So what are your thoughts on the Wii U?

Wii U developer reports struggles with slow CPU

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/09/wii-u-developer-reports-struggles-with-slow-cpu/

In the many months we've been hearing about Nintendo's Wii U, there have been wide-ranging reports that the machine's underlying hardware is comparable to or somewhat more powerful than current generation HD consoles. Now, as we get closer to the system's November 18 North American debut, a Wii U launch developer suggests that it might actually perform worse than current generation systems in some ways, while improving on them in others.

Speaking at this week's Tokyo Game Show, Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper producer Akihiro Suzuki told Eurogamer that the Wii U's CPU power is actually "a little bit less" than the Xbox 360 and PS3, leading to some specific drawbacks in the Wii U port of the game. "When you have a lot of enemies coming at you at once, the performance tends to be affected because of the CPU," he said. "Dealing with that is a challenge."

Nintendo hasn't revealed precise performance details of the Wii U's IBM-made CPU, which features three Power PC cores, but Suzuki's comments line up with those of other developers contacted by Eurogamer last month. "We are not limited by [the CPU power] but some other games might suffer from it," one unnamed developer told the site.

In terms of pure graphical capabilities, though, Suzuki said the Wii U was a distinct improvement over current HD consoles. "From a visual standpoint, based on the performance of the Wii U, we knew the game had the capability of having much better graphics than games on PS3 and Xbox 360," he said. "Make no mistake, from a visual standpoint, it is able to produce better graphics."

That description of the system's graphical prowess lines up with a recent demonstration of Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Wii U running at full 1080p and 60 frames per second, a performance that current consoles would struggle to achieve. The Wii U makes use of an AMD 7 series GPU with 32MB of embedded eDRAM, as well as a full gigabyte of general RAM that is available to developers (twice as much as the Xbox 360 or PS3). Reports suggest that the graphics system will allow for easy ports of PC games using DirectX10 and Shader Model 4, though DirectX 11 games like those running on the high end of Unreal Engine 4 will probably be out of reach.

Still, the slower-than-current-gen CPU might limit how much action can actually be going on in some of those smooth, high resolution scenes. But developers will doubtlessly be able to wring more power from even the lower-powered CPU as the system's lifecycle progresses. One unidentified developer speaking to Eurogamer last month said he was able to optimize CPU performance on his Wii U project by 15 percent just over the course of development, and expected to be able to improve further on that number before launch.

"With the Wii U being new hardware, we're still getting used to developing for it, so there are still a lot of things we don't know yet to bring out the most of the processing power," Suzuki said. "There's a lot that still needs to be explored in that area."
 
That's an old article. Not saying its not relative, but I'm sure many people already know about the Wii U specs and what to expect.
 
Go play you will like it. It is more than powerful enough. The graphic look better than ps3 or 360 right now and those are launch titles. Think of the other systems and how their launch games looked cod2 or Resistance compared to now. And controller is really comfortable.
 
HisSvt76 said:
They are playing it safe do you remember the mess the 360 preorders were.
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Just look at the Wii, Nintendo is purposely holding back to increase demand. I believe Target was only allowed 15 Wii U per store this year.
 
Kinsaras said:
I wouldn't bet on that. Not saying it will be worst but better is yet to be seen.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/06/10/batman-arkham-city-looks-worse-on-wii-u-than-ps3/
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Batman is a friggin port done by some 3rd party really bad example. Ray man looks awesome and plays awesome and zombie u looks awesome as well. I don't know anybody that hasn't played and beat batman or is buying it for Wii u. The new Mario is great and so is Nintendo land. Quote all the articles you want but if you haven't played it and till you your info is just hearsay. That article is from June. My ass that is from the ps3 there are no jaggies barely .
 
HisSvt76 said:
Batman is a friggin port done by some 3rd party really bad example. Ray man looks awesome and plays awesome and zombie u looks awesome as well. I don't know anybody that hasn't played and beat batman or is buying it for Wii u. The new Mario is great and so is Nintendo land. Quote all the articles you want but if you haven't played it and till you your info is just hearsay. That article is from June. My ass that is from the ps3 there are no jaggies barely .
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That's my exact point, until you play it you don't know. Saying Wii U is going to be soooooo much better than 360/PS3 is just crazy. Most critics say it's on par which from what I've seen, that's sounds right.

For all we know ZombieU can be the next Red Steel. That too looked good and had a ton of hype until it was released.

And the new Mario and Rayman looks just like the Wii version (or PS3/360 talking Rayman) out right now. It's really hard for me to be impressed about that.
 
Kinsaras said:
Just look at the Wii, Nintendo is purposely holding back to increase demand. I believe Target was only allowed 15 Wii U per store this year.
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I believe supply is an issue but I don't disagree that Nintendo has become masters of this technique as a way to build more hype. Online media and local news will surely report how the Wii U is so hot this year that retailers don't have any stock and won't for a while which will just drive people's anticipation and desire to want it that much more. I'm not convinced for a minute that Nintendo couldn't have started producing them earlier if they wanted ample stock for holiday release. This is pure marketing.
 
Kinsaras said:
That's my exact point, until you play it you don't know. Saying Wii U is going to be soooooo much better than 360/PS3 is just crazy.
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Is it now? It already one ups them with games running native 1080p, so whats so crazy about that?

Kinsaras said:
For all we know ZombieU can be the next Red Steel. That too looked good and had a ton of hype until it was released.
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I'm gonna have to blame you on that one, if you had your hopes up. Red Steel was known to be bad before release and I avoided it specifically on release day. ZombiU's in game gameplay has been seen, quite a bit actually, and even the most skeptical preview I've seen seems to be looking forward to it. We knew Red Steel was not 1 to 1 mapping before release, therefore a failure before it even came out. ZombiU has no such cloud hanging over it, in fact I'm afraid that Ubisoft was able to make me excited for a game. It's scary. I guess I could let you know how it is when my copy comes in.
 
Rayman seems awesome, played it today at Gamestop.

I'd go as far to say the Ps3/XBox 360 release titles didnt look much better than "Black" on the Ps2. Wii U being just as good as the 360/Ps3 on release is impressive
 
DaRat said:
Rayman seems awesome, played it today at Gamestop.

I'd go as far to say the Ps3/XBox 360 release titles didnt look much better than "Black" on the Ps2. Wii U being just as good as the 360/Ps3 on release is impressive
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Resistance (among other launch titles) was far better looking than Black, as it should (resolution bump helped).
Wii U reportedly looking "as good as" almost 7 year old consoles is not quite a good thing when the real next gen is right around the corner. I'll certainly agree that gameplay > graphics for the most part and nintendo's first party titles have that in spades.
Banking on the gimmick controller being fun/innovative is likely a better selling point than graphics.
 
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Yea I have a PS3 and 360. Wii U Rayman Legends easily looks better than both. I would have to say though only game that really challenges it so far is Uncharted.
 
I enjoy games. I hear a rumor that the WiiU plays games. So I'll probably buy it. Just like the PS4 and the next Xbox.
 
Bomo said:
I enjoy games. I hear a rumor that the WiiU plays games. So I'll probably buy it. Just like the PS4 and the next Xbox.
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Finally a person with some sense in his head. I salute you. :D
 
dremic said:
1080p

third party support

controller implementation done correctly ( see zombieU , aiming/zooming with the controller, inventory open at all times, just overall excellent implementation of the controller so far)

good value for the price in comparison to what is available today


those are some big ones
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Zohar78 said:
Nintendo games in Hi def.... As awesome as mario galaxy was, imagine what it could be now...
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LeviathanZERO said:
The controller.
and probably the best launch lineup in the last 10 years.

re-read? you already read this thread?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+wii+u
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So it's the controller and the line up? I just checked the list on IGN and I don't know what stands out. For instance, I see New Super Mario Bros U, but isn't that the same thing we played on the NES?

Zombi-U looks pretty exciting, but what else is there? All the other games listed are either cross-platform, ie BLOPs II, FIFA 13, or are unfamiliar to me like Rayman Legends and Nintendo Land. Can someone shed some light?

As for the controller, based on what I see online and from my experience using it at NYCC, is the appeal that you interact with the game using the controller's screen as well as your TV?
 
Just because it is unfamiliar to you does not mean the games are unknown. Rayman has been around for AGES, and is generally quite fun.

The last sentence sounds quite rhetorical to me.
 
blunt_eastwood said:
So it's the controller and the line up? I just checked the list on IGN and I don't know what stands out. For instance, I see New Super Mario Bros U, but isn't that the same thing we played on the NES?

Zombi-U looks pretty exciting, but what else is there? All the other games listed are either cross-platform, ie BLOPs II, FIFA 13, or are unfamiliar to me like Rayman Legends and Nintendo Land. Can someone shed some light?

As for the controller, based on what I see online and from my experience using it at NYCC, is the appeal that you interact with the game using the controller's screen as well as your TV?
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zombiU the new ninja gaiden looks fucking dope.

a lot of people are excited about nintendo land too.


idk the idea of the controller.. like mass effect for instance. idk about you but i fucking HATE stopping the game just to use my abilities in mass effect. now i have the menu and i can cast while playing. shit like that.

or like zombi U they use it to make the game more suspenseful like when you are typing a code to open a door your vision on the TV is blurred just like if you were using your peripheral vision. shit like that. so much potential for such a small addition.
 
dremic said:
idk anybody that uses the browser on their console
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That's because they suck, but ie on the Xbox works nicely. Ps3's is shit. You can use it just on the tablet too. Some will use it so at least it will be decent.
 
i missed the preorder through wal mart window hah


i wonder if stores will allocate some for in store sales. i might try to pick one up
 
refraxion said:
Just because it is unfamiliar to you does not mean the games are unknown. Rayman has been around for AGES, and is generally quite fun.

The last sentence sounds quite rhetorical to me.
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I didn't say it was unknown. I don't even know what you're talking about. I said it was unfamiliar to me and wanted some more information.
 
Found this in another forum I did not write any of this

Here are some comparison pic of Batman Arkham City Wii U VS PS3

http://i769.photobucket.com/albums/xx337/SniperX_2009/arkham-city-wii-u.jpg

Here are some changes on wii u got this of eurogamer

"Batman Arkham City for example, features a better draw distance, higher resolution textures, and better effects on the Wii U compared to the PlayStation 3 version. Eurogamer’s analysis of Arkham City reveals that the Wii U edition of the game has a different lighting model with more light sources, motion blur, and new textures. Finally, the Wii U version features FXAA anti-aliasing, something that the PS3 version didn’t have. All of these small changes amount to the game generally looking better than on current generation consoles, thanks to the scalability of the Unreal Engine 3" this is are just minor changes and the game looks a lot better on wii u already imagine if the game is build from the ground up to fully utilize wii u hardware especially wii u's gpu which is miles away better compare to ps3 and 360 i would say it will smoke it.

and wii u version does look better and plays better due to its tablet controller. here is the batman arkham city armoured edition gameplay for wii u im digging that wii u motion sensing, touch screen and real time gameplay video feed. makes it better to play on wii u than the aging 360 and ps3. No wonder the wii u sold out almost everywhere and on high demand not due to its power but its controller that just makes the gameplay More fun. This is enough for me as far a jaw dropping graphics is concern i can always switch to pc and enjoy "eye candy" graphics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB1fLqbX_kc
 
Problem with the Wii U for me is that, if it's going to be more of the same as the Wii then I will skip it. Most of the Wii games always felt gimicky, I really dont like the motion controls for hardcore games because of accuracy and ease of use. I havent booted up my Wii in 2 years, I almost forgot I had one until I looked at this thread. The other problem is that other than the exclusives, Playstation and Xbox will have the superior multiplayer experience and the next gen of both will blow away the Wii U in graphical prowess. So unless I see the Wii U with some real games that make use of the controller in some thoughtful way and not as a gimick like the wii mote then I am not buying. In fact I feel like most of the Nintendo systems I bought in the past decade have all been met with enthusiasm to be let down by poor game selection and use of hardware. I havent touched my 3DS, and Wii in ages. I got the gamecube and only ever played when friends came over for smash bros. To me after the N64 and gameboy advance all of the nintendo systems have lost their spark.
 
HisSvt76 said:
That's because they suck, but ie on the Xbox works nicely. Ps3's is shit. You can use it just on the tablet too. Some will use it so at least it will be decent.
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You know 360 has only had a browser for a few weeks now. PS3 had it since launch. I wouldn’t recommend either though unless in a pinch.

But the Wii does pretty good now. The wii-mote works great for a mouse and much easier to type stuff. Still not better than a PC or even a tablet like iPad. Yet I can only see Wii U doing it better.
 
Kinsaras said:
You know 360 has only had a browser for a few weeks now. PS3 had it since launch. I wouldn’t recommend either though unless in a pinch.

But the Wii does pretty good now. The wii-mote works great for a mouse and much easier to type stuff. Still not better than a PC or even a tablet like iPad. Yet I can only see Wii U doing it better.
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I've had IE for months now was in the beta. Had browser back in the day on Dreamcast too sucked. IE works nice I use it to view Hard news great for reading on a large TV. PS3 browser has always been shitty too. Windows phones had smart glass too for a while so been using that and it's nothing special unless they make so major improvements. Can't wait 14 days left!
 
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On the fence about this. I probably won't play it myself as i'm a hardcore gamer and don't particularly like the motion aspect of their titles. Do you guys think it's worth buying at launch for family members who like the Wii? Are there enough strong titles?
 
renjility said:
On the fence about this. I probably won't play it myself as i'm a hardcore gamer and don't particularly like the motion aspect of their titles. Do you guys think it's worth buying at launch for family members who like the Wii? Are there enough strong titles?
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i think you should take another look at the wii u. they have made some serious revisions to appeal more to the hardcore crowd. this means less true motion games and more bad ass third party titles.


it has some differences from the wii. motion is no longer the primary focus at all.
 
dremic said:
i think you should take another look at the wii u. they have made some serious revisions to appeal more to the hardcore crowd. this means less true motion games and more bad ass third party titles.


it has some differences from the wii. motion is no longer the primary focus at all.
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Right, will look into it further. I've not considered Nintendo to have anything to attract a hardcore gamer (I'm not into the Mario/Zelda IPs) for a good few years
 
i put my name on the waiting list, but i also heard stores will allocate some wii u's that arent preorders. i think i am gonna try and get one from frys
 
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