The official Wii U thread Part1

[camaj]

Thought we needed one of these, can't use last years E3 thread forever. I'll probably put an FAQ here when we know a bit more.

If anyone fancies staying up late/getting up early, there's a Nintendo Direct at 5am on 22nd June. It's tempting to think they might announce something Wii U related but the page only mentions the Wii, DS and 3DS

http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo_direct

[gospvg]

http://forums.thedigitalfix.com/foru...30#post9687030

[camaj]

That's a link to the last Wii thread. Why are you linking to that?

[gjkendall]

Nintendo are going to have to pull something out the bag to make this a day 1 purchase for me...I was all over this until the half arsed E3!

[camaj]

Really? What happened at E3 that made you less excited? If anything it's made me more excited. Great 3rd party support, which isn't important to me but I understand it's importance to the success of the console and a sequel to Pikmin which is long over due. That looks great as does NSMBwu. We know we're going to get a Zelda and Mario so I think it's much better that they announced Pikmin 3 since we don't know to expect that.

There were a lot of other nice surprises too. Tank! Tank! Tank! looks good and that superhero game has me intrigued. Nintendoland looks like it could be a really good multi-player game but they really need to make it multiplayer online. Lego's GTA clone was really cool. I was expecting the same old Mario/Zelda announcements, safe but predictable.

They also finally seem to get online, they're not all the way there yet but it's 90% of what it should be compared to the Wii's 50%.

[gospvg]

Originally Posted by camaj

That's a link to the last Wii thread. Why are you linking to that?

It's Wii U thread that is currently running?
Not sure why we have another thread started

[Ravioli]

Because that's a Wii thread and this is a Wii U thread?

[Ono]

I am really looking forward to the Wii U. Only concerned is the resolution of the console - do we know for sure yet?

[camaj]

Originally Posted by gospvg

It's Wii U thread that is currently running?

As I said, it's the current Wii thread not the current Wii U thread. This is the first Wii U thread.

Not sure why we have another thread started

I addressed that up front!

Originally Posted by camaj

Thought we needed one of these, can't use last years E3 thread forever.

[kanedaa]

Originally Posted by Ono

I am really looking forward to the Wii U. Only concerned is the resolution of the console - do we know for sure yet?

It has full 1080p output, but just like 360/PS3 it's down to the game what resolution they run at. All launch titles are apparently 720p.

[camaj]

Originally Posted by kanedaa

It has full 1080p output, but just like 360/PS3 it's down to the game what resolution they run at. All launch titles are apparently 720p.

Where did you here that? I read somewhere that first party titles will be 1080p. Won't it also be the case where a game might be rendered at 720p but everything gets output at 1080p? That's my understanding of the PS3 output

[fivebyfive]

digital foundry did a tech look at e3 games thats a good read

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...-on-with-wii-u

[kanedaa]

Originally Posted by camaj

Where did you here that? I read somewhere that first party titles will be 1080p. Won't it also be the case where a game might be rendered at 720p but everything gets output at 1080p? That's my understanding of the PS3 output

Plenty of coverage during E3 about the Nintendo 1st party stuff being 720p (Pikmin, NSMB, Nintendoland). No word on if the system upscales content to whatever you have the system resolution set to.

That's not how the PS3 works btw. But it is how the 360 works.

Just like 360/PS3 there will be some games that support native 1080p. One of the devs for Scribblenauts has said that will support 1080p.

[gjkendall]

Originally Posted by camaj

Really? What happened at E3 that made you less excited?

The lack of info about the system itself...would be nice to see how it compares from a tech point of view to pre-existing systems.

The basics like price and release date!

How many are they going to be shipping? Will there be shortages like there were for the Wii?

Only ZombieU got me excited..the rest were all for me sadly.

The whole presentation was underwhelming...fannying about with Pikmin and being as wooley as they thought they could get away with!

[Ono]

I heard somewhere it was only 480p which worried me

[camaj]

Originally Posted by Ono

I heard somewhere it was only 480p which worried me

I would hope you could see from the demo's that they weren't 480p

Originally Posted by gjkendall

The lack of info about the system itself...would be nice to see how it compares from a tech point of view to pre-existing systems.

That's probably why Nintendo doesn't do it, you get people writing the thing off because it only does 470 terraflops and not 480 or some other meaningless measurement. The specs won't tell you how enjoyable the games are or how nice the graphics are. It's such a shame that people put so much stock in it.

Price and a date will be announced eventually. Even if we knew how many they were shipping that wouldn't really help us work out if there'll be shortages because we don't know what the demand is.

Fair enough if the other games didn't grab you, maybe the reviews will convince you one way or the other.

[double_cut]

Originally Posted by camaj

I would hope you could see from the demo's that they weren't 480p



That's probably why Nintendo doesn't do it, you get people writing the thing off because it only does 470 terraflops and not 480 or some other meaningless measurement. The specs won't tell you how enjoyable the games are or how nice the graphics are. It's such a shame that people put so much stock in it.

Price and a date will be announced eventually. Even if we knew how many they were shipping that wouldn't really help us work out if there'll be shortages because we don't know what the demand is.

Fair enough if the other games didn't grab you, maybe the reviews will convince you one way or the other.

The two kind of go together, obviously discounting art style and personal preference, peak performance will give you some idea of what the system is capable of.

I do have to say the few tech demos I've seen give me genuine hope that the Wii U will be able to produce some extremely nice visuals (it's not like the best of the current gen will automatically look like crap because the new consoles are released), although I've certainly not seen anything I don't think could be done on the PS3 or 360, especially bearing in mind they're tech demos. I'm not sure Wii U games will progress visually enough to surpass the best of the current gen (so I'm talking Uncharted 2/3, Killzone 2/3, God of War 3, The Last of Us, maybe even throw Gears 3 in there as well) before the "true" next gen systems are released, which should of course completely eclipse the Wii U in terms of visual processing performance if the rumours are to be believed.

I am really looking forward to the HD Mario games (even Galaxy and Galaxy 2 looked great through Dolphin), maybe Zelda as well (although I haven't really had the inclination to put any real time into any of the more recent Zelda's, Link to the Past was my last real Zelda experience) and if there is a noticeable jump from the PS3/360 to the Wii U for games I like, or the tablet is made meaningful use of, then I will certainly pick one up, at the very least as a stop gap until PS4/Nextbox.

[Fever Dawg]

Are they going to introduce some kind of achievement/trophy system? Can't see me being interested if they don't.

[camaj]

Originally Posted by double_cut

The two kind of go together, obviously discounting art style and personal preference, peak performance will give you some idea of what the system is capable of.

What I mean is the graphics of a particular game are more dependent on the artists than the power of the GPU. I still think the most beautiful games where in the 16bit era or something like Wind Waker. They wouldn't have looked better with even the best GPU

before the "true" next gen systems are released, which should of course completely eclipse the Wii U in terms of visual processing performance if the rumours are to be believed

The rumours I've seen say the opposite, that this is going to be a small increase possibly because it's getting to a point where it's getting too expensive to develop these games

[double_cut]

Originally Posted by camaj

The rumours I've seen say the opposite, that this is going to be a small increase possibly because it's getting to a point where it's getting too expensive to develop these games

If the Wii U is roughly equal to the 360 and PS3, or a modest jump at best as seems to be the case, why would Sony and MS release a system that is only an incremental increase in power over their current systems? If the PS3 and 360 can hang powerwise with the Wii U, which until we see something that certainly could not be done on the current gen systems is not unreasonable to assume, why not ride them out?

I appreciate the cost of creating a AAA game for the next gen consoles can potentially be expensive, if only due to the asset creation, but in many ways it will be easier (in terms of tools and having more power to play with) and the PS3 and 360 have already held back the high end PC in terms of assets and many will have been scaled back to fit on the PS360. Also bear in mind that just because you can bet the farm on a AAA game you don't have to: having that kind of potential doesn't exclude the creation of simpler looking games without astronomical budgets. Some of the best games on the PS360 haven't been particularly amazing visually from a technical point of view and I'm sure didn't cost the earth to make.

Will be interesting to see what the Wii U is truly capable of, the bar has been set pretty high for this generation already. No-one doubts Nintendo's first party ability to make great games, what I personally really want to see is if Nintendo's first party studios can go head to head with the Naughty Dogs and Guerilla Games of this world in visual terms with comparable hardware.