Fact: Nintendo to release HD console + controllers with built-in screen late 2012

[Deleted member 13524]

We dont know the demo is 1080P, so far all Wii U demos that have been pixel counted are 720P not 1080P.
If it is 720p, we can knock off 1.1m pixels from your estimation.

There are no pixel countings done on demos. There's only one Zelda screenshot in the Nintendo page that happens to be at 1280*720.
Reggie Fill-Aime has already confirmed that the garden demo was done in 1080p, and people in the show floor have confirmed it was in 1080p (by going into the TV's menu).

More if the controller is say, 800X480. Or being rendered in a even lower res and then upscaled (I'm sure tricks like this will make their way to the system very quickly)

We dont officially know the res of the controller, as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong).

All the rumours about the controller (the very same ones that mentioned the controller had a screen in the first place) claimed 960*540, which is a quarter of a 1080p screen.

Sure, you can try to argument it's actually a lower-res, but you don't have anything to back it up except for your gut feeling.

Is it really rendering anything twice? Or is it like onlive, just streaming the video from the main display?

I am confused how this would work, it's the same thing on both screens, so rendering it twice would be foolish.

It's rendering two distinct viewpoints within the same scenery. You can confirm that by watching the first seconds of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG5pNxRPRmA

The main screen focuses on the bird, while the controller screen lets you look around and explore the rest of the scenery.

 

[fehu]

*From this point on I will refer to Wii U as Wuu, because Wii U is a stupid, awkward name. If you include the sonic break between Wii and U, you have an uncomfortable three-vowel vocalisation, and if you compress it into a single sound, weeooo, it sounds like a police siren. So I'm sticking with Wuu (pronounced 'woo', visually mimicking 'Wii') and won't be budged!

it sounds to me more like an apartment alarm uuuuuuuuuuiiiiuuuuuuuuuuuiiiiuuuuuuuu
maybe in a week it will sound perfectly normal and cool

 

[Rangers]

Correct, I meant the Zelda HD demo and the Bird demo.

Is there any chance we could see third party games on Wii U in the remaining E3? I believe I read something like that on neogaf, perhaps Ubisoft I cant remember, was supposedly going to show Wii U versions of some multiplatform games in the coming days.

As bad as this E3 has been so far for revealing anything interesting/of substance at all let alone in regard to Wii U, I'm STRONGLY doubting that, lol. But one can hope.

 

[hoho]

From what I'm hearing the tablet will not be sold. So I assume the tablet might not able to handshake with different Wii U unit. It might be paired permanently to the unit it comes with.

it would suck if you sit on one of those and it breaks.

The new controller has motion controls too

Mind describing how it would look like to swing a sword while blocking with the shield with the new controller?

Sure, you can try to argument it's actually a lower-res, but you don't have anything to back it up except for your gut feeling.

Gut feeling vs rumours, I wouldn't prefer one over the other

 

[Laa-Yosh]

However, the texture resolution doesn't seem significantly better than what is on ps360 right now... I'm guessing 512MB of ram plus some eDRAM and maybe a small chunk of system ram, which is fairly disappointing to be honest. Hopefully, I'm wrong and it has 1GB...

More memory on its own can't help with texture resolution, you need a new, more detailed set of texture artwork as well. Don't yet expect any multiplatform dev to do the work for the WiiU only; however games that lead on the PC should be able to utilize 2x res textures. Hint - BF3...

 

[Rangers]

Reggie Fill-Aime has already confirmed that the garden demo was done in 1080p, and people in the show floor have confirmed it was in 1080p (by going into the TV's menu).

Reggie has been going around saying "we're checking the 1080P box, the great HD graphics box, the internet box, but hey the important thing here is..." etc etc during interviews before brushing all further questions about graphics capabilities, never mind Nintendo's internet strategy which is laughable given their history, aside. I dont think he really has any clue whether it's being rendered in 1080P or rendered in 720 and upscaled. By "confirmed" I mean "pixel counted".

As far as checking the TV's, I can set my 360 to output in 1080P, in fact I always do so as in theory it should reduce input lag, and I think the TV will report 1080P signal as that's what it's getting. Dont think this means anything.

All the rumours about the controller (the very same ones that mentioned the controller had a screen in the first place) claimed 960*540, which is a quarter of a 1080p screen.

Sure, you can try to argument it's actually a lower-res, but you don't have anything to back it up except for your gut feeling.

And since we dont actually know the res, you dont have anything but a gut feeling either. The "rumors" have been all over the map, I think some claimed a 1080P controller display too. I agree due to cellphone res, it will most likely be either 960X540 or 800X480, but I wouldn't discount the latter. Anyways that's fairly irrelevant.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

From what I'm hearing the tablet will not be sold. So I assume the tablet might not able to handshake with different Wii U unit. It might be paired permanently to the unit it comes with.

Let's all hope this doesn't turn out true, as it'd really limit the console's potential.

Sure, doing 2*1080p rendering would be hard, but doing 3D rendering for 4 controllers totalling 1080p + basic 2D animations in the main screen wouldn't require much (or the other way around, 1080p 3D render on the screen + 2D animations on the controller)

Mind describing how it would look like to swing a sword while blocking with the shield with the new controller?

You can use regular Wii controllers for the WiiU.
Of course if you're using the U-mote controller with Zelda, it "downgrades" the movements down to button combinations, unless it's a game that requires only steering or pointing.

Gut feeling vs rumours, I wouldn't prefer one over the other

The rumours have been partly confirmed so far, gut feeling hasn't.

 

[hoho]

Let's all hope this doesn't turn out true, as it'd really limit the console's potential.

Sure, doing 2*1080p rendering would be hard, but doing 3D rendering for 4 controllers totalling 1080p + basic 2D animations in the main screen wouldn't require much (or the other way around, 1080p 3D render on the screen + 2D animations on the controller)

I'm quite sure the HW power isn't nearly as limiting as the data transfer throughput between the console and remotes. Wifi sucks compared to cables.

You can use regular Wii controllers for the WiiU.

So I'll be constantly swapping around between the wiiu and old controllers as I'd be lacking two appendices otherwise? What's the use of showing the picture on the TV in that case? Will I just have the new remote in my lap that I'd occasionally use for inventory?

The rumours have been partly confirmed so far, gut feeling hasn't.

That highly depends on what rumors you dismiss and whose gut you listen.

 

[Rangers]

Yeah the one controller per unit thing, seems really foolish. Also the claim (surely, wrong?) that the controller wont be sold separately.

Halo Reach/3 can do 4 player split screen local MP without too much sacrifices so I think the bottleneck must be in the video transmitter as to only supporting one controller per unit, if true.

 

[Rangers]

BTW one interesting aspect of how Nintendo has handled the whole thing, really their philosophy as a whole, is that theyre trying to downplay the console as a whole. The controllers are for journalists to play with, the console is behind plexiglass. Even Reggie will say things like along the lines of "we're not talking about the console, the console is just a box it's not important, the important thing is the experience provided by these controllers".

Just think it's interesting, dont like it.

 

[czekon]

Controller looks costly i wonder how much whole unit will costs

 

[Kaotik]

As for those suspecting the hardware isn't ready and whatnot, the floor had those Wii U units on demo machines, not Wiis, at least based on the casing.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

As for those suspecting the hardware isn't ready and whatnot, the floor had those Wii U units on demo machines, not Wiis, at least based on the casing.

They have Ghost Recon Online running on the show. You can clearly see it's Wii U. Off screen though so really hard to judge.

 

[hoho]

What are the chances that all they have are empty cases and the actual HW (devkits) running these games are hidden? It would seem quite weird to me if they have a fully working HW and still need at least a year before they actually release it.

 

[obonicus]

Reggie Fill-Aime has already confirmed that the garden demo was done in 1080p, and people in the show floor have confirmed it was in 1080p (by going into the TV's menu).

Dude, come on. You've been here long enough, you know this doesn't mean a thing. By those standards the PS3 outputs at 1080p. Just, you know, not for most games. Remember the Alan Wake thing? Devs were saying that because the system upscaled their image up to 720p the game was at 720p, despite what the pixel-counters had found.

And they weren't lying, just being very misleading.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

What are the chances that all they have are empty cases and the actual HW (devkits) running these games are hidden? It would seem quite weird to me if they have a fully working HW and still need at least a year before they actually release it.

Maybe they're just waiting for games. Can't launch a hardware with 0 games.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Reggie has been going around saying "we're checking the 1080P box, the great HD graphics box, the internet box, but hey the important thing here is..." etc etc during interviews before brushing all further questions about graphics capabilities, never mind Nintendo's internet strategy which is laughable given their history, aside. I dont think he really has any clue whether it's being rendered in 1080P or rendered in 720 and upscaled. By "confirmed" I mean "pixel counted".

Wrong, he explicitely says it's rendering in 1080p:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEIp_8nxZLs -> 6m35s

Of course, if you're going to question everything that every Nintendo rep. says in order to sing your tales of disappointment to everyone, then this argument is pointless.

And since we dont actually know the res, you dont have anything but a gut feeling either.

I have several half-confirmed rumours, only you have a gut feeling.
The difference is that the first has proven its worth, the second has not.

The "rumors" have been all over the map, I think some claimed a 1080P controller display too.

Nope, there hasn't been such a thing. There's been talk of "HD screen" in the controller, in the same way that there's a "HD screen" in PSV. Every time an actual resolution was mentioned, 960*540 or "a quarter of 1080p" were the numbers presented.
Check the presentation slides back in previous pages of this thread.

 

[Brad Grenz]

What are the chances that all they have are empty cases and the actual HW (devkits) running these games are hidden? It would seem quite weird to me if they have a fully working HW and still need at least a year before they actually release it.

Quite good, I'd say. They weren't locked inside those huge cabinets for their health. This kind of thing gets obfuscated pretty regularly in the industry, even when hardware isn't still being created. When the guy doing the Ruin demo for Vita at Sony's presser, accidentally said "PC" instead of "PS3" he was more flustered that he should have been for such a small gaff. I'm fairly positive the "PS3" version they were using on stage was a PC build of the game and he thought for a second he had spilled the beans.

 

[Quaz51]

And how have they counted 720p? From the crappy quality streams or mobile offscreen captures?

Zelda Tech demo screenshot http://h5.abload.de/img/untitled-1h886r8gc.jpg is 720p no AA
and Chase Me http://e3.nintendo.com/hw/#/video/HW_demo is 720p no AA too

we have no good video for tech demo with bird but the IQ seem low
i think the WiiU have a framebuffer built-in GPU and probably too small for 1080p or 720p with AA without tiling

 

[Refreshment]

Holy sh1t!

Having a blast watching some of the speculation before the unveiling

To sum up, a pointing control device like Wiremote/Nunchuck and a traditional controller with touchscreen is the simple most aproachable way for Nintendo. It simplifies design, doesn't sacrifice durability and withouth any convulted new design it doesn't exponentialy increases costs to them.

Adding to the above, it makes sense to include both types of control methods this time around because devs all over the world now have experience with motion input and lets not even talk about dual analog traditional controllers.

In regards to the cost of the touch screen device, i think Nintendo plans to just pack one per system. Maybe for the most advanced/complex use (like streaming the game) it could only support 1 touch screen at a time anyway.