Wii 2

[MasterP]

Nintendo has officially confirmed that the Wii 2 will be playable at this year's E3 in June with a launch date set in 2012.

 

The word so far is that it'll have an IBM triple-core processor very similar to the XBOX360 but of more modern construction and clocked higher. IBM's recent processor breakthroughs have been staggering so anything using one of their newer chips would wipe the floor with at least XBOX360, probably PS3 as well. The GPU is from the ATI R700 family which gives it more video processing power than both the XBOX360 and PS3.

 

Launch price is estimated to be $350-400.

 

Sources in Nintendo have stated that the company's intention is to retake the hardcore market and if the specs from those sources turns out to be correct I have no doubt they could do it.

[Ephraim]

Honest Reaction:

OMG We're finally starting to get news about the next generation consoles. Yes! I'm glad we won't have to wait past 2012 to starting seeing finished products.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm going to have extremely limited internet access this summer. When the official announcement is made, I will more than likely miss it, but I'll catch up to speed in July.

 

Smartass Reaction:

Wow, I bet the Wii 2 will have all sorts of technological innovations. For example: a DVD player. amirite lololol.

[MasterP]

Actually the controller will have a touchscreen

 

No word on what the disc format will be. Most likely DVD but maybe bluray depending on how much Sony charges to use it. Online accessed content is likely to be a big player, regardless of media format.

[Lemm]

Yeah I've heard similar info..

 

Something to the effect of having ds's for controllers. It's been a while since nintendo tried to compete in any hardware fashion.. I wonder if they are putting forth a serious effort here and how it will work out for them.

 

Nonetheless, I'm very excited.

 

 

PS. I don't want to get rid of my wii with my 130+ games and emulation abilities.

[MasterP]

Yeah while it's backwards compatible with the Wii, most homebrewers will be keeping theirs plugged up. You can bet Nintendo will be fixing all the bugs this time around <_>

[Lemm]

Yeah while it's backwards compatible with the Wii, most homebrewers will be keeping theirs plugged up. You can bet Nintendo will be fixing all the bugs this time around

 

One can dream....

 

At least Nintendo doesn't raid peoples homes looking for their secret files of hackery. We'll probably see an eFuse / qFuse chip in it similar to that of the 360 and Motorola phones.

 

I wonder how much of a gamble it would be to buy it right when it came out and never patch it..

[MasterP]

Nintendo doesn't care. They recognize that when a user can hack their console that it's their fault for botching the security, not the user's for being smart enough to find the flaw. They also follow Shane's philosophy:

 

If Sony had left it alone most people would have left them alone.

The guy Sony sued for "hacking" released ALL his research and code via bittorrent so that anyone who wanted to carry on his work could do so. Because of this, the information Sony sought to destroy is now spread all over the web and impossible to delete.

 

Compare that to Nintendo, where they left the firmware hackers alone and most of the hackers kept their code in-house and off the internet. Hell, the guys who originally cracked everything have specifically kept their work out of the public domain to prevent piracy of games. When you treat your customers with a little respect, and not like criminals, it goes a hell of a long way in earning their respect.

[Lemm]

Nintendo doesn't care. They recognize that when a user can hack their console that it's their fault for botching the security, not the user's for being smart enough to find the flaw. They also follow Shane's philosophy:

 

If Sony had left it alone most people would have left them alone.

The guy Sony sued for "hacking" released ALL his research and code via bittorrent so that anyone who wanted to carry on his work could do so. Because of this, the information Sony sought to destroy is now spread all over the web and impossible to delete.

 

Compare that to Nintendo, where they left the firmware hackers alone and most of the hackers kept their code in-house and off the internet. Hell, the guys who originally cracked everything have specifically kept their work out of the public domain to prevent piracy of games. When you treat your customers with a little respect, and not like criminals, it goes a hell of a long way in earning their respect.

 

I agree with this. I would go a step further and say if console manufacturers opened their consoles further allowing certain types of homebrew while still locking down the games they will see a lot less resistance. I don't mean allow otherOS but I mean allow for free and easy development of applications on a gaming system...

 

The more I think about it.. I want to see an Android console.

[Nickname]

Are those specs really 6 years of progress compared with the xbox or 5 years of progress compared with the ps3?

 

I think not.

 

I also think nintendo needs to figure out their market for this next console; they won't have the extreme sales if they are selling at $350-400 compared to $250. I mean if they want sales like the xbox got then yeah go for it but I don't think they are gonna be happy with that...

[MasterP]

Are those specs really 6 years of progress compared with the xbox or 5 years of progress compared with the ps3?

They don't have to be, neither MS or Sony are anywhere near releasing a nextgen console. Nintendo is simply releasing a console using the best current-gen technology, if MS or Sony were to release another right now it would be in the same ballpark.

 

Also worth noting is that IBM has made very few improvements to the original cell processor and discontinued work on it a few years ago so anything Sony does will likely use a different architecture, making it incompatible with PS3 games. They could pay IBM to continue working on it but that would get expensive really fast. This also affects MS as the XBOX360 is running a processor based partly on the cell architecture. MS could easily use the same processor family that Nintendo is using though as the instruction sets are virtually identical that what they've been using.

 

As to sales, Nintendo's sales have dropped pretty bad over the last year or so thanks to the economy and Kinect/Move. Most of the newer multi-platform games are not being released on the Wii due to the processing power and the loss of sales is driving down profits. With more processing and video power than the competitors they would not only be able to get those games on their system but would also give developers the ability to put more in the games. As good as a shooter looks on the XBOX360, imagine how good it could look on something with 15-20% more power.

[Lemm]

me no like consoles anymore

[MasterP]

Hey now, Sony's the only one that stores your passwords and CC numbers on their servers unencrypted. No need to hate on the rest of them

[Nickname]

Sony shot itself in the foot with the cell processor IMO; hope you guys wont want backwords compatibility on the PS4 lol.

 

The problem is the original Wii was outdated the day it got released. Like REALLY outdated. I'm happy to see them finally release something... relevant. Still though, I think it will take some time before there is a huge difference in titles between the wii2 and 360/ps3. Though what this does help nintendo with is getting in on all that awesome multiplatform action, now that they will actually have enough power to do such a thing. Stuff like Call of Duty, Madden, etc, will be not only options but highly desireable on the wii 2, considering its superior power. Should be a win/win for developers and nintendo, as long as they do enough to keep the wii different so people buy it in the first place.

 

Also, a touchscreen controller sounds horrible to me but thats just my opinion.

[Lemm]

Hey now, Sony's the only one that stores your passwords and CC numbers on their servers unencrypted. No need to hate on the rest of them

 

Actually I've read that the CC#'s were encrypted... which is why they are not sure if they were stolen or not.

 

Sony shot itself in the foot with the cell processor IMO; hope you guys wont want backwords compatibility on the PS4 lol.

 

The problem is the original Wii was outdated the day it got released. Like REALLY outdated. I'm happy to see them finally release something... relevant. Still though, I think it will take some time before there is a huge difference in titles between the wii2 and 360/ps3. Though what this does help nintendo with is getting in on all that awesome multiplatform action, now that they will actually have enough power to do such a thing. Stuff like Call of Duty, Madden, etc, will be not only options but highly desireable on the wii 2, considering its superior power. Should be a win/win for developers and nintendo, as long as they do enough to keep the wii different so people buy it in the first place.

 

Also, a touchscreen controller sounds horrible to me but thats just my opinion.

 

The Wii simultaneously created and was the best at its own category.. they fun kiddy box. Serious gaming was only done on the xbox / ps3. PS3 couldn't have known the cell processor was doomed.. I don't blame them for that..

 

However, XBOX did have the right idea going with a paid online service. They are able to put more focus on the online network which seems to be all anyone ever plays anymore (sorry but single player sucks on most games now).

 

XBOX also is very lucky... for some reason most people chose to get xbox over ps3.. now there is some circular reasoning here as I'm not sure which came first but most games are developed and optimized for the xbox.. PS3 game are not optimized graphically unless they are an exclusive and Wii is *edited* in this regard. This may also be due to the fact that some XBOX live revenue may go towards paying game manufacturers to do this.. in which it isn't luck .. it's just business.

 

XBOX < PS3 in hardware capabilities.. but they have definitely overcome that.

 

EDIT: I should also say that the PS3 is a lot harder to program for .. given the complex cell architecture.. this could be why they aren't chosen as the best to manufacture for

 

PS.

 

I also agree that touchscreen sounds like a bad idea.. but that was my thinking when I first heard about the Wii motion controllers.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Lemm

[Nickname]

XBOX also is very lucky... for some reason most people chose to get xbox over ps3.. now there is some circular reasoning here as I'm not sure which came first but most games are developed and optimized for the xbox.. PS3 game are not optimized graphically unless they are an exclusive and Wii is *edited* in this regard. This may also be due to the fact that some XBOX live revenue may go towards paying game manufacturers to do this.. in which it isn't luck .. it's just business.

360 came out a full year before the ps3... which gave it a huge boost.

XBOX

That's a partial truth at best. The PS3 has more theoretical power with the cell processor... but in general, it is not being fully utilized due to the complexity of programming for it, so they actually end up being pretty close. The graphics cards are actually surprisingly similar if you look at the architecture as a whole and how memory is shared with the graphics and such. So yeah the PS3 is at the end of the day perhaps slightly better, but its so small a difference that in most games you can't even tell a visual difference. In fact as you know some games look better on the 360 while others look better on the PS3.

[MasterP]

As evidenced by homebrew-only games on the Wii, to bring out the full potential in a console the developers have to actually know wtf they're doing and care enough to sit there and do it. When you're trying to port a game from one system to another, the care just isn't there, so whatever console it was originally developed for is going to have the better looking graphics.

 

MS went WAY out of their way to make sure the XBOX360 was easy to program games for, as did Nintendo, Sony thought that since their hardware was better developers would automatically want to re-learn everything just to program for the PS3. Well, surprise surprise, that didn't happen, not quickly anyway.

[Lemm]

Yeah oh well...

 

My previous standpoint on consoles is to wait a while... usually because I haz not enough moniez. I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. I'll definitely have to try it out in the store and I don't know that I will even consider buying the PS4.

 

I think Nintendo is making a smart move by releasing first, though.

[MasterP]

Yeah releasing an inferior console last wasn't a very smart move but their profits on it have been large, compared to the XBOX360 and PS3, both of which are in the red overall. I don't think Nintendo really cared about delivering a powerhouse this round. Sounds fanboyish, I know, but taking the weaker yet cheaper and more profitable route suited them well during the economic downturn.

 

I've been playing the playstation line since it was first released back in the mid-90s but have never really found enough interest in their titles to warrant buying one and until just recently the multiplatforms were always released on the Nintendo line as well. Marketing it as a living room powerhouse is a smart move but without the ability to play movies that aren't on blu-ray DVDs I have no need for it. Now, if they had left OtherOS alone and made the whole thing compatible with something other than FAT32, which has a filesize limit of 4GB, then yeah I'd already own one, but as it stands my Wii is compatible with more types of media than the PS3 and that's just sad. I still prefer my $350 media center PC with a 2TB hard drive

[Lemm]

I still prefer my $350 media center PC with a 2TB hard drive

 

I've been wanting to build one of those for years... however if I'm going to spend any more money on computers, I really need a new desktop first.

[MasterP]

If you do, make sure you get an Nvidia GPU. There are some really nice video codecs that offload all the processing to CUDA. I can watch a 1080p bluray rip and my dualcore atom will idle around 10%. On my desktop with an ATI card the same movie uses 30-40% of my Q6600.

[Lemm]

cool beans, thanks for the tip but like I said I don't know when I'll ever get around to doing it.

[newrayz]

A new dawn of Nintendo is near, and it shall be mighty.

[MasterP]

Tbh, Nintendo hasn't used any of their consoles to its potential. It'll be nice to see them finally try to.