Question about the performance of Wii

[keptcopsup]

There is more than one reason why they stylize in every single movie they've made (apart from it being more charming and working better on a psychological level).

13 years after TS we're still not even approaching the level reached with the renderfarms of back then. There is a huge difference between having predicable scenes, with minutes or hours of rendertime per frame, to having one 60th of a second to do the same on affordable hardware.

I disagree. Like I said before, I think you could emulate a good deal of how many Toy Story scenes looked in real time. Lighting models would be simplified and the model poly counts would be scaled down, but would that make a vast visual difference? I don't think so.

Art is really all there is, the choice of medium and tools is really also an artistic choice on some level.

Well that's absurd. There was a lot of stuff artists couldn't do at all just 10 years ago. Sure if you decide "I'm going to do a 2D image using only 16 colors", but there was a time when you were LIMITED to that. Beyond that the more power and better tools you have, the easier it is to reach your artistic goals.

A console has to be affordable above all else to succeed. PS3 proves that for any doubters. Within the limits of the budget the wiimote is probably the best that could be done right now.
It's basically what the mouse was for the personal computer. Negating the need for lots of buttons and sticks, just point and click.

Now this is getting silly. PS3 is doing doing fine. As far as control methods for a reasonable price, I would agree the Wiimote is about the best you could do, but as far as system specs the Wii could have been a much better deal.

There is plenty of room for "that" within the realms of modern 3d graphics. I would argue that "simple" concentrated games like that are for closer to the real heart of hardcore, far closer to what realtime videogames are really (or should really) be all about.

I think videogames are different things to different people. I have friends who like good gameplay but mostly buy games based on the story and theme. Obviously games started with stuff like 'trying to get the highscore'. I think games can be more as well. Not really related to power or anything like that, but I believe stuff like online scoreboards / leaderboards are actually a pretty significant expansion in the 'simplistic' game genre.

So you would argue that, let's say the Bayeux tapestry, would be better with realistic pictures instead of the style theire in now?
Style and medium is an integral part of any good piece of art (and I don't hesitate calling some the classic "real", considering what is passing as art today).

I'd say on the Wii the Bayeux tapestry would be far less fine than if it were on the 360 or PS3. Not a matter of style but of quality.

A lot of the time constraints is a good thing (tm).
A lot of artists voluntarily puts constraints on themselves, to better focus their creativity and to "celebrate" the nature of the medium.
There are very few gameplay ideas that you couldn't fit on Wii. The reverse is not true.

Nonsense. Technical constraints are never a good thing. Artists should be able to constrain themselves, like you say, not be forced by primitive hardware. Look at Team Fortress 2, very stylized, very nice, yet limited hardware would have held back their vision.

There are VERY MANY gameplay ideas you can't fit on the Wii, and there are very many you can't fit on 360, PS3, or a ultra high end PC as well. We are still FAR more limited than open. Want to do a drama game where you speak through a mic to the AI? Impossible. Want to do a game with complex 3D breaking glass and liquids? Mostly impossible. Want to do a game where you can pick up objects and throw them freely within a 3d environment with real motions without the constrains of 'throw mode' contexts? Impossible.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A console has to be affordable above all else to succeed. PS3 proves that for any doubters.

PS3 is half the life-long install bases of GC and XB in one year, and with increasing sales, even at a far higher pricepoint. Not being the number one seller != failure. It's a no brainer that a cheaper PS3 would have sold more, but it's unfair to say the PS3 is a failure because of the price. It's succeeding in pretty much every point other than gang-buster, world-leading sales (and Sony's capacity to roll out decent services in a respectable time-frame!)

So you would argue that, let's say the Bayeux tapestry, would be better with realistic pictures instead of the style theire in now?

Would you argue that Pixar shouldn't have bothered and we should have stuck with hand-drawn animations? Console power enables more creative choices, and lack of power restricts choices. If you have a higher upper ceiling, you can do a PixelJunk Racers style game, or a Calling All Cars, or a GT5, whatever your artistic vision is. If the cap is set too low, you're stuck choosing a stylized look because the hardware isn't capable of better.

A lot of the time constraints is a good thing (tm).

They can definitely have a positive impact, but tell the movie makers of today that they'd be better of with only silent B&W as a medium, taht the constraints will produce better movies, and see how much they agree with you - along with the movie-going public. Or tell the current game devs that they have to go back to using to 48k 7 colour computers to create their games and see how they relish the restrictions on what they can produce.

There are very few gameplay ideas that you couldn't fit on Wii.

There are very few movie ideas you couldn't create on a shoestring budget using cheap models and a handy-cam, but how many people would want to watch them?

The reverse is not true.

How many gameplay ideas using Wiimote can't be mapped to a thumbstick? The implementation and immersion may be different, but the gameplay, controlling the characters, is fundamentally the same in most cases. Throw in sixaxis, or a camera interface, and all those Warioware like party games become even more similarly accomplished.

 

[Squeak]

I disagree. Like I said before, I think you could emulate a good deal of how many Toy Story scenes looked in real time. Lighting models would be simplified and the model poly counts would be scaled down, but would that make a vast visual difference? I don't think so.

Exactly! There really isn't that vast a gab in percived quality between "Pixar quality" and what consoles are doing today, even though the complexity of the scenes are orders of magnitude higher.
That tells us that we are nearing a wall or very steep climb for what we can do with current techniques.
Soon someone will decide that it is "good enough" and start doing something else apart from playing the "more powerfull hardware" game.
Wii is an inclination of what's to come.

Well that's absurd. There was a lot of stuff artists couldn't do at all just 10 years ago. Sure if you decide "I'm going to do a 2D image using only 16 colors", but there was a time when you were LIMITED to that. Beyond that the more power and better tools you have, the easier it is to reach your artistic goals.

Almost all stylistic elements start out as a necessity and over time turns onto a conscious choice.

Now this is getting silly. PS3 is doing doing fine. As far as control methods for a reasonable price, I would agree the Wiimote is about the best you could do, but as far as system specs the Wii could have been a much better deal.

PS3 started out but barely only selling just what the x360 sold, which is not very good. Only after pricecuts have things improved. But Wii is still outselling them both by a huge margin.

You are paying for far more than just the chips in the machine.
Nintendo never sells hardware at a loss. That they can get away with that should be applauded. That's a sign of healthy thinking.

I think videogames are different things to different people. I have friends who like good gameplay but mostly buy games based on the story and theme. Obviously games started with stuff like 'trying to get the highscore'. I think games can be more as well. Not really related to power or anything like that, but I believe stuff like online scoreboards / leaderboards are actually a pretty significant expansion in the 'simplistic' game genre.

Videogames are really in trouble if they become a novelty act, where a huge part of the reason for buying is to see "what can be done know". Especially when even mediocre movies are better at conveying a story than even good action games.
When that act dryes up, people will tire of the them. That has already happened two times before.

I'd say on the Wii the Bayeux tapestry would be far less fine than if it were on the 360 or PS3. Not a matter of style but of quality.

It's looks like it does because of the limitations of crosstitching and because the creators didn't know perspective (or didn't want it) and cared little about "correct" proportions.
That is medium and tools.

Nonsense. Technical constraints are never a good thing. Artists should be able to constrain themselves, like you say, not be forced by primitive hardware. Look at Team Fortress 2, very stylized, very nice, yet limited hardware would have held back their vision.

Then why are artists still doing water colours and oil, when they could render "better" pictures in Maya?
Why are movie directors still doing black and white and "noir/comic" style movies?
Why is electric guitars still popular?

There are VERY MANY gameplay ideas you can't fit on the Wii, and there are very many you can't fit on 360, PS3, or a ultra high end PC as well. We are still FAR more limited than open. Want to do a drama game where you speak through a mic to the AI? Impossible. Want to do a game with complex 3D breaking glass and liquids? Mostly impossible. Want to do a game where you can pick up objects and throw them freely within a 3d environment with real motions without the constrains of 'throw mode' contexts? Impossible.

Physics for large to medium objects aren't really that complex to do. Elebits and Boomblox demonstrate that perfectly. When you get down to simulating individual grains of sand you are really into the realm of eye candy, and this could be done far more efficiently with other means.
Real AI is far far beyond anything possible today. It's not as much a matter of power as a matter of understanding.
It's far better (and more rewarding) to have players playing each other.
Semi "convincing" AI (within the boundaries of the games) has actually been done a number of times. A recent example is Seaman.

How many gameplay ideas using Wiimote can't be mapped to a thumbstick? The implementation and immersion may be different, but the gameplay, controlling the characters, is fundamentally the same in most cases. Throw in sixaxis, or a camera interface, and all those Warioware like party games become even more similarly accomplished.

Most GUIs can be controlled exclusively with the keyboard, if you know how. But even the most experienced power users wouldn't be with out a mouse.
There is a very big difference between absolute positioning as with a mouse or wiimote and relative positioning as with a stick or keys. It's a matter of speed, yes. But speed and immediacy is exactly what people want the most. That's why timeshare computers went away and "realtime", "online" computing is taken for granted today.

 

[keptcopsup]

Exactly! There really isn't that vast a gab in percived quality between "Pixar quality" and what consoles are doing today, even though the complexity of the scenes are orders of magnitude higher.
That tells us that we are nearing a wall or very steep climb for what we can do with current techniques.
Soon someone will decide that it is "good enough" and start doing something else apart from playing the "more powerfull hardware" game.
Wii is an inclination of what's to come.

We're nearing the limits of practical graphical advances. I'd say 360/PS3 graphics are closer to Toy Story than Wii graphics to 360/PS3 graphics. I think graphics are nearly good enough now, but graphics aren't everything. AI, physics, and of course interface advancements will require vastly more power to fill out every potential vision of games.

There's a bit more to all this than that. It's not going to be possible to sell 'baby steps' in control like the Wii for very long, I'd be surprised if ANY platform did such a small leap as the Wiimote and was successful in the future. Then you consider the life span of a platform. Can you go 10 years on PS3, if you can't think of a more substantial advancement in other areas (such as the Wiimote, but a bigger jump)?

Almost all stylistic elements start out as a necessity and over time turns onto a conscious choice.

I disagree with that. That's the way you designed primitive videogames (such as Mario's design in Donkey Kong), but many visual elements aren't limited anymore, yet stylization still occurs, probably more than ever before. Lots of reasons for this than technical limits...

You are paying for far more than just the chips in the machine.
Nintendo never sells hardware at a loss. That they can get away with that should be applauded. That's a sign of healthy thinking.

They should be applauded for cunning business practice, but not for healthy game design or bringing value to the customer. Basically it's greed over good.

Videogames are really in trouble if they become a novelty act, where a huge part of the reason for buying is to see "what can be done know". Especially when even mediocre movies are better at conveying a story than even good action games.
When that act dryes up, people will tire of the them. That has already happened two times before.

I don't see what you're getting at here. I agree a gimmick market will dry up fast. Elements such as story and theme are critical to entertainment products overall, even if they aren't critical to gameplay and fun. Games can be like sports or like books or anything in between. I don't think that range will ever change, just as these basic values to entertainment haven't changed over thousands of years.

It's looks like it does because of the limitations of crosstitching and because the creators didn't know perspective (or didn't want it) and cared little about "correct" proportions.
That is medium and tools.

But the fact is, any visual artistry can be attained on a 360 or PS3 easier than on a Wii. Just because you have more options doesn't mean you can't choose a simpler style. You're not forced to realism on 360 or PS3, but you are forced to LESS on a Wii.

Then why are artists still doing water colours and oil, when they could render "better" pictures in Maya?
Why are movie directors still doing black and white and "noir/comic" style movies?
Why is electric guitars still popular?

Simply a choice. Which would you prefer, the option of making a black and white movie, or the option of making a black and white movie or a color movie. More choices = more options for creative freedom. That's all there is to it.

Physics for large to medium objects aren't really that complex to do. Elebits and Boomblox demonstrate that perfectly. When you get down to simulating individual grains of sand you are really into the realm of eye candy, and this could be done far more efficiently with other means.
Real AI is far far beyond anything possible today. It's not as much a matter of power as a matter of understanding.
It's far better (and more rewarding) to have players playing each other.
Semi "convincing" AI (within the boundaries of the games) has actually been done a number of times. A recent example is Seaman.

Don't oversimplify. You can't do any of those examples as I stated. You can do decent physics in a game like Elebits or Boomblox, but you can do far more on a more powerful platform. Yet we still lack the power to reach the peaks of where that path could take us. It's not just down to eye candy or visualization...

Simulating physics without using actual physics is FAR LESS EFFICIENT. Imagine writing animations for every potential outcome in GTA4's character movement? You'd fill up an infinite amount of RAM. Better to just calculate the physics.

AI is completely limited to power. It's not just understanding at all. I don't know how people ever got that idea, either. I disagree it's 'better' to have players competing, what about all those people that prefer single player games. By introducing competitive MP, you have a situation where not every player can win.

Seaman is not convincing in the traditional sense. You would never believe that Seaman was intelligent at all. Another example, however, is Facade : http://www.interactivestory.net/ The limits become obvious really quickly. This makes a good argument for more processing power. This is the visual equivalent of 4 colors and 100 pixels max.

added after your edit :

Most GUIs can be controlled exclusively with the keyboard, if you know how. But even the most experienced power users wouldn't be with out a mouse.
There is a very big difference between absolute positioning as with a mouse or wiimote and relative positioning as with a stick or keys. It's a matter of speed, yes. But speed and immediacy is exactly what people want the most. That's why timeshare computers went away and "realtime", "online" computing is taken for granted today.

What I would like out of the Wiimote is absolute 3d positioning. Your analogy of timeshare computing and interfaces is a major stretch. More speed is always optimal in all ways : processing power, data access, and internet bandwidth, not just interface.

 

[Squeak]

AI, physics, and of course interface advancements will require vastly more power to fill out every potential vision of games.

Unless you can come up with a game idea the requires very fine grained physics simulation, then no. I don't know what kind of AI you mean, but even scientists working with the worlds most powerful computers haven't been able to do something even approaching AI, only seperate elements are in place.
AI is best fudged, like flocking behavior and complex scripting and careful facial animation

There's a bit more to all this than that. It's not going to be possible to sell 'baby steps' in control like the Wii for very long, I'd be surprised if ANY platform did such a small leap as the Wiimote and was successful in the future. Then you consider the life span of a platform. Can you go 10 years on PS3, if you can't think of a more substantial advancement in other areas (such as the Wiimote, but a bigger jump)?

Well, the next logical step, that would feel like a step, is real VR with HMD and gloves and tactile feedback. That should be possible if the computing hardware costs next to nothing, so all the money can be spend on displays and actuators.

I disagree with that. That's the way you designed primitive videogames (such as Mario's design in Donkey Kong), but many visual elements aren't limited anymore, yet stylization still occurs, probably more than ever before. Lots of reasons for this than technical limits...

You misunderstand. This is not a suggestion, this is fact. And not just in a shallow way, it's in a very deep and all-encompassing way.
The way we shape all our things and ornaments, houses, cars, lamps etc. all have deep roots into the past. Sometimes in non obvious ways, but none the less.

They should be applauded for cunning business practice, but not for healthy game design or bringing value to the customer. Basically it's greed over good.

Don't start about greed! microsoft is so greedy and scared they won't get a foothold in the videogames market, that they are willing to jeopardize hardware quality and earnings, to no avail. Resulting in record losses over two generations and millions of unhappy consumers. That is unhealthy and greedy.

I don't see what you're getting at here. I agree a gimmick market will dry up fast. Elements such as story and theme are critical to entertainment products overall, even if they aren't critical to gameplay and fun. Games can be like sports or like books or anything in between. I don't think that range will ever change, just as these basic values to entertainment haven't changed over thousands of years.

Story is a very unclear, fuzzy, all incompassing term, but I agree theme is all-important

But the fact is, any visual artistry can be attained on a 360 or PS3 easier than on a Wii. Just because you have more options doesn't mean you can't choose a simpler style. You're not forced to realism on 360 or PS3, but you are forced to LESS on a Wii.

The same can be said for any tool/medium. There will always be something "better" in some way or the other.

Simply a choice. Which would you prefer, the option of making a black and white movie, or the option of making a black and white movie or a color movie. More choices = more options for creative freedom. That's all there is to it.

If we had just started out with colour, it would never have occurred to us to use black and white as a style, because it wouldn't have the connotations it does to us now. The same goes for all stylistic elements.
That's what good limitations is about.

Simulating physics without using actual physics is FAR LESS EFFICIENT. Imagine writing animations for every potential outcome in GTA4's character movement? You'd fill up an infinite amount of RAM. Better to just calculate the physics.

Where did I imply anything like that?

Seaman is not convincing in the traditional sense. You would never believe that Seaman was intelligent at all.

Did you play it?! It had me doubting at some points.

What I would like out of the Wiimote is absolute 3d positioning. Your analogy of timeshare computing and interfaces is a major stretch. More speed is always optimal in all ways : processing power, data access, and internet bandwidth, not just interface.

Faster response with the interface is very very important, ask any UI designer. Double that, with something as crucial and often done as moving the pointer.

 

[Farid]

Let's answer the OP question

I'll go against the grain and stay on topic! To answer the original question, I'd say: it depends.

If the thread opener thinks of interlaced rendering as in field rendering, which can be summed-up as alternatively rendering only the visible lines (only odd or only even) when outputting in interlaced mode and thus effectivelly rendering only a half-sized frame buffer. Then a refreshing rate of 25Hz (for PAL) or 30Hz (for NTSC) is out of question. It would look garbled and simply painful to withstand.

Field rendering mandates 60Hz refresh rate for your framebuffer writes. And to answer the question on whether it would be possible on Wii, I'd say that technically yes, it would be possible, but it might not be worth the trouble on the platform (fillrate is not an issue on Wii) and more importantly it would break compatibility with some HDTV/Proscan EDTV sets. The end users would have to switch back to 480i to play that Wii game.

Also, there might be a TRC (technical requirement checklist) item from Nintendo that requires every games to render in a proscan mode.

For what it worth, and for information's sake, I think that the only game that used field rendering on Xbox and GC was Kung-Fu Chaos.

 

[keptcopsup]

Sorry, it's too much fun to stray from the topic. Anyways, I think it has been pretty well covered anyways.

Unless you can come up with a game idea the requires very fine grained physics simulation, then no. I don't know what kind of AI you mean, but even scientists working with the worlds most powerful computers haven't been able to do something even approaching AI, only seperate elements are in place.
AI is best fudged, like flocking behavior and complex scripting and careful facial animation

Well we can't even simulate flowing water outside of tech demos. We still have a ways to go to have 'nice' physics. What about a dam that bursts and you want to simulate the raging water, can't do that today...

I agree that true AI is a very long ways off, 50-100+ years. But that's not because of lack of research and understanding, it's due to the fact that the simplest things require tons of power. Just as one example, think of image recognition. To do it in a computer you'd have to have a massive database of image data, 3d data and all of that, 1000's of TB probably, then you need the bandwidth to sort through all of that data extremely fast. Obviously this AI would potentially be more accurate than a human brain, but you can see what kind of power it would take.

Well, the next logical step, that would feel like a step, is real VR with HMD and gloves and tactile feedback. That should be possible if the computing hardware costs next to nothing, so all the money can be spend on displays and actuators.

I think the biggest problem with VR or HMD is public acceptance. I personally would love the stuff, but I'm worried it won't catch on.

You misunderstand. This is not a suggestion, this is fact. And not just in a shallow way, it's in a very deep and all-encompassing way.
The way we shape all our things and ornaments, houses, cars, lamps etc. all have deep roots into the past. Sometimes in non obvious ways, but none the less.

Well that doesn't take away from the basic facts of the main points we were discussing. I don't want to get into discussing the science and philosophy of art, but once again, the more options the better.

Don't start about greed! microsoft is so greedy and scared they won't get a foothold in the videogames market, that they are willing to jeopardize hardware quality and earnings, to no avail. Resulting in record losses over two generations and millions of unhappy consumers. That is unhealthy and greedy.

Ehh, MS does have a foothold in games, they've had that for a long time. All companies are motivated by greed. Good for us that both Sony and MS had billions to put into R&D and yet still sold their hardware for a loss (at least for a while). This does directly equal profit for the consumer. Millions of unhappy consumers? I dunno about that. BTW, MS has been making profits on their Xbox division for a while, and that even includes the dud Zune.

If we had just started out with colour, it would never have occurred to us to use black and white as a style, because it wouldn't have the connotations it does to us now. The same goes for all stylistic elements.
That's what good limitations is about.

I disagree that's where all styles come from, but now you've left me debating with myself on if black & white is really a style or simply a manipulative device...

Where did I imply anything like that?

"When you get down to simulating individual grains of sand you are really into the realm of eye candy, and this could be done far more efficiently with other means."

Well, I thought you were taking the grains of sand thing a bit far. You can't truly simulate the nature of sand without actually simulating it. Water is a far more important example.

Did you play it?! It had me doubting at some points.

Yes, of course. I have an audio cassette of myself playing. With the amounts of time I'd be saying 'Hey' and it wouldn't respond at all, or when I'd answer a question clearly and it wouldn't understand in the slightest, really destroys any illusion, but it was a cool game. He had some wise stuff to say at least.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

If you strike the fps down, the Wii shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

That was a good one!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Faster response with the interface is very very important, ask any UI designer.

Exactly. Which is why Wii's gesture recognition for things like jumping or sword-swipes are so superior to button presses...

Double that, with something as crucial and often done as moving the pointer.

1) How many gameplay systems need a pointer?

2) How many cannot be mapped to a stick? Your point was Wii can handle games through Wiimote that the other systems can't do, not that they couldn't do as well.

You point at the top of this thread is ironic when devs choose to cramp the interface with poor gesture controls, but that's a matter of software design, no hardware choices. Looking at some of the better titles on Wii, SSBB, MK and MG, all would work just as well on PS360, and look better to boot even preserving the sme graphical styling. Other games like Wario Smooth moves could be handled similarly through camera interfaces or sixaxis. There are a few titles, like Elebits, which won't work at all well without a Wiimote, but I'd say there are just as many titles on PS360 that won't work at all well on Wii because the hardware isn't up to the job. All platforms have constraints, forcing the developers to make choices. In this instance though, Nintendo could have chosen to give their developers much more flexibility by choosing better hardware, which is what some folk are complaining about.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Yes! Goddamn that machine using 20 W of power max and it's lack of HD graphical power!

LOL........

 

[ShaidarHaran]

I'm not saying anything anyone here doesn't already know, but the Wii is simply not capable of producing *comparably* impressive graphics in this generation. It's all about the gameplay.

 

[sfried]

I'm not saying anything anyone here doesn't already know, but the Wii is simply not capable of producing *comparably* impressive graphics in this generation. It's all about the gameplay.

I wouldn't write it off like that. I'll honestly wait untill a developer like Factor 5 or High Voltage who know TEV architecture inside out to show us what it's capable of.

 

[Mobius1aic]

I'm not saying anything anyone here doesn't already know, but the Wii is simply not capable of producing *comparably* impressive graphics in this generation. It's all about the gameplay.

"It's all about the gameplay" is one of the stupidest statements I keep hearing when it comes to the Wii. People forget that the CPU, GPU, and RAM are absolutely integral to a game and will give you a set of limits. Would you go back to the original Medal of Honor, and say it's more immersive than Medal of Honor Airborne? Yes many game genres already work well within the Wii's operational limits, but the sheer capabilities of the PS3 or the 360 allow for some amazing things. I've had a game idea I've been somewhat developing on my own conceptually, and I can tell you now, the Wii would be a terrible system to develop for when I would need large amounts of RAM and long range draw distance that the Wii really can't facilitate for without sacrificing other aspects, though I'm very interested to see how Monster Hunter 3 turns out.

 

[Squeak]

but once again, the more options the better.

1: Are the options really that great when costs, learning and assets are considered?
2: More tools, are just that. Without a great artist behind them nothing good will come out of the work. If the artist prefer at certain set of tools because he likes the mindset and overall philosophy of the manufacturer behind them better than others, then who are we to say he/she is wrong? Even if they are slightly simpler he/she might prefer the overall package.
I'd much prefer a sketch made by Turner over a painting with full palette and a hundred brush sizes made by some random ham artist.
More tools are not necessarily bad, but they aren't as important as they are cooked up to be in a place like this. And they can be distracting and draining too.

Ehh, MS does have a foothold in games, they've had that for a long time. All companies are motivated by greed. Good for us that both Sony and MS had billions to put into R&D and yet still sold their hardware for a loss (at least for a while). This does directly equal profit for the consumer. Millions of unhappy consumers? I dunno about that. BTW, MS has been making profits on their Xbox division for a while, and that even includes the dud Zune.

They have a small foothold in PC games, and that's fine, but they are hellbent and desperate to conquer the console/set-top box marked too.

They are running deep in the red now and for the rest of this generation, partly, but not solely thanks to their RRoD screwup. No amount of over charging for basic peripherals and (free on other platforms) per to per online play will save them.
It's just a matter of when the shareholders gets real angry...

Companies (not indifferent shareholders) are not motivated by greed. They are motivated by pride and satisfaction. Or as with some companies, fear and envy.
Money is a means, not an end.

Exactly. Which is why Wii's gesture recognition for things like jumping or sword-swipes are so superior to button presses...

Look, we can agree that some of the choices made by developers of mapping traditionally button stuff to the movement sensors, was missjudged, even some made by Nintendo. But then something that clearly shows the huge potential, like the spin stuff in Galaxy, comes along.
Motion sensing is clearly more geared toward the physical satisfaction of correspondence between movement and on-screen action. Ie. not something that should be overdone.
It does have one huge advantage over buttons though: You won't need to take your fingers off the buttons at any time.

1) How many gameplay systems need a pointer?

No gameplay systems need a pointer. You could play any game with a NES pad through menus and real cumbersome slow movement with the d-pad. Hell, if you really stretched it, you could play any game with one button, with an elaborate enough interface! But people don't want that!

2) How many cannot be mapped to a stick? Your point was Wii can handle games through Wiimote that the other systems can't do, not that they couldn't do as well.

The difference between relative positioning and absolute positioning is not just incremental. It's a completely different thing. It's a state change.
It's like positioning a cotton ball by blowing at it, or just picking it up and putting it down where you want it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't disagree with that, but how many games are going to benefit from it, such that the gameplay is fundamentally different and non-repeatable on the other systems? You basically said Wii can support lots of games PS360 can't, but there isn't much PS360 can do that Wii can't. I say it's not that clear-cut. The games Wii can do that would be principally impossible on PS360, like Elebits, are few and far between. The key difference is player immersion, and players like to swing their arms around, so a gesture for a sword swing that could be more accurately and effectively achieved with a button press - the same gameplay - is still a different game experience on Wii. But the gameplay itself is no different on the whole. And for each Elebits or Boom Blox or pointer-dependent game, you have titles on the PS360 that can't be done on Wii because it hasn't got the horse-power to handle them, like GTA4 or Hydrophobia or emotional character-based thingies like Heavy Rain that need to handle very subtle, accurate animation systems.

The trade off of Wiimote for extra power is not a sure-fire gain in overall gameplay options. It, like all choices between different finite systems, has resulted in a subset of all the game possibilities out there being possible on Wii. Likewise the PS360 choices have produced a subset of possible games for those systems. And if Nintendo had put in better hardware in their console, the subset of possibilities would have been broader and the end experience better. The only people who'd suffer would be Nintendo share-holders who wouldn't make as much profit as they are now!

 

[sfried]

My problem with this thread is people's underestimation of "horsepower" with TEV, as they just assume that TEV can't do anything that PS/3/60 games can, which is untrue.

Again, might I point people to High Voltage's Quantum3 Engine? I don't see many developers utilizing the hardware at least as much as these developers do. Clearly most of them invest little time to learn the TEV architecture.

I'm not saying Wii is as powerfull as PS/3/60, but it surely isn't incapable either. It definately has more horsepower than people would imagine, as they constantly only keep comparing it to a PS2.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

As they say, seeing is believing. I would love to see developers get all this power out of a device, basically, 1.5x more powerful than the Gamecube.

 

[Squeak]

As they say, seeing is believing. I would love to see developers get all this power out of a device, basically, 1.5x more powerful than the Gamecube.

1.5x doesn't necessarily mean only slightly better. There is such a thing as critical mass and bottlenecks that get drastically better with only a "small" upgrade.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Is Heavy Rain out yet? Do we really know how much of the gameplay is actually dependent on minute facial animations? In my limited experience, mostly with the PS3, the main thing it offers over last-gen is 16x the RAM. That can make for much bigger game worlds. Burnout Paradise might not be doable with only 64 MB. Also, the potentials of online have really opened up with the faster CPUs and bigger memory. Most of the other stuff I've experienced really does feel like it's more on the "eye candy" side of things, and that includes physics and animation. I think so many of the fundamentals of 3D gameplay were nailed down last gen that it's really hard to go anywhere and make it feel much different. Last gen, we had incredibly lifelike driving sims, action flight games with buttery smooth controls, immersive open worlds, battles where the screen was filled with AI characters, fighting games with interactive environments, stealth games relying on manipulating light and shadow, AI enemies that could crush mediocre and unskilled players, and first person shooters with massive environments and convincing physics. We didn't have those things in the PS1/N64 era, or they were so rude and primitive as to make even incremental improvements seem like huge leaps. But now, we seem to have those fundamentals down so well that a whole lot of current-gen titles feel like last-gen titles with a fresh coat of paint and the walls pushed back a bit. It's sort of like how SNES games had the fundamentals of 2D games down so well that another 2D console, despite of course offering many more possibilities with the additional power, wouldn't have really felt like it was offering a fundamentally new range of play.

I do think Wii offers a new look at an old fundamental, control, with the opportunity to nail down the fundamentals of control in a way that the old thumbsticks didn't allow. The Wii is only the first generation effort, so it might not be really nailed down until next gen. And of course, it all comes down the games, and Wii just isn't getting many of those.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

1.5x doesn't necessarily mean only slightly better. There is such a thing as critical mass and bottlenecks that get drastically better with only a "small" upgrade.

That is. of course, assuming there were major bottlenecks before, correct?