Apparently EA has had a falling out with Nintendo, I can't honestly think of any reason why but how else do you explain EA's decision to no longer develop for the Wii U?.
One of the things that really gets on my nerves is people who enjoy spreading misinformation, so for EA's Bob Summerwill to say the Wii U is less powerful than the 360 is one of the most incredibly untrue and ludicrously stupid statements I've heard come out of EA, bear in mind this is the company who in recent months put Sim City out on shelves, a game literally unplayable at first due to EA's servers being down and then went on to try and pass off DRM as the game being an MMO!
So I guess the thing that struck me as even weirder than a company notorious for lying through their teeth continue to do so, is apparently not only do people believe what EA's Bob Summerwill said but they are in agreement, look I know it mite be fun to bash Nintendo for not being yet another console that you can play multiplats on but it's kinda grasping at straws when you have to circumvent reality.
Now before anyone cries (FANBOY) I don't at all have a problem with people hating on Nintendo but if you must do so then why not at least hate them for genuinely valid reasons?, like say for example re-releasing old franchises with barely altered gameplay or for indirectly breaking your TV screen because they used cheap plastic? it carries a bit more weight than "company I dislike makes weaker console I wouldn't have bought anyway because I prefer Sony/MS" but I digress.
I honestly can't believe that nonsense about the new Frostbite 3 engine not working well on the Wii U, I'm not saying their wouldn't be any graphical compromises and such but when has shoddy game design bothered EA in the past? I mean if you can believe that excuse then you're either very gullible or probably still stay up at night to catch a glimpse of Santa Clause.
The fact is EA could have optimised the frostbite 3 game engine but they are choosing not to and I'm very curious as to why that is, if I had to hazard a guess I'd say they are trying to appeal to the core gamer who are all currently taking it in turns to curb stomp Nintendo for you know, being Nintendo. It seems kind of unfair really, it's like hating a band for only knowing one genre and who just keep remixing their greatest hits every few years, yes they could play something new and different but once they try you'll only tell them they're crap compared to the bands you actually like so they mite as well not even bother and just keep appealing to their core fanbase.
I expect EA to pull a 180 on this whole anti Nintendo thing once the Wii U's install base increases over the next few years or whenever they remember that three consoles selling their games equates to more money, something EA couldn't be any more about even if they switched they're logo out for the $ sign.
Anyway I can't say I'm too surprised by all of this, the fact that even EA a company with about as much business ethics and positive morels as a Nazi German tank, could garner favour by tweeting a widely popular if not completely flawed opinion is nothing new.
So I guess I'd better end this on a positive note. When EA eventually releases their new Star Wars games for all 3 major console platforms this gen, I sincerely hope they make good use of the Wii U tablet screen.
Danish from eXputer: "DLC for Baldur's Gate 3 could resolve some unanswered questions and offer more sought-after content for what is otherwise one of the greatest RPGs in recent memory."
Farbridge's upcoming VR RTS Homeworld: Vast Reaches will be available for Meta Quest headsets from 2nd May 2024.
You'll know of EGX. You'll know of MCM Comic Con. Today the two events have confirmed that they'll be coming together under one roof
Just a small correction, you mean Sim City, not The Sims 3.
Good blog though.
I seriously don't know how EA's view of Nintendo and the Wii U could have changed in just two simple years. At E3 2011, Iwata invited the (now-former) CEO of EA on stage and all he did was ramble on about how they have an "unprecedented partnership" with Nintendo - and throwing a nice, vivid imagination of EA games on the Wii U into the minds of everyone who was listening.
Now; it's come to still having an "unprecedented partnership" - yet refusing to make any games for the Wii U and consistently trash-talking it. How you could go from *smiles and happiness* to *hate, immaturity and bitterness* as fast as an Audi R8 goes from 0-60MPH is beyond me.
You're right - when the Wii U starts picking up steam and riding high on sales charts, EA just might switch gears again - because they're just that greedy. It'll be an interesting sight to behold.
Ever from since the beginning of the year, I've been wondering why so many people have it out for EA. I never had a problem with them - never really saw them as evil. Now, I can see why they won the "Worst Company in America" for the second year in a row. They're lying, cheating, scamming, immature,sly, wicked, greedy, idiotic jerks. And Summerwill's outburst yesterday not only summed that up completely, but tarnished both his (and his company's) reputation even further.
"One of the things that really gets on my nerves is people who enjoy spreading misinformation, so for EA's Bob Summerwill to say the Wii U is less powerful than the 360 is one of the most incredibly untrue and ludicrously stupid statements I've heard come out of EA."
If you're not a developer on Wii U you have no room to speak. That being said based on the reverse engineering doen to the Wii U it's hard to believe it's significantly less powerful than the 360 (possible, but hard to believe).
The GPU in the Wii U is either a 4650, 4650m, 4670m, ro 4670. If it's a remakes of the 4650 then it can be as low as 200 GFLOPS which puts slightly below the PS360 GPU's. This is why most people believe it's either a higher ranking 4650 or 4670 which would range from 320 GFLOPS - 480 GFLOPS.
The CPU is significantly weaker. Possibly a mere 50% of the PS360 CPU's, it's based on a modified version of the Wii CPU (Wii U CPU 3x - 4.5x more powerful than Wii) which was based on a modified Gamecube CPU (Wii CPU 50% more powerful than GC), which was based on a CPU created in 1999. The Wii U launched in 2012 (modified 13 year old tech).
The RAM is also significantly slower than the PS360 being only half the speed of the PS3's RAM. The eDRAM in the Wii U can potentially double the speeds of the RAM which would match the PS3, but ultimately it's short temporary boost at best. And the fact that the system has 2GB of RAM (1GB dedicated to games) doesn't help much when it's slow to begin with.
Now if Nintendo was foolish enough to go with a low-end 4650 then yes the Wii U is weaker than the 360, but I can't / don't want to believe Nintendo was that cheap and stupid. My thoughts is if someone who has developed for the Wii U says it's a weak console who's been working in the industry for over 14 years (3 console generations) then I'm sure he has a bit of insight into how tech works, and wouldn't pull this from thin air.
If Nintendo went with a 4650m then the GPU should be 320 GFLOPS making it nearly 40% more powerful than the PS360 GPU's, which is likely what Nintendo went with, however, the awful CPU, and poor RAM speeds cause the entire system to fall short, and drop down to near PS360 levels since the CPU has to make up for those 2 weaker components.
Wii U has both slower RAM and slower CPU. In many practical ways, that makes it "weaker"