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

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I don't mind the Wii U having a premium price... its not that I can afford it and would not want a cheaper console but I already own a Wii and a 3DS. I want Nintendo to have something that is slick and solid tech wise. Something that still can push respectable graphics in 2015.

so if the price is a bit higher than expected than just maybe what is inside of the little box can deliver on what I would like to see happen with the WiiU. Not just another Wii but a respectable beast that not being left out of multiplatform games.

Amen sister.
 
Let me put it this way: Nintendo just had to quietly phase out the DSi/XL by reducing the price of the 3DS without lowering the price of the former. Sales of the DSi/XL were acting as an impediment to widespread adoption of the new 3DS handheld. Similarly, unless Nintendo phases out the Wii, it could act as an impediment to widespread apdoption of the Wii U.

Wii is already dead. The same thing won't happen. And anyway, the price difference will be much larger this time.
 
Plays Wii games, but won't increase their resolution. Like pretty much every instance of backward compatibility we've seen over the last 15 years.

Also backwards compatible with all Wii controllers and accessories. All Wii software was mentioned as well, so presumably WiiWare and Virtual Console too.

A Nintendo PR rep accidentially let slip that Gamecube games would be downloadable on Wii (so expanding the Virtual Console is probably happening), but Nintendo retracted the statement immediately.
 
... You mean despite the fact that developers call the 580 10x more powerful?

And neither of those GPUs can be used in a console anyway.

Huh?
The GTX 580 on 28nm would be almost exactly the size of the Xenos shader core/smart memory combined and RSX on 90nm... on 22nm quite a bit smaller.
 
Huh?
The GTX 580 on 28nm would be almost exactly the size of the Xenos shader core/smart memory combined and RSX on 90nm.
That's not true. Even if it were, the chip would still have insane power requirements for a console. If anything, we'll see smaller GPUs from Sony ans MS next gen.
 
I really doubt that the tab costs anywhere near 100 Bucks to produce. Around 50 is more likely with a retailer pricepoint of 80 to 100.

I think the tablet can be argued way up or way down. It's 7", right? IPS? Gorilla glass, or plastic front? The button/casing are going to be inexpensive to produce, the comms back to the console are cheap, the buttons and sliders are cheap. The pricy parts are the video transmission (maybe), the battery, and the screen itself, and those can vary wildly.
 
Nintendo as a rule doesn't sell for a loss. They did with the 3DS as an emergency measure after messing up its launch, that's the only time they've done so. Anyways, based on Reggie's statement the device is going to be hell-expensive. I mean, if someone with $60,000 in disposable income can't afford the system, that's just nuts. Someone has $5,000 left each month after paying all bills and for all necessities for their family, and they can't afford the Wii-U?!

Be realistic. He misspoke. He very obviously meant a family of 4 with 60,000 total income. That ain't much money. That's $15k per head per year. That's before taxes and living expenses, although, I imagine a 60k household of 4 probably doesn't pay much in the way of federal income tax.
 
The iPad's screen is nearly three times as big, capacitive, uses high-end IPS technology, uses a near-defunct screen aspect ratio, and has almost double the resolution. You can't really use that at all.
lolwut. The wii-u screen is 6.2 inches isn't it? iPad screen is 9.7. You just said it's 18.6 inches. Double what it actually is. What you meant is that the ipad has a screen 1.5x bigger than the wii-u controller.
 
That's simply not true.

People expect MS and Sony to offer a higher-end machine than Nintendo, but that's all.

Don't use hyperbole and generalize.
I'm not using hyperbole, or generalizing.
Some people think they're gonna make some super powered system, and Nintendo's releasing an OC'd 360.
Because "lol Wii."
 
lolwut. The wii-u screen is 6.2 inches isn't it? iPad screen is 9.7. You just said it's 18.6 inches. Double what it actually is. What you meant is that the ipad has a screen 1.5x bigger than the wii-u controller.

Area-wise, which probably matters more when factoring cost, it's 2.75x larger.
 
lolwut. The wii-u screen is 6.2 inches isn't it? iPad screen is 9.7. You just said it's 18.6 inches. Double what it actually is. What you meant is that the ipad has a screen 1.5x bigger than the wii-u controller.

facepalm.jpg

A 9.7 inch screen has about twice the surface area of a 6.2 screen. I'm not kidding. You can look it up if you like. Maybe even do the math.

BP seems to have done the math. I'll take him off my ignore list now.
 
I don't see many posts commenting on the technology that will be used to make low-latency streaming of gaming content and touch input possible on the wii tablet. Anybody know anything about that? I mean, to me that seems to be where the bulk of the cost will come from. Can't be cheap...
 
I think the tablet can be argued way up or way down. It's 7", right? IPS? Gorilla glass, or plastic front? The button/casing are going to be inexpensive to produce, the comms back to the console are cheap, the buttons and sliders are cheap. The pricy parts are the video transmission (maybe), the battery, and the screen itself, and those can vary wildly.
Nintendo aren't going to use an IPS screen with guerilla glass, so no need to worry about that. They've always used garbage display technology.
 
It's because I'm having trouble topping "apocalyptic scenario" without faking it. I'll be back to the top soon enough!

Well, maybe in this thread, but claiming Nintendo is doomed because they might not hit 16 million be the end of the fiscal year in the Media Create thread is still a bit over the top.
 
I don't see many posts commenting on the technology that will be used to make low-latency streaming of gaming content and touch input possible on the wii tablet. Anybody know anything about that? I mean, to me that seems to be where the bulk of the cost will come from. Can't be cheap...

That patent indicated there are hardware codecs in the console and controller. There is also a dedicated module for the wireless connection. From there it's up in the air as to whether it's 802.11n, Wireless HD, etc.
 
Well, maybe in this thread, but claiming Nintendo is doomed because they might not hit 16 million be the end of the fiscal year in the Media Create thread is still a bit over the top.

I didn't say that they were doomed; I said that Iwata was stupid for not lowering the prediction earlier, so now, when he's foced to cut it after the holidays, it's going to look a lot worse, resulting in a big stock drop, resulting in Bloomberg making another "3DS flop" article. Nintendo itself will be fine. I'm talking about their image to stockholders and nothing more.
 
I didn't say that they were doomed; I said that Iwata was stupid for not lowering the prediction earlier, so now, when he's foced to cut it after the holidays, it's going to look a lot worse, resulting in a big stock drop, resulting in Bloomberg making another "3DS flop" article. Nintendo itself will be fine. I'm talking about their image to stockholders and nothing more.

But the stockholder's opinions are worthless. And Nintendo knows that.
 
But the stockholder's opinions are worthless. And Nintendo knows that.

I know, but it does cost Nintendo money when stock is sold, and it makes them look bad. If the stock drops back to where it was in the GameCube years, it makes it looks like the last 5-6 years were all for naught. That obviously wouldn't be true, but at the same time, having zero net growth after five years just doesn't look good at all.
 
I don't see many posts commenting on the technology that will be used to make low-latency streaming of gaming content and touch input possible on the wii tablet. Anybody know anything about that? I mean, to me that seems to be where the bulk of the cost will come from. Can't be cheap...

Yeah it can be. At full res and driven at 60fps, that screen is about 74 Megabytes per second, so we're obviously not getting by with streaming uncompressed data. Which means that we have to throw a cheap codec and a 802.11n (or something similar) on each end. We're going to do the 802.11 as framed data, there won't be any retransmissions (this will be like udp with only frame overhead) as any data that's retransmitted is going to be to late.

1229760 bytes go in each screen, but let's assume that we can get 10x compression out of a cheap, so we set that up as 122976 bytes per screen or so. Lets call that 123k per screen.

Let's assume a 16x16 macroblocks for the codec (nothing exotic here) so that gives us about 54 x 30 or 1620 macroblocks per screen. 122976/1620 = about 76, so 76 bytes per macroblock. Now we're getting somewhere.

Since we're going to want to be tolerant of lost ethernet frames we're not going to go up to the limit of 64k, so let's leave it at 4000 bytes per frame, so we can stuff 54 macroblocks in each frame or so, but that doesn't take overhead into account. Let's call it about 2/3 of that or 32 macroblocks per ethernet frame. 1620/32 = 50.625 ethernet frames per screen including overhead for audio and rumble and whatever else needs to be transmitted. Let's call that 50x4k so 200KBps per screen * 60 is 12MBps.

The electronics here is going to be pretty cheap. Especially in the same room.

Disclaimer: 10x is pretty spitballed, and someone with more experience with low-latency CBR video codecs could probably do a better job of this than me, but otherwise my logic is sound. This is really doable even without doing anything exotic.

EDIT: Fixed math. Forgot a multiply.
 
Nintendo aren't going to use an IPS screen with guerilla glass, so no need to worry about that. They've always used garbage display technology.

I would argue that they'd at least use a screen with really decent viewing angles without much contrast shift, but there's no need for gorilla glass here. Not for a device that's not meant to travel.
 
You guy reckon Nintendo will/should remove features from the wii u controller to keep costs down? I mean if they didn't include the mic, they could sell standalone headsets at a profit (not that I want them to).
 
$12-15 for buttons, motion sensors, sensor bar, camera, plasics, mic
$10 for battery
$8-10 for wireless tech
$30-40 for screen

$50-75 , and that's playing it safe with some higher estimates.
 
Another thing is, couldn't Nintendo always make an optional, advanced version of the controller later on? Having an even better quality screen for about 50 bucks more? I would buy one.
 
Another thing is, couldn't Nintendo always make an optional, advanced version of the controller later on? Having an even better quality screen for about 50 bucks more? I would buy one.

There's no doubt as time goes on they'd have minor improvements to the screen. But new features? No.
 
Yeah it can be. At full res and driven at 60fps, that screen is about 74 Megabytes per second, so we're obviously not getting by with streaming uncompressed data. Which means that we have to throw a cheap codec and a 802.11n (or something similar) on each end. We're going to do the 802.11 as framed data, there won't be any retransmissions (this will be like udp with only frame overhead) as any data that's retransmitted is going to be to late.

1229760 bytes go in each screen, but let's assume that we can get 10x compression out of a cheap, so we set that up as 122976 bytes per screen or so. Lets call that 123k per screen.

Let's assume a 16x16 macroblocks for the codec (nothing exotic here) so that gives us about 54 x 30 or 1620 macroblocks per screen. 122976/1620 = about 76, so 76 bytes per macroblock. Now we're getting somewhere.

Since we're going to want to be tolerant of lost ethernet frames we're not going to go up to the limit of 64k, so let's leave it at 4000 bytes per frame, so we can stuff 54 macroblocks in each frame or so, but that doesn't take overhead into account. Let's call it about 2/3 of that or 32 macroblocks per ethernet frame. 1620/32 = 50.625 ethernet frames per screen including overhead for audio and rumble and whatever else needs to be transmitted. Let's call that 50x4k so 200KBps per screen * 60 is 12MBps.

The electronics here is going to be pretty cheap. Especially in the same room.

Disclaimer: 10x is pretty spitballed, and someone with more experience with low-latency CBR video codecs could probably do a better job of this than me, but otherwise my logic is sound. This is really doable even without doing anything exotic.

EDIT: Fixed math. Forgot a multiply.

I had to read it three times, and I still didn't understand a word of that. :)

But thanks for taking the time to answer my question!
 
Be realistic. He misspoke. He very obviously meant a family of 4 with 60,000 total income. That ain't much money. That's $15k per head per year. That's before taxes and living expenses, although, I imagine a 60k household of 4 probably doesn't pay much in the way of federal income tax.

No he didn't.

He was contrasting a family with high income who could easily afford the latest new tech gadget i.e. Wii U but would instead choose to purchase the Wii for the compelling family software library, to early adopters who are more motivated to get the new hotness.

Read the quote again. You will see it is readily apparent this is what he was saying.

Besides, he rehearses his messaging thoroughly, recording the wording and phrases to camera multiple times until he has it off pat. There's a video of him doing this out there that someone on here linked to some months back.
 
Nintendo aren't going to use an IPS screen with guerilla glass, so no need to worry about that. They've always used garbage display technology.
When did Nintendo ever use "garbage display technology"? From what I can tell, Nintendo has always used the state of the art, at the time the system launched. I mean sure, the old Gameboy had its black and white screen with extremely slow refresh - but when it launched there was no commercial device using anything better, particularly in that price bracket.

The Gameboy Color screen didn't use backlighting, but that wasn't poor technology, backlit color displays at the time were poor quality, required a TON of batteries and still had poor battery life, and didn't allow for outdoor use. The GBA used what was at the time the best technology for a reflective LCD screen, unfortunately the extra contrast it allowed made the picture dark and hard to see without a lot of light (but boy did it look amazing in direct sunlight). GBA SP took that screen and added front lighting.

DS used the same screens that most other portable devices (mainly cell phones) were using at the time, though it wasn't as good as the PSP screen except in refresh rate (where it handily trounced the PSP screen). DS Lite upgraded that to one that got a lot brighter and had more contrast (than even PSP), at a slight cost of battery life and viewing angles. And of course the 3DS launched with the best glasses-free 3D display at the time (I had two other glasses-free 3D devices before 3DS launch, 3DS one worked far better for 3D, though it was lower resolution).
 
Yeah it can be. At full res and driven at 60fps, that screen is about 74 Megabytes per second, so we're obviously not getting by with streaming uncompressed data...
<snip>
Your entire post addresses BW - everything you just posted can actually increase latency versus a channel that can just maintain the raw BW of the stream (something which both WirelessHD and WHDI can do without much issue - they both can do 4Gb/s).
 
No he didn't.

He was contrasting a family with high income who could easily afford the latest new tech gadget i.e. Wii U but would instead choose to purchase the Wii for the compelling family software library, to early adopters who are more motivated to get the new hotness.

Read the quote again. You will see it is readily apparent this is what he was saying.

Besides, he rehearses his messaging thoroughly, recording the wording and phrases to camera multiple times until he has it off pat. There's a video of him doing this out there that someone on here linked to some months back.

Actually, per the quote provided earlier in the thread, he did. There's absolutely no room for confusion - disposable income strictly means income after tax, not income after tax and expenses. Reggie isn't the most knowledgeable in relation to video games, but as a marketing figure you can bet that he won't misuse a term like disposable income.

He also stated that the individual was the head of a family of four. The disposable income figure quoted obviously related to the whole family, otherwise there was no point in quoting it, as every family's purchasing decisions are based on the disposable household income, rather than on the disposable income of a single member thereof. Unless the head of household is akin to the father in Chibi-Robo.

While $50,000 - $60,000 is a very manageable disposable income for a family of four dependent on where you live, it is not necessarily going to leave you in a position to buy the latest consumer electronics. Obviously, in New York or San Francisco, for example, its not going to stretch anywhere near as far as it would in other far less expensive areas of the country.

Fair enough, this wasn't Nintendo's $599 or get a second job moment, but it did seem to indicate that at the outset the Wii U will be priced at a level more palatable to enthusiasts, the "hardcore" and families or individuals with higher discretionary income levels.
 
About the price of the Wii U.

Reggie Fils-Aime sad

"We haven’t announced pricing or availability or any other details, but given the current pricing of the Wii, it’s not going to be there.

We’ve been very clear, the market is going to decide how long these products will coexist side by side. Our goal is to launch the Wii U and drive it into the marketplace, but it will speak to a different consumer than the one that is buying the Wii today during the holidays"

299 to 349 is my guess. The interview didn't reveal anthing specal.

Of course the Wii U is gonna be more expensive than the current model at 130 to 150.

Of course the Wii U when it launches will speak to a different consumer than the one that's buying the Wii TODAY during the holidays, that s obvious as well.

The majority of the ones that bought it sooo late in a life circle aren't much of gamers and only bought it because of the price, to play it with their little children, use it as a karaoke mashine or maybe only because of one game they really want (Zelda for example).

Therefore, not much news here.

As I said I think the price will still be fairly resonable, at 349 at max! It still has to appeal to casual gamers, not only the hardcore, and the first are probably not willing to dish out 400 to 500 bucks for a gaming mashine.
 
I'm expecting the Wii U to be priced at $349.99. Not super cheap, but not super expensive either. If we factor in the price of an external HDD, then the overall system will be somewhere over $400 and to be honest, I'm okay with that as long as they provide some serious hardware muscle in the box and a remote and nunchuck. I don't think anyone shold be expecting this thing to cost $249. I'll even go so far to say that I think $299 is probably out of the picture as well.
 
my predixorz

$279 Wii U standard set (console + 1x uPad only)
$299 Super Wii U set... also includes 2x Wii Remote Pluses + accessories pack (screen protector, cloth, uPad charge dock and case, etc)

additional uPads are $59
 
Actually, per the quote provided earlier in the thread, he did. There's absolutely no room for confusion - disposable income strictly means income after tax, not income after tax and expenses. Reggie isn't the most knowledgeable in relation to video games, but as a marketing figure you can bet that he won't misuse a term like disposable income.

He also stated that the individual was the head of a family of four. The disposable income figure quoted obviously related to the whole family, otherwise there was no point in quoting it, as every family's purchasing decisions are based on the disposable household income, rather than on the disposable income of a single member thereof. Unless the head of household is akin to the father in Chibi-Robo.

While $50,000 - $60,000 is a very manageable disposable income for a family of four dependent on where you live, it is not necessarily going to leave you in a position to buy the latest consumer electronics. Obviously, in New York or San Francisco, for example, its not going to stretch anywhere near as far as it would in other far less expensive areas of the country.

Fair enough, this wasn't Nintendo's $599 or get a second job moment, but it did seem to indicate that at the outset the Wii U will be priced at a level more palatable to enthusiasts, the "hardcore" and families or individuals with higher discretionary income levels.

I know the difference between income and disposable income thank you.

I stand by my earlier comments on this matter.

About the price of the Wii U.

Reggie Fils-Aime sad

"We haven’t announced pricing or availability or any other details, but given the current pricing of the Wii, it’s not going to be there.

We’ve been very clear, the market is going to decide how long these products will coexist side by side. Our goal is to launch the Wii U and drive it into the marketplace, but it will speak to a different consumer than the one that is buying the Wii today during the holidays"

299 to 349 is my guess. The interview didn't reveal anthing specal.

Of course the Wii U is gonna be more expensive than the current model at 130 to 150.

Of course the Wii U when it launches will speak to a different consumer than the one that's buying the Wii TODAY during the holidays, that s obvious as well.

The majority of the ones that bought it sooo late in a life circle aren't much of gamers and only bought it because of the price, to play it with their little children, use it as a karaoke mashine or maybe only because of one game they really want (Zelda for example).

Therefore, not much news here.

As I said I think the price will still be fairly resonable, at 349 at max! It still has to appeal to casual gamers, not only the hardcore, and the first are probably not willing to dish out 400 to 500 bucks for a gaming mashine.

This poster gets it.
 
Your entire post addresses BW - everything you just posted can actually increase latency versus a channel that can just maintain the raw BW of the stream (something which both WirelessHD and WHDI can do without much issue - they both can do 4Gb/s).

You are absolutely correct about me just posting about bandwidth. I know little to nothing about WirelessHD and WHDI.

I'm coming from an IP telephony background. When it was mentioned that the system could only support one tablet, I started assuming that they dropped a standalone codec in the system and tablet. Probably leaving the IP and UDP and maybe even the H.323 in place. I have no idea of the latency incurred framing a 802.11n frame, but I do know that most of the nicer hardware codecs are going to be able to encode or decode a frame (whether I or P) in less than a 60th of a second. My assumption was a 2-3 frame latency from the output buffer to the tablet screen which while noticeable is something that see anyway in many older LCD TVs and is something that we should be able to compensate for.

Note: I'm not addressing what they should do, I'm addressing what they could be doing, but I'd love it if you'd speak a little bit about WirelessHD or WHDI as to how they'd fit into a system like this, and what the costs are like. I know that telephony codecs can be pretty darn cheap (the expense is R&D at this point, and a buyer willing to buy in the 10s of millions of units is going to get very discounted licensing fees), but I have no idea about other wireless video streaming standards.
 
my predixorz

$279 Wii U standard set (console + 1x uPad only)
$299 Super Wii U set... also includes 2x Wii Remote Pluses + accessories pack (screen protector, cloth, uPad charge dock and case, etc)

additional uPads are $59


I can see Nintendo coming out with two SKUs for
those who already have a wiimote, etc.
A basic model for the "casuals" to upgrade to.
Just to replacing the white box for another.

What I cant see is those prices you are predicting.
That super Wii set for sure 349.
The standard set for 299.

Dont forget, retailers need to make money too.

edit to add:
Those Upads will be much more expensive.
at least $75
 
Whatever the thing costs, I hope I have enough money to pay for it.
My fucking credit card is bad enough as it is.
I should start saving up like I did for my TV.
 
I still don't see why 299 looks so possible.

We'll be getting a souped-up 360 at that price...

I don't understand this mentality when it comes to console pricing. You realize that 300 bucks of today tech greatly exceeds 300 dollars worth of tech when 360/PS3 first launched, right? People need to realize that it's been almost 7 years since these consoles came out and adjust their expectations more accordingly.

Personally, I'm feeling $349 USD is the magic number, but I do , but I would also be confident with saying $299 as it has that softer ring to itself.
 
I don't understand this mentality when it comes to console pricing. You realize that 300 bucks of today tech greatly exceeds 300 dollars worth of tech when 360/PS3 first launched, right? People need to realize that it's been almost 7 years since these consoles came out and adjust their expectations more accordingly.

Personally, I'm feeling $349 USD is the magic number, but I do , but I would also be confident with saying $299 as it has that softer ring to itself.
Yeah, 350 would essentially get us a future-proof system with a somewhat mass market price. Especially since we know that both Box and PS will not be less than 399.
 
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