40 replies to this topic

[darkknight41]

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi believes that Wii U has capability issues due to it having a single processor driving multiple devices. Takahashi thinks that streaming content from the console to two Wii U GamePads is going to present huge challenges, due to the hardware which “itself isn’t that powerful.

“That’s a lot of work for a system which itself isn’t that powerful.”

“Nintendo only showed games with one game pad controller and the TV [at E3],” he said. “Most games out there, if you’re in a social setting, you want two controllers. Nintendo didn’t show any games that do that. They admitted in a Q&A that the games are going to run slower if you have two game pads and playing on a main display. That’s a fairly big issue for them.

“They made a good case that you can play with one controller and multiple Wii controllers, what they call asymmetric gaming where one person is looking at the small tablet screen and trying to deploy zombies while the people playing with the controllers were all on the main screen. You come up with very creative, different kinds of games where it’s one against four, or one person going online. They tried to justify and turn into an advantage this major weakness of the Wii U, but I think a lot of people saw this as a weakness.”

“They may have had a good one in ZombieU, but in the demos it didn’t necessarily play that well. Nintendo came up as a pretty big disappointment at E3."

http://mynintendonew...ngle-processor/

[Fig]

Oh well, not everybody's going to fall in love with Wii U. I think he's failing to recognize that gaming in a "social setting" is something people do less often than they used to. Most people socially game online, where eveyone participating can have a GamePad if they choose. Local multiplayer games won't need two GamePads very often. I can't think of many game concepts that would suffer from having only one GamePad for local multiplayer. Maybe hidding plays on sports games or certain puzzle games? But again, most people play sports games online these days.

Edited by Fig, 29 June 2012 - 07:54 AM.

[Crackkat]

looool so now I'm meant to say "oh so vigil and gearbox and EPIC were lying about the wii u's power but this random guy knows everything" hahaha who the hell is this guy anyway?

[Hank Hill]

looool so now I'm meant to say "oh so vigil and gearbox and EPIC were lying about the wii u's power but this random guy knows everything" hahaha who the hell is this guy anyway?

He's a journalist/blogger, apparently.

But I do agree with Crackkat. I'm more apt to believe people that're actually making games for the system than some random blogger.

[Penguin101]

Due to one processor? You've got to be kidding me? it's already confirmed by NINTENDO that the processor is multi-core

Edited by Penguin101, 29 June 2012 - 09:23 AM.

[uPadWatcher2]

I want to see The Regginator (or Iwata-san) talk in Dean's face with authoritah!!!!!!

[Meelow100]

He's not a dev so he doesn't really know much about the Wii U.

[Hinkik]

looool so now I'm meant to say "oh so vigil and gearbox and EPIC were lying about the wii u's power but this random guy knows everything" hahaha who the hell is this guy anyway?

It really depends on how they define power.

This guy might find it bad while the others find it good.

Due to one processor? You've got to be kidding me? it's already confirmed by NINTENDO that the processor is multi-core

Source?

[JD2995]

In the Wii U hardware specifications page in e3.nintendo.com says IBM multicore processor.

[eugoreez]

Source?

http://e3.nintendo.com/wiiu/

scroll to the bottom, to the right.. "IBM PowerⓇ-based multi-core processor"


I think what ppl misunderstood here is, the guy is talking about the number of processor NOT the number of core in a processor...

what difference in performance could a multiple processor and multiple core processor can make, say 2 single core processor vs 1 dual core processor, is beyond me..

Edited by eugoreez, 29 June 2012 - 10:07 AM.

[Mitch]

This guy is just a blasphemer and deserves to rot in the deepest pits of the abyss.... Wii U will be awesome, who cares about that bloggers opinion, he could get hit by a bus today and no one would know or even care, Nintendo will release a quality console that will be able to compete with its competition for the next 5-9 years

[Hinkik]

http://e3.nintendo.com/wiiu/

scroll to the bottom, to the right.. "IBM PowerⓇ-based multi-core processor"


I think what ppl misunderstood here is, the guy is talking about the number of processor NOT the number of core in a processor...

what difference in performance could a multiple processor and multiple core processor can make, say 2 single core processor vs 1 dual core processor, is beyond me..

Only high end workstations have more than one processor. It's a captain obvious statement that it has only one processor that's why I assumed he meant cores.

[Link707]

I doth beleieve hes referring to processors within the gamepads, which there are none

Edited by Link707, 29 June 2012 - 10:44 AM.

[Socalmuscle]

LOL

This blogger has no idea what he is talking about.

Clearly, he has no idea why multicore processors and multiple threads per core were implemented in CPUs to begin with.

Beyond that, he has zero idea of the Wii U hardware power.

Just laughable ignorance from a blogger that is doing his career in the future as a journalistic hopeful no favors.

No one is going to want to hire this guy when he reports on his own assumptions instead of investigating facts.

The Wii U is a powerful, true next gen console which has been developed and redeveloped and redeveloped again (to the annoyance of those working on launch window games, mind you) as with all Nintendo consoles (save the Wii alone). Nintendo always starts lowball to keep their pricing in check. That follows incremental upgrades which continue to up the power over and over until they are satisfied the hardware will deliver for a long time to come. The final Wii U development was still underway as E3 was happening. That is why the "Oh by the way, you can use 2 Wii U Gamepads in the future: comment was slipped in instead of actual footage shown.

That said, the most graphically ambitious Wii U games will tone down the GamePad screen usage for menu items, etc. in order to show off the systems chops on the main screen for those games.

I imagine there will be a major hardware shortage due to the late manufacturing start as well.

I only hope people don't get all stupid when the console pricing comes out.

If it is $349 - $399, you should be glad.

People are so weird.

"I want it to be cheap!" Later on... "Hey, how come it can't do graphics like that other thing?"

or

"I want next gen graphics and experiences" later on... "Hey, how come it costs that much?!?"

At $349 - $399, this console is a steal. Take, it be glad you bought it. It is a great investment.

[Desert Punk]

I doth beleieve hes referring to processors within the gamepads, which there are none

Clearly the gamepad has to have its own processor which is likely to be an arm processor but you never know.

While Nintendo may not be forthcoming on the full details of the wii u spec I think we can be sure that the little they have stated will be correct. The mass produced devkit info was leaked at 3 core and I would of thought they would keep to that. Its unlikely to be more than 3 core as it would make the devkits useless surely and I can't see them reducing the cores from 3. How good the cpu is and how fast is another matter. There could be a primary full feature core and 2 inferior cores though which perhaps are close or identical to the wii cpu architecture and used for backwards compatibility but also used for running other code in wii u mode. The cell of the ps3 is basically one full powerpc cpu and 6 little inferior cpus that can run other code. It wouldn't be a radical departure for the wii u to have that.

If the wii u doesn't have a seperate dedicated wii cpu in addition to the 3 core cpu its likely at least one of the cores is going to be dedicated to wii compatiblity surely.

[Socalmuscle]

Clearly the gamepad has to have its own processor which is likely to be an arm processor but you never know.

While Nintendo may not be forthcoming on the full details of the wii u spec I think we can be sure that the little they have stated will be correct. The mass produced devkit info was leaked at 3 core and I would of thought they would keep to that. Its unlikely to be more than 3 core as it would make the devkits useless surely and I can't see them reducing the cores from 3. How good the cpu is and how fast is another matter. There could be a primary full feature core and 2 inferior cores though which perhaps are close or identical to the wii cpu architecture and used for backwards compatibility but also used for running other code in wii u mode. The cell of the ps3 is basically one full powerpc cpu and 6 little inferior cpus that can run other code. It wouldn't be a radical departure for the wii u to have that.

If the wii u doesn't have a seperate dedicated wii cpu in addition to the 3 core cpu its likely at least one of the cores is going to be dedicated to wii compatiblity surely.

1) Yes. even a "dummy" terminal requires processing power.

2) No. The Wii U has symmetrical cores and that greatly aids in developing for the system. It's also cheaper for IBM to deliver yields this way. The Cell architecture is part of the reason it is difficult to coax truly great performance from the system. Well, that and the gimped 8th SPU which was needed to achieve the performance potential Sony planned for...

The Wii U is also powerful enough to emulate the Wii/GCN without performance issues. However, the Wii CPU is cheaper than reconstituted dirt these days, so it wouldn't be shocking to see it included as is to play Wii games and perform double duty for other purposes (ala PS2 using refined PS chip for backwards compat as well as I/O).

[Link707]

Clearly the gamepad has to have its own processor which is likely to be an arm processor but you never know.

From what's been said the gamepads have NO processor just a graphics card.

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi believes that Wii U has capability issues due to it having a single processor driving multiple devices. Takahashi thinks that streaming content from the console to two Wii U GamePads is going to present huge challenges, due to the hardware which “itself isn’t that powerful.”

If it does it's to weak to perform intelligent functions beyond tv remote.

Edited by Link707, 29 June 2012 - 11:45 AM.

[WisdomPowerCourage]

This guy doesn't know anything if he thinks that a console totally based around streaming to a controller will have problems with streaming to a controller.

[Plutonas]

what he means single cpu... 1 core? lol Because if wii U have many cores and threads, that is not an issue..

[Joshua]

Another person who isn't part of a highly-acclaimed video game developer company who is bagging out the Wii U?

Heh, what else is new?