Wii U

Well, Nintendo's screwed up on a lot of factors.

The WiiU was launched at a really bad time, clearly. I'm pretty sure that they did *not* expect the PS4/Xbone so early and were completely blindsided. The WiiU being built in basically almost the exact same setup as the X360 is pretty telling: A PPC CPU (but weaker), AMD GPU with eDRAM (a fair bit more powerful), and absurdly low end DDR3. The ram they use is actually only freaking 12.8 GB/s compared to the 22 of the PS3/X360 which is just so retardedly baffling. Anyways, it's clear that they built the system to be more compatible with X360 ports.

It's really a shame, I bet if they didn't live in afucking bubblethey'd also have put out (or be putting out) a X86 box that'd be a lot more powerful and far easier to port for (and develop for), even if they didn't go with hardware as expensive as the PS4/Xbone. If they talked to third party developers at all about hardware they would know that their decision was stupid as fuck. Sony had been talking to over 30 third party studios foryearson hardware design and what developers wanted them to do.

They need to stop being so isolationist and put themselves out there with the rest of the development community. Talk to developers about what they want from a system and get them on board with making games for it. Innovative features are great and Nintendo *needs* to keep pushing that, but they also need to make a system that developers want to work on while they try to make the best of those features.

The worst part is, despite all of this crap and the major screw ups with the development of the hardware, they could ride entirely on 1st party strength (which they *have* to do now), but aren't due to whatever horrible management failures that they are currently having. It's just so damned disappointing that the WiiU, regardless of all the bullshit, doesn't have the software backing it that it easily could have.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo ends up going the way of Sega, which is really disappointing.

Noodleface_sl said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo ends up going the way of Sega, which is really disappointing.

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I *really* hope not. Even with their constant retarded fuck ups the industry is definitely better off with them being a major player in the hardware business.

Sean_sl said:

Well, Nintendo's screwed up on a lot of factors.

The WiiU was launched at a really bad time, clearly. I'm pretty sure that they did *not* expect the PS4/Xbone so early and were completely blindsided. The WiiU being built in basically almost the exact same setup as the X360 is pretty telling: A PPC CPU (but weaker), AMD GPU with eDRAM (a fair bit more powerful), and absurdly low end DDR3. The ram they use is actually only freaking 12.8 GB/s compared to the 22 of the PS3/X360 which is just so retardedly baffling.[...]

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== sooner emulation

driedcatnip_sl said:

== sooner emulation

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I don't think that has any positive impact on emulation, especially since there's no real X360 emulator out there. Pretty sure a X86 system would be a lot easier to emulate to boot.

Also pretty sure the Dolphin guys straight up said "nope" to doing it. Or did last I checked anyways. Not sure if that's changed since then.

Sean_sl said:

I don't think that has any positive impact on emulation, especially since there's no real X360 emulator out there. Pretty sure a X86 system would be a lot easier to emulate to boot.

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the lower specs (compared to what it could have been processingwise) will be able to better/sooner run via emulation in the future ...it was meant to be funny/an upside to the wiiu

Seems to me that the modern video games industry is decidedly western focused. It almost seems like Nintendo doesn't have communications channels with western devs or just doesn't care. With the Japanese market going all in on handheld/mobile they really need to pull a Sony and get a western team to work on their home consoles.

Noodleface_sl said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo ends up going the way of Sega, which is really disappointing.

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Never in a million years. Nintendo has a boat load of money saved, they could have 3 or 4 "failures" in a row like the Wii U and still be fine. Remember, the 3DS was considered a failure for it's first 1.5 years of life until the games started hitting. Not to say Wii U will be as successful as 3DS is now but it should surpass the Gamecube's 30 million. The key here is Nintendo tries to make the console sale alone profitable (Wii U needed 1 game to be a profit) and then they make their own high quality games to play on it - usually good for 10 to 12 great 1st Party games per console. They aren't going to try to compete with Sony/MS on hardware, they make toys not computers.

no new Zelda.

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They are working on it - pretty sure they mentioned they going to show something next week at New York Comic Con. It's supposed to be more Skyrim and less linear.

Problem is Nintendo only has like 3 development teams and they all work on different franchises - and they don't seem to work on more than one title at once, or with very little overlap. Not to mention all those teams were working on 3DS titles until recently and so they are behind on Wii U games, hence not a great first party lineup at Wii U launch. Add on to that Miyamoto won't allow non-polished first party titles so they don't pump them out as fast as some other studios.

They scheduled it in such a way as to let 3rd parties have most of the launch window (3rd Parties always complain they can't compete with 1st Party Nintendo titles in the same window) and they got burned badly.

In a year's time the Wii U's software library will be pretty great.

As a gaming PC user, the launch lineup for PS4/XB1 look pretty mediocre. The only game I want from the lineup is BF4 and that's definitely a better play on the PC.

Nah, what Nintendo "needs" to do is, if they are unable to come up with a Wii-level disruptive technology for their next console, is realize they cannot be the primary supporter of two systems simultaneously, add a stream-to-HDMI dongle on the multi-touch 4DS, and back out of the console market in the short term.

Keep in mind that the most-frequently stated answer of "Have a short console cycle and put out their next system in 4 years" would have said system come out at literally the same time as the next handheld, and lead to even more severe game production problems than this gen!

Edit: Yes, there is a new Zelda in the works.

No, it's not in full production yet... because the team is still finishing the 3DS Zelda!

driedcatnip_sl said:

the lower specs (compared to what it could have been processingwise) will be able to better/sooner run via emulation in the future ...it was meant to be funny/an upside to the wiiu

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I don't know if that's really true compared to being able to emulate a X86 console OS. Like, emulators take a lot of power due to having to fake all of that other shit. You'd think running straight X86 stuff would be a hell of a lot easier. Hell, the Wii emulator is still hard to get running right on a lot of games due to that shit.

Man0warr_sl said:

They are working on it - pretty sure they mentioned they going to show something next week at New York Comic Con. It's supposed to be more Skyrim and less linear.

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Yeah, but it won't be out for another couple years is the problem. It was still in fucking *Design Document Brainstorming*, not even a real draft of it, back this February. They hadn't even started any actual build work yet. It's just way too damned long.

They should have delayed Skyward Sword and made it a WiiU launch title, putting it out on the Wii was so utterly pointless and a dumb marketing move to sell more Wiimote Plus's. Also with that extra time they might have realized that WALL OF TEXT TUTORIALS ANYTIME ANYTHING EVER HAPPENS IS THE STUPIDEST IDEA EVER.

They have been done with Skyward Sword for awhile. Most of their recent development has been on the A Link to the Past sequel (which is releasing in less than a month and looks amazing) and updating one of their most critically acclaimed and least played titles in Windwaker (which probably didn't take more than a few months but it was worthwhile).

But yeah probably won't see Zelda Wii U release until Holiday 2015.

As for Skyward Sword, yeah it was too heavy on tutorials and motion control - but I really enjoyed the story and the whole origin of the legend of Link and Zelda.

Yeah, they were done with it, but they should have held on to it for an extra year (came out in 2011) and polished it up more for the WiiU launch (2012) instead of putting it out on a console no one was playing anymore. It's like the least played Zelda ever due to that + requiring the Wiimote Plus crap. If they had used it as a launch title I bet a hell of a lot more people would be buying into WiiUs.

Betting Q1 2016 as a more likely for the new Zelda if they only just started a build on it.

Pretty sure the game came with a motion plus controller for free basically.

Man0warr_sl said:

Pretty sure the game came with a motion plus controller for free basically.

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Only the CE came with one.

Man0warr_sl said:

Pretty sure the game came with a motion plus controller for free basically.

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It did not. There was a more expensive Limited Edition that game with a Golden Wiimote Plus, but the standard version did not come with the add-on nor the new controller.

What really bugs me about the Wii U is... what comes out in 2015?

2014: A decent lineup of Donkey Kong, Kart, Yarn Yoshi, Smash, probably X and Bayonetta 2.

2016: Zelda, maybe Metroid. Probably a 3D Mario game, partly farmed out to Brownie Brown while Tokyo works on the 4DS Mario.

But 2015? Slim pickings. X or Bayo2 if they get delayed, Software 4 could put out another 2D NSMBU, Software 2 with Animal Crossing U (in Japan, at least). Maybe Software 2 also puts out some minigame compilation. But nothing else jumps out at me.

What is really sad to me is Nintendo has so many IP's they don't use. IP like Star Fox, F-Zero, etc... It's a damn shame they let these IP's go to waste.


The Gamepad has been a big letdown. A lot of the Nintendo 1st party games have barely made use of it which is really disturbing.