Speculation time: Wii HD

[GwymWeepa]

What do you think would be realistic to expect out of a successor to Wii? Tell me when you think it will come out, and what sort of technology you would like to see incorporated in it, or what you think Nintendo will realistically build.

Ok as for me, I actually need some help from those who are more tech saavy. I hope, and think is realistic, to expect Wii in 4 years (a shorter life cycle, similar to handheld business model), and again a 250 dollar price tag. So what is realistic to expect in 4 years time with a 250 dollar BOM? I assume there will be embedded nand flash ram and full backwards compatibility, but how much nand ram, main ram, what lvl cpu and gpu can you cram in there for 250 bucks?

 

[Acert93]

I think we could see Wii2 in 4 years--2010. Funny we think the same thing I think the reason will be business wise: I think MS will be aiming for 2010-11, likely 2011. Sony will most likely be set for 2011-12 and market share and MS, and how they wish to counter, will dictate when. With the hype build up for these new consoles I think Wii is going to look extremely dated and will lose any intuitive advantage it has. Vast support (which tanked on both the GCN and N64 toward the end of their lifespans) as well as the Wii hardware hitting the end of the road much faster than a traditional console are all factors as well. I think subtly they will pull from the page of the GB-GBA-DS playbook and bank on the fact they are offering a new experience, as well as the fact that MS got away with a 4 year cycle based on satisfying fans as well as Wii can be fully backwards compatible in 2010 without performance issues. I think Nintendo also sees the benefit of being the first out if they have a great product... of course out early also means they could get significant design ideas "aquired".

As for technology, Nintendo has a little problem IMO. Not with hardware, but that internally they will have spent nearly a decade working on technologies and performance envelope from the 2000-2002 time frame. Just look at the learning curve we are seeing on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Just multi-core programming alone is a huge hurdle and Nintendo's developers will be effectively 5 years behind in the learning curve. Use of advanced shader tricks and designs, HDR, modern lighting and shadowing algorhyms, and so forth will be huge hurdles. We have seen a number of larger budget games... flop. It isn't an easy process, and all your artists who excelled at the GCN and spent 10 years working within those basic confines may not all have their skills transfer to new hardware. So there will be a lot of retraining and new hiring.

I think Nintendo will need a fresh strategy. While a pipedream, I think they could go with something intuitive in regards to user input + beefed up hardware that is X360/PS3 x2. e.g. Xenon like CPUs, but OOOe and more cache and higher frequency (basicly the Wii strategy but with someone elses hardware), double the memory to 1GB, and go with a more robust/user friendly GPU (e.g. eDRAM where the entire framebuffer fits). Maybe make a significant investment into a developer who creates middleware. Anyhow, with such a strategy they can capitolize on exhisting technology that will be cheap, will surpass the X360/PS3 in performance but not compete with their big brothers, and will be able to utilize tools already perfected on the current consoles (UE3/3.5, Havok, Crytek2, etc) as well as capitolize on the advances MS and Sony have made on that hardware--as well as a full pool of trained and experienced programmers and artists who excell on this hardware. And I think publishers would be happy to see all their X360 and PS3 dev tools and middleware solutions being recycled another 4-6 years on WiiHD would welcome news.

I think Nintendo trying to compete head-to-head with MS and Sony on hardware specs would be a mistake because I don't think they will be able to ramp up fast enough to compete on the software side. The PS4 is going to have Cell which is going to be well known by then, with 32-64 CPUs and most likely a NV GPU based on the "long term" relationship notes. Sony developers will be in a position to hit the road running and pushing the PS4 very hard early on. How could Nintendo compete against this? They cannot on technical merits, so I think another path is needed.

All my opinion of course.

 

[pc999]

This first depends on when they will want to release the console, which can be very inpredictible IMO. For one the less hardcore/ more "no gamers" the longer can be the life cycle, but MS and/or Sony may follow a strategy of a lower priced console with innovative/intuitive interfaces wich may force them to lounch yearly than they would need without those moves but only if that hurt them in short time, to simplify there is to much variables.

Anyway supossing a 4-5 years cycle I think that we will see more or less the same king of jump we see in GC-Wii but over 360/PS3 doing a "cheap" console again, but done in a very diferent way for one I think it will be much easier to dev for (and shaders and such should be a problem as there will be a lot of R&D by then). One other thing that I think they may very well do is a lot of hardwired things to the most comuns things (eg physics, animation...) making easier to dev than multicore tech while keeping a better performance/price/power ratio, and for new user interfaces. Anyway I would easly expect PS3,5 gfx and at least 720p (meybe even 1080p).

The real things that I think they will have problems is with interface, because now MS and Sony will both try to do what Nintendo did, but also do better and more. So for their sucess they need to be better than what MS/S will advance in that tech. I do think that somethings like standard camera/speech recg/second generation motion sensor will be standards, what will/would be interesting is to know is if there will be more than that.

I really think they will try to pursue this "new experience"/inovation things even they market it in other way because this is what give them the personalitty for being a player in such field. This is how "small" player find ways to fight those kinds of battles.

 

[NERO]

Would Nin call it the wii2 or wiiii? All of Big N's plans will be dependant on success of wii in the next 2 years. Just much too early to tell, though one can be sure that they will not drop the gimmic that is the wii-mote.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

The Wii2 will be just like nintendo ON. VR for everyone

The wii will probably last for 5 years. Iwata said to expect a 5 - 6 year life cycle. It will probably depend a bit on when sony/ms launch their new console.

Iwata also said the new Wii would support HD. If the Wii becomes a succes wii2 will probably be more or less like wii only faster, probably something like ps3/x360 wich should be cheap and small within 5 years and I doubt alot of people could care about gfx even better than ps3/x360 (most people wont even notice it probably, not to mention the devcosts) so that will probably do.

Though Sony and MS will probably copy the wiimote if it becomes a hit, wonder what will happen than.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Would Nin call it the wii2 or wiiii? All of Big N's plans will be dependant on success of wii in the next 2 years. Just much too early to tell, though one can be sure that they will not drop the gimmic that is the wii-mote.

I agree 100%. I see a lot of similarities between the Wii and the DS. Remember that Nintendo DS was not supposed to be the successor to the Gameboy Advance. It was supposed to be a separate line that would co-exist with the next version of Gameboy. However, the DS was so successful that Nintendo has put the next-gen Gameboy on indefinite hold, and the DS is for all intents and purposes THE Nintendo handheld.

So, will Wii be a sidestory, with the next-gen Nintendo system coming a few years later? Or will Wii be THE Nintendo console? It all depends on how successful it is.

 

[22psi]

2011 and they'll name it something else. Wii HD!

 

[hey69]

My thoughts on this :


no such thing as the Wii HD from nintendo.

look at the DS. if the DS was a failure, they would come out in 2 years time with a real successor to the gameboy handheld. but since the DS is a f*cking license to print money , they abandoned that for now.
It will be the same for Wii, if the wii does not sell well in 2-3 years time, Nintendo can come out with a much better (spec wise ) home console to lure back gamer who give attention to detail and gfx.

just my 53 cents

 

[fearsomepirate]

Well, they will go HD for the simple reason everyone will have HD sets then. The demand for component cables is high enough, and complaints about aliasing and such will be loud enough, that they'll go that route.

But about power...that's actually a tough call. Already, they could have put a lot more RAM in the Wii, but they seem to be pretty aggressive about trying to keep dev costs down--not just 3rd parties, but their own. Asset creation just isn't getting cheaper. Also, remember that folks with untrained eyes are looking at games we 1337 gam3z0r consider stunning (like GRAW) and are saying "This looks a lot like Xbox." PS3 -> PS4 will be an even less perceptible jump. And if Connect24 is successful, they'll need to keep the power usage down.

Wii HD will need a lot more bandwidth, RAM, and fillrate for HD graphics, but don't expect a huge jump in power. It probably won't even be as powerful as the Xbox 360 is now.

 

[Tahir2]

Answering from a different perspective perhaps Nintendo will continue its relationship with IBM and AMD-ATI but even that is in doubt as AMD-ATI can provide a complete CPU-GPU-Chipset solution at this time.

GC to Wii if believed is a not quite doubling of clockspeeds or memory capacity so Nintendo could play the same game again but then would be out of horsepower to drive HD resolutions with good IQ.

In that sense I expect Nintendo to be more aggressive with their spend on the BOM for Wii's successor, perhaps giving it performance closer to the Xbx360 and PS3 but I do not expect Nintendo to enter the technology battle next time round either. Nintendo simply do not like losing money on hardware and for a company that relies heavily on console#s for its main source of income I don't expect this to change.

 

[GwymWeepa]

It would be interesting how the ATI-AMD merger affects things. Though, being as slow as it is, Wii shouldn't be too hard to emulate, if they go for anything near current cpu technology with the next system...and when I say current, I mean a cpu available today.

Anyway, what I hope for that I think is perfectly reasonable for Ninty next-gen is a single core OOO cpu, at a nice speedy 3ghz. GPU-wise I'd like to see unified shader tech, along the lines of Xenon or the g80 (though closer is power to a xenon) and 512-1024 megs of ram. I think its doubtful they go for a full gig but man would that be nice. Internally I'd like 4GB nand flash ram. Tada, that console would be a MASSIVE leap over Wii yet incredible affordable for the time.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

How about a G5, ~X800 video card, 512 MB of RAM? Could they could conceivably release such a system in say four years for $99? It would also be trivial to maintain backwards compatibility with Wii/Gamecube, and could easily play all those games in HD with AA/AF.

Miyamoto said that he wanted Wii to cost $99. I could definitely see Nintendo's next console being cheaper than the Wii when it comes out. It all depends if the cheap, old-tech hardware strategy works for the Wii.

 

[Rolf N]

What do you think would be realistic to expect out of a successor to Wii? Tell me when you think it will come out, and what sort of technology you would like to see incorporated in it, or what you think Nintendo will realistically build.

I give it three years until the successor to the Wii releases, with full backwards-compatibility and the same basic name (something like "Super Wii" or "Wii 2").
Same basic design, same size. Possibly even fitting with current Wii stands.
Same CPU type with whatever clock bumps the process advancements allow (+50%?). Dual-core if we're really lucky.
Single-chip Hollywood with all the SRAM on die. Memory on the same package (MCM), 64 bit bus, two chips for what, 256 or 512MB "system" memory instead of Wii's (Ouuur?) 64MB. Unless something drastic happens and a different memory type becomes an attractive commodity, this will be GDDR4. No idea about the feature set of the graphics, though some forced AA+AF, for GC and Wii games at least, would be super-nice, and overall Radeon 9700-level features should be the goal now.

Rationale:
The Wii is Nintendo's ultimate platform format and they will want to hold on to it.
They finally have full convergence of all their back-catalog games and even those from old competitors in one device. The machine is as small as it can realistically get with DVD(-sized) media. It's online, ready to switch over to digital distribution eventually. It attaches to any TV. It can use flexible controllers ("classic", Gamecube, Wiimote+Nunchuck now cover pretty much all bases and don't forget that the Wiimote has a port for attachments which can be cheap/low-risk, because they don't need their own wireless transceiver).

In short the Wii covers all functionality Nintendo could want from a games console in one neat physical device. The next step is not reinvention nor extension but refinement.

Enter the DSlite. That thing didn't improve processing performance at all and still sold like crazy. What's different about the home consoles now and in the near future is that HDTVs are replacing SDTVs (and those stupid 1080i-only "HDTV" widescreen CRT SDTVs). Nintendo home consoles need to ride that wave too at some point, and three years from now would be prudent timing.

"Console life-cycles are five years" isn't an absolute truth. There are/have been reasons for that cycle time but they don't apply necessarily to every games console, and AFAICS they don't apply to the Wii. If you have perfect backwards-compat and position yourself to repeat it in a following generation, there's no need to maximize the time developers can spend "getting to grips" with a machine. Developers with Gamecube experience can hit the ground running on the Wii. This is one of the very few inherent strengths of the Wii base hardware. Chances are, developers with no Gamecube experience who start Wii development in the near future will hit the ground running when Wii's successor launches.

 

[fearsomepirate]

If software and hardware sales are strong after 3 years, they won't release a new system. But if they flag a bit, remember how a few N64 games had improved texture quality and whatnot if they supported the Expansion Pak? Well, they could release a Wii HD that supported HD graphics and had more power/memory than Wii, but is 100% BC. Thus, they could avoid disgruntled early adopters (think: Sega CD/32X/Saturn fiasco) by requiring licensees to have games capable running in a "Wii SD" mode. Games have had scalable assets on PC for years, so I don't see why they couldn't do that on a console, plus it wouldn't have all the nightmares of compatibility or user-level feature tweaking. Your game would just autodetect which system you're running on, and that would be that.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Wii2 or WiiHD should arrive 4 to 6 years after Wii. some might argue for a 4 year lifecycle thus Wii2 in 2010, but I think Nintendo wants Wii to last longer. but then maybe not. 2011 seems the right time for Wii2. I'm gonna go out on a very thin limb and say Nintendo brings back a Power Glove type controller with even more advanced sensing controls, force feedback, etc. or this glove could be in place of the Nunchuck that attaches to the Wii Remote 2. heh.

HD resolution won't be good enough and does not even matter to me, even though Wii2 will have it. what I want is far better graphics, not resolution. you can get away with 480i if the graphics looked almost CG-like. I have no idea if Nintendo will go that path, but they will need a serious upgrade in GPU and CPU. they will need a GPU that's stronger than G80 and R600 even if it doesn't match the GPUs in the Third Xbox and PS4. maybe a completely new way of rendering graphics than what we have now with everthing being shader based.

another important area will be the removal of an optical disc drive (slow, has moving parts which break down, and optical disks get ruined to easily). I WANT a move back to solid-state ROM media of some kind. I don't care if the storage capacity is not huge. DVD is more than enough IMO. what really matters is speed and streaming to RAM, and durability. no I don't mean going back to 16-bit era cartridges, im talking about some new modern solid-state storage media. small, like an SD card (maybe a little larger) and FAST. faster than the fastest optical disk. Blu-ray, HD-DVD is not the answer and neither is the next-gen HVD / holographic discs. I suppose a DVD drive will be needed to maintain backward compatibility with Wii. but the main format for the next Nintendo should be solid state.



price should be $200 to $300.

 

[Teasy]

GC to Wii if believed is a not quite doubling of clockspeeds or memory capacity so Nintendo could play the same game again but then would be out of horsepower to drive HD resolutions with good IQ.

Actually Wii has much more then double the memory capacity of GC. Also processing power is likely more then double even though clock speed is only +50%, though we don't know that for sure so that's just my opinion

I think the answer to the question posed in this thread really depends a lot on wether Nintendo insist on keeping full backwards compatability with GC and Wii games. I think Nintendo could have produced a more powerful system for the same price as Wii had they not been so set on perfect GC backward compatability.

 

[Rolf N]

Actually Wii has much more then double the memory capacity of GC. Also processing power is likely more then double even though clock speed is only +50%, though we don't know that for sure so that's just my opinion

I think the answer to the question posed in this thread really depends a lot on wether Nintendo insist on keeping full backwards compatability with GC and Wii games. I think Nintendo could have produced a more powerful system for the same price as Wii had they not been so set on perfect GC backward compatability.

I think that's really a key point of the Wii design. IMO Nintendo has very carefully studied their competition, and what they learned there has moved them to, in a way, build their very own Playstation 5, but without the risk of slogging along lots of old-gen silicon.

Call it a hunch but I'm 105% convinced they will not backpedal on that with their next machine.
Edit: and another hunch: while Hollywood is probably adequate, in relative terms, Broadway is too weak.

 

[Fox5]

I think that's really a key point of the Wii design. IMO Nintendo has very carefully studied their competition, and what they learned there has moved them to, in a way, build their very own Playstation 5, but without the risk of slogging along lots of old-gen silicon.

Call it a hunch but I'm 105% convinced they will not backpedal on that with their next machine.
Edit: and another hunch: while Hollywood is probably adequate, in relative terms, Broadway is too weak.

Hollywood is actually weaker in comparison to the other gpus than Broadway is to the other cpus. Consoles are gpu focused anyway, prior to last gen, weren't most console cpus just the bare minimum needed to keep the rest of the system fed?

 

[22psi]

Technical question. Why can't the Wii output HD resolutions? As it is a bit more powerful than the xbox 1 (had a handful of 720p games), shouldn't it be possible? Is the resolution capped in some hw form?

 

[Fox5]

Technical question. Why can't the Wii output HD resolutions? As it is a bit more powerful than the xbox 1 (had a handful of 720p games), shouldn't it be possible? Is the resolution capped in some hw form?

Possibly lack edram for the framebuffer.
Hard limit from Nintendo.