube era, with things like the MGS and RE remakes.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Hey Ideaman. Thanks for your previous and future contributions.

Is it possible to ask your sources about the CPU/GPU balance of the Wii U?

Yeah this info would be worth a few "I told you so"
but we should not encourage him to go against the Ninja forces

 

[IdeaMan]

Furthermore, for example, our goal is that, in the future, you will also be able to purchase games found in the “Miiverse” from that smartphone or tablet device and, by the time you arrive home, that game will already have arrived on your Wii U system through SpotPass.

source

cool, even if it may not be available at launch, i hope it will

 

[Tim-E]

source

cool, even if it seems it may not be ready at launch

I'd use this greatly. I could buy a game while I'm at work and have it waiting on me when I get home.

Yeah this info would be worth a few "I told you so"
but we should not encourage him to go against the Ninja forces

Bear season is a year-round. You can't go too close to the den.

 

[Rösti]

Hopefully it doesn't exist.

That whole interactive floor plan appears to be very flawed. I haven't seen anything from Deep Silver or Rebellion either.

 

[IdeaMan]

I'd use this greatly. I could buy a game while I'm at work and have it waiting on me when I get home.

Always a bit saddened by the scheduled and expected disappearance of physical support, i liked my game boxes, cartridges & discs. Well, i guess you trade those material ownership nostalgic feelings with more convenience and flexibility

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Miiverse on everything that has a web-browser could prove to be a killer app not at launch really sucks

 

[IdeaMan]

That whole interactive floor plan appears to be very flawed. I haven't seen anything from Deep Silver or Rebellion either.

The LucasArts situation, with its several projects + its subsidiaries studios or contracted ones is a mess since a moment now, what are the chances that they indeed thought they will show something at E3 and planned accordingly with the booths reservations, but then bailed out ? Or [fanboy & conspiracy theory: on] it's a grand scheme from Nintendo to properly introduce all the games heavily relying on the Wii U online services during their summer conference !

 

[Smiles and Cries]

one feature that was rumored here that kinda came true is a type of spotpass that you could take with you... the Wii Fit U walking thingy that counts your steps should have had more features - hopefully something else can be used for even more communication between gadgets

Bear season is a year-round. You can't go too close to the den.

ah you have to take the good with the bad... and it also amuses me when everyone piles on Lex Luthor when he gets all smug :3

 

[IdeaMan]

Q 5-2

At the launch of the Wii U, how many of these first-party and third-party titles will be available in a digital download format?

Iwata:

As we’ve shared with you previously, for the Wii U hardware system, from the beginning, we’ve planned to make it possible for people to release their games as either an optical disc or as digital content. So publishers would be able to choose from both of those options.

Currently, we are in discussions with the publishers by sharing with them our offer in this area. Through that process, if publishers accept it as reasonable, games in the digital format will be available from the launch time. There are no technical restrictions.

source

One of the reasons why we didn't hear substantial news about their digital distribution approach and Wii U storage details (as both are linked) this E3, it's "currently in discussion with the publishers". Let's hope all will be ready for launch.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

What happened to the Lucasarts MMO or whatever?

They seem to have held off on talking about anything online beyond Miiverse, so if it does exist they wouldn't have brought it up yet.

So... it sounds like if you meet someone over Miiverse, you don't need to enter friend codes. Still, I wonder if it's a per game thing...

After 3DS's single code per system I don't know why they'd regress.

 

[Linkhero1]

Which Japanese developers have not discussed their Wii U offerings yet? The only ones that come to my mind are SE, Kapcom and Conami

 

[tkscz]

source

One of the reasons why we didn't hear substantial news about their digital distribution approach and storage situation (as both are linked) this E3, it's "currently in discussion". Let's hope all will be ready for launch.

I still would like to know if it supports XCSD cards. I understand that it will be supporting external HD so that may be all we need, but still.

 

[schuelma]

Which Japanese developers have not discussed their Wii U offerings yet? The only ones that come to my mind are SE, Kapcom and Conami

Right now Japan's 3rd party lineup looks like this:

Dragon Quest X- SE

Tekken Tag and Tanks- Namco


Ninja Gaiden 3- Tecmo Koei.

All but Tanks were already known prior to E3.

I assume there is a lot more coming from everyone, and I think you could argue no Japanese third party has really discussed their full Wii U offerings.

 

[Effect]

Haven't had a chance to read through the Q&A yet but have seen a few headlines for some of the question. The big focus on asymmetric gaming from Nintendo is starting to worry me. Similar to Pikman 3 I get the feeling there will be a significant amount of content in Nintendo's games that I won't be able to take advantage of because of not having anyone local to play with. It won't put me off from buying the games but just not at their launches when they're at full price.

Is there anything in the Q&A addressing potential concerns that can arise from Nintendo's focus on asymmetric? How they will focus on online and hope to compete with Sony and Microsoft directly on this front?

I guess I'm just hoping we got lucky and there were some actual answers. I just have the strong feeling Nintendo will talk a good game but in the end will still fail to deliver as they focus on asymmetric local multiplayer.

 

[Anth0ny]

Reggie:

It’s interesting how people look back to 2006 when we first introduced the Wii and recreate a perspective that the Wii’s success was guaranteed right after this E3 type of event back then. The point in fact is that when we first showed the Wii, we had similar reactions to what we are experiencing with the Wii U.

...

So apparently e3 2006 sucked.

 

[Linkhero1]

Right now Japan's 3rd party lineup looks like this:

Dragon Quest X- SE

Tekken Tag and Tanks- Namco


Ninja Gaiden 3- Tecmo Koei.

All but Tanks were already known prior to E3.

I assume there is a lot more coming from everyone, and I think you could argue no Japanese third party has really discussed their full Wii U offerings.

Not too bad considering none of them have really discussed anything related to the Wii U. I'm hoping that they shed some light on what they're developing soon. It would be sad not to get LoS2 on the Wii U.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

lightning cannot strike twice Reggie

back then it was LMAO Nintendo HAHAHA

but today its more like watching a bad dream filled with horrors
No one is Laughing Reggie, people are seriously worried or have moved on

 

[lwilliams3]

you're welcomed

I already touched upon those components here & there. From what i've heard, the CPU is definitively not a 0,6X Xenon. It's at the very least 1x, and certainly more powerful once studios take advantage of its more modern architecture, out of order nature, cache, and spare it of some burden to the DSP & I/O chips. BUT, some benchmarks, some tests results, running on not totally optimized hardware, software suites, sdk, whatever, COULD and WERE in several cases inferior on it than on Xbox 360 CPU, so i bet some people could say "hey, it's weak", weak because it doesn't match with what they thought it will be in comparison to the many years older Xenon. It's obviously not the main area where the boost from the previous generation is the more apparent, compare to the ram quantity for example.

I see. Thank you for the detailed answer. When I was talking about the balance of the CPU/GPU, though, I was referring to the "new" statements about the GPU
handling some tasks that was traditionally was for the CPU for the 360/PS3. Have you heard anything that could be referring to that?

 

[Linkhero1]

Reggie is just being his delusional self.

 

[IdeaMan]

About the Wii U hardware

I was hoping to get some more details about the hardware, so in other words, the processing power and the GPUs. There’s been a lot of speculation about the power of the Wii U relative to current generation consoles or what may be coming down the pipe. I don't know if you can comment on this, but I would appreciate any details you might be able to provide about the relative power to 360 or PS3, or some other benchmark, to give us a sense of its capabilities other than the HD graphics.

Iwata:

Of course, because we have designed a new hardware system, we are using new technology and we are using new GPUs.　But as we have to devote significant costs to the Wii U GamePad, if we were to apply the same level of enhancement that other console manufacturers shoot for to the processing power component, the Wii U would become extremely high in price, and it would not be affordable.　In other words, we think that the way that the various console manufacturers are allocating their budgets to the hardware is different from the way that we allocate our budget to the hardware. Ultimately, we’re looking to maintain a price point for the Wii U that is reasonable in comparison to the value to be offered.

There is also another differentiation point here. While existing platforms have engines that development teams have tuned and optimized for six to seven years after their respective launches, the Wii U is a new platform that has slightly different architecture and, since development teams have only just begun development on software for it, they are only at the halfway point to utilizing its full potential. Despite this fact, however, if you look at the game “Assassin’s Creed III,” which was recently announced or shown, you can’t see much difference when you compare it with games for other companies’ systems. I hope that helps you to understand a little bit better.

source

 

[Smiles and Cries]

About the Wii U hardware



source

IdeaMan there is already a thread on Gaming side linked to this stuff did you see it?
or are you just going to copy/paste every question and answer? just asking if you seen it?

 

[ksimm]

Amazon UK £199
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008B5YB4W/

This item will be released on July 14, 2012.

 

[Van Owen]

Iwata not telling us anything we didn't already know.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

no pre-order page for US Amazon yet, a page exist but you cannot pre-order yet at least it has reviews

 

[IdeaMan]

I see. Thank you for the detailed answer. When I was talking about the balance of the CPU/GPU, though, I was referring to the "new" statements about the GPU
handling some tasks that was traditionally was for the CPU for the 360/PS3. Have you heard anything that could be referring to that?

Nothing very specific about that sorry. The main thing, always put on the table during the discussions with my sources is the hardware resources draw of the gamepad for not-minimal uses. I really hope for Nintendo, as it's the core feature of the system, that they have customized and adapted their hardware enough to alleviate this consumption, and will continue to optimize it through further SDK revisions, development advices, maybe new method to render a second view of a scene in a less taxing way, etc.

 

[IdeaMan]

IdeaMan there is already a thread on Gaming side linked to this stuff did you see it?
or are you just going to copy/paste every question and answer? just asking if you seen it?

lol, wait, there are still 20 other questions to be copied/pasted here
no, seriously, i see there are like tons of people who don't even dare to read a thread in the gaming section now so this way we can talk about this QA with them.

 

[Mafro]

Black version available for preorder for £199.99 from Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008B5YB4W/

 

[GameplayWhore]

Iwata not telling us anything we didn't already know.

Nothing we didn't already know, but it's nice to see him pointing out that the 3DS after its price drop is still more expensive than the NDS was at the same point in its life. People seem to forget this when they talk about how the system needed a huge price drop to keep its sales momentum going.

Nothing very specific about that sorry. The main thing, always put on the table during the discussions with my sources is the hardware resources draw of the gamepad for not-minimal uses. I really hope for Nintendo, as it's the core feature of the system, that they have customized and adapted their hardware enough to alleviate this consumption, and will continue to optimize it through further SDK revisions, development advices, maybe new method to render a second view of a scene in a less taxing way, etc.

I don't think there's any magical way that you can stop a system from using extra resources when rendering multiple viewpoints. It was an issue in splitscreen multiplayer a decade and a half ago, and it'll be an issue a decade and a half from now. I'm sure that anything that can be shared (eg, stuff preceding T&L, I guess) already is as a normal function of your typical graphics pipeline.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

lol, wait, there are still 20 other questions to be copied/pasted here
no, seriously, i see there are like tons of people who don't even dare to read a thread in the gaming section now so this way we can talk about this QA with them.

it was linked here and "Reading Rainbow" came up... but you are from France you might have missed the meaning of that

Still its a lot to read and no real new info, what Iwata says these days is still a wait and see matter... I do not take his word at everything... he says a lot of things he is a smart man but these things can be delayed, cancelled, or only good for Nintendo and not for us gamers

that pile of words leaves me feeling less for WiiU not more, I am already feeling indifferent about this launch as is

 

[IdeaMan]

Iwata takes on Smartglass is really interesting, and he talks about the advantage of the Wii U, the buttons, the low latency, etc.

It's the first question in this page

 

[guit3457]

Black version available for preorder for £199.99 from Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008B5YB4W/

199? 17th July?

I guess this is a mistake. But I have just pre-ordered it.

XDDD

 

[DaSorcerer7]

next wii u doom and gloom sensationalist article incoming courtesy of cvg