General Nintendo sales/business discussion topic (previously: The Wii U Thread)

[Candescence]

EA obviously doesn't have that much hold over Sony and MS, but the actual claim regarding Nintendo was that EA was working closely with Nintendo on actually building the Wii U's online infrastructure. At a certain point, EA pressed its luck, and tried to bribe Nintendo to let them integrate Origin into the entire service, and when that failed (because Nintendo wasn't gonna have any of that crap), EA decided to 'punish' Nintendo for not taking the deal.

 

Again, rumors and speculation, but I imagine EA would've loved to have some measure of control over a console's online infrastructure, if given the opportunity, to gain an advantage over competitors, and I don't doubt it would've taken any opportunity it could've gotten. Its spontaneously vindictive behaviour towards Nintendo clearly implied there was some kind of falling-out between the two companies.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Shirou Emiya

[SuperLink]

If there's any truth to that rumour, it's probably because EA has more hold over Nintendo than Nintendo has over it. If EA doesn't publish games on Nintendo systems, EA doesn't really miss out too much because that's not where its main demographic is, but Nintendo may miss out.

 

However, if EA tried to make such a deal with Microsoft or Sony and they denied (quite rightly)? EA would of course come crawling back to them anyway because it needs those systems to survive.

 

EA can quite easily bribe Nintendo in this position. "You want our games? Give us power." The others? Not so easily.

Of course this is all just speculation on stuff that was only rumours in the first place, but EA would not announce an "unprecedented" relationship with Nintendo if they never intended to follow through. They seemed.. peculiarly eager to work with Nintendo back then, after their relationship always being a bit shaky. It's not so weird to think they thought they'd have more power than ever.

 

Businesses in power are fucking dodgy and are filled with corrupt power plays and other such evilness, I seriously would not be surprised if the games industry was rife with this^ kind of dirty bribery and power play behind the scenes, and neither should any of you.

Edited May 12, 2013 by SuperLink

[Remy]

It reminds me of what they tried with SEGA and the Dreamcast by witholding Madden/all their sports games unless they would be the only sports games on the system.

 

I distinctly remember SEGA not giving a shit and making their own damn sports games instead. The 2K series spawned from that whole deal, which ended up being better than the EA fare anyway.

 

Obviously times, staff and the situation has changed, Peter Moore for example who was at SEGA US during the first time now heads EA Sports, but it's interesting that they're pulling something similar again

[Candescence]

Speaking of which, isn't EA obligated by its Madden contract to publish Madden games on all platforms? Or just home consoles, at least?

 

But, yeah, EA's rather dodgy like that. You know, several years ago, they looked like they were actually improving, and then suddenly they became even worse than Activision. Good grief.

[Conando]

It is kind of depressing when Activision is the good guy in any situation.

Because EA has completely total control over the 360 and PS3.

No really. Why haven't EA cut support of those consoles if all their influence on it is their Origin accounts as well? This thesis never ceases to be a bunch of crazy talk.

 Because they allow EA to "protect" their property through used game fees? No, they don't run Sony and Microsoft platforms, and I wasn't even suggesting the Origin thing (where did you even get that?). I'm saying Nintendo rejects a lot of new internet "features" in the current practice, ones that 3rd parties use to make an extra buck (these very same practices are what they claim as the only way they even make money. What a load of horse manure). The Origin thing could have very well happened for all I know, but that isn't what I was getting at. What I was getting at is the whole locking a feature out of a game, used or not, is something Nintendo has poo poo'd in very recent history, and so far their efforts with the 3DS and Wii U have been a rejection of such practices. That's not to say they aren't doing stupid shit, look at the hassle it is to transfer eShop licenses, but for some reason their ideas for retail games is complete customer satisfaction. The way they set things up for themselves, the Wii U might not even support on disc DLC unlocks. Let us not forget that Nintendo is also a company that is still run by its game designers rather than the typical businessman. It's why there are people saying Iwata is a terrible CEO.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[Conando]

EA says Frostbite Engine can't run on Wii U.

 

EA downscales Frostbite engine to Mobile Phones with no issue.

 

http://www.destructoid.com/ea-takes-the-frostbite-engine-to-mobile-with-frostbite-go-253723.phtml

Edited May 15, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[Autosaver]

Can run on 6 year old systems.

Not the Wii U though!

 

Can run on mobile phones.

Not the Wii U though!

 

CryEngine 3 can run on Wii U. Frostbite can't? CryEngine is supposed to be even MORE CPU intensive than FB...

[SuperLink]

EA says Frostbite Engine can't run on Wii U.

 

EA downscales Frostbite engine to Mobile Phones with no issue.

 

http://www.destructoid.com/ea-takes-the-frostbite-engine-to-mobile-with-frostbite-go-253723.phtml

Jesus christ, EA are just full of bullshit

[Tails spin]

Wishes this was preschool so the teacher can tell EA to play nice

[G-Force]

I don't know what's worse, the sheer volume of bullshit that EA happens to be full of, or that they seem to think people are stupid enough to not see how bullshit they are.

[Tornado]

You know, guys, I look at modern smartphones and tablets and I see things that are a hell of a lot more powerful (and certainly a market with a lot more potential) than any of the 3 consoles currently on the market; so the righteous indignation really just comes off as silly.

 

 

 

CryEngine 3 can run on Wii U. Frostbite can't? CryEngine is supposed to be even MORE CPU intensive than FB...

 

No it's not. CryEngine has always been an unoptimized resource hog on the GPU side. Always. To the extent you had to basically take a shotgun approach to graphics hardware to be able to turn most of the goodies on; dumping far more graphics power into the system then ordinarily would be necessary because of how inefficient the engine was at using it.

 

 

 

 

And is it really too much to ask that this thread has a collective memory that spans longer then when you guys decide to rage over the exact same thing?

[Komodin]

EA says Frostbite Engine can't run on Wii U.

 

EA downscales Frostbite engine to Mobile Phones with no issue.

 

http://www.destructoid.com/ea-takes-the-frostbite-engine-to-mobile-with-frostbite-go-253723.phtml

 

Hmm... normally, I'm not one to completely believe that EA has some sort of petty beef with Nintendo or anything. With this... eh, call me crazy, but this seems mighty suspicious on their part.

[Solkia]

Okay.

 

The fact remains that the Wii U isn't doing too well while smartphone gaming is as common as air.

[Urban Flow]

The only reason I would get a Wii U is if a StarFox game is made. A good one for that matter. Otherwise, there is really no other motivation for me to get one at this point. Maybe Bayonetta 2, but eh. From what I seen, it looks like a cool system, just with a bad start. I suppose with time it will kick into gear.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Urban Flow

[Autosaver]

 

No it's not. CryEngine has always been an unoptimized resource hog on the GPU side. Always. To the extent you had to basically take a shotgun approach to graphics hardware to be able to turn most of the goodies on; dumping far more graphics power into the system then ordinarily would be necessary because of how inefficient the engine was at using it.

 

That's odd. I was reading a complete contradictory of what you stated on a different website by a different user. Which is where my 'supposedly' claim came from. I guess the user stating that it was more CPU intensive got his facts mixed up. My bad too.

 

Anyways, the whole market point is completely irrelevant to the fact that EA claimed the Wii U could not run Frostbite. If EA wanted to state that, then fine. But spreading that the 360 can run it with them even scaling it down to phones and not having the ability to do the same for the Wii U speaks a lot. EA has been on a role lately with holding back games and making PR fails. I honestly thought they turned around with that EA Gamer Appreciation sale (I even kind of started telling people to stop trashing EA... ironically) but every day they do something stupid.

 

And is it really too much to ask that this thread has a collective memory that spans longer then when you guys decide to rage over the exact same thing?

Uh... apparently you can't rage over something even though new details come in? It's not like someone randomly linked to a 3 month old article about EA stuff not being on the Wii U. If you have been keeping up with the news, EA has been stating many things. Sports games being pulled back, random comments from EA, x games not coming to Wii U, etc. 

 

I do feel that if they bothered to optimize their engine to take advantaged of the different architecture that the problem could be solved. While the Wii U CPU clock speed is lower, it is more efficient in what it can do. It's similar to what happened to the PS3. Completely different architecture caused many games to run poorly early on. As the shelf life went on, optimization grew. PS3 games now run equal or better to their 360 counterparts.

 

Also, am I the only one that remembers when hype was surrounding over the Wii U CPU being an edited version of the IBM Supercomputer CPU? ...What happened?

 

It's hard to defend EA after they completely butcher their PR and have been pissing off gamers for years. Sure EA could whine about their sales of the games they released so far, but I can easily list reasons why they failed. Mass Effect 3 has none of the DLC, runs worse than the original version, has no DLC, had no marketing, and was released for $60. On the other hand, Mass Effect Trilogy was released for PS360PC and featured most of the DLC, had marketing, and was released at a similar price point. Gamers could start from the beginning and play through having the other games' events change. Wii U had none of that besides some random comic book. Most Wanted U probably didn't do as well for the same reason. $60 price point when it's very cheap for other systems, no DLC, no extra features, crashing, etc.

 

Edit: Didn't Crytek get Crysis 3 up and running on the Wii U and said that the Nintendo-EA relationship wasn't solid so they had to cancel it? Makes you wonder what's up between the two. Going from the E3 several years ago, it seemed like the relationship was VERY solid.

 

Instead of whining about the lack of software, publishers should try to fill that blank. If EA, Activision, etc releases their games on the Wii U with bonus features taking advantage of the system (better graphics, Gamepad usage, etc), then I'm sure people will buy them. The 'lack of software' could easily be somewhat solved by 3rd parties releasing their games. Indie devs have had GREAT success on the Wii U and there's one thing to take advantage of - no competition. Release Battlefield 4 for the Wii U or Call of Duty for the 3DS, you get tons of the sales off the bat.

 

I'm also sure that sales will sky-rocket after holiday season. The release of casual games like Wii Fit U, Game & Wario, Mario Kart, and the release of more hardcore focused games such as Pikmin 3 & Wonderful 101 should push for sales. Maybe it makes sense not to care about the Wii U right now, but what about the coming year? At least Activision is supposedly releasing their Call of Duty game. If they want Wii U money, then let them.

 

It's kind of funny since it was revealed that 15 (actually, let's not be silly. They're going to be using this engine for a while so even MORE games will be made!) games were being made with the Frostbite engine. I guess if you're only porting one game (Battlefield 4) then maybe you might not want to bother changing the engine, but FIFTEEN games? Optimizing the engine once and allowing support for those 15 games seems like an incredibly smart business decision. Think of the amount of money that could be pulled in from those games casual & hardcore alike. Seems like a dumb move in my book.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Autosaver

[Conando]

Modern smart phones are more powerful than the current generation of consoles in what ways? Certainly not processing power. By the looks of it, not looks either. You could argue a tablet PC could be, but that's a PC. It's not a Samsung Galaxy Note or an iPad. Did mobile parts suddenly get a million times better in a year? The Vita is supposed to be using the best of that type of tech from last year, and it's not surpassing it; let alone even matching it. Fact of the matter is they wouldn't be aiming for that anyway, they want to sell their "Fremium" Need For Speed and Battlefield phone ports to dumb kids, and the typical parent isn't going to be buying kids the most expensive and powerful thing out there, contrary to commercials. Why? They don't know the difference. I mean, who is the market otherwise? The "hardcore" gamer crowd hates cell phone games.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[Tornado]

Uh... apparently you can't rage over something even though new details come in?

 

Not if the response is to just repeat the same apple-oranges comparisons that have already been debunked the last time they were brought up for why EA sucks so much. Are there shifty goings on in the background between EA and Nintendo? Absolutely. Are EA sending titles out to die so they can justify their confirmation bias? Yep.

 

 

 

 

But they've already had problems getting their brand new CPU-intensive PC engines to work on the PS360 (see how stripped bare Battlefield 3 is on those two compared to the PC version), and DICE aren't the only developers who have had problems with the Wii U CPU compared to those two. But the latest and greatest ~1.6 GHz 4 core ARM-based CPUs that they have been shoving into tablets and smartphones for nearly a year now will shit all over the Wii U's CPU; and probably are similarly powerful to the fast but inefficient and complex ones in the PS360 as well regardless of the clock speed differences. So why is it surprising that they are reporting that they can get reasonable performance out of more powerful hardware? Where is the hypocrisy in their CPU-intensive engine working better on architecture with a more powerful CPU?

[Conando]

Since when does the iPhone 5, the most popular Smartphone, use a 1.6 GHz ARM processor? It doesn't. It uses a 1.3 Ghz DUAL CORE CPU. Neither does the Samsung Galaxy S 3 either, actually. It DOES use an ARM processor, but not at the speed you're saying. Though clock speed is a fairly useless freakin' thing to use anyway.But, it seemed like you were trying to push that number. It should be noted, the Vita DOES use an ARM Cortex-A9 that clocks at up to 2 GHz, but it's still not surpassing the PS3.

 

Edit: Derp, why was I putting those 4's there? ...I think my brain was farting R4 somehow. Which isn't even related.

 

Edit 2: As for tablets, the iPad Mini uses a 1 GHz A9-Cortex and the current big boy iPad uses a 1.4 GHz Apple Produced processor...so...were you ball parking or is there something I'm missing here? The mainstream devices, which is what EA would be targeting, aren't as up to snuff as you're implying.

 

Edit 3: SHUT UP, I EDIT ALOT. D:

Edited May 15, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[The Kid]

>Comes in to check on Wii U news

 

>Sees Wii U EA argument

 

>Leaves

[Conando]

Sad to say, there's so little news other than EA doing terrible things.

[Autosaver]

I completely agree with Wreck-it-Ralph. You're hyping up and overplaying the power of devices being out there. Sure there might be some incredibly expensive device out there that may be more powerful, but EA is NOT scaling their engines for those devices. They're doing a wide range of devices and I bet their lowest device supported is the iPhone 4. It's a straw-man argument to bring up powerful devices to generalize them all. It's quite obvious the mobile market is going to be in the iPhone 4/4s/5 department, and it's not going to be exclusive to the highest performing devices. It's going to be optimized to support many. It would be absolutely stupid to just scale down the engine to a $599 smartphone while ignoring everything else.

 

I'm pretty sure the chips inside work completely different too. I had a discussion with a friend a while ago and he noted that the way they work is not the same. You can't just compare clock speeds. It's an in-depth comparison with a lot of different technicalities. The way they work and how they perform. A simple google search states how silly it is to compare those 'epic' CPUs being used in the mobile market.

 

Edit: Ugh. Just read the freemium part WiR brought up. I completely forgot how terribly EA is handling the mobile market.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Autosaver

[Tornado]

Since when does the iPhone 5, the most popular Smartphone, use a 1.6 GHz ARM processor? It doesn't. It uses a 1.3 Ghz DUAL CORE CPU.

It doesn't. Which is good, because I never said it did.

 

Neither does the Samsung Galaxy S 3 either, actually.

International versions do. US versions use a dual core processor for better compatibility with US mobile networks.

 

It DOES use an ARM 4 processor, but not at the speed you're saying.

Edit 2: As for tablets, the iPad Mini uses a 1 GHz A9-Cortex and the current big boy iPad uses a 1.4 GHz Apple Produced processor...so...were you ball parking or is there something I'm missing here? The mainstream devices, which is what EA would be targeting, aren't as up to snuff as you're implying.

I completely agree with Wreck-it-Ralph. You're hyping up and overplaying the power of devices being out there. Sure there might be some incredibly expensive device out there that may be more powerful, but EA is NOT scaling their engines for those devices. They're doing a wide range of devices and I bet their lowest device supported is the iPhone 4. It's a straw-man argument to bring up powerful devices to generalize them all. It's quite obvious the mobile market is going to be in the iPhone 4/4s/5 department, and it's not going to be exclusive to the highest performing devices. It's going to be optimized to support many. It would be absolutely stupid to just scale down the engine to a $599 smartphone while ignoring everything else.

The tablet and smartphone market exists beyond what Apple does. The Samsung Galaxy Note II has a 1.6. The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer has a 1.6. I said 1.6 because the newest nVidia Tegra 3 (which is about to be replaced anyway) is a 1.6 and decent-ish tablets tend to use nVidia Tegra 3.

And for that matter, I said ~1.6. The international Galaxy S III (which is also about to be replaced) uses a 1.4. The Google Nexus 7 uses a 1.3. The LG Optimus Vu uses a 1.5. The Sony Xperia S uses a 1.4. The Microsoft Surface uses a 1.3. That's what the "~" was for.

Decently powerful ARM processors aren't rare; and they haven't been since Tegra 3 launched. Which was in fact the entire point behind Tegra 3.

 

Though clock speed is a fairly useless freakin' thing to use anyway.

I'm pretty sure the chips inside work completely different too. I had a discussion with a friend a while ago and he noted that the way they work is not the same. You can't just compare clock speeds. It's an in-depth comparison with a lot of different technicalities. The way they work and how they perform.

You don't say? No shit. I sure am glad I didn't say as much or anything, or that that applies both ways:

 

and probably are similarly powerful to the fast but inefficient and complex ones in the PS360 as well regardless of the clock speed differences

 

The PS360 processors, especially the former with its extremely convoluted instruction set, are no longer the powerhouses they once were. Clock for clock they were great when they were developed and first released, when the Pentium 4 ruled the roost. Within 2 years that particular line of PowerPC architecture was found to be a compromised dead end when dual and quad core x86 processors started taking over.

 

It should be noted, the Vita DOES use an ARM Cortex-A9 that clocks at up to 2 GHz, but it's still not surpassing the PS3.

Graphically? No. That's because the Vita don't have as powerful graphics hardware because of concerns for mobility and battery life. In terms of power? That depends on what you're after, because different processor instruction sets do different things differently. Raw number crunching? No. A modern smartphone can't touch the PS360 in that. Pretty much anything else? You'd be hard pressed to find a new processor design that wouldn't come out on top of those two. Even x86 processors with lower clockrates are better than those now. And the Wii U isn't as good as those two; since we now know it was built directly off of the Wii, which was built directly off of the Gamecube, which was built directly off of the G3 PowerMac from the late 90s. This one, even:

 

[Soniman]

Can I just say that I have no fucking idea what any of you are talking about?

 

 

Im pretty dense when it comes to tech talk like this. lol

Edited May 15, 2013 by Soniman

[Conando]

But if a modern smart phone doesn't reach PS3/360 performance, and the frostbite engine works on them, or rather was reworked to do so...how the hell does your argument refute the complaints people are having then? I'm sorry, I don't get it. Are we just talking tech for the fun of it, because that last bit just ends it. As for the Wii U's CPU, it's STILL up in the air where it actually lies performance wise, because no one fucking bothered to look at it after testing its clock speed. Though, from what I've heard, it does have a shorter processing pipeline that should, in theory, be capable of processing more things than the 360 and PS3 in the same time span despite the slower clock speed. It also means it doesn't waste as much time on restarting a bad process.

 

Edit: I just don't get it. Why shouldn't people be upset about EA not even doing the bare fucking minimum to tweak Frostbite games a bit on the Wii U? They went out of their way to do it for Smartphones, which require even more effort than it would for them to shift some processes to the GPGPU for Wii U versions.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Wreck-It Ralph

[Tornado]

But if a modern smart phone doesn't reach PS3/360 performance, and the frostbite engine works on them, or rather was reworked to do so...how the hell does your argument refute the complaints people are having then? I'm sorry, I don't get it.

 

Because they don't reach PS360 performance because the graphics hardware isn't as powerful. Not because the CPU, which EA has repeatedly said is the bottleneck keeping even the gimped version of Frostbite the PS360 have off the Wii U, is necessarily any less powerful. And, again, even a $200 Google Nexus 7 (of which there are far more sold of that specific model of tablet alone than their are Wii Us) comes with a decently powerful processor these days; and pretty much the only difference between it and what is in OUYA (which is also probably a large reason why EA is trying to get Frostbite to work on mobile devices) is a few hundred megahertz in clock speed.

 

 

As for the Wii U's CPU, it's STILL up in the air where it actually lies performance wise, because no one fucking bothered to look at it after testing its clock speed.

 

We know a lot about the Wii U processor now, actually. When Carbo said the other day it was basically 3 Wii processors working in tandem, that was because we now know it is basically 3 Wii processors working in tandem, albeit at a higher clock rate. It's so close in design to the Wii that the main difference between the two is that the Wii U actually has a security layer built in so the system won't automatically run whatever code is fed into it like the Wii would.

 

Edit: I just don't get it. Why shouldn't people be upset about EA not even doing the bare fucking minimum to tweak Frostbite games a bit on the Wii U?

It is perfectly reasonable to be upset. But who are you to say that it would take the bare minimum of effort to get the game engine designed for hardware that is more powerful than the successor systems to the PS360 to work on hardware that is is a repeatedly bootstrapped version of something that was first used in 2001?