Foolz said:

This is all the same hyperbole we've heard before about 3D and motion controls and virtual reality. And the same reaction to people pointing this out remains as well (yeah, but it's different this time: I've used those gimmicky pieces of crap; this is the real deal).

This doesn't mean the Occulus Rift won't be revolutionary, but everything said about it thus far has been said before about nothing important time and time again as people get excited over nothing.

I think that touch controls, motion controls, IR/pointer controls and 3D are all great when implemented well and they add a great deal to gaming.  Even if none are revolutionary per se (despite what I personally think), no one can deny that they are a good thing (once again - when certain thought goes into their implementation).

bugsonglass said:

Foolz said:

This is all the same hyperbole we've heard before about 3D and motion controls and virtual reality. And the same reaction to people pointing this out remains as well (yeah, but it's different this time: I've used those gimmicky pieces of crap; this is the real deal).

This doesn't mean the Occulus Rift won't be revolutionary, but everything said about it thus far has been said before about nothing important time and time again as people get excited over nothing.

I think that touch controls, motion controls, IR/pointer controls and 3D are all great when implemented well and they add a great deal to gaming.  Even if none are revolutionary per se (despite what I personally think), no one can deny that they are a good thing (once again - when certain thought goes into their implementation).

Yep. He said it. Like, the first Kinext was a piece of shit. Mostly because of bad tech, but also because they were trying to shoehorn it into something it was not.  Now that they are using it to solve menu navigation and some other simple things like logging in and turning it on and off no one (wel almost noone) has a problem with it.

Iteration is good, and you have to start somewhere, so let these guys tinker away.  If they didn't our controllers would still be a joystick with a single button.

Foolz said:

This is all the same hyperbole we've heard before about 3D and motion controls and virtual reality. And the same reaction to people pointing this out remains as well (yeah, but it's different this time: I've used those gimmicky pieces of crap; this is the real deal).

This doesn't mean the Occulus Rift won't be revolutionary, but everything said about it thus far has been said before about nothing important time and time again as people get excited over nothing.

Never have I seen reaction like this. Motion controls always had its detractors and clear issues from the start. 3D has been around since I was a baby, its always been a nice gimmick and nothing more. Pretty much everyone (that didnt get sick, that has been fixed now) who tries this is blown away. This is clearly something different, this can open a doorway to a whole virtual revolution.

bugsonglass said:

I think that touch controls, motion controls, IR/pointer controls and 3D are all great when implemented well and they add a great deal to gaming.  Even if none are revolutionary per se (despite what I personally think), no one can deny that they are a good thing (once again - when certain thought goes into their implementation).

This is all the same hyperbole we've heard before about 3D and motion controls and virtual reality. And the same reaction to people pointing this out remains as well (yeah, but it's different this time: I've used those gimmicky pieces of crap; this is the real deal).

This doesn't mean the Oculus Rift won't be revolutionary, but everything said about it thus far has been said before about nothing important time and time again as people get excited over nothing.

I think that touch controls, motion controls, IR/pointer controls and 3D are all great when implemented well and they add a great deal to gaming.  Even if none are revolutionary per se (despite what I personally think), no one can deny that they are a good thing (once again - when certain thought goes into their implementation).

As I said, none of that means Oculus Rift will be bad. It may be great, it may even be revolutionary (and that's be awesome if it was), but this constant stream of congratulation is incredibly grating, especially when it's repeated by sites who have done the exact same thing before with something else, only to end up heaping lots of disdain on what they guaranteed to everyone was going to change the world. It's BS. Even if it is as good as people are saying, it will still have been bullshit because apparently people can't form a genuine opinion before something its commercially available. The same applies to game previews as well. The obvious problem here is that how can anyone form a proper opinion if they're just trying it out in a limited context? Of course they can't. Well, if they can't then they shouldn't make such obnoxious statements with such absurd conviction. It's completely disingenuous.

Ie. my comment has nothing to do with the Oculus Rift itself. Oculus Rift: That's great, I'm glad it exists and hope it's as awesome as everyone says it is. Oculus Rift press: Same meaningless marketing bullshit masquerading as media.

aspro said:

Yep. He said it. Like, the first Kinext was a piece of shit. Mostly because of bad tech, but also because they were trying to shoehorn it into something it was not.  Now that they are using it to solve menu navigation and some other simple things like logging in and turning it on and off no one (wel almost noone) has a problem with it.

Iteration is good, and you have to start somewhere, so let these guys tinker away.  If they didn't our controllers would still be a joystick with a single button.

Iteration is good, and you have to start somewhere, so let these guys tinker away.  If they didn't our controllers would still be a joystick with a single button.

Kinect had to exist for there to be Kinect 2.0, but that doesn't change that Kinect sucked.

Dvader said:

Never have I seen reaction like this. Motion controls always had its detractors and clear issues from the start. 3D has been around since I was a baby, its always been a nice gimmick and nothing more. Pretty much everyone (that didnt get sick, that has been fixed now) who tries this is blown away. This is clearly something different, this can open a doorway to a whole virtual revolution.

Agreed that it's definitely more positive. But people want virtual reality so bad. And hey, the 3D TV fad was more positive than it's ever been last time around as well. The above still applies. These fuckers can't be trusted.

aspro said:

I agree with your response to my thing. But I did not buy one, and you did not buy one, so where is the harm?

No harm in the Kinect. No harm in the press either, except for to my sensitive disposition.

Iga_Bobovic said:

Can someone explain to me what so revolutionairy about Oculus Rift? We have seen virtual reality headsets for decades now.

Apparently it actually works.  I know this is insufficient, but Vader will probably be able to help out.  I think it comes down to higher resolution on smaller screens combined with accelarometers, combined with everything being cheaper.

The next one, (none of this is for the consumer market yet) involves using a Kinect-like sensor, which complicates things, but makes for a better experience.

I honestly do think this is just "3D" all over again, in that people wanting to believe are believing, when really it's just as broken as the lat attempts, but as Vader said, the reactions people are having to the Rift appear to be legitimately revolutionary. Plus Carmack.

aspro said:

Iga_Bobovic said:

Can someone explain to me what so revolutionairy about Oculus Rift? We have seen virtual reality headsets for decades now.

Apparently it actually works.  I know this is insufficient, but Vader will probably be able to help out.  I think it comes down to higher resolution on smaller screens combined with accelarometers, combined with everything being cheaper.

The next one, (none of this is for the consumer market yet) involves using a Kinect-like sensor, which complicates things, but makes for a better experience.

I honestly do think this is just "3D" all over again, in that people wanting to believe are believing, when really it's just as broken as the lat attempts, but as Vader said, the reactions people are having to the Rift appear to be legitimately revolutionary.

Yeah I get that, but this seems more like a evolution than a revolution. It is the same, but technically much better. There was already a headset with motion sensing on the PC. You could for example turn around and look at your rear view window when driving! I can also see this becoming the next step in e-conference, besides gaming. But it seems it is slowly evolving there instead of a sudden revolution.  

aspro said:

Plus Carmack.

When was the last time when Carmack was relevant?

From the article in the updates on developing for Wii U:

"As far as the CPU optimisations went, yes we did have to cut back on some features due to the CPU not being powerful enough. As we originally feared, trying to support a detailed game running in HD put a lot of strain on the CPUs and we couldn't do as much as we would have liked. Cutting back on some of the features was an easy thing to do, but impacted the game as a whole. Code optimised for the PowerPC processors found in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 wasn't always a good fit for the Wii U CPU, so while the chip has some interesting features that let the CPU punch above its weight, we couldn't fully take advantage of them. However, some code could see substantial improvements that did mitigate the lower clocks - anything up to a 4x boost owing to the removal of Load-Hit-Stores, and higher IPC (instructions per cycle) via the inclusion of out-of-order execution."

"On the GPU side, the story was reversed. The GPU proved very capable and we ended up adding additional "polish" features as the GPU had capacity to do it. There was even some discussion on trying to utilise the GPU via compute shaders (GPGPU) to offload work from the CPU - exactly the approach I expect to see gain traction on the next-gen consoles - but with very limited development time and no examples or guidance from Nintendo, we didn't feel that we could risk attempting this work. "

"I've also seen some concerns about the utilisation of DDR3 RAM on Wii U, and a bandwidth deficit compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360. This wasn't really a problem for us. The GPU could fetch data rapidly with minimal stalls (via the EDRAM) and we could efficiently pre-fetch, allowing the GPU to run at top speed."

Also the dedicated sound chip offloads cpu strain where the 360 audio could use 30% the cpu processing.

"What happened next?


Well, we eventually released our game and it was generally well-received, so the management sat back to see what kind of sales figures we would get for all our efforts. Without going into detail it would be fair to say that the numbers we were seeing were less than impressive. In fact we would be lucky to make back all the money that we had invested in making the game in the first place, and although the management publicly supported the Wii U platform, it is unlikely that we would ever release another Wii U title."

EA? Remember this was a launch title.

After the initial flurry of game titles a lot of the studios quietly backed away from their initial statements and announced, with minimal press, that they were in fact not going to make a Wii U version. The reasons behind a particular title not appearing on the Wii U are all pure speculation, but I personally think that a combination of:

Previous development experience using the toolchain and hardware put off development teams from making another title on Wii U.

The technical and feature support from Nintendo were lacking for third-party studios. There was a feeling internally that if you weren't a first-party development studio, you were largely ignored by Nintendo, as we were superficial to their profits. Internally developed titles would save Nintendo and we were just there to add depth to the games catalogue.

The sales figures for the Wii U console were not looking that good soon after launch. There was a lot of confusion in the general population around the launch as most people thought that the Wii U was some kind of add-on to the Wii, they didn't know that it was a new console.

This lack of awareness probably contributed to the console not getting off to the start that Nintendo would have hoped and put off studio from developing on the hardware.

Nintendo also fell victim to bad timing. A few months after the console launched the next-gen hype train stepped up a gear as Sony announced the PlayStation 4, with Microsoft joining the fray a few months later. Don't forget that many of the larger studios would have known about the hardware months before it was announced, well before the Wii U hardware actually launched.

aspro said:

Anyone know the lifetime sales to date of the Wii U (global)?

David Gibson @gibbogame, an analyst


Nintendo - WiiU we now forecast 4.3m for FY3/14 down from 6.8m prior, but Dec in JP was 26x Sept levels driven by Super Mario 3D World