After reading Kotaku's article on how "Together" was a better way to put "multiplayer", Nintendo's "Together Wii U" tagline found in their E3 Miiverse promo and annual report sounds like it could be on a genius level near "Wii Would Like To Play". It also sounds like "together with you" if you were to say it fast too.
It was in gbatemp, one of the guys responsible for port RetroArch to Wii speak about Wii's wonderfull architecture and how it stand against other system, I think you would like read it.
LibretroRetroArch said:
So far based on my tests, the Wii is definitely a lot faster than the Xbox 1. Not a little bit, but a lot.
Super Street Fighter II X Turbo Revival on VBA Next runs at around 59/58/60fps vs. 43/42fps on Xbox 1.
Virtua Racing on Genesis Plus GX (RetroArch Wii) runs at 60fps vs. 45fps or so on Xbox 1.
And SNES9x Next has a similar speed difference.
Really, the Wii has an excellent processor given the clock speed and Nintendo's modesty in advertising it (as in - not hyping up the tech specs to any degree). If any console manufacturer should be ashamed for their tech choices this generation, it should have been Sony and MS which opted for bottlenecked-like-hell in-order CPUs that run no better than a Pentium 4 CPU (which is bad in and of itself given the lifecycle they expected these consoles to have). It's amazing that other than a few Anandtech articles back in 2005/2006, nobody in the game development circles has ever blasted Microsoft/Sony's consoles for having such weak CPUs in the first place given the clock speed and the marketing hype surrounding them. The entire reason you have this SPU infatuation going on on the PS3 is because the main CPU is so utterly weak that it has no chance in hell to compete with the 360 (which is weak enough as it is but has at least 3 'weak' main CPU cores instead of just 1 weak main one) if it were not possible to fall back on those SPUs -and even those SPUs have no purpose if you don't have a lot of heavy-duty tasks to off-load from the main CPU.
I believe if you program only against one main CPU (like we do for pretty much most emus), you would find that the PS3/Xenon CPUs in practice are only about 20% faster than the Wii CPU.
I've ported the same code over to enough platforms by now to state this with confidence - the PS3 and 360 at 3.2GHz are only (at best - I would stress) 20% faster than the 729Mhz out-of-order Wii CPU without multithreading (and multithreading isn't a be-all end-all solution and isn't a 'one size fits all' magic wand either). That's pretty pathetic considering the vast differences in clock speed, the increase in L2/L1 cache and other things considered - even for in-order CPUs, they shouldn't be this abysmally slow and should be totally leaving the Wii in the dust by at least 50/70% difference - but they don't.
BTW - if you search around on some of the game development forums you can hear game developers talking amongst themselves about how crap the 360/PS3 CPUs were to begin with. They were crap from the very first minute the systems were launched - with MS hardware executives (according to some 360 'making of' book) allegedly freaking out when IBM told them they would be getting in-order CPUs for their new console - which caused them to place an order to have three 'cores' instead of one because one core would be totally pathetic (pretty much like the PS3 then where you only have one main processor and 6/7 highly specialized 'vector' SIMD CPUs that are very fast but also very low on individual RAM and essentially have to be able to do some heavy code weightlighting for you to gain anything). Without utilizing multithreading, you're essentially looking at the equivalent of Pentium 4-spec consoles that have to be helped along by lots of vector CPUs (SPUs) and/or reasonably mid-specced, highly programmable GPUs (which the Wii admittedly lacks).
Two Tribes talked about how gamers can play Toki Tori on the Wii U GamePad without the need of a television. How far away can a player be from the television to play Toki Tori 2 on the GamePad? Also, do you have to keep the Wii U console turned on during the entire time you play it on the controller?
Its important to realize that the range depends on the distance of the GamePad to the Wii U console, not the television. Toki Tori 2 will have the same range as any other game, but since the final hardware isnt in the shops yet, and consoles arent in the homes yet, its too early to determine what the final range will be.
As for the Wii U console, yes it has to remain on during gameplay. The console will always be generating the graphics and audio, regardless of whether the TV or the GamePad is displaying the action.
Two Tribes has said theres no slowdown when playing the game on Wii Us GamePad instead of television. What are some things that can cause slowdown for any game running on the controller?
Its even the opposite. In our test setups we see the GamePad screen updating quicker than our LCD TVs if we send the exact same image to both. My guess, but this is pure speculation, is that the only time you may have missing visuals, and thus a delayed update, is when the signal breaks down when you move too far away from the console.
I think we've heard about the GamePad being faster than the television. I believe Nintendo had to mimic the delay on the GamePad in order to synchronize the action.
Also, there was a quote floating around here that indicated that the GamePad would work from thirty yards away.
First off, the game pads were tethered, no luck testing distance, however I spoke to one of the actual Nintendo employees there
Not the black shirted cheerleaders, the plain clothed guys who fixed the systems if there were to be any type of problem
He told me that he had personally seen one work at 30 yards bit beyond that he couldn't say. He then specified that there were also no walls separating the game pad and system at the time, then added the standard anywhere in the living room line before stating that they always officially state a shorter range than what is technically possible because depending on their setup not everyone will achieve Max range. We then spoke of the wave bird functioning at double Nintendo's official range, but he would comment further...
I think we've heard about the GamePad being faster than the television. I believe Nintendo had to mimic the delay on the GamePad in order to synchronize the action.
Also, there was a quote floating around here that indicated that the GamePad would work from thirty yards away.
OK, so I went to the Austin WiiU experience last night. It was an interesting venue, looked like a closed down strip club... but anyway...
First off, the game pads were tethered, no luck testing distance, however I spoke to one of the actual Nintendo employees there
Not the black shirted cheerleaders, the plain clothed guys who fixed the systems if there were to be any type of problem
He told me that he had personally seen one work at 30 yards bit beyond that he couldn't say. He then specified that there were also no walls separating the game pad and system at the time, then added the standard anywhere in the living room line before stating that they always officially state a shorter range than what is technically possible because depending on their setup not everyone will achieve Max range. We then spoke of the wave bird functioning at double Nintendo's official range, but he would comment further...
Played Razors edge, it looks like a ps360 game but the combat was extremely fluid and decapitations were very satisfying.
Played NSMBU, when choosing characters I chose the darkened out mii icon and it worked. The mii looked out of place and seemed to be wearing a wario colored track suit. Otherwise, if you've played a Mario side scroller you know what to expect.
Nintendoland, in the demo I played the hub world wasn't available but I played the luigis mansion game as the ghost and as a mii. I think people are greatly underestimating the drunken awesomeness this game will unleash.
Rayman Legends, beautiful. handles great. I was a very tight game and I found no collision detection problems.
ZombiU, I played the multi player, I had the new pro controller while my wife sent waves of zombies at me. Definitely the best looking game there, I was suprised after reading what others where saying. It looked better than any PS3 game I've played, and yes that includes heavy rain. the lighting was perfect, the shadows had super sharp edges and were dynamic and seemed to properly react the the surface they were shown on.
Not sure how else to describe that...
Pikmin 3, while not as great graphically when compared to zombiu, it was head and shoulders above ninja gaiden and batmanAC ports that were there. Great frame rate and resolution. That said, I could see this one being possible on other systems though. They ed probably have the lose the depth of field and some lighting effects to do so however.
Wii Fit U, This game was the only system crash of the night. They were showing off the trampoline game, but I requested the luge game. Apparently there was a reason. they weren't showing it off. Coincidentally this crash brought the plain clothed Nintendo tech guys out of hiding and gave me the opportunity to speak to the guy I mentioned earlier.
They really are ninja like...
They got it restarted, and proved to me that they were playing the games on actual systems and not simply displaying empty shells... That said, great f*cking workout. This became a buy for me.
I didn't get a chance with P100 but it looked nice from behind the masses.
Played Nsmb2 on the XL, the larger screens have giant pixels that I couldn't unseen while playing... luckily the game pad doesn't have this problem.
Also, while the pro controller felt great, I did have one small/possibly larger gripe. the start button is WAY too damned close to the Y button. Maybe I just have big hands but I kept pausing while trying to reload.
It was in gbatemp, one of the guys responsible for port RetroArch to Wii speak about Wii's wonderfull architecture and how it stand against other system, I think you would like read it.
I'm guessing emulators are a bitch for in order CPUs, and I think multithreading is kind of a pain to implement with emulators. I don't think it's really a fair comparison for games tailored to each CPU, but I guess gives a sense of the shortcomings of the others when dealing with less optimal code.
Yeah, Nintendo's publishing the Wii U version. Apparently, Nintendo's helping Tecmo with it, too. You know, with all of that character action experience Nintendo has...
Anyone else here intrigued by the whole Miiverse idea? I think if Nintendo can successfully create that "Facebook of gaming" aspect, they can really run away with something special here.
I'm also pretty interested in Nintendoland. Looks to be a nice mini-game collection of Nintendo goodness.
So far I'm interested in:
Ninja Gaiden 3 (never played the game yet)
Batman AC:AE (never played the game yet)
Darksiders 2 (runs like crap on my PC)
P-100
Rayman Legends
NSMB-U
Maybe:
Zombie U (not a zombie fan by any stretch of the word, but the concept seems really interesting)
Pikmin 3 (never played a Pikmin game before)
Anyone else here intrigued by the whole Miiverse idea? I think if Nintendo can successfully create that "Facebook of gaming" aspect, they can really run away with something special here.
I'm also pretty interested in Nintendoland. Looks to be a nice mini-game collection of Nintendo goodness.
So far I'm interested in:
Ninja Gaiden 3 (never played the game yet)
Batman AC:AE (never played the game yet)
Darksiders 2 (runs like crap on my PC)
P-100
Rayman Legends
NSMB-U
Maybe:
Zombie U (not a zombie fan by any stretch of the word, but the concept seems really interesting)
Pikmin 3 (never played a Pikmin game before)
I'm super curious about how involved nintendo is in Ninja Gaiden razor's edge development. Did Hayashi ever say outright that Razor's Edge was a practically new game with loads of new content/changed mechanics or is it just a tweaked port like the sigma games?
I'm super curious about how involved nintendo is in Ninja Gaiden razor's edge development. Did Hayashi ever say outright that Razor's Edge was a practically new game with loads of new content/changed mechanics or is it just a tweaked port like the sigma games?
It wont be the same game that disappointed you last year. Yosuke Hayashi can promise you that much.
A year ago, the head of Team Ninja watched his development teams prized project, Ninja Gaiden 3, struggle.
This year, Hayashi and Team Ninja have hit the reset button. They are trying again with Ninja Gaiden 3: Razors Edge for Nintendos upcoming Wii U console. And Hayashi promises that theyve made big changes.
Its a Ninja Gaiden game, he told the Daily News at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles earlier this month. Were not trying to be anything else.
And that was the problem with the original NG3. The series has long been known for its brutally challenging combat, a brand of battling where one false step leads to death. But in Ninja Gaiden, Team Ninja took a different approach.
After observing the successes of faster-paced, less intricate combat systems (think Bayonetta), Team Ninja rebuilt its battling. Ninja Gaiden 3 sent wave after wave of stupid enemies at star Ryu Hayabusa, and all you had to do was mash buttons.
It was a move made in fear, Hayashi admitted.
We looked at the game industry and how things were shaping up, and we felt we couldnt get left behind, he said. And we had to advance ourselves. And that was the idea behind some of the changes in NG3.
Except it didnt work. Critics ripped the game, and gamers fell asleep at the controls. And the end result was the first game in the history of the series that was considered a colossal disappointment.
Hayashi insists that that wont be an issue on the Wii U. Team Ninja isnt just porting its title over to Nintendos new console: Its going to make you remember Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox.
The difficulty seems to be back in the series, and the development team wont overuse the touchscreen; a few quick minutes of gameplay revealed that combat is still all about joystick moves and button-presses.
There are still gallons of blood and gore maybe too much of that. But enemies did seem wiser, forcing a more tactical approach from Ryu. It seems like a minor alteration and Ninja Gaiden 3 had other problems, such as blasé visuals, too but its still a step in the right direction.
For Razors Edge, we listened to the feedback (from Ninja Gaiden 3), Hayashi said. And we reexamined what the series was, what the game was, what people want. Were going back to rethinking what the series means.
The concept for the Wii U version of Razors Edge is for it to be its own action game, an action game that doesnt try to be anything else. It just tries to be its best.
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razors Edge will add a character and weapon development system by which you can upgrade Ryus weapons and abilities. It will also bring back dismemberment, add new enemy types, multiple weapons, and new Ninpo. Nintendo, not Tecmo Koei, will publish the game this holiday season.
It was in gbatemp, one of the guys responsible for port RetroArch to Wii speak about Wii's wonderfull architecture and how it stand against other system, I think you would like read it.
Nice info. Thanks. Though MS actually wanted a 3-core, dual threaded out-of-order CPU and had to settle for the in-order one. His post after that reaffirms IMO what we've been talking about in regards to PS360 compare to Wii U.
Nice info. Thanks. Though MS actually wanted a 3-core, dual threaded out-of-order CPU and had to settle for the in-order one. His post after that reaffirms IMO what we've been talking about in regards to PS360 compare to Wii U.
Anyone else here intrigued by the whole Miiverse idea? I think if Nintendo can successfully create that "Facebook of gaming" aspect, they can really run away with something special here.
I've always thought since the introduction of Miiverse that its greatest strength is in its simple integration as a marketing tool. No longer does a deluge of marketing make a game a kingmaker, since people are far more likely to play something other people agree is good.
If they integrate some of the Nintendo Channel stuff we see on the Wii directly into Miiverse (rating of games by users, for example), it takes almost all the bite out of review scores from games journalists, something that gamers and developers alike have been dying to see for at least the past 2 generations.
And it's all right there, as soon as you start it up, telling you what other people are playing, so the system does half of your advertising for you, which I think 3rd-parties would be very eager to see after a generation of spending 10s of millions of dollars advertising content in the hopes of market traction in the same vein as Call of Duty.
I've always thought since the introduction of Miiverse that its greatest strength is in its simple integration as a marketing tool. No longer does a deluge of marketing make a game a kingmaker, since people are far more likely to play something other people agree is good.
If they integrate some of the Nintendo Channel stuff we see on the Wii directly into Miiverse (rating of games by users, for example), it takes almost all the bite out of review scores from games journalists, something that gamers and developers alike have been dying to see for at least the past 2 generations.
And it's all right there, as soon as you start it up, telling you what other people are playing, so the system does half of your advertising for you, which I think 3rd-parties would be very eager to see after a generation of spending 10s of millions of dollars advertising content in the hopes of market traction in the same vein as Call of Duty.
Miiverse is secretly the coolest thing about Wii U and hardly anybody is talking about it.
I really feel Nintendo should've aired that pre-E3 video not a day before the show starts but a week beforehand. That would've given it a lot more attention on the press side, I believe. On that Sunday everyone was prepping for E3 and hung out in hotel rooms and we only got short summary posts on all the websites and then everyone was talking about were the press conferences.
To me it seems like they're addressing almost all the issues people had with the Wii I've heard over the years with Miiverse.
I specifically recall IGN's Daemon Hatfield (some know him better under "Hatefield") citing the "loneliness" as one of his main annoyances with the Wii's lack of any noteworthy community features. Paraphrased from memory: "Every time I turn that thing on I just stare at this blank empty canvas and it just feels lonely as opposed to something like Xbox Live that shows me what friends are online and I can chat with them and we can hop into games together."
BOOM! Along comes Miiverse, the first thing you see is a screen full of Miis huddling around games they're playing. Your friends are in there, as are random people from your region. You don't need any extra peripheral like a Kinect/USB-camera or microphone to video chat with friends and even text chatting is made easier with the touch screen. Granted we don't know anything regarding pure voice chat while playing games and if there is some sort of "create party" functionality but those are probably only relevant to people who play a lot of online multiplayer games together.
I really hope Nintendo is not gonna just dump it out onto the market and then leave it there as is forever. Improved, added functionality should be added to keep this thing alive and fresh (though they really don't need to mess up the interface like Xbox Live did with last year's "metro/Windows8"-style update ... that interface is just an abomination)
I know this is random, but I have to say, Miiverse is a god awful name. It's not particularly clever, nor does it roll of the tongue and it's not even catchy. Why not call it Social Mii or Mii Connect or Mii World Plaza or anything that's not a strange, portmanteau word.
"Social Mii or Mii Connect or Mii World Plaza" those roll off the tongue for you? long, multi-syllable words? Miiverse is far better than those suggestions. It's easy and makes sense. The ~verse suffix has become very popular and is easy to comprehend. Everyone knows Miis ... you put them together and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on there.
"Social Mii or Mii Connect or Mii World Plaza" those roll off the tongue for you? long, multi-syllable words? Miiverse is far better than those suggestions. It's easy and makes sense. The ~verse suffix has become very popular and is easy to comprehend. Everyone knows Miis ... you put them together and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on there.
it also doesn't help that we're in the post-E3 / pre-final blowout bubble. we know too much to speculate wildly and still not enough to revise earlier speculation. impasse is what you might call it.
