On Wii U dev kits Ideaman said:

A news concerning the dev kits, as promised




Third-party studios will receive the "v5" dev kits very soon (before the next month). It's even possible that some just got them




- They are apparently the dev kits which where in possession of Nintendo lately (whereas third-parties had the V4).



- There is a noticeable increase of performances with them, a noticeable but not huge however. We don't know if this amelioration is due to a change of components, tweaking of the previously present ones (frequencies, etc.), or a global & light optimization of the hardware, the dev kit itself, the software development kit that may be linked to it, etc.




Some details about the context and assumptions:




- Except maybe big japanese studios (like Capcom), i doubt that other third-parties received these dev kits (much) earlier. It's likely that my sources are one of the firsts to be granted of the latest revisions. This means that all the declarations, the news, from foreign developers, that you've read until now, were in a V4 dev kit framework, before the release of these newest ones.




- A previous post of lherre indicated that Nintendo guys were testing an engine and saw slightly improved results on the V5 compare to V4.



Context: it was posted 1 month ago, when lherre decided to come out of his lair in answer to my very first message to confirm that Wii U was clearly closer to "2x than 5x xbox360". And he basically added that the expected more advanced dev kit in Nintendo headquarters at the time that i've talked about will not change dramatically the Wii U power status. So he surely knew of these engine benchmarks before my intervention, maybe some days, maybe some weeks.



Assumption: considering the 1month+ interval between these internal tests and the V5 delivery to third-parties (minus the dev kits assembly and shipping), there's a chance that the V5 dev kits in the hands of foreign studios have received even more hardware refinements and optimizations than the models used for these Nintendo tests some time before.




- They could have a different code name, but my sources called them V5, as in "the ones following the V4 that they currently develop on". Therefore, it appears they are a rather major revision.





[Now, a detail that could be important, but i'm not sure at all of it, as what my sources told me isn't clear and rely on subjectivity (maybe they haven't understood well what Nintendo said). Take that with caution, and it would be cool if a developer working on the Wii U could precise this.




- It seems these kits may be "near final"




It's possible that Nintendo still have more advanced dev kits, but apparently not to a point to constitute a real new future revision (perhaps just small increments in numbers like 5.1/5.2). There may be new dev kit shippings to come but it could point that there is a progressive stabilization in hardware changes. It could also be a word-confusion from my sources between "last" and "latest", or maybe Nintendo thought that when i gathered these infos (a few weeks) but in fact there will be new revisions in the work because they decided to modify the components again, etc. So big grain of salt for this part]




I hope we'll hear more about these dev kits, what kind of modifications occurred on them, and their performances.

Some more info from that french jounalist on Wii U. So it's more like 2X 360 power which is 20% more powerful than PS3 which is what the original rumour was waaaaaay back when. THQ's "on par" comments may correlate with this as it would be on par, well just a bit better than PS3 only much easier to program for and it will be a more modern GPU with newer effects etc so it will look better anyway.

It's IGN and Develop who have murkied the waters, first IGN saying that Nextbox was 5X 360 which was only 20% better than Wii U and then Develop independently heard similar rumours about a massive Wii U hardware power boost.

Ideaman also said:

And for your conclusions about the hardware, really, don't expect too much from it, but don't be disappointed in advance. From all i've heard, the guts aren't on par with current gen at all (edit: "aren't on part with current gen at all" = "they aren't just on par, they are superior"), and there's so much room for improvements, optimizations, and potential stretching of the Wii U capabilities that you'll say wow many times in front of your screen (for first-party titles in the first place obviously).

There aren't even any department stores nearby?

That's retarded GG.

The closest one to me was Game Crazy which was part of Blockbuster Video...that got shut down awhile ago which sucked because it was in a quiet area where not many people went except for residents of the town it was in. It was never busy...you could always just walk in and get what you wanted and be out in 3 mintues, or stay there and browse with nobody in your way for an hour. Game retail paradise, pretty much.

However, I still have 3 Gamestop's no more than 20 minutes away...two of which are actually in the same mall, because when they bought out Electronics Boutique they kept the store open. The other one is 3 minutes down the road from there. Then I have Best Buy, Target, and others right in that same area. So I can usually always find what I'm looking for. It just sucks because this area is much more crowded than my old Game Crazy, and the stores are always mobbed.

Online orders FTW.

Foolz said:

There aren't even any department stores nearby?

10 mile drive away. Then the only retailer is HMV and they have a shitty stock collection and high prices. Otherwise, some supermarkets with an even shittier stock collection and similar prices.

edgecrusher said:

That's retarded GG.

The closest one to me was Game Crazy which was part of Blockbuster Video...that got shut down awhile ago which sucked because it was in a quiet area where not many people went except for residents of the town it was in. It was never busy...you could always just walk in and get what you wanted and be out in 3 mintues, or stay there and browse with nobody in your way for an hour. Game retail paradise, pretty much.

However, I still have 3 Gamestop's no more than 20 minutes away...two of which are actually in the same mall, because when they bought out Electronics Boutique they kept the store open. The other one is 3 minutes down the road from there. Then I have Best Buy, Target, and others right in that same area. So I can usually always find what I'm looking for. It just sucks because this area is much more crowded than my old Game Crazy, and the stores are always mobbed.

Online orders FTW.

It sounds like you are overflowing with game stores. Here, before Game became a nationwide chain I used to have to travel and hour or more into the centre of the city to go to little independent game shops. Game uk made gaming mainstream here in terms of retail. It's supossed to have a rescue deal for post-administration in place yet they are closing all the stores anyway, including any near me.

OXM reviews:

Mass Effect 3 (Xbox 360, EA): 10

SSX (Xbox 360, EA): 9

Syndicate (Xbox 360, EA): 6

FIFA Street (Xbox 360, EA): 7

Ninja Gaiden 3 (Xbox 360, Tecmo Koei): 8

Asura's Wrath (Xbox 360, Capcom): 7

Birds of Steel (Xbox 360, Konami): 7

Binary Domain (Xbox 360, Sega): 8

Shank 2 (Xbox 360 XBLA, EA): 8

Gotham City Impostors (Xbox 360, Warner): 7

All Zombies Must Die! (Xbox 360, Doublesix): 6

The Simpsons Arcade (Xbox 360 XBLA, Konami): 6

Armored Core 5 (Xbox 360, From Software): 6

Street Fighter X Tekken (Xbox 360, Capcom): 9

I Am Alive (Xbox 360 XBLA, Ubisoft): 7

Warp (Xbox 360 XBLA, EA): 8

Scarygirl (Xbox 360 XBLA, Square Enix): 6

Dvader said:

Stormtroopers dance to a cover of YMCA in star wars kinect, WTF!!!!!!!!

You just saw that?

Errr... that's not a pic from the game, that's artwork from Orioto that I posted here years ago...

My favorite homophobe, asshole, ME3-hater, Krelian-co, is back at it again in a GameSpot topic, asking: "Have BioWare fans gone too far?"

Luckily, Dracula68 set me up for a little "venting" at the douche's expense...

...and, apparently, hilarity ensued!

That World of Illusion picture really is something. That's going on my watch list. Hell, it's really going on my must-play list, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself

Oooooh...... well shit. Screw you GG!!! You purposely mislead us all. I'm reporting you to the mods for trolling.

..... sorry Leo started posting about GS and I started having flashbacks.

Ohhhh Bugsie, I have a new PSN Puzzler for you to play!

Read the Great! 8.5 Review Here!