Topic: Is the Wii U limited by it's media format?

Hopefully not sounding foolish here, but according to wikipedia, the Wii U propiatary optical disc has a capacity of 25gb. I think most PC or XB1/PS4 users realize that AAA games going over the 30gb level is not uncommon. Obviously games can be compressed to a limit to save space, but still, 40 to 50gb will soon become the norm. I wonder if third parties kinda ran away from the Wii U due to that 25gb limit, among other things as well. Just something to consider.....what is the limit on Blu Ray for PS4 and XB1? I'm guessing it's not propiatary but commercial standards.

PS4 and XB1 support double layered Blu Ray discs (up to 50GB storage), Wii U only supports single (tmk) (up to 25GB) could be a problem but then again they could have the game across 2 discs. I think the reliance on installing and Wii U's small internal storage is more of a detriment.

Not really. It's more because PowerPC, nowadays size of the disc doesn't matter as much. Maybe in few years it would be a problem, but probably by that time Nintendo will release new console with blu-ray or something, so no worries

It's not going to be an issue this generation.

Next generation, we'll start seeing multilayered Blu-Ray discs, since they can have up to eight layers.

Actually, the Wii U uses a bluray variant, and the only thing Wii U would need in order to read a dual layer disc is a dual layer disc If the Wii U can read a single layered Wii U disc, it can read a dual layered one, like what Wii did with Super Smash Bros. It won't be an issue.

@Jazzer94
The Wii U isn't even requiring installs for the same games as Xbox One and PS4. Watch Dogs requires a ton of HDD space to install on Xbox One and PS4, but Wii U will be able to run it off the disc. If anything, that is less reason to worry about any such thing.

It's limited by its hardware. With that said, I still think it's the best console out there now.

The Wii U disc is propiatary though, so Nintendo could gain a bit more profit from software sales.....still, I'm guessing they could always manufacture a dual layered variant if they so desire....a yeah, probably not a big deal.

No it's not. Besides, what you are refering to isn't really on topic about the laser and disc.

That's not correct. Dual layer should be no problem for the WiiU.

And even if this were the case, the games would just have two discs and the problem would be solved. This was no problem to GameCube times either. Most games easily fit an 1.5 GB whereas the competitors did have 4GB. And two discs for Resident Evil were possible as well.

The biggest, beefiest Wii U games so far use around half of the 25GB limit. I don't think anything will come out in the next 3-4 years that is twice the size of Bayonetta.

Oh, speaking of Resident Evil and Gamecube, the GC remakes of Resi 2 and 3 were horrid because Capcom tried to fit them on a single low capacity disc.

The Games were ports and not remakes. The N64 had RE2 on a 512 Mbit-cartridge, so I guess, the capacity was not the problem...

@SpookyMeths
Lego City is 20GB, Tekken is 16GB, and Watch Dogs will be 17GB. For comparison sake, Watch Dogs is 13GB on last gen, and 20GB on Xbox One/PS4(and requires install). Wii U also didn't require an 8GB install for CoD Ghosts, like Xbox 360 did, so that should tell at a glance how much more data Wii U can read from the disc, but that only applies to that specific game, This should clear some things up.

Watch Dogs also requires install on Xbox 360, while Wii U doesn't:
https://support.ubi.com/en-us/faq.aspx?platformid=35&prod...
As everyone should know, Xbox One and PS4 require install for everything, even discs, so Wii U is reading that much more data than Xbox 360 and Xbox One/PS4.

Wii discs are proprietary variants of DVDs, but they could also be dual-layer, as demonstrated with Brawl and Other M. Wii U's optical discs are no exception, and can hold the same number of layers a Bluray disc can. The only difference between Bluray and Wii U discs is how they are read. Bluray (and DVD/CD) are read via constant linear velocity (CLV). Wii U, Wii, and GC discs are read via constant angular velocity (CAV). Wii could do both (which is why playing DVDs via homebrew on early SKUs was possible) up until they refreshed the system that also dropped GC disc and controller support (in which they dropped CLV support as well).

A Dual Layerd Wii U disc holds 50 GB.

We have no details about whether or not the Wii U's disc drive can support dual layer Wii U discs, but my suspicions are that it can. I'd call it a reasonable assumption.

It has absolutely nothing to do with more profit from software sales. And it's still Blu-Ray based just as the GCN and Wii were heavily DVD based, despite their "proprietary" discs.

They simply haven't paid the Blu-Ray Disc Association for a license to enable Blu-Ray video playback and the ability to utilize the Blu-Ray name. But they've licensed necessary patents directly from the BRDA partners that they needed and I've seen it reported somewhere that the same machines that press Blu-Ray video discs are able to press Wii U game discs.

By not having to pay Sony/Bluray for using their format, they are saving cash on every disc they manufacture and game they sell.

So ya....it is about saving money/profiting more.

Y'know I sort of miss games that came on more than one disc. Remember Final Fantasy VII? I always felt that it being on 3 discs showed what a mammoth game it was. Finishing a disc told you 'YOU HAVE FINISHED A 3RD OF THIS GAME'. In reality it was just all the cut scenes taking up the room.

So for Nintendo's gameplay thick, FMV light style of game construction, it doesn't really matter.

For the 3rd party stuff which is close to having a 4 hour film in it, I would guess it does limit it.

Ya. Wii U CAN read bluray, but the license wasn't had for Nintendo to supply it. If the bluray association decided that they want to sell the bluray license on the eShop for individual customers, they could. Sony is not the only company that owns bluray, BTW.

It won't be a problem for 3rd parties because they have already abandoned the console.

In seriousness, yeah, this potentially hurts the Wii U, especially when you consider that publishers/developers can't really guess how much storage the average Wii U owner has, since it relies on an external HD past the 32 GB standard (assuming that's the one they got). In an age where you have entire disks to install onto the system, it can be problematic. Thing is, this doesn't seem to be a problem for Nintendo or the few developers still supporting it, so...

@moomoo
Except that Wii U isn't requiring disc installs of any kind, as opposed to the other machines. When someone plays Watch Dogs on Xbox One or PS4, the game is required to be installed onto the HDD(20GB worth). When Watch Dogs releases on Wii U, all you need to do is put in the disc and you are good to go. No installation required. That's why Wii U having an HDD isn't as big of a deal as it it is on Xbox One/PS4, unless you are going all digital or buy alot of eShop games.

You need HDD space, even if you are using disc on Xbox One and PS4. The same can't be said about Wii U, although it could be in the future. At the very worst, Nintendo could briefly install game data onto the available HDD space, similar to how the SD card menu worked on Wii U. It's not that big of a deal, that's far out, there are work arounds, and that's besides that they could use 50GB Wii U discs if they really wanted to.