GodModeEnabled said:

Its hard to get to a 5 million userbase with 50k sales a week..... hopefully Nintendo reveals some great games at E3 that will help breathe life into this system. My main point was that the system is on life support right now so for developers to invest a lot into it is very risky.

I think they already hit 3 million (edit - Aspros link confirms that) and revised down their sales esimate for the year from 5.5 to 4 million? This is all off the top of my head. An analyst said, concerning the 64k they sold in one months NPD that they were on track to meet their revised estimate, with those numbers. So yeah, 4-5 million install base is better than the ZERO install base of the other systems which will get full support from the start.  

My point is that for these current gen games to be releasing now on Wii U they would have had to be put into production at least a year to a year and a half ago. So the current lack of support has nothing to do with Wii U's sales drop over the past couple of months and everything to do with the general attitude and lack of commitment on Nintendo platforms. Though there have been rumours around GDC that Wii U skus of games were being cancelled left right and centre. Again, the analyst who said that, also said that when PS3 was struggling, they stuck with it because they had faith things would pick up, where with Nintendo they just drop the platform. This ties in with what I was saying, for a platform to hold up it needs support, if the pillars keep bailing the platform fails. Self fufilling prophecy yet again.

aspro said:

Yeah, so 4.5 million global we'll say for the sake of argument (but I think even Nintendo has pulled back from that expectation). Let's say 3 % of owners buy your game (which would be above average for a non-Nintendo game) that's 135,000 copies. Not worth it.

Yeah I always talk global numbers. Nothing irritates me more as a non-american when NA gamers pretend like NPD is all that matters when PS3 globally was pegging with 360 and even is on track to beat it globally. NPD is irritating, it's like: here are 1 whole months worth of north american sales - LETS RUN AROUND LIKE HEADLESS CHICKENS WITH OUR FEATHERS ON FIRE!

But it's America? Isn't that all that matters?

aspro said:

I only mention global because there is a lot more involved in launching a game worldwide. And let's face it, we're talking mostly about convincing North American publishers into releasing games, so they are going to focus primarily on how much they can sell in their home market.

Yeah I guess, European publishers too, or Japanese owned European like Eidos? I think once Ricettelo said that you had to factor in that a lot of Nintendo sales were concentrated in Japan and that their EA games didn't sell too well over there.

Ravenprose said:

NPD doesn't include digital sales, so I pay them little mind.

It's even more irritating now that we don't actually get a proper sales numbers release these days just off hand results leaked or not from someone you may know or not know, or some analyst gives a percentage number and people start doing the math!

gamingeek said:

Sorry Bugs.

That's not so bad.  I have a PS3 and 360.  It may start to annoy me when things will be getting released for PS4 and Nextbox but not the WiiU but probably won't annoy me too much I don't think

Next story is pretty huge and has widespread and long term implications for Wii U.

Remember that BF4 isn't coming to U and the reason was in the first post of this thread?

Q: Some Wii U owners are disappointed to see Battlefield 4 is not coming to the console. What, exactly, is the reason for that?

Patrick Bach: The biggest problem we have right now is we don't want to back down from what we see as our low spec machines. We right now don't have support for the Wii U in the Frostbite engine. The reason for that is it takes development time. What should we focus on to create the best possible Battlefield experience? We are now focused on PC and the current-gen platforms, and then there might be other platforms in the future that we can't talk about...

Q: One of them you can.

Patrick Bach: Yes, in theory, but we won't. But it's important to understand it's about focus and setting the bar. Where do you start? What's the minimum? What's the maximum? What's the scale in-between.

Tobias Dahl: We have long experience with scalability. We've always been making PC games. But we don't want to ship different games dependent on the platform. We need to set the limit somewhere, to have the lowest spec for this title.

On Tuesday we heard this implying that DICE thinks Wii U is too weak, not for Frostbite 3 but for Frostbite 2

DICE says Frostbite 2 engine was tested on Wii U - Didn't perform favorably - so they decided not to try FB3

EA have not worked Wii U into the Frostbite 3 engine and they are using this engine for virtually all their next gen games which means that:

Wii U to miss out on 15 EA games using Frostbite Engine 3

Includes Battlefield 4, Mass Effect 4, Dragon Age 3 and Star Wars titles

Here's the thing, if EA wanted Wii U support with FB3 I have no doubt they would get it done, otherwise DICE are implying that whilst PS3 and 360 can support it, U can't which is pretty bullshitty.

Especially when EA's own Criterion took time with their Chameleon engine to deliver a superior version of NFS Most Wanted on U.

DICE's testing of FB2 on Wii was most likely a cursory very early look at the hardware like when 4A games took a brief overview for Metro Last Light. Thanks to Criterion we know that the tools for the early hardware weren't mature and that many devs took an early look at the hardware and walked away.

Probably the best insight from a Developer on what the Wii U can do technically

"The difference with Wii U was that when we first started out, getting the graphics and GPU to run at an acceptable frame-rate was a real struggle. The hardware was always there, it was always capable. Nintendo gave us a lot of support - support which helps people who are doing cross-platform development actually get the GPU running to the kind of rate we've got it at now. We benefited by not quite being there for launch - we got a lot of that support that wasn't there at day one... the tools, everything."

"Tools and software were the biggest challenges by a long way... the fallout of that has always been the biggest challenge here," Idries reaffirms. "[Wii U] is a good piece of hardware, it punches above its weight."

Speaking about the CPU Criterion specifically said:

"So I think you've got one group of people who walked away, you've got some other people who just dived in and tried and thought, 'Ah... it's not kind of there,' but not many people have done what we've done, which is to sit down and look at where it's weaker and why, but also see where it's stronger and leverage that. It's a different kind of chip and it's not fair to look at its clock-speed and other consoles' clock-speed and compare them as numbers that are relevant. It's not a relevant comparison to make when you have processors that are so divergent. It's apples and oranges."

So one can only assume that DICE were the guys who "just dived in and tried and thought, 'Ah... it's not kind of there" instead of actually digging in like Criterion did and probably did not follow up with Nintendo for the tools to properly utilise the hardware. If EA wanted FB3 support on U, I'm almost 90% certain they would have worked to get it working properly and follow up. Not test FB2 and give up, especially given:

EA’s “Unprecedented Partnership” with Nintendo and Other Fairy Tales

EA having a “strong partnership with Nintendo” is an utter fallacy. A strong partnership indicates cooperation, compromises, and a mutual respect for one another. Electronic Arts has actively cannibalized sales, failed to support their games after launch, prevented the release of a finished game, did a perfect 180 regarding their stance on the Wii U in several ways, all for seemingly no reason; and blatantly lied to customers to save face all in the span of six months.

Bottom line: EA are blacklisting Nintendo, only a couple of years after the announcement of a Wii U "Unprecedented partnership" and with no other information we have only the rumours to go on:

The Nintendo, EA and Origin deal that went sour

They were voted the worst company in America right?

So sayeth Pink Cobra Commander.

Wanted to discuss this in the Wii U thread but I guess this is a more appropriate/current thread.

TV Tropes RUMOR - Recent Wii U update ups clock speeds?

Technical Specifications Processors The CPU and GPU are built on the same package. CPU: IBM PowerPC 7xx-based tri-core processor "Espresso" clocked at 1.24 GHz before the 3.0.0 update, 3.24 GHz after the 3.0.0 update. This is an evolution to the Broadway chip used in the Wii, is 64 bit and uses Power6 technote When IBM has said that Nintendo has licensed the Power7 tech from IBM, Nintendo is not using it for the Wii U, explaining its backwards compatibility. GPU: AMD Radeon High Definition processor codenamed "Latte" with an eDRAM cache built onto the die clocked at 550 MHz before the 3.0.0 update, 800 MHz after the 3.0.0 update.

That would be a huge performance bump.

If true.

Another rumour from a different source (gamefaqs/Nintendo forums a couple of months ago):

"So I was browsing Nintendo forums and saw someone mentioning their analysis of the Wii U tech. Apparently the CPU has a built-in infrastructure for "overclocking", which is where you increase the clockspeed of a CPU's cores. Now, typically this results in a massive increase in heat and will surely fry your hardware unless you set up a high-powered cooling system. However, this guy said that judging by the PSU and airflow design of the system, Wii U could easily be clocked to 3.0 Ghz if not higher. Moreover, it is possible to do this at the software level, i.e. without specialized hardware."

Now there is plenty of reason to suspect a bump in performance or the plausibility of this rumour and plenty of reason to disbelieve it.

We do know that the 1gz CPU and 400mhz GPU were bumped to 1.24ghz and 550mhz respectively before E3 2012.

Now the guys who know more about this tech stuff than me are basically saying the 750 CL line of CPUs which they believe U is based on is made to be lower clocked with a shorter, out of order pipeline so it can acheive a higher IPC (instructions per cycle) vs higher clocked, long pipeline inefficient CPUs of the past. They say that it's typically made to tap out at 1ghz so this rumoured 3.24ghz bump is unrealistic. But we know that it was already up clocked to 1.24gz. The only way if this large speed bump would work is if the CPU was purposely underclocked for some reason - handshackled if you will. And the people with better memories will remember just before E3 last year it was rumoured that Nintendo had underclocked the CPU to prevent overheating in the small case. Since then, if you own a U you will know that even after hours of heavy use the damned thing is room temperature and does not seem to give off any discernible heat. So purely speculating it could be that Nintendo have tested the heat tolerance of the giant heat sink and airflow system and found that they can unshackle the CPU and GPU clock speed a bit more without frying the silicon.

The other things suggesting the somewhat plausibility of this rumour is the OS improvement after the spring update. Nintendo Everything and Polygon measured the speeds and found on average it was 44% faster. It's probably due to optimisation but exciting nonetheless if a similar improvement in game performance can be seen in gen 2 software. Iwata also mentioned in his financials to an investor question that they had to dispel the notion of the U being underpowered.

The power (as in electricity it uses) can be used to see if the hardware is pulling in more power - i.e drawing more to run at a higher clocked speed. Digital Foundry found that Wii U runs at an almost constant 33W, 30W idle which is like almost a third of what PS3/360 runs at and yet has similar/better graphics. What's interesting about that 33W figure is that the PSU is rated for 75w so it seems there is room to draw over twice as much electricity should this overclocking rumour have some truth to it. The notion that the remaining electricity is drawn from the USB ports has been disproved as they draw a tiny amount of watts.

On the power draw, I just remembered this in the Criterion interview and thought it might be relevant:

"Wii U is a good piece of hardware, it punches above its weight. For the power consumption it delivers in terms of raw wattage it's pretty incredible. Getting to that though, actually being able to use the tools from Nintendo to leverage that, was easily the hardest part."

GAF are saying Wii U is like 30w in idle and only a few watts more when playing a game like NFS? So if there was a clock jump how much more power would it draw, if playing a game only draws a few watts more than when it's idle?

The GAF consensus is that the CPU could be overclocked but only towards 2ghz max, maybe less and not this 3.2ghz figure unless the chips were actually underclocked to begin with. For instance the PSP cpu was underclocked because of the battery drain and later Sony unlokced it for developers to use. Nintendo actually unlocked the 3DS's second CPU for devs to use too and owners noticed a performance enhancement with a few games. For U it's expected that the system will run in 33w for existing games and then a new game may use a code to initiate a supercharged version - sounds like fiction, but imagine your laptop performance on low power vs high performance battery settings.

Also, in PCs, apparently Intel did something similar where you buy a CPU and later you can pay for a code which unlocks the remaining power of said CPU for a higher price. Sort of like a licencing model. Imagine if IBM offered this solution to Nintendo, pay X amount for this CPU and if you want it unlocked for better perfomance you can pay us a further X amount per console to unlock more resources. In a way that would be very attractive to a company like Nintendo which intends to get by on the cheap but insulate itself from future turmoil.

Some guys on GAF say the GPU overclocking is more realistic as low end GPUs are notorious for being overclockable. But again the problem is heat.

Digital Foundry said that U is incredibly power efficient and runs cooler and more efficiently than most laptops. Perhaps Nintendo has tested the heat tolerance levels with that massive heat sink and airflow system and found it could handle more so took the handcuffs off the CPU a bit? They are saying the GPU speed increase is more likely which would put the GPU more on an even keel with PS4's GPU speed. A tri core 3.24 ghz Espresso would rival and perhaps exceed the 8 core Jaguar setup - GAF are saying,  hence it's highly unlikely to be true. But they say a more realistic bump is possible. They are saying if the rumour was a bump from 1.24 to 1.6 or 1.8 it would sound more realistic but 3.2 gz is fantasy.

Wii U's CPU is already better than Xenos - Wii 1's Broadway was 80% as powerful as one Xenos core so multiply X3 and Wii U is 80% Xenos, then double the clock speed and U becomes 160% of Xenos, factor is that having a DSP frees up a third more CPU power (according to a MS engineer) factor in U's out of order nature and you have something bare minimum twice as powerful/efficient.

Then the guy said:

The dude who posted the original Wii U clockspeed rumours said:

"Seeing that people are having mixed views on said clock speeds (even for me when I first seen said clock speeds), I'm placing them as rumors. "


"Homebrewers have said that that is what the CPU & GPU's clock crystal is clocked at and that with said update it up clocked to that speed, also, the Wii U uses a Power6 base chip & the updated speeds are placed back into rumor mode. "

So it's all facinating, even it turns out to be a load of bollocks. The only thing that makes me believe a modest clock speed jump (not the rumoured numbers) may be achieved is that I distinctly remember before E3 2012 that rumours were saying Nintendo had underclocked the CPU due to heat.

Add that with the PSU power draw difference and super efficient cooling + OS speed improvement... I guess it's me wanting it to be true more than anything else.

Anyhow, regardless of any speed bump in clock terms, the OS optimisation got 44% gains, if software can make similar strides over what is already better than current gen performance (NFS, Trine 2, Deus EX HR) then U games could start to look a notch above what we've already seen.

I'm bored and no one is talking so I've decided to check up on the status of these games that skipped U and whether they are any good, now they are out.

• Crysis 3 76 on metacritic
• Dead Island Riptide 57 on metacritic
• Fuse 67 on metacritic
• Metro Last Light 80 on metacritic
• Tomb Raider 86 on metacritic
• Aliens Colonial Marines 43 on metacritic

I think a publishing exec said you need an 80 on metacritic to be good and sell? Obviously Fuse, Aliens and Dead Island wont' be missed. I would like any decent FPS as long as it had IR controls. I kinda skipped BLOPS 2 because the first was so bad.

Foolz said:

Last Light and Tomb Raider could have been great for the system if they took the care to port it to the Wii U's power and get something closer to PC graphics out of it. Would have shut up a lot of people about the console's power if done properly.

This. But missing out on Bioshock, the biggest game so far this year and later GTAV what will be the biggest game of the year is the major issue. The best third party games are not coming to WiiU.

aspro said:

I've often wondered about the idiots for whom the following warning on space heaters is intended, "DO NOT USE TO DRY CLOTHES".

Today, I became that idiot.

Another thing you can't do with the Wii U.