Wii U power (speculation thread)

[Angrist]

Recently there have been numerous reports on the specifications (raw power) of the Wii U.
I've read the following:

Team Ninja says the specs have been changing all the time.
Epic's Mark Rein likes the console and thinks we'll all love E³.
Darksiders 2 developer says the Wii U version of the game will be on par with the other versions (PC, PS3, 360).

Now there's a rumor that says Wii U is less powerful than PS360. Anonymous without any specs given... I personally think that's bullocks, especially considering that Nintendo has been listening carefully to developers about what they want from the hardware.
Also, PS360 tech is 6 years old. iPhones come close to that power. I doubt that Nintendo will underpower their console so badly. (Wii had the excuse that it was heavily based on GameCube tech.)

So three questions: what do you personally think the Wii U's power will be?
How much power do you think it needs??

And do we really need 10x as much power next gen? There are developers who say the day graphics can't become better is in sight.

E³ can't come soon enough!

[Vampyr]

Jeeze....if it ends up being less powerful than the 360/PS3...I will have a really hard time justifying buying it.

I already get frustrated playing my 360 - the load times are so long, the framerate dips are so bad, and the games in general are showing their age. Having a high quality gaming PC has really spoiled me.

I don't know if I can justify buying a downgrade. It will, of course, be hard to pass up those first party Nintendo titles, but I'll get over it.

[BreakABone]

Honestly, hanging out on GAF.. I've grown sick of the spec.. er speculation

More, less on par, in the ball park, on the moon.. whatever
I don't care
My policy has and will always be, I'll buy a console for the games and until I see some actual line-ups I have no opinion on the console.

[gekko]

Originally Posted by Angrist

I personally think that's bullocks, especially considering that Nintendo has been listening carefully to developers about what they want from the hardware.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Is there some industry-wide survey going on that I don't know about? Is Nintendo traveling the world, taking a bunch of people out to dinner, and listening to them rant?

Let me explain a few things to help digest the rumors:

Generally speaking the "representatives" of a specific developer or publisher are not programmers, but rather producers, creative directors, sales people, etc. If you want to understand how the specs compare, or whether the console is easy to develop for, you need to speak to the programmers.

These people are also speaking in a professional capacity as an employee of their company. That means they say what is in the best interest of the company, regardless of whether or not it is the truth. For example, Mark Rein is in the business of selling licenses to UE3. Saying anything other than "The Wii U is great, you should all buy UE3 and make games for it" would be bad for business. The other people you linked to are trying to sell their game, and saying "This hardware sucks and the controller is gimicky" doesn't make you want to buy your game. This is a business people, the only thing that matters is you buying the product.

Third, due to the nature of confidential information, the only rumors that are true will come from anonymous sources. This is a very small industry, so if you gain a reputation of someone who leaks information, your career may very well be over because you won't get hired again. So any person with a career they care about wouldn't leak the information to begin with, and if they ever did, they wouldn't put their name on it. Of course, the internet is full of morons, so you can expect almost every rumor to be fake. The real problem is journalists who publish this nonsense.

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by BreakABone

Honestly, hanging out on GAF

Ugh.

Anyway, I'm pretty much ignoring all the rumors regarding the WiiU and the theoretical next-gen consoles from MS and Sony. There's just too much randomness in the mix right now for me to really take anything seriously. I can wait until E3 news on the WiiU, and the next Xbox and PlayStation are far enough away that I don't really care.

[Angrist]

Originally Posted by gekko

Where do you come up with this stuff? Is there some industry-wide survey going on that I don't know about? Is Nintendo traveling the world, taking a bunch of people out to dinner, and listening to them rant?

Not sure where I read it, but some developers mentioned that Nintendo was listening to the developers (programmers?) and changed the development kit in response to that.

But you make some good points, I never really thought about it that way.

And yet there are some facts that are hard to argue with. The developer of Aliens: Colonial Marines said to ONM that the Wii U has more RAM and a great processor. And that's why the Wii U version of the game will probably look better than the other versions.
It could still be hype, but it will bite him in the butt if it doesn't turn out to be true.

[gekko]

I didn't mean for my statement to be directed specifically towards you, I've just seen those statements a lot in the past and really don't get where they come from. Maybe Nintendo held a developer's conference and asked people to fill out surveys with everything that sucks about working on the Wii. It certainly could happen, but usually that isn't given to the PR team to spread around "Hey look, developer's filled up 300 pages worth of crap we do terribly!".

Generally I hear it from fans, who don't really understand the gripes with Wii development and don't have access to Wii U, so therefore can't really speak to whether any of this is true.

[BreakABone]

Originally Posted by gekko

I didn't mean for my statement to be directed specifically towards you, I've just seen those statements a lot in the past and really don't get where they come from. Maybe Nintendo held a developer's conference and asked people to fill out surveys with everything that sucks about working on the Wii. It certainly could happen, but usually that isn't given to the PR team to spread around "Hey look, developer's filled up 300 pages worth of crap we do terribly!".

Generally I hear it from fans, who don't really understand the gripes with Wii development and don't have access to Wii U, so therefore can't really speak to whether any of this is true.

Hard to take anything as gospel, but from reading interviews and stuff.

It seems like Nintendo (or any of the big 3) approaches certain key partners (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, etc) and see what they would want in a system.. and then they try and compromise on what they want and the price they want to hit

[gekko]

First of all, those companies are all publishers. Granted they all also have development studios either internally, or they own them, there's a big difference between asking a few execs at a publisher what they want in a system and asking someone who works with the console every day what they want.

When you say "a console is easy to develop for", it's referring to how easy it is to program for a specific platforms. And that deals with things like hardware architecture, APIs, and development tools. So when you say "Nintendo listened to what developers want", those are the things I envision.