What the Wii U Tells Us About Next Generation

"The way Nintendo has handled the Wii U and its launch says a lot about the next generation of gaming, and what we can expect out of it." | Explosion.com

[Akuma-]

nothing, because its basically a xbox 360 so it doesnt tell anything

pcs now with games like bf 3, witcher 2, crysis and a lot of graphics power hungry games on ultra for the pc tells us where next gen gaming on consoles will be.

[PopRocks359]

What the hell do PCs have to do with game consoles?

[TXIDarkAvenger]

If you think next gen will look like high end PCs, your going to be in for a shock.

[SugarSoSweet]

I see your point next gen will not have the identical power of high end pc's BUT keep in mind no games currently on the PC with the exception of mods are really maxing on top end GPU/CPU

[Donnieboi]

The wii u is not next gen. Next nintendo console =/= next gen by any other standards (especially since new info proves the wii u is barely more efficient than current gen). Next gen consoles begin with Microsoft and Sony, no matter how much Nintendo fans want to spin it. Nintendo dropped the ball and now 3rd party support will falter since developers dont care to spend money and resources having to work around wii U's issues and lack of power (for this gen and the next). Fact.

The "U" in Wii U stands for "underwhelming".

[StarCSR]

Why would "Nintendo fans" want to spin something? The FACTS are that the WiiU starts a new generation. Anyone who denies that doesn't know what a generation is. A generation has ONE console for each developer: ONE. And the 7th generation had the Wii for Nintendo, the PS3 for Sony and the 360 for MS. So the next console is the 8th generation. And yes: If Nintendo had decided to make it a 4-bit console, it would still be their 8th generation console.

[Autodidactdystopia]

speculation is the root of all evil... lol jk fractional reserve banking is what i meant to say.

truth is we dont know jack and we wont know jack till later.

lets just get one thing straight although he might not be a comment on this article "sephirothx21" REALLY doesnt know jack and so it is best not to listen to him.

LOL

anyways wii-u is early in its cycle it will improve.

no telling as to whether the successors to the xbx/ps3 will annihilate it or not. my guess is that they will.

Im just gonna play whatever piques my interest and call it a day. i just like coming here to argue and spread info (dont we all?)

punctuation is for pyewsiees

a bit more time and things will become clear.

[MmaFan-Qc]

hard to call it a next gen when its pretty much on par with 7years old consoles...

[Qrphe]

The other consoles will have considerably better GPUs when they come out. The Wii U's is based on the Radeon HD 5670 which was worth $100 on 2010. If the PS3's RSX was based off a $600 card from a year before release (7800 GTX from 2005), I'm sure they'll be able to afford something similar or still powerful this time around, specially with how long they made last gen last.

Similarly, the Xenos in the 360 had a performance similar to the Radeon X1800 series which were around $500 when they came out and Microsoft was able to afford $300 and $400 price tags for their launch systems (from which they became profitable a long time ago but of course, it didn't release with a BR drive).

[Gr81]

Money are you willing to spend? $599.99?

[Qrphe]

If last gen Microsoft released a $400 console with a high-end GPU in it ($450 today), it'd even be possible for them them to release a console with a mid-end GPU from today and STILL not have to sell at as much of a loss as they did in the first years of the 360.

Let's be straight, the Wii U has a GPU of something that was already considered low-end two years ago.

[taquito]

next gen ps4/nextbox consoles, imo, will be around an i5, mid spec cpu, 4 gb ram, and a gtx 550 ti level gpu

should do 1080p native, 2x aa at 30 frames with medium to high settings on unreal 4 cryengine 3/4 and will stomp the sh!!t out of the wii u

[MasterCornholio]

That sounds good enough for me which is why I haven't bought a Wii U yet because it will probably end up being another Wii.

Motorola RAZR i

[Mikito11]

Get a PC if all you think next gen is graphics and more bloody FPS's..

[MysticStrummer]

I sincerely hope Wii U tells us nothing about next gen consoles.

[Buenoblue83]

Wii u is not next gen. Its an xbox 360 with a tablet controller. pc tells us nothing of next gen either, higher res and higher framerate is nice but current games are made with current gen specs in mind. you can upgrade a vw golf to 600 bhp but its still no ferrari. once the baseline specs are raised for next gen, then we will see real improvements.

[captain_slow82]

im waiting on a price drop :P then the wii u can be added to my console collection

[coolmaster]

Well, actually the Wii U tells us nothing about next generation because:
1) Unfortunately, it can't offer hardware powerful enough for us to say: "Whoa, that's really a next gen system!".
2) New controller can't be considered as a symbol of next gen.
3) The Wii U itself didn't produce as much excitement as we should expect from a next gen.
To conclude, Wii U should be considered as a mid-next-generation-system. So to say, a bridge from current gen to the next gen.

[mcstorm]

I really could not care if people think this console is next gen or not.

Power is not what a console is about look at PSX, PS2. I want a WiiU for playing games like Mario Zelda ect and that's why I cant wait to get my hands on the WiiU.

Then Bring on the next xbox and PS4 late on next year and I will pick them up for games like Halo, Gears Forza, LBP, Killzone ect.

I don't care about power I care about games.

[Buenoblue83]

the thing is i bought my ps1 for £500 on launch day, the power of the thing playing wipeout was phenomenal. dito playing gta iii on ps2. so your argument ofpower not mattering makes no sense because these were very powerful machines when released. if your picking up consoles years after release then they wont impress as much.

[Mikito11]

PS2 was not as powerful as XBOX or GAMECUBE... And it still sold millions, That's his point..

[sway_z]

I see the same old arguments popping up on N4G over again....

Firstly, we all need to separate PC and console...the 2 are very different products, so comparisons are futile.

Secondly, and I know this won't be very popular among the readers...but Sony's PS3 is very much still a very capable product. If Sony wanted to, they could follow Nintendo's (very successful) blueprint by releasing a (PS3 enhanced) console for next gen.

Sony could release a PS3.5 (new design, new name..Orbis with more Ram 4-6GB, better UI, refinements to GPU and faster Blueray drive 10x).Theoretically it would still stand head and shoulders over the Wii U, be economically viable, and be completely backwards compatible with everything on PS3.

Publishers could release 2 versions of the game on the same disc (PS3/Enhanced PS3).

In these harsh economic times, ever increasing development costs and price V.s. performance issues...this could actually work. The console would cost in the region of £250 - £350....it would sell by the bucket load!!

After, say 4-5yrs they could release the PS4...this would buy the company some time to recover losses and deliver what we would expect from a next gen product.

I would prefer completely new hardware myself...but Sony has financial problems...and I don't see the Wii U as a significant threat to either MS/Sony, and neither Sony or MS should be competing with PC's...so do we really need completely new hardware?

...One problem with my theory is MS...they probably WILL release something completely new and utterly powerful in comparison.

It's just a thought...I'm expecting disagrees, but it would be nice to get constructive feedback to accompany them.

[nitrogav]

Think your onto something there . Makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways .

[josephayal]

1.the Graphics 2.the gamepad

[V0LT]

Sony is def having financial troubles.

[TheEnigma313]

Not the gaming division. They gaming division is highly profitable.

[AWBrawler]

Lol so much denial. E3 will have to show you all just how Next Gen Wii U is. I'll be busy playing wonderful 101, pikmin 3, ZombiU, monster hunter3, scribblenauts, and other great exclusives until then

[thegamingadvisory21]

Ok most of what I am reading is about the power of a system. Sony proved that a powerful system mean nothin look at the jaguar it was powerful but was ass. Now a days gaming has changed to what is innovative that is the next system now so get over what is more powerful. Nintendo came out with a new system that changes how we game and connect as a gaming community that's the start to a new generation

[chronoforce]

Microsoft are going to integrate the kinect into the nextbox so what makes people think there will not be a compromise on how much money they spend on power, the kinect is essentially Microsofts GamePad. Only Sony possibly have the means to really boost power under the hood but since their credit downgrade they might not get as much investment to do so.

[pennywhyz]

Next gen consoles will look nothing like pc's.Sorry to ruin it for all ya.

[GraveLord]

Nothing. Nintendo is in its own little world.