Next gen EA games will skip the Wii U due to Frostbite Engine

[Foxi4]

And you think another 700 dollar Sony console with only a few exclusives is going to do well? Keep dreaming.

Are there any PS5 plans that we're unaware of or are you talking about the PS4 which was officially announced to be an "affordable platform priced at around $400"? As for exclusive titles, Sony platforms always had plenty of'em. Now, naturally the Wii had more exclusives than the PS3 or the 360, but when you sit down and think about it, it's because it couldn't push multiplatform titles at all due to restrictive hardware.

 

[chavosaur]

The most annoying thing about this thread is the fact that everyone assumes their opinion alone accounts for the opinion of all Gamers.
It's ok if you think the wii u doesn't need EA games, and its ok if you don't think EA provides core games.
Just because you don't want Mass effect 4, Battlefield, and a ton of other titles on your wii u, doesn't mean I didn't want it on Mine.

 

[Rockym]

And you think another 700 dollar Sony console with only a few exclusives is going to do well? Keep dreaming.

Another console? What was the first console Sony sold at 700 dollars? PS3 debuted at $599. Also, when did they announce the price of the PS4? Could you provide me a link to the announcement?

 

[Foxi4]

Probably because you think that the "worst company" poll was anything other than "the company that most of the internet that voted in this poll dislikes".

We all hate EA, we just play their games because they're good. ;O;

I will proceed to voice my disaproval as far as their business model is concerned by giving them my money. ;O;

 

[Guild McCommunist]

And you think another 700 dollar Sony console with only a few exclusives is going to do well? Keep dreaming.

implying there's going to be a $700 Sony console.

Are you perhaps illiterate or are facts and complete bullshit a blurry middleground for you?

 

[LightyKD]

So, basically EA is giving Nintendo the cold shoulder... and what's this about a Mass Effect 4??? Why can't good trilogies stay a trilogy?

 

[Foxi4]

So, basically EA is giving Nintendo the cold shoulder... and what's this about a Mass Effect 4??? Why can't good trilogies stay a trilogy?

I wholeheartedly agree, a trilogy is just fine but any more than that is just a stretch.

Spoiler

 

[TripleSMoon]

This makes no sense. The current gen consoles can run the frostbite engine (very poorly tho), so why can't the wiiu? Is EA implying that the WiiU is inferior to those consoles hardware-wise?

It's quite simple, really... EA has no faith in the Wii U as a profitable platform, but it's more politically correct to say " our new engine won't run well on it"... You know, despite the fact that it apparently runs fine enough on 7 year old hardware for EA to put it on PS3 and 360. Seems legit.

I'm at work and on mobile, so I'll just put this video here. This mofo says basically all the other points I would say.

Spoiler

 

[Rizsparky]

Very bad for the casuals, but Mario and link will save us.

You forgot F-Zero, Samus and Smash

 

[Foxi4]

It's quite simple, really... EA has no faith in the Wii U as a profitable platform, but it's more politically correct to say " our new engine won't run well on it"... You know, despite the fact that it apparently runs fine enough on 7 year old hardware for EA to put it on PS3 and 360. Seems legit.

I'm at work and on mobile, so I'll just put this video here. This mofo says basically all the other points I would say.

As it was mentioned earlier in the thread, the WiiU's CPU is not exactly up to scratch. In fact, it's technology far "older" than 7 years old - it's literally just three Broadway cores with some alterations (Out-of-Order processing) strapped together at a higher frequency - the CPU inherited most of the flaws that plagued both the Wii and the Gamecube. Nintendo put a lot of pressure on GPGPU, but not all studios are willing to go in that direction yet and demand a little more from processors - the little more that the WiiU doesn't give.

Of course there are no accurate benchmarks of the CPU itself, nobody really knows its performance. Technically it has more threads-per-core, but we won't how far you can push it without some benchmarking software running on the console itself.

 

[the_randomizer]

As it was mentioned earlier in the thread, the WiiU's CPU is not exactly up to scratch. In fact, it's technology far "older" than 7 years old - it's literally just three Broadway cores with some alterations (Out-of-Order processing) strapped together at a higher frequency - the CPU inherited most of the flaws that plagued both the Wii and the Gamecube. Nintendo put a lot of pressure on GPGPU, but not all studios are willing to go in that direction yet and demand a little more from processors - the little more that the WiiU doesn't give.

Of course there are no accurate benchmarks of the CPU itself, nobody really knows its performance. Technically it has more threads-per-core, but we won't how far you can push it without some benchmarking software running on the console itself.

But we do know it is better clock for clock than the Xbox or PS3's CPUs (the IBM Cell architecture was pretty convoluted from what I understand and was a pain to program for), the other issue is many developers aren't used to the out-of-order execution or GPGPU. Once the bigger titles are released/announced, the system will sell more. The very idea that the Wii U will fail in less than a year's time without substantial evidence and without waiting some more and then make judgment on it are the signs of a negative fanboy.

 

[Rydian]

Out of order is how most modern CPUs work. In fact the first Atoms were in-order, and everybody was all "WTF".

 

[Walker D]

Probably because you think that the "worst company" poll was anything other than "the company that most of the internet that voted in this poll dislikes".

Yeah ...and this was the poll:

Spoiler

The people inside are 4chan probably..

(and by the look of it, I think they used Chrome also..)

 

[Rydian]

When 4chan messes with a poll, they make it funny/ironic.

EA is believable, and the second year in a row.

 

[kisamesama]

another one.... my fears on the wii u turned into reality ... wii u's going down... I don't know if the mario/zelda/metroid titles will be enough to save it

 

[Qtis]

But we do know it is better clock for clock than the Xbox or PS3's CPUs (the IBM Cell architecture was pretty convoluted from what I understand and was a pain to program for), the other issue is many developers aren't used to the out-of-order execution or GPGPU.

While I don't want to get into this argument any further, being a pain to program depends a lot on the SDK for the platform. The PS3 CELL was a pain to dev for in the beginning, but Sony has made a lot of improvements in the SDK to make development easier. It's not as much a pain to dev compared to a few years back. When the documentation and user-friendliness of the SDK is good, it's possible to make a better game on hardware that is considered worse than the other.

 

[Deleted_171835]

As it was mentioned earlier in the thread, the WiiU's CPU is not exactly up to scratch. In fact, it's technology far "older" than 7 years old - it's literally just three Broadway cores with some alterations (Out-of-Order processing) strapped together at a higher frequency - the CPU inherited most of the flaws that plagued both the Wii and the Gamecube. Nintendo put a lot of pressure on GPGPU, but not all studios are willing to go in that direction yet and demand a little more from processors - the little more that the WiiU doesn't give.

Of course there are no accurate benchmarks of the CPU itself, nobody really knows its performance. Technically it has more threads-per-core, but we won't how far you can push it without some benchmarking software running on the console itself.

Considering the Frostbite director didn't even specify the CPU as a problem, all of this is really speculative. And from what I see, there is nothing that indicates the CPU was indeed a problem. The more likely scenario is that the dev tools were still premature when they were testing it (Criterion said as much).

But on the topic of the CPU, this "far older technology" features out of order processing and beats the 360's Xenon clock-per-clock on integer workloads. There's even a DSP for audio processing to take some of the load off the processor unlike the 360. It isn't as inferior to the Xenon as you put it out to be.

And yeah, sure the Wii U's Espresso may be lacking when it comes to SIMD or in terms of floating point performance when it comes to the Cell or Xenon but these supposed next-gen CPUs don't fare much better and Frostbite 3 is coming to them. The Jaguar only reaches half of the peak performance of the Cell and is essentially a "netbook CPU".

If Frostbite 3 can support the PS3/360, it most certainly can support the Wii U. Like I already said, this is more likely a matter of EA not feeling that the Wii U is worth allocating resources to at this point because of how it's selling right now.

 

[Rydian]

To take it to (somewhat) extremes, most people would prefer a machine with 75% relative speed where they can port an engine over and use high-level languages opposed to a 100% one where they have to use assembly.

 

[kisamesama]

nintendo has dropped support for wii u because its engine cannot support its own hardware...

ea ... lazy devs, all of them

nothing to do with laziness... everything's about money.. EA does not find it worth investing on its latest engine for the wii u

 

[the_randomizer]

nothing to do with laziness... everything's about money.. EA does not find it worth investing on its latest engine for the wii u

If they want money, they have to take risks, then they can decide whether or not it's worth it, but for them to make automatic assumptions without taking the risk of porting or programming Wii U games...the whole argument is a paradox.
Make Wii U games that are good = profit. Too cowardly to invest in a system without seeing how the games will sell = no profit.

To EA: No sh*t Sherlock.