Topic: Wii-U concerns.

Hey everybody! I got my Wii-U on Dec 3rd 2012 and I love it! I love playing Black Ops on it! I really like this console a lot but I have some concerns. To my understanding, (I could be wrong) the Wii-u is slightly more powerful than the PS and 360. That is really cool and all, but what is Nintendo going to do when their competitors release a 'godly' system that will blow the Wii-U out of the water in terms of specs. It will be like what the current consoles did to the Wii. Miyamoto made it his personal mission to get Nintendo Wii-U third party support, and it looks like it is working. (I would really like to see Far Cry 3 on Wii-U). Anyways, what is Nintendo going to do when the new consoles come out and they just blow it out of the water and Third Party support stops because they focus their endeavors on the new consoles. I think when the new consoles come out Third Party support will flock way and flock to the new consoles. They might still develop for us but we will get crappy nerfed versions of the game like we did with Wii. I predict the first next gen console to come out before the end of 2013, and I think it will be Microsoft who comes first. If my predictions are correct this will surely be Nintendo's last console, and they will become like Sega and only make software. There were too many mistakes on the launch of the Wii-U and on the console itself. They should have made it more powerful so it could atleast have a chance to compete against the PS4 and 720. THoughts on my predictions? I hope I am wrong.

The Wii was the most successful system of the last generation, yet it was the weakest. Specs don't mean everything.

Then the Wii U will be at the Wii's position like last generation. The only way this will happen is if its competitors produce new consoles that run smoother and are easier to program for than the Wii U is.

There's no reason to worry, though.

Well, it was hard enough for game devs to get used to what's out now, so if the new consoles are 'godly', we can expect to get most if not all the games for the next PS/Xbox because of that sole reason. It already takes TONS of time and money to get games going already, and if anything, the only thing next gen PS/Xbox will bring is 1080p for every game, and more frames per second, with hardly a difference in graphics. I would say that the difference in graphics for Wii U vs. PS4/Xbox 720/1080(whatever) will be the difference that GCN had against the original Xbox(Xbox wins), or Wii U vs. PS3/Xbox 360(Wii U wins). These are just my speculations, and shouldn't be taken as fact for whatever reason. Ultimately, the software and exposing capabilities through the software smoothly will be what determines whether it will be worth getting more than one console, or choosing one over the other.

I don't think that PS4 and XBOX3/720 are going to be more dramatically more powerfull than the current consoles. Maybe xbox, but sony has big financial problems to research for new tecnologies that marks a difference so huge like the one founded between ps2 and ps3.

Anyway, just enjoy the Wii U experience.

you realize nintendo is no longer in ther console business to compete with the others,, their primary focus is just to deliver unique experiences in unique ways. they even said it themselves at one time..

I would say having Wii remotes still being valid over 2 generations at all is a good sign that Nintendo had the right control scheme(and alternatives) down since motion plus came out. I'm sure PS4 and Xbox 1080 will do the same thing carrying over the exact same control schemes that they do now. If they don't, and make a new Kinect 2, or Move 2, people are gonna be pissed that they bought those if they did recently. Nintendo's pretty much had their control scheme down since 2009, when it comes to having an actual product on shelves. Xbox 360 and PS3 got theirs a year and a half later, but they haven't even used Move or Kinect properly yet. I heard Kinect only reads 20-30% of movements but only based off the programming, so they need to use what they got to the max before trying to make version 2. As for Move, it's basically motion plus with a color ball, and it's more expensive. I'd say control schemes are down for a while, unless they realease 9 axis controls without buying a new product entirely, but nothing even uses that yet, and will take time to figure out.

Another Wii U doomsday prediction? Nintendo is not going the way of Sega, at least anytime soon. Nintendo is much more stubborn and is sitting on a rather large pile of money. Most people don't realize how much Nintendo still has from their older consoles, not to mention the Wii printed money (and they continue to make quite a lot from the handheld industry). They can afford a few missteps still. Aside from that, I think the Wii U will likely be a success anyways. The biggest obstacle that prevented the Wii from receiving much third party support was simply the lack of HD. I feel fairly certain Sony and Microsoft's systems will overpower the Wii U, but I doubt it will be nearly as much of a difference as was the previous generation. The Wii U is already meeting Nintendo's expectations and they've hardly tapped the casual market, and, honestly, Nintendo has a bit of an advantage for that demographic (once they start defining the systems to the casuals). When the next systems come out, they will likely cost quite a lot more than the Wii U does (face it, Nintendo always underprices the competition), and the Wii U will have hopefully built up a nice library (I would assume Nintendo is just waiting to release some notable system sellers around when the competing systems release, to try to grab some sales and show off that their system has already been established while the others are taking off). Still, no point jumping ahead, no one even knows what Sony or Microsoft has planned and I'm sure Nintendo is waiting to hear that one as well. Nintendo's goal this fiscal year was releasing the Wii U and getting them into people's houses. The upcoming E3 will likely be completely dedicated to software and that's when we'll really start trying to wow us with games.

actually, Nintendo is still making heaps of money selling the Wii. They cost next to nothing to make and people are still buying them. Same goes for the DS.

Hmm this was really interesting, I got a lesson in game developing. I had no idea that devs were still having issues with today's consoles and upgradin ghtem would worsen the problem. I got to thinking and I thought to myself: if the Xbox 720 (fan name) is over 700$ at launch why wouldn't people just buy a good gaming PC instead. I would Imagine Xbox720 is going to have a price issue because people could buy a PC for cheaper, and it would be better. I really hope Miyamoto succeeds in getting 3rd party developers on Nintendo's side. I really want to see some good games in 2014 like Far Cry.

Well, game developing is much simpler than generations ago... but on the other hand, games are becoming increasingly complex (and players demand this complexity) and so developers need the systems to be as developer friendly as possible. Coming from someone in the industry, I'd say current gen systems are relatively easy to program on, but making a game as deep as retail games these days means we need as little obstacles as possible. Nintendo is notorious for trying to simplify the process, though the 360 is also quite simple, but all systems take time adjusting to and learning how to get the most out of them. The more powerful the system, the more complex, but ideally this is something the console developers should take care of. I doubt console gaming will really compete directly with PC gaming, there will always be many gamers that prefer consoles, but the price could be a problem, especially in this economy. I highly doubt Microsoft or Sony will be able to make their systems a whole lot more powerful than the Wii U simply because they will require more resources and have too high of costs. The PS3 already initially hit that problem. Not to mention Microsoft and Sony had to sell quite a few games to actually make a profit from their current consoles, while Nintendo makes a profit by the second game's sale. Our economy is really going to start affecting the industry and we'll see it more than ever in this upcoming console generation.

The WiiU has actually taken the best path possible. It is slightly more powerful, will soon sell at a profit as manufacturing costs go down, has a reasonable price, has guaranteed quality system-selling content because of first party, has the capability to play traditionally designed games (pro controller), has a quirk that makes it unique without making it gimmicky, and appeals to third parties that don't want to invest in more tech and resources to develop ever more demanding games. Ever wonder why Wii and everything before it had games launch at $50, while 360 and PS3 games cost $60 at launch? Higher development costs. The Wii dominated sales this gen despite less powerful hardware. The Wii U is going to be awesome.

That said, the competition finds themselves in an interesting spot. Sony cannot afford to sell their next console at a loss, so development costs have to be less than what they will sell the system for, which is most likely $300-$400. They also have to make it more powerful than the PS3, which is still selling at a loss to this day, explaining why they are reluctant to make a PS4. This also means they have to have a selling point other than hardware power, like motion being the primary controller or requiring 3D or head tracking. Microsoft is also in an interesting spot, because they have almost no first party games development other than Halo, so something else about their console has to attract developers, and sheer strength of hardware is not going to do it this time. I predict a Nextbox that runs Windows 9, and a version of Windows 9 for PCs that emulates Nextbox, 360, and Xbox games.

Yeah, I've got a hunch that this gen will be much more akin to PS2/XBOX/GC than the one we just had, where the differences in power are not huge and don't hinder the kind of games that can be made on such platforms. Sony's economic position means that they just can't make an insanely powerful console and sell at a loss. People laughed at the "599 US dollars" when PS3 was announced; in a worse economy I highly doubt it will be accepted as well, let alone better. Plus, PC gaming really hasn't shown the crazy edge over consoles like it once did. Yes, Far Cry 3 is so much better on PC than the consoles, but if you show the average gamer the difference between high-end PC versus console, chances are they'll go for the significantly cheaper option, even though it's inferior. Most gamers aren't as hardcore as PC gamers, nor have the demands that the audience has. That's why for the majority of games out there sales on the consoles (especially the 360) are leaps and bounds above PC. (Yes, there are exceptions like XCOM, but for the most part it is the case)

Thus, it's pretty hard to imagine the kind of leap we had last gen with this one. So I'm not worried about Wii U at all.

Haha. I agree with your prediction of PS2 vs. GCN/Xbox(I think more like Wii U vs. PS3/Xbox 360, but still pretty close), but saying PC gamers are more hardcore isn't even true. There's way more people playing consoles, whether they're hardcore or not. I agree with PC gamers being more 'into' the games they play, but that's if they even get the games from consoles at all(on PC + consoles), and whether their rig is updated every single second to play the newest PC only game game, which costs alot. PC gamers claiming to ge the most hardcore isn't even real, in terms of the actual content, and control options. I have no doubt you're hardcore gaming on whatever, but old people and babies still in walker things are playing Wii. That's pretty hardcore if you ask me.

In other words, PC gamers have to play consoles to get the FULL hardcore gaming experience.

Wow, @moomoo and @ShadJV, I was going to comment, but it would have been a third of what you guys already said... And probably with more grammer flaws.
ANd congratz AceTrainerAndy!
You're the first person to ask this question this year! Lets give him a big hand folks! /me starts a tape with generic audience clapping on it.

Have you guys heard rumors about the new Steambox? I am scared for Nintendo now after I read about it. It looks like it is going to be a BEAST. @Void was your post sarcasm about me being the first to bring this up. I am kind of new here, so I wouldn't know.

Nintendo has an established consumer base and I have my doubts they'd migrate to Steambox unless Nintendo stopped releasing quality first party titles. Besides, as far as I understand, the system only supports digitally downloaded games, and a lot of people still want to own physical copies of games. Also from what I've read, the Steambox might not be that cheap, though if you see any official statements on pricing feel free to share the source. I think it will face the same obstacles Sony and Microsoft will face. Nintendo will be fine.

You need to look at what each platform brings to the table and then start to think about where there's too much of the same thing. In terms of competition nothing much has changed for Nintendo. They're still selling their Mario box and it has an interesting feature (GamePad) that nobody else, as far as we know, has. If they do add it eventually odds are it won't be as polished. If anything Microsoft and Sony should be worried.

Think about it, Sony's plan has always been to use a game machine as a trojan horse for a media player. Microsoft has tried to do the same. We live in a different world though, every new TV has those sort of features built in and people are increasingly abandoning physical media. Now Valve is coming out with an OS for a miniature PC that pretty much turns it into what MS has been doing with the XBox. One with a rolling "next generation" rather than a "when we say so" model. So we've got Nintendo in their corner doing their thing while trying to claw back some territory.... and now three companies competing for the rest.

Anyways, expect to see the PS4/720 BEFORE the Steam Box is out.....

Actually, Value has said that the Steam Box should be coming out this year while there's still confirmation of Sony's next system coming out.

Either way, the Steam Box shouldn't pose any threat to Nintendo, if anything, it would threaten Microsoft because the appeal of Value's console directly affects Microsoft as the Steam Box could prove to be more appealing to 3rd parties (especially Indie developers) along with providing an excellent online service and with Microsoft's less than appealing standards of charging for online play and limiting Indie developers, if they don't change that soon, they could be in the biggest trouble since apart from Value, Sony and Nintendo have also stepped up their online services, Sony with Playstation Plus and Nintendo making the eShop much more appealing to Indie developers, which would be rather ironic considering that of the 3 financially, Microsoft is in the best spot.

Like many others have said, don't expect the next gen Playstation/XBox to be much more powerful and if they are, that extra power will most likely be used for some new feature like the rumored Omni head gear or the Kinect 2.0. Sony's in no position to be making a beast of a console and if that's the case with Sony, there's no point in Microsoft doing the same because developers won't utilize that power especially if it means that the games won't be able to appear on the "PS4" or Wii U. There have already been statements from Epic saying that the next gen Playstation/XBox aren't powerful enough to fully run Unreal Engine 4 and John Carmack saying that for the next gen, they're still focusing on using 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS. Expect to see more detailed and/or lifelike visuals (like Star Wars 1313) but don't expect to see stuff like Agni's Philosophy happen on consoles for a long time.

Finally, we have not seen the full potential of the Wii U yet, anyone who claims that it's "barely more powerful than the PS3/360" is either flat out lying or going on limited facts. The true power of the 360 wasn't shown off until at least a year later, we rarely got to see what the original XBox was truly capable of, even the Wii was able to push some pretty impressive visuals despite being extremely inferior to the PS3/360. So be patient, and I'm pretty sure when E3 comes around, we'll see some really impressive looking Wii U titles revealed, especially since Miyamoto, Retro and Monolith Soft are all working on individual games and all 3 know how to craft visually impressive games.