Wii U hardware (speculation thread)

Recently there have been numerous reports on the specifications (raw power) of the Wii U.
I've read the following:

Team Ninja says the specs have been changing all the time.
Epic's Mark Rein likes the console and thinks we'll all love E�.
Darksiders 2 developer says the Wii U version of the game will be on par with the other versions (PC, PS3, 360).

Now there's a rumor that says Wii U is less powerful than PS360. Anonymous without any specs given... I personally think that's bullocks, especially considering that Nintendo has been listening carefully to developers about what they want from the hardware.
Also, PS360 tech is 6 years old. iPhones come close to that power. I doubt that Nintendo will underpower their console so badly. (Wii had the excuse that it was heavily based on GameCube tech.)

So three questions: what do you personally think the Wii U's power will be?
How much power do you think it needs??

And do we really need 10x as much power next gen? There are developers who say the day graphics can't become better is in sight.

E� can't come soon enough!

( Edited 04.04.2012 10:40 by Canyarion )

as long as the console can handle unreal 3 and a scaled down version of unreal 4 then they should be alright. everybody seems to think that sony and microsoft are going to go for raw power this time round, i very much doubt it. days when ppl could afford to spend 5-600 on consoles are gone, heck ppl wont even spend 4-500 so their going to have to re=think the raw power strategy.

i predict that the next gen will be all about online strategy and if nintendo get their app store right as well as provide the games we all know and love then i cant see how the others can touch them.

its not all about graphics

It's all a muddle - I'm hopefully for something that's at least on par with PS3/360, however I am predicting it will just scrape that level.

Whatever the case, it needs four player support for 4 Wii U tablets - 1 is just not enough. A WiiMote Plus, nun-chuck MUST be included out of the box too for compatibility.

I'm sure Nintendo will surprise, but after the Wii I'm really not too sure.

My concern is that specific engines designed for PS4 & Xbox 3 won't be able to run on Wii U, meaning Nintendo will once again miss out on plenty of multiplatform games. Hopefully, though, it'll be the PS2 of the bunch, and still get those games, but just end up being the 'worst' of the three. And by 'worst' I don't mean bad. I know the Wii has done well as it is this gen, but it's a shame that a Nintendo platform missed out on so damn many awesome multiplat games.

jb said:
Whatever the case, it needs four player support for 4 Wii U tablets - 1 is just not enough.

However rendering fully 3D scenes and streaming to 4 controllers at once would perhaps be too taxing on the system. For example, I wouldn't dare to hope to see a Mario Kart game where each player can see its own action on its personal screen, that seems a bit too unfeasible to me... unless they went for lower resolution graphics with low graphical details, like on par with Wii or summat, but then perhaps bandwidth issues would arise for streaming 4 different channels of video with lots of movement to it, to each controller at once.

But then we don't know any specifics about the tech, so it's hard to say.

( Edited 04.04.2012 23:49 by RudyC3 )

I still don't understand whether their strategy is to miss the boat on next generation raw power but innovate in new ways again like Wii. All I'll say is if they don't come out at least in the same position as PS2 was to Xbox and Gamecube, then I'll probably take an automatic pass. I'm tired of that shit! They need to fully commit to third party developers, which means producing a system they want to work with easily.

I can't wait till E3 so we can finally get over all this rumour crap. It's driving me insane!

Mr James2t3 said:
I can't wait till E3 so we can finally get over all this rumour crap. It's driving me insane!

Edit: Did you see this? Nintendo has responded to the rumors. With what? With a "it's about the games, not about the power."

This makes it look like the rumors are true. I still won't believe it...

( Edited 05.04.2012 09:36 by Canyarion )

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/37082/wii-u-is-very-sexy-says-aliens-colonial-marines-chief/
So this guy says (on record, unlike the latest rumors) that the Wii U has more RAM and a great processor.

With developers saying YES to the power of the WiiU then it's no doubt the console will have some nice hardware behind it. But developers would say that because they have 6 years to play with the PS3 and 360, so all of this for them is fairly similar, they aren't as constrained as they were with the Wii. With developers like EPIC saying the Unreal engine looking amazing on the WiiU, Look at Gears 1, 2 & 3. Look at how amazing they looked. The power is there, its down to the developers how they use that power now, should be smooth sailing for most of them. As for the next Gen Consoles, thats something unexpected and developers will have a hard time with that.

Anyway, people saying Nintendo will be left behind when the PS3/720 will be released a year or two after should consider that those will also be left behind again when Nintendo comes up with whatever there'll be after WiiU, two or three more years later... It's an endless cycle.

I don't think there's much reason to doubt that the system is at the least on par with the current generation. Nintendo wants developers to easily port their existing work over to the system. Being significantly weaker than the current gen just wouldn't make sense when considering that goal.

That said, Nintendo simply doesn't release $600 systems with state of the art technology. They're going to do all they can to keep the price down, and that likely means cutting costs wherever they can. The Wii U tablet is also going to be more expensive than traditional controllers -- every dollar they put into the controller and other extraneous features is a dollar they're taking out of the rest of the hardware. As a result, I don't think it will be vastly more powerful than the current gen systems.


( Edited 05.04.2012 21:17 by Jacob4000 )

Rumours so far...

http://www.gamesradar.com/wii-u-rumor/