Wii/Wii U

[BSP]

Well, we do know smash 4 is coming, so I'll get it, but I won't be looking to get the system that fast since nothing is THAT interesting for me atm

 

[theeboredone]

I thought the 360 and PS3 already played games at 1080p?

Very few do. Most of the Triple A games can only process 720p. You can force 1080p, but it will come off as a bit jagged and well...720 just looks better.

So for those who were on the fence of buying the Wii U? Gonna buy it now or still wait?

 

[Ecks]

Yeah, the current consoles don't always render full HD. I once read that current consoles render at 1280x 768p (or was that 1360x768p?). The image is then up-scaled to 1920x1080p, which is the equivalent of forcing a lower res image to fill the screen on a computer monitor.

I wasn't going to buy the WiiU at launch, but a couple of months after. Now all I think is "meh, I'll buy it eventually", so I guess I'll be waiting until something makes me want it.

 

[GunmasterLombardi]

And the winner of 2012 E3 is...

 

[Morin0]

I'm probably gonna buy the Wii U when Smash 4 comes out. Who knows? Maybe by then the console might've gotten a price discount.

 

[BirthNote]

Nintendo's show was okay but not great. I'm looking forward to Rayman Legends and ZombiU. Thank you Ubisoft for making me want this system.

Nintendo had a strong start, but a weak finish. There's unfortunately nothing in the launch lineup that will make me shell out money for a new console.

Pikmin 3 looks rather nice I admit. New Super Mario Bros. U is pretty much the same several games we've been playing, but with added gameplay features and power-ups. ZombiU looks interesting, but it isn't a title that really impresses me. Mass Effect 3 is pretty pointless without the other two Mass Effects and it along with Assassins Creed III, and Arkham City are already available on other consoles. The Avengers game had nice looking visuals, but didn't really draw much interest. All the while, WiiFit U/Sing/NintendoLand, etc. are games a lot of people outside casuals won't give two flying hells about.

What the Wii U NEEDS to do is show that when the PS4 and 720 come into play, any games those two can play can also be played on the Wii U without any noticeable downgrades. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a prime example of this; great on the PS3/360 but crap on the Wii. Nintendo absolutely cannot afford for the Wii U to be seen as obsolete when the PS4/720 come out, otherwise, they could potentially meet the same fate as Sega.

No love for Legends? Oh well.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Nintendoland with the system, plus purchasing Rayman Legends, NSMBU, and Pikmin 3 is enough to get the Wii U at launch. The third party games are just a plus.

 

[Deleted member]

I didn't expect any games I wanted, but they should have focused a lot more on core gamers. If the 3DS conference sucks and we get nothing interesting out of the round table. Because right now, what Nintendo did with E3 this year has vexed me.

@Morino: I think that's 3DS-only, which I will likely not be getting.

 

[yani]

Nintendo Land, NSMBu, Pikmin 3, Sonic & Sega Transformed and POSSIBLY ME3/ZombiU for me. Heck, confirming that I can transfer my VC titles over is more than enough for me

 

[theeboredone]

I dunno. Nintendo Land is really the whole Wii Sports theme repackaged into Nintendo chars (smart move.) I don't think many people are buying it minus the casuals/parents.

Pikmin 3 is legit.

NSMBu, oh...another one of those games. I hope it does a fresh take on the series, cause it's stale at this point. Doesn't matter. It can be a repackaged game and it will get 9's across the board.

ZombiU is legit.

Everything else is meh or I've already played on my PS3.

Exciting lineup for those that have never owned a 360 or PS3....meh for everyone else.

 

[yani]

Nintendo Land will be bundled in

 

[UltiMario]

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo Land comes with the Wii U.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I already said it is bundled. XD Pay attention people.

And NSMBU seems legit as well, they have added new ideas and concepts to it that make it seem better than the Wii one, and you know what? The Wii one was actually pretty dang good.

 

[BirthNote]

When's the roundtable thing?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Five minutes ago.

 

[BirthNote]

.....You have to be joking, right?!

EDIT: Thanks.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Live Blog covering it.

Someone from IGN tweeting about it as information comes.

And another IGN tweeter tweeting.

Just found out that Nintendoland is actually NOT confirmed as a bundle, they are currently unsure if they are going to do that. Interesting that they are questioning that, that means the game is pretty sizable. Reggie will be the puppet master for that decision.

 

[BirthNote]

"Adding a second GamePad definitely puts more stress on the wii u, but these hurdles can be dealt with."

That makes me uncomfortable...

But that transfer wii saves and purchases to wii u thing sounds good.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

If it can be dealt with as they say, then I don't think it should be a cause for discomfort.

 

[theeboredone]

What does "more stress" mean? Lag?

 

[Master Xanthan]

Live Blog covering it.

Someone from IGN tweeting about it as information comes.

And another IGN tweeter tweeting.

Just found out that Nintendoland is actually NOT confirmed as a bundle, they are currently unsure if they are going to do that. Interesting that they are questioning that, that means the game is pretty sizable. Reggie will be the puppet master for that decision.

If nintendoland isn't bundled, I doubt it'll get any sales at all. It looked kinda cool as a free game that comes with the system, but I doubt I'll buy it if its 50-60 dollars.

 

[Ecks]

What does "more stress" mean? Lag?

More stress as in "cuts framerates in half." So a 60fps game will drop to 30fps. Games will probably be optimized for this change but who knows.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

If they build the architecture right, it won't be too much problem. As long the gamepad focuses on either (A) streaming only simple UI graphics and (B) streaming a full game when the TV is not in use, it should perform just fine (and not "cut framerates in half"). Even if the gamepad were to stream a fully detailed 3D scene, it's roughly as stressful to split-screen a game (having to render the world multiple times).

 

[GwJ]

If NintendoLand is a downloadable title for <$10, I'll get it.

 

[Ecks]

If they build the architecture right, it won't be too much problem. As long the gamepad focuses on either (A) streaming only simple UI graphics and (B) streaming a full game when the TV is not in use, it should perform just fine (and not "cut framerates in half"). Even if the gamepad were to stream a fully detailed 3D scene, it's roughly as stressful to split-screen a game (having to render the world multiple times).

Just going by Iwata's words. Though that's probably a worse case scenario thing, since I don't see how, for example, a simple Mario party game or such could possibly cause much stress on the system.

 

[Thino]

More stress as in "cuts framerates in half." So a 60fps game will drop to 30fps. Games will probably be optimized for this change but who knows.

I am still confused as to what get the framedrops, is it the TV screen? the gamepads? or all three of them?

 

[Ecks]

Framedrops would be caused because the system's GPU and/or CPU simply aren't able to handle the task given. The system would have to render 3 screens (don't forget about streaming the content to the 2 controllers) worth of HD game material which is not easy. TV or controllers have nothing to do with framedrops (lag could be caused by a TV or controllers but they can't cause the frames to drop).

Also, let me point out that this change in fps may not be forced by the incapabilities of the system, but made to ensure "smooth" gameplay and evade unprofessional things such as framedrops (slowdowns) and lag.

 

[Thino]

Framedrops would be caused because the system's GPU and/or CPU simply aren't able to handle the task given. The system would have to render 3 screens (don't forget about streaming the content to the 2 controllers) worth of HD game material which is not easy. TV or controllers have nothing to do with framedrops (lag could be caused by a TV or controllers but they can't cause the frames to drop).

Also, let me point out that this change in fps may not be forced by the incapabilities of the system, but made to ensure "smooth" gameplay and evade unprofessional things such as framedrops (slowdowns) and lag.

I'm still wondering by what kind of magic they're transferring 1080p worth of image quality at 60 fps on ONE game pad, WIRELESS

if the controller was supposed to be wired like in the current devkits, that would make sense

 

[Ecks]

It's not really something mind boggling, it's just a stream. I don't really know how it's done as I haven't even bothered to learn about it, but it's probably simple enough.

As for streaming 1080p content, It's not a problem at all since, for starters, it's a waste of resources to have 1080p on such a small screen because you wouldn't really see much difference between it and something much lower. I would go with something like 960 × 544 (PS Vita's resolution), higher or even 640 x 480 (Wii's resolution). Also, recent GPUs are more than capable of running 3 monitors of actual 1080p. I highly doubt the WiiU's GPU is powerful enough to do that, but It'll definitively manage.

 

[theeboredone]

Not the same method, but even my PS3 can stream media from my macbook via wifi.

 

[Luigitoilet]

I like playing New Super Mario Bros but holy crap it has the most boring art design EVERRR. why is it so bland? this new one is similarly unimpressive and unstimulating to look at. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are some of the prettiest and most vibrant looking games around, NSMB is so blehh

 

[Pink Reaper]

Idk, that boo level had some ****ing sexy art going on. I loved the background on that so much. That said yeah, the art design in NSMB has always been pretty bland lol.

 

[theeboredone]

Well it's just homage to the bland art if you call of the NES and SNES side scrolling games.

Btw, anyone concerned that third parties may jump ship if the graphical difference is too great between the Wii U and PS720? I just saw the Square tech demonstration of what the next gen consoles will look like in real time...and wow.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/06/e3-2012-square-enix-presents-the-lumines-engine

It will pretty much be 2 years of the Wii U getting third party support...and then it may slowly disappear.

 

[§leepy God]

♪ It's strange after the meh E3 from Nintendo that better news that would had made they're E3 better came after E3 like say transferring data from Wii to Wii U. xD †

 

[Berserker.]

Wii U looks awesome.

NSMB U is looking good so far. I like the NSMB art. It's good because the bland-ness because it's a homage to the NES/SNES side scrollers. It's bad because it's bla----. Lol. Seriously, I'm fine with the graphix. Gameplay looks sweet.

NSMB 2 is uh.... Well, it's great. Looking good too like NSMB U but what's with the coins and golden stuff in the game? Too bad Wario isn't playable (That would be a dream for him).

Pikmin 3 looks great. Rayman Legends, AC III, ZombiU, Scribblenauts and Batman are possibly the only 3rd party games that I'm looking forward to.

The nintendo conference was.. ehh.... It wasn't that overwhelming. Oh well.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I forgot. I also want the Wii U for its wireless N support. I disabled B/G a long time ago. So, my Wii is offline. XD

 

[Wizzrobe]

Well it's just homage to the bland art if you call of the NES and SNES side scrolling games.

Btw, anyone concerned that third parties may jump ship if the graphical difference is too great between the Wii U and PS720? I just saw the Square tech demonstration of what the next gen consoles will look like in real time...and wow.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/06/e3-2012-square-enix-presents-the-lumines-engine

It will pretty much be 2 years of the Wii U getting third party support...and then it may slowly disappear.

That was a pretty amazing tech demo, and it looks like you will probably be right, Wii U 3rd party support will disappear slowly after a couple years.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I agree with LuigiToilet concerning the visuals of NSMBU. I mean, the first time was enough (NSMB for DS), but now Nintendo is just beating a dead horse, and overusing the hell out of the visual style. Yeah, the backgrounds may look prettier, but it's essentially the same game with added gameplay features and more power-ups. Come on, Nintendo, give us something new and justify the name "NEW Super Mario Bros.".

Also, I fear the Wii U will not handle the graphical power of that tech demo. I made an argument earlier that the thing that could save Nintendo, is if the Wii U can compete with and not be seen as obsolete to the PS4/720 when that time comes. If the worst case scenario is realized, Nintendo could potentially end up like Sega and finally die as a console developer. Yes, I know the whole "graphics isn't everything" argument, and while I know this is true, it has held back third party support for the Wii, which is why we never got the great 3rd party blockbusters on said system.

 

[Morin0]

I may be in the minority here, but I don't plan on buying CoD or games like that that are already available on another system for the Wii U. Just first party titles and games that you can only get on the Wii U (for example, Pikmin, Smash etc). If I wanted to play CoD or something like that, I'd just play it on my computer.

It's always been like that for me. When I bought the Wii, I didn't think "AWESOME. I get to play CoD: Black Ops!" but instead I said "AWESOME. I get to play Skyward Sword and Brawl!"

Hopefully I'm not confusing any of you, lol.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Well, the Wii U doesn't absolutely need all of those third parties, the Wii even did well overall without them, and this time we have a much more well rounded system, so yeah, Wii U isn't going to bomb at the very least. Debatable whether the launch will be good in terms of sales, but it will skyrocket once they pick up the slack. Not going to lie, the start may be really dark, especially when Reggie defined the launch window as like 3-4 months after launch, which means some of the big ones we actually have may not be immediate. I need to look for the list with some details again. Edit: Is this correct?


Personally, I'm not too crazy about third party stuff myself, it isn't what I look for in a Nintendo console (what anyone does, seemingly, like what Morino said), but it IS icing on the cake, and as time goes on, something interesting might come up. Ubisoft is good for the start in my view.