Hardware My view on Nintendo's "Situation"

[ShadowSoldier]

A consumer goes in to Wal-Mart and buys the game for a system they already have with a more active online community, they don't buy a new system for it. People who get a Wii U know very well they are just getting it for Mario and Pikmin.

Jesus...

If someone goes into Wal-Mart and says he really wants his Mario fix, but he'd like to at least play some different third party games, he no longer has to say "yeah I'll just get it for my PS3/360". It would be on the WiiU thus giving a bigger incentive to pick up the console.

 

[Kirito-kun]

Jesus...

If someone goes into Wal-Mart and says he really wants his Mario fix, but he'd like to at least play some different third party games, he no longer has to say "yeah I'll just get it for my PS3/360". It would be on the WiiU thus giving a bigger incentive to pick up the console.

No one buys a Wii U for 3rd party games. The Wii U may be receiving 3rd party multiplats today, but wait a few years down the roads, and the Wii U's lack of processing power will prevent it from receiving such games. Plus, the community for games like CoD are mostly on PS3/Xbox 360. If you get a Wii U for such a game, you'd have to deal with a small and inactive community that will die down quicker than on the other two consoles.

It's down to whether Mario or multiplats is more important to the buyer. For most core games today, 3rd party > Mario.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

No one buys a Wii U for 3rd party games. The Wii U may be receiving 3rd party multiplats today, but wait a few years down the roads, and the Wii U's lack of processing power will prevent it from receiving such games. Plus, the community for games like CoD are mostly on PS3/Xbox 360. If you get a Wii U for such a game, you'd have to deal with a small and inactive community that will die down quicker than on the other two consoles.

It's down to whether Mario or multiplats is more important to the buyer. For most core games today, 3rd party > Mario.

I'm saying it's an incentive that someone can get their call of duty fix, and mario on the same platform. Believe it or not, there are people out there like that.

 

[Kirito-kun]

I'm saying it's an incentive that someone can get their call of duty fix, and mario on the same platform. Believe it or not, there are people out there like that.

Well, only if they're not a hardcore CoD fan. Black Ops 2 only sold 190,000 on Wii U. It's a serviceable playerbase, but nowhere near ideal. Even the PC version sold 950,000 copies even though the CoD fanbase is know for being mostly on consoles.

Plus, a lot of multiplats are NOT coming to the Wii U:

-Battlefield 4
-GTA 5
-Wolfenstein: The New Order
-Elders Scrolls Online
-Metro: Last Light
-The Witcher 3
-Saints Row IV
-The Evil Within
-Prey 2
-Kingdom Hearts 3
-Sniper Elite 3
-Sanctum 2
-Need for Speed: Rivals

If a game wants Nintendo games and just CoD, the Wii U may be acceptable for now. If a gamer want Nintendo games + multiplats, the Wii U is useless

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Well, only if they're not a hardcore CoD fan. Black Ops 2 only sold 190,000 on Wii U. It's a serviceable playerbase, but nowhere near ideal. Even the PC version sold 950,000 copies even though the CoD fanbase is know for being mostly on consoles.

Plus, a lot of multiplats are NOT coming to the Wii U:

-Battlefield 4
-GTA 5
-Wolfenstein: The New Order
-Elders Scrolls Online
-Metro: Last Light
-The Witcher 3
-Saints Row IV
-The Evil Within
-Prey 2
-Kingdom Hearts 3
-Sniper Elite 3
-Sanctum 2
-Need for Speed: Rivals

If a game wants Nintendo games and just CoD, the Wii U may be acceptable for now. If a gamer want Nintendo games + multiplats, the Wii U is useless

Ah, was not aware you came from years in the future where there will be no multiplats at all. My bad.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Sure, the Wii U will get multiplats. Just really shit watered down ports, like the Wii.

 

[snikerz]

Sure, the Wii U will get multiplats. Just really shit watered down ports, like the Wii.

Every multi-platform game for every Nintendo console sucked. And the company is still going strong.

 

[slingblade1170]

Nintendo does seem to get ripped off of multiplatform games but it doesn't matter they have the best handheld and 1st party supply of games that there is or ever will be.

 

[the_randomizer]

No one buys a Wii U for 3rd party games. The Wii U may be receiving 3rd party multiplats today, but wait a few years down the roads, and the Wii U's lack of processing power will prevent it from receiving such games. Plus, the community for games like CoD are mostly on PS3/Xbox 360. If you get a Wii U for such a game, you'd have to deal with a small and inactive community that will die down quicker than on the other two consoles.

It's down to whether Mario or multiplats is more important to the buyer. For most core games today, 3rd party > Mario.

The Wii U isn't getting games due to the hardware, it's not getting the support because of the marketing. Yes, I won't deny that that the Wii U isn't as powerful as the other consoles, but that is NOT why games aren't coming.

Hardware is vital, I can agree on that, but that's where that agreement ends. To assume that no multi-plats are ever coming to the Wii U now or ion the future is a pretty bold assumption. I wish people would stop bashing a console solely based on it's hardware. To label it a complete failure is also unsubstantiated when compared to the Virtual Boy.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Oh my f***ing hell. One does not simply disregard GPGPU and why the Wii U uses it. Processing power isn't everything, you obviously aren't familiar with the MHz Myth. The Wii U isn't getting games due to the hardware, it's not getting the support because of the marketing. I wish such asinine assumptions would be done away with. Yes, I won't deny that that the Wii U isn't as powerful as the other consoles, but that is NOT why games aren't coming

You realize the previous poster was saying that down the line the Wii U won't have the juice to keep getting multi-plats alongside the PS4 and Xbox One, right? I'm not super incredibly tech savvy in terms of identifying different processors, clock speeds, and whatever effect they may have on the gaming process as a whole, but even I can tell that the gap between the Wii U and the truly next gen hardware is big enough that the Wii U will suffer in the long run. When, at best, I can hope for ports that totally fail in comparison to the counterparts on other consoles within the next couple of years, why in the hell would I consider the Wii U for its ability to get more serious third party multi-plats?

A console is an investment, and the Wii U is showing itself to be a bad one for multiple reasons. Don't have a bitch fit simply because people criticize the Wii U and its multiple flaws.

 

[the_randomizer]

To be perfectly fair, the Virtual Boy is the only Nintendo system to sell less than 800,000 units. Since then, no console has ever reached that low of a number.

 

[Super.Nova]

The real problem with the WiiU is that both PS4 and XBone migrated from their old processing architecture to the familiar one of PC.
I believe the WiiU to stand unique for staying on its old way of doing things but it compromises losing developers.

As an example, compare how many games out there with support for Windows and those supporting Mac.
Of course a very convenient solution for this dilemma would be Cloud Gaming but not everyone would fancy an online solution over an offline one.

 

[calmwaters]

Developers go where the money is and it's not with Nintendo. They've been going bad for 10 years and there's nothing the developers can really do about it.

But nobody really cares about this, I think; it's more important to talk about hardware and what people should buy what console.

 

[Bladexdsl]

yeah who gives a fuck i only buy their consoles for 1st party games anyway. that's a good enough reason for me

 

[Kirito-kun]

The Wii U isn't getting games due to the hardware, it's not getting the support because of the marketing. Yes, I won't deny that that the Wii U isn't as powerful as the other consoles, but that is NOT why games aren't coming.

Hardware is vital, I can agree on that, but that's where that agreement ends. To assume that no multi-plats are ever coming to the Wii U now or ion the future is a pretty bold assumption. I wish people would stop bashing a console solely based on it's hardware. To label it a complete failure is also unsubstantiated when compared to the Virtual Boy.

Seriously? When developers develop a multi-platform game, they usually start out with the Sony and Microsoft consoles. After creating it for those platforms, they then port it to the other platforms (PC and Nintendo).

During this generation, porting to PC is very easy as both the Xbone and PS4 have x86 processors, the same architecture as modern PCs. PCs also have the most processing power, which means that no compromises have to be made in the code.

Porting to the Wii U from the Xbone and PS4 is a different story. Firstly, the Wii U uses a PowerPC CPU, meaning that large amount of modification will have to be done to the code. A entirely new game engine may even have to be utilized. Secondly, the Wii U lacks the power the other 3 platforms have. This means that textures will have to be sunk, models will have to be reduced in polygon count, particles will have to be removed, etc. The UI will also have to be modified to accommodate the Wii U gamepad. This can be a lot of work. Sometimes developers will simply choose not to port to the Wii U due to this. Other times, the developers will find that not matter what modifications they make, the game won't run well on the system. That's when the Wii U won't get a port.

Certain developers (CD Project Red, etc.) start out with PC and then port to console. A similar occurrence happens. It's easy to port from PC to Xbone and PS4 as they all share the same CPU architecture. Attempts to port to Wii U will evoke the same problems stated above.

Just take a look at how behind the Wii U is in processing power:

GFLOPS = Giga Floating-Point Operations Per Second = raw processing power

Wii U: 350 GFLOPS
Xbox One: 1300 GFLOPS (A big higher now since MS decided to overclcok the GPU)
PS4: 1840 GFLOPS
Average gaming PC (GTX 660 Ti): 2460 GFLOPS

 

[the_randomizer]

I for one am looking forward to Splinter Cell Blacklist, Assassin's Creed IV, Batman Arkham Origins and so on. Call of Duty I couldn't care less about because the game is overrated I get the games on the Wii U because I can. Could I get it on the Xbox 360 or PS3, sure, but will I? No. But I will still get first party games like Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 3, Super Smash Bros, etc.

 

[PolloDiablo]

yeah who gives a fuck i only buy their consoles for 1st party games anyway. that's a good enough reason for me

same here

 

[the_randomizer]

same here

Because I for one am looking forward to those games, because they will be freakin' awesome for mutiplayer matches (well, for Mario Kart 8 and SSB), that, and they're also quality games and will have a lot of replay value. I'll let people think what they want about the Wii U, that doesn't stop people who own them from ever enjoying its games.

Spoiler

AFAIK the only reason it uses PPC architecture was to retain backwards compatibility

 

[Kirito-kun]

Spoiler

AFAIK the only reason it uses PPC architecture was to retain backwards compatibility

You don't need backwards compatibility. All you need is Dolphin Emulator and a decent PC.

 

[the_randomizer]

You don't need backwards compatibility. All you need is Dolphin Emulator and a decent PC.

Not everyone has a PC powerful enough to play it. It's more expensive to build a desktop capable of playing Dolphin than it is to buy a Wii U.

$350 vs. $600 for a decent desktop. What are people going to buy between those two options? People don't have the kind of money to throw around you know.


Core i5 recommended
4 GB RAM
Mid-range GPU
Monitor
Motherboard
keyboard/xbox 360 controller

Yeah, at least $600 to play Wii games. I'm sure people would be more than happy to spend a lot to do just that. People are gonna buy whatever the hell they want. If people have the money, sure, they can build a desktop, but let's be realistic. Most people are not going to spend that much money for a PC to use an emulator which, to my knowledge, isn't anywhere near 100% compatible and many games have audio/visual issues still. I have a good mid-range desktop with a Core i5 3570, 8 GB or DDR3 SDRAM, GTX 660 GPU, but even I can't run every single Wii game perfectly. The Wii U uses a VM/compatibility layer, not emulation, for Wii games, which works with every single Wii game without any issues at all.

Dolphin is nice, I admit that, and looks fantastic on my 1080p LED, but let's be honest, people are going to buy what they can afford.