Given what we know, how powerful do you think the Wii U is?

[Anarchist420]

It's a POS for using AMD graphics and a PowerPC-based CPU. The GC was crippled by nintendo's decisions like the eDRAM. They should've used an embedded memory controller so the full RGBA8 and a 32 bit FX linear/log z buffer could be used. However, clever programming tricks by Factor 5 helped overcome the 24 bit z buffer to a degree because you could tell that Rogue Squadron II had a compressed look to the depth. It had decent color art wise, but if you look close enough the artifacts are terrible. The GC just had the worst frame buffer and TC artifacts although the Dreamcast's IQ didn't look a whole lot better. VQTC isn't as good as lossless (or even raw uncompressed) textures because it kind of defeats the purpose of using larger textures if it is just going to distort them more... scaling TC levels can be pretty stupid.

SGI FTW. Matrox was good too before MS tried to start making everything uniform... the latter really helped ATi out too much starting with the 9700 pro. The Geforce FX sucked too, due to poor AA sampling patterns and half speed full precision (which was close to 1/3 the pixel shader performance of 9700 pro due to fewer PS units and adjusting for clocks) which made it as awful as the 9700 pro. It didn't help that both botched their drivers either although it was more of an accident on ATi's part. When nvidia made the 50 series drivers force bad filtering/mipmapping, that really made me angry. That's really why I wish AMD and nvidia would go out of business, honestly, at least as they are now... they're behaving like anti-market, pro-business, anti-labor tyrannical neoconservatives.

 

[BD2003]

No. Not exactly. (And yeah, cuz I always believe what "Microsoft, themselves" tell me)

The 720 is lined up to use the same AMD Radeon chip in the Wii U.

The deciding factor next gen is going to be RAM and CPU prowess.

I suspect the WiiU will be 360 x 1.5, and the NextBox is going to be 360 x 4.

And despite what you find 'preposterous to imagine', you're wrong. < EDIT: Nvm. Apparently you're not wrong. Sony is matching the Xbox plus some more, according to latest specs.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/04/04/report-ign-sources-detail-confirm-sonys-rumored-ps4-specs/



At this point though, I don't see why it matters. Everything will be in half/high def at the very least, so the playing field will largely be even. Let games be the decider. Wanna play UE4 games? Get a computer.

Of course it matters. 4x is still a minor leap. Even 6-8x is phoning it in after 8 years. If UE4 games are only going to run on PC, consoles are irrelevant, and the entire industry is going to wither on the vine, because consoles are still where all the money is.

The tradition is an 8x leap every 5 years. Moore's law hasn't slowed down, there's more people playing than ever. If after 8 years we can't even get the leap we used to get in 5, something isn't right.

 

[ed21x]

The problem with this is that while processing power and hardware has increased at a steady pace, the quality of graphics at this point is largely dictated by production budget, not hardware limitations. If the NextBox is truely 8x more power than the 360, I doubt any companies would actually want to invest the amount of money necessary to utilize ALL of it's power, much like how nobody uses all 6 cores on the cell processor. It's simply the law of diminishing returns.

This is probably why Sony correctly predicted that the PS3 has enough processing power to stay relevant for 10 years on a hardware front.

The same analogy cannot be applied to computers though, because you can always utilize the extra power by cranking up the resolution and AA settings.

Of course it matters. 4x is still a minor leap. Even 6-8x is phoning it in after 8 years. If UE4 games are only going to run on PC, consoles are irrelevant, and the entire industry is going to wither on the vine, because consoles are still where all the money is.

The tradition is an 8x leap every 5 years. Moore's law hasn't slowed down, there's more people playing than ever. If after 8 years we can't even get the leap we used to get in 5, something isn't right.

 

[reallyscrued]

Of course it matters. 4x is still a minor leap. Even 6-8x is phoning it in after 8 years. If UE4 games are only going to run on PC, consoles are irrelevant, and the entire industry is going to wither on the vine, because consoles are still where all the money is.

The tradition is an 8x leap every 5 years. Moore's law hasn't slowed down, there's more people playing than ever. If after 8 years we can't even get the leap we used to get in 5, something isn't right.

BD2003 to the rescue!

Go fix the industry, dude. Something isn't right.

I'll wait right here.

 

[BD2003]

BD2003 to the rescue!

Go fix the industry, dude. Something isn't right.

I'll wait right here.

Get comfortable, you'll be there until next year.

 

[tipoo]

The 720 is lined up to use the same AMD Radeon chip in the Wii U.

It is? The last rumor I heard was something like a 6670, but the difference being that the Wii Us hardware is finalized, while the 720 hasn't even been officially mentioned yet. Remember, the xbox 360 dev kits started out with x800 series graphics cards then got regular updates until they got the final card a few dev kit revisions later. If they have a 6670 in them now and they're over a year from launch, the end product could use anything higher than that.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The real answer? Build a pc and play at real full time 1080p or even higher with all the AA you want.

 

[zerocool84]

The real answer? Build a pc and play at real full time 1080p or even higher with all the AA you want.

Which is tons more expensive.

 

[reallyscrued]

It is? The last rumor I heard was something like a 6670, but the difference being that the Wii Us hardware is finalized, while the 720 hasn't even been officially mentioned yet. Remember, the xbox 360 dev kits started out with x800 series graphics cards then got regular updates until they got the final card a few dev kit revisions later. If they have a 6670 in them now and they're over a year from launch, the end product could use anything higher than that.

Yeah, it's not finalized yet, but currently all signs (even the 720 might be 6 times moar powerful! - articles) point to a 6670.

See: http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/25/xbox-720-may-be-six-times-more-powerful-than-the-xbox-360/

I'd speculate that since the Orbis is being given a better GPU solution, Microsoft will add more grunt to make up the difference when all is said and done. However, when taking into account of all three consoles:

Orbis is getting a 7670 (just a rebranded 6670) plus an APU chip...so there won't be any special effects it can perform that the Wii U can't. RAM and CPU speed is going to make a huge difference. Like I said before, it's going to end up like this: Multiplatform games will render at true 720 on the WiiU with global settings set to 'Medium' and true 1080 on the other consoles with settings set to 'High'. (If using PC game settings as an example). But Nintendo won't be completely irrelevant in 5 years compared to the competitors when taking all these hardware specs into account, they're largely the same in ability.

Which is tons more expensive.

I'm sure you made your post in haste. $349 can certainly put together a formidable computer, then factor in all the game discounts of PC vs console over its lifetime.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Which is tons more expensive.

That depends...go AMD and you can certainly build a PC that will play games at 1080p for the same price of a new console.

Quit thinking in terms of overclocked i5/i7 with custom cooling and all and it's very affordable. Used video card market is great too.

 

[BD2003]

That depends...go AMD and you can certainly build a PC that will play games at 1080p for the same price of a new console.

You can build a PC for $200? With an OS?

 

[tipoo]

You can build a PC for $200? With an OS?

It's 300 and 350, but I don't think that whole discussion is fair, just because someone is interested in the internals of a new console doesn't mean they should either just buy a PC instead or buy the console and not think about what they are given. I game on PCs and a console would compliment that, it's not either-or.

 

[BD2003]

It's 300 and 350, but I don't think that whole discussion is fair, just because someone is interested in the internals of a new console doesn't mean they should either just buy a PC instead or buy the console and not think about what they are given. I game on PCs and a console would compliment that, it's not either-or.

360 is $200 and PS3 is $250 for the basic model. Otherwise I agree, I'm just saying lets not get carried away with how inexpensive PC gaming is. It's still more expensive than console gaming. Which is fine, in fact I think the console guys are really missing out by not offering higher performance, higher priced models. It's something they should consider next gen.

 

[reallyscrued]

360 is $200 and PS3 is $250 for the basic model. Otherwise I agree, I'm just saying lets not get carried away with how inexpensive PC gaming is. It's still more expensive than console gaming. Which is fine, in fact I think the console guys are really missing out by not offering higher performance, higher priced models. It's something they should consider next gen.

The fact that you think you know more about the gaming industry than Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all at once astounds me.

You think they haven't considered that next gen? You think they don't do market testing and feasibility and risk analyses to decide in what direction to move? They aren't missing out on anything; they have calculated, through their large number of MBAs in management science that they WILL be missing out on a lot if they release a $500 console that can do 60 million polygons a sec at 1080p60 all day erryday. It says a lot about console gamers when testing their waters, every company decides to release a platform that is outdated before it's announced.

Which brings me back to my original point. You contradicted yourself. You think console guys are missing out on higher priced models? I say you're missing out on a higher priced computer.

$200-300 is the ideal price point for a console. Any extra and you'd be a fool for not buying a computer and waiting for the console price to drop.

And for your first point...I say lets not get carried away with how inexpensive console gaming is...between Steam sales and digital download discounts on the PC, you'd probably save money in the long run (Especially if the next gen goes for 10 years like this gen did).

 

[tipoo]

Offering consoles of the same generation with different levels of performance would introduce fragmentation, the whole point of a console vs a PC is that they're boxes all with the exact same specifications (apart from storage and other non-gaming performance features I mean).

Even something as simple as the expansion pack for the N64 (remember that? Doubled the RAM to a whopping 8MB) led to some games not supporting it without the expansion pack, that's fragmentation. They've tried it, and it's a bad idea.

Developers will be more tempted to either target the lowest common denominator leaving hardware on the higher ones unused, or the highest, leaving out the lower ones. And developers want every console out there to be a potential customer.

The PC constant upgrade philosophy has its merits, but it doesn't work for consoles.

 

[BD2003]

The fact that you think you know more about the gaming industry than Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all at once astounds me.

You think they haven't considered that next gen? You think they don't do market testing and feasibility and risk analyses to decide in what direction to move? They aren't missing out on anything; they have calculated, through their large number of MBAs in management science that they WILL be missing out on a lot if they release a $500 console that can do 60 million polygons a sec at 1080p60 all day erryday. It says a lot about console gamers when testing their waters, every company decides to release a platform that is outdated before it's announced.

Which brings me back to my original point. You contradicted yourself. You think console guys are missing out on higher priced models? I say you're missing out on a higher priced computer.

$200-300 is the ideal price point for a console. Any extra and you'd be a fool for not buying a computer and waiting for the console price to drop.

And for your first point...I say lets not get carried away with how inexpensive console gaming is...between Steam sales and digital download discounts on the PC, you'd probably save money in the long run (Especially if the next gen goes for 10 years like this gen did).

Put aside the personal attacks, k? Sure I've considered all that. The baseline console should be $300-400, like previous gens. Yet with the flexibility of modern GPU architecture, there is almost nothing stopping them from releasing a dual GPU model that can run at twice the resolution/frame rate. A PC gamer like yourself should know this flexibility is inherent in a modern game.

If third party devs have adapted incredibly well to putting out games on two radically different architectures (360 and PS3), two slightly different specs on the same architecture isn't a big deal, especially given how easy it is to scale performance with resolution/frame rate/effects density/shadow precision/etc. Its something that hasn't been attempted before, but its hardly as impossible as everyone makes it out to be.

But why not just buy a PC then? Controller and couch support. A better online experience. PC is getting better in these areas by leaps and bounds but its not as good as consoles yet and there's no guarantee it will be. When it does, sure ill switch back. I was a PC gamer for years while consoles were figuring out how to do online. If they can figure out scalability, PC is pretty much dead to me.

 

[BD2003]

Offering consoles of the same generation with different levels of performance would introduce fragmentation, the whole point of a console vs a PC is that they're boxes all with the exact same specifications (apart from storage and other non-gaming performance features I mean).

Even something as simple as the expansion pack for the N64 (remember that? Doubled the RAM to a whopping 8MB) led to some games not supporting it without the expansion pack, that's fragmentation. They've tried it, and it's a bad idea.

Developers will be more tempted to either target the lowest common denominator leaving hardware on the higher ones unused, or the highest, leaving out the lower ones. And developers want every console out there to be a potential customer.

The PC constant upgrade philosophy has its merits, but it doesn't work for consoles.

A console platform holder can control this. Set the two specs from the start, demand that all games must run on the lower one. They're the gatekeepers, they have the leverage to force the issue.

 

[tipoo]

A console platform holder can control this. Set the two specs from the start, demand that all games must run on the lower one. They're the gatekeepers, they have the leverage to force the issue.

I suppose that method would work, but with game development budgets already getting so fat how many developers would want to optimize around both specs? And if they capped it at two different specs at most, that doesn't really qualify as "scalable", does it. Any more than two and my first point is just amplified. With two specs it doesn't really solve either problem, just stays in an awkward middle ground.

Either way, I don't think your average console gamer is like us anyways, they want something they plug in and don't think about.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I really cannot see any console maker making two console specs. For one thing it reduces the benefit you get from economies of scale, meaning each will be more expensive to make, relative to a single SKU.

Changing the hard drive or connecting an extra port is cheap, using a different CPU/GPU package would be financial suicide. They would never do it. There were even grumbles when the 360 was announced because not all 360's have a hard drive.

My guess - as devs have said, graphically the Wii U is a lot more advanced, but that isnt difficult. CPU wise, slightly behind the 360 but a quantum leap ahead of the Wii. Like maybe a dual core PowerPC CPU, with each core capable of executing 2 threads in parallel.

I have heard a lot of rumours regarding the Xbox Next using a 6670 - I would still be surprised if they were true. I know hardware specs are finalized months in advance, but even so, it would surprise me. I would guess they might go for something closer to a 7770 with embedded DRAM.

 

[BD2003]

I suppose that method would work, but with game development budgets already getting so fat how many developers would want to optimize around both specs? And if they capped it at two different specs at most, that doesn't really qualify as "scalable", does it. Any more than two and my first point is just amplified. With two specs it doesn't really solve either problem, just stays in an awkward middle ground.

Either way, I don't think your average console gamer is like us anyways, they want something they plug in and don't think about.

Two specs is better than one, if they're going to stretch the next gen out for another 8 years. Keep in mind that most games have PC versions that already scale - this isn't really a new challenge. It shouldn't require any thought on the gamers part - either you have the standard or the pro. If you're not sensitive to frame rate or resolution, just buy the standard. If you want the best and willing to pay for it, buy the pro. They already make multiple models of each console differentiated on silly things like HDD size.

Infinite scalability like a PC wouldn't work, but controlled tiers and a mandate to support the baseline spec are absolutely doable.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Increased costs for both Microsoft and all development partners? Microsoft knows that they need to make the Xbox an attractive development platform. Look at how many developers bitched about the PS3!

So to do that, they will want to make things simple for developers, which means one spec. Probably multiple SKUs still, but one CPU/GPU/RAM configuration.

It would be cheaper to launch a console now, and then replace it after 5 years, than to attempt to launch two different SKUs now and keep both around for 8 years.

 

[tipoo]

A bit of detail from Nintendo

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/console/0/0

Wow, the CPU is REALLY tiny in comparison to the GPU
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/_ui/images/wiiu/main-console/slide004.jpg

 

[A5]

So the WiiU stuff (assuming it's using a more modern process) has a bigger HS/F assembly than the Wii. Wonder how the die sizes compare to the latest 360/PS3 revisions?

 

[tipoo]

So the WiiU stuff (assuming it's using a more modern process) has a bigger HS/F assembly than the Wii. Wonder how the die sizes compare to the latest 360/PS3 revisions?

The CPU was confirmed to use 45nm, the GPU could be something else but my best guess would be also 45nm since it's a mature, high production process.

The CPU looks really small to me, the Cell in the PS3 Slim also on 45nm looks larger, I think even Xenon looks larger, but I'm just eyeballing.

this is the 360 slim, the two die package is the GPU+eDRAM and the other one is CPU, looks clearly bigger than the miniscule Wii U CPU and both are 45nm

 

[ImpulsE69]

360 is $200 and PS3 is $250 for the basic model. Otherwise I agree, I'm just saying lets not get carried away with how inexpensive PC gaming is. It's still more expensive than console gaming. Which is fine, in fact I think the console guys are really missing out by not offering higher performance, higher priced models. It's something they should consider next gen.

'
I think the point people are missing is that you can choose to spend as little or as much as you want on a PC. Since 90% of games are consolized, you don't need a $500 graphics card to get the "Best" graphics a game can offer. Not only that, when you start pricing games, console games add up fast compared to PC.

What kills me is people compare the "entry" level consoles, which, really is just that..entry level. You aren't talking about Live, the extra controllers, the HDMI cables, etc etc that nickle and dime you to death. Not only that, when the consoles came out, base models were not $200/$250, more like $399 and $499.

I prefer both -- but the whole cost debate is negligible when you actually look at the whole realistically.