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

I'm not sure if this GameInformer video has been posted or not:

 

They speak of Wii U version "parity" to the other versions again as well.

Definitely just more hints it doesnt appear to be anything as massively beefy as a 4850 would be.

 

Well I admit that when Nintendo said before E3 that they were going after the hardcore and going to take online seriously, I stupidly believed them. My mistake there. True there was no way Nintendo on their own could catch up to XBLive, but I had assumed that they were going to partner with someone to help them out. So much for that. No biggie for me, just means one less machine to buy.

That alone completely kills it for me. That's not how you run a proper online service in modern times, you only do that if you:

1) are incapable of creating a unified online system yourself
2) are unwiling to create a unified online system yourself
3) are incapable or unwilling to partner with someone to create a unified online system

Not sure which one it is, but either way they have decided to opt out and let the devs sort it out. That will lead to multiple accounts, multiple experiences, and multiple ui's with multiple sets of rules. No thanks, they can keep it.

Personally now I've written off Nintendo and I'm waiting for Google to inevitably throw their hat into the ring. I suspect in 5 to 10 years it will be software based companies as Robert mentioned, like MS, Apple, Google, etc that will have taken over the console space. In the future I just don't think there will be anymore room for weak software platforms.

 

New tech comments from gearbox via IGN

http://wii.ign.com/articles/118/1180954p1.html

So, 768MB or 1GB RAM as I expected.

 

Or more..

1GB to 1.5GB is my guess.

 

How on earth do you assume the console has "768MB or 1GB RAM" from a comment claiming it'll have higher resolution textures?

The console could have a lot more than that, for all you know.

 

Or nothing at all and just a new compression algorithm to textures.

(I also think it will be more Ram and hopeful a new compression algorithm to textures).

Still, like I said, it seems the only thing they can really predict is textures and Ram, for now, it should be quite unfamiliar HW I guess...

 

Wait, I thought diminishing returns and non-importance of graphics is in effect. Therefore RAM and texture algorithms things are unimportant and you should not be wishing for them?

I've predicted those numbers for a while now. You think it will have significantly more? 1.5GB would make it more of a half gen step than I'm expecting...

 

Half-gen step is exactly what the Gearbox guy said it would be:

 

In a vendor specific unified online system, how do you interact with those who play the same games but on different platforms?

 

That tells us nothing about the graphics hardware inside Wii U. They're talking about porting a game using all 360 assets in only 5 weeks and with only 3 staff, of course its going to look the same at that stage, even if the GPU was 4850 level. Hopefully they'll spend the time before release reworking some assets and optimising things to take advantage of the better hardware.

 

I still guess 1 to 1.5 MB RAM also.

 

I am here, arent I?

Anyway that inst what I said, I said that beyond what we see in current gen games, gfx are secondary so it they should only invest in gfx if it is a relative low cost. Although I didnt mind a upgrade in AI and a smal one in physics (to crysis 1 level as standard )...


Still I rather see investment in content or game mechanics and the such...

 

According to the Darksiders developers it takes 3 lines of code to get what's on the TV screen to go to the controller. Just depends whether or not Netflix can be bothered to do that

 

Great, now I can look forward to watching movies while sitting on the toilet...

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem...

One must be really desparate to be watching movies on a little portable screen in the home. That's kinda like buying a portable DVD player to watch movies around the house...

Anyway my guess is the hardware inside the console won't be much more powerful than PS360 if at all. Many of the comments from developers sounds like hype. For example the one about higher resolution textures...that could mean anything. Question is does it come at the expense of something else? Like lower polygon counts, no AA etc.

 

How do we know it's better hardware? We dont know that.

 

At the risk of sounding overly crass, there is a specific one handed pass-time that seems well suited for that solution despite being well outside of Nintendo's traditional market demographic (i.e. children and more recently the elderly).

=)

At what cost though? Custom soundtracks are still rare on the PS3 presumably due to RAM and processor utilization concerns - those 3 lines could equate to a lot of lost resources.

Cheers