What, no thread about the official Wii U release date and prices?

[Shifty Geezer]

I do that all the time... Much more comfortable that way.

But even then, the effort of looking at a screen isn't massive, unless you are constantly needing to switch between screens which is poor game design. I suppose people who play FIFA with constant reference to the radar will not like the radar on a separate screen on their lap, but the ergonomic costs overall can't be all that much to most people IMO.

 

[Grall]

The wuublet will be a bit of a special case for me I reckon, due to the way it's been demonstrated to integrate with the standard screen. Like in zombiu or whatever game it was, when you aim your snipersight by waving the tablet around in front of your face - it'd be weird trying to do that looking down at my lap, so I reckon I'll have to raise the tablet up.

Wonder how comfortable that would be after a prolonged gameplay session. It would obviously depend on the weight of the wuublet - people say the retina display ipad is a bit on the hefty side, and this thing looks like it might be heavier. Maybe that's why nintendo skipped out on vibration motors this time, it'd add more weight, and battery drain too of course.

Oh and btw:

I think Grall's point is more that if it's a bitch to program in the beginning, devs will choose to ignore it because XB will offer a rival platform that'll sell every bit as well. And if the software isn't there, the console won't sell, meaning Sony won't have the install base needed to get devs to wrestle through the PS4 devtools to create products.

Yes, the chicken and the egg scenario. Devs would take it up the backside if they were guaranteed good sales, but good sales come from attractive software, but if the installed base is low, very low or nonexistant (like it is for a new console) and the only way to make software for the darned thing is to bend over and get shafted repeatedly they're not inclined to try very hard. And the end results will be lackluster, and while Joe Average Gamer may not know much about technical details and so on (or even care all that much really, especially if Joe's a kid, or a casual adult for that matter), it will still make an impression either through word of mouth, or by the fact that the shelves with PS4 games are much shorter than the ones for nextbox games.

You'd want to own the console with the biggest selection of games, typically, unless you're a diehard fanboy. So sales of consoles would suffer, and games sales would suffer as a result, which would dampen console sales, which would dampen games sales...and so on. Vicious circle.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

But even then, the effort of looking at a screen isn't massive, unless you are constantly needing to switch between screens which is poor game design. I suppose people who play FIFA with constant reference to the radar will not like the radar on a separate screen on their lap, but the ergonomic costs overall can't be all that much to most people IMO.

I don't know. I also don't play with the controller sitting in my lap, but its certainly far enough down to be out of my line of sight.

Occasionally, I'll play a FPS that has the buttons mapped all back-assward (I think Dead Island did this), and you can't change to the "traditional" layout and when I switch back and forth between the different games and start throwing grenades when I wanted meant to jump, I'll realize the control scheme has changed.

But the first thing I do when that happens is instinctively look at the controller. What button did I push? And every time that happens I have to completely take my eyes off the screen to look at the controller. And I normally die in the process.

It's true we'll have to see how it's implemented, it just seems like a poorly thought out and poorly designed piece of hardware.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know. I also don't play with the controller sitting in my lap, but its certainly far enough down to be out of my line of sight.

Well of course, otherwise it'd be blocking your view of the TV. Ijust don't think it'll be that far enough out of the way that it'd be a significant inconvenience as oramay suggests. He likens it to working on PC and referencing a book on your lap. Referencing a book requires picking up where you left off in the close-packed text, and potentially shifting your hands from book to keyboard and back. Wii U will have far clearly visuals on the tablet that text and less frequent references, or clearer ones, and the 'keyboard' and 'book' for interacting are both in your hands at the same time.

It's true we'll have to see how it's implemented, it just seems like a poorly thought out and poorly designed piece of hardware.

I don't think it can be implemented much better (ignoring stupid things like wired headsets). The console controls are attached to the screen. You can switch from dual-thumb control to a touch interface as quickly as would ever be possible, whereas an alternative phone or tablet interface on PS360 will require handling the touch device and the controller device somehow. If we're to ever see synergy between touch devices and standard consoles with dual-stick+button controllers, Wii U represents the best take on that.

 

[oramay]

I've always assumed most people have their hands resting on their crotch etc like I do when playing console games. :smile: Without accounting for the weight of any controller, simply holding my hands up for extended period is tiresome enough for me.

My book on lap analogy may be exaggerated in some respects but then again, referencing a book is usually a more slow paced activity than gaming. When I reference a book to do some work, the bottleneck in my productivity is usually my brain. I'm simply not producing content quickly enough for the act of referencing to make a big difference to my overall productivity. In gaming, even a much simpler and faster act of looking away from TV can potentially be more annoying.

Unlike a setup like Eyefinity, the TV and small screen have to time-share your eyes and brain. My question is does switching between the two happen frequently? If it does, then I think it's going to be unpleasant. If it doesn't, then I'd suggest there are cheaper ways to reproduce very similar effects in gameplay (eg. touchpad with feedback on TV) without incurring the cost of an extra screen. That's the money I'm claiming can be better spent elsewhere (lowering the price or improving the CPU etc).

 

[(((interference)))]

I really have no idea how they can be selling the Wii U at $300 and still making a loss - along with the voice chat issue, it really makes Nintendo sound increasingly incompetent.

Do we have any estimates of component costs?
The console itself can't be much more expensive than a PS3 or 360 to produce, can it? Sony and MS sell them for $50-$100 less than the Wii U's retail price and still make a profit (and the PS3 has a 160 GB HDD).

And as a lot of people have been remarked, you can get tablets with a lot more (and more expensive) componentry for around $100; with the manufacturers still making a profit on each unit, despite each selling far smaller volumes that what Nintendo is targeting.

 

[Grall]

The console itself can't be much more expensive than a PS3 or 360 to produce, can it?

And as a lot of people have been remarked, you can get tablets with a lot more (and more expensive) componentry for around $100

Well, maybe you answered your own question... Wuu is a console AND a tablet, both at once. And costs might well tend to be higher initially I can imagine when you still have to run in your supply and production chain. Total development costs are higher initially too of course.

...Anyhow, we STILL don't have a totally firm grasp on what exactly the wuu contains (and it's just a month until launch), so it's hard to give all that accurate guesses IMO.

 

[ERP]

IME people massively under estimate actual cost when they do component based cost analysis, especially when they compare to parts on the market.
I have to admit given what's in the box it's hard to see them making a loss on the hardware, but it's hard to know what that MCM is costing them at the moment.
The tablet certainly hurts COG, I have no idea by how much.
All I really know at this point is it's moer than 'm willing to pay for it, and I felt the same way about Wii.

 

[AlphaWolf]

The wuublet is not a tablet. Not even a cheap one.

 

[(((interference)))]

Well it seems Digital Foundry also doesn't think, given the hardware, Nintendo would be selling the Wii U at a loss at $300:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-and-the-last-hurrah-for-current-gen-consoles

To a great degree, price-points are defined by BOM - the Bill of Materials. On the plus side, Wii U benefits from a significantly more modern graphics core, equated by many with an entry-level enthusiast GPU a couple of generations old, provided by AMD. Our sources tell us that the hardware is rich in features compared to the Xenos core within the Xbox 360 (also supplied by AMD) but somewhat lacking in sheer horsepower: still a useful upgrade overall though. However, on the flipside, the tri-core IBM "Espresso" CPU is an acknowledged weakness compared to the current-gen consoles - the processors consisting of revised, upgraded versions of the Wii's Broadway architecture, in itself an overclocked version of the main core at the heart of the ancient GameCube. Nintendo clearly hoped that tripling up on cores, upping clock speed and adding useful features such as out of order execution would do the trick, but key developers are saying otherwise: GPU-heavy games get a boost, but CPU-dependent titles are challenging to bring over to the new platform. Debate still rages over the extent to which Wii U is a next-gen console at all, and whether its pricing fits accordingly.

The overall conclusion one can draw from the core components here is that Nintendo hasn't really paid so much attention to competitive forces, targeting a spec that can be mass-produced relatively cheaply. Areas where we know Nintendo easily outperforms Xbox 360 come to down commodity items such as RAM and flash storage: these are upgrades that won't significantly affect the bottom line.
...
Of course, Nintendo's key point of differentiation is the tablet controller - which obviously adds to the bill of materials, but once again we see a piece of technology built to a price. In a world where Chinese no-name manufacturers can develop capacitive 7-inch touchscreen Android tablets with ARM processors, 8GB of flash storage and 512MB/1GB of RAM priced at £50-£60, Nintendo's resistive screen tablet produced in the millions would clearly be significantly cheaper to mass-manufacture - even factoring in the latency free AV transmission tech.

Indeed he thinks the Wii U should have greater scope for a price cut than with the 3DS:

Bearing in mind the challenge Nintendo faces in competing against Microsoft and Sony - with a significant amount of its launch titles already out on the rival platforms - the pricing on the Nintendo console does look a touch on the expensive side, and I expected price-points closer to the original Wii - £180/$250 was instrumental in Nintendo's success back in 2006. Up against the £149/$249 4GB Xbox 360 (where prices fluctuate downwards significantly) there is the sense that Nintendo could well be repeating the mistake it made with 3DS. However, this time I suspect there is more leeway for the platform holder to cut costs if it has to.

 

[Grall]

The wuublet is not a tablet. Not even a cheap one.

Why would you say that. It has everything a tablet has, including an onboard microcontroller/SoC.

 

[(((interference)))]

Well, the actual term is 'tablet computer' (to differentiate it from other kinds of tablets, like graphics tablets) and as such the Wuublet doesn't do any kind of 'computing' when not connected to the Wii U.

So yeah, it's not technically a tablet. Not any more than your TV displaying the feed from your console is a 'computer'.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Why would you say that. It has everything a tablet has, including an onboard microcontroller/SoC.

That's like saying a lawn mower has everything a car has, including an engine.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Unless the wireless video transmission hardware is enormously expensive, to the point of incredible incompetence on Nintendo's part, it is inconceivable that the WiiU hardware itself is a loss leader. I have to believe that Nintendo's statement factors in the costs of launching the platform, rolling in R&D and possibly marketing costs to achieve the "per unit loss". The CPU is tiny. The GPU is modest. It uses commodity DDR3 memory and despite having 4 times the RAM of the 360 or PS3, probably costs less per system. Flash storage is dirt cheap. The gamepad screen is fairly low res, using a TN LCD, a cheap resistive touch sensor and small battery. It's hard to imagine where all the money is supposedly going unless the video transmission tech is way more costly and exotic than anyone could have guessed.

 

[Grall]

and as such the Wuublet doesn't do any kind of 'computing' when not connected to the Wii U.

Well actually it does do computing independently (just check out the TV remote functionality for proof of that), and in any case it's hard to imagine how it could function without any onboard computing capability, considering the huge array of various subsystems loaded into the pad including various I/O, button inputs and so on. It'd require a complex, custom-designed ASIC, which would be silly to implement really when an off-the-shelf SoC could perform the same task with much less effort and R&D expenditure.

 

[(((interference)))]

I have to believe that Nintendo's statement factors in the costs of launching the platform, rolling in R&D and possibly marketing costs to achieve the "per unit loss".

Yeah, but that doesn't seem to be what Nintendo is implying though:

the Wii U hardware will have a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits early after the launch because rather than determining a price based on its manufacturing cost, we selected one that consumers would consider to be reasonable. In this first half of the term before the launch of the Wii U, we were not able to make a profit on software for the system while we had to book a loss on the hardware, which is currently in production and will be sold below cost

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/121025/04.html

Well actually it does do computing independently (just check out the TV remote functionality for proof of that), and in any case it's hard to imagine how it could function without any onboard computing capability, considering the huge array of various subsystems loaded into the pad including various I/O, button inputs and so on. It'd require a complex, custom-designed ASIC, which would be silly to implement really when an off-the-shelf SoC could perform the same task with much less effort and R&D expenditure.

It's a tablet computer if you define 'computing' very broadly (ie. other than general purpose computing, that PCs, smartphones and tablets are capable of). But then by that definition my car, my TV, my printer etc. are all also 'computers'.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, maybe you answered your own question... Wuu is a console AND a tablet, both at once. And costs might well tend to be higher initially I can imagine when you still have to run in your supply and production chain. Total development costs are higher initially too of course.

A tablet contains RAM, CPU, GPU, IO, ports, screen. Wii U adds to that assortment a box and optical drive. Given a tablet can be got for $100 with screen and IO and CPU/GPU, that suggests to the layman (like myself!) that it shouldn't cost Nintendo too much to put just a screen and a set of buttons and sticks together, especially when the screen appears to be on the cheap side. And the contents of the box aren't pricey either going by performance. Digital Foundry's £300 PC is more powerful and built out of retail components. There are extra costs for Wii U like two PSUs, but it seems that Nintendo's choices are hurting their costs if they can't get Wii U out the door for cost.

We really need a thorough investigation in hardware costs, because it seems every box is over the price we'd expect looking at component costs.

 

[Rangers]

Unless the wireless video transmission hardware is enormously expensive, to the point of incredible incompetence on Nintendo's part, it is inconceivable that the WiiU hardware itself is a loss leader. I have to believe that Nintendo's statement factors in the costs of launching the platform, rolling in R&D and possibly marketing costs to achieve the "per unit loss". The CPU is tiny. The GPU is modest. It uses commodity DDR3 memory and despite having 4 times the RAM of the 360 or PS3, probably costs less per system. Flash storage is dirt cheap. The gamepad screen is fairly low res, using a TN LCD, a cheap resistive touch sensor and small battery. It's hard to imagine where all the money is supposedly going unless the video transmission tech is way more costly and exotic than anyone could have guessed.

A fair amount of it is likely to be the rising yen.

Remember, Nintendo gets as much for a $350 Wii U today as they did for a $250 Wii in 2006.

 

[almighty]

I'm very tempted to get one of these, and I've not been tempted by a console for years....

 

[Nesh]

I'm very tempted to get one of these, and I've not been tempted by a console for years....

I like the idea of the WiiU, but I prefer to wait. I am pretty sure MS and Sony wont ignore Nintendo's strategy and are also targeting for something similar or something that will define a new experience. Add the performance superiority expected from those and I am reluctant to invest on the WiiU just yet. A WiiU controller idea combined with a game like WatchDogs would do wonders
The current games planned for the system make me believe that there is some skepticism from third party developers too. I dont see much going on in terms of exclusive potential AAA titles.
ZombieU and Bayonetta 2 are the only ones that come in my mind.