Miyamoto, Iwata Talk Nintendo Wii U GPU Performance, Development Structure

Part of me wants the Wii U CPU/GPU to easily compete with PS4/720, part of me just doesn't care
I think the geek in me wants to know specs, the gamer in me just wants to play some games

nry said:
Part of me wants the Wii U CPU/GPU to easily compete with PS4/720, part of me just doesn't care
I think the geek in me wants to know specs, the gamer in me just wants to play some games

We'll possibly start to know on February 20, but I a lot of people are setting themselves up for disappointment with this generation. PS4/Xbox720 are going to be powerful beasts certainly, but I don't think nearly as much as some are expecting. While they will also likely be more "powerful" than Wii U, I don't think it will be a drastic difference like it was last generation.

Sadly it seems like gaming has become way too focused on specs. Sometimes it seems like specs matter more than the games. Ironically the people who think that way now most likely grew up simply having fun with their 8-bit NES and 16-bit SNES games and couldn't have cared less about the specs because they were playing for the enjoyment of the game.

The amount of fun you have playing a game is the only thing that should matter. Unfortunately that sentiment is lost among so many "gamers" these days.

I think tons of people are also forgetting how long it took for developers to stop calling the PS3 architecture awkward and difficult and for PS3 ports to actually work more smoothly. For like 2/3 years PS3 got bad ports of 360 or PC games and now the PS3 is an absolute beast in terms of support.

So I really think the CPU complaints are overblown, ports are already working quite well compared to early PS3 ports and I'm sure devs will get used to the WiiU architecture quicker in general.

If rumours are to be believed the PS4 and NextBox are more similar to PC build-wise and I guess that's to help make porting easier.

Sadly it seems like gaming has become way too focused on specs. Sometimes it seems like specs matter more than the games. Ironically the people who think that way now most likely grew up simply having fun with their 8-bit NES and 16-bit SNES games and couldn't have cared less about the specs because they were playing for the enjoyment of the game.

I think this viewpoint is off. People have always cared about specs. Always. Way back in the day, one of the reasons the Genesis/Mega-drive found early success in North America was because it's games looked so much better than the NES games of the time.

The SNES eventually found huge success because of great looking games like Donkey Kong and games like Starfox that pushed the visual envelope. Moving forward, I can clearly remember N64 and Sony fanboys fighting over which system had the best graphics. This is all a simplification of complicated events, but I think your memory of the past is flawed if you think specs and visuals have only recently become a talking point.

The only phenomenon that's relatively new in my eyes is the crowd trying to pretend like specs don't matter at all. Which I think is just as misguided as the crowd thinking they're all that matter. 

Nintendo consoles obviously dont have enough BITS they need to buy more BITS for their systems!

Jacob4000 said:
I think your memory of the past is flawed if you think specs and visuals have only recently become a talking point.

Caring about specs and caring about how a game looks, while obviously related, are different.

Thats true. Specs have been argued over since the Spectrum / Commadore days.

Only more recently have visuals, artwork, style become more appriciated these days seperately.  For instance; people thinking the older TWW looks better due to its style, dispite the fact its technicaly worse spec-wise.

I can't care less, honestly. Maybe I'm getting old or something. I never fully understood why people argue over console specs when PCs are really the only one that stays ahead of the game. I find it funny when people talk about next gen hardware being a console. Delusional. Or missing the point. Or both.

Darkflame said:
Thats true. Specs have been argued over since the Spectrum / Commadore days.

My Spectrum is awesome because it runs at 3.5 Mhz while your dumb Commadore only runs at 1 Mhz!

Sonic_13 said:

Darkflame said:
Thats true. Specs have been argued over since the Spectrum / Commadore days.

My Spectrum is awesome because it runs at 3.5 Mhz while your dumb Commadore only runs at 1 Mhz!

Tsk, typyical Spectrum hyperbole...slagging off the competition. My Commadore (Plus 4) runs at 1.76, thats closer to 2mhz!

My commadore also is HD (320 × 200) and has over a 120 colors! (one of them blinks)