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

[tongue_of_colicab]

Thats the thing I don't get. You can buy tablets for 80 euros that include (apart from nfc) the same, and more hardware as the pad so why does that have to be 100+ euro's? Obviously Nintendo wants to earn a good chunk of money on it (just like everybody does with selling 50 euro controllers that probably don't cost more than a coulpe of euro's to produce) but still if others can sell 80 euro and less tablets than surely the pad can't be that expensive to make.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I would have preferred that the gamepad charged from a dedicated charging port off of the wuu itself or a boosted USB connection. Wall warts and power cords crawling all over the place are just untidy and hellishly unsightly.

It isn't going to have a very long battery life and they'll want you to be able to keep it charging next to the couch, not up by your tv, or even to be able to play while charging.

 

[Acert93]

It's the first of the next-gen consoles!

Console gaming is dead?

Wait, wuh? What a way to start a thread... maybe because it is basically a 7 year old piece of hardware with a tablet at a premium price and nothing shown to be compelling in terms of software and services may be the big ho hum. Ya' think?

 

[mczak]

It's the first of the next-gen consoles!

Console gaming is dead?

Well still no details about the used chips so not much interesting to discuss .

 

[Prophecy2k]

I don't think mobile devices have to completely replicate the console gaming experience to divert attention and money from consoles.

"Good enough" gaming and a lot of other entertainment options that consoles don't offer or don't do as well, for fraction of the price, may be enough for a lot of would-be console buyers.

Or even some people buy consoles but don't use it as much or buy as many games, because a mobile device is always nearby, turns on right away.

I gotta just address something critically flawed with this statement...

Which tablet is currently being sold for a "fraction" of the price of a console? Because last time I checked, all the flagship tablet models are all twice the price of a console or even more... :-S

 

[Rodéric]

Pre-ordered one, shame the Premium version comes in black though I'd have preferred white...
(Should add that it's because Amazon.co.uk got the price of Premium @ 199.99£ for a short while on their website, wondering whether they'll respect it or not since I have proof of ordering at that price.)

Skipped this gen, intend to get the best Wii games (that won't get new versions soon on Wii U).

Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Bayonetta 2, 'nuf said.

 

[Grall]

Skipped this gen

Shame... The PS3 is probably the best bluray player on the market, if you care for buying your own movies in physical form that is.

Well, except for power draw perhaps, although the slim version is considerably better there. Noise too, and the slim is a bit more egregious there with its higher pitched fan. But on the whole, a really nice player. And at least I love the bluetooth remote that you don't need to aim.

 

[wco81]

I meant the entertainment content available for smart phones and tablets. There are few if any $60 games, or even $20 games.

You have access to other entertainment. Not sure how much the movie services on consoles vs iOS and Android compare.

 

[GuestLV]

Any news about will be 8-32gb flash drive upgradable?

 

[Brad Grenz]

Don't think so. But you can use any SD card, or USB mass storage you want.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I meant the entertainment content available for smart phones and tablets. There are few if any $60 games, or even $20 games.

I see, however it's not an apples to apples comparison. As the kinds of games available on tablets are the same type that populate the console online platforms which do exist. People always forget that XBLA, steam and PSN provide platforms with similarly priced games to iOS and andriod, yet still with better production values and larger scopes. So it's not as simple as just 0.99c vs $60 games, as consoles have a much broader pricing range this generation.

It's no use comparing the prices of $0.99 angry birds to $60 Halo 4, as one provides vastly better content and entertainment value which makes it worthy of the purchase at that price. It's not as if we're getting full COD games or games with the scope of Halo or Assassins Creed, with the same FX and production values on tablets... And if we were, there's no way they wouldn't be a similar price as on console, with the exception of freemium games, which exist on consoles too.

You have access to other entertainment. Not sure how much the movie services on consoles vs iOS and Android compare.

Movies purchase and rental prices are similar on all services. I don't think the differences even if they do exist are big enough to be meaningful. If anything i'm sure that iOS is one of the most expensive platforms for movie/video content, as alot of the studios ensure it is so so that Apple can't become the primary streaming/download platform like they are with iTunes and music.

 

[wco81]

Well a 99 cent game may not provide as much depth or longitivtiy as a console game but I don't agree that it necessarily provides less value.

For some, it may be bang for buck equation. If a 99 cent game can give you several hours of entertainment, who's to say that's less value than a dozen hours of a shooter game?

Graphics and control are better on consoles but "gameplay" is an elusive concept, which can't be nailed down to more polygons, more AA or best use of the analog stick or whatever.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I gotta just address something critically flawed with this statement...

Which tablet is currently being sold for a "fraction" of the price of a console? Because last time I checked, all the flagship tablet models are all twice the price of a console or even more... :-S

It's not really flawed in the context of a Late 2013 launch of PS4/Xbox3.

Right now the Nexus 7 is $199, likely by next November you'll be able to get one of these Tegra3's for $~99. At the same time, Xbox3 will probably launch at $400-500 . Then there's the extra controller, and 1 game for $60. Compared to a tablet which need no extra controller, and can get 30-50 games for that same amount of money.

I think you guys are looking in the wrong direction though... it's not tablets that will eat the console lunch, it's a future SteamBox, or Ouya, or someother set top box with cheap diverse content like we see currently on Steam and Andriod/iOS.

The days of casual gamers buying $60 games for _any_ platform is severely numbered.

 

[liolio]

It's not really flawed in the context of a Late 2013 launch of PS4/Xbox3.

Right now the Nexus 7 is $199, likely by next November you'll be able to get one of these Tegra3's for $~99. At the same time, Xbox3 will probably launch at $400-500 . Then there's the extra controller, and 1 game for $60. Compared to a tablet which need no extra controller, and can get 30-50 games for that same amount of money.

I think you guys are looking in the wrong direction though... it's not tablets that will eat the console lunch, it's a future SteamBox, or Ouya, or someother set top box with cheap diverse content like we see currently on Steam and Andriod/iOS.

The days of casual gamers buying $60 games for _any_ platform is severely numbered.

I do agree I would add some more actors: Apple, MSFT, Google (by proxy).
Even MSFT would compete with it own xbox if things were not to go accordingly to the plan.

In a couple of years TSMC and Samsung 22nm process are going to hit the street, ARM is going to have hard design for its brand new ISA, high end Mali GPU may provide quiet a few couples of hundred MFLOPS, die stacking and/or wide IO may provide those devices with loads of bandwidth.

If I loof only at Nintendo its a really bad omen (as they are not even likely to attract much core players). Damned they have a CPu that is weaker than a A15, it's not like it is running at crazy high speed or they have only three of them...

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I thought we didn't know the hardware specs (cpu) for the Wiiu yet?

 

[Grall]

We don't - other than in very broad terms; triple-core CPU with ~3MB cache (probably eDRAM), a GPU with 32MB eDRAM, ~2GB system RAM which of only half will be available to games, and 8 or 32GB onboard flash storage. Bluray optical drive tech but proprietary disc format; limited to 25GB single-layer for now at least. Then b/g/n wifi, 4 USB slots and video out ports; that's pretty much it.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

1GB of RAM available to games?

I hadn't heard that. Why would they nerf their console so much on something that is so inexpensive? I can understand not going state of the art with the CPU or GPU, but that's a fairly inadequate amount of RAM if they expect this console to still be on the shelves in 2014.

 

[ERP]

1GB of RAM available to games?

I hadn't heard that. Why would they nerf their console so much on something that is so inexpensive? I can understand not going state of the art with the CPU or GPU, but that's a fairly inadequate amount of RAM if they expect this console to still be on the shelves in 2014.

If the bulk of what they are expecting from 3rd parties is PS3/360 ports why would they need more?

 

[V3]

Can Wii U play Gamecube and Wii games ? on that tablet controller ?

How far is tha range of that tablet controller ?

At the moment I'm just not feeling it for the Wii U. The hook just isn't there and with that hook they're competing with other tablets on the market. They didn't even bother upgrading the Wiimote for WiiU.

 

[Grall]

If the bulk of what they are expecting from 3rd parties is PS3/360 ports why would they need more?

The logical counter argument to that would be that the PS360 won't be on sales for that much longer, relative to the Wuu, and the source of ports would be like a well quickly drying out. The console has to stand on its own legs/merit if it's to become a lasting, viable choice.

Lots of RAM would therefore help.