Editorial On "Is Wii Next-Gen?" (answer: no)

[darkblu]

Hmm that doesn't sound very right to me. Desktops definately catch up in performance rather quickly, but I don't see how you can put the word price in there? X360 has been out for almost a year now, tell me what kind of PC can you buy with 299-399$?

in the $400-$500 ballpack - a perfectly decent one. keep in mind literate desktop users don't normally dump the old box and buy a full new setup - they much more likely upgrade. a new mb + cpu + mem + video can fit in that price ballpack, and if it's a bit more, you still pay that bonus for a platform that has way more uses than a game console. so yes, for a serious desktop user the technology leadership of the next-gen console is just not there.

I also think that due to the closed box, consoles hold their own for longer than 6 months, as in the end it doesn't matter what's in the box, but what you squeeze out of it.

yes, but before anybody start to produce any decent stuff on the new gen it takes time. usually in the > 0.5 year range.

 

[digitalwanderer]

No offense to anyone intended, but the term "next gen" is about the most stupid PR label to ever be used.

There is no definition of "next gen", it's always changing. Will the PS3 & X360 be "next gen" five years from now?

It's silly to argue if Wii is "next gen" or not just because it is by definition, it's the next generation of consoles from Nintendo.

 

[fearsomepirate]

There is no definition of "next gen", it's always changing. Will the PS3 & X360 be "next gen" five years from now?

Um, no, they'll be "current-gen." You know, kind of like how the "next-generation Corvette" eventually becomes the "current generation Corvette." And in terms of computing power, Wii will be "last gen," although judging by Sony's response, it has defined the next generation of controls. And no matter how you slice it, the console is severely less powerful than it should be. Its GPU apparently isn't even as programmable as a 5-year-old chipset. Fixed-function pipelines are old and outdated, and there's no way around that fact.

Sure, Red Steel has nice detail, hooray for a RAM upgrade. But I'm still noticing all the pet peeves I had during the current generation of consoles are still exhibited:

1. Obvious Gouraud shading artifacts
2. Shadows painted on the floor instead of projecting on characters.
3. Character walks into a dark area and is still 100% bright.
4. You walk into a dark area and are still lit up, or an area lit up with various colors, but are still lit with white light (again, something I thought was gone forever when Quake 2 came out, but I guess I was wrong).
5. Explosions, muzzle flashes, etc don't light up your surroundings (a feature that has been standard in 3D games since the original Descent).
6. Surfaces in desperate need of a bump-map look totally flat.

The X360 and PS3 have pretty much solved those problems and added a whole bunch of goodness on top to boot. They've been gone on PC ever since games really started taking advantage of DX9. But we're still seeing them in Wii titles, and that's extremely disappointing.

 

[superNoid]

The Wii is an overclocked GCN with a new controller and thats it. People are looking for reasons to gloify the damn thing. I played it at E3, it was fun. Fun is ultimately what people want so plan on buying one, just not until they're <$149.

$249 is a rip off for this machine, I pitty those who jump the gun. But hey, thats just me.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

in the $400-$500 ballpack - a perfectly decent one. keep in mind literate desktop users don't normally dump the old box and buy a full new setup - they much more likely upgrade. a new mb + cpu + mem + video can fit in that price ballpack, and if it's a bit more, you still pay that bonus for a platform that has way more uses than a game console. so yes, for a serious desktop user the technology leadership of the next-gen console is just not there.

400-500 might buy you a decent one, but I'm not sure it'll be overally more powerful than X360. And whether you should only count the upgrades is debatable, as one could just as easily trade in Xbox1 and it's games for X360 and put only 100$ on top. Also often when one starts to upgrade the computer there will be surprises like new power supply needed etc. Yep PC has lot more uses than console, but that's not really the point, the point is if you go to a store and put 300-400$ on the desk, you will not get a PC that is more powerful overall than X360, and actually if we take your argument literally the hypotethical PC purchase should have been 5 months ago. I do agree that nowadays it's getting closer and closer for your argument to be true, few years ago not so much. (previous console launch) PC prises have come down quite alot.

yes, but before anybody start to produce any decent stuff on the new gen it takes time. usually in the > 0.5 year range.

It also takes time for PC videocard to be utilized 100%, because games are desinged for low to middle-end cards and even though you can crank up details, AA, AF and resolution, you still have to wait for the best looking games that your card can play to come out, if you buy card that is higher end. I expect the new consoles hold their own against PC quite nicely for maybe two years and then they will fall behind, so much that even the best exclusive games can't match top PC games technically.

 

[darkblu]

It also takes time for PC videocard to be utilized 100%, because games are desinged for low to middle-end cards and even though you can crank up details, AA, AF and resolution, you still have to wait for the best looking games that your card can play to come out, if you buy card that is higher end. I expect the new consoles hold their own against PC quite nicely for maybe two years and then they will fall behind, so much that even the best exclusive games can't match top PC games technically.

point is, i can immediately put the technology in the pc to good use, with the console i have to wait for it to mature. that's why for me consoles usually start to get interesting only after they've de jure lost whatever tech lead they had had before desktops. but by that time they already have the good titles and the producers' dedication for original, worthwhile games (due to mastery of the hw, large user base, or whatever). in this regard the wii is an exception for me - yes, there's technology in it that will take maturing (the control scheme) but i can already get good return of my consumer's money for it at launch. is that as good as a system seller - well, if you want to enjoy the controls, no other platform out there offers that, so yes, it can be a system seller.

 

[pc999]

My take on the subject:

I like to buy a new console that is or powerfull or cheap (HW/SW) and IMO it isnt cheap or powerfull, I personally think that it should be as powerfull as it can while meeting the 250$ price tag (or whatever the price tag it is) and I make this choise because I think that more performance is still giving us a lot to gameplay (eg AI, physics ...).

Anyway if Wii has cheap enought in both HW(~170$)/SW(~35$) it would still very interesting. This way I will wait (hopefull not much) till some good price drops and mature of the controler.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In terms of power:

N64 > PSone... PSone sold better
Gamegear > Gameboy... Gameboy sold better
Xbox > PS2... PS2 sold better
Xbox 360 >>> PS2... PS2 is still selling better
PSP > DS... DS is selling much better

Notice a pattern.

If that pattern is reliable, next-gen the companies will be competing over who can make the lowest powered console!

MS PR - In XB720 we're pursuing the market by a return to gamings roots. The choice of a Z80 CPU at 4 MHz shows commitent to providing a software platform where development of ideas is paramount, and not hardware

Sony Interview - It's interesting that MS claim a Z80 for the XB720, as the reality is they're using the Z80 A. Here at Sony we believe this much power is overwhelming and will never be fully tapped. That's why when we say we're using a Z80 in PS4, we're using the original, and are underclocking XB720 by 33%

Nintendo Announcement - Nintendo does not intend to compete in the specs race. We at Nintendo have long held that specs are irrelevant - it's the software that matters. A focus on performance detracts from that core game experience. Suffice to say, technology like we're using in Wiiii first debuted in the early 70s.

 

[Blade]

GameCube > PS2 in terms of power, too. Dead in the water.

I'm disappointed by Wii's graphical capabilities too, especially after playing Year One X360 games like Dead Rising that are clearly above and beyond what the Wii could do at 100% utilization. My opinion of Nintendo is much greater than, say, SuperNoid. I would relish another few years of GameCube if the 1st-party games kept coming.

The Wii, while overpriced (in my opinion, it should be $199 w/o game, $229 w/ Wii Sports) is, was, and will always be my next-gen console of choice unless Nintendo drops the ball and doesn't supply it with a DS-like stream of quality titles. I'm loving my X360, but nothing can replace the Big N in my book. In my book.

Honestly, my hopes for the next generation (PS4, etc) would be MS and Nintendo joining forces. I think Microsoft is starting to see the light with the X360, and Nintendo clearly needs help in providing top-notch gaming hardware. Together, they'd be unstoppable, and sufficiently capable of handling PS2-like sales figures.

 

[22psi]

nice post Shifty

 

[DuckThor Evil]

If that pattern is reliable, next-gen the companies will be competing over who can make the lowest powered console!

However that readykilowats list is incomplete and paints a flawed picture. How about PS2 vs Dreamcast, PS1 vs Saturn (3d cababilities) Snes vs MD.

PS1 vs N64 is slightly flawed since the storage format plays such a huge part there.

Everytime a weaker home console has outsold more powerful one, it has either launched earlier by a large margin or there was some poor decisions or both. Power is not everything, but there definately is not a pattern that the most powerful one will never win.

 

[fearsomepirate]

point is, i can immediately put the technology in the pc to good use,

That's not really true. When you bought your fancy new Geforce 4 Ti on launch day, you had to wait a while before there were any games that truly utilized the hardware it had to offer. Until then, you had to settle with playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein with higher texture detail than your old Geforce 256 AV could handle. And every console launches with games that look far and a way better than what came before. For the last gen, Tekken Tag, Rogue Leader, and Halo were a huge, immediate graphical leap over similar previous-gen games.

Wii isn't a huge leap. It's a jump, but it's like the jump from PS2 to Xbox. And the point is that it could be a lot more.

 

[Phil]

point is, i can immediately put the technology in the pc to good use, with the console i have to wait for it to mature. that's why for me consoles usually start to get interesting only after they've de jure lost whatever tech lead they had had before desktops. but by that time they already have the good titles and the producers' dedication for original, worthwhile games (due to mastery of the hw, large user base, or whatever). in this regard the wii is an exception for me - yes, there's technology in it that will take maturing (the control scheme) but i can already get good return of my consumer's money for it at launch. is that as good as a system seller - well, if you want to enjoy the controls, no other platform out there offers that, so yes, it can be a system seller.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this; Sure you can put it to good use if you mean by running a modern GPU that isn't tapped by the majority of games (and will never reach it's full potential either since the hardware will never be solely targeted). Not exactly the best example to show how much value for money you're getting. Fact is, most launch games on the Xbox360 probably make use of the hardware a wole lot better than 99% of the games out on PC do to a modern or slightly older graphicscard.

 

[Corwin_B]

A basic shrinking of a system can't really class as next-gen, otherwise next-gen began with PSTwo!

I must have missed the part where the PSTwo offered between two and three times the performance of PS2, with integrated storage and WiFi, in addition to a brand new control method and larger storage capacity... I know many people (myself included) are disappointed by the performance of the Wii, but reducing it to "die-shrinked GameCube" is completely incorrect.

The Wii offers increased performance over the Cube : even in the launch lineup, there are titles (Red Steel, Excite Truck) that could never have been done on the GC. So at what level of increase is a console considered "next gen" ? Are other aspects (form factor, storage, controls...) not considered at all ?

 

[darkblu]

That's not really true. When you bought your fancy new Geforce 4 Ti on launch day, you had to wait a while before there were any games that truly utilized the hardware it had to offer. Until then, you had to settle with playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein with higher texture detail than your old Geforce 256 AV could handle.

pardon my french, but given that the majority of new games to 'truly utilize' the new hw would be hardly anything more than RTCW with more spit shine, what's wrong with utilizing the GF4 by bumping up the resolution and the AF levels on the original RTCW? plus, i personally have much better utilisation for new videocards than running old titles at new resolutions and texture settings.

what attacts me in a console (some crack sequels aside) has never been the fact that for some limited time it would be the tech leader the thought of which would warm up my heart at night. no, it is the fact that once the platform becomes well established then it may really start to get the truly good original stuff - titles that have soaked more development talent and effort than the next iteration of an old game with little more than bumped up shine, or rushed up launch titles, or half-assed ports. the titles i'm talking about you could not get on a desktop just because very few studios would put in that amount of creative effort in a desktop game. that's why i don't buy consoles at launch, unless i have some other use of them, or, in case of the wii, i expect to get an immediate benefit.

And every console launches with games that look far and a way better than what came before. For the last gen, Tekken Tag

desktops are not fighter's home turf. nobody bothered to create a TTT-class game on the pc.

Rogue Leader

and RS on the pc was already nice. definitely not as good as the cube's launch title but still IQ-wise much closer to the latter than to the N64 original. and played identically to the cube's acclaimed title (which i suspect already the N64 RS did).

and Halo were a huge, immediate graphical leap over similar previous-gen games.

halo was a desktop port, and as such there was hardly anything technologically unseen in it. at least not for me.

Wii isn't a huge leap. It's a jump, but it's like the jump from PS2 to Xbox. And the point is that it could be a lot more.

maybe. i'm not in the benefit maximisation 'what if' theories, though. none of the other two actual consoles justifies its sitting by my tv set this christmas. by next one - maybe, we'll see. this one though it's the wii that i know i'll be playing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I must have missed the part where the PSTwo offered between two and three times the performance of PS2...

I was tongue-in-cheek generalising the POV that tech shrinkage counts as new technology. Where you say Wii incorporates tech that wouldn't have been possible in GC's time due to form factor, that form factor isn't the limiting factor here. It's not as though Wii is using the better available tech that'd fit into that size box at this point in time. Of course it's an improvement over GC, and as Digi points out rightly it is next-gen in terms of being the next iteration of Nintendo consoles. But in tech terms, it's not in the same technological generation as the other similar tech coming out. It's using technology that has been around since the early parts of the last generation of consoles.

 

[archangelmorph]

what attacts me in a console (some crack sequels aside) has never been the fact that for some limited time it would be the tech leader the thought of which would warm up my heart at night. no, it is the fact that once the platform becomes well established then it may really start to get the truly good original stuff - titles that have soaked more development talent and effort than the next iteration of an old game with little more than bumped up shine, or rushed up launch titles, or half-assed ports. the titles i'm talking about you could not get on a desktop just because very few studios would put in that amount of creative effort in a desktop game. that's why i don't buy consoles at launch, unless i have some other use of them, or, in case of the wii, i expect to get an immediate benefit.

Your talking as if consoles never have any good sw at launch.. Care to remember Halo on the xbox?, Mario 64 on the N64?

Console's can and will start to show quality titles pretty early on and especially since experienced developer's can transfer all there creative ideas and gameplay designs onto a new platform as long as they are abstract and don't "require" a dependancy on the hardware to implement (advanced physics for example).. The problem is theres not enough variety in terms of quality titles early in a consoles lifespan (unless the game/game-genre has mass market appeal, e.g. GTA, it will never be considered a system-seller) to make the system appeal to the wider demographic. Even the PS2 (somewhat notorious for having stale sw during the first 12 months of its lifespan) had some awesome titles in the launch window (Tekken-tag, Dead or Alive 2, Summoner, Timesplitters) but since such titles can't appeal to everyone, they aren't respected for some reason..

halo was a desktop port, and as such there was hardly anything technologically unseen in it. at least not for me.

Since it was never released on the PC until it had been available on the Xbox for like 3 yrs I don't understand how you came to such a conclusion.
On Halo's release is was by far one of the most visaully appealing games of its time and not just because of the effects and power it pushed. Halo was a true testament to the accomplishment of excellent art direction, storytelling, graphics fidelity, gameplay and overall content an unproven developer could pack into a game developed on unproven tech. It wasn't the hardware that made Halo, Mario 64 or any other AAA title standout, but the creativity/originality & diversity of the gaming experience put into it..

 

[darkblu]

Console's can and will start to show quality titles pretty early on and especially since experienced developer's can transfer all there creative ideas and gameplay designs onto a new platform as long as they are abstract and don't "require" a dependancy on the hardware to implement (advanced physics for example)..

how many launch-window, system-selling titles of the past 3 generations do you know which were not (a) sequels, (b) ports, or (c) rehashes in one form or another?

ok, mario64 - one. can you show me another one?

The problem is theres not enough variety in terms of quality titles early in a consoles lifespan (unless the game/game-genre has mass market appeal, e.g. GTA, it will never be considered a system-seller) to make the system appeal to the wider demographic. Even the PS2 (somewhat notorious for having stale sw during the first 12 months of its lifespan) had some awesome titles in the launch window (Tekken-tag, Dead or Alive 2, Summoner, Timesplitters) but since such titles can't appeal to everyone, they aren't respected for some reason..

well, personally for me GTA was never a system seller, so yes, i read you here, but re the rest - TTT was, well, the new tekken (at it's home ground, at that), doa2 was, erm, the next doa - looked fairly similar to the DC version too, summoner was volition's ill-fated multiplatformer experiment, and timesplitters, well, i'll agree was a well notable title, but not a system seller either. OTH, J&D and R&C which were good and deservedly popular titles were not eactly launch-window though. heck, even the best sequels (the GTs) appeared rather late in the platform's lifespan.

OTH, god of war, ICO, SotC and the latest SC, all of which appeared pretty late in the system's lifespan, were definitive system sellers (maybe for entirely different demographics, but still) - i know several swarn ps2 sceptics from my circles went out and bought one as soon as they saw those titles (me being one of them : )

i bought a cube for PN03 (which was a letdown due to the bloody short playtime of this title) and VJ, but i would've bought the system anyway for RE4 alone in a heartbeat. RL did not move me one bit, though, after i had played through the RS on the pc.

Since it was never released on the PC until it had been available on the Xbox for like 3 yrs I don't understand how you came to such a conclusion.

simple. i was keeping a tab on this 'unproven' developer long before ms bought them. for me halo was nothing else but bungie's latest-at-the-time FPS project moved over to the 'box. was it nice - yep. did it come by surprise to me and awe me - nope. could it have been done on the game-line pc of the day - by all means. so i hope you'll excuse me if i don't see the 'quantum leap' about it. hypotetically, it'd be pretty similar situation if crytek cancelled tomorrow their latest pc title and moved it over to some of the new consoles (with all due fitting and downgrading).

 

[ban25]

how many launch-window, system-selling titles of the past 3 generations do you know which were not (a) sequels, (b) ports, or (c) rehashes in one form or another?

ok, mario64 - one. can you show me another one?

Are you serious?

- SSX
- Panzer Dragoon
- Halo
- Soul Calibre
- Lumines
- Sonic Adventure

 

[fearsomepirate]

pardon my french, but given that the majority of new games to 'truly utilize' the new hw would be hardly anything more than RTCW with more spit shine, what's wrong with utilizing the GF4 by bumping up the resolution and the AF levels on the original RTCW?

The point is that you said that you start really using a brand-new PC card right away, as opposed to consoles which take time to mature. There were plenty of PS2/Cube/N64/Xbox/SNES/whatever launch titles that utilized the hardware as much as anything that was available when the Voodoo2/GF4Ti/GF2/Radeon 9700/whatever came out.

For example, Halo and RTCW launched around the same time. I think that Halo utilized the new features of NV2a to a much greater extent than RTCW (or just about any game released between Oct and Dec of 2001) used the new features of the GF3Ti. When a PC card with truly new tech comes out, it always takes developers a decent amount of time to step up and figure out how to use it. Consoles are not unique in this regard. (Oops, forgot about Aquanox. Now there's an A+ game...still didn't use the GF3 any more than Halo used the NV2a or RL used Flipper).

And I can't believe you're comparing an N64 game (which is all the PC version of RC is) to what is still one of the best-looking games of the last generation. That's just silly.