What I expect from Wii U hardware

[MyTMouse]

Not too much to be honest for a few reasons:

Nintendo will likely launch no higher than $349-$399 so that limits things quite a bit considering the more expensive controller.

The small form factor coupled with the high likelyhood of using 45nm chips...28nm is in short supply and Ninty will need to get the cheapest and quickest way of mass-producing. This will severely limit what kind of horsepower they can throw in there...plus it'll leave lots of room for cost-cutting when they move to a smaller die size later in the product cycle.

Some things will be better in the memory department...I expect about 1-1.5GB of system RAM.

Shaders, etc. have gotten much better so you can do more with less now.

Overall I expect it to be no more than 50-100% faster than an Xbox 360 depending on what you're comparing it with. Some things on the system will be better while others will be worse.

I'm still excited for it because I like the tablet-style controller and some of the possibilities it'll bring. Hell, I think the Mario Galaxy games look great and can't wait to see what they'll be able to do with the new system.

[Omega53]

I think if the xbox360 and ps3 had more texture ram that it wouldnt be nearly as bad as it is now. Imagine most 360 games with high res textures and they wouldnt look nearly as bad. When the wii U comes out I think the higher res textures alone will make games look 100% better.

[MyTMouse]

Originally Posted by Omega53

I think if the xbox360 and ps3 had more texture ram that it wouldnt be nearly as bad as it is now. Imagine most 360 games with high res textures and they wouldnt look nearly as bad. When the wii U comes out I think the higher res textures alone will make games look 100% better.

Very true. The Wii U will easily get outclassed by the next Sony and Microsoft offering as they'll be going for 28nm and a much higher pricepoint for sure.

Still though, it'll be a decent machine overall. I'm really looking forward to some of the franchise titles Ninty and company will bring out on the system

[hordaktheman]

I don't really care that much about faster but I could see more RAM being a good thing.

Not that I'm too worried. Intel went from the P4 architecture to Ivy Bridge in the time since the 360 came out. If IBM managed just half that then it should still be plenty while even integrated GPUs are now faster than in the 360. If nothing else, heat shouldn't prevent it from being faster than the recent ultrabooks on the market.

[Briner]

Some kind of cloud storage network. An add on that will let you play DS games. price around $350

[Shark]

Nintendo cannot compete against Sony and MS, so they had gone on their own way.They aim at casual gamers and guess what? it is a successful strategy.
They want you to buy the console, not publishers games...this is how they make profits.

[Renocide]

There are all kinds of rumors making it around the net.

I read it might have 2 GB RAM, support 8 GB Flash Memory, and cloud storage for game saves. Not all that excited about the lack of HD.

I'll be picking it up regardless of what's inside but I hope it has a massive amount of RAM inside!

[ViCyniC]

Originally Posted by Renocide

Not all that excited about the lack of HD.

Huh? One of the biggest points they made about the Wii U is that it will be fully HD.

[Mangler]

Originally Posted by ViCyniC

Huh? One of the biggest points they made about the Wii U is that it will be fully HD.

I think he meant hd as in hard drive.

[Sasquach]

Originally Posted by Renocide

There are all kinds of rumors making it around the net.

I read it might have 2 GB RAM, support 8 GB Flash Memory, and cloud storage for game saves. Not all that excited about the lack of HD.

I'll be picking it up regardless of what's inside but I hope it has a massive amount of RAM inside!

Well it is said to support USB harddrives, so the lack of HD was probably a cost consideration for people to add on if they wished instead of having it as part of the system cost.

And one of the CPU rumors i recently heard was that it was a 3ghz IBM Power7 (Express 710 based) chip that can do 8 threads.

[ViCyniC]

Originally Posted by Mangler

I think he meant hd as in hard drive.

Ah...should've picked it up given the context.

[Sasquach]

So they had a pre-E3 press conference today.
And here is what they announced:

-Wii U Gampad (the tablet controller) has analog sticks that click (no 3ds circle pads)
-NFC functionality
-Looks like its a bit bigger than the prototype
-Can apparently unction as a universal TV remote
-Theres a button on it that would switch the streaming from TV to the gamepad screen.

-Wii U pro controller
-Looks like a nintendo version of a 360 gamepad (its got a similar shape to the 360 gamepad) Not sure if theres any rumble or anything going on in it....

-Some online stuff i didnt read up on, one of it being the Miiverse (think of it as Sony's home thing or whatever that was) But can be accessed by any nintendo system including future ones.

-Tuesday's E3 conference will focus on games, possibly the Wii-U hardware specs may get revealed then.

[Renocide]

Originally Posted by Sasquach

So they had a pre-E3 press conference today.
And here is what they announced:

-Wii U Gampad (the tablet controller) has analog sticks that click (no 3ds circle pads)
-NFC functionality
-Looks like its a bit bigger than the prototype
-Can apparently unction as a universal TV remote
-Theres a button on it that would switch the streaming from TV to the gamepad screen.

-Wii U pro controller
-Looks like a nintendo version of a 360 gamepad (its got a similar shape to the 360 gamepad) Not sure if theres any rumble or anything going on in it....

-Some online stuff i didnt read up on, one of it being the Miiverse (think of it as Sony's home thing or whatever that was) But can be accessed by any nintendo system including future ones.

-Tuesday's E3 conference will focus on games, possibly the Wii-U hardware specs may get revealed then.

REALLY hoping that black Wii U is on option at launch!

[Mangler]

I hope they change the layout of the pro controller, just clone the 360 layout, since it already looks like a custom 360 gamepad.

[KAC]

I expect OMG Better Jizz Inducing GFX, Double Dragon and SSFV specially developed for Nintendo consoles. If not, then it will be fail like most Nintendo crap since SNES .

[Perky McGiggles]

Originally Posted by Mangler

I hope they change the layout of the pro controller, just clone the 360 layout, since it already looks like a custom 360 gamepad.

Yes, the the buttons below the right analog stick don't look comfortable/natural at all. I wouldn't give two shits if Nintendo copies the 360 controller, because it's a great controller and then we'd have a great controller + a nice d-pad.

[Hidavi]

Wii U will support a maximum of two "screen controllers"

Well, its an improvement over the original statement they made about only supporting just one.

Watching that Rayman Legends trailer with three of the four players having to use the sad little Wii wand while the first player got to use touch screen controls to play the game made me sad Now its going to be 25% less sad, but still sad...

[Qb2k5]

Yup and its been said once you use two U-tablet controllers the framerate gets cut in half. I take it most or all WiiU games will be running 720p/60 thus using two controllers will make the game run at 30fps. For everything besides shooters, sim racing, and fighting games I have no issues with 30fps as long as there are no drops.

Ive been looking at some E3 screenshots and sadly it looks like none of the games Nintendo shown have no AA enabled.

For those who don't know its been semi-confirmed that the Wii-U has 32MBs of eDram embedded on the custom power7 CPU. For comparison the 360 has 10MBs. I am still researching on how Nintendo is using it.

[Mangler]

I hope the wii u is capable of running wii games at 720p or 1080p.

[Hidavi]

Originally Posted by Qb2k5

Yup and its been said once you use two U-tablet controllers the framerate gets cut in half. I take it most or all WiiU games will be running 720p/60 thus using two controllers will make the game run at 30fps. For everything besides shooters, sim racing, and fighting games I have no issues with 30fps as long as there are no drops.

Ive been looking at some E3 screenshots and sadly it looks like none of the games Nintendo shown have no AA enabled.

For those who don't know its been semi-confirmed that the Wii-U has 32MBs of eDram embedded on the custom power7 CPU. For comparison the 360 has 10MBs. I am still researching on how Nintendo is using it.

Nintendo is saying "gamers don't want AA, they want to wave their arms and rub the images on their controllers!!!"

[Qb2k5]

Originally Posted by Mangler

I hope the wii u is capable of running wii games at 720p or 1080p.

The only source I know is that Reggie said it himself on GTTV at last years E3 in an interview that it will run the games in their original resolution. So the games will most likely be upscaled to whatever res you have the WiiU set to. But that was a year ago. Anything could've changed during the process to final hardware and software. They could even release a firmware update later in the WiiU's lifetime to unlock such a feature.

I think if Nintendo was going to allow such a feature they probadly would of made noise about it at this years E3. Which would've easliy given current Wii U owners who have a huge catalog a reason to upgrade without hesitation.

[The PyroPath]

Originally Posted by Qb2k5

The only source I know is that Reggie said it himself on GTTV at last years E3 in an interview that it will run the games in their original resolution. So the games will most likely be upscaled to whatever res you have the WiiU set to. But that was a year ago. Anything could've changed during the process to final hardware and software. They could even release a firmware update later in the WiiU's lifetime to unlock such a feature.

I think if Nintendo was going to allow such a feature they probadly would of made noise about it at this years E3. Which would've easliy given current Wii U owners who have a huge catalog a reason to upgrade without hesitation.

According to some little birdies (don't know how reliable these birdies are though...): Target rendering for Wii U is set at 720p 4X MSAA or 1080P, this is both excluding shader based AA methods.

[The PyroPath]

Originally Posted by Qb2k5

For those who don't know its been semi-confirmed that the Wii-U has 32MBs of eDram embedded on the custom power7 CPU. For comparison the 360 has 10MBs. I am still researching on how Nintendo is using it.

WOW THERE....you are making a huge error in your reasoning:

The XBOX GPU has 10 MB eDram, the 32 MB that is floating around is supposedly for the Wii U CPU and is more in the line of L3 cache, which is quite in line with Power7 design

Please don't mix these things up...

[Sasquach]

Originally Posted by The PyroPath

According to some little birdies (don't know how reliable these birdies are though...): Target rendering for Wii U is set at 720p 4X MSAA or 1080P, this is both excluding shader based AA methods.

BUT ITS 720P
THATS SO NOT NEXT GEN!!!!




Next gen is full 1080P with free 4xAA.
And the console has to cost less than 400 dollars.....

[Hidavi]

Well, don't expect multi-touch:

http://kotaku.com/5917363/better-fri...ii-u-questions

I gotta admit, I don't use multi-touch much on my Vita, but on a console whose main gimmick is a handheld touch screen, this seems pretty lame...

[Sasquach]

Originally Posted by Hidavi

Well, don't expect multi-touch:

http://kotaku.com/5917363/better-fri...ii-u-questions

I gotta admit, I don't use multi-touch much on my Vita, but on a console whose main gimmick is a handheld touch screen, this seems pretty lame...

It sholdnt come as a surprise considering i think it was mentioned sometime after last years E3 reveal...