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

[bgassassin]

Forgot all about this thread.

Yeah, the processor speed would imply concerns for manufacturing (no binning) and thermal envelope.

Could also include Nintendo being picky about clock speeds and how they like to sync them. They could be trying to avoid a last minute change like they had with GC. As you mentioned about deciding the process choice, that would affect that syncing. As a rough example guessing at the CPU being clocked at 3.645GHz, the GPU on a 40nm might be 607.5Mhz while at 28nm it could be 729Mhz or possibly even 810Mhz (from the CPU perspective 6x, 5x, and 4.5x respectively). That to me would be another reason why the clocks haven't been finalized.

 

[ninzel]

Rumour that EA and Steam courting Nintendo to put their services on WiiU.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Rumour that EA and Steam courting Nintendo to put their services on WiiU.

EA + Steam parity for some games between Wii U and PC would make me a day-1 buyer for the console.

Between Bioware and Valve games alone, some 33% of my gaming needs would be covered.

 

[bgassassin]

Rumour that EA and Steam courting Nintendo to put their services on WiiU.

That's not the rumor actually. Nintendo's service would essentially allow any of them to be on there. The rumor is EA doesn't want that and wants to be the sole provider of DD.

 

[AlNom]

Does Origin even have stuff from other publishers (Activision, Take 2 etc)?

 

[bgassassin]

They are supposed to be adding THQ, Warner Brothers and Capcom soon. With Nintendo wanting to please Western devs/pubs, they should know that letting Origin be exclusive is bad.

 

[AlNom]

Bad for whom?

 

[bgassassin]

Us. Having multiple companies offering DD should/would promote competitive pricing.

EDIT: And publishers that most likely wouldn't want to use Origin. (Should have been the original reply.)

 

[AlNom]

Are Origin and Steam (or any other DD service, can't remember them all) having some sort of price war right now?

 

[bgassassin]

I think I see where you're going and comparing an open system like the PC where Steam has the outright majority vs a closed system where everyone would essentially be starting from scratch isn't a good comparison.

 

[patsu]

The question is what can EA bring to the table to sweeten the deal for Nintendo and end users like us if Nintendo go exclusive with them.

Without any significant benefits, I can't see why Nintendo would limit their future.

 

[AlNom]

I think I see where you're going and comparing an open system like the PC where Steam has the outright majority vs a closed system where everyone would essentially be starting from scratch isn't a good comparison.

Well, you would think that Origin should be offering competitive pricing right now so that they can try to compete with Steam, but they don't because of that outright majority. Instead they've resorted to crappy exclusivity tactics, so now I have to have multiple accounts.

So are they really starting from scratch on console? If EA really believed that, there wouldn't be this notion that they are seeking exclusivity.

Steam has a long-time reputation working to their advantage in a lot of ways, and only recently we've seen some interesting efforts in cross-platform game license ownership. How many people just stick with steam because it was the first decent experience and they don't want the hassle of giving away CC etc info to every online company that shows up? Creating good unique passwords for every one of them too? Meh.

Right now, I don't care who gains exclusivity for the right to sell shit online, I just hate the prospect of dealing with all the bullshit from having all these accounts.

Just saying.

The question is what can EA bring to the table to sweeten the deal for Nintendo and end users like us if Nintendo go exclusive with them.

Without any significant benefits, I can't see why Nintendo would limit their future.

Well, they basically would have to provide universal feature support and infrastructure just like MS or Steam has done. Can Origin users communicate with Steam users for instance? Is Nintendo going to make up these basic universal features to avoid the hassle of multiple online accounts for rival companies?

What does Nintendo care if they can just sit back and let the other digital distributors handle everything online themselves (associated costs and tech support headaches)? Meanwhile they just collect royalties from each DD.

 

[ninzel]

That's not the rumor actually. Nintendo's service would essentially allow any of them to be on there. The rumor is EA doesn't want that and wants to be the sole provider of DD.

Both of our statements are true.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well, you would think that Origin should be offering competitive pricing right now so that they can try to compete with Steam, but they don't because of that outright majority. Instead they've resorted to crappy exclusivity tactics, so now I have to have multiple accounts.

Hum.. I don't know if EA is the only one at fault here.
EA claims that some games don't go to Steam because it limits the games' online interactivity APIs, but i.e. Direct2Drive has both Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2.
Alice Returns is available on Steam, though.

So far, only Star Wars: TOR is scheduled to be an Origin exclusive.

 

[AlNom]

Hum.. I don't know if EA is the only one at fault here.
EA claims that some games don't go to Steam because it limits the games' online interactivity APIs, but i.e. Direct2Drive has both Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2.
Alice Returns is available on Steam, though.

Well, I meant to convey that certain games have to be bought from another store, thus requiring more accounts. I can't just stick with one. I don't actually care who's fault it is as someone who just wants things universal and simple.

Though the only question from me is why they haven't been able to resolve the issue and allow the items to show up on the particular store and instead are effectively saying that rules were broken or inflexible (whatever it really is) and so are just going to take it off the store.

Even if there weren't such tactics employed, I'm still left wondering about the state of basic functionality between games because Nintendo has said shit-all in their PR statements about designing their own network and leaving it to the developers to do all the work out of their free development schedules. Are we going to see a repeat of the early PSN functionality all over again?

I know it sounds like fear mongering crap, but I'm just in the here and now wondering about how things will turn out with so little news from them except for general PR BS.

 

[patsu]

Well, they basically would have to provide universal feature support and infrastructure just like MS or Steam has done. Can Origin users communicate with Steam users for instance? Is Nintendo going to make up these basic universal features to avoid the hassle of multiple online accounts for rival companies?

What does Nintendo care if they can just sit back and let the other digital distributors handle everything online themselves (associated costs and tech support headaches)? Meanwhile they just collect royalties from each DD.

All these just mean Nintendo will be limited by EA whatever their future direction is (even on the mobile side).

If online gaming is important to them, they won't just sit back and let EA do all the work. If they want multiple online systems to play nice on their platforms, they will do the necessary work to make it happen, even if the entire feature set may not be there on day one. They can also acquire companies to help. Single sign-on is not difficult. It's only difficult to retrofit such systems. Nintendo has practically a clean slate.

I remember a third party is already helping them with cloud gaming.

EDIT: EA may have to come up with something super compelling for Nintendo and end users to bite.

 

[AlNom]

All these just mean Nintendo will be limited by EA whatever their future direction is (even on the mobile side).

Well, at the very least, whomever gains such an exclusive deal will not want to piss off end-users, so it's in their best interests to at least provide something competent.

I personally just don't care for the prospect of a fractured online experience.

If online gaming is important to them, they won't just sit back and let EA do all the work. ...

That's a big "if". I guess I'm just jaded from what I saw with Wii, and even though they can't do worse, I'm not sure how much better it will be when you have XBLM and PSS to compare. Remember, this is a system that is competing with current gen, and next-gen just builds upon the real-world experience that the other two companies have.

The other thing that gives me some concern is the 8GB flash that was rumoured for storage. I don't recall if there was anything mentioned for higher capacity storage, but I'd presume USB HDD for now unless they've found some corner of the chassis to stuff even a 1.8" drive in.

I remember a third party is already helping them with cloud gaming.

That's a good sign.

 

[bgassassin]

Well, you would think that Origin should be offering competitive pricing right now so that they can try to compete with Steam, but they don't because of that outright majority. Instead they've resorted to crappy exclusivity tactics, so now I have to have multiple accounts.

So are they really starting from scratch on console? If EA really believed that, there wouldn't be this notion that they are seeking exclusivity.

Steam has a long-time reputation working to their advantage in a lot of ways, and only recently we've seen some interesting efforts in cross-platform game license ownership. How many people just stick with steam because it was the first decent experience and they don't want the hassle of giving away CC etc info to every online company that shows up? Creating good unique passwords for every one of them too? Meh.

Right now, I don't care who gains exclusivity for the right to sell shit online, I just hate the prospect of dealing with all the bullshit from having all these accounts.

Just saying.

Yes they would be starting from scratch. Steam has a lot of games, but those games are for PC, not Wii U. Let's say both are available on Nintendo's online component and a third party wanted to provide a DD of their game. Nintendo is getting theirs, that's guaranteed. From there it would be up to Origin or Steam to provide the best offer to handle the service for said 3rd party. If EA could offer better deals than Steam, then that's most likely where they would go. That would make Steam pretty irrelevant if most third parties went to Origin. But at the same time there would be companies who would avoid Origin for no other reason than they don't want EA making money off of their game. But why even bother with having to offer competitive prices if you can cut out the competition from the get go?

As for multiple accounts, everything we've been seeing has indicated one account. And that would be all you need to sign in if companies decided to attach their own service into Nintendo's network instead of using Nintendo's network directly. Nintendo will have their own version of PSN and XBL. What is different is that companies don't have to be locked into possible restrictions of that service. This is why people at Nintendo have been promoting "flexibility" in their online system. An example of this would be like how you can sign into different sites with one Facebook account.

Both of our statements are true.

I agree your statement is true. But that wasn't the rumor. The rumor was EA wants Origin to be exclusive.

I remember a third party is already helping them with cloud gaming.

Actually it's the same company they've always used. What's different is that Acer bought that company. So Nintendo will be dealing with Acer for that.

 

[patsu]

That's a big "if". I guess I'm just jaded from what I saw with Wii, and even though they can't do worse, I'm not sure how much better it will be when you have XBLM and PSS to compare. Remember, this is a system that is competing with current gen, and next-gen just builds upon the real-world experience that the other two companies have.

I don't think this is how Nintendo sees things. Wii triumphed partly because it is not limited by HD userbase and online subscriptions. Everyone can enjoy it. Nintendo will put themselves in a position to maximize their success for the next iteration. Limiting their future to EA today for their online move doesn't sound like maximizing success -- unless EA has something unique and REALLY category killing.

The other thing that gives me some concern is the 8GB flash that was rumoured for storage. I don't recall if there was anything mentioned for higher capacity storage, but I'd presume USB HDD for now unless they've found some corner of the chassis to stuff even a 1.8" drive in.

Well... it may mean users don't need a built-in HDD to enjoy WiiU games to keep entry price low. They can always add a HDD at launch.


EDIT:

Actually it's the same company they've always used. What's different is that Acer bought that company. So Nintendo will be dealing with Acer for that.

Indeed.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cl...ong-Nintendo-Acer-Cloud-Technology,13112.html

 

[bgassassin]

^ I figured you knew that and just needed your memory jogged.

The other thing that gives me some concern is the 8GB flash that was rumoured for storage. I don't recall if there was anything mentioned for higher capacity storage, but I'd presume USB HDD for now unless they've found some corner of the chassis to stuff even a 1.8" drive in.

External HDD usage was confirmed by Nintendo. The real concern is that so far they have said they are using USB 2.0. Hopefully they at least make one of them a 3.0 port before launch.