Hardware Vigil art director says: "Wii U is a pretty powerful machine"

[AlanWeird]

I would say the differences between snes and genesis are similar to differences between 360 and ps3.

Snes could handle rotation (mode-7) whilst the genesis/megadrive required the extra power from the cd addon for that.
Snes could handle a higher resolution. Showcased in later titles. Also titles like donkey kong country, yoshis island... I can't think of a single sega game that came close to the complicity of those titles.

Still, sega had virtua racing. which I think had 3 seperate and very expensive releases.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Simply put, the Genesis had the upper-hand in processing power, but the SNES had the hardware advantage in graphics, audio, etc.

 

[finkmac]

Sega Genesis and Neo Geo were both more powerful than the SNES, which had all of the 3rd party support.

Since when when was the Genesis more powerful than the SNES?

Since it had a Motorola 6800 in it that was faster than the custom chip in the SNES and since the system was demonstrably able to handle more sprites on screen and more layers of parallaxing background. I thought this was all common knowledge by now. I'm an SNES guy myself, and even I can admit it. SNES had the upper hand in colors supported, and by most accounts in sound as well, but not in processing.

Since when did the SNES have all the 3rd party support?

Figuratively since about the time Capcom released Street Fighter II on the SNES. Literally since about 1995 and onward. Third parties like Treasure and Technosoft released some really killer Genesis exclusives, and there were certainly lots of sports titles from EA, but all of the really heavy hitters at the time (Capcom, Konami, Square, Enix, etc.) put their support primarily or even exclusively behind Nintendo after Sega's head start was over.

In any case, even if you don't believe me, there's more than enough evidence that powerful hardware isn't what brings the games.

I knew the Genesis had a better processor than the SNES (blast processing!)... 68000 is also 32-Bit...
I read somwhere that the SNES was more powerful as a whole...

By 1995, SEGA was waiting for the Saturn...

 

[flamepanther]

Snes could handle rotation (mode-7) whilst the genesis/megadrive required the extra power from the cd addon for that.
Snes could handle a higher resolution. Showcased in later titles.

I'd say those were extra features, not more power.

Also titles like donkey kong country, yoshis island... I can't think of a single sega game that came close to the complicity of those titles.

DKC relied on pre-rendered graphics to make the console appear more powerful. It was specifically designed to put the higher color output and sampled music synthesizer to good use without requiring much at all in the CPU department. That the original GameBoy was able to handle a passable imitation of it should say something. Yoshi's Island was a marvel, but it also used an upgrade chip, so it doesn't really count.

I knew the Genesis had a better processor than the SNES (blast processing!)... 68000 is also 32-Bit...
I read somwhere that the SNES was more powerful as a whole...

It depends on what you mean. SNES is capable of more colorful graphics than the Genesis, which could be mistaken for "more powerful." It can do some scaling scaling and rotation tricks that would be harder for the Genesis to do, but that's because it's designed to take shortcuts to do those specific things. That's an advantage that some people call powerful, but that's still shaky. It's best advantage it that it's designed to allow cartridges to include upgraded hardware (DSP, FX, etc.) Some of those expansions do make the SNES more powerful than the Genesiswhen those specific games were plugged in. That makes the console more powerful when it needs to be, but not on its own.

By 1995, SEGA was waiting for the Saturn...

Essentially, and I would say that had a much bigger impact on third-party support for the Genesis and the Saturn than hardware specs did... which was my point.

 

[Midna]

I knew the Genesis had a better processor than the SNES (blast processing!)... 68000 is also 32-Bit...

Oh god what the fuck, people still believe the '90s Genesis advertisements?
Tell me that's sarcastic, please.

 

[finkmac]

snip

True, the SNES did seem to use a lot more Cartridge Chips...

Before the Genesis, Nintendo put a lot more restrictions on developers... When the SNES was released, Nintendo put less pressure on developers...

Also titles like donkey kong country, yoshis island... I can't think of a single sega game that came close to the complicity of those titles.

Sonic 3D Blast.

---

 

[Midna]

I knew the Genesis had a better processor than the SNES (blast processing!)... 68000 is also 32-Bit...

Oh god what the fuck, people still believe the '90s Genesis advertisements?
Tell me that's sarcastic, please.

Sort of. "Blast Processing" was a marketing term for "higher clock speed"...

But that's wrong.

http://trixter.oldsk...processing-101/

Blast processing was fancy name coined by marketers for a real hardware trick. The only reason people remember the name is because Sega advertised the feature without any context or explanation of what it actually did, using it as a cheap buzzword.

Edit: Here. This should help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlulSyBI2aY

 

[finkmac]

I knew the Genesis had a better processor than the SNES (blast processing!)... 68000 is also 32-Bit...

Oh god what the fuck, people still believe the '90s Genesis advertisements?
Tell me that's sarcastic, please.

Sort of. "Blast Processing" was a marketing term for "higher clock speed"...

But that's wrong.

http://trixter.oldsk...processing-101/

Blast processing was fancy name coined by marketers for a real hardware trick. The only reason people remember the name is because Sega advertised the feature without any context or explanation of what it actually did, using it as a cheap buzzword.

Edit: Here. This should help.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zlulSyBI2aY

I have read that article... I also read elsewhere that the article was only half true, the other half was the Genesis' faster processor...

But yeah, I initially posted that as a joke.

 

[Midna]

I have read that article... I also read elsewhere that the article was only half true, the other half was the Genesis' faster processor...

But yeah, I initially posted that as a joke.

Well frankly, it doesn't really matter what blast processing is. Can you tell what blast processing is from that ad? Neither can anyone else.

 

[finkmac]

I have read that article... I also read elsewhere that the article was only half true, the other half was the Genesis' faster processor...

But yeah, I initially posted that as a joke.

Well frankly, it doesn't really matter what blast processing is. Can you tell what blast processing is from that ad? Neither can anyone else.

They never mentioned what it does.

 

[TripleSMoon]

3rd party developers working on Wii-U: "Wii-U has a great processor," or "Wii-U is much more powerful than the 360 or PS3"

Nintendo hater: *Doesn't respond*

"Anonymous source": "Wii-U haz bad grafix." or "Wii-U aint powerful as 360 or PS3."

Nintendo hater: "See? SEE?? PROOF that the Wii-U is inferior to the HD consoles of this generation!!"

*Repeat process until Wii-U is actually released*

 

[koji2009]

*Repeat process even after Wii U receives true HD ports (1080p instead of 720) and games that run at 60fps (instead of PS3/X-box 15-30) then when you truely can't hide the fact that the graphics are better, say the controller is terrible until Sony copies it, then say the PS4's controller is better*

Fixed that for you.

 

[TripleSMoon]

*Repeat process even after Wii U receives true HD ports (1080p instead of 720) and games that run at 60fps (instead of PS3/X-box 15-30) then when you truely can't hide the fact that the graphics are better, say the controller is terrible until Sony copies it, then say the PS4's controller is better*

Fixed that for you.

Haha, indeed...

I didn't know that about the PS3/360's framerate, though 0_0 I thought all HD games ran at a standard of 60 frames per second?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I didn't know that about the PS3/360's framerate, though 0_0 I thought all HD games ran at a standard of 60 frames per second?

A lot of them do and even then, it's not like anyone actually notices. If you pick up some random game with consistent framerate like, I dunno, Mass Effect 3, you probably can't tell me the framerate.

Framerate is really just an ego thing that doesn't matter so long as it's consistent. It's an issue when a game can't keep a consistent framerate, otherwise people won't give a shit if it's 30 FPS or 60 FPS.

 

[TripleSMoon]

A lot of them do and even then, it's not like anyone actually notices. If you pick up some random game with consistent framerate like, I dunno, Mass Effect 3, you probably can't tell me the framerate.

Framerate is really just an ego thing that doesn't matter so long as it's consistent. It's an issue when a game can't keep a consistent framerate, otherwise people won't give a shit if it's 30 FPS or 60 FPS.

You sure about ME3? I never played Mass Effect, but watching my buddy play ME3, there's definitely a lot of slowdowns and choppy rates, at least in multiplayer.

 

[koji2009]

A lot of them do and even then, it's not like anyone actually notices.

I do... I notice. I'm a framerate whore. That's why I prefer PC gaming because I can spec out my rig and get those 60FPS... I'd take a mediocre looking game running at 60fps any day over a gorgeous game running at 15FPS.

That said, name a single non-2D title on PS3 or X-box that runs at 60fps... because I own a lot of games, and seen most others played and I can't recall a single one (enhanced ports of old N64 games doesn't count on the x-box front)

In fact, that's what I'm looking forward to most this upcoming generation... With the "make things prettier" path of gaming quickly coming to a close (unless a studio wants to start pumping hundreds of millions into a game for, which they don't as it eats their already tiny profit margin) they're going to have to instead start putting that extra processing power into polishing what they can already do and pumping some extra frames out.

 

[Midna]

I didn't know that about the PS3/360's framerate, though 0_0 I thought all HD games ran at a standard of 60 frames per second?

A lot of them do and even then, it's not like anyone actually notices. If you pick up some random game with consistent framerate like, I dunno, Mass Effect 3, you probably can't tell me the framerate.

Framerate is really just an ego thing that doesn't matter so long as it's consistent. It's an issue when a game can't keep a consistent framerate, otherwise people won't give a shit if it's 30 FPS or 60 FPS.

the PS3 and 360 are at the end of their usefulness. They really can't fool people into thinking they're running PC quality any more. Now, I dunno about you, but I can tell 600p upscaled to 1080, no AA no filtering, low settings, 30fps from what PC games actually look like.

 

[Catastrophic]

Since everyone keeps talking about how weather or not hardware power determines a consoles success need to keep one thing in mind: Headstart. Whatever happens in the consoles early times can leave a strong impression on the future. Do you really think the Wii would've sold 50 million copies if they didn't showcase "revolutionary" motion controlled gaming with Wii Sports and Zelda if the PS3 came first and blasted it out of the water?

 

[koji2009]

Since everyone keeps talking about how weather or not hardware power determines a consoles success need to keep one thing in mind: Headstart. Whatever happens in the consoles early times can leave a strong impression on the future. Do you really think the Wii would've sold 50 million copies if they didn't showcase "revolutionary" motion controlled gaming with Wii Sports and Zelda if the PS3 came first and blasted it out of the water?

Vise versa: Do you think the Dreamcast would have been blown out of the water if they had kept developing the console and software for an extra year and putting in stronger hardware? Getting an early start is a double edged sword, especially if you have a checkered past when it comes to console hardware.

 

[Midna]

Since everyone keeps talking about how weather or not hardware power determines a consoles success need to keep one thing in mind: Headstart. Whatever happens in the consoles early times can leave a strong impression on the future. Do you really think the Wii would've sold 50 million copies if they didn't showcase "revolutionary" motion controlled gaming with Wii Sports and Zelda if the PS3 came first and blasted it out of the water?

Vise versa: Do you think the Dreamcast would have been blown out of the water if they had kept developing the console and software for an extra year and putting in stronger hardware? Getting an early start is a double edged sword, especially if you have a checkered past when it comes to console hardware.

Yes, actually I do. the PS2 was not the main reason the Dreamcast failed.