_Bear said:

One ;last thing PCM will never be the standard, movies USE DTS , Dolby Master HD So don't excuse Nintendo from buying the license pleasePCM is the cheapest way to go thats why they are using. It's been proven that people Audiophiles can not tell the Difference between DTS DDor PCM when put in listening rooms and played the same bits with each format. Nintendo cheaped the fuck out period.

It probably is a cost thing. I'm not excusing them for anything, just laying down what I read. HDMI has a higher bandwidth and delivers a better quality uncompressed sound. The reason you can't use an optical cable is because it cannot handle the bandwidth an HDMI audio cable can and the Wii U does not compress the audio.

And as you said the reason it doesn't compress it is probably because Nintendo did not want to pay for the licence from dolby. I think journalists will tear it to pieces when they work this out and some solution may be offered later with a firmware upgrade or something. But knowing Nintendo, they won't bother.

It doesn't really affect me, even though my system does not have an HDMI sound input I stopped using booming 5 channel sound years ago once the novelty wore off. I turn it on for great music in films (exceedingly rarely) but the deafening explosions in most games and movies make me stick to the TVs' speakers. Otherwise I'm sure I could live with DPL2, I actually thought the Wii 1 games which supported it sounded pretty great. Mario Galaxy's music on it was boss. This is just me personally though, if sound is that important to you I'm sure it would piss one off.

I know this probably won't help, but most of us bought an HDTV for new games consoles right? Maybe it's time to think about upgrading your old sound system? Or get a converter for $100-50?

Like I said, not helpful

Ancel says Wii U 'surprisingly powerful', Rayman Legends has new lighting engine

“What surprises me with Wii U is that we don’t have many technical problems. It’s really running very well, in fact. We’re not obliged to constantly optimize things. Even on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions [of Origins], we had some fill-rate issues and things like that. So it’s partly us – we improved the engine – but I think the console is quite powerful. Surprisingly powerful. And there’ a lot of memory. You can really have huge textures, and it’s crazy because sometimes the graphic artist – we built our textures in very high-dentition. They could be used in a movie. Then we compress them, but sometimes they forget to do the compression and it still works! [Laughs] So yeah, it’s quite powerful. It’s hard sometimes when you’re one of the first developers because it’s up to you to come up with solutions to certain problems. But the core elements of the console are surprisingly powerful.


“And because we’re developing for Wii U, we don’t have to worry about cross-platform optimization. We can push what the console can do; push it to its limits. And of course, we have a new lighting engine. In fact, the game engine for Origins was mostly just classic sprites in HD, but now we can light them and add shadows and all these things. So there is some technical innovation with the engine itself."

edgecrusher said:

Luckily I upgraded my reciever earlier this year, so I can get the great sound out of Wii U no problem. My older reciever was from 2003 and didn't have HDMI at all...so I had to run the seperate Optical Cable for all my shit.

My system will be 6 years old when the Wii U comes out. I barely use it so it doesn't matter to me. Like Bear said though, 5.1 and DTS is a standard format, even though it has been bettered it is a standard and should be supported. I would like more journo's to ask questions, if it wasn't for Bear I would not have read more about it. I didn't realise there was a problem. I hope Iwata does an Iwata asks on the DSP chip so we get more about this.

I bought my reciever in 2004, and it still sounds amazing to me. I'll upgrade only when it dies or when opticial becomes completely unsupported, which I hope won't be for a very long time.

Yeah, thanks for talking about all that Bear.  I did not realize how out of date my receiver was... time to add that to my shopping list.

I use my regular old TV speakers for sound

*crickets chirp*

Up yours rich bastards!

GodModeEnabled said:

I use my regular old TV speakers for sound

*crickets chirp*

Up yours rich bastards!

Same here man. Most I've ever done is hook up an old dvd home theater system to the 360, but that system shit the bed a long time ago.

How does a receiver work anyway? Do you hook it up directly to the console? Then what? The receiver sends the video signal to the tv?

Why we still got monkeys?

SteelAttack said:

How does a receiver work anyway? Do you hook it up directly to the console? Then what? The receiver sends the video signal to the tv?

Yes, for modern receivers.

Mine is old, so I have  to hook my consoles up with two separate cables: HDMI-to-HDTV for video, and optical out-to-receiver for 5.1.

I played Gran Turismo 5 XL this weekend.