Official Wii U Discussion Thread

That's Tiny, especially for a Dev Kit, unless the bit at the bottom's the disk slot, but still, I'm sceptical of those pics.

Looks like a wireless router with a fan. Or a portable Harddrive.

( Edited 25.04.2011 16:07 by Stulaw )

I hope it doesn't look like that. Looks like some kid's lunchbox. Just a put a handle on it.

The little antenna on the back interests me though! Seems to go with the 'Stream' idea of sending a lot of data to far flung screen controller thingys.

I agree with sly, Nintendo had been working with 3d since the snes, and they finally came out with the 3DS that's doing well. Nintendo just doesn't seem to be a company to abandon an idea so pre-maturely.

Its not abandoning the concept. Its just completely impractical right now. Nintendo wouldn't make the Wii powerful enough for HD because (in their mind) not enough people had HDTVs. I can't imagine them making 3D the crux of their system with the percentage of homes with 3D TVs being even lower.

3. They're creating a distinct third platform that isn't intended to replace the Wii as everyone is assuming, and that it's designed to specifically target hardcore gamers.

I don't expect them to stop supporting the Wii, if that's what you mean. Even in its current terminally ill stage its still making them a lot of money. I do expect the new system to be backward compatible though, making the Wii somewhat useless if you buy a 'Stream'.

but business-wise it would seem to go against everything Nintendo have been building over the last 5 years

I think Nintendo's philosophy has just been to go for the easy money. Making money off of casual gamers now isn't nearly as easy as it was before. There's more competition for casual gamer's money than 'real' gamer's money. I'm guessing that's why Nintendo's supposedly coming back around.





( Edited 25.04.2011 16:26 by Jacob4000 )

@ Raff:

You'd have to be pretty hardcore to play that thing properly.

From Iwata:

As for the details of exactly what it will be, we have decided that it is best to let people experience it for themselves at E3. So I won’t talk about specific details today, but it will offer a new way of playing games within the home.

@Marzy:
It makes me wonder what kind of new experience people can get from a controller.

If it does have the screen, I can imagine that games like Scrabble and Mah-jong(the real Mah-jong) will be easier to replicate.

Oh yeah QJ net have released a mock up of a Wii 2 controller that looks very uncomfortable (nothing compared to Raffs though).

I'm excited. If only because finally I'll be able to play my favourite Nintendo franchises in HD with presumably a good online structure. Nintendo have so many damn good games - Zelda, Mario, Metroid, F-Zero, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Star Fox, Kirby, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Donkey Kong, etc - it's about damn time these games get what they deserve. I'm looking forward to seeing the likes of HD Metroid and Zelda, and playing fully online voice chat games of F-Zero, Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Star Fox.

At the moment, I don't care too much for what else the machine can do - I'm just glad we'll finally be getting a Nintendo console on the same level as the PS3.

Any third party games that anyone would want on the console?

I think the touch screen would be brilliant for another Okami game, Next-gen graphics and perfect controls.

I guess RPGs like Final Fantasy would benefit from the screen with menus having easy to select actions and items, leaving the main TV to do have free flowing action.

Oh and although it won't benefit from a touchscreen, I'd love to see Battlefield 3 on the N6, just to see if how the graphics match up to the PC version (which is the version I'm getting).

Battlefield 3 would definitely be on my first third party purchases. And Crysis 2, if it had new modes, a robust online, and touch controls for the suit.

Is there any word on how strong this console is gonna be? Is this gonna be basically a PS3/360-level console to compete with those two systems? If that's the case, won't Nintendo have put out two consoles for the same generation? It's surely not going to be the console to kick off the next-gen right? This is the impression I'm getting anyway.

Third party games - I guess Nintendo will finally be added to the list of top third party games now. Perhaps the likes of Final Fantasy XIII-2 and GTA 5 will actually come to the system. It would be great if true, but which version to buy? :/

( Edited 25.04.2011 18:07 by Azuardo )

If anything's 3D, it's the controller screen. If it even exists as something bigger than a small panel. I'm sure it'll be powerful enough for stereoscopic 3D, but I could see Nintendo refusing to use it themselves because of their autostereoscopic 3D stance. Streaming games to 3DS to view in 3D, on the other hand...

@Azuardo
The console is said to use a modified Ati R700 graphics card, which is two generations ahead of the 360's (and a lot more powerful) using shader model 4.1.

I'm also thinking the CPU will be much more significant than the 360's, so as long as it has a gig or more dedicated RAM, the console should be great in the graphics department.

So games better looking than Uncharted 3 would be possible, or...?

*has no idea about graphics*

I think that it's going to be just more powerful enough to make a good difference, thus putting Microsoft and Sony in a difficult position because they would have to follow up with their next system earlier than they planned to. Actually not a bad move by Nintendo if I think about it. All three companies launched their new systems fairly close to each other in the past but this time Nintendo launches their next console presumably a good while before Sony and Microsoft, making their console the strongest on the market for maybe 2 years.

By the time Sony and Microsoft have followed up, the N6 will already be established in the console market with a good install base, third party developers on board and a solid library of games. Therefore it won't matter that much if the Xbox720/PS4 outmatch the N6 in power, not least due to the gap between them being much smaller as I can't imagine such a huge jump again.

That's how I see things. I could be totally wrong but this just makes the most sense to me right now.

Azuardo said:
So games better looking than Uncharted 3 would be possible, or...?

*has no idea about graphics*

Ah right, well yes, the graphics should be significant enough to make a vast difference.

Oh yes, and I noticed another strange thing about the pictures Squidboy posted, the thing's on, but it's not plugged in.

( Edited 25.04.2011 19:22 by Stulaw )

Because it's fake, more than likely...

Dev kits are not that small, so it's not that. The Xbox 360 dev kit looks like a normal system, but Nintendo typically have ones that look nothing like the final thing - Wii's is a big black box, DS' looks like a big blue battery.

Mason said:
Because it's fake, more than likely...

Dev kits are not that small, so it's not that. The Xbox 360 dev kit looks like a normal system, but Nintendo typically have ones that look nothing like the final thing - Wii's is a big black box, DS' looks like a big blue battery.

It could be in Sleep Mode (colour blue signifies Sleep mode on 3DS) powered by an internal battery, one which charges itself when the machine is powered on.

is this the big black box you're referring to?

Nintendo later changed it's SDK to an original white console with a racing green front plate:

That's not a Wii development kit, that's a debug (the green front). This is a dev kit:

Note its size compared to Wii in this picture.


( Edited 25.04.2011 20:31 by Mason )

But why go through the trouble of putting a battery in there? That just adds cost, weight, and size. Its a home console, I don't think a battery really makes much sense.

If its a fake though, its honestly one of the most convincing ones I've ever seen.

Therefore it won't matter that much if the Xbox720/PS4 outmatch the N6 in power, not least due to the gap between them being much smaller as I can't imagine such a huge jump again.

Nintendo tried to tell us that graphics had reached a wall this generation...they were pretty clearly wrong on that front. I think games still have room to grow visually, so I hope Nintendo is thinking a bit forwardly in terms of the power.

Jacob4000 said:
But why go through the trouble of putting a battery in there? That just adds cost, weight, and size. Its a home console, I don't think a battery really makes much sense.

If its a fake though, its honestly one of the most convincing ones I've ever seen.

Therefore it won't matter that much if the Xbox720/PS4 outmatch the N6 in power, not least due to the gap between them being much smaller as I can't imagine such a huge jump again.

Nintendo tried to tell us that graphics had reached a wall this generation...they were pretty clearly wrong on that front. I think games still have room to grow visually, so I hope Nintendo is thinking a bit forwardly in terms of the power.

Consoles have had internal batteries in them for a number of years, it's nothing new. Any such battery could be tiny, and the costs involved would be minuscule.

It makes sense that they would add new "Always On" features that the Wii was unable to support.

The Wii2: Its stays on even when you have a power cut and no internet, just cuz.

The batteries in consoles currently are for time-keeping purposes though, no? They wouldn't hold enough power to use for gaming for any substantial length of time, and there seems little point.

( Edited 25.04.2011 20:57 by Mason )

Yeah, the type of batteries in consoles now are really on a totally different scale than what would be required for a persistent wireless internet connection or gaming for any length of time. There's just utterly no purpose to having a substantial battery in a home console. If you're within range of a Wifi hotspot, chances are you're near a power outlet.

It would just jack up the cost and size for a feature that no one needs.

Jacob4000 said:

I don't expect them to stop supporting the Wii, if that's what you mean. Even in its current terminally ill stage its still making them a lot of money. I do expect the new system to be backward compatible though, making the Wii somewhat useless if you buy a 'Stream'.

No, no. What I meant was they'd continue supporting the Wii in parallel. So the point was they'd be serving both audiences via two different systems.

Jacob4000 said:

I think Nintendo's philosophy has just been to go for the easy money. Making money off of casual gamers now isn't nearly as easy as it was before. There's more competition for casual gamer's money than 'real' gamer's money. I'm guessing that's why Nintendo's supposedly coming back around.

Nah, I don't agree at all. If they were to do that, I think it would be such poor business sense and I don't believe they're that rash. You can't rebrand yourself and do a 180°. Which if the rumours are true of the controllers, would seem to be what they'd be doing, or going towards.

As far as 3D, why would it be difficult for Nintendo to make a 3D console? This is a serious question, I don't know much about it. The way I see it, all Nintendo has to is support 120 frames and for the console to have some extra power. The developers just make the game so that there are two cameras (one for each eye) instead of the normal one. If the Wii2 supports 120 frames, it should be able to work with TVs that use the glasses where each frame blinks at 60fps, but just alternatively. The extra power would be used to effectively process two images at once so that TVs using polarized glasses can use them.

That doesn't seem that hard to me, but surely there's more to it that I'm simply ignorant of.

Jacob4000 said:
I hope it doesn't look like that. Looks like some kid's lunchbox. Just a put a handle on it.