Topic: Why does the Wii U get so much hate?

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@Ralek85 No need to apologize, I can understand that there will sometimes be confusion with language and especially sayings and expressions. Take me for example: I am an American but I have lived and worked abroad for almost 34 years now, and I now live in the Netherlands. I have some English speaking relatives here and some colleagues as well, but for the most part the language I use here is Dutch. Let me tell you: NOT good for your native language. I almost always catch myself making some mistake in grammar or I can't for the life of me remember a word that I want to use at that moment that I'm typing something.

As for peer pressure: yes that is negative because it means that you surrender to the group, mostly out of not having a backbone or enough of a backbone to go against it. Sheep/flock or herd behavior can also be positive and is inherent in human beings: when in danger, form a group because there is safety in numbers, just to name one example, so it isn't necessarily a bad thing AND it can be free of choice, peer pressure cannot.

As for the Snowdrop engine: I first thought you were confused and meant EA's Frostbyte engine, but I looked it up to be sure and besides reading up on it I watched this video:

Now, having said that, the overall graphic fidelity will always be less, but it will definitely not be an eyesore or give the developer a heartache because his artistic expressions will be compromised. Just watch the video and know that except for the ridiculous amount of detail in the streets and in the forests, most of these effects (around 75 - 80%) could also be done on Wii U, given the time. (and we all know the answer to that, so let's skip the financials this time)
Combine this with other software (middleware) to smooth out any rough edges and vision-wise you will come pretty close to 80 - 90%...
And I DO mean vision-wise and NOT graphics-wise: vision-wise is what smart programming and good use of middleware (basically fooling the eye to some extent) will make you see, or rather NOT see...

The only thing that will stick out like a red flag is the lesser AI and the ability of the hardware in relation to number of enemies on screen at the same time. (@arnoldlayne83 I hear and understand you there. This is exactly your point concerning Dynasty Warriors) and levels might be somewhat smaller or require more loading.

To me that is not such a big deal. Maybe in some games, but in most games you won't even notice. The Wii versions of Call of Duty had more than enough online players so apparently they weren't bothered by it either. But it can be noticeable if you have two games from the same series on two consoles. You can have your doubts, I can't stop you from having them, but if said artist also makes versions of his game for smart devices, then they surely won't have a problem with Wii U...

Now let's suppose Nintendo manages to right some wrongs before the end of this financial year and market shares will rise to a decent enough level, then quite a few of these games/game series will surely come (back), mark my words...
Just expect the more advanced ones to contain the previously mentioned "shortcomings" but to me they are so minor, both concerning the graphics and the other two points that I couldn't possibly care less.
That is simply the trade off if people want to have these kind of games on Wii U, and if someone doesn't like that, then he or she should buy one of the other two consoles, simple as that. And in the end I think we can all agree that dealing with these minor trade-offs is a MUCH better option than having to accept the gimped software with all it's missing DLC and online functionality that third parties are giving us now...

And as for the new Nintendo system? Just keep in mind that the Wii U was rumored in 2010 and introduced in 2011, so in two years we will be almost 5 years further along. I'm pretty confident that they will have shown something by then. Or at the very least they will have confirmed the rumors that a new system is coming in 2016/2017. And they have already roughly outlined their plans a few weeks ago: the article was also posted on NLife.

So to be clear: I didn't mean that their next console will actually be launched in 2 years, but there will more than likely be some announcement. Current situations ask for such a measure to be taken. If not, then I would have to wonder if they are going to focus on handhelds only from then on, because they can't take another console failure. Well, financially they could just about survive and even make another one after that, but it would be so much better (obviously) if they just do it right the first time when announcing Wii U's successor. This generation should have made that abundantly clear by now, even to Nintendo themselves...

@Punished_Boss Thanks for that clip. It was funny.
@tanookisuit interesting story and thanks for explaining.

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@TheRealThanos First, thanks for being so understanding, and honestly, I'm always grateful, if someone points me towards flaws or misunderstandings in my language skills, especially if it comes to certrain specific terms or proverbs for example. After all, beyond a certain point, this is really the only way left to improve one's skills

As for everything you set about engines, and their scale-ability, that seems certainly to be the case, and I do get that, at least when we talk graphic-wise. As for vision-wise, I'm not 100% sure, what that entails, considering the following:

First, changes like this can affect the gameplay, while, as always, this seems to be a matter of degree. I think for most games, there certainly is a tipping-point, beyond which the changes are in fact felt. At which point the vision, from my pov, would be compromised, but, to use a previous term, not necessarily "butchered" of course. I wonder though, the reason I mentioned the Snowdrop engine, was because, as the video shows as well, it is used for latest Tom Clancy game The Division, which by all accounts will be a massive game in almost any regard. How would the scale of the world, the "levels" etc. be affected, would it really be only loading times? Also, there seems to be quite some focus on physics and destructibility, how does one go about scaling that?

I agree that if Nintendo managed to turn the situation around, and provide devs with a worthwhile installbase, many of those games would probably come back. But as you say, not all of them, and also, some will be somewhat limited in appeal by their "shortcomings". That being said, this is purely hypothetical, since I really believe the WiiU is fighting an uphill battle here. Even assuming they managed to turn it around, it would take some time for the publishers to catch on, and even more time for the devs to churn out the WIiU versions. But I get your point.

Talking about time, I just wanted to add, in regards to the WiiU successor, that I think Nintendo is a problematic situation here. On the one hand, all consoels/ handhelds have a limited lifecycle, with in this case, the 3DS being older but still better selling and the WiiU being "fresher" but not selling well at all. Considering that, Nintendo has to be thinking about new systems sooner, rather than later. That much is obvious. On the other hand, I think it was a bad move to completely de-sync the WiiU launch from the launch of the other mayor systems, not only performance wise, but also timing wise. I guess Nintendo hoped they could repeat the phenomenal success of the Wii (or NDS for that matter), but that was just that, a phenomenon. It'S much easier to attract new (multiplatform) games to two platforms (PS4/X1), or four (for the time being counting Ps3/360) or even five (including the WiiU), than to just one new platform. Of course other considerations come into it, like new IPs being more likely to be launched, when new generations arrive, being able to profit of a general atmosphere of "hype" etc.
Taking all that into account, Nintendo might be between a rock and a hard place, I'm afraid. They might not be able to afford to wait 5-7 years to launch a new platform, the 3DS is getting old (it was outdated to begin with), and the WiiU is doing to poorly, with too much negative PR baggage at this point, also the specs despite everything we talked about, seem unlikely to carry it another half a decade or so. If they once again launch 1-3 years "early" they might face exactly the same problem they faced this time around. Lacking 3rd party support, no general hype/awareness, "current-gen" tech, or from a pespective 1-3 years later "subpar" tech (I'm talking raw performance levels, from what I understand, the WiiU is actually a rather impressive piece of engineering), etc.
So assuming they would announce something in 2016/17, it stands to reasons that we would look at actual new hardware in 2018. From everything we both seem to think, that is indeed a reasonable assumption. By that point, I would suggest that both the PS4 and the X1 are just well beyond their half-time. Personally, I'D expect at least 6 years out of them, more likely like 7. Based on that we might see new hardware introduced in 2020. Chances are that Nintendo will then once again face the same situation as described above.
They might sit it out, at least in regards to the WiiU, and try to prolong it's lifecycle to get as close to the rest as possible. They might fill the gap with a new handheld in the meantime (if that's their WiiU strategy, I'd consider that a given). They might pull a 180, and as far as performance goes, try to come out strong, strong enough that they can't be written of 2 years later. They might be able to pull something like the Wii again, and provide a package, that has appeal beyond anything else, thus creating the kind of market share, that keeps them relevant no matter what the competition does, although this time around, that approach failed miserably for many reasons, as we know.
The thing that bugs me, is that all those sound like bad and unlikely ideas, although right off the top of my head, I don't see many alternatives. Might we possibly see a "New WiiU"? Again unlikely, but at this point, Nintendo has to be considering every option, as they really are in a rather grim situation unforunately =(

PS: How do you like the Netherlands, or for that matter Europe then? How much of a change is it, from a live in the U.S.? My sister lived in Montreal for a couple of years, before she came back to Germany, she never really got used to it over there.

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@Ralek85 Okay, this can be a difficult one, accounting for the partial language barrier and so on, but I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.

What I meant with vision-wise compared to graphics-wise is that the second one is factual: numbers, resolutions, frame rate and such.
Vision is what we actually see. Technically, you can't see a frame rate OR a resolution. You can see fluidity of motion and that one image is sharper than the other, but you couldn't say WHAT resolution or frame rate it is purely based on looking at it. You need data: without it, we can only guess.

A friend of mine once pulled a nice trick: he works in a shop where they sell all household appliances including audio and video appliances. He put two 42 inch HD TV's next to each other. Same brand, same type, exact same settings, but one was Full HD (1080p) and the other was HD Ready (720p/1080i). He removed the labels so no one could tell which was which. He connected a Bluray player to them and played some wildlife or ocean video on them to get a nice picture. He then randomly asked customers to compare the two and give their opinion on which was the better or prettier image.
Guess what? An overwhelming 9 out of 10 customers chose the HD Ready one, NOT the Full HD TV. Oh, the shock...

This proves that only a few people, probably people that are either tech savvy or know what to look at, could tell the difference. Most of the general public can't and apparently a pretty picture does not always equate to the highest quality screen when the differences are so minimal.

Now to translate that back to consoles: smart programming can help make what you see look better than it actually is, which is what I meant with fooling the eye. Just think of magicians/illusionists that fool you where you stand. The comparison does not fit entirely, but programmers use quite a lot of tricks as well. Their own experience plays a large part in that as well as the numerous middleware packages; software that translates, adds, combines and enhances effects of game engines amongst other things.

Take the N64 and PS1, some of the first 3D consoles (there was of course also the Sega Saturn) that used tricks such as fogging to hide the fact that the 3D builder had a very limited draw distance. Ever played Turok 64? If not, just look up a video and you'll see what I mean. There's a lot of fog in the levels and it helps the hardware because as long as you are not moving or moving too fast, the hardware doesn't have to display the 3D environment and the fog can partially hide that it is being drawn in the distance while you start moving. It is basically using the available tools of the hardware to lessen the impact of it's shortcomings. If these games back then didn't have fogging, then all you would see in the distance is broken off environments, empty spaces and so on. The fog masked all that, and that could for example also give the gamer the impression that a level was larger than it actually was.

There were lots of other tricks that they used as well, but I'll leave it at this one. There's more than enough info online if you're interested in more.
Now fast forward to 2014 and all you have to know is that the complexity of these programming tricks has multiplied a hundred-fold so they are so complex now that even in HD games, people can still be fooled by some clever tricks. This has nothing to do with numbers, frame rate, resolution so that is why I called it vision-wise because it is what you will "experience" when playing the game.

One of the more modern tricks is "baked light": say you're walking through an in-game forest and the sun is shining through the leafs and on the ground. It looks really great, but if you take the time to strip it down, you'll see that the beams of light are actually fixed/static (which is why it is called baked light) and not dynamic, as light should be. Besides the transparency the beams are equally fixed as the rest of the graphics. For all intents and purposes they could be beams of wood or concrete. To be able to fool the gamer the right way, shadows have to be "tuned in to" the baked lighting, as well as parts of the surroundings, otherwise the whole image falls flat on it's face. A lot of older 3D games (last 2 generations) used this trick and when used well, it could still be used today if it would be necessary. Dynamic lighting is one of today's marketing topics when talking about game engines. Just look it up, it's one of the things they are almost always talking about when discussing game engine capabilities.

As for the loading time issues in relation to the higher level of graphics: In one of my earlier comments I said that Nintendo must have been on to something with using a GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit) because bot Microsoft and Sony put one in their console as well. What it does besides normal processing of graphics is offer a range of options to help or even relieve the CPU of it's burden in some of the heavier tasks it has to perform.
Example: NFS Most Wanted or for a completely different type of game Rayman Legends. Because of the GPGPU both were able to make use of high resolution PC textures, something that could NEVER have been done with a normal CPU/GPU combo. Normally, these would have to be downgraded to fit console specs. Both Criterion and Ubisoft have also complimented the Wii U hardware for being able to do so, stating that it was a pleasant surprise.

To make it very simple, you can for example store textures, levels, sounds and so on in these special GPGPU's and it will only "feed" them to the CPU when it needs them, thereby lowering the workload of the CPU, setting it free to do other things.
With some imagination you could see that also being used for enemy count or what not in some games, by "queuing" effects or enemies in the GPGPU. (like people in line at the check out of a supermarket) In the end these are still tricks and the GPGPU AND CPU in the other two consoles are both more powerful, but again, the difference really is so much smaller because were all in HD now and it is only about the more advanced effects and the difference in AI, enemy count and world size. These are real differences and could impact player's enjoyment of a game but to me that would be ridiculous for the most part, let's take Call of Duty, I know, AGAIN, but first person shooters are a good example, both graphics-wise and vision-wise. The developers did a very good job with them on the Wii but of course the graphics weren't on par with the Xbox360/PS3 versions and there were also less enemies on screen at the same time. But still there were a lot of people enjoying these games and were happy that they did get a Wii version because same as today, not everyone has enough cash to buy more than one console.

It's the trade off that I talked about in my previous comment. Let's make a simple comparison. I believe that apple pie is as well known in Germany as it is in America and to my pleasant surprise in the Netherlands as well so I think it's a good metaphor.
Now let's say you have two choices: the first is that you can either have apple pie with whipped cream/ice cream or no apple pie. The second choice is that you actually CAN have apple pie, but without the whipped cream/ice cream. Do you get the point? Trade-offs my friend... Small offers to make if we want to see certain games on the Wii U.

I think or at least it seems that you worry too much or put WAY too much value on that difference and I keep trying to tell you that it's just not going to be that big, IF developers would be able to do that on Wii U, but of course it is all theoretical since the willingness to invest in it right now just isn't there with third parties. That does NOT mean that it couldn't be done, but to discuss that properly we have to keep the financial situation out of it, otherwise the answer to all these questions would be a simple: "NO, it can't be done and it won't happen."

If the market share was there and the money could have been made, then these games would be there, and that truly is a fact.
Games would then also be complete and look better because companies (or rather publishers) would see the value of the investment in the extra time needed to optimize towards the Wii U because they would be more certain that they would get the investment out of it by the number of sales. It's sales & marketing 101, and I don't need to remind you that sales & marketing is what I do..

And the time needed would not be that much longer, but in sales you also have something called "time to market" which does not mean it is time to do some marketing: it is the amount of time that you have to get a product ready and available on the market.
In console business this is especially prevalent in movie tie-ins and such, because when the movie is there, the game needs to be there also. Movie release schedules are known long before developers are finished with their game, so they have a pre-defined time scale (time to market) in which the game has to be finished. They can't say: well, it isn't what we wanted it to be yet, so we need a couple of months more.

In the situation that the Wii U is in now, every month (even every week) extra costs money, so either projects aren't started at all or, such as with larger companies as Ubisoft, projects for Wii U are put on the back burner and they first start to make money on other games and platforms. And sometimes this has of course also to do with releases of games from other companies that they don't want to compete with in order to be able to maximize their projected profit target. On a side note: All this makes you wonder if we will ever see Watch_Dogs Wii U, but if it ever arrives I'm curious to find out if they REALLY took the time to optimize it for Wii U or if it has just been sitting on a shelf doing nothing all this time.

As for the whole "when will the new Nintendo console arrive" I think I made a good calculated guess, and it may be true that they will once again be in the same situation, but if they switch to the same environment (x86) as the others, then that will open so many doors and it will give third party developers what they want and also make it easier to simultaneously develop for three platforms. The difference in specs is something you can't avoid, EVER.

Someone always has to be the first to release and purely theoretically, even if Nintendo would be willing and able to release a console that is 5 to 6 times more powerful than the PS4, then both Sony and Microsoft will just release a console that is even more powerful than that a couple of years later, so to me that is a totally useless debate because if you look at it that way, Nintendo can never win in the eyes of the public.

Nintendo needs to be seen as the separate entity that they are: they always keep to themselves, keep saying that they are NOT in the console race even though for whatever reason everybody wants them to be, they're 100% Asian so their values and views are different, they want to innovate and bring something new every time and they focus more on bringing joy and fun than anyone else.

As for me, I feel just fine over here. I live in Amsterdam, which I think is a great city. I've been all around Europe since I was nine so besides large family gatherings and some friends I don't remember all that much of how the quality of living over there was compared to here. I follow the news and keep in touch with family, but I plan to stay here. Got a Dutch passport and a lot of Dutch friends and family, so I feel right at home.