Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

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Wii U specs are surprising, says Sonic developer
Wii U GPU and memory better than expected
http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/41185/wii-u-specs-surprising-says-sonic-developer/
In an interview with ONM, Steve Lycett spoke of the challenges his team faced when developing Sonic And All-Stars Racing for Wii U.
"There are always surprises and unexpected challenges when you develop on a new console," said Lycett. "When we first got our hands on the kit, the first surprise was the capability of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). We'd been worried that we might need to re-engineer all the effects and shaders in the game, but they worked just fine."
The Sumo producer also complimented the memory which has helped his team make Sonic Racing look smart on Wii U. "The Wii U looks as good as any of the HD platforms. The Wii U has way more memory, so we can take advantage of that with less compression on elements and textures, so it will look all lovely and shiny."
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Way more memory fits with the working assumption of 2GB.

Also throw out there that gamescom witnesses say AC3 playing side by side Wii U and PS3 version PS3 was noticeably superior.
 
From GamesRadar:

Graphics compared to PS3/360

The good news: Everyone wants to know how the machine's shaping up against its peers. I can confirm visual quality has improved tangibly in ZombiU. Having played the E3 demo at an event in London a few months back, the difference is evident in the new Buckingham Palace level. The edges of the characters are no longer razor-sharp, movement seems more fluid and the game now looks about on par with a modern Xbox 360 title.

But a cross-platform comparison is what you want, right? Well get this: Assassin's Creed III is up and running on the Wii U. I watched a PR rep play the Battle of Chesapeake Bay section (the one with the ships from E3) and was initially impressed. Dynamic shadows and wave effects make for a very organic game world. It's busy, dramatic… the console runs it with relative ease. At least on first glance…

The bad news: The PS3 version was playing beside it – and the difference is night and day. Right now, PS3's version of Assassin's Creed III is, simply put, better. Even gamers without my robot eyes would be able to see the difference.

Smoother edges, better frame-rate, more detailed textures… it's akin to the kind of difference we used to see in multiplatform games when the PS3 version would look shaky in comparison to Xbox 360 release. It could change before release of course, but that's how it is right now.
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The hardware

The good news: It seems that the GamePad's screen doesn't need loads of processing power to get it working in tandem with the on-screen action. Case in point: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which will apparently feature a five-player mode, with four players on the TV in split-screen and another on the GamePad. That's mighty impressive and we can't wait to see it in action.

The bad news: We saw Wii U units crash more than once during the show. Granted, we're looking at unfinished and therefore unstable code, but we saw the hardware freeze up during Rayman (which was rock-solid and finished-looking last time we saw it), to which the PR rep said 'it's been doing this all day – I think it's overheating or something'. That's a little concerning – it wasn't even that hot in the room. Assassin's Creed also locked up and had to be reset. Could just be a pre-release bug, of course. Could be.

More bad news in the shape of controller lag. I played Rayman Legends with the new Pro Controller (the one that looks like an Xbox 360 pad) and it was fine – as good as you'd expect...

..yet for the Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed demo, I was told that the hardware keeps being revised. As if to prove the point, the Pro Controller I used to try the split-screen two-player mode was reportedly a new wireless version, although it was being powered by a cable running from the machine as it doesn't have on-board power yet.

To make matters worse, this new controller iteration only works within about three feet of the console right now – and the input lag on it was dreadful. The GamePad's input response was fine – so there's something wrong with this version of the Pro Controller. It will not be like this at launch, I'll tell you that for nothing, but why is it still like this now?
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How finished is it?

The good news: The Assassin's Creed 3 demo ended with the PR rep saying "That's the Wii U version, you can play the PS3 version on the showfloor and the Vita game is at the back of the room. Release date is October 31 for all versions." So I asked: "Is that Wii U as well?" to which he replied: "Er… that one's TBA, I think". What do you reckon - a little tongue slip revealing an October release for Wii U, or just a flustered PR forgetting about a staggered release schedule?

The bad news: If it is meant to be launching in October or even November, there's a lot to be done if it hasn't been fixed already. Any of the above can be put down to unoptimised code running on hardware which hasn't had its specs set in stone. No problem, that's the way pre-release gaming is. But surely things as fundamental as the hardware would be tied down by this late stage? Should developers still be unclear whether the GamePad will feature rumble or not? Sonic Racing dev Sumo Digital still don't know. They told us so.

This was admittedly a collection of third-party showings instead of super-slick, ultra regimented demos from the Big N itself. But in terms of how the Wii U is being presented to the press so close to launch, the overall impression I took from the show is that the machine isn't quite there yet. And at this late stage that's a bit worrying.
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I hope final version being better.
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I will say somebody on GAF posted some other blog that said the (Gamescom) Wii U version of AC3 looked significantly better than PS3 version. So yeah, maybe a case of conflicting reports anyway (although the guy above's reference to "robot eyes" leads me to believe he might be the better source). Cant wait for the Digital Foundry face-off in 3 months :p
 
PS3 is an extremely mature platform at this point in time. It totally would not surprise me if a multiplatform game looks better on the (vastly) more mature system, especially since Nintendo has AFAIK never impressed anyone all that much with their development tools. Several of their consoles alledgedly didn't even have full documentation for all of the hardware in the system, so... :LOL:
 
PS3 is an extremely mature platform at this point in time. It totally would not surprise me if a multiplatform game looks better on the (vastly) more mature system, especially since Nintendo has AFAIK never impressed anyone all that much with their development tools. Several of their consoles alledgedly didn't even have full documentation for all of the hardware in the system, so...
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PS3 finally gets to win some port wars/face offs after years of losing to 360? :p
 
Grall said:
PS3 is an extremely mature platform at this point in time. It totally would not surprise me if a multiplatform game looks better on the (vastly) more mature system, especially since Nintendo has AFAIK never impressed anyone all that much with their development tools. Several of their consoles alledgedly didn't even have full documentation for all of the hardware in the system, so... :LOL:
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But PS2 (and even Xbox) was an extremely mature platform when Xbox 360 was launched...
 
Grall said:
PS3 is an extremely mature platform at this point in time. It totally would not surprise me if a multiplatform game looks better on the (vastly) more mature system, especially since Nintendo has AFAIK never impressed anyone all that much with their development tools. Several of their consoles alledgedly didn't even have full documentation for all of the hardware in the system, so... :LOL:
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I still wish the machine were coming out and dominating the PS360 in terms of visuals. I fear Nintendo may lose more relevance with the onset of PS4 and 720. Having next gen graphics would go a long way into staying relevant. And I think Nintendo has a good chance of failing in the market place if they continue to not compete with the big boys and go their own way. There will be a point in time the market doesn't go with them. Who knows, maybe the machine will end up with way better graphics once devs get a good handle on it. But I don't see that happening. The machine isn't even a step up like the Dreamcast was to PS1/N64.
 
Sonic said:
I still wish the machine were coming out and dominating the PS360 in terms of visuals. I fear Nintendo may lose more relevance with the onset of PS4 and 720. Having next gen graphics would go a long way into staying relevant. And I think Nintendo has a good chance of failing in the market place if they continue to not compete with the big boys and go their own way. There will be a point in time the market doesn't go with them.
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I guess we'll find out whether they are geniuses or lucky in the coming year to 30 months.
 
it will be interesting, the WiiU should be able to use the exact same art/piplelines etc it just wont have the same grunt for shaders. So yuo use a simpler AO/AA/DOF etc i expect the WiiU to be closer to Xbox720/PS4 then the wii is to 360/ps3.
 
XpiderMX said:
But PS2 (and even Xbox) was an extremely mature platform when Xbox 360 was launched...
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XB360 was an order of magnitude more powerful than its predecessor. As was PS3 to PS2, and PS2 to PS1 etc. That's how they could provide much improved visuals from the start even with a lack of developer experience and tools (not quite so applicable to MS's consoles which have benefited from their PC tools and always been good out of the gate).

WiiU we know on the other hand isn't a massive advance on this generation. If you imagine PS3 launching next year with its launch titles alongside XB360's current titles (or vice versa) it'll look very weak by comparison due to lack of platform maturity. Even if PS3 came with more RAM and slightly faster clocks, the trouble learning the architecture would hold back what developers could do with it from the beginning until they came to understand it.

As a little random numbers game to illustrate, if we consider that early use of a console is maybe 50% of its total potential, then if WiiU is 1.8x as powerful as XB360, its launch games at 50% efficiency would be 0.9x as good, or slightly worse. If the dev tools are diabolical, or if the devs are focussing on the large established HD consoles and only making quick ports for WiiU, early games will suffer the more.
 
lherre is really down on the Wii U. Couple of new (now rare) comments from him. One thread asking what percent you anticipate the Wii U he replied "0%". Another one he replied to a comment saying dont judge Wii U GFX on launch software look how PS360 launch titles sucked etc, he replied "I wouldn't go down that road". Hard to say what he meant there being foreign and all, but can easily be interpreted like "this is about as good as it's going to get" or something to that effect.

Hard to say what he means but I'm beginning to consider maybe even the Wii U GPU just isn't better than PS3 and 360 GPU (as opposed to recent formative view of growing pains, bad SDK, perhaps bad CPU holding it back initially) . If so, terribly disappointing and I will lose all interest in Wii U (not that I was ever going to buy it, but at least if it was 50% more powerful then I have interest).
 
XpiderMX said:
But PS2 (and even Xbox) was an extremely mature platform when Xbox 360 was launched...
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What Shifty just said, and also remember that Wuu marketshare will be effectively 0%, so I doubt any multiplatform launch titles will receive very much spitshining at all. That's the nature of multiplatform titles; much of the time they go for common denominator level of graphics/effects, and any effort beyond that is typically directly proportional to the console's market share.

Rangers said:
lherre is really down on the Wii U.
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Tell me why I should care whatsoever what that person says. Who is he anyway? If he's even a real developer how come he can leak classified information with impunity like this?
 
Grall said:
Tell me why I should care whatsoever what that person says. Who is he anyway? If he's even a real developer how come he can leak classified information with impunity like this?
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Funnily he is :LOL: GAF moderators said he is legit, probably most legit you can find. He doesn't give exact details since he can't, but he tells what to expect.
 
Grall said:
Tell me why I should care whatsoever what that person says. Who is he anyway? If he's even a real developer how come he can leak classified information with impunity like this?
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He is not "leaking" classified info, he leaked the Wii specs some years ago, but the wii was launched before that.
 
Sonic said:
I still wish the machine were coming out and dominating the PS360 in terms of visuals. I fear Nintendo may lose more relevance with the onset of PS4 and 720.
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I dont think Wii U has a chance in the "traditional" gaming market. It has never been shown that market can really even support three consoles equally. It needs find the success elsewhere like the Wii did 3/4 of its sales from people that never bought a gamecube or any other console
 
Rangers said:
lherre is really down on the Wii U. Couple of new (now rare) comments from him. One thread asking what percent you anticipate the Wii U he replied "0%". Another one he replied to a comment saying dont judge Wii U GFX on launch software look how PS360 launch titles sucked etc, he replied "I wouldn't go down that road". Hard to say what he meant there being foreign and all, but can easily be interpreted like "this is about as good as it's going to get" or something to that effect.

Hard to say what he means but I'm beginning to consider maybe even the Wii U GPU just isn't better than PS3 and 360 GPU (as opposed to recent formative view of growing pains, bad SDK, perhaps bad CPU holding it back initially) . If so, terribly disappointing and I will lose all interest in Wii U (not that I was ever going to buy it, but at least if it was 50% more powerful then I have interest).
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I believe what lherre was referring to is that developers have much more mature tools and experience to aid developing of Wii U games compared to the early years of the 360/PS3. This doesn't mean that there will not be noticeable differences between launch titles and later-gen games,considering that the system is still "new" and will naturally have it's own growing pains.
 
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I'll take the leap to trust IBM more than people claiming Nintendo said it's "glorified Broadway"

Or perhaps it's 1 Power7 + 2 Broadways?
 
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