How will be the Wii successor?

[archangelmorph]

The bottom could still fall out of Wii sales yet...

Geeks like powerful hardware, end of story.

Wow.

Firstly I don't recall any such declaration of third parties saying they have no more interesdt in developing for the Wii.. In fact quite the contrary seems to be happening, I thought that was common knowledge?

Also why would Wii gamers shelve the console & quite buying games entirely in such an event? surely if they own the hardware then they have a vested interest in the games (or promises of) coming down the pipe.. & even if third partiesd abandon the platform Nintendo wont which will still provide high quality software releases continuing into the future.. Besides, Nintendo have already proven that they can sustain a platform almost entirely off the back of 1st party software..

Finally i'd like to know exactly where you got such a rediculous idea that all software developers are geeks?

Not all of us troll forums you know..

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Though I fear somewhere along the lines you have a point I dont agree that 3rd party isnt interrested in Wii at all. I agree that at the moment it isnt exactly great, probably more because they either jumped in late or made big investments in getting HD ready and arnt planning on trowing that away rather than not being interrested in Wii at all. But if you look at the 3rd party games that are released by the end of the year in the next few months there defenitly are some 3rd party titels that seem to have some effort put into them. Sega's nights and ghostsquad seem to be pretty nice, You got no more hero's which could turn out pretty cool, RE:UC, though a cheap RE it still seems to offer some decent quality, GuitarHero3. MP ofcourse but its better than nothing. Dewy's adventure. I heared its a good game, out in the US already and seems to sell like shit because capcom does Zero marketing on it. You got the FF spinoff though I dont know when that will be out, and its a spinoff ofcourse but again its better to have a decent spinoff than nothing at all. And than im probably forgetting some. Ofcourse it doesnt look like 3rd party spend major effort on Wii yet but if I look at whats coming from 3rd party devs that I might want to play its already better than GC had in its whole life.

So not great, but if you have to compare it, does ps3 do so much better? Its either MP or old ports and the games like FF, MGS and GT that are hyped like for over a year as the reason to buy a ps3 probably arnt even going to be available in the EU for the first half of 2008. Atleast on Wii you have a fair amount of quality titels to chose from by the end of the year (which ofcouse for a decent part is because of nintendo's own games).

 

[fearsomepirate]

Firstly I don't recall any such declaration of third parties saying they have no more interesdt in developing for the Wii.. In fact quite the contrary seems to be happening, I thought that was common knowledge?

What games? All I keep hearing is how every major upcoming release is announced for either PS3 or 360 or both, and how this or that franchise can't be expected to appear on Wii because it lacks the power.

Also why would Wii gamers shelve the console & quite buying games entirely in such an event?

Because they'd rather buy Call of Duty than Kiddie Karnival Kollection or Generic Mario Sports Title? I think most real gamers who own Wiis will own X360s or PS3s if they don't already. Heck most of the really nutso Nintendo fans I know already have 360s. We're talking people who stuck with Gamecube until almost the bitter end and didn't get PS2s until late 04 or even 05. The rest will tire of the novelty, maybe buy a few more Karnival Kollection games, then move on to other diversions.

Besides, Nintendo have already proven that they can sustain a platform almost entirely off the back of 1st party software.

Not entirely true. Although Nintendo software sales made up the bulk of Cube software sales, third parties still made up I think around half up until the last year or two. In any case, there were enough quality 3rd party games to make the system sustainable without resorting to another console. Sure, it didn't have the diversity of the PS2's lineup, but nearly every Cube owner had copies of games like Fight Night, Madden, Prince of Persia, Need for Speed, Sonic, etc. Wii has substantially fewer releases in that category. Do you know any traditional gamer that plays only Wii? I know a lot of Cube-only people who went 360+Wii for this gen, recognizing that around 90% of Wii releases are crap.

Finally i'd like to know exactly where you got such a rediculous idea that all software developers are geeks?

Because all software developers write computer code for a living. That pretty much automatically makes them geeks. I would suspect that the vast, vast majority of them actually like computers, too, and that a huge portion of game developers also like video games a lot. I'm going to guess that there are few if any coders out there who had little interest in computers or programming, but got hired to write physics engines just kind of at random.

 

[Acert93]

We know this much: the Wii's successor almost certainly won't jump back on the technological bandwagon in terms of processing performance--at least not relative to what Sony/MS offer. Artists (number and skillset), tools, experience with multicore, and so forth make competing with Sony/MS in the future in cutting edge graphics/processing very, very unlikely.

The Wii was a departure for the company vision, not just a single console.

EDIT: I think Nintendo would do well to maybe license a general console design. This could be beneficial actually to both parties. e.g. If Nintendo licensed the 360 hardware, they could a) use all the tools and middleware available and b) lower hardware design costs. The pool of quality artists who don't jump to the next level, and the possible affects of diminishing returns, could be beneficial. For MS, they would essentially get more legs for their 360 console once the Xbox 3 is out. Of course some hardware revisions would be in the cards (more eDRAM for example) but this could be quite sensible. Another option of similar result would be a "midrange" design leveraging hardware not intended to compete with MS and Sony (e.g. 8600 level GPU instead of an 8800 level), but fast enough to use proven tools and middleware.

 

[Kaotik]

Since ATi and Nvidia will most likely be going crazy doing 1080p GPUs, getting a decent one that runs 720p shouldn't be too difficult to get for cheap.

Hell, seriously though, at this point, I would be even happy if Nintendo got a GPU that did Xbox360/PS3 graphics at 480p.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this - both have been doing GPU's capable of higher than 1080p resolution for PC for years

 

[ninzel]

The Wii was a departure for the company vision, not just a single console.

I disagree. The Wii is exactly the companies vision.Looking back on it now,the writing for the Wii was on the wall. The past consoles were the hybrid departures,a compromise trying to be what they wanted to be with the Wii while trying to keep up with the Jonse's. Someone in the company finally decided to take the chance and make a console entirely in line with their philosophy for good or bad.

 

[Acert93]

I disagree. The Wii is exactly the companies vision.Looking back on it now,the writing for the Wii was on the wall. The past consoles were the hybrid departures,a compromise trying to be what they wanted to be with the Wii while trying to keep up with the Jonse's. Someone in the company finally decided to take the chance and make a console entirely in line with their philosophy for good or bad.

Isn't that what I said?

Past Nintendos: Relative to the market.
Nintendo Wii: Full break from the technology bandwagon.

The companies vision had been in the past to pretty much maintain the status quo. The N64 was actually marketed as being technologically superior and the GCN was marketed as being accessible and having a "balanced" hardware with competitive realworld performance.

They were not departures from the technological bandwagon.

With the Wii they said, "Screw it, graphics don't matter anymore. To prove it? We won't even upgrade the graphics hardware". [Note: and when considering the increased need for widescreen and 60Hz gaming with motion control the increase in hardware performance is very similar to the demand for 480p widescreen/60Hz]

At no time in the past did Nintendo even attempt to pass off their last console design as their new one. And the Wii, by the nature of the product, stunts Nintendo's growth (permenantly?) in this area from a relative competitive standpoint in the future.

You cannot stick with GCN level hardware for nearly 10 years and then expect to compete with the PS4.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

We know this much: the Wii's successor almost certainly won't jump back on the technological bandwagon in terms of processing performance--at least not relative to what Sony/MS offer. Artists (number and skillset), tools, experience with multicore, and so forth make competing with Sony/MS in the future in cutting edge graphics/processing very, very unlikely.

The Wii was a departure for the company vision, not just a single console.

While i agree that wii2 probably wont be faster than ps4 I disagree with alot of points made in that link.

he (edit: hehe its you) talks about wii programmers not being able to write ''next gen code''. Well, that is probably true as they havnt done that before so they'll have a disadvantage but nintendo isnt a small company and nintendo knows best what they plan on releasing next. Im pretty sure they can get a decent part of their coders on the level required for such code and otherwise they still have the possibility of hiring experianced coders. And nintendo wont even need to use 100% of the hardware in the beginning. Coming from Wii hardware people will easily be pleased and most nintendo games dont really need ubergfx anyway so they can take a year or 2 extra.

Same with the artists. He says the artists wont have the abilities for next gen gfx. I disagree with that. Modellers will probably have made complex models either while studying or for fun in their free time. Besides that working with a low amount of poly's is alot harder than having 100k+ poly's available as you need to be alot more efficient to get a good looking model.

 

[ninzel]

Isn't that what I said?

.

Not sure now,maybe I misunderstood reading "departure for" and thought "departure from".
Edit: I think that Nintendo's vision has always to make accessible,affordable gaming,they just didn't have the gut's to go all the way with their hardware.So systems like the N64 and GNC presented a Schizophrenic Nintendo,those systems were not in line with their overall philosophy.The Wii is what Nintendo has always strived to be.

 

[Zaphod]

he talks [...] He says

Psst... Over here...

Spoiler

You responded to a forum post By Joshua Luna pointing you to a blog post by Joshua Luna...

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Psst... Over here...

Spoiler

You responded to a forum post By Joshua Luna pointing you to a blog post by Joshua Luna...

Ow lol didnt know that. Noobish me still doesnt agree with it though.

 

[archangelmorph]

Because all software developers write computer code for a living. That pretty much automatically makes them geeks. I would suspect that the vast, vast majority of them actually like computers, too, and that a huge portion of game developers also like video games a lot. I'm going to guess that there are few if any coders out there who had little interest in computers or programming, but got hired to write physics engines just kind of at random.

Hahahahahahaha!!

That's rich!

So our artists, designers, producer's & QA are all writing code for a living?

I think you need to learn a thing or too about games development..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Although not a great choice of words, wasn't it clear from the post and context that fearsomepirate was talking about coders? And as coders by stereotype they are 'geeks', like interesting powerful technology, and thus would rather be developing for XB360 and PS3 than Wii.

Not that I agree, because coders don't choose their projects. It's the management, producers and publishers that decide that normally, and there's not many in a position to make a choice without much financial consideration.

 

[patsu]

Nintendo is using a different model for Wii. We may not be able to use the traditional game console framework to judge it. IMHO, they got their key marketing strategies and objectives right.

e.g.,
* Target the mass market

* People are busy, so vendors should make games that fit into their daily lives.

* Ease of use, ability to demonstrate funness within split second

* Instant gratification since people don't have to buy HDTV to enjoy it

* Focus

* Price point

It seems that Nintendo intend to accelerate the Wii momentum by introducing sister units like Wii Fit. As long as their eyes and hands continue to stay on the "right stuff", I wouldn't worry too much about them. More and more people will be convinced over time.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Although not a great choice of words, wasn't it clear from the post and context that fearsomepirate was talking about coders?

Shifty gets an A in Reading Comprehension 101. However, even guys who don't write code are largely geeks in their own way. I suspect artists are not happy making low-polygon models, blocky terrain with blurry textures, and jerky, lifeless facial animations. And whoever's in charge of it would rather make big, breathtaking, cinematic experiences than a minigame collection with no voices. All of them like great video games, and I doubt any of them think "great video game" and "crappy graphics, last-gen sound, low screen resolution, poor AI, primitive scripting, and floaty physics" at the same time. The only people I can think of who would be really excited about making big bucks off crappy games would be people in accounting and suits at the top with little active connection to gaming. Even companies like Ubisoft give the geeks enough freedom to allow games like Splinter Cell to exist. The Wii is as anti-geek a platform as could possibly be made at this point, and it's no surprise no one wants to develop for it.

Obviously, when it comes to the point of "Making a game on this platform will likely bankrupt us," finance will trump tech, but X360/PS3 vs Wii isn't that kind of situation...it's not like Wii 3rd party games even sell that well. It looks to me like you can keep your staff happy and make money by developing for next-gen consoles.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I'm a bit of a hobby artist so my pov might not be exactly what the pov of a pro is but I dont care so much about if I can use 1000 or 100k poly's for a model but I care about how it looks within certain limits I have. I can see how a modeller can be exited trying to get the best possible model within a low polycount because you cant just build a very high poly model and normal map that, no you have to be very efficient with what you have. I suppose it might even take more skills to work with low poly models than with very high poly models.

Couldnt the same thing work for coders etc? ofcourse you are more limited than with ps3/x360 hardware, but isnt it at the same time a challange to get as much performance as you can out a slower piece of hardware?

 

[dobwal]

Sony might scale it back a bit, but why would Microsoft? The 360 is still successful, and Wii is slowing down as third parties simply are not interested in making games for a 5-year-old hardware. Further, 360 games continue to occupy the top 10 on the charts. Complete disinterest from third parties will mean that Nintendo will have to sustain Wii all by itself with non-games, Mario sports, and minigame collections, meaning that its success won't last as gamers realize that buying a Wii means having a library of eight decent games to choose from. The vast majority of the game software industry is supported by 360, not Wii, and there's no reason to kill the goose that's laying them the golden egg and shift all their resources to a console that can't even shift 250K units of Madden.

MS's current success is the result of releasing first and having a price advantage versus Sony. If Sony scales back on the tech it can offer lower price point at introduction. You think that MS would want those advantages next generation as well.

Weak third party offering on the Wii has nothing to do with the hardware. Its the dominant sales of the Nintendo pub titles that are scaring away pubs. Until the Wii can move third party software as well as and consistently as 360/PS3 can then you won't see a shift towards the Wii. The 360 is maintaining high software sales in a very small market but if the Wii continues at the current pace it won't take long before the Wii's software sales out pace the 360 by a large margin. The Wii will then reach a point where even low penetration by most third party games on the Wii will still lead to higher sales then on the 360.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Weak third party offering on the Wii has nothing to do with the hardware. Its the dominant sales of the Nintendo pub titles that are scaring away pubs. Until the Wii can move third party software as well as and consistently as 360/PS3 can then you won't see a shift towards the Wii.

Isnt that a visious circle? 3rd party devs mostly release crap with 0 marketing on wii. Nintendo releases A+ games with alot of marketing. It doesnt take a genious to figure out that this way 3rd party software aint gonna sell right? If this is the way higher ups at 3rd party devs think I have some high doubts about their intelligance.

 

[Acert93]

Not sure now,maybe I misunderstood reading "departure for" and thought "departure from".

A departure "for" the company -- Nintendo has changed paths from their previous course.

Edit: I think that Nintendo's vision has always to make accessible,affordable gaming,they just didn't have the gut's to go all the way with their hardware.

Every console they have had (NES, SNES, N64, GCN) was relatively competitive to the market. e.g. Madden on the GCN was generally the same looking as the PS2 and Xbox versions.

With the Wii they have departed that course. Their versions of games are no longest competitive on the technological (CPU/GPU) arena.

So systems like the N64 and GNC presented a Schizophrenic Nintendo,those systems were not in line with their overall philosophy.The Wii is what Nintendo has always strived to be.

So what the company has done in technology over the last 23 years was the real departure? I think that is special pleading sir!

I guess you could say the Wii is the final break (departure) from their schizophrenia...

But that would be semantics, as it seems you are agreeing that the Wii is a departure from what they have been doing.

Wording aside, the fact is the Wii puts Nintendo in a position where Wii2-Mario won't be competitive graphically or computationally with the 1st party titles on more the PS4.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

And that fact is based on what? I agree with you that its unlikely that nintendo will do a p4'ish wii2 but the lack of experience imo isnt one of the reasons why they wont do a p4. As nintendo builds their own hardware they know well in advance what they'll be working with and imo they will have more than enough time to get their coders/tools/etc where they need to be. Even if they are not 100% into the hardware at launch, do they really have to be? Most nintendo games dont need awsome power anyway and coming from wii hardware even if they'd only use 60 or 70% or however you might want to expres it into numbers nobody would care.