Wii U Price and Release Date revealed

[Mr.Mattress]

nintendo what have wiiu done

... Did they make you wanna buy it?

OT: I'm very excited for the WiiU! Nintendo sort of lost me with the Wii, but the WiiU has always looked like a winner to me. I sort of want to get the 349$ one, but I may settle for the cheaper one. Can't wait for Christmas!

 

[Hazy992]

...right, clear all my appointments. This one needs some serious enlightenment:

Do you remember when the Xbox 360 launched? It came with a pitiful 4GB hard-drive. Not only that, but if you wanted to upgrade, you had to pay Microsoft an extortionate amount of money to buy a proprietary hard-drive exclusively for the 360.

Ignoring the fact that this was 7 years ago, 4GB was plenty for a good while and Microsoft weren't trying to push the 360 as being able to download full price games.

Besides you could buy a version with a hard drive. 20GB was more than enough for a long time.

The minimum inbuilt hard-drive for the Wii U is 8GB, already twice that for the 360. I imagine that this is targeted towards people who buy their games at retail, not download. If you're more interested in downloading games, then the 32GB is the model you want, not the 8GB.

But 32GB is still not enough is it? You could get 3 or 4 games on it at most.

You wouldn't, I take it, moan about the 360 Arcade model being crap for downloading games, would you?

No but again this was 7 years ago, a lot of storage wasn't really as necessary and they weren't pushing full retail games to download. Sony and Microsoft are only doing that now because they know alot of consumers will have large internal drives.

Lastly, external hard-drives are cheap as fucking chips right now. I can go on Amazon and get a one terabyte[/i] external hard-drive for £60.

Internal drives are even cheaper, so what's Nintendo's excuse for not sticking like a 250GB drive in there?

For the same price, I can only get a 250Gb hard-drive for the 360.

I agree that's overpriced but at least with the 360 there's a version where that comes as standard so I don't have to muck about with external drives.

Not only have Nintendo allowed you to upgrade to whatever memory you want, they've done so in a way which is cheaper and more cost-effective than either Sony or Microsoft.

But with the PS3 it comes with a standard 2.5 inch HDD and I can swap it out easily for a bigger one.

Seriously, how can you not see what a big deal this is? Nintendo are the first company to allow you to use non-proprietary storage to play games. That is a big fucking deal. This is the sort of thing we complain about all the time when Microsoft or Sony force us to buy expensive memory formats such as the Vita's memory cards. Why are you criticising Nintendo for doing exactly what gamers have been demanding for the last few years?

This would be good if it was just an optional extra like 'hey if I run out of storage I can just buy an external drive or swap it out for another one! Great!' but it's not is it? Nintendo have made it pretty much a necessity for you to have an external drive. In 2012 that's ridiculous. An external hard drive should be an optional extra not a necessity.

Also, while load times from an external hard-drive may not be great, the latest specs show that the Wii U's disc-read speed is three times that of the PS3. Meaning that if you play off the disc, loading times are going to be pretty damn quick indeed.

So why are Nintendo even pushing this then? To do it you pretty much have to have an external drive and it's going to be slower than a disc, completely negating the point of digital downloads in the first place. Nintendo have actually managed to make downloading a game less convenient than buying it at retail.

EDIT:

...right, clear all my appointments. This one needs some serious enlightenment

I actually found that rather condescending.

 

[Treblaine]

I will say though, despite only 1GB being for games, I assume that will increase as time goes by. Just like the other console makers did, they will refine the OS and reduce it's footprint. Seeing as the OS on the xbox only uses 32MB of RAM I don't see why they would need a full gigabyte. Maybe for the browser and other features?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_system_software

Also, comparing it to a desktop? You know that's a futile endeavour, the PS3 had less RAM than my desktop from 2003-2005. (forget exactly when I had it).

Also, the US price is out.

http://vgtoday.net/2012/09/us-and-european-wii-u-launch-details-revealed/#.UFIHfFFiR0Q

Basic packs will consist of a white 8GB Wii U console, GamePad, HDMI cable, sensor bar and two AC adaptors, costing $299.99.

Premium packs will be made up of a 32GB black console, GamePad and charging cradle, HDMI cable, sensor bar, stands for both console and GamePad, and a copy of Nintendo Land, all for $349.99.

So much for your laughable figure of $400.

I've also heard that the 2 models in the Uk will be £210 and £250 according to retailers. I have no link as I was told in person by a guy who writes for a gaming website.

If Wii is truly a next gen console, it should at least be close to PC standards of half a decade. Wii U is much more of a "catch-up" than a truly next gen system. Xbox 360 never used half it's RAM for it's OS on launch, I think WiiU's wireless HD video transfer might be a factor. Wii 1 was a "little better" than original Xbox and in practice the performance was indistinguishable from original Xbox and certainly wasn't a generation ahead in hardware.

$400 is pretty close to $350. And I think it is far too soon to have a definite price for US or UK region without any release date. If you don't have a release date, you don't have stocking arrangements which means final price is not set.

Remember, Nintendo is likely going to delay each region's pricing as long as possible deciding how much or a profit or loss they make on each unit sold.

captcha: agree to disagree

... later

Release date in the second link
this is getting funny
Don't jump the gun
Its 2012

Hmm, I missed that release date part. I'll edit that about and STILL there is the issue of:

-relatively minor increase in system memory for a supposed "next gen" system
-Still no actual details on system specs 2 months from release
-$350 price tag in US, with uncertain price in UK.
-How much of a drain there is from the wireless-screen on both the battery life as well as internal processing power.


But let me lay down my prejudices. I know WiiU will do well no matter how overpriced it is, how poor the controls are, how bad the third party support is AND I will want it because of: the FEW first party explusives.

Mario, Zelda, Metroid. Nintendo aren't letting anyone else have them and no one else does what they do. I like Zelda but I DO NOT like Nintendo, I hate how it handles it's hardware, networks or it's development. It's not the plucky little company in touch with it's user, it's whoring Mario out with another "new" mario bros. Zelda has truly stagnated and as much as I anticipate another metroid game I worry Nintendo won't adequately learn it's lesson from Other M.

 

[MortifiedPenguin]

Blimey, that controller is expensive for a resistive touch screen!

I'm not really sold, until there are games that I really want that only come out on the Wii U that aren't Mario or Zelda games, I think I'll stay away.

 

[Treblaine]

Dirt cheap for a person. Not dirt cheap for a manufacturer to produce . Doesn't really mean it's good or okay, but console hardware really sucks in the whole making a profit thing. Upgradeable harddrive would be better than externalable (makin' up words!) harddrive for sure though.

What is cheap for one customer buying a single retail is much MUCH cheaper for a business to buy millions of wholesale.

32GB SDD is expensive, but that money would have been better spent with a 250GB HDD instead. It would have cost less and gone further.

SDD speed will be squandered with it's small size 8GB to 32GB is totally inadequate. Game installs were pushing 6GB back in early 2006. In 2012 pushing through 1013 and beyond the demand will be for 22GB and more.

Higher speed blu-ray is no compensation for this.

 

[Treblaine]

Dirt cheap for a person. Not dirt cheap for a manufacturer to produce . Doesn't really mean it's good or okay, but console hardware really sucks in the whole making a profit thing. Upgradeable harddrive would be better than externalable (makin' up words!) harddrive for sure though.

What is cheap for one customer buying a single retail is much MUCH cheaper for a business to buy millions of wholesale.

32GB SDD is expensive, but that money would have been better spent with a 250GB HDD instead. It would have cost less and gone further.

SDD speed will be squandered with it's small size 8GB to 32GB is totally inadequate. Game installs were pushing 6GB back in early 2006. In 2012 pushing through 1013 and beyond the demand will be for 22GB and more.

Higher speed blu-ray is no compensation for this.

It's flash memory, it didn't say it was a normal SSD. A 32GB SD card can be bought for £10.

Well it does say "SSD"

http://www.examiner.com/article/nintendo-reveals-specs-launch-date-and-price-for-wii-u-japan

32GB SSD for £10 that actually works? Never head of that. Lot of con-jobs out there offering 32GB of SSD.

 

[Treblaine]

Dirt cheap for a person. Not dirt cheap for a manufacturer to produce . Doesn't really mean it's good or okay, but console hardware really sucks in the whole making a profit thing. Upgradeable harddrive would be better than externalable (makin' up words!) harddrive for sure though.

What is cheap for one customer buying a single retail is much MUCH cheaper for a business to buy millions of wholesale.

32GB SDD is expensive, but that money would have been better spent with a 250GB HDD instead. It would have cost less and gone further.

SDD speed will be squandered with it's small size 8GB to 32GB is totally inadequate. Game installs were pushing 6GB back in early 2006. In 2012 pushing through 1013 and beyond the demand will be for 22GB and more.

Higher speed blu-ray is no compensation for this.

It's flash memory, it didn't say it was a normal SSD. A 32GB SD card can be bought for £10.

Well it does say "SSD"

http://www.examiner.com/article/nintendo-reveals-specs-launch-date-and-price-for-wii-u-japan

32GB SSD for £10 that actually works? Never head of that. Lot of con-jobs out there offering 32GB of SSD.

Anything using solid state memory is technically a SSD. Did you not read what I said? I said an SD CARD, focus on the CARD bit of it. This reading business is becoming an issue for you.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandisk-32GB-Secure-Digital-Card/dp/B002G12OBO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1347569906&sr=8-5

Nintendo don't need 500MB/s read and write speeds so they could put cheap flash memory in the system like the above card and 32GB of space for far less than the minimum price for a HDD in the console. Also it reduces bulk, power usage and lessens the failure rate.

Matthew, stop with the petty insults. It's a minor error, not any excuse for you to be so snide.

The source I clearly provided (much earlier) states SDD drive, so the idea of using SD Card memory is beside the point, you cannot assume SD cards will act equivalently.

Though it is interesting the idea of using SD cards for storage, it wouldn't be ideal for a device like a console that plugs into a TV where physical size is not a serious constraint but the hassle caused by inability to install your games IS!

No optical media (even Blu-ray) can match the read speed and scan times of HDDs today and they have such great capacity for such reasonable prices.

 

[Treblaine]

They just need it to be small, reliable and cheap and you can have this with flash memory.

Cheap, yes. HDD is the cheapest per gigabyte.

Do they need to be physically small? In data terms they need to be large. 20GB was not-adequate for Xbox 360 over half a decade ago. WiiU using a blu-ray that goes slightly faster than DVD cannot close the gap with how fast HDD drives are today.

some of your systems being 8GB and others being 32GB is inadequate to make any substantial game installations on.

This doesn't seem like a real next-gen Xbox 360 or PS3 killer, this is a "new Wii" aiming for the same casual Wii market but in HD. Wii isn't trully committing to competition with Microsoft or Sony.

 

[disgruntledgamer]

So a current gen spec'd system is releasing when current gen is long in the tooth, and right before new HW drops from sony/ms. I predict a crushing blow as far as graphical capability next year if MSony release HW with anything newer than a 4yr old gpu.

anyone else find that the Memory is extremely low! My PS 3 fat has more memory than the Wii U premium, in fact I think my phone has more memory. :?

 

[Treblaine]

But we're not talking about per/GB. We're talking about getting it into a console. 32GB of flash memory is still going to be cheaper than a 160GB HDD which is pretty much the lowest size drive that I could find on scan and ebuyer. Now you save £X per unit and scale it into the millions. That's a healthy amount of profit that you have just made.

I would aslo call a 25% boost in read speeds more than "slightly faster", that's a healthy increase and it's nearly 300% faster than the PS3.

This is also a pretty relevant point. Nintendo aren't using the loss leader strategy, they intend to make a profit and not incur millions (or even billions) of loss like the other guys did.

Also HDDs are fast for pure read/write but for seek times they are still woefully slow. At least with using the flash memory the WiiU OS may be quite a bit nippier than the creaky XMB.

Finally, of course it's not going to be a 360 or PS3 killer. Like I said, Nintendo can't afford to throw billions at the console and take shit loads of loss just to "win". It's better to do what they are doing which is make profit.

No, YOU are not talking about cost-per-gigabyte in contradiction of the issue you raised of saving money. Physical Size is not the problem. Who in any SERIOUS consideration of what console to get is going to be swung by volume of the box being a few cubic centimetres larger?!???

160GB for storage is better money spent than 32GB, HDD or SSD or SD Card type flash memory. It's pointless having 32GB at the most and 8GB at the least for internal storage, scan time cannot help the fact that you can't install any practical number of current-gen games on that small amount of storage. That's the storage for a smart-phone, NOT for a home console.

25% is only slightly faster when we have gotten used to the SATA speeds we get with HDD drive installs (ooooh, I said "HDD drive", If such petty things annoy you... deal with it).

Without HDD, this supposed "next gen" console is inferior to current gen right out of the gate. And it sure as hell has next-gen pricing.

I don't think anyone outside nintendo REALLY knows for sure if Nintendo is using a loss-leader strategy or making a profit on the WiiU hardware. You don't know, I don't know, these are company secrets that we can't even guess at till we get detailed hardware breakdowns, analysis of wholesale pricing, comparison of patent costs per component use and so on for a rough ball-ark figure. But for precedent: Nintendo did say they were making a profit on 3DS, everyone said it was overpriced then a huge price cut... does suggest they are selling 3DS at a loss and Nintendo is willing to do that to ensure sales.

"it's not going to be a 360 or PS3 killer"

That's not the least of what I'm worried about, this isn't JUST going to be uncompetitive with the PS3/360 in business terms but also in terms of performance, it's NOT going to strive to drive forward technology, it's going to wallow in selling to the least informed and most exploitable part of the market. And if Nintendo does well at this, then everyone will think they have to copy them.

You know what I think Nintendo should do? Get OUT of the home console market and stay out. Release their Nintendo catalogues and franchises on other consoles, PC even. Portable handheld market, who knows, but I don't like Nintendo acting like there is any reason to get their hardware other than 3-5 first party exclusives with no significant number of system-selling third party on their hardware. Those days are long gone.

 

[Treblaine]

#1 Most games are not installed

#2 Find me a hard drive for £10

#3 You likely can't thus showing you don't grasp what I'm talking about as all you can talk about is £/GB which isn't relevant in this scenario.

#4 Calm the fuck down.

#1 Every games benefit hugely from being installed FULLY to a HDD, every PC game is tilstalled, every Xbox 360 game has the option for full installation.

#2 why are you saying £10 figure? No way that Nintendo are using the equivalent of SD-Card flash storage, that'll be dead in a few year of regular use. Where is YOUR SOURCE that Nintendo is only spending £10/$16 on their 32GB of flash storage?

#3 I can grasp that you are sticking arbritrarily to this £10 figure that you erroniously jumped to assuming was the price.
Cost per Gigabyte IS THE ISSUE as the issue is being a modern console and allowing as many quality installations of games as you can without the price getting too high. SD-card type flash memory will NOT give quality installations

#4 "Calm the fuck down."

People who resort to hysterical swearing like that are precisely the ones who need to take their own advice.

I am perfectly calm, I am using extra punctuation and capitalisation as I have seen they are necessary to get people to understand what I write and not just skim over it ignoring the important parts. Though some wilfully ignore pertinent points.

 

[Treblaine]

#1 But they aren't needed though. Consoles are about convenience, not having to install is a benefit.

#2 I'm saying that the entry price for flash memory is cheaper than that of a HDD in the low end. It's not easy to find a 8GB HDD let me tell you and if you did it wouldn't be £10.

#3 I didn't say that it was the price. I'm saying you can get 32GB of flash memory for £10 while you need to pay more for a HDD at the minimum.

#4 I'm telling you to calm down as you are acting like you did last time with your "I hate Nintendo and have a personal grudge against their success". You admitted that last time and it's showing again.

Not being able to install =/= not HAVING to install to perform as well. Again, can the WiiU even count as a "current gen" console if it's going to be backward in this way?

SD-card flash is NOT the equivalent of HDD. I am saying it IS WRONG for them to even consider internal storage as small as 8GB, even 32GB is too small, it should be at least 200GB. You're working back from the assumption that 8GB of internal flash memory is the right decision and make poor assumptions of how much that memory would even cost.

Well I AM saying it IS the price. You certainly raised the issue of price with the whole "Nintendo (supposedly) doesn't want to sell their consoles at a loss".

Prejudice =/= hate. Seriously, where did hate come in? I know what would be a better direction for Nintendo and it's consumers, I don't wish that Nintendo goes bankrupt, I wish they would change their direction to focus on software multi-platform and NOT on home console hardware.

 

[Aarowbeatsdragon]

But bloody hell why are they making the controllers so expensive? I will probably wait for a 3rd party one.

I can understand people thinking the price of the controller alone is rediculous, but its actually resonable considering the controller was what took nintendo the most money to create, the consoles technologie was already there but the gamepads one wasnt so it took them more money to make it. If they sold it for anything less theyd be loosing so much money, hope i helped you understand they arnt doing it just to be dicks.

OT. Cant wait, been excited since the day it was first announced and now that its actually coming out..well...yay.