There are many reasons for this, among them Wi-Fi was initially uncommon, Ethernet is more reliable and the latency is usually lower (barring an amazing Wi-Fi chip vs. a bad Ethernet connection.)
I will give Wii credit for being the first console to have Wi-Fi in every single model though, the $499 20 GB PS3 was Ethernet-only in 2006 and no early Xbox 360's (which admittedly came out the year before and were far more powerful and initially sold at a loss like the PS3) had built-in Wi-Fi either, though for the 360 there was an official adapter. 20 GB PS3 there never was an official "solution."
Wii had this official LAN adapter:
^as well as some poor third-party knockoffs.
And now this is compatible with Wii U. Here's the problem though, the Xbox One and PS4 use 10/100/1000 (up to Gigabit) built-in Ethernet ports. Wii/Wii U's is 10 (10 Megabit), an aged connection that's beatable via Wi-Fi (see here: http://community.callofduty.com/thread/200652845) and the LAN adapter is reportedly the unreliable one! You read that right as well, the Wii/ Wii U LAN adapter has a tenth of the max speed of the built-in solutions in the PS4 and XB1, as well as most modern PC's.
The official adapter (always go official with big N accessories imo) is $24.99 US + shipping and only uses 1 of the now 4 USB 2.0 ports on the Wii U. The original Wii had 2 USB 1.0 ports, surely gigabit is doable at least with 2 USB 2.0 ports? Surely it shouldn't cost more than $15-$20.
Sure, Nintendo, don't want to spend the $1.00 in parts (being liberal) for a gigabit Ethernet port that most Nintendo gamers don't use? A reasonably priced external gigabit solution is acceptable to me given that most Nintendo gamers are very content with Wi-Fi, which we've had and Nintendo's pioneered in gaming since the DS launched with it in 2004.
Why would you need a GB of internet speed? If they really need to, they can upgrade the firmware ware to push the Wi-fi chip further. As far as benchmarking goes, Wi-fi is alot more in the same league as ethernet than it used to be, depending on your setup, now adays.
Wi-fi is alot more viable for a regular consumer, so they don't include ethernet. Even if they did have a GB ethernet, that doesn't mean they would support speeds any higher than they currently do. I think the average internet speed from service providers is 7-12mbs, so it's not really practical unless they get the same performance from Wi-fi as well.
Why would you need a GB of internet speed? If they really need to, they can upgrade the firmware ware to push the Wi-fi chip further. As far as benchmarking goes, Wi-fi is alot more in the same league as ethernet than it used to be, depending on your setup, now adays.
Wi-fi is alot more viable for a regular consumer, so they don't include ethernet. Even if they did have a GB ethernet, that doesn't mean they would support speeds any higher than they currently do. I think the average internet speed from service providers is 7-12mbs, so it's not really practical unless they get the same performance from Wi-fi as well.
Other than a direct connection, gigabit Ethernet is the best you can possibly get and the old Wii LAN adapter from 2006 has trouble as a 10 megabit adapter. Even if you have a relatively slow connection like you or I the adapter is anecdotally slower and less reliable than the Wii U's Wi-Fi, which seems astonishing.
For competitive gaming where ever millisecond counts and dropped connections are very noticeable, nothing beats a wired connection.
I know you can't upgrade past a component's capability. That doesn't mean the Wi-Fi chip is as slow as they're currently letting you use it. I've heard that they have internet capped at 12mbs. That doesn't mean that the card can't do speeds of upwards of double that or more. My point was that that they could possibly have it capped. There's no way to know either way.
Nintendo has been known to purposely hold their systems back. As seen with the 3DS. They allowed developers to only use 1 of 2 CPU cores within the 3DS for a while. That's the type of firmware upgrade I'm talking about, here.
EDIT: Your connection dropping isn't always related to Wi-Fi, either. I've had better connections over Wi-Fi than others have had with ethernet on the same device, or a different device. Ethernet doesn't solve every problem, whether you want to believe that or not.
The way you connect to the internet is not the problem here. The "issue" is that people with slow to moderate internet are the majority, so Nintendo supports what most of the market is.
Qwest
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The way you connect to the internet is not the problem here. The "issue" is that people with slow to moderate internet are the majority, so Nintendo supports what most of the market is.
Scar, just found out the Wii LAN Adaptor is actually only 10 Megabit...unreal considering the PS3 had 10/100/1000 in 2006. Xbox 360 is only 10/100 granted.
This is why Nintendo doesn't care. Ya, that's 2010 there, but lets say in a possible scenario that internet speeds are similar now to how they were then, except there are more users now. I'm not so sure I'm willing to blame it off the Wi-Fi card. Neither of us know that for fact unless one of us Googles it, and I'm not gonna.
Qwest
3DS Friend Code: 4253-3737-8064 | Nintendo Network ID: Children
Talk about first world problems. My connection is about 24 Megabits and I'm darn fine with it. So if the LAN adapter is capped to 100, that's no problem at all.
Talk about first world problems. My connection is about 24 Megabits and I'm darn fine with it. So if the LAN adapter is capped to 100, that's no problem at all.
Exactly. There's probably only about 5% of internet users with 50mbs or more, with the rest having .5-12mbs for the most of the average.
BTW, most N network enabled Wi-Fi cards go from 54-600mbs max. Since Nintendo hasn't released any specs, we can either assume it's N compatible at 12mbs max, or N enabled at the actual specification speed for N.
Talk about first world problems. My connection is about 24 Megabits and I'm darn fine with it. So if the LAN adapter is capped to 100, that's no problem at all.
Did you read the thread? It's capped at 10, it's an old USB 1.0 adapter that was outdated in 2006 and the third-party "solutions" are terrible.
It's not "capped at 10" and it's not a USB 1.0 device. It runs at 100Mbps and I've tested it at that speed. Not just on the Wii U itself where I streamed a video that averages ~13Mbps (and peaks at 30Mbps) without any stutter but also plugged into my laptop where it matched standard 10/100Mbps. 95/85Mbps or 95/65Mbps as a bidirectional test. Much more than the 30-40Mbps you'd expect from a the single band 2.4Ghz wireless N the Wii U contains.
However the reason it doesn't matter is because the Wii U's speed in most of its applications are constrained server side not hardware side. Plus the fact that the most demanding thing you'll ever do on it is download a game where, again, you'll be constrained by the servers unless you have really slow 'nets. So how many of these threads need to be created? I'm very tempted to create a youtube video of me actually benchmarking it so I can put all of these BS theories to bed.
Here is the problem - Wifi on a single band runs at the slowest speed.
So the normal thing to do is put the stuff you don't want limited on the a band - 40mhz channel. Leave the legacy stuff on 2.4ghz.
Problem is Nintendo use 5ghz for the Gamepad but they don't state in what manner so I don't know what the solution is. (Or whether it is dynamic or what).
My Accesspoint (That covers the whole house cost £150 - just dual band 450 bgn / 300 an. Router is seperate).
USB is another problem. It is all very well if it can max out 100Mb over usb the reality of it is that it uses loads of CPU.
(I know this because my xscale which is a much older arm chip is much better at networking than a raspberry pi which connects over usb even though it has an ethernet on the board).
Nintendo should be able to max my connection anyway - Steam has no problem doing so and Nintendo is getting substantially more money per megabyte when I buy something.
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Yeah, it's not the hardware. If you want to complain about something in terms of speed complain about the fact that their servers are fairly slow. Although only complain then if your internet connection is above ~12Mbps because if its lower they're not the bottleneck. And again, the speed restriction of USB 2.0 doesn't apply here. It runs just as well as a Fast Ethernet port.....
If you want Gigabit then you're wanting something that won't give you any benefit at all for this application.
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[bold]It's not "capped at 10" and it's not a USB 1.0 device. It runs at 100Mbps and I've tested it at that speed. [/bold] Not just on the Wii U itself where I streamed a video that averages ~13Mbps (and peaks at 30Mbps) without any stutter but also plugged into my laptop where it matched standard 10/100Mbps. 95/85Mbps or 95/65Mbps as a bidirectional test. Much more than the 30-40Mbps you'd expect from a the single band 2.4Ghz wireless N the Wii U contains.
However the reason it doesn't matter is because the Wii U's speed in most of its applications are constrained server side not hardware side. Plus the fact that the most demanding thing you'll ever do on it is download a game where, again, you'll be constrained by the servers unless you have really slow 'nets. So how many of these threads need to be created? I'm very tempted to create a youtube video of me actually benchmarking it so I can put all of these BS theories to bed.
What the hell are you talking about...? Wi-Fi? I was talking about the Ethernet adaptor.
@WhereEaglesDare
So was I. The "it" I was talking about was the "it" in the context of this thread. If it's hard for you to understand I was saying the Wii U LAN adapter is not USB1 and is not capped at 10Mbps. I've tested it and it runs at full fast ethernet speeds. A speed that is greater than the WiFi built into the Wii U.
I have a feeling you were just reading what you wanted to read and not what I was actually saying. If it's that hard for people to grasp I'll come back here later when I find my adapter and post screencaps of iperf numbers.....
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Topic: Wii U should have an official gigabit Ethernet adapter.
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