So that's why it's not backwards compatible..


What happened yesterday?

Something was announced or revealed or something, I dont even know.

Apparently sales have been going up pretty significantly since yesterday.  I can't find any actual evidence, just rumors and rumblings.

It's official that the Xbox is not "always online", but it does require the internet to function. That's on the Xbox One FAQ. What's unclear is how often you need to connect. A day? Every hour?

And your game is connected to the hard drive and connected to your live account. Meaning, if you sell it, someone else can't use it unless they pay extra. What's unclear is how much that fee is. Someone at MS made it. Sound like its the same cost as a NEW game.

Then there is a patent with Kinnect that allows MS to charge you extra for content depending on how many body's are in the room. That isn't even being discussed. Could have been and idea scrapped or an idea being placed in the hidden box.

But this would explain why Kinnnext needs to be connected to X1 all the time.


No one knows.

It has to check software licensing once every 24 hours, something windows also requires, since Windows Vista and the inclusion of the Software License Protection Service.  I calls back to Microsoft to check all relevant software licenses.  If it cannot do this, you cannot use any software.

They clarified that while the game will install on say your friends system if you take it over, they won't be able to start the software unless they purchase a license to play it, which a microsoft spokesman said would be the same as a new game. "It would be considered a new game at that point."

Everyone seems to be missing my point. Somehow, the Xbox 360 managed on very little exclusivity. I've never even once said that the Wii U will sell less than the One. In fact, I think that this will likely be just another repeat of the last generation, with perhaps Microsoft doing slightly worse than last gen due to what they've been imposing.

 

My point is that it's got some things going for it. If Sony managed to do alright with the PS3 with a ridiculously high launch price, I'm sure Microsoft can do the same, even with their ridiculously greedy used games fee and DRM.

I missed your point because the post I quoted did not drive home the point you are now making, one I agree with.

There has been no evidence so far that the wii u is anything other than current gen performance so far. Not exactly the same I grant you but in the ballpark area. So many fantasy figures have been conjured up but that's not evidence. Evidence is based on how a console performs, what fabrication process it uses, what developers have stated, how much power it consumes and most importantly the architecture which has been x-rayed. All this evidence points to current gen performance.

 

Watchdogs is not an example of what the wii u is capable of because we haven't seen it. It's quite possible it will be visually similar to current gen models with extra gamepad features. That would be the expected performance level based on past games. Assasin's Creed 3 is from the same actual developers and is weaker than the ps3 and 360 versions both visually and in frame rates.

 

http://www.eurogamer...-wii-u-face-off

 

It also made minimal use of the gamepad. This time around the wii u has to do a lot more work with the gamepad which may be to the detriment of the main game detail.

 

Surely the time to say the wii u is more powerful than current gen is when the evidence supports it. That surely means the majority of cross platform games outperforming ps3 and 360. Currently the reverse is true. Once we have passed that milestone we can then start comparing to ps4 and xbox one. 

There's been plenty of evidence, you've chosen to ignore it.  A few of us have spoonfed you information over and over, and over again, only for you to ignore it, and continue acting ignorant to avoid having to shed your confirmation bias.

Ubisoft themselves, in candid interviews (not the Sony paid advertising) have stated that all next gen versions of Watch_Dogs look "identical".

Assassins Creed 3 is not weaker than the other consoles in any area, the framerates are comparable, and they were given little time with non final hardware to port the game.  This is one of the games that is only using two of the Wii U CPU cores and the game is not optimized to use the SIMD available on the GPU, because the Nintendo tools weren't there at the time to help them get it done, and the GPU was foreign.  Also, linking an article with little journalistic integrity and a known bias against Nintendo doesn't really support your argument.

Doing more with the gamepad does not affect visuals or framerates or anything else.  The only situation that would affect anything is the introduction of an additional gamepad.

A Wii U game could feature a character popping OUT OF the gamepad to slap you in the face and you would still not consider it evidence enough.  You have an issue with not listening to anyone, and shaping every argument to fit your view regardless of the facts.

I'm not questioning whether or not it's as good as Mario or Zelda. What I'm saying is that Gears of War and Halo are system sellers, whether you like them or not. Lots of gamers will buy the Xbox One for them.

 

I'm well aware. You may not have heard, but their support for Nintendo is significantly weaker than their support for Microsoft.

And they are the only ones.  Wii U will also have several AAA titles releasing this fall, during the xbox launch.  Microsoft did not mention the budget with their "15 games" that are coming, I doubt that as many as 6 will be AAA games, maybe one or two, those are all exclusives.

No way the xbox one is on a 40nm process for its main amd apu. The older PC amd apu's were already on a 32nm process from over a year ago and the newer jaguar based apu's are on 28nm and they will hit the market before ps4 and xbox one anyway. 28nm is not that impressive and quite low cost now. Intel are on 22nm even with a built in basic gpu.

 

Dirt cheap android tablet chips have moved on from 40nm to 28nm;

 

http://en.wikipedia....p#RK31xx_series

 

and they are dirt cheap often with the chips selling sub $10 in high volumes.

Process cost is just one part of the overall cost of a chip.

Everyone needs to remember that PowerISA is what has been the primary focus for game developers worldwide for the last seven years.  x86 has been the backseat man.  This will make x86 more popular but it doesn't diminish the Wii U prospects at all because all game developers are still tooled for PowerISA, and updating the dev environment to handle the newer instruction set isn't a huge investment.

Dont underestimate Americans ^^ A lot of them will buy xbox just because it's xbox. Just like a lot of Japanese will buy Nintendo and Sony just because they're Nintendo and Sony.

Unfortunately you are right.  Though Nintendo has done well for itself in the US as well when they have great software to show (3DS)

Could have at least linked my article instead, lol.  I had it up before IGN.

So how exactly does it compare? I know you know your stuff, and they have released a spec sheet detailing some important info.

They'll all be about the same, they all support the same techniques and features.  XBOX One is probably very slightly more powerful, but those extra cycles will be used up for multitasking and peripherals for the most part.  Other than that, WiiU will not do some things quite as good as PS4 and perhaps XBOX1, but not in a way that will make a noticeable difference.

I'm talking about PS4 5 years from now vs Wii U now with better engines and knowledge of hardware, which of coarse isn't a fair comparison.
But if you cut all the multitasking from PS4 it would be far above Wii U (but you could do the same for Wii U to compensate. I'm just talking hypnotically, not like they'll do any of this)

Or from what we have learned of them, for all we know the PS4/Xbox One specs sucks compared to Wii U and they only beat it in ram so they can pretend they are better ;P (Not saying it is like that, but we can't know for sure until someone opens the PS4/Xbox One)

It's not just an unfair comparison, there aren't any games that really showcase the WiiU potential at this point, other than perhaps NintendoLand, but in very small ways.

PS4 and WiiU will continue to have similar looking games throughout the generation, because they both support all of the same rendering technologies.  There will be minor limitations that Wii U brings to the table eventually I'm sure, but it won't be enough to change gameplay or even visuals in a substantive way.

I dont think this is correct. Latte is just too big. Its a ver large die.

Remove the edram and you still have around a 100 mm square die full if logic at a dense 40nm process.

Highly unlikely to have so much space for.... Nothing. That is just a very small space for texture and shader units for such a large die on that process size.

Custom designs like this are often a mix of hand layout and computer design for effecient use of space. You usually arent able to eyeball much, particularly once the computer starts custom arranging logic.

There could be many more shader and texture units that were arranged by computer to make the most effecient use of space that just dont resemble the familiar layout thats being identified.

I think that is more likely than not, there was talk of asymmetric or unorthodox shader organization on it when the die was released. 

it truly is all in one though, and how quick were the apps swaped i mean wow! how long would it take us to stop playing a game and start watching a film on netfix on wii u. now ive heard somebodys argument saying wii u is the only dedicated games console, and all the xbox power is needed for all the services it provides outside gaming.
EXACTLY, wiitv, internet, gaming, mii verse, not exactly a truly dedicated console is it.
So at least do it like (and i hate to say it) microsoft just did.

It's actually very fast to jump to TVii from any other app on WiiU, but not that fast.  It was impressive, no arguing that, but at what cost?

Which one?

Kinect camera is 1080p according to the reveal.

They are powerhouses that can blow the Wii U away if used to their full extent which they won't be able to in the start, also the real problem is that they are using most of their power to multi task. The Xbox nOne is going to switch between game, movie, skype etc. instantly. So say good bye to a lot of that 8gb ram

Even if used "to the full extent" they wouldn't blow away the WiiU.

I still blame the wii u's cpu for not getting unreal engine 4 when everyone else is.

Yeah, no.  You can blame shrewd business practice on EPIC's part.  They just finished porting UE3 to Wii U, there is no reason to port UE4, especially considering it has basically the exact same feature set sans the workflow, when they can let someone else do it, which will most likely be happening.

and with that said, regarding games, i think Nintendo will once again offer a better experience in gameplay and innovation with it's gamepad. Just my opinion though.

I agree.  Nintendo and Sony seem to be the most interested in games, Microsoft is trying to expand the userbase through massive media integration and accessibility.

full windows kernal? or did I mishear during the announcement? 

Yep

To be honest... I'd be surprised if we see a COD: Ghosts that looks like the other next-gen versions, or a Metroid game with graphics comparable to Killzone 4 (talking to next-gen in general, so not Xbox only). But it's not that one massive leap everyone was hoping for.

COD ghosts new engine should have been used on PS3 and 360, they could pull of the visuals shown, and have, with games with similar art styles like uncharted.

Aside from that, Wii U will have some very impressive looking games, and 3rd party games will look the same on all consoles by and large.

they probably got a fact sheet, being press.

Too bad at least one of those "facts" was inconsistent with what was actually said during the reveal.

From Engadget:

 

Processor and graphics: as rumored, a heavily customized AMD chip that combines an eight-core CPU, a GPU tailored for DirectX 11.1 graphics and 32MB of high bandwidth embedded ESRAM memory. The 28nm chip will consume around 100 watts, which is slightly higher than current Xbox Slim and PS3, but Microsoft promises noise from the cooling fans will be "four times quieter."

System memory: a Sony-rivaling 8GB of RAM, although it'll be DDR3 instead of the PlayStation 4's GDDR5.

Audio and video: 1080p and 4K both supported; 7.1 surround sound.

Kinect: This will be bundled with the console and contain 250,000-pixel infrared depth sensor as well as a regular 720p web cam.

Storage and media: a 500GB hard drive of unknown speed plus a Blu-ray / DVD combo drive that will be used as little as possible. We're told disc-based games will be ripped to the HDD automatically.

Connectivity: HDMI 1.4 output and passthrough; a "few" USB 3.0 ports; gigabit Ethernet; plus, three separate 802.11n radios to allow the console to communicate with its controller (over a form of WiFi Direct) as well as other devices (such as perhaps other Windows-based phones and tablets) without losing its connection to the internet. At other times, two radios could be used to maintain a stronger WiFi signal.

If the spec you're looking for isn't on this list, that's likely because Microsoft hasn't revealed it yet. We've requested further details and will update as and when we hear more.

Engadget are slouching

They didn't reveal anything about the architecture, aside from the number of transistors

They did not mention 4k at all

Kinect 2.0 will have a 1080p camera

We've been trumpeting this for months now, and it took a rather unimpressive xbox reveal to make it apparent.

I say unimpressive in terms of games, I'm hyped to the heavens for Halo TV series.

I would love it, but i think developers who have been working on all 3 next gen consoles will all tell us the wii u just cant keep up. Im sure 3d mario will look great but look at killzone on ps4 , if wii u games look like that at the end of its life id be happy. Plus surely as a marketing campaign we would have seen at least one game with next gen graphics if it were possible. Its like launching a 3d tv with no 3d content to show it off, lol i can picture it at e3 nintendo stepping up saying, "here is the next generation", playing clips from zombie u, nsmbu, and tank tank tank, everybody saying "where? what the.." and every now and then a voice bellowing through the speakers saying "behold".

Killzone was not that impressive, technically or visually.  This illustrates the problem quite well, Killzone looks great to you based on what other people have said and based on your confirmation bias, when in reality it looks pretty much like what we've come to expect from current gen hardware.

Sure the textures will be crisper, sure the framerates will be smoother (than PS3), but it doesn't really amount to a whole lot at the end of the day.

Developers working on all three consoles (Ubisoft, SEGA, WB Interactive, etc) have had exactly zero complaints about the Wii U hardware, and in candid interviews (not Sony, Nintendo, or MS paid marketing, like the recent developer diaries were) they have stated that all three next gen versions look identical for games like Watch_Dogs.

Interesting that you mention 3D tv and marketing.  Sony made the claim that PS3 would fully support 3D gaming, that it would support 1080p 60fps as a standard, and that it had 1.8TFLOPS of GPU performance.  Now they are making claims, showing clips of "gameplay" at 4K resolution at their reveal, and everyone believes them.  Fool me once, shame on me.

Nintendo have stayed intentionally quiet on that front for a very good reason, the hardware, no matter how powerful, no matter how much you market the specs, will not sell without software that drives a point home.

Nintendo will be showing some amazing things at e3.

This is a big deal i think, im expecing PS4 and XBOX to launch around £400, thats £50 more than i paid for my WII U, would i, and all of us paid that for the extra power meaning we get all the big games, hell yeah.
People talk about poor console manufacturers making a loss on each console but remember this, new mario bros u was hardly any different from that 2d one they launched on wii, so they take the old one, re jig the levels, up the graphics to hd and add a few gamepad features and sell nearly a copy with every console, more than making up for any loss on hardware. Theres no way they used a whole dev team for that game, so costs were low, but was the game cost any lower?

It won't be, unless they plan on taking a huge loss.  It isn't about power, at all.  The parts are expensive, GDDR5 is extremely expensive.  PS4 will be more expensive than both the others, XBOX is rumored to have a subscription model to subsidize the cost, but then you are paying $20/month for XBL.