Ed130 said:
The hardware issue does come up if you want to play third party multiplatform games, currently next-gen titles like Assassins Creed 4 and COD Ghosts are coming to the WiiU as well as the 360 and PS3 but its unknown how long this will last and what has been cut to make it run on the less powerful machines.
While I am firmly in the camp that sees the WiiU as current generation technology, I need to clarify that the WiiU is not "barely" on par with the 360/ps3. It is absolutely more powerful than either. By around 2x (either just or slightly lower due to a slightly weaker CPU but other efficiencies) at least from the numbers I've seen. It's a three core processor is almost identical to the 360 but it has 1GB of useable gaming RAM. The 360 had 512MB RAM was half that and some of which would be relegated to the OS whereas the WiiU has a second GB of RAM set aside for that. I will say that the 1GB is used by both the GPU and CPU.
Then you have much larger 360 HDDs and the DVD/bluray players that allow for faster reading of larger games. The WiiU's 32GB hdd is a joke and their disks max out at 25GB which is half the size of bluray disks already and potentially even lower if the ps4's bluray reader can read denser disks or more layers than the 2x the ps3 can.
So yeah, the WiiU is very much current tech, but it's clearly better than the rest. Compared to its predecessor it is certainly a generation higher. But compared to market as a whole it isn't close to the next gen we're expecting.
GoaThief said:
ZZoMBiE13 said:
Lightknight said:
Just FYI, I'm only responding to this so that I can finally say I've delved into semantics over the what should be the word semantics. Whether or not you intended that word, I get to check it off my bucket list and I thank you for that.
That actually made me belt out a laugh. Good one.
Haha, I'd like to say it was intentional but I've no idea how that happened, even skim read it back and didn't notice. It may have been SwiftKey working it's "magic" too. Shame "all the same to me" doesn't fit for my new tag.
haha. Nice to have fun once in awhile.
Dragonbums said:
It really doesn't matter what gen they call the Wii U. If you like it ,go buy it. If you don't, don't buy it.
Yes, this is a fair sentiment.
The console is just in the same as the 3DS was. Nobody wanted it until the Nintendo first party and second party games arrived.
And that's what Nintendo has to approach their hardware now.
They are a company born in an era where game developers also made hardware, and to sell that hardware you present the games you made to show it off.
After the fall of SEGA (due to a whole lot of other bullshit they pulled off prior to the Dreamcast and not the actual console itself) Nintendo are a relic of a bygone era.
Nintendo is also innovative as Hell. They launched the peripheral market singlehandedly. Yes, the WiiU is something I believe we'll see as a failure, but there's no telling what they'll come up with next. Since their games are generally more artistic (i.e. not graphically demanding), they'd do well to brand themselves as a family product. The wii sold well because it was innovative, fun/safe for the family and hundreds of dollars cheaper than the competition. The WiiU is not as innovative, not yet fun for the family due to a lack of titles, and isn't all that cheap. So its alienating the casual gamers from the Wii while not meeting the needs/expectations of serious gamers at a percieved returned value of the asking price. We can get around the lack of second/third party developers with strong enough 3rd party support at a reasonable price. Just like the Wii did.
Yes Microsoft and Sony make games for their system. However a bulk of the exclusives everyone is excited for are third parties paid to be exclusive, and studios that were bought and work for Sony now.
? Many of Sony's most successful studios were started by them or have been under their control for more than a decade. I'm not sure why you dismiss them as invalid first party studios. If Sony bought a studio yesterday, would that somehow make their titles less exclusive or enjoyable?
Naughty Dog, for example, was purchased in 2001. They didn't develop the first Uncharted until 2007. Beforehand they were really only known for Crash Bandicoot. After aquisition they only did new IPs like Uncharted, Jak and Daxter, and The Last of Us. Games which were not only beautiful but have often been strongly considered for game of the year (Uncharted 2 won a few and The Last of Us looks like a strong contender)
SCE Santa Monica is an extremely productive Sony first party creating everything from God of War to a massive list of collaborative projects: Flower, Pixeljunk, Journey (lots of work with ThatGameCompany) and many others. Including the upcoming The Order: 1886 in collaboration with Ready at Dawn which itself is composed of former Naughty Dog employees and is a second party publisher, not 3rd.
Team Ico is literally just a team within Sony Japan. While their work has been sporadic, their games have been legendary. I really hope they still deliver on what they've been working on for so long. I bet Sony asked them to scale it up for PS4.
You can scoff all you want at who owns who, but the end result is the same for Playstation Owners. They get great AAA exclusives from several studios that they own and a lot of great titles from 2nd and 3rd parties. Really, you can't ask for anything more because that's a AAA game on all three fronts.
They played the specs game with the Gamecube and got their ass handed to by Sony and Microsoft. My venture is that they don't really see it as a worthy monetary path anymore.
The gamecube didn't have games, if you recall. And Microsoft didn't kick their ass. The gamecube sold 22 million and the xbox sold 24 million. Respectable for a first time entrant but it was solely the PS2 that hit hard at 154 million units that year and the current champion of most units sold ever where consoles are concerned. The dreamcast also snuck in there at 10.4 million.
The previous generation also saw the N64 losing significant ground to the Playstation 1 at 102 million ps1 vs 33 million N64. And let's face it, we all have very fond memories of the N64 so if it lost ground even here then maybe the Nintendo Brand itself isn't enough to hold a console afloat by itself in this particular market space. There is a market space for Nintendo though. They're just not owning it. They could do amazingly well by targeting the family/friendly/casual affordable console. $300 just isn't there when the $400 option is the best there is (pre-launch, we'll see how the cards fall in November).
Every Nintendo launch has been flagship titles like Mario and Zelda. After they release those games, that's when the smaller IP's like Kirby, Yoshi, come in. Then they solidify it with their second wave titles like Animal Crossing, and Pokemon. (In the case of their consoles SSB)
I think they got spooked with the impending PS4/XBO launch and launched before their games. The Sega Saturn made the same mistake with a surprise launch six months early that caught most distributors and developers off guard. While the saturn killed Sega in the end (not Dreamcast), I definitely don't think this is the end for the WiiU. Until they hit the $250 range or lower we're not going to see interest. Thankfully, $100 away from the ps4 price point is better than the earlier $50, but it's just not far enough and it's too high for what the system is viewed as (a family console, which is a smaller target market and significantly more casual).
I believe they can hit under $200 if they drop the $140 gamepad. But you and I have already had this discussion.