Ubisoft: Wii U is "Surprisingly Powerful"

[MikeWehner]

Ubisoft: Wii U is "Surprisingly Powerful"

Is the Wii U just two Wiis duct taped together, or something more?

Nintendo's Wii has always struggled to fit in with its much more capable current-generation counterparts. Not surprisingly, gamers have been quite vocal about the Wii U as well, fearing that Nintendo may have made the same mistake again. For its part, Ubisoft doesn't seem terribly concerned about the Wii U's capabilities, telling Nintendo Power that the console is actually "surprisingly powerful."

"What surprises me with Wii U is that we don't have many technical problems," explains Rayman creator Michel Ancel, "It's really running very well, in fact. We're not obliged to constantly optimize things. Even on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions [of Rayman Origins], we had some fill-rate issues and things like that. So it's partly us - we improved the engine - but I think the console is quite powerful. Surprisingly powerful."

Ancel goes on to say that one particularly impressive aspect of the Wii U is its ability to handle large textures without issue. He admits that sometimes, during the course of developing Rayman Legends, the team forgot to compress certain HD texture files before testing them in-game, and it didn't bog down the console.

Of course, we're talking about a 2D platformer here - not a massive 3D action game. So while his experience is an interesting glimpse into the world of Wii U development, it remains unclear whether the Wii U will be able to stand toe-to-toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony are cooking up for the next gen.

Source: Gaming Everything [http://gamingeverything.com/31446/rayman-creator-wii-u-surprisingly-powerful-legends-using-new-lighting-engine/]

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[Fappy]

It may no be able to compete in the modern 3D-space (at least I don't think it will), but hopefully this means we'll see more 2D games? Maybe? I miss sprites

BlazBlue keeps them alive at least.

 

[Ickabod]

It will be interesting to see which console handles Assassins Creed 3 the best. If the U is sooo powerful it should actually be better than the 360 and PS3.

 

[Guffe]

Well if Nintendo sais they are going to go back to the "hardcore market" then they have to make their console more effective.
The question is, how much more powerful can consoles get? We'll see when the next Xbox and PS come out how far ahed they are of the WiiU in power but if the WiiU is more powerful than PS3 and Xbox 360 (that's what I got out from teh text) then that should be good.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Yes. The Wii-U sounds comparatively powerful.

...Until the other next-gen consoles come out and blow it out of the water as far as capabilities go.

 

[ctear]

I have read so many articles about developers being surprised how powerful the Wii U is. I would have expected the surprise to be spoiled by now.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Here's a question, what's more powerful: Two Wii's duct taped together or four Gamecubes duct taped together?

At this point it's hard to tell what is actually impressive, or stuff that we would just take for granted. If this was announced say 2 years ago I'd probably be interested in what's going on, but it seems sort of "easy" to compare oneself against 7 year old tech. Now had they said that the WiiU version AC3 runs better than the other versions then you're cooking, but as it stands it's hard for me to get excited with this

 

[BrotherRool]

So yet again another developer saying that the Wii U is surprisingly powerful because its a bit better than consoles that came out 6 years ago? That's not surprising to me. That feels like the bare minimum

 

[gardian06]

Of course, we're talking about a 2D platformer here - not a massive 3D action game. So while his experience is an interesting glimpse into the world of Wii U development, it remains unclear whether the Wii U will be able to stand toe-to-toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony are cooking up for the next gen.

yes, and no. it depends on what kind of pipeline they are using, but for the most part the way that 3D graphics works (will spare the math because I don't want to go into all that) is that:

the graphics processor takes the position, and angle of the camera then does a distance squared calculation to each object then takes the angle between the normals of the faces(this is where we talk about polygon/face count). if the angle places the face in viewing angle/range then it interpolates the "texture" onto the screen at the given angle/dimensions. all of these calculations are only fractionally slower then 2D graphics, but 2D graphics barley touches the capabilities/optimizations that a graphics processor is designed for.

 

[walrusaurus]

it remains unclear whether the Wii U will be able to stand toe-to-toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony are cooking up for the next gen.

Spoiler

it won't

sure its a minor upgrade to what the 360 and PS3 can do now, but it has worse specs than the computer i bought a year ago, and i didn't even get a high end machine. anyone who thinks this isn't gonna get blown to bits spec-wise once the 720 and ps4 are announced is delusional.

 

[Fasckira]

I have read so many articles about developers being surprised how powerful the Wii U is. I would have expected the surprise to be spoiled by now.

Agreed. If was the devs of the Wii U I'd actually be slightly offended at the constant surprise the gaming world is showing at the fruits of my hard labour.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

it remains unclear whether the Wii U will be able to stand toe-to-toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony are cooking up for the next gen.

Spoiler

it won't

sure its a minor upgrade to what the 360 and PS3 can do now, but it has worse specs than the computer i bought a year ago, and i didn't even get a high end machine. anyone who thinks this isn't gonna get blown to bits spec-wise once the 720 and ps4 are announced is delusional.

And people making wild assumptions about next-gen consoles aren't? Nobody knows if Sony is even going to do a PS4, the amount of layoffs they've had and the fact they want to keep the PS3 going for much longer support that. As for the 720, that's just up in the air. It may be good, but it may be kinect-focused shite and will be the "Wii" of Microsoft's console lifespan.

 

[Meight08]

Yes. The Wii-U sounds comparatively powerful.

...Until the other next-gen consoles come out and blow it out of the water as far as capabilities go.

it remains unclear whether the Wii U will be able to stand toe-to-toe with whatever Microsoft and Sony are cooking up for the next gen.

Spoiler

it won't

sure its a minor upgrade to what the 360 and PS3 can do now, but it has worse specs than the computer i bought a year ago, and i didn't even get a high end machine. anyone who thinks this isn't gonna get blown to bits spec-wise once the 720 and ps4 are announced is delusional.

Console Units sold
PlayStation 2 153.6 million
Xbox 24 million
GameCube 21.6 million

Specs sure are the most important part of a console /Sarcasm/
OT: It's funny that console gamers call pc gamers graphics whores who only care about specs when the same thing is happening here the other way around.

 

[Sean951]

It's funny that people are comparing a brand new console to a console that developers have had 6 or so years to learn to program on. This is programmers first chance to program on the Wii-U and it's matching or beating the competition, and that says something when you compare 360 graphics at the start of its life cycle to X-Box graphics a the end of it's life cycle.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Console Units sold
PlayStation 2 153.6 million
Xbox 24 million
GameCube 21.6 million

Specs sure are the most important part of a console /Sarcasm/

Strangely, no one even made a statement saying that they were. I did not say that the Wii-U is lame console because of shitty graphics, only that it would likely be a less powerful machine than the system coming out after it.

This is a news thread about how powerful Wii-U's specs are. Therefore, we talk about specs. That can't be hard to understand.

 

[Meight08]

Console Units sold
PlayStation 2 153.6 million
Xbox 24 million
GameCube 21.6 million

Specs sure are the most important part of a console /Sarcasm/

Strangely, no one even made a statement saying that they were. I did not say that the Wii-U is lame console because of shitty graphics, only that it would likely be a less powerful machine than the system coming out after it.

This is a news thread about how powerful Wii-U's specs are. Therefore, we talk about specs. That can't be hard to understand.

Oh sorry i didn't understand, I just wanted to state that spec's are not the most important part of a console. Edit: Also i doubt microsoft and sony can afford selling consoles on a loss again

 

[gigastar]

It may no be able to compete in the modern 3D-space (at least I don't think it will), but hopefully this means we'll see more 2D games? Maybe? I miss sprites

BlazBlue keeps them alive at least.

So does King of Fighters.

 

[Fappy]

It may no be able to compete in the modern 3D-space (at least I don't think it will), but hopefully this means we'll see more 2D games? Maybe? I miss sprites

BlazBlue keeps them alive at least.

So does King of Fighters.

Strange how it's only fighting games that still use sprites...