Is the Wii U being released too early?

[Zeta333]

I guess it's not 100% confirmed, but there's a very good chance it will support two. Nintendo's working on it, and by the time E3 comes around they should have it ready.

Very good chance i could win a million dollars tomorrow, that has as much credibility as the thq closures.

Okay, but are you honestly going to stop playing a game with good gameplay and a good story becuase you can see a few pixels, or it's not entirely realistic? Are you going to buy a crap game because it looks pretty? I do like it when games look good, but it's more art style than graphics. As cool as it would be to play Zelda in full HD, which we will be able to soon, it's not that important. Graphics should obviously evolve and keep getting better. But it doesn't affect gameplay.

Most of the time if a game looks completely god fucking awful then it is. While ill still play it im not happy about the fact that im playing a game that most of the time devs couldnt put the extra effort into graphically.

I'd argue that this looks much better than, for example, this. Skyward Sword may not have super amazing graphics or look realistic, but it has a good looking art style. See the video I linked earlier for a better explanation, if you haven't already watched it.

Well seeing as how all of bfs weapons are lacklustery made with shody modeling a textureing id tend to agree. One thing nintendo does well is its sticking with the cartoon style artwork, while im not saying its bad, its alot easyer to mask the age of the video hardware in the system with cartoon styles.

Oh, and take a look at a Wii U tech demo. I'd say that looks pretty good for a live rendered, early version of a Nintendo console. If you can ignore the bad quality of the video itself.

As for this considering they had no working name game titles at the time of e3, im betting its nothing more than cgi, seeing as at the time nintendo could only demo the most basic of games using the system, if they had had a working zelda part of a game they would have sure as fuck played it infront of everyone, i have no doubt it could look like that but again at its dev stage as of last e3 i highly doubt zelda was that far into dev.

[Rennadrel]

Skelington does not at all like his music, but he still gives bieber some credit. How many other people can gather such a huge fanbase so quickly? How many can say they are that successful? People have opinions. Opinions are not facts.


So, you're saying that the next Xbox will be about 16/32/64 times stronger than it is now(merely estimating the months)? Or possibly, if computer power increased exponentially by three, then it will be 81/243/729 times more powerful. That's not at all realistic.


That's still your opinion. People do still enjoy their games, Rare or not. They may be semi-infrequent, but they still come out, and for many, still have great replay values. You bring up graphics again like it's the breaking point that defines a good game. Can you not have fun when you see a pixel? Can it only be fun when it looks like this?

The pixels of which Skelington hardly even noticed while he was playing, due to distance from the television and actually playing the game.

Great point. You wouldn't notice anything remotely different graphics wise if you looked at one game over another from a distance. Yes, maybe Wii games don't have all of the same realistic design that you so called "hardcore" gamer's seem to want to jizz your pants over, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to making the best of their hardware, Nintendo did a lot with the Wii just due to art design. Metroid Prime 3 as well as Other: M are both fantastic displays of what the Wii is capable coming from Nintendo themselves, as well as Team Ninja who did Other: M. If you want to see a couple of other good examples, check out The Conduit, made by High Voltage Studios and published by Sega. Both of them are very good games, both visually and in quality of the control design, they did a much better job then Activision did bastardizing Goldeneye.

The Gamecube was no different, there were some great looking Gamecube games even right from launch (Star Fox Adventures blew my mind back then), in contrast to some PS2 games which also started to look great as the console's life cycle went on (Final Fantasy 10 anyone?). Sorry but you don't need excessive hardware in order to make games with good graphics. If your development department understands the hardware and takes the time to optimize the game for the system available, there are no issues with games looking horribly jagged and poor.

And no, hardware in consoles won't increase exponentially, they might double their current graphics output and bump up the processing speeds, but in reality if you look at how far PC technology has come in 5 years, really it's not that much more advanced then the 360 and PS3 when they came out, which were vastly ahead of their predecessors in terms of power. But even now Microsoft and Sony can't afford to release consoles with comparative power to a $2500 PC and expect consumers to pay for it.

---------- Post added 2012-01-16 at 08:59 PM ----------

And yet Skellington, all I see from Nintendo fans are 'Graphics aren't important. Oh by the way DID YOU SEE THE AWESUM GRAPHIKS ON SKYWARD SWORD?'.

It goes both ways (just like a good woman.) <-- I'm funny damnit!

Meh. Graphics are an important part of a game to me, and everything else must be a lot better for me to play the game and compare it favorably to others if the graphics aren't up there. And no, I'm not bashing Nintendo, I wish they would release a powerful console because I want to see what they could do with it.

I also think that releasing a new Console this soon isn't going to sell as well for them because the Casual Market isn't going to want to purchase a new console every couple years like the hardcore is willing to do. But hey, it is their decision and I would imagine they know more about this stuff than I do

That's ironic, seeing as how most Nintendo fans would tell you that Skyward Sword looks great for a Wii game due to the art direction. You don't need real-life style graphics in order to make a game look good. No graphics are not important, however considering how shitty 3rd party Wii games generally look, Skyward Sword proves that with the right art direction and proper development, one can make a game look good to maximize the hardware available.

---------- Post added 2012-01-16 at 09:09 PM ----------

Uh, Nintendo never turned it's back on me, or anyone really. Nintendo did what they wanted to do, you may have not liked it, or other people too, but Nintendo wanted to try something new, not exactly "turning their backs on gamers". They have never let me down, all of the games they make are exactly what I want in a game.

More like they did what they had to, because otherwise they would be out of business. Push the limit or have a console that loses them tons of money. Unfortunately for them, the DS wasn't a profitable enough platform to fund a super high tech console. Not to mention it came out only a short time before the Wii did anyway. Nintendo has a tendency to see the other side of the coin, they took risks with the DS and Wii and they sold far better then their predecessor consoles, rather then doing the same old nonsense that they did for 4 generations prior. It's not a gimmick to take risks and innovate, people hated the N64 controller originally yet the analog stick quickly because one of the most widely adopted control formats because of that controller, seeing as how Sony stole the idea and slapped it on the PS1 controller after the N64 launched. I like to compare what Nintendo has done in recent years to what Apple did in 2001 when they released the first mass storage digital audio players, knowing there was a market for them. Nintendo knew there was a market for both innovation as well as attracting a new style of gamer. Have they been true to that motto? That can easily be debated as they certainly got the hardcore going on the DS after it's first year on the market and pretty much abandoned non-gamer's seeing as how they sold so many damn units. The Wii was similar, however 3rd parties didn't even try to make good games for it, which is why it has failed from a hardcore point of view.

[Shadowswillm]

I can see Nintendo going strictly handheld if the Wii-U fails, which I think it will.

One benefit from this could possibly be Nintendo doing what Sega did and becomes a developer, with chances to see classic Nintendo characters on Sony/Microsoft platforms.

You will NEVER...EVER see Mario on anything BUT Nintendo products. The day that happens it the day Nintendo straight out goes broke, even then they WILL not sell out classic characters like Mario or DK.

[Digglett]

You will NEVER...EVER see Mario on anything BUT Nintendo products. The day that happens it the day Nintendo straight out goes broke, even then they WILL not sell out classic characters like Mario or DK.

And the day that happens, is the day gaming dies forever. If Zelda or Mario are ever on a Playstation or Xbox, it will turn into Rare moving to Microsoft all over again. Or Final Fantasy becoming nothing but interactive flashy movies. No thanks.

[Drakhar]

Nintendo has understood a fact that PC gamers have known for years: consoles should only be used to produce titles that can't be done (better) on PCs. That was the norm until the Xbox came around, providing "PC-lite" games that brought PC gaming evolution to a standstill. Suddenly, the first consideration every developer made was "Okay, how do I take features out of my game so that it will work on console?" It brought PC gaming to the masses, but has done nothing but hold it back for the last decade.

I not only hope the Wii U succeeds, I hope it wipes the floor with Sony and Microsoft. End the PC-lite era once and for all.

I couldn't agree with this more. Fuck all the console-centric bullshit, shitting all over PC gaming as a result. My library of PC ports is rather small, but Skryim really opened my eyes to this epidemic. As amazing as the game is, it could have been easily over 9000 times better if it had been created with PCs in mind instead of the ancient set ups that the 360 and PS3 have forced down the industry's throat.