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


Tatsumaki

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Much of the Wii's main audience is obviously not buying into the U, which, by and large, just leaves the more dedicated gamers at Nintendo's feet. These are people who would have bought the system no matter the price. They could have beefed up its power to somewhere halfway between the 360 and Xbone, and I'd bet you anything they probably could've sold at least as many units by now. I'm thinking the system's power level, born from a desire to maintain a family friendly price tag and whatnot, was devised under the assumption that their Wii success would repeat on the U. This has not been born out by events.

 

They'll sink or swim based on the games their new system gets, and I'm certain that I will not regret owning it, but I still feel that bolstering its pushing power would've done it more good than harm.

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Some things I wished the Wii U had.

 

4GB Ram instead of 2GB (OS Improvements, more RAM for developers)

 

Slightly Higher clock speed/Stronger CPU (I'm reading the CPU can be improved through firmware updates or something on other sites. I'm honestly confused on the CPU the Wii U uses)

 

Tiny GPU improvements (GPU apparently is very strong, so..)

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Much of the Wii's main audience is obviously not buying into the U, which, by and large, just leaves the more dedicated gamers at Nintendo's feet. These are people who would have bought the system no matter the price. They could have beefed up its power to somewhere halfway between the 360 and Xbone, and I'd bet you anything they probably could've sold at least as many units by now. I'm thinking the system's power level, born from a desire to maintain a family friendly price tag and whatnot, was devised under the assumption that their Wii success would repeat on the U. This has not been born out by events.

 

They'll sink or swim based on the games their new system gets, and I'm certain that I will not regret owning it, but I still feel that bolstering its pushing power would've done it more good than harm.

Do I need to bring up Gamecube again? It seems like I need to bring up Gamecube every couple of pages. The Wii U's GPU is about 3 generations back from the current generation of AMD GPUs out right now, the Xbone is probably about 1 back. It's a difference, but this isn't like they took a 360 and just polished the turd that was its GPU. As for RAM, I argue there's no point to a ton of it if the Wii U isn't even designed to multi-task apps, which it isn't. It's still a box that just plays games for the most part. That, and it wouldn't really benefit anything considering the CPU. Nintendo wanted to keep BC with Wii, so no they weren't going to make a vastly different CPU regardless of what they did. Unless you're saying people would pay 500 to 600 dollars for a Wii U, which they won't since they won't even pay 299.

Edited by Wreck-It Ralph
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Slightly Higher clock speed/Stronger CPU (I'm reading the CPU can be improved through firmware updates or something on other sites. I'm honestly confused on the CPU the Wii U uses)

 

Wii CPU *3.

 

 

 

The Wii U's GPU is about 3 generations back from the current generation of AMD GPUs out right now, the Xbone is probably about 1 back. It's a difference, but this isn't like they took a 360 and just polished the turd that was its GPU.

 

The 360's GPU was pretty close to the best you could get on the market in 2005.

 

 

As for RAM, I argue there's no point to a ton of it if the Wii U isn't even designed to multi-task apps, which it isn't. It's still a box that just plays games for the most part. That, and it wouldn't really benefit anything considering the CPU.

 

More RAM is never a bad thing; especially when it is unified. Crappy CPU or not, it would allow developers to be a lot more efficient with how they use resources; and 1 gig isn't that much when it is shared across the CPU and GPU.

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I'm saying in terms of now the Xbox 360 GPU is a turd, I could have worded it better. Also, weren't you the one saying that more RAM wouldn't have helped the Cell due to a bottleneck or am I remembering things here. Considering it would be the equivalent to taking the Emotion Engine or Cell and slapping another on, there'd be only so much you could do with it regardless of RAM.

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Wii U is supposed to multitask soon. Remember a month back when the developers of Wii U Chat had snippets of cross game chat? I'm thinking we may see more features outside of playing games soon.

 

Also, isn't RAM dirt cheap?

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Yes, but there's no point in cramming more in there if it does nothing. It's not a computer.

Edited by Wreck-It Ralph
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Yes, but there's no point in cramming more in there if it does nothing. It's not a computer.

I highly doubt the Wii U is 'pushing' it at 1GB. I'm sure games could look better with 2GB of RAM available. I remember tons of devs launch Wii U were praising the increased RAM.

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It's not, but for it to be "halfway" between Xbox 360 and Xbone it would need about 4 and a half to 5 GB, which wouldn't do jack all. An extra gig probably would help, but that's it.

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Damn it people. Slow down with the replies.

 

 

Also, weren't you the one saying that more RAM wouldn't have helped the Cell due to a bottleneck or am I remembering things here. Considering it would be the equivalent to taking the Emotion Engine or Cell and slapping another on, there'd be only so much you could do with it regardless of RAM.

 

Doubt it. The lack of system RAM was always the bottleneck on the PS3, since it was originally designed with 512 and Sony originally intended for developers to do everything with it instead of a dedicated GPU. It certainly wouldn't have hurt the 360 either, even though that had a much better memory layout.

 

 

Wii U is supposed to multitask soon. Remember a month back when the developers of Wii U Chat had snippets of cross game chat? I'm thinking we may see more features outside of playing games soon.

 

Also, isn't RAM dirt cheap?

 

Prolly would have cost them $10 to add another gig when designing it, which would have had definite performance returns without much being wasted. I think the Wii U is divided into 4*512 clusters, and even taking it up to 5 could help quite a bit.

 

 

Yes, but there's no point in cramming more in there if it does nothing. It's not a computer.

 

Again, one gig shared between the CPU and GPU isn't that much. Developers are definitely going to be smacking into it as games come out that look better and better than PS360 games, and Nintendo will probably have to scale back how much is reserved eventually. They wouldn't have had to assign any more to the system functions, and could have let the extra gig be used purely for games.

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2cypdld.jpg

 

How will the games ever look better than 360/PS3 games? Clearly the Wii U is weaker than those 2 and is a waste of time!

 

Ok, seriously now. With the lack of a shit that most devs are giving toward it, that would be coming from Nintendo's devs. I just find that funny for some reason.

 

(Though I believe the whole OS fixing updates have already been working toward reducing the amount of system memory it uses. Don't quote me on that.)

 

Edit 2: Don't take me too seriously here. The idiocy of the folks on NeoGAF has leaked over to me.

Edited by Wreck-It Ralph
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(Though I believe the whole OS fixing updates have already been working toward reducing the amount of system memory it uses. Don't quote me on that.)

 

 

I believe the same thing happened with the 3DS. Game performance with up after one of the latest updates.

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Look at it this way: You're playing Most Wanted on the Wii U. As cars drive away and scenery falls behind you, it all loses detail and the models become more basic so the GPU can focus on something else that is closer and isn't clogged up with a bunch of stuff that is too far away to even see. Having all of those different LoD models doesn't put any extra strain on the GPU or CPU, because they are lower quality then the "good" ones so it's no biggie. But all of those models and textures have to be available immediately as you get closer and farther away to them, and they are all stored in RAM alongside all of the stuff that is being shown on screen. The more stuff of that nature you have in RAM, the less system resources you have to put towards loading them irrelevant of how much system resources you have overall (in this case, how powerful the CPU is). Ditto with sounds, which are another huge memory hog.

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Oh no, I get that. I just think people have the assumption that RAM somehow makes games look significantly better. Its purpose is to store objects temporarily or help with rendering. Note that the GPU does apparently have some eDRAM, right? I do think we'll be seeing the OS being scaled back significantly in RAM use as time goes by (like with 3DS). It'll be interesting to see games increase in performance in the way you describe.

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Graphically and techwise, we cant really judge the Wii U too harshly right now; obviously most 3rd party multiplatform games are going to look weak due to being unfamiliar with the hardware, but we haven't seen a true Nintendo game on the system yet.  I mean, sure there is so far Mario Bros. U, Nintendo Land and Lego City on the system but we haven't seen 3d Mario or Retro Studios game, both of which are known for getting the most out of the GameCube/Wii, so we have to wait till this fall to find out how strong or weak the Wii U truly is. 

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I'm really looking forward to what E3 brings. While MS and Sony are battling it out, Nintendo can be all like "Look, we have the 3D Mario of your dreams!" behind their back.

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Improved Wii U GamePad Battery and More Headed to Japan

A White Premium bundle and new Wii Remote charger have also been announced.

Nintendo has made a host of Wii U announcements for Japan, including a new White Deluxe Bundle, 'fast charge' device for the Wii Remote and a GamePad battery upgrade accessory.

While the Wii U usually comes in either in a White Standard Bundle that comes with an 8GB hard drive or a Black Premium Bundle with a 32GB HDD, this new package will allow Japanese customers to mix the colour of the former with the larger storage space of the latter. While it's due out in the East on July 13, there's been no confirmation just yet if it'll be heading West.

Additionally, the company also announced a new and improved battery pack for the Gamepad controller. While the standard 1500mAh version that's bundled with the console offers between three to five hours of life, the new 2550mAh capacity pack will increase this to between five and eight hours. Due out in Japan on July 25, it's set to cost ¥3,150 (around £20 / $30 / €25).

While they're easily the most exciting announcements, Nintendo has also officially unveiled a Quick Charge Set for Wii Remotes. Seeing as third-party versions of these have been around for some time, chances are you'll have an equivalent, but if not you can pick up a battery pack, charging dock, WiiMote case and strap for ¥4,200 from July 13.

Lastly, a new Nintendo Land bundle has been unveiled that'll offer you a blue or pink WiiMote Plus in addition to the game for ¥5,985.

We've heard nothing about any of the above launching outside of Japan. We reached out to Nintendo but were told this is a Japanese release, but other territories will make announcements if relevant in due course.

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Any chance we'll be able to buy these new battery packs and install them ourselves? I don't want to shell out $100 for a new gamepad (or a trade-in), or hundreds more for a new console.

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You'll soon be able to play NSMBU with your Wii U Pro Controller thanks to a Luigi-inspired patch:

 

There will be a patch for New Super Mario Bros. U released before or on the same day that New Super Luigi U is released. The patch will allow for the following.

- Purchase New Super Luigi U within New Super Mario Bros U
- Wii U Pro Controller support added

 

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=203762

 

Hooray!

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Thank you, Nintendo! If a game doesn't require the second screen of the GamePad, Pro Controller support should just come as standard. It really annoyed me that NSMBU couldn't use it. 

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This controller support should have been included in the first place.Still nice to hear though.

Edited by canderson
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Any chance we'll be able to buy these new battery packs and install them ourselves? I don't want to shell out $100 for a new gamepad (or a trade-in), or hundreds more for a new console.

Wait.. what do you mean? These battery packs are sold with a screw driver to open your Gamepad. Your gamepad actually has extra space inside to hold a bigger battery.

 

See: Already released Nyko Power Pak U

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