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

[Patticus]

Hopefully that killer app is going to be Mario Kart 8. It's already selling out on Amazon.com. Go figure.

 

It remains to be seen whether MK8 is selling to prospective/new Wii U buyers, or existing owners, however. Time will tell. It needs to move systems in large numbers if third parties are going to take notice, and even if it does, I think it likely that the lesson they'll take away from its success will be "Mario Kart and other Nintendo games do well on, and sell, Nintendo systems." That is not be the right message to put across to a worldwide development community which already thinks that the only games that do good business on Nintendo systems are Nintendo's own properties.

[Brad]

Well if Mario Kart and Smash Bros don't make a serious difference on sales... I'd be pretty pessimistic about the future of this console, even with Zelda coming.

[MegasonicZX]

It remains to be seen whether MK8 is selling to prospective/new Wii U buyers, or existing owners, however. Time will tell. It needs to move systems in large numbers if third parties are going to take notice, and even if it does, I think it likely that the lesson they'll take away from its success will be "Mario Kart and other Nintendo games do well on, and sell, Nintendo systems." That is not be the right message to put across to a worldwide development community which already thinks that the only games that do good business on Nintendo systems are Nintendo's own properties.

Yeah, while I do help the wii u sales well when they come out I also kind of hope they don't do well too just so nintendo can really start doing stuff aside from the usual things they always do.

[Sami]

You do realize that Source is one of the easiest optimizable engines around, right? The fucking thing is a decade old. If the Wii U can run CryEngine 3, it should run Source at 1080p 60 FPS. Most likely, Respawn is just extremely bad at optimization.

Please stop. You don't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

Did the 360 or PS3 run Half Life 2 at 1080p/60fps? No, not even close. The Wii U couldn't dream to either. Even then, you're completely misunderstanding what an engine even is in the first place - merely being able to run an engine does not mean that you can run every game that uses it. The textures, level geometry, AI, and just about everything else will vary on a game by game basis. The claim that "____ should be able to run Source at 1080p/60fps is a baffling one, as Source isn't a game, but a toolset developers use to build a game.

Your claim literally makes no sense at all.

Also, you just said that even though it didn't run very well, FB3 worked on the PS3/360. If it couldn't run on the Wii U, a machine with better specs, then why could it run on the 360? I know why it worked on the PS3 because Cell and all.

FB3 is a CPU intensive engine. Wii U has a cripplingly weak CPU (worse than both the PS3 and 360's). Making it work is possible, but will require a lot time and money to properly optimize. That's all that's been said here.

[Milo]

Mario Kart is inarguably the Mario franchise's (and in general, one of Nintendo's) best performing series, even moreso than the 2D platformer series of Mario titles. Ever since Mario Kart 64, the Mario series is usually the second-best selling system for Nintendo consoles (and even then, the series's debut with SNES's Super Mario Kart was the third best-selling system on that console, behind only Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country), with at least over 7 million each-and with the case of predecessor Mario Kart Wii, slightly over 35 million copies-making it the fifth best-selling videogame of all time.

 

As far as I'm concerned, if Mario Kart 8 can't help or "save" the Wii U, essentially any of the titles that we currently know (as well as those being released in the near future that we don't know) about the Wii U's upcoming software library would not be able to help or "save" it either.

 

Admittedly Nintendo's taking more strides to market the game with it's partnerships with other companies regarding special events and preorder bonuses as well as it's Limited Edition bundles, but with that said I seriously think making a Wii U bundle (special edition-themed or otherwise) early in the game's life would seriously help shift units for the console. I'd like to think Mario 3D World probably could had made a bigger splash if they had done so with that title.

[azoo]

It's literally up to Kart and Smash. The former is a series everyone and their mother laps up, and the latter is the official Money Printing / Hype Generating Machine. If they don't succeed, well then who knows, but it won't be pretty most likely.

 

At least it's assured that it's failure won't be as much of a ridiculous hyperbole as saying its the next flipping Virtual Boy, no matter if it matches to some of the criteria. I mean yeah, its a big failure. But geez, really Game Theory? :v

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

 The Wii U couldn't dream to either. 

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

[Your Vest Friend]

The problem with Mario Kart is that it's a series everyone and their mother probably already has in some form. Mario Kart 8's success, and more crucially it's ability to shift hardware, really hinges on whether the general consumer is given enough reason to shell out £200 on a new console for it when they likely already have an iteration in their possession.

At least, that's what I think.

[Dejimon11]

Idk people are willing to spend so much money on a PS4 just to buy call of duty and assassins creed and that cost more money

[Sami]

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

It's not something to disagree on. It's fact.

Also please get those examples, I'm still waiting.

[Your Vest Friend]

Idk people are willing to spend so much money on a PS4 just to buy call of duty and assassins creed and that cost more money

I'd chalk that to different audiences. The market CoD and AC are aimed at tend to be more dedicated gamers who would have income aside for their gaming hobby. Mario is a family franchise, where more of its audience (parents of younger children) don't put aside as much.

[Willsy]

I'm in the UK in late May, so I'll have to pick up MK8 if somewhere do it for less than £40. If not, I've messed about with my Wii U's DNS settings so I can purchase things from the UK eShop (though I have to use my UK NNID to use it).

[Tails spin]

The problem with Mario Kart is that it's a series everyone and their mother probably already has in some form. Mario Kart 8's success, and more crucially it's ability to shift hardware, really hinges on whether the general consumer is given enough reason to shell out £200 on a new console for it when they likely already have an iteration in their possession.At least, that's what I think.

I agree with this statment. I went from getting super mario kart,64 and super circuit to taken a break from the series up until mario kart 7. And to be honest I'm satisfied with it that i am not jumping at the seems to get a Wii U

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

It's not something to disagree on. It's fact.

Also please get those examples, I'm still waiting.

Not really a fact to begin since such has yet to be proven.

 

And what examples are you talking about?

[Indigo Rush]

It's pretty much as close to a fact as you can get. 

 

I may not have proof or documentation on it, but you don't really need it if you're trying to run, say, a Nintendo DS game on a Gameboy Advance. 

 

The gap between Wii U and Xbone/PS4 may not be as large as the gap between Wii and PS3/360, but it's still there, and once you look under the hood, it is noticeable. 

[Willsy]

Is source engine CPU intensive? If so, theres no chance that the Wii U could run it with half the clock speed of the 360, and that system can't even run Source Engine. Besides, don't Valve games on 360/PS3 use a different engine?

[Sami]

Not really a fact to begin since such has yet to be proven.

 

And what examples are you talking about?

If I may simplify the issue here in Layman's terms so it's easy to understand - the Xbox 360 runs Half Life 2 at 720p/30fps. Running the game at 1080p would require roughly twice the processing power (as it's rendering roughly double the amount of pixels), and running it at 60fps would require another 2x power boost (rendering twice as many frames in a second). Therefore, for the Wii U to run Half Life 2 at 1080p/60fps, it would need to be roughly four times as powerful as the 360. It isn't even twice as powerful, however, so 1080p/60fps is an impossibility. Even just one of those things probably wouldn't be possible, let alone both.

As I said earlier, your argument consists of only "prove me wrong". Please learn about the specs before arguing about them.

And I'm talking about you saying debs grossly exaggerate the power difference. Please give me an example of this.

[Gabz Girl]

The problem with Mario Kart is that it's a series everyone and their mother probably already has in some form. Mario Kart 8's success, and more crucially it's ability to shift hardware, really hinges on whether the general consumer is given enough reason to shell out £200 on a new console for it when they likely already have an iteration in their possession.

At least, that's what I think.

 

Mario Kart Double Dash was on a console that was lagging behind PS2 and Xbox yet it was still a number 2 bestseller on the Gamecube, right behind Smash Bros Melee. No way in hell is Mario Kart 8 going to sell less than even that version of the game.

 

Now I just wish Nintendo could release a Wii U bundle with Mario Kart 8.

[Patticus]

Well if Mario Kart and Smash Bros don't make a serious difference on sales... I'd be pretty pessimistic about the future of this console, even with Zelda coming.

 

If Nintendo would just branch out and embrace more western game types with more violence and darker tones, we'd have no reason to be pessimistic.

[Willsy]

The thing is, didn't SEGA try that? They had a lot of violent games with a darker tone, but that didn't do anything for them. A damn shame too, SEGA had some really good western type games back then.

[Tornado]

Please stop. You don't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

Did the 360 or PS3 run Half Life 2 at 1080p/60fps? No, not even close. The Wii U couldn't dream to either. Even then, you're completely misunderstanding what an engine even is in the first place - merely being able to run an engine does not mean that you can run every game that uses it. The textures, level geometry, AI, and just about everything else will vary on a game by game basis. The claim that "____ should be able to run Source at 1080p/60fps is a baffling one, as Source isn't a game, but a toolset developers use to build a game.

Your claim literally makes no sense at all.

If I may simplify the issue here in Layman's terms so it's easy to understand - the Xbox 360 runs Half Life 2 at 720p/30fps. Running the game at 1080p would require roughly twice the processing power (as it's rendering roughly double the amount of pixels), and running it at 60fps would require another 2x power boost (rendering twice as many frames in a second). Therefore, for the Wii U to run Half Life 2 at 1080p/60fps, it would need to be roughly four times as powerful as the 360. It isn't even twice as powerful, however, so 1080p/60fps is an impossibility. Even just one of those things probably wouldn't be possible, let alone both.

My old laptop, with a Core 2 Duo an a mildly overclocked 7900 GS, ran every Source game but Left4Dead and Lost Coast at 1200p and damn close to 60fps. Swapping it for one with a very slightly better Core 2 Duo and a notably better Quadro FX2500 made it run everything but Portal 2 and Lost Coast at a solid 60 FPS. The reason the PS3 version of Half Life 2 was so shit are infamous at this point, but even the Valve-made 360 version was an early 360 game with pared back graphics compared to what you could do on a performance equivalent PC.

 

 

Now, to be sure, Source is a CPU intensive engine (for whatever measure an engine designed for Pentium 4s can really be considered CPU intensive). And the more complex games (Portal 2 vs original, shaderless Half Life 2) are even moreso. But as you increase the graphics fidelity, the requirements swing much more heavily on the GPU. And that's something the Wii U has no issues with compared to the "R520 and a half" that the 360 had and the "not even that good" one the PS3 had.

[Sami]

My old laptop, with a Core 2 Duo an a mildly overclocked 7900 GS, ran every Source game but Left4Dead and Lost Coast at 1200p and damn close to 60fps. Swapping it for one with a very slightly better Core 2 Duo and a notably better Quadro FX2500 made it run everything but Portal 2 and Lost Coast at a solid 60 FPS. The reason the PS3 version of Half Life 2 was so shit are infamous at this point, but even the Valve-made 360 version was an early 360 game with pared back graphics compared to what you could do on a performance equivalent PC.

 

 

Now, to be sure, Source is a CPU intensive engine (for whatever measure an engine designed for Pentium 4s can really be considered CPU intensive). And the more complex games (Portal 2 vs original, shaderless Half Life 2) are even moreso. But as you increase the graphics fidelity, the requirements swing much more heavily on the GPU. And that's something the Wii U has no issues with compared to the "R520 and a half" that the 360 had and the "not even that good" one the PS3 had.

 

Fair enough for Half Life 2, I actually wasn't aware that game was a special case in that scenario. That said, the whole topic was brought up because PSI went on a "Wii U can play 1080p games but Xbox can't, look at Titanfall!" tangent, which is still a baffling false equivalency. 

 

Setting aside the specifics involving optimization over time, the only reason Half Life 2 would run better on Wii U now, then, would be because the game was built for the 360 very early on. My point still stands that developers can't simply take 360 games and double the resolution and framerate without a second thought, which is what Jovah and PSI seemed to be suggesting. It just doesn't work, and you know that.

[Autosaver]

Wait what.. we're arguing if a shitty looking game will run well on Wii U?

 

[Tornado]

Fair enough for Half Life 2, I actually wasn't aware that game was a special case in that scenario. That said, the whole topic was brought up because PSI went on a "Wii U can play 1080p games but Xbox can't, look at Titanfall!" tangent, which is still a baffling false equivalency.

 

Lumping Titanfall in with the original Source game (or any of the Valve developed ones, really) is a logical black hole, yes; but so is claiming that any game with an engine so old that it predates multi core processors would struggle to run better on the Wii U than it did on a couple of systems that also no doubt were far and away not limited by the processing power of the CPU in the first place.

[Sami]

Lumping Titanfall in with the original Source game (or any of the Valve developed ones, really) is a logical black hole, yes; but so is claiming that any game with an engine so old that it predates multi core processors would struggle to run better on the Wii U than it did on a couple of systems that also no doubt were far and away not limited by the processing power of the CPU in the first place.

 

Fair enough, that was my mistake. I hadn't taken the age of the game into account, sorry about that. 

 

 

Wait what.. we're arguing if a shitty looking game will run well on Wii U?

 

I should have used a newer game as an example, really. My main point was simply that if Titanfall runs at 792p and 60fps on XB1, the best the Wii U could do is 720p/30fps (or 60fps if they neuter graphical effects), really. You're welcome to try and dispute that though.

 

Oh and I'm still waiting on Jovah to elaborate on this with an example - 

 

I know Wii U isn't the most powerful system this 8th gen, but I'm not buying the over-exaggerations or BS that companies are becoming a bit too addicted to spewing.