Next-gen system far outperforms current expectations, Develop source claims

Nintendo’s next generation hardware will be roughly twice as powerful as Microsoft’s current system, the Xbox 360, according to a studio source speaking to Develop.
The person, communicating anonymously from a studio currently building a Wii U title, said the new Nintendo console could achieve roughly twice the processing and graphical potential of Microsoft’s current generation machine.

While twice the power of an Xbox 360 is broadly above market expectations, Develop’s source claimed this is in fact less than some studios had expected.
“I've heard [a project designer] complain it's underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans,” the source added.
Nintendo’s persistence with non-disclosure agreements means that it has been difficult for Develop to cross-examine the source’s claim, which was made late last year.

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Within the year we'll have a new piece of Nintendo hardware. That fact alone is enough to have us foaming at the mouth with excitement but get this: it'll also be the most powerful console on the market.
For more Nintendo features and retrospectives buy Nintendo gamer online for £4.50 or on Apple Newsstand from £2.99.We love the Wii to its jaggy old bones, but there's something about the idea of an all-conquering HD Nintendo machine that makes us squee ourselves silly. So will it be the ground-breaking wonder-machine we're all hoping for? Does Pikmin 3 actually exist? And do Ubisoft have the usual smattering of rubbish ports ready for day one? All of those questions and more will be answered in the next few pages, as we bring you the inside skinny on the world's most exciting piece of future tech...

When will it be out?

Everything so far points to a launch between June and December 2012. Ninty boss Satoru Iwata had already confirmed that the console would miss the end of the fiscal year (ie, April 2012), but after stating "we would like to show the final format of the Wii U at the E3 show next year" at Nintendo's most recent financial results briefing, he made it clear it's not going to arrive until well after June.
While it's crucial for Nintendo to get a head-start, Iwata's equally keen to get things right from day one: "As we learned a bitter lesson with the launch
of the Nintendo 3DS, we are trying to take every possible measure so that the Wii U will have a successful launch." With both release date and price set to be announced "when we are able to explain the specific proposals", it looks like we'll have to hang on until June before we find out more.

When will anyone go hands on with it?

Nintendo aren't set to reveal the console's final form until E3, so it seems the industry's annual willy-waving contest - sorry, enormously important trade show - will be the first time the world's press get their hands on the real thing. The upside of this delay? It gives developers plenty of time to get their games looking shipshape before revealing them to the world.

What are the hardware specs so far?

Nintendo have again partnered with IBM for the console's CPU, which is - warning: techy stuff - a multi-core 45nm microprocessor based on the architecture found in the human-trouncing Watson supercomputer. Its GPU is a custom-designed AMD Radeon HD chip, akin to the three-year-old R770. In layman's terms, that means it's not quite cutting-edge tech, but more than competent, and certainly enough to make Wii look pretty rusty already.

So how powerful is it really?

Curiously, all comparisons so far have been with Xbox 360 rather than PlayStation 3, though with what we know about the system's architecture, that's because it has more in common with Microsoft rather than Sony hardware. Darksiders II developers Vigil Games claim it's more powerful than either, "but there's still a question mark about how much you can squeeze out of it. You know how it is: a new system, tricks get learned as the lifespan goes along, so this is where we're starting, and it looks good."
Final hardware details are subject to change, but reports have it pegged as anywhere from 15% to "a lot" more powerful than current-gen hardware. It may not last for long, but when Wii U is released, Nintendo will have the most technologically capable console on the market. When was the last time you could say that, eh?

How will it work with 3DS?

Nintendo have been bigging up connectivity since the GameCube years, but few games have really made use of it - outside Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring Of Fates, how many titles really encouraged players to connect their DS and Wii? Exactly. Sure, we'll see a few titles where 3DS can be used as an optional controller, but with a likely disparity in power terms (not to mention the interface differences) it won't be much more than that.

How much is it likely to cost?

It'll be more expensive than the Wii was at launch, that's for sure. "We haven't announced pricing for Wii U, but you can definitely expect that pricing is going to be different," boomed human skyscraper (and president of Nintendo Of America) Reggie Fils-Aime. Industry 'expert' Michael Pachter claims the console's "sweet spot" would be $249, but a lot depends on just how powerful the machine is and how cheaply Nintendo can manufacture those touch-screen controllers. We'd put money on a UK price somewhere between £249 and £299, assuming the global economy doesn't implode before that.

What's Miyamoto working on?

Well, there's Measure Up, the E3 curio based on Shigsy's decidedly odd habit of carrying a tape measure around and testing himself to guess the size of everyday objects. The game was demoed at E3 2011 to zero fanfare, but it's sure to form part of a casual-friendly title at launch, if not a downloadable offering. Otherwise he'll be overseeing the next Mario game, though that could take a while to appear. Oh, and Pikmin 3, natch.

Will Pikmin 3 be a launch title?

We'd ...

Rockstar is on the lookout for staff capable of getting the "most from next-gen consoles".
The Grand Theft Auto developer is currently running a job ad seeking environmental artists to work on an unnamed project.Posted last year, it reads: "We'd like to hear from the industry's most talented environment artists. You will be designing, building and texturing the world, have the technical knowledge to achieve great looking results and the skill to get the most from next-gen consoles."
Could the position relate to Grand Theft Auto 5? It's possible, depending on when the game will be released, or perhaps if it's going to be released on Wii U, which will launch before the end of the calendar year.
Of course, it's all just speculation. It could just as well be Red Dead Redemption 2 or Manhunt next-gen. It's unlikely to be an FPS though, as Rockstar has said it's deliberately avoiding the genre.

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Nintendo has confirmed it will reveal more information on the Wii U before E3 in June.
Speaking with CNN, Nintendo US boss Reggie Fils-Aime said "Wii U will launch some time between E3 - which is in June - at the end of the year so essentially the second half of the year."We haven't announced pricing and we haven't announced specific details. We'll share more information between now and E3 and after E3."
Reggie's comments follow earlier hints that we might hear Wii U news ahead of the big Los Angeles expo.
Speaking at CES in Las Vegas this week he said: "We will be sharing information throughout the year so I won't say you'll have to wait until E3 but certainly we're not breaking new news here."
Recent reports claimed to have insider information on Wii U's tech specs, allegedly leaked from a 'Japanese developer'.

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Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has damned Nintendo for its design decisions with Wii U's unique tablet controller, which he says ultimately guarantees "limited third party launch support".
"Nintendo has to simply stop living in the past in 2012," he told Industry Gamers. "They had a great deal of success since 1985 by making proprietary hardware and supporting it with proprietary software. They attracted third party support based upon the large installed base they generated for their hardware."They appear to me to be confident that 'if they build it, third parties will support it', but I don't think that is the case for Wii U," he added.
Pachter takes issue with Nintendo's decision to adopt an alternative approach to its controller design - as it has done for all of its home consoles. "By trying to be 'different' with the tablet controller, they have complicated game design for developers, who can't figure out if the Wii U will ultimately support only one or multiple controllers."
He has a point there; Nintendo has 'confirmed' that, as originally reported by CVG, the console will only ship with - and be limited to compatibility with - a single tablet controller, blaming cost issues for the limitation. But conflicting reports have since emerged.
Pachter adds: "Nintendo made the device sufficiently different that they are all but assured of limited third party launch support, which ultimately will lead to modest hardware sales."
He goes on to suggest that Nintendo needs to improve its operations "in the areas of digital downloads, a user-friendly online interface and multiplayer gaming".

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The Wii U's online store will have a more diverse selection of apps available,The Daily reports citing "a person familiar with the matter." The outlet suggests non-game programs like MLB.TV will run on the console and independently through the Wii U's tablet-like controller. The site speculates the tablet apps could allow for email, web and social network browsing, but doesn't know whether the Wii U's store will use real currency (like the 3DS eShop) or Wii Points.

As interesting as all this sounds, it still feels out of step with today's Nintendo, which hasn't been able to match the online marketplaces found on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and other digital distribution networks. And there's a bigger question: Will the Wii U tie apps to the system instead of a widespread Nintendo account?

A singular account through which purchased apps can be accessed, both through Wii U and Nintendo handhelds, would be an expected step toward parity, more so than TV apps.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/ru...non-game-apps/ ...

Wii's swan-song, its successor's unveiling and the fall and rise of 3DS.


Wii and Wii U

It was a quiet year for the Wii, with headlines naturally focused on its rumoured successor. In February, THQ CEO Brian Farrell dropped a heavy hint that new Nintendo hardware was waiting in the wings, telling investors he did not expect new systems from Microsoft or Sony but adding: "It's difficult on Nintendo - we'll let them announce their new hardware."

Soon after, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that sales of seven million units a year in North America alone proved there was no need for a Wii 2, saying: "We'll make decisions about a successor system at the time when software developers cannot offer surprises [on Wii]."

Yet a sparse Wii release schedule told a markedly different tale. The only Wii game to make headlines in the early part of the year was We Dare, a racy party game from Ubisoft that was actually far tamer than its debut trailer implied. European ratings board PEGI defended the 12 rating it gave the game after famously reasonable UK tabloid The Sun said the game "promotes orgies and lesbian sex to kids as young as 12." Ubisoft eventually cancelled We Dare the day before it was due to launch in Europe, but had a good year elsewhere: Just Dance 2 sold a million units in the UK alone, and was later named the biggest thirdparty Wii game of all time with 14 million worldwide sales.

In mid-April sources told us that the Wii successor was very much real, with Nintendo to unveil the system at E3 in June with a view to a late 2012 release. Shigeru Miyamoto confessed the following week that new hardware was on the way, and by the end of the month Nintendo had confirmed its new console would be unveiled and playable at E3, and launch in 2012.

The official unveiling of Wii U and its divisive tablet controller came during Nintendo's E3 press conference, which our report described as hitting "a sweetspot in the Venn diagram of self-celebration, wry deference, nerdish awkwardness, earnest confidence and creative vigour." Satoru Iwata hailed the system as "a new structure for home entertainment … [that] will let everyone see games in a different way." It certainly let investors see Nintendo in a different way: the company's share price hit a five-year low the following day, and fell a further 5.2 per cent the day after. Iwata said it was all "very strange." He would soon get used to it, with the company taking a battering from investors and analysts as 3DS struggled, and the sickness spread: Square Enix's shares fell ten per cent after it announced Dragon Quest X would be headed to Wii U as well as its predecessor.

Little has been seen of the system since, with Nintendo apparently seeking to address one of the biggest criticisms of Wii U: that it only supports a single tablet controller. A report last month claimed the company was working on multiple controller support, as well as RAM and processor speed. The final version of the console will be shown off at E3 in June.

Nintendo announced a revision of the ageing Wii hardware, designed to sit horizontally instead of vertically, available at a lower price with Wii Sports and Wii Party but no backwards compatibility with GameCube games. That price point no doubt played a part in strong sales of the system in the US - half a million were sold on Black Friday alone - but the biggest factor in Wii's sustained success was The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

It was 2011's sole recipient of an Edge ten, our review hailing the fact that "this ultimate tale of hero-making should see Nintendo's hardware become the console it was always meant to be." It sold 195,000 copies on its debut in Japan, and 535,000 in the US in a little over a week. Nintendo will need to ensure Wii U doesn't have to wait as long for its own Skyward Sword if the console is to succeed, with Microsoft and Sony doubtless at work on next-generation hardware of their own.

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