139 replies to this topic

[Zinix]

Wii U's tech specs aren't as impressive as initially thought and 4A Games won't be bringing Metro: Last Light to Nintendo's new console.

Published on Nov 20, 2012
Nintendo’s Wii U is out in the US and with reports coming in that its struggling in a number of areas, many are claiming its third party games aren’t quite up to the visual standard of their Xbox 360 and PS3 cousins.

That the Wii U struggles to render games (that run perfectly on the Xbox 360 and the PS3) is a worrying trend for Nintendo. In fact, some games currently scheduled for release on the 360, PS3 and PC won’t be heading to the Wii U at all because of the differences in processing power.

One of these titles will be 4 A Games’ Metro: Last Light. Chief technical officer, Oles Shishkovtsov, explains why Metro’s sequel won’t be appearing.

“[The] Wii U has a horrible, slow CPU,” explained Shishkovtsov. “We had an early look at it, we thought we could probably do it, but in terms of the impact we would make on the overall quality of the game – potentially to its detriment – we just figured it wasn’t worth pursuing at this time. It’s something we might return to. I really couldn’t make any promises, though.”

Despite Nintendo’s console offering Metro: Last Light new experiences to its players with it dual screens, when asked Shishkovtsov was adamant that the Wii U would ever seen Metro: Last Light when asked directly.

“We had an initial look at the Wii U, but given the size of the team and compared to where we were last time, just developing for the Playstation 3 is a significant addition.”

Is this bad news for the Wii U? Will it affect your decision to buy one? Let us know below.
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1687689/wii_u_has_a_horrible_slow_cpu_says_metro_last_light_dev.html
Ouch
Even though we knew this, it'll definitely hurt 3rd party support.

[3Dude]

"We had an early look at it"

Yay, more v1/2 devkit impressions.

[SoldMyWiiUAndLeftTheForums]

I truly don't belive any of this, not even a word, take a look at this: http://www.nintendo-...y-one-hysteria/ I belive in this opinion, and I truly think devs are talking out of thier asses as an excuse to not bother with the system.

[Alex Wolfers]

My wii u is fast. Dont listen to the hate.

[Zinix]

"We had an early look at it"

Yay, more v1/2 devkit impressions.

Many developers have confirmed the Wii U has a slow CPU, they've had the final development kits since E3.

http://www.slashgear.com/wii-us-slow-cpu-a-challenge-for-one-launch-developer-21248895/
http://www.videogamer.com/wiiu/tekken_tag_tournament_2/news/wii_u_cpu_speed_is_kind_of_low_says_tekken_producer.html
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/09/wii-u-developer-reports-struggles-with-slow-cpu/
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/1012281.20120924.Wii-U-CPU-slower-than-both-PS3-and-Xbox-360/

[Alex Wolfers]

Many developers have confirmed the Wii U has a slow CPU, they've had the final development kits since E3.

http://www.slashgear...loper-21248895/
http://www.videogame...n_producer.html
http://arstechnica.c...-with-slow-cpu/
http://www.gameplane...3-and-Xbox-360/

Still better than anything Microsoft can make.

[angelo07stang]

My wii u is fast. Dont listen to the hate.

So is mine Iiwsh all these trolls would go away I say we get out the pitch forks and torches and go troll hunting.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

angel - Why do you want to torch people who have the facts? The Nintendo fanboys are just as bad as the haters.

[Stormage09]

i know, but i dont know why i still have to buy that thing lol fdgfdgdfgsdgfd

[3Dude]

Many developers have confirmed the Wii U has a slow CPU, they've had the final development kits since E3.

http://www.slashgear...loper-21248895/
http://www.videogame...n_producer.html
http://arstechnica.c...-with-slow-cpu/
http://www.gameplane...3-and-Xbox-360/

Ah, very nice, butchered articles with cherry picked negative clips. Alow me to insert what was ACTUALLY said.
http://www.slashgear...loper-21248895/

"One of the weaknesses of the Wii U compared to PS3 and Xbox 360 is the CPU power is a little bit less," he said. "So for games in the Warriors series, including Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi, when you have a lot of enemies coming at you at once, the performance tends to be affected because of the CPU.

The cpu is clocked lower. Playing the Nintendo multiples game with the rams clock speed of 800Mhz, Im going to guess its clocked aqround 2.4 Ghz (3x multiplier). That means less flops, which is the only thing the ps3 and 360 can do without crapping the bed, so all games are designed around it. Wii u's cpu is strong in General processing tasks, like cpu's are supposed to be. That means you cant simply port 360/ps3 games to wii u, without relying on how the wii u can handle flops and simd loops, you have to redesign it for the system, which no port team has the resources or knowledge to do. Oh no Im not done, this is just the pre strike. Now Im going to post the quote that was left out of NINETY PERCENT OF THE REPOSTED NEWS STORIES because it didnt paint the controvertial image of wii u power the site wanted for clicks.

"With the Wii U being new hardware, we're still getting used to developing for it, so there are still a lot of things we don't know yet to bring out the most of the processing power. There's a lot that still needs to be explored in that area."

Yeah. Not in the article you posted is it? Wonder why.

http://www.videogame...n_producer.html

I cant believe you posted this. Harada went apehorse scat* all over twitter stating how his words were changed from the interview to give a slant to the article he never intended. He got the original interview taken down and an apology issued. We were laughing about this for weeks.


http://arstechnica.c...-with-slow-cpu/

Are you serious? This is a repost of the first story from a different site.

http://www.gameplane...3-and-Xbox-360/

Okay, seriously dude, youve used the SAME EXACT STORY three times. All three of your articles conveinently removed the fact they explained their problems were because they didnt know how to use the wii u cpu yet.

So you have a team that admits they havent figured the cpu out yet, and another one where the interview raged about his words being changed. Great stuff.

Someone post the Shin en cpu interview, Im tired of doing it.

[J03H]

Why do reviews/people only seem to talk about the specs and how powerful it is? How about they go by fun and things that actually contribute to an enjoyable experience? The graphics are fine, the features are good and the games will no doubt be wonderful within a couple of months.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

JO3H - It's Nintendo's fault for not telling us the specs in the first place. Their fanbase, us, want to know. And it could have saved a lot of discussion had they told us.

[J03H]

Meh, it just doesn't seem important to me as long as the console is fun. I haven't got a Wii U yet, so it might just be a lot worse than I expect it to be, I doubt it though.

[xile6]

I dont really believe have of this stuff about the wii u not being better spec wise then the ps3 and x360.
Time will tell, but so far to me it looks like the wii u wins and will blow them out the water.

[Nollog]

Still better than anything Microsoft can make.

You've been very fanboy lately.

Unprofessional comments, but I guess he's probably right.
He'd know more than us.
Regardless, even if they decided to port it now, it's not going to sell. Especially with comments like that to scare off his audience.

[goatsdown]

JO3H - It's Nintendo's fault for not telling us the specs in the first place. Their fanbase, us, want to know. And it could have saved a lot of discussion had they told us.

Really? The "fanbase" doesn't have a clue about to interpret specifications (which should be patently obvious by now). Drawing conclusions based on component specifications without any understanding of how the SYSTEM works is worthless.

The most "next-gen" thing about the WiiU is its system architecture. Apples to apples comparisons with last generations devices (which is essentially what you get from an early port) are not particularly informative.

[3Dude]

http://www.notenough...he-wii-u-power/

More specifically, we’ve heard rumors about the
CPU, that it’s supposedly the weakest link of the
system. Word has spread that it’s some sort of
Broadway (Wii CPU) but in a three-core
configuration and improved. Others have
argued that based on its reduced size seen in
recent pictures and the overall low consumption
of the unit, it is not very powerful. Have you
encountered any problems during your
development because of this component or is it
efficient enough?

We didn’t have such problems. The CPU and
GPU are a good match. As said before, today’s
hardware has bottlenecks with memory
throughput when you don’t care about your
coding style and data layout. This is true for any
hardware and can’t be only cured by throwing
more megahertz and cores on it. Fortunately
Nintendo made very wise choices for cache
layout, ram latency and ram size to work against
these pitfalls.

[PRP777]

If you didn't want a Wii U for it's exclusives then what were you expecting from it's ports? Most of you spec elitist should have been smart enough to build your own rig. It would have fulfilled your graphic whore needs.

[SoldMyWiiUAndLeftTheForums]

OMG this is getting out of controll, WHO THE HELL CARES, the system is fun, it's going to have good games so really who the hell cares, grow up people we will have the specs soon enough, I give it a week at most, hopefuly then all this crap can be put to bed, I'm sure there will still be some idiots who bring it up though, listen to yourselves people, your starting to sound like Microsoft and Sony trolls, geeze........................

[The Lonely Koopa]

OMG this is getting out of controll, WHO THE HELL CARES, the system is fun, it's going to have good games so really who the hell cares, grow up people we will have the specs soon enough, I give it a week at most, hopefuly then all this crap can be put to bed, I'm sure there will still be some idiots who bring it up though, listen to yourselves people, your starting to sound like Microsoft and Sony trolls, geeze........................

I care because I don't have piles of money to spend on multiple consoles so I am always stuck with 1 console per generation and I know that if this information is true and not edited Its really bad for future games on the wiiu. It sometimes start to seem like Nintendo can never make a console without a large achilles heel.