Support NeoGAF

[Dreamwriter]

They were the ones who confirmed that Xenoblade and Last Story were being translated before amy official announcement was made.

I worked at Nintendo support back in the day - the soonest we ever learned things was two weeks before they were announced, and that was rare. Admittedly, that was back in the Virtual Boy era so things could have changed since then.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

what happens on wednesday?

 

[Terrell]

I'm stepping in for opiate here... these are the two options we have:

1. Nintendo has rebranded Nintendo WiFi Connection for the 3DS and they added paid DLC and perhaps Wii U but that's it for the time being.

2. Nintendo will announce their Xbox Live counterpart this week at an investors conference.

Which one is more likely?

Which is more likely:

1) Rebranding and renaming something for the sake of rebranding it?

or

2) Rebranding something because it's changed substantially?


There's too much that leads up to such a change for it NOT to happen. I'm not saying that the Investor's Meeting is when we'll hear about it, but to say NOTHING is changing is ridiculous.

If it were just a rebrand, Mario Kart 7 would have had it emblazoned on the box art, since they obviously had the brand prepped by then.

 

[Fantastical]

what happens on wednesday?

Investor conference. What have these previously brought us? (sorry if it has been asked before)

 

[Dreamwriter]

what happens on wednesday?

The Wii-U gets its first competitor:

 

[Plinko]

Whatever. I still don't understand what the appeal is, of a huge screen on a controller. From my point of view they're heading straight into the abyss. I just don't see how this idea of a console could thrive, unless it has tons of powerful software and a good price.

Funny--I'm a high school teacher and have shown a large group of students the Wii U. Every single one said it looked interesting and by far the number one reason was the tablet controller.

I think this thing is going to be huge.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

The Wii-U gets its first competitor:

Darth Phantom?

 

[Terrell]

what happens on wednesday?

They're going to unveil that they're renaming the console to Splorgenborg and announce a Capcom partnership for next gen.

 

[fabricated backlash]

I worked at Nintendo support back in the day - the soonest we ever learned things was two weeks before they were announced, and that was rare. Admittedly, that was back in the Virtual Boy era so things could have changed since then.

I was just stating that in this case the nintendo customer support was the first confirmation of a translation. Sure there's allways a chance that the support only used a standard response and actually got it right by accident.

Still customer support is not Part of any internal or PR department, so usually they can only tell about stuff they've been instructed about.

 

[Father_Brain]

Again, I'm one of the few that didn't believe in this magical NDA that was preventing an avalanche of titles from tumbling forth. My stance is the same as it has been since the Wii-U was announced... they'll get lots of "We're really excited to try out some sweet ideas!" from various devs/pubs, but very few things will materialize. Even things that would be seemingly obvious will be absent. The mind will boggle. It won't take long for us to find out what exactly is preventing meaningful third party support this time, as eager industry people tell us exactly why various games/genres aren't worth the risk/or time to make work with the Wii-U's unique userbase and controller.

Yeah, this is nuts, frankly.

Nintendo has always been absurdly secretive about upcoming hardware (and software being developed for it) in between press events, up to two months or so before launch. I certainly have my concerns about the platform's third-party support, but do you really think that the situation is so bad that they haven't been able to secure any additional multiplatform titles since E3?

 

[EloquentM]

The devkit GPU has the raw power to do slightly more work on pixels in 1080p than the 360 can do on 720p. Furthermore it has much more EDRAM to make it very substantially better at doing AA. There's also a much larger shading capacity and likely tesselation and other goodies.

So it will be able to deliver superior IQ to Xbox 360/PS3 games on 1080p. I think it's likely Nintendo will use this resolution for most of their casual aimed games.

final devkit?

 

[[Nintex]]

Wait, what? How have they backtracked on that philosophy?

Suppose they didn't backtrack from your point of view. What would we be seeing right now as an indication of that?

Personally I think releasing a console that's only potentially as good as your competitors (clearly not attempting to blow them out of the water) means that you don't think power is going to win the generation. Additionally, focusing on other features to attract consumers' attention like motion control and tablet screens would seem to back up that idea - you attract people more with interesting features rather than raw power.

Nintendo is backtracking on some things.

My memory is foggy on this but Iwata said that he didn't expect new graphics technology to be that much more impressive than what we had last gen. So Nintendo didn't pursue a HD capable console. He really said that between last gen consoles and current gen consoles the difference was hardly noticable.

Nintendo even fired some potshots at E3 2005 at Microsoft. Saying that they weren't impressed with a system that barely had any running games(Reggie) and that they weren't impressed with the way titles like Kameo looked, Miyamoto or Aonuma... I can't quite remember was quoted saying something like: "If you look at what we're doing with Zelda on GameCube and what these so called next-gen games look like I don't see much of a difference". That sure stirred up the pot back in 2005.

When they unveiled the Wii Controller as being not a console-based touchscreen(that some expected after the DS) they said that they didn't think a touchscreen for a console would work. In fact it wouldn't have been enough of a change and it was only suitable for portables or something like that... so they certainly backtracked on that.

That does leave us with Miyamoto's age old comment of wanting to "not just limit console games to the TV" and we all assumed he was talking about holograms. In hindsight it was the Wii U controller.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Darth Phantom?

Alienware x51 - the first PC in a console-format that uses all off-the-shelf parts including graphics cards, with Steam preinstalled, so they are designed as gaming consoles. The higher end systems come with an nVidia GTX 555 w/1GB RAM, for example, which while not top of the line, can still play games like Skyrim at 1080p completely maxed out at better framerates than the console versions.

 

[AceBandage]

Wait... Why does Nintendo NEED to announce a new networking solution on Wednesday?
They can't do that at another time?

 

[UncleSporky]

Nintendo is backtracking on some things.

Of course, and your examples are fine.

Azelover's statement just seems to be rooted in the belief that "they said specs weren't important, so their new system having good graphics means they're backtracking!" Which is frankly ridiculous.

It's like he expects them to release a SNES-powered system to back up their claim.

 

[Father_Brain]

Wait... Why does Nintendo NEED to announce a new networking solution on Wednesday?
They can't do that at another time?

Presumably because Theatrhythm is shipping in mid-February, and Nintendo doesn't have any other press event announced yet. But that assumes that Nintendo Network is actually something newsworthy and not an NWFC rebranding.

 

[specialguy]

The devkit GPU has the raw power to do slightly more work on pixels in 1080p than the 360 can do on 720p. Furthermore it has much more EDRAM to make it very substantially better at doing AA. There's also a much larger shading capacity and likely tesselation and other goodies.

So it will be able to deliver superior IQ to Xbox 360/PS3 games on 1080p. I think it's likely Nintendo will use this resolution for most of their casual aimed games.

Where are you getting all this? Your opinion or do you claim to have a insider source?

1080P is about 2X the pixels of 720, so you're basically saying it's twice as powerful as a 360 (more like 2.5 really, since 1080P=2.25X plus you said more than 2x). Which isn't a ludicrous suggestion but would be on the high end of my thinking.

 

[pvpness]

Yeah, this is nuts, frankly.

Nintendo has always been absurdly secretive about upcoming hardware (and software being developed for it) in between press events, up to two months or so before launch. I certainly have my concerns about the platform's third-party support, but do you really think that the situation is so bad that they haven't been able to secure any additional multiplatform titles since E3?

No. I don't operate in absolutes. I just don't think that this will be the system that gives Nintendo 3rd party parity and in fact think that they'll struggle almost as much as with the Wii. They'll have some, of course, just like with the Wii.

 

[EloquentM]

Where are you getting all this? Your opinion or do you claim to have a insider source?

1080P is about 2X the pixels of 720, so you're basically saying it's twice as powerful as a 360 (more like 2.5 really, since 1080P=2.25X plus you said more than 2x). Which isn't a ludicrous suggestion but would be on the high end of my thinking.

In case you haven't been following the reigning opinion in this thread (formulated through various rumors and insider leaks) expects the wiiu to be at least 2x-3x the power of a ps3/xbox but at the most 5x.

edit:

Spoiler

I hope this is right

 

[ShockingAlberto]

It is seriously just a rebranding.

It may be more than that in time, but now it's just "This game is online capable in that there is either leaderboard support, online play, or DLC."

Not "YO THIS IS XBOX LIVE BUT NINTENDOIZED YA'LL HEAR ME"

 

[UncleSporky]

Where are you getting all this? Your opinion or do you claim to have a insider source?

1080P is about 2X the pixels of 720, so you're basically saying it's twice as powerful as a 360 (more like 2.5 really, since 1080P=2.25X plus you said more than 2x). Which isn't a ludicrous suggestion but would be on the high end of my thinking.

I'd like to know what he's talking about too but technically no, it wouldn't have to be twice as powerful. Remember this isn't referring to main RAM, number of cores, clock speed, etc.

All he said is that the GPU has the raw power to work on that many pixels. Maybe it'll have to do so with only the same amount of polys and texture RAM as the 360.

 

[FreeMufasa]

Investor conference. What have these previously brought us? (sorry if it has been asked before)

WiiU was announced at one last year.

At most, all we'll get is a comment saying "We will have playable WiiU games at E3"

 

[Father_Brain]

No. I don't operate in absolutes. I just don't think that this will be the system that gives Nintendo 3rd party parity and in fact think that they'll struggle almost as much as with the Wii. They'll have some, of course, just like with the Wii.

I think it'll likely be more akin to GC than Wii, though there's a fair amount of daylight in between those two not-particularly-optimistic scenarios.

 

[Paul Gale]

How many of you would pay $400 for a Wii U if it 1) Came bundled in with something like Wii Sports 2 that utilized both WiiMotion Plus and U-contol (Wii U's tablet controller, 2) Came out between July 8th and July 29th, and 3) Would be the weakest of the three next-gen consoles...not just the strongest of the current-gen consoles...I hope you know what I mean in that statement.

Thanks.

 

[UncleSporky]

How many of you would pay $400 for a Wii U if it 1) Came bundled in with something like Wii Sports 2 that utilized both WiiMotion Plus and U-contol (Wii U's tablet controller, 2) Came out between July 8th and July 29th, and 3) Would be the weakest of the three next-gen consoles...not just the strongest of the current-gen consoles...I hope you know what I mean in that statement.

Thanks.

I don't think a survey like this will reveal much, especially in a thread covering the more technical aspects of the system and not shallow hype.

Regardless of what I would personally pay, I think they need to launch anywhere from $250 to $300 to have a hope of attracting the general public to their system the way the Wii did, and I don't think this is an unrealistic expectation either, given the lesson they learned from the 3DS.

 

[DCKing]

Where are you getting all this? Your opinion or do you claim to have a insider source?

1080P is about 2X the pixels of 720, so you're basically saying it's twice as powerful as a 360 (more like 2.5 really, since 1080P=2.25X plus you said more than 2x). Which isn't a ludicrous suggestion but would be on the high end of my thinking.

The last devkit we had info on (unfortunately not the final devkit EloquentM) used the RV770LE GPU. In fillrate numbers it does 2.3x what the Xbox 360 GPU can do theoretically, if clocked at 575 MHz (clockrates in the devkit are unclear, but I believe 500 MHz in an earlier revision was referred to as 'underclocked'?).

I'm just using what was spilled about the devkit and comparing the available raw performance numbers. You can also extrapolate that that that GPU has ~3.8x the available shading power of the Xbox 360, or the same as roughly 429 GameCubes duct taped together (I love that number). Of course it's not the final GPU, but I think the final GPU will perform better rather than worse.

I made a post about this in the previous thread.

 

[Paul Gale]

I don't think a survey like this will reveal much, especially in a thread covering the more technical aspects of the system and not shallow hype.

Regardless of what I would personally pay, I think they need to launch anywhere from $250 to $300 to have a hope of attracting the general public to their system the way the Wii did, and I don't think this is an unrealistic expectation either, given the lesson they learned from the 3DS.

June 7th can't come soon enough. It'll be my 11th time attending E3 and possibly my most anticipated.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

How many of you would pay $400 for a Wii U if it 1) Came bundled in with something like Wii Sports 2 that utilized both WiiMotion Plus and U-contol (Wii U's tablet controller, 2) Came out between July 8th and July 29th, and 3) Would be the weakest of the three next-gen consoles...not just the strongest of the current-gen consoles...I hope you know what I mean in that statement.

Thanks.

I wouldn't 400 is pushing it for me, regardless of pack in. Unless if it were a full mario game, then that'd be ok since you need a good game anyway. Not into the Wii ____ stuff. They don't hold my attention.

 

[wsippel]

WiiU was announced at one last year.

At most, all we'll get is a comment saying "We will have playable WiiU games at E3"

3DS DLC and the (upcoming) eShop web integration were both announced at the last investor meeting if I remember correctly.

 

[AceBandage]

We've also had game announcements from them, like Kirby.

 

[royalan]

How many of you would pay $400 for a Wii U if it 1) Came bundled in with something like Wii Sports 2 that utilized both WiiMotion Plus and U-contol (Wii U's tablet controller, 2) Came out between July 8th and July 29th, and 3) Would be the weakest of the three next-gen consoles...not just the strongest of the current-gen consoles...I hope you know what I mean in that statement.

Thanks.

Not for a Wii Sports pack-in.

Then again - no one pack-in would make me go in on a Nintendo console at $400. Nintendo needs to guarantee continuous and quality 1st and 3rd party support to charge that.

 

[wsippel]

We've also had game announcements from them, like Kirby.

Right. Pandora's Tower and Last Story as well I believe. And all at the January meetings.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

The Wii U isn't going to be close to the PS4 and Xbox 3, although the latter two will likely be almost interchangeable.

Close is a relative term. I don't think the difference in games is going to be bigger than the PS2 - Xbox. Yeah the Wii-U is going to be weaker, it's not going to be as big of a difference as this gen though.

When all is said and done I think the average consumer will have a hard time telling any of the systems apart just from screen shots.

 

[nckillthegrimace]

We've also had game announcements from them, like Kirby.

I really think Nintendo Direct has replaced any sort of consumer focused announcements at these investor meetings. The most I expect is really broad and vague stuff about Nintendo's direction going into 2012 with the Wii U and 3DS.

I'd love to be wrong, though.

 

[AceBandage]

I really think Nintendo Direct has replaced any sort of consumer focused announcements at these investor meetings. The most I expect is really broad and vague stuff about Nintendo's direction going into 2012 with the Wii U and 3DS.

I'd love to be wrong, though.

Well, there's still the DQ7 remake, and that would help boost investor confidence, so it would make sense to announce it this week.

 

[UncleSporky]

Mainly as long as Nintendo can get in on the cross-platform action, I don't think the average consumer will see much difference.

I have no idea what the power gulf between the systems is going to be, but if all of them do 1080p standard that'll make ports much easier. I have a feeling Nintendo missed out on some of the third party action simply because it would've required massively redesigned interfaces - changing texture quality for 3D models is one thing, but resizing and moving text/interface elements to read easily in 480p without taking up too much screen space takes honest-to-god design effort. That's not the whole reason they didn't get ports, but I think it's obvious that a uniform resolution makes porting a heck of a lot easier.

They also have every standard button on their controller again. That was another major reason the Wii didn't see ports, it was missing...let's see, an analog stick, a trigger, and three easily-accessible face buttons (1 and 2 are just plain hard to use compared to ABXY). It has motion control to compensate, but that wasn't good enough for third parties, who quickly realized a second stick for camera is generally needed unless you design around it in the first place.

And if either MS or Sony (or both) have tablet controllers, that's just one other element they have in common to encourage ports. Third parties will feel better about implementing the touch screen if they can do it for multiple systems.

 

[Wolfie5]

Investor conference. What have these previously brought us? (sorry if it has been asked before)

You should expect a lot of stats and maybe something about Wii U(if we are lucky).

Last years third quarter results briefing:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/110128/06.html

They did announce Pandoras Tower for Wii.

 

[Terrell]

It is seriously just a rebranding.

It may be more than that in time, but now it's just "This game is online capable in that there is either leaderboard support, online play, or DLC."

Not "YO THIS IS XBOX LIVE BUT NINTENDOIZED YA'LL HEAR ME"

Back to my last point: if it's just a rebranding, why wasn't it on the Mario Kart box art? The new branding was obviously ready at that time. And also, why sink money into the marketing department to rebrand something that hasn't changed?

Answer those questions, and I'm sure people would let it go.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Back to my last point: if it's just a rebranding, why wasn't it on the Mario Kart box art? The new branding was obviously ready at that time. And also, why sink money into the marketing department to rebrand something that hasn't changed?

Answer those questions, and I'm sure people would let it go.

Why is this obvious?

 

[Eteric Rice]

Been a while since I've been through this thread. Have we ever found out if this thing will be able to run next generation games?

 

[antonz]

The last devkit we had info on (unfortunately not the final devkit EloquentM) used the RV770LE GPU. In fillrate numbers it does 2.3x what the Xbox 360 GPU can do theoretically, if clocked at 575 MHz (clockrates in the devkit are unclear, but I believe 500 MHz in an earlier revision was referred to as 'underclocked'?).

I'm just using what was spilled about the devkit and comparing the available raw performance numbers. You can also extrapolate that that that GPU has ~3.8x the available shading power of the Xbox 360, or the same as roughly 429 GameCubes duct taped together (I love that number). Of course it's not the final GPU, but I think the final GPU will perform better rather than worse.

I made a post about this in the previous thread.

Yeah based on the earliest information 2-4x power was the safe call. If as its being reported now that its better than expected even if not mindblowingly its probably safe to say 3-5x range. I cant imagine developers having an opinion less than the original basis so it has to be a general improvement.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Been a while since I've been through this thread. Have we ever found out if this thing will be able to run next generation games?

What does this mean exactly

You mean, like, BF3 PC?

 

[Christine]

No. I don't operate in absolutes. I just don't think that this will be the system that gives Nintendo 3rd party parity and in fact think that they'll struggle almost as much as with the Wii. They'll have some, of course, just like with the Wii.

My only issue with this is that while perceptions and expectations are important, they have their root in real economic factors. There are many ways for Nintendo to fuck this up; another hilarious failure in the online aspect is my personal front-runner. They might drop the ball with software support in its early life, or commit another bad pricing mis-step. They might peg the hardware low enough to re-create the software development context of Wii vs. PC/360/PS3.

My point is that third party support will manifest (or not) depending on real attributes of the platform. If U has a significant user base and both the hardware and network features necessary to make multiplatform development inexpensive, it'll get better third party support than either Wii or Gamecube more or less by default. Not necessarily parity, mind, but certainly better than Wii or Gamecube.

Take a look at PS3: the pre-launch expectations and perceptions were important, especially with respect to the first 18 months of software, but that's not what carried it through the generation with consistently better software support than the Wii. It was the fact that if 360 or PC was your primary development target, it was considerably cheaper to make a PS3 port than a Wii port. That's the underlying disparity creating the different levels of support, and whether or not it's present in the next generation will determine much of the long-term third party publishing strategy.

One area in which you are certainly correct is that third parties do not have positive pre-launch expectations of U's success as a profitable platform for their software. Nintendo cannot rely on their aid in building the console's initial momentum in the crucial 1st ~year.

 

[Eteric Rice]

What does this mean exactly

You mean, like, BF3 PC?

I mean like games that the next round of systems will be playing.

 

[pvpness]

I think it'll likely be more akin to GC than Wii, though there's a fair amount of daylight in between those two not-particularly-optimistic scenarios.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable to me. Of course, getting Gamecube level support ain't much and that would still be at the high end of my optimism range.

I don't even really care if they get third party support this generation. The Wii generation was the real burn for me. Pointer controls going ignored by the industry and what not.

My point is that third party support will manifest (or not) depending on real attributes of the platform. If U has a significant user base and both the hardware and network features necessary to make multiplatform development inexpensive, it'll get better third party support than either Wii or Gamecube more or less by default. Not necessarily parity, mind, but certainly better than Wii or Gamecube.

I can dig what you're saying and if we were talking about any other company than Nintendo I would entirely agree with you. I've got nothing that would validate my opinion or anything like that, but I hang on this paragraph above. I think that when it comes to Nintendo and third parties, there's another factor, less tangible, that plays a role just as important as the real honest to god factors you listed. I think it's this factor that caused many companies to say, "We'll wait and see what's going on with the market before we commit" even as the Wii was exploding on the marketplace and conversely, "We're very anxious to get our software on the PS3. Lower the price Sony!"

You've been around so you know I'm paraphrasing the market currents of prev gen launch, but I think it illustrates my point well enough to give you an understanding of where I'm coming from. If we'd seen at least some follow-ups to early successes on the Wii, I'd be more inclined to not spiral into this weird area of discourse.

 

[Hot Coldman]

I mean like games that the next round of systems will be playing.

Right, good, some fools still use next-gen to mean PS360

And... we dunno

 

[antonz]

I would think Nintendo would have to delibertly remove features from modern gpus to find themselves in a position where they cant play future games. It could be a case of where its weaknesses force lower resolutions or whatever but I just cant see Nintendo being totally left out

 

[EloquentM]

Speculation thread of going in circles

 

[lordfroakie]

Speculation thread of going in circles

We're known for repeating the same topic

 

[pvpness]

Take a look at PS3: the pre-launch expectations and perceptions were important, especially with respect to the first 18 months of software, but that's not what carried it through the generation with consistently better software support than the Wii. It was the fact that if 360 or PC was your primary development target, it was considerably cheaper to make a PS3 port than a Wii port. That's the underlying disparity creating the different levels of support, and whether or not it's present in the next generation will determine much of the long-term third party publishing strategy.

May as well add to what I edited in above while the thread is slow. I think the odd thing here is how long it actually took for the PS3 to become a viable platform. Beyond that, I don't think the PS3 would have even eventually become a viable platform without a good amount of the industry really pulling for it to happen. I definitely understand the ps3/pc/360 as one platform as an argument, and I think it's a good one for the latter half of the generation. I just think it's important to understand how it eventually came to be that way cause it sure as shit didn't start that way.