Wii U Just Needs to Sell One Title to Be Profitable

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wolley74

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Its not a bad system, but they need to get some of their titles on it, like Legend of Zelda and maybe Pikmin 3, get those out there and you're going to be selling a ton more
 

killerclick

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I'm not into consoles but I like what Nintendo did with the Wii vs PS3 and Xbox360. They went in smart and slaughtered the competition in sales, especially the first few years when the consoles were sold at full price. Being able to dominate two competing consoles (Wii was beating both PS3 and 360 2:1 at one point) is one thing, but to do it with underpowered hardware and kiddie games really shows business sense and innovation that MS and Sony lacked.
 

tipoo

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Figured they were selling at a very small loss, it isn't Nintendos style to take a loss on hardware at all. They certainly weren't going to pull a Sony and sell a console for 200 less than it takes to make (the PS3 cost 800 to make initially).
 

lpedraja2002

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If they get all the "golden" N64 titles for the WiiU remade in "HD", or at least something comparable to what they did to Ocarina of Time on the 3DS then I, as I'm sure many people will buy a friggin WiiU without a doubt, even though we'll be playing for old titles AGAIN! But the oldies are better than a lot of things being made these days.
 

SneakySnake

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[citation][nom]eodeo[/nom]just what the world needs, another stoneaged hardware console.[/citation]

Nintendo has never been about specs. The new WiiU though has decent one's (as far as Nintendo's standards go). It handily beats the 360 and PS3 in the spec department, and will be capable of 1080p gaming just fine. As it has been shown time and time again, Nintendo's games are about the gameplay and experience, not the technical stuff.

Why else is it that Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart for N64 (whether it be through emulators or a legit n64) are often the most played video games on my floor in university. They're just so bloody fun
 

kinggraves

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[citation][nom]Wolley74[/nom]Its not a bad system, but they need to get some of their titles on it, like Legend of Zelda and maybe Pikmin 3, get those out there and you're going to be selling a ton more[/citation]

LoZ and Metroid are their mid cycle hitters. I wouldn't expect them until next year or even two when sales start to suffer. When they do hit though, the possibilities are fantastic. No more constantly pulling up the menu to switch items for the next puzzle. At least this time they put out a Mario game from the start and some other interesting titles. Hopefully some of the 3rd party titles will sell as well so it encourages more 3rd party devs to return.

What I'd like to see more than anything though isn't any of these, but rather a new Earthbound/Mother title. Still quite curious as to how Konami and Squenix see the new console.
 

bison88

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I'm still at a loss at how Nintendo can sell the Wii-U for $299 with hardware that barely compares to the 360/PS3 and do so at a loss. Something just does not compute here. What are you doing so very wrong Nintendo?
 
[citation][nom]SneakySnake[/nom]Nintendo's games are about the gameplay and experience, not the technical stuff.Why else is it that Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart for N64 (whether it be through emulators or a legit n64) are often the most played video games on my floor in university. They're just so bloody fun[/citation]

Yup. I don't know if it, or the other new consoles, will manage real 1080p gaming, or just upscaled stuff like they have right now, but you nailed it on what Nintendo does.

Why else did World of Goo sell so well? It was childish... but it was amusing. I go to a more nerdy school, with more powerful computers, most of which can max out crysis, but... When my gaming club holds tournaments? It's 2-man mario kart double dash, or super smash brothers melee. There was a marathon of Civilization III, and counter strike 1.6... games don't HAVE to be pretty to be amazing. They just have to capture someone's whimsy. (Same reason why I'm a member of the cult followings of both Firefly and Mirror's Edge. They weren't perfect, but to me? They were damn close.)
 

eodeo

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Firefly? Its amazing, no doubt about that. Mirror's Egde? Pretty sweet game, showing of that pretty graphics can save fairly average gameplay.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not all about graphics. I play minecraft and open transport tycoon deluxe often. That said, I dont mind playing crysis campaign and wonder what if game developers weren't stuck in 2006 with the consoles. Better graphics arent end all, but they do help. DX 10/11 are amazing, but what good are they when consoles are stuck in dx9, and most games are made for consoles in mind.

For the same reason you're excited about 1080p transition, I cant wait for dx11 games to roll out. Another phone like console with surely keep us in 2004 graphics longer, not shorter.
 
^But see, here's the thing. Mirror's edge wasn't about the way the graphics LOOKED. It was about the graphical style - same as, say, borderlands. Have you heard anyone complaining it's not photorealistic enough?

Yes, having consoles be able to do more graphical work means us PC gamers get better treats, but... It's not going to happen, not so long as console developers make their money off of the games rather than the hardware.

What made me excited were the rumours that the xbox would be able to be upgraded with three or four different tiers of parts. That would mean a LOT for pc gamers.
 

jkflipflop98

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Yay! Yet another console that doesn't have crap for games outside the Big N's 1st party titles! Since I haven't powered on my Wii in years, I think I'll skip this one and get a GTX680 instead.
 
[citation][nom]jkflipflop98[/nom]Yay! Yet another console that doesn't have crap for games outside the Big N's 1st party titles! Since I haven't powered on my Wii in years, I think I'll skip this one and get a GTX680 instead.[/citation]

Get a 670 instead. 5% less powerful with $100 more in your pocket. (Sorry, been giving too much build advice recently. ;)
 

Bloob

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[citation][nom]bison88[/nom]I'm still at a loss at how Nintendo can sell the Wii-U for $299 with hardware that barely compares to the 360/PS3 and do so at a loss. Something just does not compute here. What are you doing so very wrong Nintendo?[/citation]
The hw is actually better than the current gen, and the controller actually has pretty fine tech inside. Anyone can just stream to a tablet (and back), but it isn't easy to do with almost zero latency.
 

bitmaiden

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[citation][nom]Bloob[/nom]The hw is actually better than the current gen, and the controller actually has pretty fine tech inside. Anyone can just stream to a tablet (and back), but it isn't easy to do with almost zero latency.[/citation]
Was just going to say that same thing
 

aggroboy

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[citation][nom]Bloob[/nom]The hw is actually better than the current gen, and the controller actually has pretty fine tech inside. Anyone can just stream to a tablet (and back), but it isn't easy to do with almost zero latency.[/citation]
I'm still waiting for tech reveal of the ATI GPGPU, no developer has taken advantage of it yet.
 

tipoo

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[citation][nom]bison88[/nom]I'm still at a loss at how Nintendo can sell the Wii-U for $299 with hardware that barely compares to the 360/PS3 and do so at a loss. Something just does not compute here. What are you doing so very wrong Nintendo?[/citation]


The controller will cost 170 at retail, I'm guessing it costs at least 100 to manufacture. So 200 for the actual cost of the hardware. That's right in line with what the PS360 got to after all these years of cost reductions.

As for the hardware, the GPU is a newer generation to be sure, and it has twice the RAM available to games as the 360, but a lot of developers are complaining about the CPU, going as far as to call it horrible (from the Metro developer). It's about the size of a single core Intel Atom both on 45nm (about 30mm2), so I'm not surprised. I'll be curious to see if that was the right tradeoff a few years down the line, games are mostly GPU heavy nowadays but this will still hold things back going into 2020 I think. Also the RAM only has half the bandwidth of the 360, 12.8GB/s vs 24 or so. It supposedly has a larger eDRAM cache on the GPU to help, but some things are still memory bandwidth reliant that can't be stored in a small cache.

You know what, I'd really like Tomshardware to take a close look at the chips under a microscope to see what we have, we still don't know how many shaders or ROPs or anything are on the GPU.
 

tipoo

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[citation][nom]aggroboy[/nom]I'm still waiting for tech reveal of the ATI GPGPU, no developer has taken advantage of it yet.[/citation]

What "tech reveal" would there be, any modern GPU is GPGPU capable, obviously in chosing a modern-ish AMD chip it would have GPGPU capabilities. A lot of pro applications still aren't taking advantage of that though, game developers will take the path of least resistance for the most part, I'd be surprised to see more than a handful of studios use it, perhaps even just Nintendos future first party games. But considering that many games already have to run on 720p on it, I don't think the GPU could handle something graphics intensive plus many GPGPU calculations at the same time.
 

nameon

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Recipe for wii u success:

come out with 1st party AAA fps...
come out with 1st party AAA driving sim....
come out with 1st party AAA 3rd person action adventure game...
support big catalogue of 3rd party multiplatform titles..

WIN
 
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