Ubisoft: Wii U is "Surprisingly Powerful"

[Fireprufe15]

Yes, let's compare something that comes out next month what might come out two-three years down the road and ask if it'll go toe-to-toe with it. Because that's terribly relevant.

Considering it will have to go toe-to-toe with it for several years, yeah, it is kinda relevant. If the WiiU will be obsolete the day the Ps4 and Xbox 720 come out, thats a problem.

That's what I was thinking. It'll probably grab most of the cross-platform games released in its first year, and hopefully manage to hold on to those franchises, but any new IPs after that may be Xbox/PlayStation only.

It depends on just how far behind they end up being and how ambitious developers get. Anything that players can't discern on a 1080p screen from several feet away won't matter, so having to pack lower resolution textures onto the WiiU version of a game compared to the others probably won't be a huge deal. But then you get into other advancements like draw distance and progressive loading, and those are mostly heavy on RAM. Which unfortunately is where the WiiU falls short with its puny one gigabyte. Once you take system software into account, that's probably less than triple what the Xbox 360 has, and less than a third of what even a low-end PC has to spare.

Actually, the Wii U has 2GB of RAM, with 1GB dedicated for exactly the kind of system software you're talking about. Whereas the 360 and PS3 OS take a small but significant bite out of the respective console's RAM, the Wii U has got 1GB of RAM dedicated for games. Hopefully more if Nintendo decide to optimise and streamline the OS footprint at a later date, but that all depends on how much RAM is needed for the Gamepad. That may not sound much compared to a PC, but you have to remember that PC software takes a huge chunk out of RAM. Something like Windows 7 or XP leaves a massive footprint on a system's RAM. So while a gaming PC may have 4GB of RAM to play with, it's also got hundreds of megabytes of background software to juggle.

In short, PC and console RAM aren't hugely comparable, given the vastly different ways the two systems operate. Your PC will have far more clutter and junk running in the background than a console ever will, even during a hardcore game of Battlefield.

Well then that's quite different. Although I believe it's at least sort of possible to get a decent PC if you count the price of a WiiU...maybe with an extra controller. Understand your point though, it will definitely be better than the other two consoles. And who knows what Nintendo are planning, for all we know they have a plan for when the new PS or Xbox arrives. (Dreams of an upgrade chip)

PS....The captcha shows brand names now...what if I get one I don't know?

 

[Steve the Pocket]

stuff

Yeah, that's what I meant. Even after you consider how much RAM on current consoles and PCs is taken up by system software, one gig for the game data isn't very impressive for a six year advancement. It wasn't unusual for cheap PCs back in 2006 to have only 512MB, so a console with the same amount seemed reasonable. By that same metric, a brand-new console ought to have three or four gigabytes.

And dedicating a whole gigabyte for system software? They must have big plans for built-in features, because I can't imagine what you'd need all that for. There are modern desktop OSes that can run on less than that. Maybe they're planning to let users pause their game and tab over to built-in apps like the web browser or a media player while the games are still running? That would be handy...

 

[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.

From what I have heard, the Wii U is only slightly less powerful than a High-End Gaming PC is now. A mid-range Gaming PC can play games like BF3 on High easilly so it is (from what I have gathered) very powerful.

My Guess is that the next console generation will be slightly more powerful than a current High-End PC is now. So it won't be enough to "Blow the Wii U out of the water" like many believe. Regardless, it is good to see that Nintendo is moving along with the times instead of trying to stay back with the non-HD consoles.

Well that sounds cool.
I just don't have any idea how much more powerful consoles can get.
I mean the PS and Xbox are looking stunning in some games already but how much further can we go without making too high technological advancements?
I think this generation won't change too much but maybe the one after that might change a bit more again like the difference between the current and the gen before that.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I think modern consoles are adequately powered. From here really all the extra power would actually add is graphics and load speed, plus some extra elbow room for devs to do their thing. Maybe they'll have to scale down the graphics a bit, but at least it shouldn't be like the wii where developers look at the processing power and immediately realize it's not going to happen.

That said, still not terribly interested.