74 replies to this topic

[RETROBLAST]

I'm a gamer, not a Tech Guy and to be honest, I cant tell how powerful or weak the Wii U is compared to last and next generation consoles.  People get into such technical terms that I have no idea of what they are talking about.  

 

One thing is for sure, I am enjoying my Wii U immensely and I bought it for 1st party games like Mario, Zelda, and Pikmin.  One other thing is for sure ... I will be a late adopter to the PS4, once the price drops and they come out with a slim model.  And yet, I am very interested in knowing where people with tech knowledge feel the Wii U stands in terms of it being easy or difficult to develop for and in terms of its power.

 

Not being a Tech Guy, I just have this very gut feeling that the Wii U is difficult to program for, that perhaps its old school in a way, and that the other, next generation systems, are far easier for devs to develop for.  I also have this feeling that 3 parties, because of this, just don't want to be bothered developing for the Wii U because its such a pain in the arse to develop for, so they won't do it unless they have to.   The one thing that would make them feel they had to is if the Wii U was a success in terms of units sold.

 

There is also the question of it being powerful enough for 3rd parties to easily port the games they make for the other next gen consoles to the Wii U.  

 

So in responding to this post I ask that the techies keep it light and tell me what you think without getting too technical and let me know your opinions to these two basic questions on power and ease of development.

 

I would also like people to say what they think the systems power is compared to last generation (Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3) in terms of "The Wii U is 4x more powerful than the Wii was ... etc) and also compared to this generation (Xbox One & PS4)

 

 

[nbond3040]

probably a combanation of both but I'm not a tech guy either so...

[GAMER1984]

this year is going to tell us all we need to know. watchdogs, splinter cell, ac4, cod:ghost, if they fail to run better on Wii U than 360 than its fair to say whether its more capable or not developers dont care and its not worth it to them. at this point i dont care(outside of nba2k14) just give me bayo2, mk8, x, and other goodies im sure they have planned for next year. its confirmed now(as it should have been years ago) dont buy a DAMN nintendo console for 3rd party support.

[3Dude]

Its not lazy, the teams that handle ports are the bottom of the barrel. They typically have the least/no experience which is why they dont actually make games, but simply port games other people make.

So not only do they not have the experience or knowledge to make use of something different than what they are used too, they have no idea what makes the engine they are porting really tick and cant dive deep into it for of screwing it up.

Take a look at the who said what. 99.99% of the time the scenario goes like this:

Wii u hard/weak: Comment made from/derived from port team that only knows how to use middleware engines and tools provided to them.

Wii u actually pretty powerful: experienced devs known to make their own engines/tools.


But it doesnt really matter any more. Screens of pikmin 3 are flooding miiverse, the cats out of the bag. Anyone with eyes is starting to notice the weak narrative about the wii u is full of crap.

Now im just waiting for big name western 3rd parties to once again, show everybody why I dont buy them on Nintendo systems. They release second rate crap for nintendo systems. And I dont buy crap.

[Tim]

Its not lazy, the teams that handle ports are the bottom of the barrel. They typically have the least/no experience which is why they dont actually make games, but simply port games other people make.

So not only do they not have the experience or knowledge to make use of something different than what they are used too, they have no idea what makes the engine they are porting really tick and cant dive deep into it for of screwing it up.

Take a look at the who said what. 99.99% of the time the scenario goes like this:

Wii u hard/weak: Comment made from/derived from port team that only knows how to use middleware engines and tools provided to them.

Wii u actually pretty powerful: experienced devs known to make their own engines/tools.


But it doesnt really matter any more. Screens of pikmin 3 are flooding miiverse, the cats out of the bag. Anyone with eyes is starting to notice the weak narrative about the wii u is full of crap.

Now im just waiting for big name western 3rd parties to once again, show everybody why I dont buy them on Nintendo systems. They release second rate crap for nintendo systems. And I dont buy crap.

 

Well. That was disheartening. Not false. Just disheartening.

[Expansion Pak]

They're just biased 

[xile6]

I don't think that's it's hard to program but more of something new.

It's. Brand new code , system and hardware. Its going to take some devs some time to get use to the code.

Main reason why ps3 games at release looks crappy compare to ps3 games release now.

 

Also some 3rd party devs are on the fence about the Wii u so there not putting there heart into it. Most just doing ports and leaving out stuff from the other systems.

 

But imo the Wii u should be able to get every game that comes out on ps3 or Xbox 360 from now on. It has more power them those system so a port isn't to much but it still cones back to the coding.

 

Once the ps4 and x1 are put we will see how the devs take to them vs the Wii u.

I've seen a 60min game play video of pikmin 3 and that thing looks great. So the system can put out it's just about knowing how to work it.

[Hank Hill]

It's more of a cost to develop/money that can be made scenario most of the time. Third party games generally don't sell well on Nintendo systems.

 

But I will admit that more developers than I can count are acting very, very differently just because it's a Nintendo console.

[RETROBLAST]

Is it a fact that the Wii U is more powerful than the 360 or PS3?

[IvyT]

I think for these big shot devs the issues lies in profiting. Developing a game for the Wii U is obviously going to be different than developing for the PS3/360 but that extra effort might also require more human resources and it's also possibly more costly. Now, do they want to shell out extra $$$ (even if it's a small amount considering all their wealth) for a console that's selling poorly? No. They rather invest in other, more successful, consoles that'll give them more sales, therefore more profit.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

Is it a fact that the Wii U is more powerful than the 360 or PS3?

I believe it is. Let's take a look at the 360 and the Wii U for a second. The 360 has only 0.5 GB RAM. The Wii U has 2 GB. The GPU which produces graphics is likely 30-50% more powerful for the Wii U. It's hard to say how much more powerful the CPU is, someone like 3Dude will probably tell you it's more powerful. Either way, it should be easier to develop a new game for, I think... not just port one over.

[Julio93]

Its a mixed bag, the install base isn't big enough to make a profit unless there is a price drop, and you see next gen games being developed for Xbox One & Playstation 4, but not the wii u because its weak. I mean look at the Wii U 3rd party games, its up to par with Xbox 360 & PS3, no where near as powerful or graphical as the Ps4, I know Xbox One gets alot of flame and hate but the power and ram isn't ignored.

[Chrop]

Is it a fact that the Wii U is more powerful than the 360 or PS3?

*Facepalm* 

[Aiddon]

a lot of it seems like lazy devs, though because developers have let production become so complex it's turned counter-intuitive. Furthermore, it seems like ALL devs just want every system to be the same, thinking you can just press a button and get the exact same result every time. It doesn't work that way.

[Robotic Sunshine Commander]

this thread... *smh*

[Nollog]

games nowadays are getting super cpu heavy.
Nintendo should have known this.

I'd say it's a mix, but it's not as powerful as the new girls in town.
Shouldn't matter much, to those of us who survived the last 10 years or more.

[Happy Monk]

this year is going to tell us all we need to know. watchdogs, splinter cell, ac4, cod:ghost, if they fail to run better on Wii U than 360 than its fair to say whether its more capable or not developers dont care and its not worth it to them. at this point i dont care(outside of nba2k14) just give me bayo2, mk8, x, and other goodies im sure they have planned for next year. its confirmed now(as it should have been years ago) dont buy a DAMN nintendo console for 3rd party support.

The Wii U versions will not run better than the previous gen versions. Not because it can't outperform them, but because Ubisoft and Activision will put out cheap, quick ports that do not need to sell many copies to make money. I will be very surprised if they do run better at all.

[NintendoReport]

games nowadays are getting super cpu heavy.
Nintendo should have known this.

I'd say it's a mix, but it's not as powerful as the new girls in town.
Shouldn't matter much, to those of us who survived the last 10 years or more.

 

 

err what? Surely you meant to say GPU....

[Nollog]

err what? Surely you meant to say GPU....

cpu, it's what does the numbers.

An openworld where a dog pissing on a tree makes the ground wetter required a large amount of processing, psychics etc.
If you try to make a world more "real", you'll have to do massive amounts of calculations, which is where the cpu excels.

[RETROBLAST]

And no one cares to speculate the power of the Wii U in terms of its blank number of times more powerful than the Wii and blank number of times less powerful than Xbox One \ PS4?