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Some Truth to Wii as GameCube 1.5?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri May 11, 2007 08:35 AM
from the low-blows-when-the-strike-true dept.
from the low-blows-when-the-strike-true dept.
Newsweek's N'Gai tackles the allegation that the Wii is a glorified GameCube. He specifically looked at recent comments by Microsoft's Robbie Bach saying that 'the video graphics on it aren't very strong; the box itself is kind of underpowered; it doesn't play DVDs; there are a lot of down-line components [that] aren't actually that interesting. ... They don't have the graphics horsepower that even Xbox 1 had. So it makes sort of the comparison set a little bit difficult.' LevelUp spoke with a pair of technical experts at third party publishers and learned that, essentially, Bach's comments about horsepower are accurate. However, "the 'Gamecube 1.5' moniker, while accurate, doesn't mean that gamers won't see graphical improvements on the Wii. 'There are three main differences which will result in graphics improvements. One, the increased memory clock speed, from 162 megahertz to 243 megahertz, means that it is easier to do enough pixels for 480p mode versus 480i. Two, the enhanced memory size of the Wii gives much more room for image-related operations such as anti-aliasing, motion blur, etc. The performance to these memory systems from the graphics chip is also improved. So full-screen effects and increased texture usage seem likely as a result.'"
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Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Graphics are not the only thing that makes a game console new and improved, there are many more factors.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The wii's motion sensing capability is so novel, it really makes the graphics not matter.
I don't see how you can arrive at that conclusion. I love the Wii remote for games like Wii Sports, Rayman and Tiger Woods. It still pisses me off that it's so blurry and indisticint in some games and it makes them much less pleasant, though I realise the impact is less significant of those not used to HD games on large displays.
Graphics certainly matter to gameplay and IMO with 3D games it's that much more important to have the fidelity than in 2D games. Compare Super Mario World (2D) which has aged very well (and still looks great on a large Plasma), with Mario 64.
On the Wii, Rayman has good, crisp, well styled graphics that are suited to the Wii's abilitles. I have nothing bad to say about the graphics on that title, great job guys. It's fair to say Tiger Woods doesn't really try push the Wii, but if it had been easier to get more out of the console, it would look a heck of a lot better. It's disappointing, but the line up of *good* Wii titles is anemic at the moment. as for any newly launched console, so it will do (until EA release a new version in time for xmas). Zelda has graphically been a big disappointment and is very murky and instinct in places, it's murky color pallet doesn't help. The gameplay is okay, but it's not always easy to navigate the world or identify potential points of interest because of the low fidelity (I don't find that aspect 'challenging' anymore than I find it fun when I lose my glasses, it's just annoying).
I'm not even going to talk about Far Cry. Just think of that JavaScript +canvas FPS demo, scalled from a 150x150 box to a 50" screen, except imagine looking at it through the bottom of a pint glass. Except the gameplay isn't as good (but that's going OT).
Most of my TV is in HD these days (from movies, to series (shows like SG-1, Atlantis, Battlestar Galatica, Torchwood), a number of new BBC shows (Planet Earth) and the Discovery/History channels) even the stuff that I watch that isn't (e.g. regular BBC TV shows, News 24) is of far higher fidelity than the content on the Wii (which is typically upscaled from 3D from a very low resolution). Of course all the games on the 360 are miles better graphically (I wouldn't never get titles like Sports, Rayman or Tiger Woods on the 360 though, as the only appeal to me because of the controller). So, my point is, I'm use to considerably better quality (and have been for over a year now) when it comes to entertainment.
I will say that if you have a smaller TV, the much lower quality is not as noticeable. If you are not used to better quality images, it's not as noticeable. That applies to a lot of people (just look at how well the PS2 is still doing, and it's STILL crappier than the ~ '98 Dreamcast!). Personally I'd rather pay market rate and have a better product, than a cheaper product where corners have been cut, and that's the truth of it.
I haven't bought any racing games for the Wii, and I don't currently plan do (unless someone brings out something that actually looks half decent AND uses the controller in an interesting way). If I want a better controller input for racing, I'll use a steering wheel (there are plenty to choose from for the 360. I think I've seen at least 3 - including a wireless one). Given the option of spending more money to play the 360 version of a game than save money and play a lower quality version on the Wii, I would currently choose to spend more and have the better experience.
I think the Wii is a good console, especially if gaming is something you like doing, but don't want to spent heaps of money on (although the decent games still cost about the same as decent 360 titles, I would note). This business of people pretending (and trying to convince everyone else - in addition to themselves) that graphics are somehow unreleated to good gameplay is a nonsense though.
Graphics are not the only thing that makes a game console new a
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to get a component video cable.
If you have one, I can only assume that your TV is badly calibrated--did you go through Zelda's calibration screen?
On my HDTV, Zelda is beautiful--even the twilit world, which looks like TRON at sunset. I don't have any trouble spotting (and collecting) insects either.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they don't. Gameplay is what you do in the game, not what special effects are drawn to the screen.
What amuses me about the Wii is that 360 and PS3 fans will mock Nintendo for catering to kids, yet it's the Wii that has all the adults playing while the audiences for the 360 and PS3 are made up of adolescent Grand Theft Auto and Halo fans. It's weird how the gaming press hasn't caught on that it's the 360/PS3 that is played by sugar-charged kiddies while Nintendo systems are played by adults who grew up with the NES and SNES.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the only people who care about playing a game for "kids" are insecure adolescents.
Parent
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The same criticism that drives adolescent commentary drives the commentary of executives such as Branch: an incomprehsibility that power and visuals alone don't comprise the totality of experience and preference.
This despite the fact that virutally every game review I've ever read stresses that graphics only really matter for the first ten minutes. After that, if a game sucks, then it is collecting dust. In the long run, play is what matters. And that's what Nintendo seems to understand (even if the mechanics are still under development). Not to mention that the casual gamer's rushing to the Wii, unlike hardcover gamers, haven't geeked out on PS2's and XBox 360s', so most (many of whom my friends) don't realize that they are looking at a graphically inferior product.
In the long run, the advanced power of the 360 and the 3 might devalue the Wii--but just wait until Star Wars: Who Cares What They Call It comes out for the Wii and Ninten-dorks everywhere are swinging lightsabers. Oh glorious day.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternative controllers often end up having only a few games for them, as game companies know they'll be addressing a fraction of the customer base if they do games for that controller.
If the controller is the default on the system, all users of that system have it, so it's not risky to produce games for it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even on the wii the nunchuck controller attachment has an analog stick on it.
So it looks like every current or recent console is using that control scheme.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
So looking back I guess the Wii controller shouldn't be a surprise - it's exactly what Nintendo has been doing ever since the Famicom's inception: innovation in controller design.
Also interesting is that the Gamecube was their only system that didn't include anything really new on the controller (analog shoulder buttons was about it) and was also their least-successful system.
Parent
The original NES (Score:4, Insightful)
The original NES used an old 6502 chip, a cheap processor that came out in the 1970s. The NES was underpowered compared to some of its competitors but was so well-designed that it got the good games. It appealed to the wider, mainstream market like the Wii. Remember the track pad? The educational games? The Zapper games, the puzzle games, the side-scrollers, the RPGs, and so on? It appealed to everyone, not just sugar-high kiddies playing a neverending series of XBox 360 first-person shooters.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality is Nintendo is going after NON gamers, and people who just want to have fun. Think grandma and grandpa care about graphics? You're deluding yourself (they probably can't see that well
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually you can go right back to when they were throwing fake pre-rendered videos at us before the launch of the PS2. Or the dev demos from back then - anyone remember the disembodied head that we were told would be an accurate indication of characters in PS2 games...
I still play on the ps2 now an
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand... the Wii DOES have something to offer, yet its not the graphics powerhouse that its 'competitors' are. Oh and as a little bonus, Wii is cheaper by about 50%.
Sony and Microsoft have to be really pissed about it. They must be like, buuuuuut.... uh.... our graphics are better. And... uh... our controllers vibrate! Does that count as motion control?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got both an XBox360 and a Wii, and I like them both for the things they're good at. Graphics-wise the XBox360 wins hands now, no argument, but
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
hehe, tell me about it! Here I am playing Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda, etc. Man, graphics must be REALLY important in selling a video game system or games for it! Oddly, like the GP said...
'nuff said.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm surprised.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm surprised.. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I'm surprised.. (Score:4, Informative)
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interesting quote (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, I'll agree to all but the last sentance. One can easily compare sales and popularity figures.
Kinda that something that can have all those complaints, which are accurate, with such a lousy marketing campaign (come on, two creepy Japanese guys telling a little girl, "Wii would like to play"? There is so much that is wrong with that), could even get 10% of the market share of the current XBox or PS consoles, and yet it does.
Says something rather bad about MS and Sony if anything.
To paraphrase Tsun-Tzu (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To paraphrase Tsun-Tzu (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Take Microsoft's word, it's not all that great. :P (Score:5, Interesting)
He specifically looked at recent comments by Microsoft's Robbie Bach
A competitors review of a product, real informative.
Though I think the real issue is that the Wii is getting the market share of consumer attention in spite of the superior graphics processing power of the XBox and the PS3, and maybe they should do an article on not the resolution and frame rates but on the human interaction and game play of the consoles.
Isn't this a retread? (Score:5, Insightful)
My PC (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish people would get a grip. Especially since these specs have been know for... oh.... EVER. Get over already, will you? Yeah, it's the first console since the 80's to perform upgrades to components rather than replacing them outright. That's not a big deal. The console still has more than enough power to play games like Zelda, Super Paper Mario, and Red Steel.
Let me put it another way. In the Super Nintendo generation, it was less powerful than the TG16, the 3DO, the Phillips CD-i (pardon me while I die laughing), and the Neo Geo. But it was also worlds less expensive. Its only real competitor in that generation was the Sega Genesis, a console that was less powerful than the Super Nintendo!
The lesson to learn from this is that graphical power != better games. Better games == Better games, and damn the graphical power. The sooner people realize this, the better. (Or should I say, the sooner they get over their insecurity at having purchased a PS3?)
As for the Gamecube "1.5" nonsense, it's two Gamecubes duct taped together. Get it right, will you?
* Critics can shaddup about this one, too. If you can't get past learning the controls, well, that's too bad for you. But many of us actually find the controls to make the game. And the graphics aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be. Sure, there are some dull hallways and whatnot, but there are also rooms full of steam, radiosity from windows, and other nice effects that help draw you into the game. And drawing me into the game is all I care about.
Re:My PC (Score:5, Insightful)
The upgrade from the NES to the SNES was similar. The SNES allowed for bigger characters, larger games, scaling and rotation effects, and other features that allowed game creators to make games that they couldn't have otherwise.
Unfortunately, the market has become blind to the reasons behind why those graphical upgrades were important. As a result, they're fixated on this idea that we need photo-realistic graphics to have better games. It doesn't work that way. The Atari 7800 had better graphics than the NES. It failed. The Colecovision and Intellivision both had better graphics than the 2600. They didn't capture nearly the market that the 2600 did. The Neo Geo has the best 2D graphics available anywhere. It did not displace the SuperNES. (Though it did do well for itself among hardcore fans of SNK fighting games.) The Playstation was graphically inferior to the N64, yet it was the best selling console to date. The Playstation 2 was graphically inferior to the Gamecube and XBox, yet it was (and still is) the best selling console ever.
History is very clear on this. If you give the market good games at a good price, you will outperform your competition. If you try and push the envelope with the idea that money is no object, you WILL fail. Or at best, only capture a niche in the market.
Parent
Propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
Blah blah blah. What do you expect them to say? "Oh, the Wii kicks our ass. It's cheaper to build and is selling more. We're fools?" Give me a break.
I thought this FUD died of old-age months ago (Score:5, Interesting)
All the way up the PC scale, each improvement is an incremental improvement on what went before. Does anyone complain about that? No.
Fundamentally, computers all do the same things. As long as you can perform the fundamental turin operations, you can do anything. Yeah, multi-core machines can do these same operations at a greater rate, but there's nothing different that what they are capable of (apart from making programmers worry about race conditions and such like).
People don't complain about the similarity between upgrades in PC processing power for a good reason, you don't have to spend many months training your programmers in how to get started and them watching them spend years before they are capable of fully utilising the system. With a similar architecture as you are already used to, the learning curve and associated costs are much much lower, programmers are more productive and happier.
Re:I thought this FUD died of old-age months ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Turn the article around (Score:5, Interesting)
Wii wins with a new way to interact with the machine making it fun and for having the standard Nintendo appeal of social games that involve a group of people vs the solo sniper approach.
Nintendo has a winner, Sony and Microsoft have dogs, very pretty dogs, but dogs. Of course Sony and Microsoft are going to point out their dogs are pretty. But they are not popular.
Things learned from this
1) group games have more mass appeal than solo games
2) interaction with the game can be fun
3) game play is more important than graphics
4) cheaper is better
5) make a console that is not a loss leader
Re:Turn the article around (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a hint: If Microsoft didn't have the Windows tax to fall back on, the 360 probably wouldn't even exist, let alone be sold at the losses it was during its first year.
The money to make these things comes from somewhere. Nintendo sells the product for what it actually costs to make, Microsoft just uses some of the money from their monopoly.
Parent
Re:Turn the article around (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to get lynched, it would be because that statement is flat out wrong. Nintendo has almost always priced its consoles to break even or make a profit. It's the johnny-come-latelies that use revenue in other industries to subsidize their consoles that brought about the idea of selling consoles for a loss.
Parent
Jealous much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a 360, it has some great games, but its still just a prettier version of the xbox that is barely backwards compatable. I cant get my wife or relatives to play the 360, but all of them seem to gravitate to the wii. I came home from work yesterday and caught my wife bowling at 3 in the afternoon, I can guarantee I've never come home and caught her playing halo.
So perhaps MS feels like they wasted money and resources? Have we finally reached a point where the old argument about graphics vs gameplay is actually a legitimate one?
DVD? (Score:5, Interesting)
As of the end of 2006, over 80% of households have dvd players http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=12220 [zdnet.com] . Do you think the other 20 percent are choosing between a console or dvd player? 3.5 percent of households are below the poverty line http://www.soundvision.com/Info/poor/statistics.a
What are they going on about?
Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you consider a new control scheme to be more interesting, then the 360 is more like Xbox 1.1. The PS3 has some motion detection added in, so we'll call that a PS2 2.0, but they couldn't manage to get the rumble back in, so we should probably dock them something for that. Let's just say it's a 2.0 that shipped before it was really ready. Nintendo, on the other hand, has shipped an entirely new product line.
And the best part for Nintendo is that this isn't just some BS excuse that they're making up for not being able to keep up in the technology race, it's a very deliberate strategy that they've implemented in both their handheld and living room consoles, and sales have proved it to be extremely successful. Good for them.
numbers != fun (Score:4, Insightful)
I think a game like Super Paper Mario, for example, is absolutely gorgeous; it's obvious that a huge amount of effort went into the art direction for the game. Who cares if the graphics could have been generated by a last-generation GPU? They're still beautiful.
Paradigm Shift and Risk (Score:3, Insightful)
But if Nintendo bumps up the specs on the gamecube (small risk, graphics are decent) while introducing a new control scheme (big risk) while keeping the price cheaper than the other two consoles (still making a profit on each console), people can afford to take a risk...and they have. The Wii is a success so far, and caught the game makers with their pants down. They weren't prepared for this and now they have to shift too.
What is really interesting, in this experiment by Nintendo, is that because the Wii is so far a success, this lowers the risk of incorporating higher end graphics, HD, 720/1080, etc for Wii 2.0.
Didn't Iwata address this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And it certainly looks like there will be enough people with a Wii... So I wouldn't bet on a lack of games...
Re:Crappy Graphics Makes Things Fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point: when you watch old movies, you sometimes think to yourself "those are computer graphics", and they're still better-looking than today's consoles (and yes I'm talking about the Xbox360 and PS3 in this case, or even the most expensive consumer-grade 3D card). So if your brain can make the difference between real things and 3D things in movies that took months to render, imagine how long it will be until 500$ consoles can do it in real-time.
Nintendo are smart to stay away from that "photorealistic 3D graphics" race. The finish line is still decades away.
Parent
Re:Gamecube1.5 (Score:5, Informative)
But you know what? It actually isn't that easy to throw something together like the Wiimote, to write the software libraries so developers can make the most use of the input, to tune those first-party games so that the controller feels as natural as possible.
Sony chose to spend their development time integrating the Cell while Nintendo decided to spend their development time on the controller. That was the bed Sony made, and now they must lie in it. They had your idea, to try to hack something together quick-like to try to "stillborn" the wii, and the best they could do was acceleration detection only in a two-handed controller, which is only used to good effect in games like Flow.
So how well did this strategy work for Sony? How many Wii sales do you think were lost? Is it clear that the Wiimote is an integral part of the console, while it is the SIXAXIS that is the gimmick? And do you really think that rushing off to make a full-fledged wiimote ripoff so it's ready by the end of the year would have even the slightest chance of making the Wii "stillborn" when it's already sold several times more than the PS3 and is likely to be even further ahead by christmas 07?
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Re:Brute Force trash talk (Score:4, Informative)
Cell: "It's a PPC4xx controller keeping 8 single-pipeline cores (6 integer, 2 FP/Integer) full of properly-scheduled instructions. "
Your Cell information is so incorrect that I feel sorry for anyone that has read it and now believes it is true.
The Cell is a PowerPC Processing Element (i.e., 1/3rd of an XBox360 CPU) coupled to 8 (7 active in the PS3) SPEs on a very fast and wide ring bus. Each SPE has two pipelines, and each pipeline operates on 128-bit vectors, i.e., each SPE is a dual-issue in-order SIMD processor with 256KB of local memory.
"It has FP, which is more than can be said for the PPC400-series (and all but two of the specialized cores in the PS3)"
Cell's PPE has a standard PowerPC FPU unit, and a VMX128 unit capable of 25.6GFLOPS (single precision). All 8 SPEs of course can also do 25.6GFLOPS (single precision) each. These are at the Cell's 3.2GHz clock rate in the PS3.
I was wondering if you got your information from Wikipedia, but you didn't. Wikipedia's article is also massively incorrect though (indeed it is now less correct than it was a few months ago, weird).
The 750CX derivative processor in the Wii is about as powerful as a 1.5GHz PPE, i.e., the Wii has about half the standard CPU processing power as a PS3 (although the PPE will get better use due to being able to run two threads, and the SPEs are icing on the top for physics and similar). The Gecko CPU in the Gamecube had special media instructions that may have been SIMD-like, and as the Wii is backwardly compatible, I assume the Wii's CPU has these in it as well.
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