Anyone still think Wii U will "win" "next gen"?

[joesiv]

So they should burn through cash for what purpose? You haven't explained what purpose would this serve that benefits Nintendo financially.

The purpose would be to raise the install base. That's always the purpose (why other makers do it too). Everyone thinks that it's the right thing for Nintendo to do, Ubisoft openly stated it as well (similarly such things were said about the 3DS by key parties prior to the price drop). You don't seem to believe it, but price is a huge barrier for consumers to purchase consoles. Why would Nintendo want to sell at a loss, what purpose does it serve? Somehow the ball has to get rolling, the balls in Nintendo's court to get the it going. Third party's won't jump on board if the install base isn't there. Consumers won't jump on board unless the games are there (first and third) and the price is reasonable. Why did Nintendo drop the price of the 3ds if they were already making profit on it, "makes no sense"... but it does, because it made the console relevant to consumers. I'll bet if the Vita dropped price in NA, it'd start to sell bucket loads (as it's now doing in Japan post price drop too) http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/05/report-vita-sales-in-japan-have-quadrupled

At no point in time did Nintendo ever sell the 3ds at a loss.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/nintendo-confirms-that-its-selling-3ds-at-a-loss-expects-that/

The WiiU isn't the 3ds, the comparison is dishonest, a red herring and simply wrong. They are going to get stomped on by the ps4 and 720.

We can agree to disagree. While I don't think the WiiU will "win" this generation in numbers, the sales will pick up once the price is dropped and the software arrives.

 

[Grall]

As I expected, your comment was just a game of semantics.

Bah, who lets all these kids come in and mess up the place these days? You, my "friend", is the one playing games of semantics. It's what you've been doing from the start, and insulting anyone who questions your handwavy and completely unfounded statements.

Stop talking to me, alright? You've got nothing to say that's even the slightest bit interesting or intelligent.

 

[Ghostz]

The purpose would be to raise the install base. That's always the purpose (why other makers do it too). Everyone thinks that it's the right thing for Nintendo to do, Ubisoft openly stated it as well (similarly such things were said about the 3DS by key parties prior to the price drop). You don't seem to believe it, but price is a huge barrier for consumers to purchase consoles. Why would Nintendo want to sell at a loss, what purpose does it serve? Somehow the ball has to get rolling, the balls in Nintendo's court to get the it going. Third party's won't jump on board if the install base isn't there. Consumers won't jump on board unless the games are there (first and third) and the price is reasonable. Why did Nintendo drop the price of the 3ds if they were already making profit on it, "makes no sense"... but it does, because it made the console relevant to consumers. I'll bet if the Vita dropped price in NA, it'd start to sell bucket loads (as it's now doing in Japan post price drop too) http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/05/report-vita-sales-in-japan-have-quadrupled

Here's where your argument is shot to tiny little pieces. Right, so I can buy a 360 for 99 dollars and 3 new games for less than your wiiu price drop. Yes, that means i'll be able to get at least 3 or 4 cross gen next gen games before you finish paying for your WiiU console. Your install base will go nowhere because there's cheaper, they can't compete on prices, they'll only loose money, lots of money on the hardware. It's not smart business at all. They'll increase in sales during the holiday but there's no way of them knowing they'll increase the install base with a price drop knowing the ps3 and 360 are going to be cheaper. Sony only did it because they would've been losing those software royalties which we know now accounted for a lot of what made the division profitable. Similarly, I heard Nintendo likes making money...Which....leads me the next point I made....

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/nintendo-confirms-that-its-selling-3ds-at-a-loss-expects-that/

As I said before, Nintendo was able to liquidate the sell of its 3ds because they had room to drop the price and no competition. It was the right call because they had room for it and they still made money, just not as much as they projected. They are barely making a profit on the wiiu now. The situations are completely different yet you keep making the comparison.

Increasing their install base while admirable won't increase anymore than people who are going to buy the console anyway. Those few hundred thousand they'll get when bayonetta, pikman and zelda come won't change with a price drop, they might as well make the profit. Indeed, if they wanted to drop the price, now would be the time to do it. I vaguely remember them quickly dropping the price of the 3ds didn't they? Why does that go unnoticed with your 1:1 comparisons? Maybe they don't have any games to give to for free this time....lol....

This what the argument is about: Stop thinking Nintendo lives in a vacuum because they don't. You can't consider what Nintendo is going to do without taking into consideration their competition.

 

[joesiv]

Increasing their install base while admirable won't increase anymore than people who are going to buy the console anyway. Those few hundred thousand they'll get when bayonetta, pikman and zelda come won't change with a price drop, they might as well make the profit.

I think zelda will sell more than a few hundred thousand, but I guess we'll see.

since we're apparently not seeing eye to eye, I'm going to cease responding, and I'll just agree to disagree.

Have a good evening sir.

 

[Ghostz]

In the US/UK gta4 was 2:1 for 360. Only other region with platform numbers was Japan where it was 4:1 for PS3 but moved very small amounts in Japan.

Halo 3 sold 8.1 million copies on 360. Only kinect adventures and black ops list as more on the 360. Modern Warfare 2 was right behind halo3.

Actually mw2 sold more than halo 3 and you forgot Cod Mw3 and likely blops2, that makes halo 3 6th.

Top selling 360 games: http://www.statisticbrain.com/xbox-360-best-selling-games-statistics/

 

[Ghostz]

I think zelda will sell more than a few hundred thousand, but I guess we'll see.

since we're apparently not seeing eye to eye, I'm going to cease responding, and I'll just agree to disagree.

Have a good evening sir.

As of January 2012 skyward sword sold 3.4 million. I'm guessing the Nintendo diehard hardcore fateful have all bought the WiiU so a few hundred thousand is right on mark for those fateful missing. Similar to what happened to halo 3. To be clear I'm not saying zelda is only going to sell a few hundred thousand but the system when it comes out. Meh I can't find the NPD when halo 3 came out but vaguely I remember the console only sold a like 500k units that month. Since zelda isn't as big as halo i'm going to say way less than that. Surely not the millions you may be implicating.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

In the US/UK gta4 was 2:1 for 360. Only other region with platform numbers was Japan where it was 4:1 for PS3 but moved very small amounts in Japan.

Halo 3 sold 8.1 million copies on 360. Only kinect adventures and black ops list as more on the 360. Modern Warfare 2 was right behind halo3.

Yeah I meant to ask whether GTA sold more on Xbox than Halo 3, but you provided answer to that as well
Halo 3 seems to have sold more than any other exclusive game on HD consoles, that wasn't bundled like the Kinect Adventures. It brought a lot of attention to the system.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I never said anything about "millions of people". Don't go be putting words into my mouth now...

It's not 'putting words in people's mouths' but interpreting the meanings in context.

We're talking about Nintendo selling weak numbers. You say, "Pikmin will definitely sell systems.' Given the subject and line of discussion, the meaning of 'selling consoles' is en masse, or at least many readers will take that interpretation (it hardly makes sense to highlight a game that can sell only a titchy percentage in a thread the potential demise of a new platform). Any game can be considered a 'system seller' if we consider it selling at least one person on one console as you suggest.

So please calm down somewhat. Joesiv said Wii U just needs some games. Ghostz has pointed to upcoming 'big title' games and suggested they aren't going to sell console in significant numbers to turn the tide. I for one don't see any games coming to Wii U as likely to attracted console sales in the hundreds of thousands at least, let alone as having the pushing power of the likes of Gears or GT or Wii Sports that got millions of new customers buying the console chiefly for those particular games.

 

[Nesh]

Wii Sports attracted new people due to its very welcoming new experience. It was a strong showcase of the motion controls. Something people havent seen before and could easily relate to

I doubt Pikmin can sell millions of consoles to people beyond those that are familiar already with the series. It doesnt have that "punch"

The tablet isnt that new by itself. It needs a genius to develop a use that will showcase something that can make an impression like the Wii Sports did with the motion controls.

It also lacks the hardware performance to compensate for the lack of "uniqueness" that the Wii had.

It will attract people that are faithful to the Nintendo franchises but that is a limited potential market. The GameCube showed that Nintendo games alone werent enough. Other games could be exclusive releases of already extremely familiar franchises. But thats still not enough in the age where developers target multiplatform releases more than before.

The next generation consoles will come also with similar functionalities to those found in the WiiU, plus more performance which leads to more impressive titles, more features and games that most likely will never see release on WiiU and if they do will be inferior. There isnt much there for existing Wii owners to upgrade since WiiU is primarily a console with PS3/360 games or a console that offers that kind of experience which is not what attracted the Wii consumer. And the hardcore gamer will find Sony and MS offerings more appealing for them. The WiiU isnt a proper upgrade

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The only way for the Wii U to succeed would be to turn it into a portable console, the same size as a 3DS XL, sometime in 2014 (20nm?).
Top screen 5" 720p replacing the TV, bottom screen 4" 480p replacing the tablet screen, doable IMO. GameBoy U for example, and being able to run 3DS games would be a plus.
Then just bundle a wireless HDMI adapter and wireless infra-red bar and it becomes an interesting portable-console-turned-party-games-home-console combo.

But as I said before, I'm convinced the company's top management don't have the vision to do something as bold as that.
They'll just stick to the flawed console and their flawed unique-selling-point concepts and lose money+market+mindshare at Nokia levels.

The lack of a second analog-stick in the 3DS shows that they're not just hard-headed. They're downright arrogant.

 

[joesiv]

Joesiv said Wii U just needs some games.

And a price drop... I think that's important too...

 

[Exophase]

The only way for the Wii U to succeed would be to turn it into a portable console, the same size as a 3DS XL, sometime in 2014 (20nm?).

Power consumption would surely be over 15W even at 20nm (probably over 20W), it just isn't an option. For the form factor you propose I don't think they could afford more than 5W, and that'd be pushing it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Power consumption would surely be over 15W even at 20nm (probably over 20W), it just isn't an option. For the form factor you propose I don't think they could afford more than 5W, and that'd be pushing it.

What math did you do to reach those power consumption numbers?

 

[AlphaWolf]

What math did you do to reach those power consumption numbers?

Probably similar math to that getting them on 20nm next year. Or perhaps he guessed it unlikely.

 

[Exophase]

What math did you do to reach those power consumption numbers?

Wii U uses over 33W (measured at the wall - not sure what it'd be like running off of batteries but probably comparable). Not all of that will decrease in shrinks. What would shrink is the main MCM containing a 45nm CPU and 40nm GPU, and perhaps the RAM (or not, I don't know what the schedules are like and they're probably not using something on an old process right now). Halving power consumption over two shrinks is pretty optimistic, even if one of them now incorporates HKMG.

Then add the power consumption of those two screens for something like ~2W.

I didn't really think about gaming media.. your form factor wouldn't allow for standard Wii discs, so I assume this is meant to play games purely off of embedded flash. I don't think this would go over well with customers at all, even if they somehow let you download games you already bought for free (doubtful). The discs can get huge pretty easily, it's a worse situation than with PSP Go which was itself a disaster. But I guess you could discount something like 3-4W from an always running drive that's no longer there (or at least people say it's always running). Still not going to be low power enough.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Probably similar math to that getting them on 20nm next year. Or perhaps he guessed it unlikely.

20nm is on the roadmap for full production in 2014.
I didn't get this. Perhaps I'm lost in translation?

Wii U uses over 33W (measured at the wall - not sure what it'd be like running off of batteries but probably comparable). Not all of that will decrease in shrinks. What would shrink is the main MCM containing a 45nm CPU and 40nm GPU, and perhaps the RAM (or not, I don't know what the schedules are like and they're probably not using something on an old process right now). Halving power consumption over two shrinks is pretty optimistic, even if one of them now incorporates HKMG.

Then add the power consumption of those two screens for something like ~2W.

I didn't really think about gaming media.. your form factor wouldn't allow for standard Wii discs, so I assume this is meant to play games purely off of embedded flash. I don't think this would go over well with customers at all, even if they somehow let you download games you already bought for free (doubtful). The discs can get huge pretty easily, it's a worse situation than with PSP Go which was itself a disaster. But I guess you could discount something like 3-4W from an always running drive that's no longer there (or at least people say it's always running). Still not going to be low power enough.

First off, let's keep in mind that the Wii U uses no power-saving features at all.
The console consumes as much while running a 3d game as it does in the menu. Its hardware has a low power consumption because the hardware is weak and low-clocked, even for 40/45nm. The thing is running at full gas all the time.
No one can really know how much power it would consume if it had the same power saving features as a modern SoC but this much I can tell: any PC will consume a lot more when running Prime95 + Furmark than when playing the most demanding game. The Wii U seems to be more similar to the former instead of the later.
Differences between gaming and constant full-power can escalate as much as 50% from what I've seen.

As for the measurements at the wall, AC-DC rectifier power supplies usually get around 80% efficiency, whereas a modern lithium-polymer battery gets over 99% discharge efficiency.
Just by that alone, one could discard around 7W of power consumption.

2W for the screens, also too unrealistic. The sizes I gave are actually smaller than the 3DS', so you're saying their current screens are consuming at least 2W.
The 3DS has a 1750mAh battery rated at 3.7V, so that's 6.5Wh.
The console would need to have its WiFi, CPU, GPU, RAM, sound speakers, MEMS, etc. all running out of thin air if it was going to last a minimum of 3.5h, and user experience says the 3DS XL does between 4.5 and 5 hours at decent levels of brightness.
1W for both screens is much more realistic.

Then there's the 2 full generations of difference between manufacturing processes. Intel practically tripled the performance/watt between their latest mobile 45nm CPUs and their earliest 22nm counterparts.
And let's be honest, those are tiny CPUs working at 1.24GHz.

 

[AlphaWolf]

20nm is on the roadmap for full production in 2014.
I didn't get this. Perhaps I'm lost in translation?

28nm was in full production in 2012. Nintendo still launched on 40.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

28nm was in full production in 2012. Nintendo still launched on 40.

A cost-saving decision, nothing else.

 

[AlphaWolf]

So how would it make any sense to jump on 20nm immediately? Just so they could make a portable that they'd need to push to under $200 to get it to sell?

And the portable market isn't exactly booming, as bad as the wiiu is doing, vita makes it look pretty good.

 

[Exophase]

First off, let's keep in mind that the Wii U uses no power-saving features at all.
The console consumes as much while running a 3d game as it does in the menu.

What it saves or doesn't while running the menu doesn't matter. It needs 33W for sustained gameplay, period. Lack of good power scaling won't make a difference for any game that needs that power. Saying that this means it could use much less at full tilt has no basis in reality. PCs have a lot more dynamic range, it's not a good comparison. Almost all of Wii U's power consumption is going to be in the GPU which is going to be pushed hard under normal gaming circumstances.

Plus, if Nintendo didn't do it for Wii U who's to say they can get it into a portable?

As for the measurements at the wall, AC-DC rectifier power supplies usually get around 80% efficiency, whereas a modern lithium-polymer battery gets over 99% discharge efficiency.

You're ignoring the power regulators needed to convert the battery voltage to various rails on the board. That's why the loss due to inefficiency is much less than you think. Since Wii U wasn't designed for battery rails in the first place there's no good bet that it'll fit nicely.

2W for the screens, also too unrealistic. The sizes I gave are actually smaller than the 3DS', so you're saying their current screens are consuming at least 2W.

They're not really smaller.. the sizes you gave are 5" and 4". 3DS XL (NOT 3DS like you said, but it's clear that's what you meant) screens are 4.88" and 4.18". The big difference however is that the screens you specified are much higher resolution. This burns a lot more power for LCDs because a higher percentage of the light is blocked, and thus higher power backlighting is needed for the same brightness. For a good comparison look at iPad 2 vs iPad 3; quadrupling the resolution had a very negative effect on power consumption, you could blame it more or less entirely on the screen because this was even the case when the two extra GPU cores weren't being used.

I don't know what the real figure is, 2W may have been too high but I'd guess at least > 1W.

Then there's the 2 full generations of difference between manufacturing processes. Intel practically tripled the performance/watt between their latest mobile 45nm CPUs and their earliest 22nm counterparts.

I don't know where you got that figure, but even if it's true it's not applicable to what would be a straight shrink.

A much better comparison is Moorestown to Medfield where Intel claimed something like a 45% improvement in power consumption of the CPU core while going from 45nm to 32nm. Intel is going to leverage more than average moving to 22nm than TSMC will from 28nm to 20nm because of FinFETs.

And let's be honest, those are tiny CPUs working at 1.24GHz.

You're going to need most of the power budget for the GPU.

Look, you can stretch whatever arguments you want, you can criticize my numbers (although I stand by > 15W 100%, no question), but it's all an academic exercise because it needs to get under 5W to even be plausible. And that's assuming Nintendo packs a battery that's 3 times higher capacity than anything they've put in a handheld thus far.

If this were in a big 10" tablet form factor then maybe (but that would still be seriously pushing it), but for something like a 3DS XL form factor there isn't a chance in the world.

I don't know why you think this works better as a handheld anyway. The media issue is a serious problem, and whatever game base it has at that point isn't going to have been made with handheld gaming spurts in mind. The asymmetric multiplayer aspect, one of the few selling points, is completely lost on a handheld. So is usage of original Wii-style controls. It'd either need a much better screen than the Wii U controller has or it'll be derided more heavily than it is. Nintendo says they're not making money selling these so it'll need to be even more expensive. It might take focus off of a comparison with PS4 and Durango but instead it'll bring it closer to a comparison with phones and tablets, or the failing Vita which isn't moving in a better direction. People will wonder why Nintendo decided to offer two quite different handhelds and no home console.

3DS support would of course drive the price up again substantially higher.