Okay, this is my first post on this thread and here is my take on SSB4.

Please, for the love of God, get rid of clone characters and minor characters. This game is about Nintendo's main protagonists, not sidekicks. It started in Melee and Brawl took it to a whole other level.

Falco and Wolf are not needed, Ganon is still too similiar to Captain Falcon, Toon Link, Marth and Ike are the same, pick one, Lucas is a Ness clone etc. Just focus on main guys for the next one. Brawl had like 37 characters but many of them were similiar. I'd prefer a quality over quanitity. Give me 20 unique fighters over 35 fighters, 10 of which are clones.

My wish list:

The original 12 from SSB for the N64
Ganon
Ridley
Pit
Meta Knight
Shulk
Bowser
Peach
Olimar
A legendary Pokemon Character
Isaac

Third Party:
Sonic (He sells well on Nintendo consoles)
Travis Touchdown
Jack (MadWorld)

That's 25 characters with different abilities, looks, and controls, weight classes etc. Some are original, some are from popular IP's and some are from niche titles that may help their IP's explode in the west (like how Marth and Roy inspired Fire Emblem to be localized in the West for the first time in 2004) Shulk, Travis, and Jack would push Xenoblade, MadWorld, and No More Heroes into more mainstream audiences and convince people to try out those IP's more. Isaac would help push the Golden Sun franchise as well.

They did with 3ds

No they didn't. They lowered their profit margin. It only costs $101 to manufacture a 3DS. Nintendo probably earns $10-15 on every 3DS sold whereas before they were earning 20-25 bucks a unit. They aren't selling at a loss, just not gaining as much profit as before.

http://www.gadgehit....oss-since-1981/

Read this paragraph

"Some analysts have blamed the increased popularity of smartphones and tablets for Nintendo’s problems, but the strong yen seems to be the bigger issue for the company, which suggests the Wii U, Nintendo’s next console, will probably be more expensive outside of Japan than we first expected."

Nintendo lost a lot of money from currency conversion, meaning they may increase the prices drastically outside of Japan. This may explain why they tried to get away with selling the 3DS at $250

I priced out some comparable computer parts that the wii u is rumored to have and with retail markup included it came in at around $372. That's without the controller which will probably be around $100 so it's save to say $450-500 is a good bet of a launch price. I have pics to show along with specs

Apparently you and nintendo have not been living in this recession. There's reports all over the net showing nintendo currently losing hundreds of millions. If current xbox360 controllers are about 40-50 with no touchscreen, imagine the cost of nintendo's new controller. It's practically an iPad/ereader, and the average anywhere from $80-$200(low-end) and nintendo controller uses NFC, adding to cost. Not to mention the Wii U itself is probably a $300 machine. There is no way Nintendo is going to try and sell a console to the masses for $500. In this environment Nintendo will have to take a loss per unit(at least for awhile). Sony and Microsoft has done this not because their stupid, but because they actually made next Gen consoles and had to except the price that came with it. Nintendo lagged behind using cheap hardware but good games to push the console. They can no longer get bye alone on this anymore. They are starting to see xbox 360 sales sore and theirs plummet. The only model is to build a big bad ass machine load it with features and put it on the market and hope that the games sell the machine. Microsoft and Sony took losses because they wanted to build something bigger and better than Nintendo, in hopes that the games would make up for the losses in the long run. It worked(for Microsoft at least, Sony is really taking a beating from losses of Ps3). Nintendo has now built something bigger and better and to compete in this environment there will be losses.

Agreed. Nintendo wont be able to sell this system for $500. But, even Nintendo's most powerful consoles for their time were always affordable and profitable. The wii u tablet doesn't need any silicon chips in it, as the console does all the streaming. The only thing that costs a lot is the touchscreen (which is resistive so it's cheaper than OLED). The Upad might be $80 and the console itself may cost $300 so around launch I expect a $400 price tag.

Don't get me wrong, as a consumer my wallet would love for Nintendo to sell this at a loss so I could afford it and used the saved money for mor games.

Sticking by with what I said last summer. Wii U will launch at $349.99 USD and games will retail for $59.99

Found the statement Iwata made about the wii u not being cheap and not being priced at $250

http://www.xbitlabs....f_Nintendo.html

You said the 3DS was losing them money. It is not. They sell each one at a profit. The problem was software sales weren't good for the 3DS, less people bought a Wii, and less people bought Wii games. Yes Nintendo lost money this year, but they aren't losing it on every 3DS sold as you suggested.

Nintendo has never sold hardware at a loss. Even their least successful console (Gamecube) sold only 24 million units, but each console sold made Nintendo profit (even when it got slashed to $99 in 2005ish) which means they made more money than Microsoft did with the Xbox 1, as that was never profitable in it's 4 year lifespan.

Which goes back to the point that started this all; Nintendo will not sell the Wii U cheaply at a loss ever. It will sell at break even point or higher.

What? You're saying it yourself. LOWER PROFIT MARGIN. That's taking a loss buddy.

lol. Profit is not losing money buddy. As long as they make a profit they are making money. Taking a loss means losing money on each unit sold. For example, the PS3 cost around $800 for Sony to build in 2006, and they sold it for $600, meaning for the first year Sony took losses of $200 per console, whereas Nintendo made a profit on every Wii sold (about $8 on each one for the first few years).

CPU: Quad Core AMD 3.0GHz, 6mb of L3 cache (also known as the eDRAM ppl are mother doging about, which the processor from IBM can hold a maximum of 4mb a core, 32mb max). Nintendo will most likely have 16mb of eDRAM (they are getting it customized after all)

GPU: ATI Radeon 5870 512mb GDDR5 (there is a 1GB model but I think Nintendo is going to share the ram between the CPU and GPU and I think they won't dedicate more than 512mb of video memory

RAM: 1024mb (1GB)

Motherboard that works with AMD processor and on board six channel sound (six channel sound was announced for Wii U)

And a 380w power supply to handle all these functions.

Basically the Wii U should have 1.5GB of total RAM shared or 1gb system memory and 512mb dedicated to the GPU. A lot of ram is needed to steam two wii u tablets. 16mb of eDRAM will help the CPU processing immensely and allow for better AI and quicker load times. This GPU (the 1gb version at least) was benchmarked with Cyrsis with AA and 1080p at around 30fps so it can handle some crazy games.


The green and blue bars are the closest resolutions to 1920x1080p

Shouldn't their be a possibility of Nintendo being able to get these parts at a lower price since they are a company. I always tended to believe company's could get parts at a lower price then available on market or is it just me?

Like I said, Nintendo would get it for cheaper. But Nintendo will charge these prices to us to markup the cost and pass it to us. Markup is usually about 20%. So 80% of $450 is around $350 to make a wii u and tablet. Nintendo always sells consoles at a profit so you won't see a wii u sold for less than $400

Who is gonna trade in they're wii and some games to buy the U. I have 250 if I trade in my wii it should take 50$ off. Then I can buy if it's 300.

I will only trade in my wii if I know for certain my VC games like majoras mask are able to transfer to an SD card and be played on the wii u. I'm not paying twice for them. Also, I have a bunch of 360 games I plan on selling to, maybe even my 360 as I now have a PS3 as a secondary console.

People are crazy if they expect the wii u to be priced lower than $300 during its launch. $350 is the lowest price you will see the wii u, and Reggie event said they won't lower it's price point for several years unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360. The original wii got its first price drop in 2010 with the super mario all star 25th anniversary bundle.

I think Nintendo will go with $349.99 US. I can't see them charging more than $400 and really, after buying the console and then at least 1 game to go with it, you are spending $400ish

how was the wii priced?

$249.99 USD and CAD on launch date. He said it won't launch at the same price as the wii and it won't be cheap. I'm going with $350+

Watch the video posted on these forums about the Wii U pricing. Iwata and Reggie said the Wii U wont be cheap. $299 is cheap. $350 is middle of the line. $400+ is expensive. I keep saying the wii u will cost $349.99 but I'm starting to read articles and quotes from Nintendo and watch videos and see DIY's like IGN and it's starting to look like the Wii U is gonna be priced at $399.99 or $379.99

Mario HD
Zelda HD
Metroid HD (Metroid Prime version, not the abomination Other M)
A New Nintendo IP
A JRPG (Final Fantasy XV or a new Monolith Soft RPG)
Star Fox HD
F-Zero HD
A Pokémon game like the handhelds, where it's open world, you run around, and capture pokemon in a beautiful cel-shaded art style
Super Smash Bros. Universe
Mario Kart Wii U
Fire Emblem HD

The Xbox360 has 1MB of L2 cache(total), the EDRAM in that is used for the GPU, not the CPU, it even says if you click on the hardware link.

http://en.wikipedia....ox_360_hardware

Where as the Wii U will apparently use the EDRAM as cache(like the Power7 does), hence 4MB of L3 cache per core(like the Power7). Although I don't know why people are saying it's a tri-core, no-one knows how many cores it has except for Nintendo and the developers.

Correct. The Wii U will use it's eDRAM for the CPU instead of the GPU like the Xbox does. However, if the GPUis on the same die as the CPU then they will both share the eDRAM.

In reference to the tri-core part, the latest GAF dev kit rumors are the Wii U having only 3 cores with Nintendo banking on the high eDRAM and DSP (a separate dedicated recession to handle all audio) to save the CPU's major resources.

Yes, CPU cache is inside the CPU core it self and is required for cpu to actually function. additional EDRAM is be embedded on die or ASIC, used for other stuff such as frame buffer

eDRAM is costlier ofcourse, its 3 times as dense than sdram and offers much more performance because of density and effectiveness of the short-distance interconnect.

edram is mostly used in consoles and ibm power 7 cpus , we are not sure yet if the wiiu implementation has edram on cpu die or asic, but there are theories and hunches the other tech guy always crunch about which i dont recall at this moment.

now we get to shared or main ram ... but we dont know if GPU has dedicated gddr so .... if it has thats the external gddr then, our main external ram still remains shared ... its also the audio DSP that uses that one.

If theres only one external shared ram its probably 2GB ...

Correct. And history of Nintendo suggests they will share RAM with the main memory pool and GPU working together. I would bank on 2GB of RAM total. NIntendo has shared RAM on all of their consoles (although I believe the 3DS has some VRAM allocated)

UUUUU wrong..


Xbox got ONLY 1 mb cache, thats why they luck in AI.. and are limited to new games processing. Also I believe wii U will not have 12mb cache, is extreme, but if it has that cache, its superb. I give a thumbs up for that..

To be more precise, I think xbox is 2x64kb L1 cache and 2x1mb or 1mb L2 cache..
Wii U is L1 4x32kb or 3x32kb depends the cores, L2 3or4X64kb cache and 3or4x4mb per core... but there is a possibility that nintendo will cut some cache... fore example 1mb per core or 2...

eDRAM is essentially L3 cache. The 360 has 10mb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Hardware

Since when has "DRC" been used to refer to the controller? And what does "DRC" mean?

Display Remote Controller

I think that's low-balling a little on RAM.

I'm pretty sure what ideaman said recently about the devkits showing a spec list only pretty much puts those "on par" comments into context.
A developer confronted with "CPU clock at 3.0 GHz Tri-Core" in the devkit spec list can say "On par with 360", because that would be an on-par clock frequency.
But with far more advanced technologies, and unknown factors a different chip brings to the game.
Coupling that with all the smaller, more specialised chips it's rumoured to use for (for example) sound, and it's plain to see it'll be better, as it should be.
People just like being negative.

I forgot to mention the eDRAM. It will have 4mb per core, so 12mb which is 2 more than the Xbox cpu. The CPU even at the same clock speed, will run circles around the 360 CPU because its a more efficient design.

As for the ram, it was Iherre I think who said "2-3GB of ram?" in the context of "no way, max is 2gb, 1 is the minimum.

I love Nintendo Nollog and I don't want to seem negative, it's just that I am being realistic and combining the fact that PR reps aren't hyping Wii U's power and Nintendo's strategy of this gen from using older hardware and giving it new uses, I don't see the wii U being s beast. It will be great for 2 years like the dreamcast, but then we know the HD twins will be superior. Nintendo knows this too and that's why they wont go heavy on the tech. They will just make it good enough. Needless to say the Wii U will be much closer to the Ps4 and 720 this gen, and we won't miss out on all these ports. It will run all the engines just with less intensive effects.

Cheer up

So what do we know for sure then?

CPU: IBM Power7 based (lowest model is a 3.0 Ghz quad core. Best model is a 4.7Ghz octo core)
GPU: Custom AMD based off of the RV700 series capable of native 1080p
eDRAM: "Lots of eDRAM" according to IBM
Tablet: 480p, with all proper buttons and a 6.2 Touchscreen that is Resistive (like the DS and 3DS)
NFC Technology
Nintendo Network which will have game demoes, DLC, and indivual username accounts
Connectable to 3DS and PC

What we don't know?

How many cores the CPU will have, and what speed it will be clocked at?
How much RAM and what type of RAM?
How much eDRAM (maximum 32mb)?
How much video memory?
What GPU will be used?
How much will it cost?
What's the final console name?
Will it be bundled with a Wii Remote+?

So, latest rumors are:

Tri-Core CPU clocked between 3-3.2GHz
At least 1GB of RAM, closer to 2GB of RAM total (1.75GB for developers, 256MB for the OS/Background)
5.1 Surround Sound DSP
Support up to 1080p (Most games running at 720p on TV and 480p on DRC)
Close to a 1TFLOP GPU (making it capable of Samaritan Demo at 720p and 30fps)

I would be happy with this.

Hmmm, looks like my only launch title will be Pikmin 3 and NSMB and maybe Darksiders II then. Damn...

I sold almost all my consoles when I was done with them but here is what I owned in chronological order

NES (1990)
SNES (1994)
Gameboy (Black) (1995)
Playstation (1999)
Nintendo 64 (2000)
GameCube (2002)
Playstation 2 (2003)
Gameboy Advance (2005)
Nintendo DS (Original fat one) (2006)
Nintendo Wii (2006)
Microsoft Xbox 360 (2007)
Nintendo DS Lite (2008)
Nintendo 3DS (2011)
Playstation 3 (2011)

And you can include:

Nintendo Wii U (2012) hehe