Careful about saying anything positive about the WiiU, it's dangerous around these parts.
inb4 the cool kids start saying "I don't care about power, I care about games!"
inb4 the cool kids start saying "I don't care about power, I care about games!"
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I don't get the whole " Wii U has a drastically different architecture so devs don't wanna program for it" argument. Wii U runs on IBM Power Architecture which is the same as the 360 and PS3 if I'm not mistaken. Devs are still making games for PS3 and 360 so what's really the problem?
The main problem is that the PS3 and 360 are considered previous generation. The problem lies with the fact that more and more games will be made for the PS4 and the Xbox One generation after a while has passed. That is when the PPC processor will have the harder time compared to the more "standard" architecture of the main competitors.
What I'm interested here is what is the real benefit and advantage of the findings
It's great that you have much faster memory bandwidth and an outdated GPU an CPU to go with it. 
Wii U games run at 1080p @ 60 FPS not because the memory is faster, although that helps, but because they're either watered-down next gen or up-ported last gen ports, plain and simple.
As for the architecture, it's not an "ultimate answer" as to why developers don't want to develop for the system. Contemporarily a lot of code is completely abstracted from the platform - the architecture doesn't matter all that much unless you do microcode. Sure, it slows the optimization process down, but that shouldn't be a substantial problem when many games are being optimized for, say, the more complex PS3 without developers complaining.
The actual reasons are that the system doesn't follow standards, the target audience is narow, grossly uninterested in third-party, the system is outdated and due to underwhelming sales it has poor propects for the future.
Wii U games run at 1080p @ 60 FPS not because the memory is faster, although that helps, but because they're either watered-down next gen or up-ported last gen ports, plain and simple.
As for the architecture, it's not an "ultimate answer" as to why developers don't want to develop for the system. Contemporarily a lot of code is completely abstracted from the platform - the architecture doesn't matter all that much unless you do microcode. Sure, it slows the optimization process down, but that shouldn't be a substantial problem when many games are being optimized for, say, the more complex PS3 without developers complaining.
The actual reasons are that the system doesn't follow standards, the target audience is narow, grossly uninterested in third-party, the system is outdated and due to underwhelming sales it has poor propects for the future.
Getting game works in multi-threaded environment is a lot harder than say video encoding, especially since a lot of game workload depends on one another.
While PS4 and X1 have 8 cores, some were reserved for background OS, security, etc. Similar to PS3 SPE allocation, where 1 was disabled to improve yield and couple were reserved.
Wii U is indeed designed to leverage GPGPU, but since that requires major code rewrite, many developers are reluctant to spend much time on Wii U. With efforts, Wii U can indeed do what PS4 and X1 can do. On the other hand PS4 and X1 can do that out of box, saving developers precious time and money.
but both xbone and ps4 are in x86 architecture right? which means it is easy to port between consoles while wii u isn't using x86. correct me if i'm wrong. i'm not even sure what i'm talking about. haha.
but this bit of article info is pretty impressive for the wii u. i just wished more awesome games will be lining up.
but this bit of article info is pretty impressive for the wii u. i just wished more awesome games will be lining up.
Oh, so Microsoft owns DirectX? Or rather the API? Well, well; hasn't it been a custom to hate Microsoft lately? So let me get this straight: developers slander Nintendo for not supporting DirectX when in the meantime, Microsoft makes this impossible? Am I imagining this, or are the developers deliberately being ignorant of this? And if they're not being ignorant, then that means they're deliberately ignoring Nintendo for not holding up to the standard. Pardon me for asking this, but does Sony support DirectX on their system? I mean, Microsoft gave them permission to put it on their system? So either Microsoft offered to give permission for Nintendo to support DirectX and they flat out refused (which, despite their stubbornness, might not have happened) or Microsoft doesn't give two shits about Nintendo. The latter seems likelier, considering how much hate Nintendo has been getting lately.
And considering the name of this website while thinking such things about the Wii U is just sad.
I'm sure you read the part how Nintendo can't follow the standard because it's owned by Microsoft. So they had to come up with something similar if they wanted to succeed in the business world, which they did. The target audience is not narrow: the target audience are gamers of all sizes, ages, creep factors, everything. That's not narrow. They are not interested in third party games though. It's been circulated that people will not buy the new Bayonetta game, despite it being a true next generation game, because it's coming to the Wii U and not the Xbone. Doesn't this sound stupid? How can Nintendo hope to turn these sorts of people into customers? You're not stupid; would you buy the new Bayonetta game for the Wii U? Even though it runs the equivalent of the standard? Are you going to let such a technicality ruin your gaming experience?
Careful about saying anything positive about the WiiU, it's dangerous around these parts.
And considering the name of this website while thinking such things about the Wii U is just sad.
I'm sure you read the part how Nintendo can't follow the standard because it's owned by Microsoft. So they had to come up with something similar if they wanted to succeed in the business world, which they did. The target audience is not narrow: the target audience are gamers of all sizes, ages, creep factors, everything. That's not narrow. They are not interested in third party games though. It's been circulated that people will not buy the new Bayonetta game, despite it being a true next generation game, because it's coming to the Wii U and not the Xbone. Doesn't this sound stupid? How can Nintendo hope to turn these sorts of people into customers? You're not stupid; would you buy the new Bayonetta game for the Wii U? Even though it runs the equivalent of the standard? Are you going to let such a technicality ruin your gaming experience?
Microsoft designed DirectX, and it comes with two components: runtime and SDK. SDK is free for anyone to use, while runtime is closed source. Only Microsoft has the runtime component.
Sony uses an OpenGL wrapper to convert OpenGL to Sony's proprietary API. NIntendo on the other hand designed their own API based on OpenGL. It is different than what most OpenGL veteran developers have in mind.
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I don't think the mention of DirectX with PS4 or Wii U is to show some actual support for the API, but has long been used to link potential capabilities as if they did have support for it. While PS4 and Wii U are likely using versions of OpenGL, DirectX has been the ruling API for some time with regard to gaming in PCs, so I think developers are just using DirectX as a comparison to make it easier to relate to. Then again, the fact that DirectX has also been related to PCs, which run off of x86, may be why it is used, considering both PS4 and XB1 run off those architectures while Wii U does not. In any case, numerous developers have described the Wii U to have capabilities similar to those available with DirectX 11 when porting over their games, though it's common knowledge that the Wii U's GPU isn't up-to-par with what's available in other consoles of this gen.
Veteran developers? They can't merge their knowledge of Sony's API with Nintendo's? I mean, how much different can it be?
Yes, I've seen DirectX in every device; guess it was one of the perks when Bill Gates released Windows. And for the most part, this standard has stayed pretty standard all these years. But now we have an alternative to this, which is where Nintendo seems to be suffering. I've heard (I think) that x64 is easier to write for than x86... anyway, that GPU must be really underpowered to make all these plug-ins go to waste...
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Well, you mean graphics which is what PS4/XO are going for over gameplay.
Even a game from SMD with its ugly graphics by today's standards still have better gameplay than games nowdays.
The X1, PS4 and Wii U are all capable of beautiful games graphically, it just comes down to software quality and quantity. We know what is in the new systems and it isn't going to change, it comes down to how developers handle their games. As for Nintendo their serious lack of third party support may be a concern but they are also sitting on a heap of great IPs that they own and aren't doing anything with them yet.
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Or ya know, they're not ports at all?! Honestly it's devs and people like you that are keeping Nintendo from getting any 3rd party support. Who gives a damn about the tech specs? They're good enough as long as the lazy bastards actually program for it the correct way. I dont want crappy ports of other games, make exclusive games tailored to the Wii U hardware. If these lazy ass developers would actually take a second and program for the Wii U the way it should be then the consumer would never know the difference. These aren't PC's we're talking about, they're specific hardware platforms that can have the code customized and optimized to run on it well.It's great that you have much faster memory bandwidth and an outdated GPU an CPU to go with it.
Wii U games run at 1080p @ 60 FPS not because the memory is faster, although that helps, but because they're either watered-down next gen or up-ported last gen ports, plain and simple.
As for the architecture, it's not an "ultimate answer" as to why developers don't want to develop for the system. Contemporarily a lot of code is completely abstracted from the platform - the architecture doesn't matter all that much unless you do microcode. Sure, it slows the optimization process down, but that shouldn't be a substantial problem when many games are being optimized for, say, the more complex PS3 without developers complaining.
The actual reasons are that the system doesn't follow standards, the target audience is narow, grossly uninterested in third-party, the system is outdated and due to underwhelming sales it has poor propects for the future.
That was my point. A tl;dr version of what I actually said is that developers aren't making Wii U games because the system doesn't seem to have a bright future and as such, there's no money to be made on it. The Wii U is greatly inferior to the XBox One and PS4, but it has just about enough juice to hold up for the next 2-3 years, I think. The OP's 1080p @ 60 FPS clearly refers to multiplatform titles, otherwise there would be no frame of reference to the XBox One - this is why I mentioned watered down/up-ported games.
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