This is something I've wanted to write for a long time, but never bothered with.
When it comes to discussing games console/portable technology, why are gamers so eager to use completely useless comparisons? It's always been PC vs console but now with smartphones this shit is getting worse.
Dedicated games consoles are priced for a reason, many reasons. Usually they have different hardware targets and features and are thus priced appropiately. You also have a razor model which some employ, some don't. Others have unique hardware features as USPs that (shock!) actually cost money to implement. If the market conditions are unfavourable they adjust the price accordingly. If it costs too much to make the console they cannot offer it cheaply without committing to years of taking losses.
There is SO much wrong with Gamers arguments' that it beggars belief. I find it hard to believe that some cannot work out the simple principles of a math equation as to why a console is priced as it is - compared to what it offers vs its specs.
BUT MY PC TROUNCES THE SHIT OUT OF CURRENT GEN CONSOLES
The consoles you are comparing your (modern) PC too are 5-6 years old now, WTF is the point of this stupidity? If you were to buy a PC of the same spec as your modern PC back in 2006 how much would it cost you compared to how much the 360 did? The price of consoles in order of magnitude are usually at a minimum half as much as a mid-range PC. Consoles specs are frozen in time, new PCs are continuously improved so what the f*** is the point of comparing your ever evolving PC space with a frozen in time box?
If you compare a PC and a console which are exactly the same spec, the console wins because a PC has to do fifty milllion other things with complex operating systems and requirements. Consoles can do more with less compared to PC in gaming terms. So what if your PC has twice the RAM of a console? The console can do wonders with that RAM while your OS will use half your PC RAM. PCs usually cost a lot more than consoles, sure you may be willing to pay more and put up with the hurdles you may have to jump to with your custom PC - on console terms it's a completely different ball park. And many consumers are not willing to pay high prices for a luxury car for instance.
BUT MY SMARTPHONE HAS MORE RAM THAN CONSOLE X
Just fuuuuuuuuuuuck off with the smartphone comparisons. Dipshit, your phone is on contract over 5 years, to buy it outright costs £500, compared to what? A portable that costs £150? Your smartphone gets new updated editions every year forever, the portable is frozen in time tech delivered at a fraction of the price. Guess what, the dedicated portable gets better games than the casual shite you pick up on your overpriced and underused smartphone.
BUT THIS CONSOLES SPECS ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT WEAKSAUCE ARCHAIC POS
Ever heard the phrase like for like? You're supossed to use it when making accurate comparisons. Some newer consoles have unique hardware features as USPs that (shock!) actually cost money to implement. So do the math. If you have two companies with $300 to spend on each machine.
- Company A chooses to spend $100 of that on an elaborate touch screen controller
- Company B uses all $300 to use higher performance components with no other hardware USPs
It means company A has $200 to spend on it's specs vs $300 of the other company.
Which console will have better graphics? No shit. But gamers should recognise and understand the reasons why and compare like for like. You will hear years of bitching about graphics and yet no one will ever say: Yeah but does Console B come with a controller like that? Simple fact, something like that costs money, so the system has to be balanced to factor this in and deliver it at an affordable price.
Other factors? Well how is the economy doing? If consumer spending is down then a hardware maker may skew the console to be cheaper. How is the company doing? If it's MS and they can blow hundreds of millions and take a loss on hardware sure pat them on the back, not everyone can do that. Why can't you understand this?
Here is something to think about: Xbox and Gamecube sold similar numbers, Nintendo made a profit on each GC sold, Microsoft lost money on each box and Xbox lost Microsoft $4 billion . One console was subject to abject mockery throughout its life, the other is a regarded as a success. Given the cost of making a box, versus how much you can sell it for and the obvious, implicit implications for years to come, can your fragile mind not understand why a console doesn't feature expensive bleeding edge hardware?
Wii U is about twice as good as 360 which you think isn't a big deal. But then PS4 is suppossed to be about twice as good as Wii U, which somehow is a big deal?
Wii 1 was outpowered by about 20X by the HD consoles.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out once the games come out and what the publishers choose to do with the U (either port over current gen games for now and dumbed done games once the new xbox and ps come out).
I want to know if the U is a current gen or next gen console, or is it something in-between (a Dreamcast)?
A dev on GAF said it will be like between the DC and Xbox1.
But regardless of how it stacks up vs more powerful machines, the bottom line is that it can do games that look better than the best PS3/360 games and it's games will look beautiful.
It's not like past generations where the representation of 3D graphics was incomplete. It's not the PS1, it's not the Xbox 1. We have graphically polished, complete games this generation, we have reached that point. There wont be any HD scaling issues like Wii 1 had either and it has all the effects and shaders are a modern feature set. The real question will be how the GPGPU handles post DX10.1 improvements and whether it has the rumoured tesselation unit and how effective that is. I read that DX11 has some pretty important performance improvements over DX10 which made tesselation much more efficient and feasible. But the chattering is that the Wii U GPU was modernised to have DX11 like features, but the system may still be hampered by its CPU.
The clause is that it's an OoO processor which devs are still getting to grips with and it has other features which offload tasks from the CPU.
According to most devs I had read impressions from graphically there will not be a problem, but if the cpu is low then things like AI and physics may be effected. But the games can still (look) great. If you look at this gen the games which actually pushed AI and physics is relatively low.
I still say, look at Star wars 1313, Watch Dogs, MGS Zeros. All these games are for 360/ps3 and Wii U will be able to run them better.
Metroid Prime 3 had double the resolution of textures over Metroid Prime 2 and the difference between GC and Wii 1 was not that big. Wii U has 4 times the RAM of the other systems which means baseline, you can do higher detailed textures. If you owned an N64 memory expansion pak and saw the difference between Turok 2, Hybrid Heaven, Perfect Dark Zero vs playing those games without it you will know what more memory does.
Add to that a superior GPGPU, shader set, CPU etc and you have a better system, period.
So you put U into the next gen category. I'd say that was a valid point of view, but we don't know what the next xb and ps will be bringing (they have the luxury now of responding to the U).
Bottom line for me is, over the course of it's lifetime the U is a good value at $430 AUD. I want a new Paper Mario, SMG, Animal Crossing and pray for some good third party titles before the next ps and xb versions launch (at which time, using history as a guide, they will abandon Nintendo).
Would it kill Nintendo to creates a unifed online user account with some kind of achievement system though? I hope they pull that together pretty soon.
I wouldn't say that it's a simple as that, it depends on the scale of the game. I think for normal scale games, not massive sprawling stuff with hundreds of characters and stuff, it should be fine. There will definetly be some more advanced designs that it cannot do. What I am saying is that it's like what devs said, it's like a Dreamcast compared to Xbox 1 (Durango). PS4 would be like the GC
We do roughly know as we've seen the spec sheets, a durango dev kit was even sold on ebay with details.
I think you guys should read what I posted about Wii U's architecture here in laymans terms. It's certainly got a modern architecture which means it will be easier to downport, it simply will not be in the same position as wii 1 which had an archaic architecture and lacked shader capabilities.
This is pretty much essential reading for anyone here:
Carmack: next-gen visuals "will be what we already have, but a lot better
This is from John Carmack. Graphics Guy. So if PCs are already 10X more powerful and game design is not constrained how is PS4 being twice as powerful as Wii U going to matter? All the stuff we see in UE4 is the same stuff we already have only better, normal maps, HDR, particle effects, lighting, tesselation, filters etc.
3rd party support is the key question and as with all modern Nintendo consoles, I predict it will suck and might not even have anything to do with the hardware. Wii U can run Cryengine 3 "beautifully" yet Crytek scoffed at the "fat chance" that they would make a Wii U version because of the Nintendo audience. Wii U can do RE6, Dead Space 3 etc, but publishers don't want to do it. So you will probably see it like Wii 1 with great 1st party games and a small number of great exclusives but lacking in multiplatform support.