General Nintendo sales/business discussion topic (previously: The Wii U Thread)

[Sega DogTagz]

Wii2 leaves much less room for confusion. Is it as an exciting name as the Nintendo Stream? No. It's bland, but that's the point. Like I said, Nintendo needs to be take a sort of in-your-face approach with the fact that this is a NEW CONSOLE not another accessory.

[LunarEdge]

Wouldn't Wii 2 translate to Wii-Nii in Japan or w/e?

I agree with a whole new name. Wii is nice and all but I agree that there's too much accessories and etc. attached to the name that some casual players and parents will be confused by a title such as Wii U. Not to mention that it's been advertised with the last gen wii-motes and etc. making it even more confusing if you ask me.

Even if the Wii name does have a nice foothold on the market, so does the name "Nintendo." Calling it the Nintendo "Stream," won't hurt their business if you ask me seeing how people usually bend over backwards for Nintendo anyway.

[Chooch]

I'm gonna be honest and say that the main reason I wanted a whole new name for the Wii U is because to this day I still think the Wii is a silly name for a console and I never liked it.

Having to deal with the Wii name for another five years or so honestly kind of irks me.

[Marcello]

Wii Stream would've been pretty funny.

[Indigo Rush]

I remember when there was a time we thought it'd be called the Nintendo Feel.

Lol.

Fiil the Striim on your Wii Ni.

[Speederino]

My feelings on the Wii U are really damn mixed, and I think the best way to sum them up is to categorize them into a good list and a bad list.

Things I like about the Wii U:

- It's essentially the DS turned into a console. The dual screens and touch capabilities made it excellent, and it shouldn't be too different here.

- I will be able to take my console games with me when I use the can can not be around my own TV for some reason.

- HD Graphics, yay! (Well, sort of. More on that in the next list)

- I like the 3DS's augmented reality and motion controls, and seeing this incorporated into the new console brings me joy.

- Backwards compatibility with Wii games

Things I don't like:

- The name is hideous. We all hated "Wii" at first, but I got used to it enough that I could say it without giggling like a schoolgirl. The Wii U? Obvious siren jokes aside, it just feels clumsy and awkward to say out loud, and almost seems like a parody of its predecessors name. I'd much rather just call it the Wii 2, or even just the U. That at least wouldn't be any dumber then Wii.

- As much as I like the controller's capabilities, I need to hold one in my hand. It looks like it might be a bit heavy and uncomfortable, and the size worries me a bit. Remember the Xbox's original controller? That has nothing on this.

- At first I was excited to see third parties showing off online games for the Wii U, and it seemed certain that Nintendo had finally gotten their shit together and made a decent online service. It turns out that they're ABANDONING their own online service and making developers build their own online infrastructure. No universal friends list, voice chat, trophies, or anything. I mean god damn Nintendo, talk about a massive leap backwards. Hopefully this is all a misunderstanding. Please, please let this information be wrong.

- Only one tablet controller per console. This just seems like a huge waste of potential for local multiplayer. Can you imagine having several players in the same room each with their own screen? You should be able to do this with two people, but like I said, it's just a waste of potential to keep it at two. Nintendo says that it would be too expensive for the consumer to buy a new tablet. Can't we decide that for ourselves, or is this just a way of saying "We won't make money due to the cost of manufacturing them outweighing the return profit?"

- The hardware. I'm glad to finally see an HD Zelda, but I'm worried this will have the same problems as the Wii with third party support. Yes, it has a great launch line-up, yes Nintendo is finally on the same boat as everyone else...at the moment. Am I the only one who realizes we're toward the end of a console generation, and that the Wii U's hardware is essentially the PS3 1.5 from the looks of things? Microsoft and Sony WILL unveil their new consoles before long, and odds are that they will have vastly supurior graphic capabilities and, most importantly, hardware. It's too early to tell for sure, but it seems history is bound to repeat itself with third parties giving the Wii U dumbed down ports or forsaking the console alltogether.

Of course, as skeptical as I am, I know I'll still get a Wii U just for the first party titles. But it looks and sounds like the Wii U has some serious issues, and I doubt it's going to reign supreme as far as quality titles go. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Speederino

[Conando]

Your second to last con is a bit flawed, man. Sony has already gone on record saying they're approaching PS4 differently, no major leap in graphics capabilities like it was from 2 to 3. Microsoft could still do it, though, considering they can bleed money with no major damages taken.

[Phos]

I've heard some theories that the Wii U's one controller per console thing might be motivated by not having enough bandwidth to transmit that much data to more than one controller, though more likely its due to these things being way too expensive for anyone to really buy more than one. All that and no multitouch to boot.

This generation of consoles has taught me to kind of hate wireless controllers. Having to deal with batteries and the newfound capability of being able to lose them is not an upgrade if you ask me. The Wii is in some ways the worst offender here. No official support for rechargeable batteries, classic controllers bound to the Wiimote (so that means each controller costs something like 70 dollars), and now they're presumably removing the gamecube ports?

I'd release wired controller with like a four inch screen that gets rid of the the bullshit no one uses. Basically, everything but the buttons and the screen.

This console is going to end up right where the Wii is now as soon as any other major console is released.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Phos

[Speederino]

Your second to last con is a bit flawed, man. Sony has already gone on record saying they're approaching PS4 differently, no major leap in graphics capabilities like it was from 2 to 3. Microsoft could still do it, though, considering they can bleed money with no major damages taken.

I hope that's true. If only one console makes that much of a significant leap, then the PS4 and Wii U might help balance each other out a little bit.

[Scar]

Your second to last con is a bit flawed, man. Sony has already gone on record saying they're approaching PS4 differently, no major leap in graphics capabilities like it was from 2 to 3. Microsoft could still do it, though, considering they can bleed money with no major damages taken.

They don't need to significantly change the PS3 in the transition to the PS4 though. Its not a complete hardware revision like it was from 2 to 3.

I'm assuming they're just going to increase the clock speed of the CELL, maybe give it a couple more PPEs/SPEs for good measure(or just literally stack two or three CELL chips onto a single motherboard). After that, all they need to do is give the thing more System RAM (dedicated VRAM would be nice) and a better GPU. That's about it.

Microsoft may go the way of Sony this generation and just leap at new technology, or they might try and pull a Microsoft and just make the minimum power required for Gen 8 and price it competitively.

[eXtaticus]

So, I've seen people talking about what kind of performance the Xbox 3 and PS4 will give, and I think that I have a pretty good representation of what I'd like to see from them:

This at an average 60FPS:

As opposed to this at an average <30FPS:

Of course, the Wii U will be far closer to the latter than anything else...

[Candescence]

Not exactly a good example. Crysis 2 was optimized to hell and back to actually so much as WORK on current-gen consoles, even to the point of being inferior to the original game in some respects, graphically. The Wii U can probably do 60 FPS for it, no question. The better question is, how well can it run Cryengine 3 with better detail than the original in every way?

[Patticus]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/07/06/the-story-behind-the-wii-u-and-darksiders-ii.aspx

It's pretty interesting from a developer's point of view. It took the Darksiders team about a week to get the core game engine up and running, then another week and a bit to get something on the screen, then a bit more to get it looking nice. Three programmers, for five weeks, was all it took to port the game to the Wii U. It only took them ten minutes to get the game running on the controller screen.

It's a shame Nintendo didn't reward them for their effort by showing it running on actual hardware, but if games can be ported so obscenely easily it certainly bodes well for Nintendo's attempt to have "all the multiformat games + worthwhile exclusives".

[Detective Shadzter]

Picked up the new ONM. Here's their small feature on Wii U.

I've also scanned up the whole of the free Wii U Special Edition magazine that came with it.

If anyone wants to archive these scans, it's Official Nintendo Magazine Issue 71 August 2011.

[Patticus]

I like that ONM neglects to mention the fact that Metro 2033 was available for the 360 as well. It was not, as they erroneously state, a PC exclusive.

[ChikaBoing]

Huh having a gyroscope in it as good as the MotionPlus opens up some more possibilities.

Edited July 10, 2011 by ChikaBoing

[Tatsumaki]

Nice read. Thanks, Shadzter!

However, I still don't feel very convinced with all this Wii U stuff. There's been a lot of stuff that's been explained in that magazine, but I can't help but feel that Nintendo has said nothing about their hardware. The games they have aren't really that interesting, I find the stuff the Wii U can do to be pretty useless (with the exception of the controller being able to transfer from the TV to the controller, and use the controller as a tablet). How about games? Exclusive ones? The only one that's been presented is that Mario game, and to be honest, it looks more-or-less the same stuff I saw on its predecessor. Heh, in fact, the Wii U hasn't shown anything to convince me at all. It looks like it's going to be a good console, but yeah. I think it may have a bumpy start like PS3 had in 2006. It was interesting though, the news that Patticus posted about the Wii U being very easy to port over, as the Darksiders team already did it. But I'm not going to do anything hasty, not yet. I want a more close-up look on the hardware. I also want more details concerning the ports. I want to see them work, look, and feel just as well or better than the lead platform.

[Blue Wisp]

You can clip the controller.

...

To the Wii Zapper.

And act like a Sniper Zoom.

...

...

...

[Tornado]

I hope whoever wrote the section about how the system could "transform sports games" was taking the piss. I really do.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Tornado

[LunarEdge]

You can clip the controller.

...

To the Wii Zapper.

And act like a Sniper Zoom.

...

...

...

Shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg

if thats the only reason you want a Wii U, you're going to regret it

[Candescence]

How about games? Exclusive ones?

Perhaps, if you were actually paying attention, then you'd notice that Killer Freaks from Outer Space is the first Wii U third-party exclusive, and makes unique use of the controller (moving the controller around to aim in single-player, and in multiplayer, one person shoots, the other directs the aliens).

I want to see them work, look, and feel just as well or better than the lead platform.

It was explicitly said in the ONM article on Darksiders 2 that the Wii U version is on par with the PC version, which is basically the top-spec platform for that title. That's a good sign as any, no?

[Carbo]

http://www.nintendogal.com/2011/07/19/nintendogal-com-interviews-amber-mccollom-e3-2011/7180/

NG: I noticed on backwards compatibility at the press conference that the GameCube was missing. Why is this?

AM: You know it’s interesting that you bring up backwards compatibility and Nintendo’s history usually goes back one system. The Wii was compatible with GameCube and Wii U will be compatible with Wii and that’s pretty traditional in launches from Nintendo.

NG: So the Wii U will not support the discs or accessories?

AM: Actually the GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare.

Oh snap

[GameFarnsworth940]

http://www.nintendogal.com/2011/07/19/nintendogal-com-interviews-amber-mccollom-e3-2011/7180/

Oh snap

Downloadable GCN games?

Wait, Nintendo has allowed the download of full games on their store now after N64? Good god that means some of the games Wiiware/VC missed out on now have a chance of hitting Wii-U (Xmen Arcade, MvC2, just wishful thinking though). I'm assuming they had to remove the Wiiware's size limit, or at least increase it to allow these games on now.

[Carbo]

WiiWare's limits never changed. This is probably referring to the new WiiWare (WiiUWare?) that will inevitably come up for the system.

Assuming she's right then Nintendo really are taking hardware seriously with this, that thing's gonna need a pretty big amount of flash memory/hard drive/what have you.

[Tornado]

Really, Nintendo? Not even trying to hide it? At least Sony put it off for a couple of years before they started pulling that.

Edit: And I think it would be great if the NegRep spam would at least come with an explanation this time. Because I truly want to know why Nintendo removing Gamecube disc backwards compatibility only to announce Gamecube games will come to WiiWare before the fucking system has even come out is anything but a complete sleazebag move.

Edited July 20, 2011 by Tornado