[Stewox]

Originally Posted by Sonic

Do not call Rangers an imposter. He's been on these forums a lot longer than you have and nothing in his post you quoted was any actual downplaying. It is customary for dev kits to have double the amount of RAM that is in a system, and the extra memory is used for all the things Rangers listed.

As far as your weird perception that 1 GB is not enough, why the hell not? Nintendo is looking at being competitive with 360 and PS3, clearly not the future generation of consoles. Nintendo finally wants to compete with Sony and Microsoft after it sees its actual market share of game buying people shrink to what it was in the heyday of the Wii. I would hope for Wii U to have more than 1 GB, but that's plenty enoguh to compete in the current gen.

Again, do not call Rangers an imposter. You have been warned.

That part i do know, but
Where's the point of discussing a system in anticipation of being it a failure with bad hardware or at least slow hardware.

At the end, who cares about the dev kits, they really don't matter to anything that would factor the success of the console and consumers experience. So all this info might be for nothing, since the final hardware will not be like the dev kits, obviously the RAM being the biggest and only variable, so all these Ram rumors might be ... well , totally useless.

On the GPU side of things ... remember that the RV770 rumor also had the word for "eyefinity" so that's multiple outputs at the same time obviously tie with the fact of multiple screens ....
The point is that nintendo didn't commit to 3 screens at the same time, they will now after e3 they picked up a lot of feedback on that and they confirmed that you will be able to connect 2 tablets to WiiU, which is probably and obviously going to get something better in the GPU and RAM side of things as well to make that viable to use in a good multiplayer game, they surely won't support 2 tablets and say "oh if you have one tablet you can play in 1080p but with 2 you can get 720p on the main tv screen" - that would be ridiculous and a big loss.

So the added power could be used on Singleplayer focused games to get more graphical visual eye candy on the main screen, obviously those games going to use the second screen for the HUD and INFO that's not going to render any demanding scenes.

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by Stewox

(...) they surely won't support 2 tablets and say "oh if you have one tablet you can play in 1080p but with 2 you can get 720p on the main tv screen" - that would be ridiculous and a big loss.

I don't think there's anything fatally wrong with that, to be honest.
Reducing resolution when doing split-screen multiplayer has been made for many years since Goldeneye for Nintendo 64.
I'm not sure about current-gent, but I'm pretty sure the Mario Kart Double Dash for the Gamecube reduces the rendering resolution when doing 3 or 4-player split-screen.

Besides, the more tablet-centric the game is, the less you'll be looking at the main screen anyways.

[Earendil]

Originally Posted by Sonic

Again, do not call Rangers an imposter. You have been warned.

Just out of curiosity, what are the consequences? I mean, you've warned him, but what will you do to him if he doesn't learn?

These new rumors are interesting, but as with all rumors, I'm taking them with a grain of salt. I'd be quite happy with a console like that, but imo, all rumors are just that until more evidence is available to support them.

[Legendary]

Originally Posted by Sonic

Nintendo is looking at being competitive with 360 and PS3, clearly not the future generation of consoles. Nintendo finally wants to compete with Sony and Microsoft after it sees its actual market share of game buying people shrink to what it was in the heyday of the Wii. I would hope for Wii U to have more than 1 GB, but that's plenty enoguh to compete in the current gen.

I've seen a few people around the net say this before.
" Wii U is meant to compete with PS3 and 360" and it always amuses me that they actually believe it considering it makes no sense.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Legendary

I've seen a few people around the net say this before.
" Wii U is meant to compete with PS3 and 360" and it always amuses me that they actually believe it considering it makes no sense.

Why doesn't it make sense? There's a remarkable lack of basic business understanding among some quarters.

Nintendo believe their product will sell on the value of its tablet experience. The rest of the system is thus designed around the best price/performance option Nintendo can go wtih based on their expectations for product interest and hopes for profit margins. If they believe the tablet will sell the machine to 100 million users regardless, why spend another $50 per system on better hardware when you can make more money off from the cheaper hardware? The only reason to invest more in the system performance is if the money-men can make a good argument that it'll increase total sales. Current gen, 7 year old tech, performance is selling 25 million consoles a year, while gamers buying awesome PC hardware to get a next-gen experience aren't showing massive growth. The evidence is that visuals aren't going to be that important unless ushering in a proper next-gen in the conventional mold. So unless Nintendo go with a monster machine to be sold on the strength of its power, wherein the tablet plays an ancilliary role, then there's nothing shocking about them being conservative.

The ongoing talk seems to be Nintendo evaluating options, getting feedback off the devs as they push the performance forwards cautiously without blowing the bank unnecessarily. Quite how there are such big arguments over this, and complaints and threats made, over what's a pretty simple matter, is kinda mind-boggling.

[Earendil]

If their stated desire to attract more 3rd party AAA games is true, then they would be absolutely stupid beyond belief to release a system on par with the current consoles.

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by Earendil

If their stated desire to attract more 3rd party AAA games is true, then they would be absolutely stupid beyond belief to release a system on par with the current consoles.

Are you operating under the (mistaken) impression that the 360 and the ps3 will cease production with the launch of their next generation consoles? If Nintendo feel they will be well short of the 720/ps4 (due to launching earlier with a new controller, and a desire to be small and quiet), what sense would there be in launching a money loser just to be closer?

[babybumb]

Yes i see current consoles will be supported by ports for a long time. 360 can even be the lead platform for a lot of middle tier games. Nintendo should take advantage of that if their target is a five year console.

2012 is just too soon to launch high end console from a 3rd party standpoint. There is no content or teams to support such machines for the first year. They are still too much in current-gen development and are only researhcing next-gen engines. When Call of Duty launches on a new engine then next-gen has begun.

For Nintendo that is targetting families and casuals from the get go $399 cannot be the target.. i suspect they will go $299 just because they can at launch and drop to $249 when others launch new consoles or sooner if sales dont come

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Current gen, 7 year old tech, performance is selling 25 million consoles a year, while gamers buying awesome PC hardware to get a next-gen experience aren't showing massive growth. The evidence is that visuals aren't going to be that important unless ushering in a proper next-gen in the conventional mold.

That's a chicken or the egg argument. Who would buy hardware for games that don't exist? Who would make software for a market that doesn't purchase?

Even with that, there was a substantial PC hardware uptick when BF3 came out last year and actually took advantage of DX11 GPUs which were launched 2 years ago.

We'd have to have hard numbers from Nvidia and AMD on their gpu's to get a glimpse of how big the market is for high-end graphics because the sales of games on PC will not tell the story. And with that, you'd have to keep in mind that there hasn't been a new game that was built for high end PC GPUs since Crysis1 back in 2007 and even this was the uber high end. Most new games are running fine these days even on integrated graphics.

That should tell you something.

From your argument, that tells you that nobody cares about graphics anymore.

For me, that says nobody is coding for the high end PC anymore (piracy).

Originally Posted by babybumb

When Call of Duty launches on a new engine then next-gen has begun.

That is of course unless a competitor (BF4) launches on nextgen first as a launch game running buttery smooth nextgen visuals and establishes a new NG online community before Activision can build a nextgen engine capable of taking advantage of the new hardware...

For Nintendo that is targetting families and casuals from the get go $399 cannot be the target.

I understand where this presumption is coming from, but Apple is proving this wrong on a daily basis. $500+ Ipads are flying of the shelf and into family/casual users hands. Same goes for $400 kinect bundles, ipod touch, iphones, and other uber phones (even to kids! ).

It didn't/doesn't make much sense to me either in some cases, but it goes to show, money is seemingly not the roadblock it once was (recession be damned! )

If a product is desirable enough, they will buy it. ~ If it isn't desirable enough, they won't regardless of how cheap it is (wii $99 bundles).

This lesson may have been too late for Nintendo to put into action for their WiiU plans, but hopefully that is not the case.

[Stewox]

Originally Posted by Legendary

I've seen a few people around the net say this before.
" Wii U is meant to compete with PS3 and 360" and it always amuses me that they actually believe it considering it makes no sense.

this

[east of eastside]

I'll go on record with my $249 Wii U launch price prediction.

I believe the price will be announced as "under $300" at E3 w/ the actual price specified shortly before the launch at $249.

Everything on the PS3/360/Kinect side should be $50 cheaper by then.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Didn't Iwata said wii u would be a more expensive console?

I think nintendo will launch at a higher price than only 250. They launched wii at such a low price because the hardware was so cheap and because they didn't know if wii would sell. Wii u is, imo, likely to be relatively speaking much faster than ps360/new consoles than wii was and the pad probably makes it more expensive as well. Also they don't have any direct competition from new sony/ms consoles. Since I believe it's fairly likely to for the hardware to be a fair bit faster than ps360 I can see them launching wii u at a higher price to put it in a bit more exclusive, but still afordable, pricerange and compete with wii against ps360.

Launching wii u cheap would push the wii out of the market and put nintendo in a position where they can't play with wii u pricing much anymore.

[bgassassin]

I'm expecting $349. $329 if we're lucky.

[Legendary]

$300 - $350.

[east of eastside]

Originally Posted by tongue_of_colicab

Didn't Iwata said wii u would be a more expensive console?

More expensive than Wii is now..

Originally Posted by bgassassin

I'm expecting $349. $329 if we're lucky.

Those prices are beyond Nintendo's target audience? We are all making our best guess, but I don't think Nintendo is making a core gaming console to go against Sony and MS. Nintendo never goes head-to-head.

It's another gimmick based console doing its own thing for a wide casual gaming demographic that at its core includes kids and Nintendo fans.

Nintendo is still feeling the burn of 3DS's high priced launched disaster.

[Stewox]

the hardware really plays the factor here ...also for the initial buyy is the name factor considering itll get a more hardcore name for its the target audience atleast getting the big guys fit, since the name doesnt make the casuals more excited, its nintendo, families gonna buy it for mario regardless of the name, but in the mainstream it might make some effect , certainly ther hardcore dont really care about things like this
but it-s a plus if it has more professional feel to it, really want to see the results of how they want to suffice both groups .. will nintendo make it , if it does, ladies and gentleman this might be nintendo revolution ...

and i kind of dont care about 3rd parties personally from a gamer perspective since i usually play first parties and thats why i use nintendo, but also cause i play most other games on PC where im savvy well enough for any tech issues which arent a big deal for me.
but on the other hand obviously i dont want to see it fail or below expectations since they were commited to just this cause to get back into serious gaming , but heck when you look at it , they diddnt reall lose the hardcore, not me either, metroid didnt sell any less, ssbb sold like hell and has great community, and everyone still waited for zelda.

but there is one reason i would like nintendo to succeed above expectations, just to prove michael pachter wrong!

[Stewox]

what i wanted to add, is that it feels so great when your perdictions are better than some "professional" and to see the whole web melting seeing all those noobs being all surprised, kind of amusing , not being evil. ;P

[Legendary]

Originally Posted by east of eastside

More expensive than Wii is now..



Those prices are beyond Nintendo's target audience? We are all making our best guess, but I don't think Nintendo is making a core gaming console to go against Sony and MS. Nintendo never goes head-to-head.

It's another gimmick based console doing its own thing for a wide casual gaming demographic that at its core includes kids and Nintendo fans.

Nintendo is still feeling the burn of 3DS's high priced launched disaster.

Wider and deeper.

Just like most people ignored the blue ocean speech given with Wii's reveal, most people also seem to ignore the speech given at Wii U's reveal.

The system is meant to target both the casual and core audience.
Nintendo clearly said they want the system to be a balance between both audiences, something people who are already calling it a 'casual machine' ignore.

Also Reggie said that Wii U at launch will be for customers who want the "latest gadgets and have a higher disposable income"?

[BRiT]

Originally Posted by tongue_of_colicab

Didn't Iwata said wii u would be a more expensive console?

Yes, he or some other top level exec said one would need over $60K of disposable income to be in the market group they are targeting with it, otherwise you should be looking at the Wii original.

Here's the discussion we had on that over here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread...92#post1608492

Originally Posted by patsu

Nintendo’s President Expecting a Strong Holiday and Says What He Really Thinks of Zynga

[bgassassin]

Originally Posted by east of eastside

Those prices are beyond Nintendo's target audience? We are all making our best guess, but I don't think Nintendo is making a core gaming console to go against Sony and MS. Nintendo never goes head-to-head.

It's another gimmick based console doing its own thing for a wide casual gaming demographic that at its core includes kids and Nintendo fans.

Nintendo is still feeling the burn of 3DS's high priced launched disaster.

Well when the rumors first came out the reported BOM was $350-$400. I think the 3DS situation is what keeps it from being $400. Though the 3DS' lack of software was as much if not more to blame.

At the same time Nintendo has made multiple references to who their target is at launch and it's not the $249 casual. I'm not saying $349 will work, but that's what I expect it to be around.

Also I'm of the belief that $349 will be $50-$100 less than what MS and/or Sony offer so it's not like it would be going "head-to-head" with them.

Originally Posted by Stewox

the hardware really plays the factor here

This is why I'm estimating the amount to be what it is. Approx. $300 on the console and approx. $50 on the controller. Iwata said himself they are deciding whether or not to sell Wii U hardware at a loss. A price of $299 or $349 would guarantee that based on my BOM, and even $349 might be a slight loss when factoring accessories packed in.

[Squilliam]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Current gen, 7 year old tech, performance is selling 25 million consoles a year, while gamers buying awesome PC hardware to get a next-gen experience aren't showing massive growth. The evidence is that visuals aren't going to be that important unless ushering in a proper next-gen in the conventional mold. So unless Nintendo go with a monster machine to be sold on the strength of its power, wherein the tablet plays an ancilliary role, then there's nothing shocking about them being conservative.

Expensive hardware also means expensive games. I guess it isn't that visuals aren't important, the importance of graphics are often overstated mainly because of their lack of cost effectiveness. If you have to sell games at $40 then you always have that problem like with say the Vita of someone coming along and selling a pretty equivalent title for $5-10 on iOS, then you can ask whether the lower margin on the hardware and fewer overall sales made up for the additional performance?

I suspect that the level of performance they are targeting isn't in relation to beating or matching current generation consoles, I suspect they are more looking at being able to reproduce functional renditions of current and next generation games. The big problem with the Wii wasn't that it's hardware 'sucked', it was because it couldn't play functionally equivalent current generation titles albeit toned down. In hindsight I believe that even reproducing a toned down 480P rendition of current generation games would have been of more benefit to them than backwards compatibility.

The big question IMO isn't whether or not the Wii U will make current generation titles look any better. The question really is whether or not you can take nearly 100% of next generation titles and make them feature and art complete.

[Rangers]

it was because it couldn't play functionally equivalent current generation titles albeit toned down.

Not trying to get into another hornets nest, but to me the "almost as good" argument doesn't really fly either.

Even if, Console X is only 30% less powerful than console Y, I believe it's still probably basically a lost cause.

If Wii had been half as powerful as PS360, I see it's sales outcome as being almost not moved an inch from what it did anyway. Half is still not nearly good enough. Nobody would have been like "ooh, I'm going to get COD on the Wii!" What, at half resolution? Half framerate (this would have been more tolerable I can almost see it working, then again it would be 20-25 FPS)? Half the effects? Which option is palatable?

Just imagine if, PS3 had been downclocked a mere 10% from every clock it's currently at (so, 2.9ghz Cell, 450 mhz RSX, whatever-10% RAM or say -50 MB's). Or, the same exercise for 360. In either case ramifications likely would have been pretty huge. A mere 10%. -20% would have ended the ballgame for either imo. Support would have consolidated around the clearly stronger machine and since they sell almost 50-50 it wouldn't have taken much to tip the scales.

As it is Ps3 and 360 are eerily almost exactly equal. To this day if you put a gun to my head I dont know that there's a clear winner between the two technically (the argument would be PS3 exclusives versus 360 better multiplats), which is kind of astonishing, but I suspect a rarity we arent likely to see again.

This idea that "oh if wii u is 80% as good as the other guys it'll be close enough" sounds appealing, but imo probably isn't even true. Although it's in range where it might be reasonable, because you would have a year+head start. 70% would definitely be to the point of a lost cause imo. The other big problem is going to be that controller is going to add a cost burden regardless and aside from any other issues. If you are 80% as good and a year headstart, in order to really make that work you're probably going to have to be aggressive on price, which is going to be a specific problem for Wii U. On the flipside you could believe the tablet controller will be an external force creating demand the other guys dont have, like motion control did for the Wii. Personally i dont see that though. If anything I see that being an annoying nag, but it could have appeal I havent realized yet.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

That's a chicken or the egg argument. Who would buy hardware for games that don't exist? Who would make software for a market that doesn't purchase?

As ever, you misunderstand completely what's being said. I didn't say there's no future for a super-powered console, or that there isn't a market for it. I even explained where Nintendo should focus if they do want to go that route. What I did say is there's not much market for this-gen graphics at higher framerates and resolutions. If Wuu is only going to offer moderately perked versions of current gen games, it won't be attracting business from core gamers. Ergo, what's the point in enabling a machine to render MW3 at 1080p if Joe Gamer is happy to play MW3 at <720p when enabling that involves added cost for Nintendo? (That's not a conclusive argument against, but the sort of consideration an intelligent designer/engineer will be pondering.)

Now, repeating myself as you seemed to have missed it last time, if Nintendo decided to create a proper next-gen console to attract the core gamer, then they would see success with a fancy graphics powerhouse. But that same console will only cost more with addition of the tablet that won't be needed for those core gamers, so why bother with the tablet? If Nintendo want to do a core console, it makes little business sense to also incorporate a tablet and try to sell that side of the market, at least in the same one device. Nintendo have decided, rightly or wrongly, to go with the tablet as their strategic approach for their next box. Taking that as fact, the sense in putting in awesome hardware at added cost which isn't going to affect the desirability of the tablet much isn't there. It was the same with Wii - what was the minimum hardware cost Nintendo could go with to enable their business strategy? They could have added better hardware, but if that extra $20 a console costs lead to only 5% added consumer interest/sales, because the draw of waggle was very strong irrespective of graphics performance, then Nintendo would have lost a billion or two dollars.

It's the same designing any product. It'd be nice to offer everything to all people and have the widest appeal, but adding features adds costs. So engineers know to take a set of options (speed, strength, cost) and pick some of them, not all of them. Out of the variables Nintendo has to juggle, they will be deciding around the tablet experience, not the uber-gamer experience. Hence the choice of hardware not being uber-powerful is not at all shocking.

[Ninjaprime]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Not trying to get into another hornets nest, but to me the "almost as good" argument doesn't really fly either.

Even if, Console X is only 30% less powerful than console Y, I believe it's still probably basically a lost cause.

If Wii had been half as powerful as PS360, I see it's sales outcome as being almost not moved an inch from what it did anyway. Half is still not nearly good enough. Nobody would have been like "ooh, I'm going to get COD on the Wii!" What, at half resolution? Half framerate (this would have been more tolerable I can almost see it working, then again it would be 20-25 FPS)? Half the effects? Which option is palatable?

Just imagine if, PS3 had been downclocked a mere 10% from every clock it's currently at (so, 2.9ghz Cell, 450 mhz RSX, whatever-10% RAM or say -50 MB's). Or, the same exercise for 360. In either case ramifications likely would have been pretty huge. A mere 10%. -20% would have ended the ballgame for either imo. Support would have consolidated around the clearly stronger machine and since they sell almost 50-50 it wouldn't have taken much to tip the scales.

As it is Ps3 and 360 are eerily almost exactly equal. To this day if you put a gun to my head I dont know that there's a clear winner between the two technically (the argument would be PS3 exclusives versus 360 better multiplats), which is kind of astonishing, but I suspect a rarity we arent likely to see again.

Just like PS2 was a lost cause after the Xbox came out right? After all it was 3-4x as powerful...

Just like playing PC games on a 7770 looks terrible and is a lost cause because its ~1/3 the power of the highend hardware that was targeted, right?

You're reaching too hard.

[Sonic]

Shifty might be on to something here. There was an interview where a top guy at Nintendo, maybe Iwata, said the machine will not be limited to HD resolutions. It might be that the machine's games could do next gen graphics, just scaled back to an acceptable performance level. What sacrifices in graphics that will represent is remained to be seen. Because let's face it, PS4 and Xbox3 will definitely be more powerful than Wii U, and if the Wii U has a large enough installed base then many games will be ported to it.

I would like to see a decently powerful machine, but knowing Nintendo they like to gimp their hardware in the name of saving a dollar. I just really wonder how the devs at Nintendo have felt during the current generation being limited to Xbox level hardware. They must be itching to make games on something far more powerful.