Wii U Speculation Thread of Brains Beware: Wii U Re-Unveiling At E3 2012

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The Super suffix wouldn't fly with that blue ocean audience
No over-40 is gonna buy a Super something for his soccer-wife

Wii nU
"Here my dear I've bought me a Wii nU to play together tonight"! See, that sounds a lot better
 
Gambit said:
I am a proponent of Super Wii, but since they want to emphasise the "U" that's off the table. So why not name it "Yuu"?

After WII follows Yuu. The "u"s represent the tablets (so you gotta be able to use at least two) and the Y is ... for the wi-fi capabilities (to the controller and online).

[Y looks sort of like the symbol on my laptop that switches wi-fi on and off]
Click to expand...

I'm actually alright with this... I'm imagining people walking into a store and seeing something that bears a resemblance to the Wii, but has "Yuu" written on the box instead. I can't help but imagine that it would leave more of an impression than Wii U does. The double-vowels and, ideally, similar font and packaging would be enough to signify it as the Wii's successor while separating it enough that no one could possibly think it's a Wii accessory.

Nintendo, pay this man!
 
The_Endgamer said:
Though Wii 2 is an ideal name for the Wii U instead is anyone factoring in that both Xbox and Playstation use larger numbers?

Calling the U a Wii 2 would be perceived as a whole lot less powerful than a PS3 because of it's higher numerical value.
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*ding*ding*ding*

What happened to Xbox 2 ? Playstation 3 !
 
As much as I agree with that, the same consumers that would not choose to buy the console because of the number in the name will think that Wii U is just an addon for Wii, so the name is even worse.
 
TheExplodingHead said:
I personally wouldn't mind seeing a console that ditches discs in favor of a flash-type format for physical media...
Click to expand...

You have to wonder if this might actually happen at some point, with Vita cards being able to go up to 16gb already.
 
Kyzer said:
As much as I agree with that, the same consumers that would not choose to buy the console because of the number in the name will think that Wii U is just an addon for Wii, so the name is even worse.
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depends entirely on marketing
 
So what would you guys like to see in a Wii U-exclusive Sonic game (which is highly likely, as Sega said they aren't keen on making a port of Gens as it'd be a bit late for it)?

I wouldn't mind it if they went in a new direction ala the storybook series (not necessarily a 3rd one, but just another twist, I'm sick on the turbo-charged Unleashed style).

If these words by Mike Hayes from awhile ago are true, then I'd kill for a Heroes-esc game that they seem to want to re-explore:

http://www.tssznews.com/2010/03/17/in-interview-segas-hayes-hints-at-future-sonic-heroes-esque-game/

Mike Hayes said:
The thing with Sonic you need to understand is that there are different parts of the Sonic family. This is how we’re building the whole strategy. In one corner you’ve got Mario & Sonic franchise, in the next you’ve got Sonic The Hedgehog. Then you’ve got the All-Stars – that’s pretty much everybody. Then you’ve got something we haven’t seen for a while, which is like Sonic Heroes, multiplay-type game.
Click to expand...

I want to play as other characters, I want variety. I don't want to just go fast and faster still, I want things to change up, like how you could run, and fly, and whatnot. See where I'm going?

And I want Sega to do what they've been doing on Wii and do it on Wii U, which was to push the system like mad, I mean Secret Rings really does hold up in a lot of ways, especially for being a launch window game.

I want to see something that'd be clearly superior in graphics to Gens for instance. Make it look like an 8th Gen/Next-gen game. And I want it in the art style from the storybook series, where it was slightly more realistic or whatever, I don't know how to describe it.

That's my opinion. How about yours?
 
Hero of Legend said:
I want to play as other characters, I want variety. I don't want to just go fast and faster still, I want things to change up, like how you could run, and fly, and whatnot. See where I'm going?
Click to expand...

No. No.

Hero of Legend said:
That's my opinion. How about yours?
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Colors 2.
 
Another Sonic Heroes?

1d1ccc3c-94bc-4c17-8379-c77e890992a0.gif
 
OrangeGrayBlue said:
I think Nintendo's best strategy would be to do something like they did with the Game Boy Advance: keep the basic name, but add a word that definitively implies that it is an enhancement on the previous system. So basically like "Super Wii"... just using a more mass-market friendly word than super because no 40 year old is going to purchase a product with "Super" in the title.


That said, I can already see Nintendo's Wii U marketing strategy...

"Wii U... it's

Universal

[cut to old guy playing with his two grandchildren]

Unique

[cut to some tech demo game with the tablet]

Unifying

[cut to dad watching sports while his son leans against him playing mario on the tablet]

...It's yoU
[cut to system features like miis and download service, etc]"


You're welcome Nintendo. I only accept cash.
Click to expand...

10 points for OrangeGreyBlue
 
Gravijah said:
how about a proper sonic adventure 2
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Funny you guys mention this, there was a rumor a while back that Sega was working on a new 3D Sonic-adventure like game for the 3DS starring at least both Sonic and Tales.
 
[Nintex] said:
Funny you guys mention this, there was a rumor a while back that Sega was working on a new 3D Sonic-adventure like game for the 3DS starring at least both Sonic and Tales.
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That was a Sega Mexico rep, and yeah, that'd be fantastic if true, and hopefully it'll get a Wii U HD Ver. port (better yet with SA1 & 2 in a SA Trilogy collection, if it's SA3).
 
I spent hours upon hours in the Chao Garden thing. That was probably the greatest optional part of a game I've ever played. I definitely wouldn't mind more of that.
 
OrangeGrayBlue said:
I spent hours upon hours in the Chao Garden thing. That was probably the greatest optional part of a game I've ever played. I definitely wouldn't mind more of that.
Click to expand...

Chao were the best thing about Sonic Adventure 1/2.
 
I've been spending the last few days trying to better understand framebuffers due both to my expectations of the amount of main system memory and that Wii U will "emulate" Gamecube's design in hardware (low cost and efficiency over high cost and raw power). I found other interesting things during this time.

First going back the the tessellator debate, the TEV unit for Flipper had Bump Mapping hardwired and Hollywood's TEV added Normal Mapping. Removing the tessellator conflicts with what Nintendo has done in the past with GC and Wii.

Other things I came across was that 360's Xenos has indirect similarities to GC's Flipper. Heck I'd almost say the 360 in general was based on Gamecube from what I've seen. One of the similarities I noticed was in Xenos' daughter-die and Flipper's embedded Framebuffer where both handled the back buffer and z-buffer (front buffer in main memory). If Wii U continued with this I could see some things that would in turn resemble Xenos by moving the operations that need the most bandwidth to a secondary die. With Xenos there is a theoretical bandwidth of 256GB/s doing this on its daughter-die, and then 32GB/s between the main die and secondary die.

I've felt for awhile that Wii U would repeat the use of eDRAM (e1T-SRAM), but now I have a better understanding of its use and why. Also when looking at the idea of Wii U using a daughter-die, Wii's Hollywood already took a step in this direction by integrating the 24MB of 1T-SRAM that was GC's main memory onto Hollywood's chip.

hollywoodxenos.jpg


*Rectangle-shaped chip (Napa) includes the 24MB of memory*

Using a rough calculation (still working on getting the formula completely down so this is based on one method), Wii U would need (to avoid tiling) a minimum of 16MB for 1920x1080p with no aliasing and 64MB for 1920x1080p with 4xFSAA (based on the idea that FSAA is used as opposed to some other AA). This isn't completely accurate, but it at least gives a rough idea of what would be needed.

Flipper/Hollywood had 1MB of texture cache which was pretty big, but with today's much larger textures I would be under the impression that Nintendo would somehow increase that amount instead of going with what current GPUs have to reduce the burden on main memory (since I expect no more than 1.5GB). Then last year Nintendo renewed their licensing agreement with S3 to use their texture compression tech. Using S3TC if they could bump that amount to 4MB, that would be the equivalent of having having 24MB (6:1 compression) available for 24-bit textures or 16MB (4:1 from what I found) for 32-bit textures. However this is Nintendo. Looking at Hollywood, I could just as easily see them go with 1GB of main memory, and something huge like a 64MB framebuffer, and 64MB texture cache. Not saying it will happen, but that sounds like something they would do by focusing on "smaller" amounts of fast memory over larger amounts of slower memory. This should pretty much free up the main memory for other things.

After discussions with wsippel I jumped on the "large amounts of CPU eDRAM being L2 cache" bandwagon. I recently noticed another Xbox 360/GC similarity seems to be the amount of L2 cache they had. The 360 had 1MB of L2 cache. And I found this quote from Eggebrecht about the Gamecube.

Don't forget how extremely powerful the 256K second level cache in Gekko makes Gamecube. The size of a CPU's second level cache determines how fast general game-code runs. The PS2 has a tiny 16K of second level cache, and even the X-Box only has 128K.
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This to me helps point to that eDRAM being implemented as L2 cache. If there is any truth to the 16MB rumor, we're looking at Wii U's CPU having roughly over 62x the amount that was in Gekko.
 
Kenka said:
Hey bgassasin, that's a neat post :o

Excellent, thanks to figure out what all those cryptic specs actually mean.
Click to expand...
We have cryptic specs? Where?

: )
 
Wii 2 wouldn't have been such a bad name imho. I think the Wii was not directly comparable to XBOX360/PS3, which are much more of direct competitors - also technically/graphically - than the Wii.

The Wii did basically it's own thing, was very successfull with it, but still part of the same generation.

That "uniqueness" of the Wii could have been carried over to the successor with just addin a simple "2" just fine I think.

There would be no confusion. ANYBODY would get it instantly. Anybody would also start asking themeselves "ah, it's the SUCCESSOR - so what can it do more..." and get curious.

The simple 2 would be also reminiscent of the one console that's the most successfull of all time: the Playstation 2. Gamers would think about how it managed to do everything better than the PS1, surpassing it in every way with, thus getting possitive feelings about the Wii 2 as well maybe.

Also, there wasn't many consoles that features the Number 2 in it's name.
And we don't know if Sony is going to name their next one the Playstation 4 or just not use a number.


I'm also ok with Wii u.
 
OrangeGrayBlue said:
I think Nintendo's best strategy would be to do something like they did with the Game Boy Advance: keep the basic name, but add a word that definitively implies that it is an enhancement on the previous system. So basically like "Super Wii"... just using a more mass-market friendly word than super because no 40 year old is going to purchase a product with "Super" in the title.


That said, I can already see Nintendo's Wii U marketing strategy...

"Wii U... it's

Universal

[cut to old guy playing with his two grandchildren]

Unique

[cut to some tech demo game with the tablet]

Unifying

[cut to dad watching sports while his son leans against him playing mario on the tablet]

...It's yoU
[cut to system features like miis and download service, etc]"


You're welcome Nintendo. I only accept cash.
Click to expand...
Utopian.

I'm sure Nintendo will do that though and it'll be cheesy as hell.
 
AceBandage said:
No.
Not a single piece of spec info was given at E3.
Click to expand...

http://e3.nintendo.com/hw/#/about

Launches: 2012

Size: Approximately 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long.

New Controller: Approximately 5.3 inches high, 0.9 inches deep (not including buttons and other projections) and 9.0 inches long. The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus.

Other Controls: Up to four Wii Remote™ (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii™ controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk™ controller, Classic Controller™, Classic Controller Pro™ and Wii Balance Board™.

Media: A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs.

Video Output: Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite.

Audio Output: Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI.

Storage: The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive.

CPU: IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor.

GPU: AMD Radeon™-based High Definition GPU.

Other: Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories.

Note: Details are subject to change.
 
bgassassin said:
Other things I came across was that 360's Xenos has indirect similarities to GC's Flipper. Heck I'd almost say the 360 in general was based on Gamecube from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

What if XENOS was something Nintendo was planning to implement into their follow up console after GC but dropped it? MS came around, ATI still had the plans & RD, and offered it to them.
 
Andrex said:
http://e3.nintendo.com/hw/#/about

Launches: 2012

Size: Approximately 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long.

New Controller: Approximately 5.3 inches high, 0.9 inches deep (not including buttons and other projections) and 9.0 inches long. The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus.

Other Controls: Up to four Wii Remote™ (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii™ controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk™ controller, Classic Controller™, Classic Controller Pro™ and Wii Balance Board™.

Media: A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs.

Video Output: Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite.

Audio Output: Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI.

Storage: The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive.

CPU: IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor.

GPU: AMD Radeon™-based High Definition GPU.

Other: Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories.

Note: Details are subject to change.
Click to expand...
OK? where's the spec info? The only spec info here are that CPU is multi-core, not single core, and that the console has 1080P and HDMI output.
 
walking fiend said:
OK? where's the spec info? The only spec info here are that CPU is multi-core, not single core, and that the console has 1080P and HDMI output.
Click to expand...

Confirms flash memory at least.

And those are not "not a single spec," which was my point. :P
 
guek said:
very interesting stuff. I commend you for your dedication to technological sleuthing.
Click to expand...

I just enjoy looking at the possible directions. Since I've been out of the gaming loop (buying them for myself), it's easier for me to talk about those things right now than say what improvements SSB should have in a Wii U version.

Kenka said:
Hey bgassasin, that's a neat post :o

Excellent, thanks to figure out what all those cryptic specs actually mean.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but like blu indicated there isn't any discovery of cryptic specs. It's really nothing more than a hypothetical direction that Nintendo could chose.

MDX said:
What if XENOS was something Nintendo was planning to implement into their follow up console after GC but dropped it? MS came around, ATI still had the plans & RD, and offered it to them.
Click to expand...

Who knows? Things are always going on in the background that we don't know.



We have another Darksiders 2 blurb.

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/30845/darksiders-2-wii-u-will-be-unique/

Darksiders 2 Wii U will be unique

The Wii U version of Darksiders 2 has been easy to port over


The Wii U version of Darksiders 2 will be unique. That's the word from Vigil's Jay Fitzloff who told Official Nintendo Magazine that the controls will differ from versions on other consoles.

Vigil are working hard to make sure that Darksiders 2 Wii U won't just be a simple port.

"Y'know, you could just throw in anything just to throw it in but we want to make sure it really works," Fitzloff told us.

"So far we have visual parity with other formats and it's been easy to port over, but making Darksiders 2 for Wii U is about using the system.

"In the end it'll have such as unique control set - we think it's the best we can make for Wii U, but will it be definitive? You tell us when it comes out!"

We'll have to wait a while to give him our Darksiders 2 Wii U review as the Wii U won't be released until 2012.

You can read more about Wii U in the November issue of Official Nintendo Magazine which is out now. You can buy it here.
Click to expand...
 
walking fiend said:
OK? where's the spec info? The only spec info here are that CPU is multi-core, not single core, and that the console has 1080P and HDMI output.
Click to expand...

And that it uses flash memory...

Also, bgassassin, excellent work - very interesting read and I applaud your dedication and persistence regarding the speculation of system specs.

But will it make coffee...?
 
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