Geoff Keighley confirms Wii U won

[Tarvis123]

The Xbox to Xbox 360 graphical leap in 2005 wasn't as massive as some seem to think. Here are some examples: http://www.gamespot....eed-hd-6140621/

Why are we acting like the tech demos is the best it's going to get? The Wii-U will obviously be capable of far more than has been shown so far. To Xbox 360's advantage it had the help of the HD jump that made the most difference in graphical quality at least in 2005/2006 until developers figured out how to program for it. I can't see the Xbox 360 to it's successor being a big of a jump as we are used to consoles in the past, due to the quality (and expense) of the graphics now. I hope I am wrong though and Microsoft can surprise me, but I am worried that costs will go up and with it - the games.

While I know the Wii-U will be less capable than Sony/Microsoft's offerings, Nintendo doesn't have the luxury of having additional income from other sides of their business, so they can't afford to follow the business model of to take a huge loss on each system sold for several years and hope eventually they make some profit on them. They have to make profits on their system's sold as it's their main source of income. I can't really fault them for that.

Regardless at the end of the day, I could really care less what numbers each system can process or how many polygons they can spit out in optimal situations, as long as they have games I want to play. The Wii had some truly awesome games, and some real stinkers I will probably have more fond memories of those than most of the Xbox 360 games I currently own.

[notuptome2004]

Of course it is far more than slightly faster. BUT it's using most of those resources running at 1080p. And so far none of the demo's we've been show is givign any indication that it's giving us 1080p graphics and a xbox to xbox 360 graphics jump style jump from the 360. Which it won't since the WiiU isn't a generational shift. or rather it is, FROM the Wii. But not from the 360 and PS3. And they don't want it to be. Look at the WiiU, it's a tiny box with no real fans. It's designed to be small and cheap. it's not designed to be an expensive Core gamer console. it's a cheap casual gamer console.

YEs it will be better than the 360, no it won't be anywhere near the PS4/Xbox8

You keep going in a circular argument where you pretend everyone's telling you the Wii U is just a pretty new Xbox 360. when in fact NOONE has said this. and you're going to keep doing this circle, I know it.

YEs of course the Wii U is a powerful device as the Devs say, it's being compared to 7 year old stuff. but it doesn't matter if it's more powerful than those, when it's real competition is next gen, and compared to next gen, the Wii U is not.

you do realize how little resources now days it takes to run anything in 1080p good example while poorly optimized game going from 720p resolution to 1080p in GTA 4 it takes no more then 3mb to 5mb of video ram more on my system so it be real hard to buy that it takes most of the system resources on a 7 year newer platform running far much greater hardware all of its resources just to run 1080p

Vandalsquad

So it has the power of the 360 and PS3.. Nothing shocking there.

+Xerxes

How is this a surprise? it's been known for ages the Wii U is on par with the Xbox 360/PS3

Wakers

So the Wii U is about level with the 360 and PS3 which are already many years out of date, tech wise - and the new Xbox is rumoured to be based on an ATI 6670 chip...

Don't think I'll be dropping PC for console again.

Just an example of some of the user on this forum

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[Veiva]

Where is all this info on the Wii U's specs? I haven't seen Nintendo's E3 presentation yet...how was it? Because apparently everyone here seems to know that it's on par with a PS3 and that it sucks (or it 50% stronger than a PS3 and the most amazing console ever). They must have insider information that I don't. :(

I'm also interested in Microsoft and Sony's next offerings. Where can I find information on them?

[Noir Angel]

Some people are saying that they are not surprised... but I'm surprised that the U4 Engine wasn't built to be scaled in a way that it'd work on the Wii-U. Surely they knew that Nintendos console wouldn't be on par with the rest of the players power wise. :s

Why should they water down their gaming engine to satisfy a company that's too cheap to put decent hardware in their console?

[Amarok]

This is actually the first time that I've seen a video of the Wii-U in action and the Zelda demo. That looks impressive for Nintendo but damn that controller looks like it would be uncomfortable to use.

[nominak]

This is actually the first time that I've seen a video of the Wii-U in action and the Zelda demo. That looks impressive for Nintendo but damn that controller looks like it would be uncomfortable to use.

From what i've read from last E3, it's actually pretty decent.

[johnnyq3]

From what I have seen with the Zelda demo, it seems to be a benchmark demo of sorts. With how it shows the dynamic lights and static light sources as well as shading.

[HawkMan]

you do realize how little resources now days it takes to run anything in 1080p good example while poorly optimized game going from 720p resolution to 1080p in GTA 4 it takes no more then 3mb to 5mb of video ram more on my system so it be real hard to buy that it takes most of the system resources on a 7 year newer platform running far much greater hardware all of its resources just to run 1080p

:facepalm:

You really have NO idea what you're talking about at all do you. what exactly do you think video ram has to do with going from 720 to 1080 anyway... seriously...

[notuptome2004]

:facepalm:

You really have NO idea what you're talking about at all do you. what exactly do you think video ram has to do with going from 720 to 1080 anyway... seriously...

Well it is simple on the PC anyways when ya turn up the resolution it takes more video ram GTA 4 as an example has a Vram usage meter and the more resolution ya bump up the more vram it takes same thing in windows itself just install GPU Z and ya can monitor Vram usage

[Skyfrog]

Well it is simple on the PC anyways when ya turn up the resolution it takes more video ram GTA 4 as an example has a Vram usage meter and the more resolution ya bump up the more vram it takes same thing in windows itself just install GPU Z and ya can monitor Vram usage

RAM just stores information, it has nothing to do with processing. The higher the resolution the more powerful the GPU needs to be.

[Nagisan]

RAM just stores information, it has nothing to do with processing. The higher the resolution the more powerful the GPU needs to be.

That's where you're wrong...

In short, VRAM usually stores the framebuffer, and to quote Wikipedia (too lazy to look up a true source but I know it to be true and better worded than I could come up with):

The total amount of the memory required to drive the framebuffer depends on the resolution of the output signal, and on the color depth and palette size.

As "notuptome" said, resolution directly increases VRAM requirements (in terms of size), because it increases the amount of data the framebuffer needs to store. It doesn't have much to do with actual processing, but if resolution gets too large, VRAM won't have enough room to store the framebuffer.

[HawkMan]

Well it is simple on the PC anyways when ya turn up the resolution it takes more video ram GTA 4 as an example has a Vram usage meter and the more resolution ya bump up the more vram it takes same thing in windows itself just install GPU Z and ya can monitor Vram usage

Not it doesn't. higher resolution requires more GPU power and shader power and all that, RAM not so much. on some cards it might as in your case take 3-5 MB more, on others that use a output buffer thing like the xbox360, it won't use any more VRAM at all since all the output resolution is handled elsewhere.

VRAM is for textures and geometry/geometry deformation data and temp data for shaders and effects and such.

[HawkMan]

Not it doesn't. higher resolution requires more GPU power and shader power and all that, RAM not so much. on some cards it might as in your case take 3-5 MB more, on others that use a output buffer thing like the xbox360, it won't use any more VRAM at all since all the output resolution is handled elsewhere.

VRAM is for textures and geometry/geometry deformation data and temp data for shaders and effects and such.

Due to how modern hardware handles the frame buffer, it doesn't take very much ram at all, 3-5 would be enough, unless the card has the framebuffer as a separate unit in which case it won't affect the vram at all. the 360 I believe has a 3 MB frame buffer unit (it might be slightly larger, but I seem to recall it was 3). and is able to output 1080p just fine by doing some trickery and shifting the picture around in blocks.

In any case resolution will not have a noticeable effect on Vram, Large texture data will, complex models will, complex shaders and effects will, but not as much, Complex animations will. Resolution will however have a big impact onhow much available GPU power you have left.

[Skyfrog]

That's where you're wrong...

How am I wrong? You just repeated what I already said. RAM is used for storing data, it does not process it. That is what the GPU and CPU are for. I never said VRAM wasn't important; yes higher resolutions need a bit more RAM but not all that much. The important thing is having a powerful enough CPU/GPU to process that data at that resolution. Putting 4 GB of RAM on a 3Dfx Voodoo II won't make it a more powerful card able to run high resolution games or HD content.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I didn't really think anyone expected it to be on par with the next Microsoft or Sony consoles. It's been pretty much agreed that its more powerful than the 360 and PS3, but not by a massive amount. Nintendo's never really been known for pushing the technological boundaries -- they've always either been behind or roughly on-par, for the most part.

[Skyfrog]

Nintendo's never really been known for pushing the technological boundaries -- they've always either been behind or roughly on-par, for the most part.

I might agree with that if not for the NES and the SNES. :)

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I might agree with that if not for the NES and the SNES. :)

Nintendo did almost no updates to the SNES, unlike Sega, which was constantly updating its hardware. The NES didn't really have any major competition when it launched -- Atari was already on a downward spiral.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

This doesn't come as a surprise to me because Unreal Engine 4 is fairly new. From what I've read, the upcoming demo will use a single GeForce GTX 680 which is much more powerful than the Wii U's custom AMD Radeon GPU. It's possible that the next gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles won't have the power to run it with high details at 60 FPS. Epic Games feels that they have a responsibility to push Microsoft and Sony for more capable hardware.

With that said, I'm sure the Wii U will have some great looking Unreal Engine 3 titles.

[Skyfrog]

Nintendo did almost no updates to the SNES, unlike Sega, which was constantly updating its hardware. The NES didn't really have any major competition when it launched -- Atari was already on a downward spiral.

Competition or not I don't think anyone can say that the NES wasn't technologically innovative in 1985 (the Famicom actually came out in 1983 in Japan). The SNES was close but still superior to the Genesis in both graphics in sound. The only updates for the Genesis were a couple of overpriced addons that both flopped in the market. In any case Nintendo weren't lagging behind anyone during that era.

[The Teej]

Competition or not I don't think anyone can say that the NES wasn't technologically innovative in 1985 (the Famicom actually came out in 1983 in Japan). The SNES was close but still superior to the Genesis in both graphics in sound. The only updates for the Genesis were a couple of overpriced addons that both flopped in the market. In any case Nintendo weren't lagging behind anyone during that era.

The same is also true of the N64 and the Gamecube, almost. Both were very powerful and rivalled (if not topped, in some cases) the other consoles out there. It's only since the Wii that they've taken a back foot to horsepower, really.

[~Johnny]

Nintendo is and always will be the casual gamer with a cheaper devices.

No. Just no. The vast majority of first party Nintendo titles aren't geared towards casual gamers.

Nintendo's never really been known for pushing the technological boundaries -- they've always either been behind or roughly on-par, for the most part.

And let's not forget the Gamecube was the most powerful machine at it's time (and would have staed that way if Microsoft hadn't jumped into the fray)

[HawkMan]

the only first party title that isnt would be metroid, and even thats not entirely true anymore

[The Teej]

the only first party title that isnt would be metroid, and even thats not entirely true anymore

You're seriously saying Metroid Prime 3, Xenoblade Chronicles and Skyward Sword have as much casual appeal as Carnival Games, Just Dance and Wii Sports?

Or are you just having a laugh?

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

And let's not forget the Gamecube was the most powerful machine at it's time (and would have staed that way if Microsoft hadn't jumped into the fray)

The GameCube was released at the same time as the Xbox, thus it was roughly on-par with that generation.

[HawkMan]

You're seriously saying Metroid Prime 3, Xenoblade Chronicles and Skyward Sword have as much casual appeal as Carnival Games, Just Dance and Wii Sports?

Or are you just having a laugh?

Not being as casual as kids games and party games doesn't make them core games. There are degrees of casual, and you can't call a game not casual because it isn't wii sports.

That's like saying an FPS game isn't a core game unless it's ARMA./Flashpoint.