Is the Wii U powerful enough? Digging through the news for the needle in the haystack

Digitally Downloaded's Christopher Ingram writes:

"I’ve been carefully watching events unfold, enjoying the criticism as I always do, yet with this system there’s been something different – something just doesn’t ‘feel’ right this time around. I’ve been hard at work, searching though countless articles both recent and past and I think I just might have picked a few truths from the mounds of articles that amass each day in the world of gaming journalism, and I think I might have just found the needle hidden within the haystack."

[StrongMan]

Well, third party games like Batman Arkham City and Assassin's Creed 3 looks and plays better on PS3 and even Xbox than their "next gen" version on the WiiU. What does that tell you?

Games on PS2 looked and played better than games on PS1. Games on Xbox 360 looked and played better than games on Xbox 1. Games on Sega Dream cast looked and played better than games on Sega Saturn. Games on PS Vita looks and plays better than games on the PSP. So why don't the games on the "next gen" WiiU look and play better than current generation?

[Slapshot82]

Hi StrongMan,

Thanks for your comment, but please take the time to read my article. It isn't about "how the game's look or play on Wii U," but instead it's a deep look into the hardware inside the Wii U and what I found in my research into the reason(s) behind the recent eruption of controversy over Wii U's processing power within the gaming industry.

There is indeed a good reason for the confusion as to why Wii U isn't twice as powerful as the current generation of HD consoles and I explain it in detail.

[Army_of_Darkness]

When I already have a current Gen console. LOL! I'm sorry Nintendo, but y'all better make a really big impression with the wiiU games when E3 comes along, otherwise Sony and MS will completely steal the show.... As well as your sales, maybe..

[SilentNegotiator]

What's new to say or a "needle in the haystack"?

MANY developers made it clear that the CPU is weaker.
Analysts made it clear that the RAM, though larger, is slower.
MANY developers have made clear that the GPU is a little bit stronger.

[MattS]

Well, going from your logic, Games on the Wii U look better than games on the Wii.

Is there a reason that you're comparing the Sony and Xbox consoles to previous generation Sony and Xbox consoles, but with the Wii U, you're comparing it to, not a Nintendo console, but Sony and Microsoft consoles.

[Godmars290]

How about because its suppose to be more powerful, perform better, than those systems?

You're making less sense than he is, and he's talking about games already released on current Sony and MS systems as the same time as the Wii. Saying that Nintendo's next entry into the next console cycle isn't doing any better than the current cycle.

And this - asinine - argument is only going to come up again when Sony and MS release their entries into the next console cycle.

[darthv72]

"How about because its suppose to be more powerful, perform better, than those systems?"

That is the mentality of those who simply do not understand the history of this industry. Im sorry to be so blunt but that is how individuals think when it relates to their pov or how they justify their platform of choice.

The first thing to remember when it came to any platform release was that the competition is not exclusive to the other company. These platforms also compete with themselves. Meaning the SNEs was competing with the NES first and the genesis 2nd.

The reason for that is the intention for a new platform is to outsell its former self. To get consumers to basically upgrade. They know the logical competitor would be another compaies product but they also know that to be purchased as well the newest release must be able to offer more than the previous one.

So you think the main focus should be that this new wii-u HAS to be better than the other guy when Nintendo was most concerned with making it better and offer more perceived gaming value than the original wii.

looking at it from that perspective, they achieved their goal of making the wii-u better than any of their previous platforms. The same holds true for sony as they too have felt the pain of not outselling their previous effort. Technically it exceeds the ps2 by a great margin but why isnt it outselling it if its such a better system?

Could it be marketing? Or maybe its their idea that by creating this good guy image of we support both makes it appear to the consumer that whichever one they get they will be taken care of.

To the consumer, its a great idea. To the corporate heads...it sucks. All this $$ spent on R&D and releasing this better system and the older one still sells. Its a sale for the company in general but you know they would rather see returns on their latest and greatest.

Nintendo made their wii-u to take the place of the wii but they have a big task of convincing existing users to buy into that idea.

Its like car companies. We know companies are perceived as competitors to each other but they too have internal lines that compete as well. The bottom line is how many of their newer models can they sell as compared to their existing models. What kind of features can they add to convince buyers to buy the 2013 instead of the 2012 or possibly older.

[Slapshot82]

@darthv72 Sony basically axed themselves in the knee by using the Cell Processor. While its extremely powerful, it's a nightmare to develop games on and as I'm sure you know, it was to the detriment of the console for the first few years of its life cycle. It's taken a longtime, but it's paying off for them in the end though.

Nintendo will have little issue selling Wii U. Their first party titles alone will continue selling consoles, because they constantly attract a new generation of fans with their consistent creativity within their hit franchises, while maintaining their loyal core fans too. Even if it does have a rough start, the eventual drop in price and ever-growing library of games will find it selling like mad in the end, though I doubt it'll ever surpass the astronomical sales of the Wii.

People have been confused by journalist's plays on the words they use in thier articles and that's where people think that Wii U is "supposed" to be this or that. This is why this article exist! I show the truth behind these issues and even show where all the confusion stems from.

[Godmars290]

1 - Did you read the last thing I wrote in a very short comment. Who honestly gives a flying f*ck about how powerful the damn Wii U is? The PS4 and Next Box for that matter. In my opinion this gen undelivered largely because everyone was overly focused on hardware and the next wont be any better. It is especially sad however that Nintendo made the first limited step and everyone is falling over themselves either to declare them the early winners or a soon to be self-embarrassed foot note.

2 - What you've said in response classifies as a wall of text. Ignored.

[dredgewalker]

It is more powerful than the Wii so basically it's Nintendo's next generation of console. I'm not gonna buy the Wii U since it's not marketed towards my tastes but I wouldn't bash it either just because of that reason.

[Crillvirus81]

Well I have both games on both wii u and Xbox and the wii u versions beat the 360 version hands down they look and play better plus you can play the game on the pad and that feature right there alone makes them better on the wii u

[FinalomegaS]

you are right,
granted most on this site that do not own the same game or even seen it play on their own screen will jump into the negative stories head on.

I own both version of the games i bought except zombiu :P

the only one i don't own but my family member brought it over so we can do our own head2head.

Not sure but these launch games that were ported look better on the wiiu and this is coming from a multiplat owner. Maybe it's because the system system is new and shinny that's why the games look better "running" on my screen.

[Daoshai]

I am loving the pad. It works from my bedroom which is right above the living room where the Wii u is. I honestly didn't expect the gameplay to be as smooth as it is on the pad.

[Slapshot82]

I'm glad you're enjoying your Wii U!

I have absolute faith that Wii U will be successful and many of my friends are absolutely loving theirs as well. The GamePad is indeed a cool addition to the home console and is a major selling point for the system.

My article isn't an anti-Nintendo or anti-Wii U piece, it's just my getting fed up with all the half-truths I was reading/hearing and me publishing my findings after doing a few days of digging for It all. While I do indeed find that Wii U is pretty much on par with current generation HD consoles from a technical standpoint, it by no means that Wii U will fail, or isn't worth purchasing.

But I also found out why people think that Wii U is "supposed" to be significantly more powerful than the HD consoles and how the information was easily crossed, yet wasn't ever corrected by the mainstream media for the most part. This is how so many people were mislead into believing something that was never even true in the first place. It's all quite simple, yet so easily missed.

You'll have to read it in full to understand. :)

[hellvaguy]

"better plus you can play the game on the pad and that feature right there alone makes them better on the wii u"

Not sure how playing a game on a 6.5" inch gamepad screen is any "better" (*hint btw it isn't. My 60" led tv is "better"). However, I do enjoy the additional game options on Mario bros games with it.

[aquamala]

Are people forgetting that ps3 and 360 are still being sold at 250 when wii u launches at 300? And you get a tablet.

I have all 3 and I am loving the wii u, any multi plat games ill get on wii u from now

[iamnsuperman]

You don't really get a tablet considering and understandably it is missing features like 3G enabled, multi touch ...... It is extremely limited in its tablet features

[hellvaguy]

$300 with 8 gig hard drive? Pretty sure the xbox and ps u get at least 250 gigs.

[BitbyDeath]

The Wii was similar in power to PS2 and Xbox as well (give or take) so this is nothing new for the Nintendo crowd.

I'm sure it'll be poweful enough for them.

[SilentNegotiator]

For them, sure. But then you have hundreds of developers, many of which it will not, like the Wii and it's horrendous third party support.

[jmc8888]

Personally I'd like to see a more in-depth breakdown of the parts. We know it's DDR3L 1600...but we don't know about the timings. These are important to know, because tight versus loose might make 100 percent difference or more.

You can have DDR3 1333 have larger bandwidth than DDR3 running at 2133 mhz. It's all about the timings.

We also don't know the latency between the processor and the ram, as it's going to be less than a PC guaranteed.

So the 17.7 gb/s could be off quite a bit from the actual number. We don't even know how many channels there are. Is it dual channel memory? Quad? While this one is less likely, we still don't know.

We don't know how much eDRAM there is or what it's bandwidth is.

So all in all the 'bottleneck' might not be nearly as severe as we've all seen.

This fits AND what the article points out fits. Because even if what I say is right, it's not a technical marvel, but would fall in line with what Reggie said about 'new generation' and new experiences.

But we still haven't had a proper gauge of the system yet, it's still mostly guesses. All we have confirmed really is that it runs DDR3 1600 mhz and has 2gb with four 512mb chips.

That's really it (in terms of core specs).

We know it isn't Power7, but we haven't got confirmation of what chip it is, just a guess that it's a higher clocked Broadway that now a triple core (or quad by some people's guesses).

We don't know what the ATI specs are except for around 500 shaders and that it's from the 7XXX series.

So no, we really don't have much to go on still.

Probably won't be for awhile either.

[FinalomegaS]

it's like you're talking Chinese on to most people lol.

see the internet is a funny place. See the specs you mentioned are just about the same info going around and yet we keep hearing "not sure or we don't know X value really" and since it is new hardware and no developer has had experience with it we will be hearing a lot of mixed stories.

So what if someone from DICE said it's slower, compared to systems that they have teared down and are used to their hardware for years, can they really just go out there and make bold claims? Maybe he is Pro-Sony or MS, maybe he doesn't like the new hardware. Who knows whats going through his mind...

Not sure why Nintendo decided to craft the wiiu the way they did but i'm pretty sure it wasn't for being cheapo. Maybe there is more to the hardware than most actually understand. These developers need to understand the hardware and that isn't done over night.

I feel like we still know really nothing about the hardware even after many websites have open the system lol

truly and enigma

[KrisButtar]

good read, i enjoyed the article

[Eorl]

The problem at the moment is simply that the games being showcased - Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City - are just ports. They are beginner ports from developers who spent max 6 months time to get their title finally onto a Nintendo console.

If you look back, you'll see that launch titles for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were atrocious and downright muddy. Just like how recently Rockstar said only now at the end of the line are good games being made, and that's because developers actually have the proper toolset to make a good, solid game. Games take time to develop, they can't be rushed.

Though in saying all this, the ability that Ubisoft, BioWare and Rocksteady have shown in being able to quickly port over their current-gen games spells great relief for the Wii U in terms of third-party games. Being able to already understand the base mechanics of the tools and to be able to easily use the gamepad is a great thing, and people really need to stop being so negative on it.

Reminds me of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 launches (which everyone conveniently forgets when they bash another console), in that the consoles were laughed at while people enjoyed their PlayStation 2 and Xbox because the games were terrible.

[chronoforce]

Nintendo always craft their hardware according to the software they want to build and how they want it to work. In their eyes its probably sufficient power and don't be surprised if the Gamepad is the fruit of a game idea someone at Nintendo EAD had.

[daclynk]

i find it entertaining that all these Haters are here waiting and searching for any and little negative news to post and report on them about Wii u.People enjoying their wii u dont care about how many hair in marios head or how many strings are weaved into links tonic but rather having a blast on games like Zumbi U and Super mario bros.U and NintendoLand.Thats the experience we Gamer care about.You cant find that anywhere else then the wii u.If you dont like that then STFU.Haters dum dum people.

[wiiulee]

the wiiu is more then powerful enough...with a strong graphic chip and innovation that present alot of option for developers

[wiiulee]

you have no clue what you talking about man....how can wiiu get worse going forward silly when developers will only get more familiar with how to push the system and its gpu and ram are way ahead of current generation...haters will hate though...all i hear from developers is that,they are confuse about wiiu specs as we are