Wii U Not a Threat to PS3, Says Sony Boss

[hippobu]

"Technologically," he said. "I don't think it's possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have."

Back in 2006? Sure.

I don't think that's how you suppose to take it. It sound a lot like he said: "PS4 isn't coming anytime soon. We don't know how to make a difference like the difference between the Wii and the Wii U." or "Why do you want a new console? Their newest console is the same as ours 6 YEARS ago."

Though I'm going with the first case.

 

[Arafiro]

Casuals aren't going to spend the cost of another console to upgrade their Wii and all 2 games they have for it and Xbox/PS3 owners aren't going to want their gaming interrupted by the hassle of dealing with all of Nintendo's gimmicks.

Exactly.
Unless Nintendo release a proper controller for the WiiU, it is fundamentally going to be a gimmick in itself and is going to be purely for the casual market, as with the Wii.

This is why I was very much surprised with Nintendo's E3 announcement, as I was expecting them to announce a proper console that would compete with the Xbox and PlayStation.

They have not.

 

[RA92]

So it becomes less that the hardware itself can't prduce the results and more that the developers don't want to optimise their results to get the best out of the hardware.

I'm really tired of people being so judgmental on developers. Look, the PS3's architecture is really complicated. This is the reason why Gabe Newell was so annoyed about developing games for the PS3, and John Carmack himself said that there is probably not a single person on Earth who fully understands the PS3's architecture. If you just looked at the manual sets for everything about the core processor, the cell processors, the GPUs and the development environments on there, probably no-one even knows all the switches to the linker to optimise all the different things on here.

What, you think the developers spending years and millions of dollars working on multi-platform game engines like idTech 5, CryEngine 3, Frostbite 2.0 are all a bunch of lazies?

The fact that current generation engines can support deferred shading, morphological anti-aliasing, advanced environmental destruction on half a decade old hardware is amazing enough. Of course you're not going to get 60FPS at 1080p with just 256MB of RAM and another 256MB of dedicated GPU. Remember how I said CoD 4 run at 60FPS? The XBox also needs to scale down the game to 640p to support that. Same with Red Dead Redemption. Now are you going to say dedicated console game developers are lazy as well?

And I have yet to see the WiiU's hardware specs, I'll come to a conclusion after I see it.

And yet, like I've pointed out twice, wwe got 60 FPS 1080p visuals back in 2008. The technology can do it quite easily. You can't use the "its too hard" excuse anymore, its been 5 years and the tech hasn't changed. Devs who put the effort in are consistently showing amazing effects with the Ps3 - how do you explain this? Or what, is expecting them to put the effort in to get great results asking too much?

Yeah, 1080p and 60FPS in what game? WipeOut HD. Did it have any complex AI routines and behavior bottle-necking the the processors? No, all the racing AIs did was follow path nodes in a linear circuit. Did it have dynamic destructible environments? No, the environments were all static meshes. Did it have giant expansive memory straining levels? No, all it had were linear circuits. Did it have complex animations? No, just pretty particle effects to go with the vehicles. Did it have tile-based deferred shading, realtime radiosity, morphological anti-aliasing? No, no and no.

The fact that you're even comparing a racing game to games like Battlefield, Crysis and Rage shows how utterly clueless you're. Of course WipeOut is going to run at 60FPS and 1080p - simply because it's nowhere nearly as resource intensive as most AAA games.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The only competition that Nintendo can bring is Mario, Zelda and to a lesser extent, Metroid.

So the Wii U is 50% more powerful with current gen graphics than two 7/6 year old consoles. Unfortunately it's also 7/6 years too late to the party, and its new revolutionary controller is the size of a macrowave dinner.

However, there's still a lot of die hard Nintendo fans out there, even after the Wii.

 

[Madmanonfire]

In other words:
"We're trying to make Nintendo look bad as much as we can, as usual, so hopefully we won't get trounced as much as before. Please agree with us. We're desperate" - says Sony boss.
And in response:
"You gimmick are gimmick so gimmick right gimmick Sony! Nintendo gimmick is gimmick gimmicky gimmick and gimmick they gimmick can't gimmick compete gimmick with gimmick you gimmick."

That's pretty much all I see here.
I personally can't wait to see what this new console brings to the field. The Wii + actual decent third party support to help the amazing first party support = fantasticalness.

 

[BrunDeign]

"I don't think it's possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have."

So wait is he saying that they've reached the graphical peak? While I don't think they're too far from it, I'm pretty sure you still could add some better graphics and I think that's what the WiiU is going to do.

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

Audiences differ so much it's not even really comparable. It would be interesting to graph the number of consoles sold versus the average number of games sold per platform.

For example, I know thousands of people who have Wiis, but most only have one or two games. On the other side, I know less people who have Playstations and xboxs, but know that they consistently buy games for them.

its called software attach rate (for future reference), and as someone has already shown the Wii is pretty damn close to the ps3. (its a difference of about 0.05 per console sold).

the sad thing is i own both a Wii and an xbox 360, (had a ps3 for a year, and looking into re-aquiring one). And for the xbox i've got atleast 30 games, for the wii myself and my family has about 5, (i'd buy any tripple A rated game for the Wii, if 3rd party developers supported it, which most don't, which is a sad reflexion on the fact that nintendo really didn't go with the whole, 7th generation of constantly improved mega graphics, and was dropped for it by most publishers).

The wii attracted plenty of 'console' gamers, just not enough good titles, and as such recieved a much larger take up by 'casuals'.

i hate all those terms aswell, it's like saying, 'yes i'm dependant on my mother for games, so i'm going to be a fanboy and insult everyone else'.


Captcha: brand spanking new.

 

[coolkirb]

the WiiU had about a 2-3 year headstart on the new xbox and soney systems, so if it can sell enough it will still do very well, espicially since its price will drop when soney and microsoft release their consoles

 

[Pendragon9]

I'm gonna have to side with Sony on this one.

Nintendo messed up BIG time with this new console. Even if it sells, I refuse to touch it.

 

[harvz]

really? sony thinks its not a threat? well they thought their system was hackproof...and, yeah, that turned out really well for... xbox fanboys.

in all likelihood it'll sell really well (judging from wii sales) and will probably just have people playing games on a glorified tablet intead of being the huge gaming revolution that their hoping for.

 

[Darkong]

I'm gonna have to side with Sony on this one.

Nintendo messed up BIG time with this new console. Even if it sells, I refuse to touch it.

You refuse to touch it before its been fully revealed and any services or games have been announced...

Slightly judgmental that methinks.

 

[seditary]

Don't worry Sony, you aren't a threat to my bank balance either.

Quite even with the Wii U there.

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

Of course he's going to say that he's not worried, he could easily be developing the next generation Playstation in secret.

To be honest, Sony really need something to boost their popularity at the moment after that hacking fiasco, and a shiny new console packed full of uber-tech would fit the bill nicely.

He's probably pumping money into the PS4 like there's no tomorrow.

 

[starwarsgeek]

In other words:
"We're trying to make Nintendo look bad as much as we can, as usual, so hopefully we won't get trounced as much as before. Please agree with us. We're desperate" - says Sony boss.
And in response:
"You gimmick are gimmick so gimmick right gimmick Sony! Nintendo gimmick is gimmick gimmicky gimmick and gimmick they gimmick can't gimmick compete gimmick with gimmick you gimmick."

That's pretty much all I see here.
I personally can't wait to see what this new console brings to the field. The Wii + actual decent third party support to help the amazing first party support = fantasticalness.

...

Spoiler

Yeah, pretty much
It must take a lot of work for them to ignore facts like all the praise third parties have been giving the Wii U, or how Nintendo is improving in every weak area from the Wii (more power, better online, external hard drive and SD card memory, and a new control method--new for consoles anyway--that developers already have some idea how to use...)
Of course, so many reviewers have conditioned people to just respond to anything other than shinier graphics with "GIMMICK!!!", so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm pretty sure though, in an article I read before, wasn't it that the PS3 could do it, but they would need a TV capable enough? I guess, if they released one with such high specs, not many people would be able to play it, and realistically, make the game fail. Yup

Nintendo probably will succumb to the same, its all very good that the console can do it, but it doesn't mean they will.

The PS3 is capable of providing a 120Hz signal at 1080p. It does not have the raw horsepower capable of rendering a COD4-level game at 120 frames per second OR at 1080p. For a game with much simpler graphics (like Wipeout HD), at higher framerate/resolution is possible.

 

[Rad Party God]

Hey Jack!, breaking news!, we're not in the 90's anymore!.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

"I wouldn't look for any discussion of a next generation PlayStation for quite some time." He said that the power that Sony had built into the PS3 meant that it had a long lifespan, and that while it had made for some difficult times during the PS3's launch period, it was paying dividends now. "Technologically," he said. "I don't think it's possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have."

Expect them to come out with news of the PS4 next year, along with claims that it's literally a billion times faster than the PS3.

 

[Electrogecko]

I can't stand much more of the word "gimmick".

The WiiU controller is not a gimmick. It may be the biggest potpourri of a controller ever conceived, but all it's components can be used to create new types of gameplay and are completely optional from a developer standpoint.

Sony is saying what they were always saying before they started stealing Nintendo's quotes. "Graphics, graphics, graphics,......derp." I know it's a business and all, and these remarks may not even be Mr. Tretton's honest opinion, but if he can't think of anything the WiiU will be able to (even if it IS outperformed) do that the PS3 won't, then I certainly hope the game devs working for him are more creative.

 

[oldtaku]

"Technologically," he said. "I don't think it's possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have."

Uh, what? The PS3 is five year old tech and it shows. He's lying his ass off again, because that just seems to be the default action for Sony execs. Or he's just completely ignorant of the technology since he's a suit. I'll take either one, Alex.