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Wii Graphics 'Better Than At E3'
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jun 04, 2006 03:21 PM
from the details-details dept.
from the details-details dept.
Gamespot and GameDaily have additional details on Nintendo's upcoming console. Gamespot reports on comments by Nintendo President Iwata that they were specifically not going for high-end graphics with the Wii. He goes on to say that some of their staff initially disagreed with the adoption of the Wiimote, but public and internal reaction has allayed the fears of detractors. GameDaily reports on comments from ATI, who says there is still a lot left to see from Wii's graphical output. What was shown at E3 was 'just the tip of the iceberg.' From the article: "Industry sources have said that the Wii GPU would be moderately more powerful than the GameCube's GPU, but how much more we don't know. Conservative estimates from developers have placed the Wii console as a whole at 2 - 2.5 times more powerful than the GameCube."
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The Wii's Brain Exposed 241 comments
Jon Stokes, at the Opposable Thumbs column, discusses a final revelation of the Wii's technical prowess. Though it's been assumed since the early days of the marketing push that the Wii is basically a super-charged GameCube, a post to Acer's Hardware boards would seem to confirm that. Not, as Mr. Stokes says, that that is a bad thing: "I'm no longer nearly as upset about the implications of this move as I was back in August. In fact, thanks in large part to my DS Lite, I've gone from being disappointed at Wii's underpowered hardware to actually anticipating the new console. I plan to pick one up when they become generally available, and I'm even hoping to hook my (nongamer) wife on it."
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They may have a winner (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They may have a winner (Score:3, Interesting)
If console wars were won and lost on price alone, Nintendo would have been #1 with the GameCube. The fact of the matter is that's not all it takes. In fact, it's rare for the cheapest system to win in any given generation - generally, the cheapest system is cheap for a reason. If Nintendo were operating from a position of strength, they might be able to charge $600 like Sony apparently thinks they can. Trying to compete on price is a sign that you are
Re:They may have a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be true, but it's also worth mentioning that there's never been a particularly successful console that cost anywhere near $600. Not to say that Sony can't pull it off, but Neo Geo and 3DO certainly weren't able to.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They may have a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
If Sony was releasing the exact same system as the PS3, with the exact same specs, and the exact same price, the only difference being that the PS1 & 2 never existed, I think they'd have been laughed right out of E3. $600 for a mass market game console is ridiculous.
The PlayStation name is the only thing that will give the PS3 a chance at that price.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:4, Insightful)
the sony name equates to quality in the minds of the average consumer. whether that is true of the product or not, that is still the case in the mindshare of j. q. public. people trust the sony name when it comes to consumer electronics; rootkit or not.
for the first time ever, sony game consoles are going to try to bank on that same trust. the psp is generally speaking seen as a higher quality handheld. [hence the DS redesign] the ps3 is supposed to end up being a higher quality home console. [hence the marketing/pricing scheme] they are both more expensive than their competitors. the hardware is there and to alot of consumers thats what matters, but in the video game world software is king.
a couple of months or so after launch, the console and its price start to matter less and less, its games start to mean alot more in the eyes of consumers. since thats where the real money is made, thats where the battle will be won.
personally, nintendo makes some very nice products and great games. their failure to win the console race in the last several years is a result of a lack diversity and a sad release schedule. great games trickle out of the house of N maybe once or twice a year. the wii seems great, but if they dont secure some solid third party exclusives to tide gamers over between the mario-link-samus-smashbrothers-pokemon roundrobin release schedule, i predict a repeat of the gamecube.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
But now we are talking about $200, $400, and $600. The first two (Wii and 360) are already pretty different. But when you put a Wii ($200) up against a PS3 ($600) you have to ask yourself: is that PS3 REALLY going to be 3x as fun? Do you need it now or can you wait until it hits $400 or buy it used?
That $400 is a BIG difference.
As others have pointed out, launching $300-$400 above you competition has historically not been a very smart move.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:3, Informative)
No one uses the high poly model for the game, it's for cinematics and for normal map creation. Having worked with Maya and 3D studio max for 5 years now, I can assure you there is no magic tool that low
Re:They may have a winner (Score:4, Insightful)
1080p HD movies - No. Image Constraint Token means no HD without HDMI.
1080p TVs prices are in a freefall - If by free fall you mean too goddamn expensive to consider for at least three years, then yes
1080p games - No 1080p TV see above
Free online play for games - Nintendo has this already. We have yet to see how free the PS3's online really will be.
Support for 25gig game data - Wii reads its 10 GB far faster than the PS3 can read the first 10 GB on a Blu-Ray. Enjoy your load times. "But they will cache to the HD!" 20 GB HD... 25 GB game... do the math.
~15000 library of backward compatible games - Backward compatibility will not be native. We'll see how good the emulation will work. Oh, and no legacy memory card support means no previously saved games.
Linux - Who the fuck cares? No, really. Who the fuck cares?
Online music store - See Linux
Web browsing - Opera Embedded on Wii
Tilt controller - Only tilt? How GameBoy.
PSP connectivity - Wii has DS Connectivity... and people actually own DSs
And an even larger library of exclusive games than with the the PS1 or PS2. - That remains to be seen.
Post with your name, you shill.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:3, Insightful)
I will most likely buy Wii over an Xbox360 or a PS3. Nintendo has always come out with 1st rate games, and you can't get Zelda or Mario anywhere else.
Re:They may have a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the DS Lite outselling the PSP in Japan at around 8:1 right now, and at best the PSP is approaching parity with the DS in North America. Factor in the loss of one of the major features of the PSP that Sony is trying to push (UMD movie playback), and I think that the best argument you can make is "losing" vs. "lost."
"and the DS is not "nearly" half the price of the psp."
Bare-bones packages sell for $130 for the DS and $200 for the PSP, the 15% difference seems to justify the "nearly" adjective. Factor in the price of the required Memory Stick for game saves (not an issue for the DS) and the way PSP games tend to be $50 versus the $35 new DS games sell for, and we can even start talking about "less than."
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:4, Insightful)
But you aren't something so what do we care if you WOULD do something that you would never end up doing...
See, that's the rub. Nintendo has stated very clearly that they care what this guy would do. He's the sort of guy that composes most of the non-hardcore gaming market, which, in turn, is most of the potential market. He won't go out and buy every game console, just one. Nintentdo is hoping to be that one. As such he has a very valid point. The full-blown-computer-crammed-in-a-box consoles, as he points out, are far too expensive for most people. Moreover, they don't really offer all that much of a PC, which, again, the GP points out.
There's no reason to be a jerk about things, especially when you really don't have a point at all.
Parent
Re:They may have a winner (Score:3, Insightful)
The market Nintendo is targetting with the Wii is the hypothetical casual gamer market. There are some indications that there is such a market, as evidenced by sales of games like the Sims, but saying "most of the potential market" is non-hardcore (by your definition) is misleading. There are no indications that the casual gaming market is anywhere close to the size,
I always got the impression... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:3, Insightful)
Innovation just means a leap is progress. Even if it's not a very big leap.
"A new and unusual thing: novelty."
New is subjective in all gaming innovations, but the Wiimote is quite a novelt
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Wii will be able to output graphics 2-2.5 less 'shitty' than Resident Evil 4 or Metroid Prime.
To do some simple, non-irrefutable math:
2-2.5 * pretty fucking good = what the hell more do you want?
Seriously, you people need to listen to yourselves once in a while.
--Jeremy
Parent
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:5, Informative)
Going from a Celeron 733MHz to three PowerPC cores at 3.2GHz is going to offer much more than double the performance. Going from a GeForce 3 GPU to a chip competitive with a 7800 is going to do over eight times as many polygons with many more effects. A GF 5900 was twice as powerful as a GF 3. The 6800 was 2x compared to the 5900, and the 7800 was 2x compared to the 6800.
PC Games bear this out, as will the 360 games this Christmas.
Parent
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:5, Informative)
Which would matter if Zelda: Twilight Princess was a Wii game.
It's not. It's a GameCube game. Its control scheme was updated and it'll be sold as a Wii game, but graphically it won't look any different on the GameCube vs. the Wii. Other than maybe progressive scan.
If you want a good comparison of Wii vs GameCube level graphics, look here [wikipedia.org] at the evolution of the Super Smash Brothers artwork. It's - uh - not a small jump at all.
Then take a look at the SSBB trailer (which is an in-game trailer). The one thing that popped into my mind while watching it (and while playing Kingdom Hearts 2/Dragon Quest VIII this week) is this: graphically, if we want to reproduce cartoons, we're done. They're essentially perfect - the limiting feature at this point is the desire of the programmer to put in the details, not the console to output the graphics and the artist to take the time in making them.
Now, if you want realistic looking games, you've got a ways to go, but the limiting feature there won't be the graphics anyway - it'll be the AI, motion capture, and physics. Who cares if the thing on screen looks like Indiana Jones if it moves like a mannequin?
And that's why the Wii's graphics will do fine - because they're good enough to replicate cartoons, and game developers are too lazy to make realistic games look realistic.
Heck, that's the main issue I've had with PC gaming for a while. They keep trying to make things look realistic and pretty, which leads to great still shots... but things just look like a computer game when things start to move again.
Parent
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah. Because Wii has a significant amount more texture memory and shader capability than the GameCube did.
Not everything is about polygons.
Re:I always got the impression... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a game developer, currently working on a console title that will release on PS2 and Gamecube, and you're repeating an oft quoted but totally baseless myth with point number 5 here. The gamecube hardware is more powerful than the PS2
It is a testemant to Sony's "Super computer" cell processor hype and Nintendos "Its not about the power" company line that keeps this old wives tale still perpetuated in 2006.
But make no mistake, the GPU and CPU on gamecube are more powerful than those of the PS2. Higher clock rates, more ram (although the non CPU addressable ARAM in the gamecube requires more management for memory use optimisation)
Parent
Re:Gamecube Power - Proof in Pictures (Score:3, Interesting)
If you were displaying a flat-shaded CAD model, the PS2 would indeed be tremendously faster.
Just Hype? (Score:4, Insightful)
Video enhances gameplay: but it's only a topping (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to face the fact, that even though I admire gameplay and that "game-play" is really why we "play-games", graphics are darn interesting.
Additionally, the fact that the Wii is going to offer such a unique interface device will, I think, allow us to see "graphics" which will be completely absent on the other consoles. What I mean by this is that because the wiimote offers such a more intimate and intuitive interface with the console's game world that we will be able to interact with it in ways that will have the effect of looking even more "real-life" than a console with simply raw video processing power.
Example: by being able to hold a cooking skillet or wok and flip, shake, swirl and turn the food around in it the resulting imagery on the screen should looks very much and especially FEEL very much more "life like" than by being forced to use a joystick or keypad to move the virtual cookware.
Any additional video processing power should only serve to further enhance this experience. And that's truly what video should be for video games - the enhancement part (like a spice) - not the main course.
Hmm, I'm using a lot of cooking examples - is it lunch time yet?
--
Music should be free [w33t.com]
Looking better and better every day (Score:3, Interesting)
Current gen on up with the Wii? (Score:5, Interesting)
The current Wii games that have just been shown look to be as good as "current" Gamecube games, which doesn't surprise me. Most of the dev kits the developers have were modified Gamecube kits with the controller, so odds are, that's the level of tech they focused on. So E3 shown games looked just like Gamecube games.
Since we can bet that the graphics chip has gone under a 2.5 - 3 x increase since the Gamecube, that should mean that within a year or so (as devs get used to the actual Wii developers kits and their power level), games should look better graphically.
Then again, with the Wii, most of us will shrug and go "Whatever". I've been playing "Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2" today, and only just noticed that there were reflections on the floor. Then I tuned it out while I played. With the Wii's controller, odds are they won't have to compete on the graphics, letting Sony and MS developers spending the extra money on artwork that could have gone to game play.
WTF?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm shocked. Shocked!
The same is true for all consoles and all games (as long as they're actually running in real-time on the real hardware and are not just bullshots [penny-arcade.com] or "target renders" *cough*Killzone2 [gametrailers.com]*cough*)
Games that made you use your imagination (Score:3, Insightful)
I have always been a fan of game playability/fun factor/games that make you use your imagination, similar to a book. IMHO complicated graphics, sound, and movies inside games seem like they tend to take away from the fun of the game. If I wanted to play a game that looks absolutely like real life, I guess I woulnd't use a game console and go play real tennis. The 256 colors and the 8-bit sound had a magic to it.
There used to be a game by Lucasfilms called Indiana Jones 3, Last crusade, on the PC, around 1990 or so, in the game you could go anywhere you wanted, and solve puzzles not necessarily in the order that they need to be solved. Graphics were VGA, 256 colors, but now that I think about it, the fact that I used my imagination more might have made the game a bit more fun; the fact that the boss didn't look picture perfect helped him out a bit, similar to reading a book and visualizing the characters.
It's hard to pin down what I'm really trying to say here, but I loved the sierra games in the 80s, but maybe it's beause I'm older, but today's games just don't do it for me anymore. The other day I played mario kart and super mario world (is that what it was called) on the super nintendo, and had tons of fun, despite how old it is. Seems like Wii is trying appeal to this kind of demand.Slightly-OT (Score:3, Informative)
Look at THIS [aeropause.com] image and marvel at what Nintendo's engineers are capable of.
Re:Slightly-OT (Score:3, Interesting)
'2 - 2.5x more powerful' is what they said... They probably actually MEAN '2 - 2.5x as powerful'. It's quite a difference.
If you make the GC a 1 for power, the first statement makes the Wii a 3.0 or 3.5. The second statement (the one they probably mean) would make the the Wii a 2.0 or 2.5. Quite some difference.
In the end, numbers like these mean nothing because you cannot trust the speaker to:
A) Know WTF he's talking about
an
How things change (Score:5, Insightful)
So it was indeed a temporary thing. Good lesson in marketing, and a great decision to announce it the week before E3 instead of E3.
Also notice how this brought them popularity: they're all over the press with articles about Wii's performance, remote, features, price and so on.
The PS3 is almost invisible around Wii.
Wii and Opera (Score:4, Informative)
Opera Drops Details On Wii Version
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/nintendo/opera-drops
Personally, I don't think anything less than HD resolution for a TV is horrible for webbrowsing. I've used hand helds, dreamcasts, etc. The only console so far worth web browsing on was a PS2 with netfront. Want to know why?
1. No one designs their site for NTSC.
2. The PS2 browsing was SVGA resolution ( at least the way I was running it over a monitor )
3. You need a real keyboard and mouse at some point.
I'm hoping my playstation 3 will have branded kb+mice at some point, since I like such things to match. At least the other consoles can display the resolutions needed for me to read the websites. It's ok for nintendo since I doubt anyone will do more than browse demos anyway. Also I need a PSP kb, since I still haven't found a better way to use google maps in a handheld. If DS isn't ass for it I'll buy a DS lite for portable web browsing. =)
Slashdot v. Gamespot (Score:3, Insightful)
Tech specs aren't THAT important (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm as much of a "tech-spec" geek as the next guy, but talking about how good a console is based on specs is akin to talking about how good a novel is based on the quality of the typesetting job.
It really *is* the games that count. And the Wii remote really is pretty cool. I haven't owned a Nintendo system since the NES, and I'm excited about the Wii, because it FINALLY gives us a new way to play games. Maybe it's not the "revolution" that Nintendo claims it is, but at least it's something new and different.
Just ignorant (Score:4, Interesting)
- 2-2.5x the power of Gamecube is a CONSERVATIVE estimate.
- The graphics in Resident Evil 4 were considered better on Gamecube than on any other platform. The graphics rivaled even the best of PC games like HL2 and Doom 3. The Gamecube was NOT a weak system, it's potential was just rarely reached.
- The Wii architecture is near identical to Gamecube, just multiplied in horsepower a few times. This means anyone that worked on Gamecube doesn't have to learn a new platform. This is unique to the Wii among consoles.
- Some very big names like BioWare and Capcom are onboard for the Wii, and their developers are excited as hell. You can pretty much count on these companies to squeeze everything they can out of the hardware and blow everyone away. Can you imagine a Resident Evil game with 3x the graphics of the 4th one, AND with new gameplay enabled by the Wiimote?
It's telling of Wii's upside just how desperate and weak the trolls' description of the downside sounds. There's never a guarantee and it will all come down to the games, but the naysayers really don't have anywhere to stand this time. If the Wii fails it will be against ALL rational expectations. But if you wanna hedge your bets and troll it, oh well, your loss when it's a success. I know how hard it is to say anything positive on the internets. Can't risk the e-peen.
Re:Just ignorant (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, now that might just be a bit of hyperbole on your part. Sure, said games were definately at the top for that generation of consoles, but they weren't HL2 or Doom 3 level; even when running those two games on my two year old desktop PC with its 9800 Pro. Not that tha
The Underhype (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus, they're simultaneously lowering expectations about power while building anticipation for something completely subjective (fun), rather than something mechanised and unaffected by opinion, like polygon counts or megahertz. Thus, when they finally release the Wii and it actually does turn out to be a reasonably powerful machine that also seems to make gaming fun again (if people want to believe this, they will), Nintendo can say "Gaming is fun again! Oh yeah, and it's powerful too". Nintendo wins.
Deep down, people want to believe that gaming is more than just graphics, and if the Wii gets it right, we'll all believe them. Everyone wins (except Sony and MS).
Contextual graphics argument (Score:4, Funny)
Bob: Hey! I heard Atari is going to put out the 2600 which is just like the VCS graphically except it's in a black case instead of a faux-wood one.
Joe: Screw that - I'm getting a ColecoVision.
Bob: Graphics aren't everything - there's also gameplay. I don't care about graphics.
John: Anyone seen this Famicom in Japan? It's got great graphics.
At which point above do you think one of the characters blew milk out his nose?
Same old games... depends who you ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
All those game were new to me, and so were they to MILLION of other people who had been out of gaming for years or just started playing for the first time. We are definitely not blasé about the current crop of games. I'll gladly play Kotor 3, Ninja Gaiden 2 (well, technically, that would be 5), Halo 3 and Dead or Alive 4. That's why I got a 360 a month after it came out. I knew it would be more of the stuff that got me back into console gaming. I have no problem playing a game like Ghost Recon : Advance Warfighter, I never even played a tactical FPS before this one. While this game may only be Ghost Recon 2 + pretty graphics + better AI (tough, I'm not impressed about the AI... anyway) to a lot of people, to me it was a fresh new experience that got me into that genre. I'll probably take a look at Rainbow Six Vegas when it comes out.
Why would I even want a Wii for it's groundbreaking new controller? Most of the stuff I played on my Xbox and now the 360 are maybe not ground breaking to others, but they are to me. Sure I could experience new ways of controlling the game, but I'm already experiencing so much new with the 360.
I get if you've been playing games for the last 20 years through every generations, you might feel the need for Nintendo's Wii controller. I really respect what they are trying to accomplish and I'll probably have fun playing with it at a friend's house. Me personnally, I'll probably have fun discovering genres that are new to me. Even with my "primitive controller" (which, btw, feels like the nicest controller I've ever held in my hand. Give me an Xbox controller over a dual shock any day.)
Are tech-specs really important to the player? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Graphics..... whatever. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fuzzy math question (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. If the old chip used 10W and the new one requires 25W, that's 2.5 times more "powerful".
Parent
Re:Worthless article. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worthless article. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rosy eyed nostalgia (Score:5, Insightful)
Back before technology became good enough for FPS, big development houses were pumping out platformers at a rate they could only dream of doing with the more technologically complicated FPS. How many games have you played with Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen etc. in their names? Furthermore, how often have they had something unique compared to the rest of their franchise or the other franchises for that matter? That doesn't mean they wern't fun, they just wern't unique in any way shape or form.
As for top down games, how about the Command and Conquer series, the Legend of Zelda series, the Ultima series the war/star craft series and anything by squaresoft (I know some of those games went 3d later on, but retained the original gameplay)? I played and enjoyed all of them too, it doesn't mean that they had any differences to one another of any significance. Remember when every man and his dog had a top down RTS in the late 90s and they were all the same apart from subtle unit naming differences?
Nostalgia is a beatiful thing, but it never gives you the right to be judgemental. The game industry has always been an incestuous nest of copycats, but they have always made us happy with what they have produced as long as our expectations have been low. If anything, I think it is getting better, with games getting bigger there is more places they can accidently do something slightly differently to their last game.
Parent
Re:Real Wii Graphics Better Than The 360 (Score:5, Insightful)
That wasn't such a big deal 5-10 years ago, cause all those adults didn't know what they were missing. They didn't grow up with video games. But now a bunch of us childhood gamers are busy with the real world, but don't want to completely give up a hobby that has brought us so much enjoyment. Nintendo has noticed this, and noticed how big of a market we are (and how we've generally got a decent amount of disposable income), and is gearing their console towards our needs.
Furthermore, I'm not sure why you're so certain that we're going to get bored with this new controller. Is moving your arms around a little somehow innately less fun than just pushing a bunch of abstract buttons stuck on a piece of plastic? I think you're still sort of stuck in some sort of mindset relating back to those little control demos that Nintendo showed back when they first announced the remote controller. Just because your imagination hasn't allowed you to see any involved or engaging uses for the controller doesn't mean that game designers are having the same problem.
When the party atmosphere is gone, people will stop playing certain games. But instead of putting down the Wii remote and picking up a PS3 controller, maybe they'll just put a different disc into the Wii, and play something else.
Parent
Re:Real Wii Graphics Better Than The 360 (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm curious. This is evidenced by what?
Parent
Re:Super graphics with no HDTV (Score:4, Insightful)
(a) More than 14 people own HDTV
(b) More than 14 people will buy an HDTV in the next 6 years
(c) The PS3 is 500 and 600 respectively
(d) You're a troll. But - still - how do you keep your apartment under the bridge looking so fresh?
Parent
Re:Wii graphics will be substantial (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Just release the controller for GameCube... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its just clear that they have to take a hit this generation and shift their strategy towards new ideas, rather than best technology.
Maybe they could stop competing with Sony and MS on high end hardware and just make a cheap, small, decent console and revolutionize the way people play games by inventing a new type of controller.
...
oh wait
PS: although I liked consoles since I first played double dragon on the NES I never owned a console myself. The Wii will be the first one I'll own so maybe there is a brigh