WiiU, the future of hardcore gaming?

[Pr0d1gy]

As I watched the E3 presentation this week I couldn't help but be floored by Nintendo's complete lack of press on their new console. Instead they chose to focus on the controller only and looking at it the realization hit me that consoles have completely stagnated. There are no more higher limits worth trying to reach. Full HD in 3D is basically like human sight at it's best, maybe even better, so why bother trying to get to 2160p anyways?

I believe Nintendo made the correct decision in focusing on how we interact with our consoles and making it fully accessible to both the stick and motion crowds. I think this is the dawn of the next great era in gaming honestly and I think it is appropriate that Nintendo is the leader of this surge. I am interested in seeing how PS & Xbox will counter this new tech but I have honestly not been this excited about consoles in many years....probably since the original Xbox was about to be released.

 

[Wreckem]

As I watched the E3 presentation this week I couldn't help but be floored by Nintendo's complete lack of press on their new console. Instead they chose to focus on the controller only and looking at it the realization hit me that consoles have completely stagnated. There are no more higher limits worth trying to reach. Full HD in 3D is basically like human sight at it's best, maybe even better, so why bother trying to get to 2160p anyways?

I believe Nintendo made the correct decision in focusing on how we interact with our consoles and making it fully accessible to both the stick and motion crowds. I think this is the dawn of the next great era in gaming honestly and I think it is appropriate that Nintendo is the leader of this surge. I am interested in seeing how PS & Xbox will counter this new tech but I have honestly not been this excited about consoles in many years....probably since the original Xbox was about to be released.

Most people think it was an epic fail at worst and extremely underwhelming at best. It certainly isn't going to change hardcore gaming. Its a marginally better console(powerwise) than the Wii with a new very expensive controller and to top it all off all they showed were PS3/Xbox games or pre rendered videos. They have tried a system like this before with one of the other consoles + one of their portables.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I think it is a failure of a console

I think Sony also already released a statement that said that people have been begging for devs and them to emulate this on the PSP vita and PS3, considering they already have that level of interconnectivity.

But in seriousness, its absolutely useless and a dumb feature. Limit of 1 controller per console, and not sold separately. Great move Nintendo.

 

[Beev]

WiiU, the future of hardcore gaming?

Absolutely not.

Honestly, what is the definition of "hardcore gaming" these days? Is a little 14 year old who literally only plays Black Ops, but does so 50 hours a week considered hardcore? Or is it the gamer that plays the lesser known niche titles like Persona, etc.?

 

[gorcorps]

There's still plenty of room to climb in visuals and physics. LA Noire has shown that incredibly detailed facial animation is possible now, and IMO that tech can be adapted to a certain extent to other games with high resolution textures... but it's taxing and takes up a ton of drive space.

Physics are still used for little more than fancy ways of tossing bodies, with no game reaching true realistic destructible environments and buildings. It'll take some serious stuff to do it but it should be possible fairly soon. Water still has a long way to go as well. We've gotten it to look nice but we haven't really gotten it to act properly. Bioshock did well enough, but the water still wasn't dynamic. Scripted sequences were still the name of the game with floods acting the same way every time.

Lighting is still a problem on consoles. PCs are capable of some great lighting (as long as you tone down the unrealistic bloom) but consoles can't come close yet. Shadows remain fairly blocky at times, or fuzzy and out of place.

Textures in general are still very low. Even higher end PC games don't hold up to very close scrutiny. While being the best looking game I've seen, the Witcher 2 still has some noticeably blocky textures when they're close to the camera during cutscenes. Video memory and media space help what resolution of textures you can use. The next round of consoles should give a nice jump in texture res.

Seriously... if you think there's nothing else that can be done then you're broken. These are just visual nuances, there's still unexplored game types that may not be possible yet. One look at Portal when it came out tells me that there's still new ideas out there and they will come in time. If you're giving up on consoles already right when the budgets are reaching numbers we never expeted to be spent on game development... then you have a seriously jaded view of gaming.

 

[purbeast0]

why not discuss this in the nintendo e3 conference thread, where all of the other wii u stuff is being discussed?

 

[Wreckem]

Absolutely not.

Honestly, what is the definition of "hardcore gaming" these days? Is a little 14 year old who literally only plays Black Ops, but does so 50 hours a week considered hardcore? Or is it the gamer that plays the lesser known niche titles like Persona, etc.?

Its easier to define hardcore by defining what its not, and its not casual gaming.

 

[Krynj]

I wasn't able to watch the press conference, and I haven't done much research on the subject, but, will games only be playable on the handheld controller screen things? I'm assuming I'll have the option of playing on a TV, but I just want to make sure.

Also, I don't see this as the future of hardcore gaming. The screen on the controller couldn't possibly interest me any less than it does. To me, handheld gaming is reserved for when I'm on a long drive/flight, or just, away from my console. Others might be impressed by the controller/screen hybrid thing, but it's totally lost on me. Nintendo exclusives (other than Zelda) have never impressed me, and when the new PlayStation/Xbox comes out, it'll be grossly underpowered.

Does the controller/screen thing even have an official name? I know the system is called Wii U, but do those controllers have a real name? I don't see the appeal, but hopefully Nintendo can make it work. I don't see it augmenting the video game experience. I see it as playing games on a little screen, and making my neck sore.

 

[Wreckem]

There's still plenty of room to climb in visuals and physics. LA Noire has shown that incredibly detailed facial animation is possible now, and IMO that tech can be adapted to a certain extent to other games with high resolution textures... but it's taxing and takes up a ton of drive space.

Physics are still used for little more than fancy ways of tossing bodies, with no game reaching true realistic destructible environments and buildings. It'll take some serious stuff to do it but it should be possible fairly soon. Water still has a long way to go as well. We've gotten it to look nice but we haven't really gotten it to act properly. Bioshock did well enough, but the water still wasn't dynamic. Scripted sequences were still the name of the game with floods acting the same way every time.

Lighting is still a problem on consoles. PCs are capable of some great lighting (as long as you tone down the unrealistic bloom) but consoles can't come close yet. Shadows remain fairly blocky at times, or fuzzy and out of place.

Textures in general are still very low. Even higher end PC games don't hold up to very close scrutiny. While being the best looking game I've seen, the Witcher 2 still has some noticeably blocky textures when they're close to the camera during cutscenes. Video memory and media space help what resolution of textures you can use. The next round of consoles should give a nice jump in texture res.

Seriously... if you think there's nothing else that can be done then you're broken. These are just visual nuances, there's still unexplored game types that may not be possible yet. One look at Portal when it came out tells me that there's still new ideas out there and they will come in time. If you're giving up on consoles already right when the budgets are reaching numbers we never expeted to be spent on game development... then you have a seriously jaded view of gaming.

At minimum, the next Sony and MS consoles will be able to do graphics and physics like Battlefield 3 (PC) at 1080p resolutions. WiiU won't be coming close to that.

 

[RussianSensation]

Its easier to define hardcore by defining what its not, and its not casual gaming.

If a 14-15 year old kid plays Wii Sports for 20 hours a week and then plays Zelda / Mario for 20 hours (because he has the summer off school), while a 35 year old is playing BF:BC2 for 2-3 hours a week because of time constraints related to his/her 60-70 hour a week job, which one of them is the hardcore gamer? I am not sure what the true definition of a hardcore vs. casual gamer is but to me it has to be related to the amount of hours you spend gaming. I can understand how the definition applies to a game though. Perhaps casual games are defined as those which are easy to pick up and learn quickly (i.e., Angry Birds, Minecraft, etc.).

Sure Minecraft is a "casual" game compared to say Civilization V, but if you play it 30 hours a week vs. 2-3 hours a week playing Civ 5/Starcraft 2/Dirt 3, then who is really the "hardcore" gamer? :hmm:

I think the "hardcore gamer" phrase has been misused. I think what people really want out of Nintendo are 1st and 3rd party developer support. Nintendo's first party games are better than Sony's or Microsoft's and appeal to a much wider demographic. So if Nintendo is able to secure strong 3rd party developers which will produce games for older generation of gamers, then what competitive advantage would PS4 or Xbox720 have, other than graphics? The problem for Nintendo since N64 has been getting 3rd party developers onboard.

I am not sure how the games below can be considered casual though:

The list of Wii U announced titles below:

Pikmin 3
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge - Working title
Darksiders 2
Batman: Arkham City
DiRT
Assassin's Creed
Tekken - Working title
Metro: Last Light
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Ghost Recon Online
Lego City Stories
Smash Bros.
Raving Rabbids - Working title
FIFA - Working title
Madden NFL - Working title

Ubisoft will also produce games for the Wii U. Most of the games in that list are "hardcore" enough.

 

[purbeast0]

So if a 14-15 year old kid plays Wii Sports for 20 hours a week and then plays Zelda / Mario for 20 hours (because he has the summer off school), while a 35 year old grown up is playing BF:BC2 for 2-3 hours a week because of a full time 60-70 hour a week job, which one is the hardcore gamer? I am not sure what the true definition of a hardcore vs. casual gamer is but to me it has to be related to the amount of hours you spend.

Sure Minecraft is a "casual" game compared to say Civilization V, but if you play it 30 hours a week vs. 2 hours for the Civ 5 player, then who is the "hardcore" gamer? :hmm: I think the "hardcore gamer" phrase has been misused. I think what people really want out of Nintendo is 1st and 3rd party developer support. Nintendo's first party games are better than Sony's or Microsoft's. So if they have 3rd party developers that will produce games for older generation of gamers, then what competitive advantage would PS4 or Xbox720 have other than graphics? The problem for Nintendo since N64 has been getting 3rd party developers onboard.

TTOOTTAALLLLYY disagree with the bolded statement.

maybe they are better than 360's, but definitely not PS3's ... and of course yea it's an opinion

to me, the definition of casual vs hardcore is basically how easy a game is to pick up and play, and how complex it is. wii sports is extremely easy to pick up and play and has no depth to it. it is not complex at all. that is how most of the wii games are, other than the first party games. but quite a bit of those even appeal to the casual gamer.

for instance take smash brothers. that game is for the casual nintendo fan who may or may not be a fan of fighters. that game really has not much complexity to it at all and has a lot of random things going on in it when compared to a "hardcore" fighter. the only way that game even becomes tournament worthy is when there are a ton of rules set prior to the default settings.

 

[hans030390]

There are no more higher limits worth trying to reach. Full HD in 3D is basically like human sight at it's best, maybe even better, so why bother trying to get to 2160p anyways?

You're seriously throwing out the idea that 1080p and 3D might be better than human sight?

 

[Anarchist420]

I really wish the 3rd parties would ditch Nintendo. I hope this is Nintendo's last console as well. If Sega had to get out of the HW business, then so should Nintendo. Sega ripped people off less, and yes I remember what a ripoff the 32X was for many. However, Sega's profit margins rarely approached those of Nintendo's because Sega sold good stuff at a reasonable price and because Sega charged the lowest royalty fees other than 3DO. Nintendo sells crap at an unreasonable price and has only one good franchise, IMO, which they've recently ruined.

I say it's time to we had a console with excellent exclusives and there would be at least 4x SG-MSAA for every game and no texture aliasing (none of the brilinear optimization and poor LOD calculation crap), as well as lossless audio (2channel or Dolby True HD doesn't matter, as long as it's lossless) and a TMDS just like the one in my GTX 460.

Unfortunately, I think that will never happen. We're likely to see every game in 1080p before we see every game have 2x or more AA and that's ridiculous. 1280x800 screen resolution (1600x1000) with AA is better than superhigh resolutons without AA. Increasing the resolution doesn't decrease aliasing.

I wish consoles would just die since they always have inferior graphics to what a PC is capable of. Unfortunately, that ain't ever gonna happen either.

 

[Wreckem]

You're seriously throwing out the idea that 1080p and 3D might be better than human sight?

This guy must not have heard of 4K(movies are starting be shot for it, soon theaters will be upgraded to use it, eventually it will make its way into the consumer market).

We will eventually get to true photo realistic graphics in real time. Its just how long its going to take for the technology and artists to be capable of doing it.

 

[Anubis]

WiiU, the future of hardcore gaming?

I wasent aware Nintendo was including KB/Mouse support

its 100% casual

 

[Wreckem]

If a 14-15 year old kid plays Wii Sports for 20 hours a week and then plays Zelda / Mario for 20 hours (because he has the summer off school), while a 35 year old is playing BF:BC2 for 2-3 hours a week because of time constraints related to his/her 60-70 hour a week job, which one of them is the hardcore gamer? I am not sure what the true definition of a hardcore vs. casual gamer is but to me it has to be related to the amount of hours you spend gaming. I can understand how the definition applies to a game though. Perhaps casual games are defined as those which are easy to pick up and learn quickly (i.e., Angry Birds, Minecraft, etc.).

Sure Minecraft is a "casual" game compared to say Civilization V, but if you play it 30 hours a week vs. 2-3 hours a week playing Civ 5/Starcraft 2/Dirt 3, then who is really the "hardcore" gamer? :hmm:

I think the "hardcore gamer" phrase has been misused. I think what people really want out of Nintendo are 1st and 3rd party developer support. Nintendo's first party games are better than Sony's or Microsoft's and appeal to a much wider demographic. So if Nintendo is able to secure strong 3rd party developers which will produce games for older generation of gamers, then what competitive advantage would PS4 or Xbox720 have, other than graphics? The problem for Nintendo since N64 has been getting 3rd party developers onboard.

I am not sure how the games below can be considered casual though:

The list of Wii U announced titles below:

Pikmin 3
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge - Working title
Darksiders 2
Batman: Arkham City
DiRT
Assassin's Creed
Tekken - Working title
Metro: Last Light
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Ghost Recon Online
Lego City Stories
Smash Bros.
Raving Rabbids - Working title
FIFA - Working title
Madden NFL - Working title

Ubisoft will also produce games for the Wii U. Most of the games in that list are "hardcore" enough.

We know what happened with the Wii. The same will eventually happen for the Wii U. The Wii U will be dominated by casual games most of which will be subpar just like the Wii. Its not a good sign when its prospective 3rd party 2012 launch titles are 2011 Xbox/PS3 games.

Sony and MS, one or the other, or even both will be showing off their next gen consoles next summer.

 

[Krynj]

TTOOTTAALLLLYY disagree with the bolded statement.

Same here. Other than Zelda, I've never been too impressed with any of the other exclusives. And I think the Smash Brothers franchise is boring, and not even remotely fun to play.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

nextbox will be announced before this is released. There is no way this thing is winning over the hardcore....none

 

[Anubis]

you cant JUST define hardcore by # of hours spent playing, HUGE numbers of people spend hours playing games and SUCK at them, they are not hardcore because they play a lot

 

[Krynj]

Nintendo's stock falls upon Wii U's reveal:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/117/1174333p1.html

 

[Macamus Prime]

Nope - because I already have a 360/PS3 to play Darksiders 2, Batman AA2 & Aliens.

Will the Wii U even be able to handle Darksiders 3?

 

[darkewaffle]

you cant JUST define hardcore by # of hours spent playing, HUGE numbers of people spend hours playing games and SUCK at them, they are not hardcore because they play a lot

You're hardcore if you like the games with the best graphics and lots of blood and guns and think games with too many colors suck.

Hardcore is just a term people throw around because they want to feel like they're super badass! and part of some inner circle that doesn't even exist. Games are a hobby, people like all sorts of different games. Being a hardcore gamer is about as meaningful as being a hardcore knitter.

The reaction to the WiiU is about the same as the reaction we saw to the Wii and the DS. Most people, myself included, are kind of at a loss as to what can really be done with this off the wall new hardware, and yet Nintendo sells millions of those consoles and when you pick one up you tend to enjoy playing it. There's a reason Nintendo is the one making consoles and not us after all. With development, refinement, and eventually some hands-on experience people will start to get the picture.

I do think it's kind of strange people are so quick to harass them for only one controller though. To me that points to Nintendo pushing more online play finally, providing everyone with the unique controller interactions, and hopefully a better overall online experience to go along with it. I don't think the kind of games that you sit down on the couch with your friends and play are the games that the secondary screen will really be important to, it just seems out of place to give only one person that advantage/responsibility/whatever it may be, or worse force players to pass it around (which could actually work for some game ideas, but the problem would be player maturity).

 

[purbeast0]

You're hardcore if you like the games with the best graphics and lots of blood and guns and think games with too many colors suck.

Hardcore is just a term people throw around because they want to feel like they're super badass! and part of some inner circle that doesn't even exist. Games are a hobby, people like all sorts of different games. Being a hardcore gamer is about as meaningful as being a hardcore knitter.

The reaction to the WiiU is about the same as the reaction we saw to the Wii and the DS. Most people, myself included, are kind of at a loss as to what can really be done with this off the wall new hardware, and yet Nintendo sells millions of those consoles and when you pick one up you tend to enjoy playing it. There's a reason Nintendo is the one making consoles and not us after all. With development, refinement, and eventually some hands-on experience people will start to get the picture.

I do think it's kind of strange people are so quick to harass them for only one controller though. To me that points to Nintendo pushing more online play finally, providing everyone with the unique controller interactions, and hopefully a better overall online experience to go along with it. I don't think the kind of games that you sit down on the couch with your friends and play are the games that the secondary screen will really be important to, it just seems out of place to give only one person that advantage/responsibility/whatever it may be, or worse force players to pass it around (which could actually work for some game ideas, but the problem would be player maturity).

the reaction to the Wii's deput at E3 was WWAAYY better than the Wii U's was at this years E3 showing. everyone toted and raved about how cool the motion controls were. it was about 6-12 months after the Wii released that people realized how shitty it was for anything other than party games and first party games.

people have a reason to feel skeptical about the Wii U after seeing how the lifespan of the Wii actually turned out.

 

[zerocool84]

I really wish the 3rd parties would ditch Nintendo. I hope this is Nintendo's last console as well. If Sega had to get out of the HW business, then so should Nintendo. Sega ripped people off less, and yes I remember what a ripoff the 32X was for many. However, Sega's profit margins rarely approached those of Nintendo's because Sega sold good stuff at a reasonable price and because Sega charged the lowest royalty fees other than 3DO. Nintendo sells crap at an unreasonable price and has only one good franchise, IMO, which they've recently ruined.

I say it's time to we had a console with excellent exclusives and there would be at least 4x SG-MSAA for every game and no texture aliasing (none of the brilinear optimization and poor LOD calculation crap), as well as lossless audio (2channel or Dolby True HD doesn't matter, as long as it's lossless) and a TMDS just like the one in my GTX 460.

Unfortunately, I think that will never happen. We're likely to see every game in 1080p before we see every game have 2x or more AA and that's ridiculous. 1280x800 screen resolution (1600x1000) with AA is better than superhigh resolutons without AA. Increasing the resolution doesn't decrease aliasing.

I wish consoles would just die since they always have inferior graphics to what a PC is capable of. Unfortunately, that ain't ever gonna happen either.

I'm glad people like you don't make games or else all we would have is a pretty games and crappy gameplay.

The original Wii taught me to hold judgment because I thought no one would ever touch it, and I'm going to do the same with this one. Not my cup of tea but I'll hold off to say it sucks until the more info comes out. All of you who need to realize that they make games for the average person, not nerds like us here.

 

[smackababy]

The hardware the Wii is rumored to be packing puts it way ahead of the competition. Of course it will run all the "hardcore" games, plus run all the casual games. Personally, I am just happy they included USB ports on the front so I can (hopefully) not have to mod my arcade stick with another cord and not just a PCB switch if there are any decent fighting games on the Wii U.

I don't mind the idea of the controller and TV mix either. I'll probably pick it up just because I like the Zelda games and have a decent enough job to buy a new console every 5 years.