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

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guek said:
I'm predicting $299.99 with some awesome packins

online store wont be up day 1 though :-(
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That's what I'm expecting, pricewise at least since I'd hope Nintendo will finally be able to get an online store up day 1. I hope the recent 3DS and Wii experience with software means Iwata will be more aggressive on pack ins.

[Nintex] said:
So you'll borrow $4 billion to buy 8 consoles and then set the rest on fire or?
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Who cares when the Germans are paying for it.
 
MadOdorMachine said:
Personally, I'm more interested in them setting up a cloud based DD service like Steam than online multiplayer. The idea of having games that you can download and play on 3DS and Wii U is far more appealing than anything else to me. VC games especially prior to N64 would be a huge selling point if they did this imo.
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Sounds like a nice idea, but retailers are bound to give Nintendo a metric ton of shit for making any positive moves related to DD even if it doesn't affect their profit businesses yet.

Microsoft and Sony are both very likely to capitalize on something like that(not that I know how). Their first order of business should be learning how to build a solid online network for online multiplayer/multimedia use(netflix parties)/community aspects.
 
I really do hope its a very nice, efficient, beefy system. Something twice the power of a PS3 with oodles of RAM and a fat HDD would be nice. I know we are not getting the oodles of RAM and HDD lol.
 
Log4Girlz said:
I really do hope its a very nice, efficient, beefy system. Something twice the power of a PS3 with oodles of RAM and a fat HDD would be nice. I know we are not getting the oodles of RAM and HDD lol.
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Well, RAM maybe.
HDD (built in) no.
But, it takes USB HDDs, so it's all good.
 
AceBandage said:
Well, RAM maybe.
HDD (built in) no.
But, it takes USB HDDs, so it's all good.
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Why can't I have an SKU with a built in HDD... WHY NINTENDO. You fucking release 50 variants of each fucking handheld, why u no give me uber sku??
 
Log4Girlz said:
Why can't I have an SKU with a built in HDD... WHY NINTENDO. You fucking release 50 variants of each fucking handheld, why u no give me uber sku??
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Offering more than one SKU can confuse consumers. I think it's a very "Nintendo" move to offer one SKU that allows a HDD to be added on.
 
OrangeGrayBlue said:
Offering more than one SKU can confuse consumers. I think it's a very "Nintendo" move to offer one SKU that allows a HDD to be added on.
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Oh yeah, just like their handheld strategy...don't confuse the consumers!
 
Log4Girlz said:
I really do hope its a very nice, efficient, beefy system. Something twice the power of a PS3 with oodles of RAM and a fat HDD would be nice. I know we are not getting the oodles of RAM and HDD lol.
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Give me more power than that plz.
Log4Girlz said:
Why can't I have an SKU with a built in HDD... WHY NINTENDO. You fucking release 50 variants of each fucking handheld, why u no give me uber sku??
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You could get it cheaper standalone.

No point in paying more for a bulkier system that has more parts that break down over time.
 
Log4Girlz said:
Oh yeah, just like their handheld strategy...don't confuse the consumers!
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Well, I think there's a difference between revising a console and offering multiple SKUs of it. For instance, the Xbox 360 launched as Core and Pro SKUs, and was then revised with the S model. Nintendo offers revisions over time, but has never launched with multiple SKUs.
 
Log4Girlz said:
Why can't I have an SKU with a built in HDD... WHY NINTENDO. You fucking release 50 variants of each fucking handheld, why u no give me uber sku??
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Yuk, no thank you.

And how big should this HDD be?
And how much are you willing to fork out for it in terms of increasing the price of the launch WiiU?
 
MDX said:
Yuk, no thank you.

And how big should this HDD be?
And how much are you willing to fork out for it in terms of increasing the price of the launch WiiU?
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Honestly, it would be nice to have some sort of large memory capacity out the box. No fridge problems, no saved game problems, a wider range of downloadable titles can be made available, and third parties can develop with it in mind freely instead of it being an add on and severely segmented market product.
 
MDX said:
Yuk, no thank you.

And how big should this HDD be?
And how much are you willing to fork out for it in terms of increasing the price of the launch WiiU?
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The HDD should be no bigger than the head of a pin and the price should be reduced $25. Make it from magic.
 
bgassassin said:
Well we still don't know how much flash memory will be in the system.
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My guess is 4GB internal, 4GB SD card bundled, internal used for mainly system and channel functions. Basically I think the Wii -> Wii U progression will be like the DSi -> 3DS progression, except legacy releases (WiiWare, Virtual Console) will probably be playable off external memory.
 
Akai said:
Sales show that consumers were QUITE happy with Wii. It was third parties, unfortunately, that ultimately killed the Wii...
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I think one of the things about the industry which Nintendo may have missed before - and hopefully they're addressing now - is that *third parties are consumers too*. Not the same sort of consumers, but you are offering them a product (license to make games on the system) which you want them to have a use for (Use that license to make a game which makes a profit).

Third parties were not convinced by the product Nintendo offered with the Wii - incorrectly, we have to say in hindsight, but based on the information they had at the outset it seemed like the correct decision - which is why Nintendo appears to be trying harder to tailor their product - this time - to the third parties' desires, offering them more of what they want. Hopefully in the process they won't alienate the end-consumer, because the biggest success in the industry comes from appeasing both.
 
mclem said:
I think one of the things about the industry which Nintendo may have missed before - and hopefully they're addressing now - is that *third parties are consumers too*. Not the same sort of consumers, but you are offering them a product (license to make games on the system) which you want them to have a use for (Use that license to make a game which makes a profit).

Third parties were not convinced by the product Nintendo offered with the Wii - incorrectly, we have to say in hindsight, but based on the information they had at the outset it seemed like the correct decision - which is why Nintendo appears to be trying harder to tailor their product - this time - to the third parties' desires, offering them more of what they want. Hopefully in the process they won't alienate the end-consumer, because the biggest success in the industry comes from appeasing both.
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Uh no, that's a terrible analogy. Third parties make a business decision when they pick consoles, consumers are not.
 
wsippel said:
I still think it's weird that Nintendo outright called the Wii CPU "PowerPC CPU", whereas the Wii U CPU is listed as "Power-based microprocessor". While PowerPCs (and PowerENs) are all "Power-based", "Power" and "PowerPC" are two distinct product lines.
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Maybe you are reading too much into a name. Seems like the so-loved-around-here Watson is based on the POWER7 architecture, and the Cell/Xenon are PowerPC based, so maybe it's a hint of the chip it will use.

But honestly, it's just a name.
 
Nintendo would be incredibly stupid if they release a console only 2 to 3 times as powerful as the PS360.

here's my reasoning:

Let's say they release the Wii U in June 2012 (which is now looking less likely).

Either 720 or PS4 is very likely to launch some time in 2013, most likely Fall 2013.

So at the *most* Nintendo would have a 1.5 year head start on their competition.

Now if Sony/MS synchronize their generations and have significantly more power than the Wii U, every developer will use the 720/PS4 as their lead console when designing games.

If 720/PS4 are the regular 10 to 12x jump in power from the 360/PS3, then next gen will be a repeat of this one as Wii U will seldom get big third party titles. Developers won't want to spend the effort to release significantly stripped down versions of their titles for the Wii U, just as they didn't want to spend time and money creating downgrades for the Wii.
 
Log4Girlz said:
Why can't I have an SKU with a built in HDD... WHY NINTENDO. You fucking release 50 variants of each fucking handheld, why u no give me uber sku??
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Because no matter how many times Nintendo claims they are listening to the complaints and learning from their mistakes of the past... they prove time and time again that they are not. Why? Because they know we'll buy it anyways. Really wish we'd hear something official about the current state of the Wii U.
 
TekkenMaster said:
Nintendo would be incredibly stupid if they release a console only 2 to 3 times as powerful as the PS360.

here's my reasoning:

Let's say they release the Wii U in June 2012 (which is now looking less likely).

Either 720 or PS4 is very likely to launch some time in 2013, most likely Fall 2013.

So at the *most* Nintendo would have a 1.5 year head start on their competition.

Now if Sony/MS synchronize their generations and have significantly more power than the Wii U, every developer will use the 720/PS4 as their lead console when designing games.

If 720/PS4 are the regular 10 to 12x jump in power from the 360/PS3, then next gen will be a repeat of this one as Wii U will seldom get big third party titles. Developers won't want to spend the effort to release significantly stripped down versions of their titles for the Wii U, just as they didn't want to spend time and money creating downgrades for the Wii.
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Engines can scale better now than ever before. Wii U won't get put in a situation like this unless the GPUs in 720/PS4 are to Wii U what programmable shaders as a graphical leap were to Wii' TEV shader units.

Still for all I have a feeling that this system might wind up a bit more than just 2X PS360.
 
lunchwithyuzo said:
My guess is 4GB internal, 4GB SD card bundled, internal used for mainly system and channel functions. Basically I think the Wii -> Wii U progression will be like the DSi -> 3DS progression, except legacy releases (WiiWare, Virtual Console) will probably be playable off external memory.
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8GB is not enough for most people. Whatever happened to the rumors of Nintendo implementing some sort of unlimited "cloud" storage that would eliminate the need for a physical HDD?
 
rhoq said:
8GB is not enough for most people. Whatever happened to the rumors of Nintendo implementing some sort of unlimited "cloud" storage that would eliminate the need for a physical HDD?
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8GB certainly is enough for anyone unable to grasp the concept of USB storage. Also, that rumor is most likely complete bullshit, not to mention cloud storage would be way too slow and therefore completely useless.
 
AzureJericho said:
Engines can scale better now than ever before. Wii U won't get put in a situation like this unless the GPUs in 720/PS4 are to Wii U what programmable shaders as a graphical leap were to Wii' TEV shader units.

Still for all I have a feeling that this system might wind up a bit more than just 2X PS360.
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I agree with you that engines scale much better now. But it won't just be fancy shaders and lighting effects that will have to be scaled.

720/PS4 could have much larger and more seamless worlds that simply could not be handled by the Wii U (assuming Wii U has 1.5 GB of RAM and 720/PS4 have 4-6 GB)

720/PS4 could have fully destructible environments and dynamic levels where every object is physics-enabled...these types of physics could not be handled if Wii U has far less processing power.

Texture quality, shaders, number of polygons, and lighting all scale very well these days, but physics and open, seamless worlds just intrinsically need high power and can't be scaled.
 
TekkenMaster said:
720/PS4 could have much larger and more seamless worlds that simply could not be handled by the Wii U (assuming Wii U has 1.5 GB of RAM and 720/PS4 have 4-6 GB)
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Wii has 88MB RAM. Wii has Xenoblade. Your argument is invalid. ;)
 
wsippel said:
Wii has 88MB RAM. Wii has Xenoblade. Your argument is invalid. ;)
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Lol, I have to play Xenoblade after I re-buy a Wii for Zelda :)

How does Xenoblade manage loading? Zelda TP had all kinds of constant loading, as did Metroid Prime 3 (elevators, etc).
 
wsippel said:
Wii has 88MB RAM. Wii has Xenoblade. Your argument is invalid. ;)
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Yeah, just scale details down and BAM, it works. Or do dark magic and make Xenoblade possible on the Wii, seriously, GIGANTIC seamless world and it looks pretty fantastic for what it is as well. Monolith Gods. Kind of funny in retrospect how people complained about FLAT FRUIT in the old Monado trailer.
 
I gotta laugh at some of the funny math in this thread.

Do many of you spouting multipliers even know what you're saying? 2-3x better looking than a PS3 game? Take a look at Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 2. Now, in your head, try to imagine that 2 to 3 times better looking. Try to remember what that means. Take what you see now double all the details in the scene. Every little detail. Every texture, every game model, even the unseen like AI routines. If you can imagine that and you are still unsatisfied then I don't even want to talk about it because you're getting silly :P That's an enormous amount of detail with even just doubling.

Our art and engineering pipelines right now cannot give you something 10x the fidelity of what you have right now. To get the double fidelity we'd just do less optimizations on our models and less compression on our textures, etc. If we get double what we have with 360/PS3 we will be doing just fine and could handle that with current workflows.

Stop throwing around numbers without thinking what they mean! :P
 
TekkenMaster said:
Nintendo would be incredibly stupid if they release a console only 2 to 3 times as powerful as the PS360.

here's my reasoning:

Let's say they release the Wii U in June 2012 (which is now looking less likely).

Either 720 or PS4 is very likely to launch some time in 2013, most likely Fall 2013.

So at the *most* Nintendo would have a 1.5 year head start on their competition.

Now if Sony/MS synchronize their generations and have significantly more power than the Wii U, every developer will use the 720/PS4 as their lead console when designing games.

If 720/PS4 are the regular 10 to 12x jump in power from the 360/PS3, then next gen will be a repeat of this one as Wii U will seldom get big third party titles. Developers won't want to spend the effort to release significantly stripped down versions of their titles for the Wii U, just as they didn't want to spend time and money creating downgrades for the Wii.
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If I weren't a mod (this is the second time I've said this...) I'd ban bet my account that the Wii U is only ~2-3x more powerful than the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3. It's going to be leapfrogged, just like the Wii, but the PS4 and XboxWhatever. I firmly believe this and no amount of 'bu bu bu' speculation and rumour mongering has me convinced otherwise.

And yes, it will screw them again, just like it did on the Wii (engine scalability might save them somewhat).
 
rhoq said:
8GB is not enough for most people. Whatever happened to the rumors of Nintendo implementing some sort of unlimited "cloud" storage that would eliminate the need for a physical HDD?
Click to expand...
8GB is twice as much as the base 360 includes, and that system seems to be doing okay. Nintendo offering memory expandability with standardized formats (SD, USB) sort of moots any need to force an internal HDD. If 8GB isn't enough, the consumer is free to add as much as they'd like.
 
EatChildren said:
If I weren't a mod (this is the second time I've said this...) I'd ban bet my account that the Wii U is only ~2-3x more powerful than the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3. It's going to be leapfrogged, just like the Wii, but the PS4 and XboxWhatever. I firmly believe this and no amount of 'bu bu bu' speculation and rumour mongering has me convinced otherwise.

And yes, it will screw them again, just like it did on the Wii (engine scalability might save them somewhat).
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If the Wii U launches a year+ before the other systems, it should put it in a better place, at least. With the Wii, it came out a year after the 360 and yet it was a fraction of the power. With the Wii U, they'll be the first out of the gate, so it shouldn't be quite as bad as the Wii situation.
 
wsippel said:
8GB certainly is enough for anyone unable to grasp the concept of USB storage. Also, that rumor is most likely complete bullshit, not to mention cloud storage would be way too slow and therefore completely useless.
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Maybe Bitcasa can help?...
 
TekkenMaster said:
If 720/PS4 are the regular 10 to 12x jump in power from the 360/PS3, then next gen will be a repeat of this one as Wii U will seldom get big third party titles. Developers won't want to spend the effort to release significantly stripped down versions of their titles for the Wii U, just as they didn't want to spend time and money creating downgrades for the Wii.
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WiiU will be on par, maybe even better in some areas, with anything that MS or Sony will offer a year or two after it launches. It will be a highly optimized machine. On paper it might seem like a weaker console, but in performance it will shine.
 
Putting technical capabilities aside, the Wii U won't be in the same position as the Wii was this generation simply because it will have a large user base once the PS4/720 are out. This means developers will be creating multi platforms titles with the Wii U in mind if they want to reach out to the largest possible user base.
 
Gravijah said:
If the Wii U launches a year+ before the other systems, it should put it in a better place, at least. With the Wii, it came out a year after the 360 and yet it was a fraction of the power. With the Wii U, they'll be the first out of the gate, so it shouldn't be quite as bad as the Wii situation.
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Truthful, but they're going to need some exclusives and big guns to come hard out the gate. I worry that Iwata's solution to the third party problem is to get ports, ports and more ports. Nobody is going to give a shit about what they can already play on their 360/PS3.

Ydahs said:
Putting technical capabilities aside, the Wii U won't be in the same position as the Wii was this generation simply because it will have a larger user base at the beginning. This means developers will be creating multi platforms titles with the Wii U in mind if they want to reach out to the largest possible user base.
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The Wii U has to actually sell well before people keep it in mind for development.
 
Man, I want Skyward Sword so bad, but I don't have a Wii.

I don't know if I should just get a used one now, or wait for a Wii-U? Thing is, there's no way I'm buying a Wii-U at launch if it's over $250...
 
I'm sure developers were targeting 360-ish specs as the "baseline" for the current gen, but the Wii kind of screwed everything up. You can't just port down a Wii game.
 
Ydahs said:
Putting technical capabilities aside, the Wii U won't be in the same position as the Wii was this generation simply because it will have a large user base once the PS4/720 are out. This means developers will be creating multi platforms titles with the Wii U in mind if they want to reach out to the largest possible user base.
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This is a good point.

But if it's only 2 or 3x the power of PS360 then many devs will still abandon it. I don't totally buy the argument that improvements in graphics scaling methodologies will save the Wii U.

Graphics (defined as shaders, lighting, and polygon count) might be scaled down relatively easily...but physics is incredibly important, as well as seamless, complex worlds. And these 2 things are MUCH harder to scale, and you lose gameplay elements and the emotional sense of immersion when you remove or reduce them.

Sure, Bethesda could remove half the trees, half the rocks, two thirds of the grass and most of the wildlife from Skyrim 2 in order for it to run on Wii U's 1.5 GB of RAM, but I doubt they would since that would take a huge amount of effort, not to mention a large part of the soul of Skyrim (the complex world) would be lost.

And what about games where physics are very important? Would it be very fun to play a Wii U version of Bioshock or a Valve game where only a small percentage of the objects are physics enabled? This could ruin games where physics is an integral part of the gameplay...and physics will likely be a huge thing next gen.
 
Futureman said:
Man, I want Skyward Sword so bad, but I don't have a Wii.

I don't know if I should just get a used one now, or wait for a Wii-U? Thing is, there's no way I'm buying a Wii-U at launch if it's over $250...
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I would suggest getting wii. Wii-U is still year away and wii has amazing library of games. You can buy cheap game cube games and play also.
 
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