Wii U Hardware Still In Constant Development

[Midna]

Technical specifications for Nintendo's next-gen Wii U console are still in flux, according to Dead or Alive 5 developer Team Ninja.

Wii U game development is "very easy" and "almost exactly like on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360", Team Ninja revealed to NGamer magazine (thanks, Gamefront.de) in an interview discussing the Wii U version of upcoming hack-n'-slash Ninja Gaiden 3.

Nintendo has remained hush on the Wii U's final capabilities - unsurprising considering the fact that the console's abilities are "changing constantly", Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi has revealed.

"They asked us what we would want from the hardware, and when we give them feedback we can see that they have definitely listened and making changes," Hayashi said. "The hardware is still changing constantly."

Team Ninja's Fumihiko Yasuda added that the Wii U's touch-screen tablet controls were "similar" to those on the DS, something the team has experience with from handheld title Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword.

"We want to introduce some elements from that into the Wii U version," Yasuda added.

Nintendo confirmed this week that the Wii U will launch in Europe, the US and Japan by the end of 2012. More details are expected nearer this year's E3 trade show in June.

Source

If developers are happy, we're gonna be happy too. Thanks to @1Player for the news

 

[frogboy]

Nintendo's still working on it? Release is rather close...

 

[Midna]

Working on it is not the appropriate term. More like tweaking. The developers get a say in what Nintendo does with the Wii U, because they'll be making the games. What will be happening now is software and hardware improvements that will not render any previous work incompatible. As I recall, the PS3 had it's RAM increased because of developer requests.

The important thing is that Nintendo is not turning a blind eye to 3rd parties. They don't want another system consisting of 10 1st party games and then 2000 shovelware titles.

 

[Rydian]

Yeah even now, there's plenty that can be changed spec-wise without major hardware revisions or anything like that. RAM amount, the various clock speeds, networking hardware, storage space, even supported output modes (interlaced/non, resolution list, blah blah) wouldn't be invasive to tweak yet, and there's also software support that's likely to still add features and such right up until release.

 

[RoMee]

So Nintendo's next gen console (Wii U) will only be on par with sony or microsoft's old gen console??
That make sense

 

[Skelletonike]

So Nintendo's next gen console (Wii U) will only be on par with sony or microsoft's old gen console??
That make sense

Where the hell do you even see that?
All it says is that the game developing will be easier, like PS3 and 360 games were, that's in no way connected to it's hardware and specs at all.

 

[Gahars]

It might be basic tweaking, but they're cutting it close. Still, it's at least good to see that they're taking pointers from third developers, considering their problems with that in the past.

 

[triassic911]

So Nintendo's next gen console (Wii U) will only be on par with sony or microsoft's old gen console??
That make sense

Where does it say that??

Anyway, I'm glad they are listening to 3rd parties. Like Midna said, hopefully massive amounts of shovelware won't happen on the Wii U.

 

[Thomas83Lin]

Nintendo's still working on it? Release is rather close...

Exactly what i was thinking, not expecting much changes myself. hopefully just stability

 

[FAST6191]

I think we should remember this is very high volume industrial design for a product and product line intended to last for several years where both economies of scale and planning for future revisions are very much in play and can change the sums of money involved either on the day, down the line or by a lack of product on shelves by orders of magnitude and all too easily for the worse.

Equally these big changes could instead be big from the developers point of view and if they say have to account for an extra 10ms of lag in controls or a slight variation in graphics output chips it can cause serious headaches.

Granted I have no clue what is actually going on here and the quote I presume is purposefully vague but the above is the usual story when dealing with/engineering things projected to be not a tenth as popular as the wii u.

Still nice to hear Nintendo have a decent SDK for people to play with and if I may allow my mind to wander a bit I hope it also means a lot more is kicked to the dash side of things this time allowing later games to gain abilities to use new features (see Wii speak being essentially useless).

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I would like the part where the cut out that obnoxious controller and essentially switched over to Classic Controller Pros.

 

[Foxi4]

I would like the part where the cut out that obnoxious controller and essentially switched over to Classic Controller Pros.

...and essentially release a PS3 with a WiiU box? No, thanks.

The controler is the key - it's a tablet-like feature for the system. You are not forced to using it for gaming, you can just as well sync a WiiMote. That said, I don't think either of us ever held the controller in our hands so we can't say whether it's any good just by "looking at it".

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I would like the part where the cut out that obnoxious controller and essentially switched over to Classic Controller Pros.

...and essentially release a PS3 with a WiiU box? No, thanks.

The controler is the key - it's a tablet-like feature for the system. You are not forced to using it for gaming, you can just as well sync a WiiMote. That said, I don't think either of us ever held the controller in our hands so we can't say whether it's any good just by "looking at it".

I really don't see it though. It's neat but it solves one of the "first world" problems of gaming. Pulling up a menu on games (unless the menus are real time and don't pause the game) has hardly made people batty. It's something I could live without.

People always wanted to see a "Wii HD" or some sort of "HD Nintendo console" and cutting out the screen would make it affordable. If it dropped at $250 then that'd be fine. I seriously doubt it though this controller, plus it's competing against a $200 Xbox 360 and a $250 PS3, both with popular audiences, both with large game libraries, and both with more to come.

 

[Foxi4]

I would like the part where the cut out that obnoxious controller and essentially switched over to Classic Controller Pros.

...and essentially release a PS3 with a WiiU box? No, thanks.

The controler is the key - it's a tablet-like feature for the system. You are not forced to using it for gaming, you can just as well sync a WiiMote. That said, I don't think either of us ever held the controller in our hands so we can't say whether it's any good just by "looking at it".

I really don't see it though. It's neat but it solves one of the "first world" problems of gaming. Pulling up a menu on games (unless the menus are real time and don't pause the game) has hardly made people batty. It's something I could live without.

People always wanted to see a "Wii HD" or some sort of "HD Nintendo console" and cutting out the screen would make it affordable. If it dropped at $250 then that'd be fine. I seriously doubt it though this controller, plus it's competing against a $200 Xbox 360 and a $250 PS3, both with popular audiences, both with large game libraries, and both with more to come.

As mentioned numerous times before, the WiiU is more powerful then the PS3 and even if it will be the underdog of the next generation, it's still going to hold up for a good few years. Games won't magically evolve starting tomorrow morning - they're not going to change. If companies are capable of porting contemporary titles onto the PS3, which has 3 times less RAM and about 2/3 of the WiiU's processing power then hey - we've got a winner.

Nintendo did a relatively good job with the specs and I sincerely doubt that its competitors will be "vastly" more powerful unless they take their time and wait for the tech to get cheaper.

 

[Veho]

People always wanted to see a "Wii HD" or some sort of "HD Nintendo console" and cutting out the screen would make it affordable.

That way it could be an affordable HD console with a standard dual analog controller.

...essentially a PS3 in a WiiU box.

 

[Hielkenator]

I would like the part where the cut out that obnoxious controller and essentially switched over to Classic Controller Pros.

...and essentially release a PS3 with a WiiU box? No, thanks.

The controler is the key - it's a tablet-like feature for the system. You are not forced to using it for gaming, you can just as well sync a WiiMote. That said, I don't think either of us ever held the controller in our hands so we can't say whether it's any good just by "looking at it".

I really don't see it though. It's neat but it solves one of the "first world" problems of gaming. Pulling up a menu on games (unless the menus are real time and don't pause the game) has hardly made people batty. It's something I could live without.

People always wanted to see a "Wii HD" or some sort of "HD Nintendo console" and cutting out the screen would make it affordable. If it dropped at $250 then that'd be fine. I seriously doubt it though this controller, plus it's competing against a $200 Xbox 360 and a $250 PS3, both with popular audiences, both with large game libraries, and both with more to come.

Only the future will tell...Anyway I'm not looking forward to any XBOX or PS games, I've had my share with those sytems.
I still use my Wii on a daily basis, mainly for the Wii exclusive games and the Retro games. Also USB loading is a big plus, even though I own most of the games I´ve got on it...
Without homebrew i´d probably think otherwise, but it is what it is. wii is my #1 console in years BECAUSE of it´s homebrew. Even with it´s lower specs. It also has the best games on it than any other Nintendo system I think...

 

[Foxi4]

Only the future will tell...Anyway I'm not looking forward to any XBOX or PS games, I've had my share with those sytems.I still use my Wii on a daily basis, mainly for the Wii exclusive games and the Retro games. Also USB loading is a big plus, even though I own most of the games I´ve got on it...Without homebrew i´d probably think otherwise, but it is what it is. wii is my #1 console in years BECAUSE of it´s homebrew. Even with it´s lower specs. It also has the best games on it than any other Nintendo system I think...

The PS3 has homebrew available too, y'know.

The XBox360? Not much of it, really. Mainly because Microsoft's policy when it comes to programming is "Wanna make a game? Sure, submit it. Maybe we'll put it up on the store" which is quite nice for small studios or even single programmers.

 

[megavirus1994]

im not sure but i heard that the wii u will have a quad core processor (which is imaginable with phones being there)
but yeah they should probably be finished with the major hardware changes coz it takes time to actually plan and mass produce stuff
lets just hope nintendo put in some fast GPU
oh and an open store for developers would be nice too

 

[Foxi4]

oh and an open store for developers would be nice too

PFFF!

AS IF! Nintendo still believes in their "Seal of Quality", they won't just allow "anyone" to program for their system. As of now, even if you can afford the development hardware you still have to "beg" for it and meet steep conditions to recieve dev units.

 

[FAST6191]

I know I already went but seeing the slight divergence in the conversation I want to go again- I have to say I have quite enjoyed this 360 or PS3 and a maybe a wii thing most people seem to have gone with this time around and if MS and Sony do insist on dragging things out then hopefully the Wii U will have the superior versions (ever the optimist me) of multiplatform games with the added bonus of a couple of Nintendo franchises for a couple of years at which point we can return to discussing things. Wii U as a quick and dirty OC, ram and graphics upgrade to eek things out for a couple of years... works for me.
Of course this will mean the need for a decent controller but if not and if the control options were there I am sure Mr Soldering Iron and/or Mr programmable chip and his cousins could make an appearance.