Wii U 'Has A Horrible, Slow CPU' Says Metro Last Light Dev

[Grall]

Then 75% of the time (18 hours) could be near/at 25°C ambient or it could be at/near/above 40°C if it's left plugged in charging.

The charging circuit would of course switch off when the battery's full, or possibly go into trickle-mode. It wouldn't keep pumping electricity into the battery at the same rate as that could damage or destroy it.

Overcharging certain types of batteries give rise to gas buildup from what I've read, which is bad in of itself of course, and can also deform the casing, cause ruptures etc (fire, if the gas is combustible...and fire in lithium batteries generally is very bad, so...)

 

[orangpelupa]

so that's why my laptop battery loss 80% after 2 years . . .

btw uBlet is just a 'dumb' client right? so the working conditions will be under 40c.

 

[almighty]

It's this about the Wii U CPU or battery?

 

[NRP]

Seems to be about design decisions.

 

[orangpelupa]

that the small battery will have long life due to low working temperature due to the tablet just dumb client and all process on main machine with slow cpu.

hmm, maybe calculated decision on Nintendo to make the tablet good. (not too heavy, still long play duration like 3ds, good lithium life, etc)

 

[RudeCurve]

Not sure why that battery life chart was posted as ALL Li batteries have the same life expectancy chart.

 

[Ethereal]

I share the frustration of many about the technical drawbacks of the system, but I understand why they did it.

I'd like nothing more than to see Zelda, Mario and Metroid running on next-gen hardware, but when it comes down to it we are dealing with Nintendo's new business model, post GameCube, which is not focused on the crop of gamers who care so much about graphics or physics of games.

The new direction was necessary for them. The company didn't have the financial resources to keep up with Sony and Microsoft from a hardware perspective and still don't. Thus, their target audience became the young and the casual gamer (and, a few of the older crowd like me who's still nostalgic about its exclusives).

When you don't have the cash to compete you bank on innovation. The Wiimote was innovative in its day, and the touch screen is innovative today. Using a motion scanner/tracker and controller-based map to locate zombies and scan for inventory has made ZombieU an absolute blast to play and has brought something new and refreshing to the gaming genre, just as the motion controller did for Wii. I've played every survival horror game from Fatal Frame to Resident Evil to Silent Hill to Doom to Shadow Man.. and ZombieU is my favorite of all time. It's unique and different.

Cheap on hardware, big on innovation. As a smaller company that's how you compete. It worked with them for the Wii (sold more consoles than either Sony or Microsoft) and it'll likely work again with WiiU as long as their exclusives are hits--a sure bet outside of the GameCube lifespan. Their biggest challenge will be to make the WiiU distinguishable from the Wii to give their audience a reason to upgrade. They don't have the library for that yet.

Lastly, on a personal note, I can deal with missing out on getting to play the 6th Call of Duty to come out this decade if it means getting a chance to play something new and different. However, being the addict that I am I'm sure I'll still add one of the next-gen consoles alongside my WiiU when they come out.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But they could have been just as innovative without the hardware compromises, same as Wii. The only reason for Wii to be GC+ was BC. They could have gone with something like an ATI 9800 for some pretty SD games on Wii. Likewise, a lot of the choices regards Wii U are clearly not a matter of cost, especially considering Nintendo's financial success with Wii and DS. They have the money now to craft a well balanced system, offering decent performance and balance, but chose not to. Things like Wuublet battery life, using inbuilt SD card port for saves, RAM availability to devs, decent eDRAM BW, decent RAM BW (it's not even 22 GBs!!)...there are lots of options for considerable improvements for marginal/inconsequential cost. A 10% cost increase could produce a 50% machine improvement, sort of thing, with a lot better reception and value. Although that's the last of Nintendo's worries at the moment. They seem to be failing to convince the public, or even inform them from some anecdotes. If Joe Public doesn't care for the Wuublet experience, making a reasonably better machine wouldn't have helped Nintendo.

 

[Ethereal]

but the hardware is so bizarrely underpowered and just plain BAD (like the shitty CPU with its incredibly wonky 96-bit FPU registers and no SIMD, which has been standard on PCs for almost a decade and a half now)...what's one to think?

I can't think of any explanation that makes sense other than they were all fucking drunk off of their asses when they designed this piece of crap.

Play a game on it is all I can say. It's too easy to get lost in the technical specs of the system without giving it a fair chance. For years I dumped thousands of dollars into CPUs and GPUs on various PCs hoping I'd benefit. Not always the case.

I've played lots of survival horror games, and I've never seen one where a zombie tried to hurdle over an object, grazed it and started to fall, stumbled to regain his balance like a human body does, and then starts sprinting after me. These may have been canned animations, but they were awfully convincing. They crawl all over the ground and knock objects out of the way different directions. Every single can or piece of trash on the ground moves when you touch it, and they hear it. They sneak up on you from behind from adjacent rooms. They react to your flashlight if it crosses them.

All this with a [crappy] CPU.

But they could have been just as innovative without the hardware compromises, same as Wii.

Likely not as profitable, though. That was a big influence in their change of direction to begin with. Life was good when their only competition was Sega.. far from the behemoths that Microsoft and Sony are.

Likewise, a lot of the choices regards Wii U are clearly not a matter of cost, especially considering Nintendo's financial success with Wii and DS. They have the money now to craft a well balanced system, offering decent performance and balance, but chose not to. Things like Wuublet battery life, using inbuilt SD card port for saves, RAM availability to devs, decent eDRAM BW, decent RAM BW (it's not even 22 GBs!!)...there are lots of options for considerable improvements for marginal/inconsequential cost.

A few things come to mind here.

Firstly, I don't believe Nintendo purposefully weakens its console just because they can. I think everything they do is based on financial necessity. They're a much smaller company and don't have the additional revenue streams that MS and Sony have, so if they're not profitable in the gaming industry, they're dead in the water. They take extra precautions because of this.. especially in an ailing economy like we're in now.

Secondly, I still think a lot of this talk is based on the mindset of the minority of today's gamers which are so concerned over graphics. In my opinion, we're often too concerned about them. Eventually we're going to get to a point where graphics come to a standstill. Nothing can look better than life. Without gameplay, what's the point? Just go out and live life instead of playing out a pretty picture on your television. We still have a ways to go but even this gen games like Crysis and Sleeping Dogs are pushing the envelope. What will hardware that's 5-6x as strong accomplish?

Thirdly, does the WiiU hardware detract from gameplay? The future's uncertain, but I don't think it's harming it so far. Does Mario need to have ultra-realistic physics like a human being? Does Link? Will not realism eventually zap the fun right out of much of their lineup? Some things you want to remain fantasy-like.. some things you want to remain unlike the real world that we live in every day so they don't become boring.

There are lots of people, myself included, who can still sit down and play one of the original MegaMan games and have about as much fun as I did the first time I sat down to play it over 20 years ago. Gameplay, and not graphics, make great games. Nintendo isn't perfect, but I'm glad there's a company out there who seems to really stress this.

I guess I'm on the fence. I wish Nintendo would've built a stronger box but understand why they didn't and appreciate them sticking to their strategy of gameplay over graphics. On the other hand, like I mentioned, I'll still get one of the the two -- either Sony or MS's new console since I'm intrigued by them and next-gen graphics.

Who says you can't love both?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Who says you can't love both?

No-one. But this is a thread about the hardware in a technologically orientated forum. The design of Wii U and it's use of tablets and Nintendo's games yada yada is a whole fair discussion and you my find plenty of supporters. That doesn't change the fact that they could provide better hardware for their games that'd result in better games. I understand them playing it safe - every design choice is a compromise - but I and many others don't agree with where Nintendo drew their line, and I believe if they were a little more adventurous in their hardware, they'd sell better and have a healthier business.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Please stop with the rationalizations. Yes you guys like Nintendo but this is getting absurd.

They made wrong calls with the system. Probably rushed it too, evident because of the incomplete software on launch day.

 

[BRiT]

I'd like nothing more than to see Zelda, Mario and Metroid running on next-gen hardware, but when it comes down to it we are dealing with Nintendo's new business model, post GameCube, which is not focused on the crop of gamers who care so much about graphics or physics of games.

That goes completely against what Nintendo has told us directly, that they are going for the core gamers too. So you're saying Nintendo lied?

Anyways, the talk about Nintendo business strategy should be in it's own thread. This thread has run it's course and others exist to discuss the related topics.