Slashdot Mirror
Some Truth to Wii as GameCube 1.5?
Newsweek's N'Gai tackles the allegation that the Wii is a glorified GameCube. He specifically looked at recent comments by Microsoft's Robbie Bach saying that 'the video graphics on it aren't very strong; the box itself is kind of underpowered; it doesn't play DVDs; there are a lot of down-line components [that] aren't actually that interesting. ... They don't have the graphics horsepower that even Xbox 1 had. So it makes sort of the comparison set a little bit difficult.' LevelUp spoke with a pair of technical experts at third party publishers and learned that, essentially, Bach's comments about horsepower are accurate. However, "the 'Gamecube 1.5' moniker, while accurate, doesn't mean that gamers won't see graphical improvements on the Wii. 'There are three main differences which will result in graphics improvements. One, the increased memory clock speed, from 162 megahertz to 243 megahertz, means that it is easier to do enough pixels for 480p mode versus 480i. Two, the enhanced memory size of the Wii gives much more room for image-related operations such as anti-aliasing, motion blur, etc. The performance to these memory systems from the graphics chip is also improved. So full-screen effects and increased texture usage seem likely as a result.'"
Who cares, the thing is fun to play, so maybe the Wii's wee isn't as big as the xbox 360 or the PS3 -- does that really make such a big difference?
I'm surprised a suit would say that comparison is 'difficult', when sales figures are readily available. Maybe what's difficult is having to explain them to billg?
Isn't this something people were saying before the Wii was even released? I don't understand why this is news again, almost (or possibly more than) a year later.
Did you know that my AMD64 is really just a Pentium III 1.5? I heard it on the Internet, so it must be true!
I wish people would get a grip. Especially since these specs have been know for... oh.... EVER. Get over already, will you? Yeah, it's the first console since the 80's to perform upgrades to components rather than replacing them outright. That's not a big deal. The console still has more than enough power to play games like Zelda, Super Paper Mario, and Red Steel.
Let me put it another way. In the Super Nintendo generation, it was less powerful than the TG16, the 3DO, the Phillips CD-i (pardon me while I die laughing), and the Neo Geo. But it was also worlds less expensive. Its only real competitor in that generation was the Sega Genesis, a console that was less powerful than the Super Nintendo!
The lesson to learn from this is that graphical power != better games. Better games == Better games, and damn the graphical power. The sooner people realize this, the better. (Or should I say, the sooner they get over their insecurity at having purchased a PS3?)
As for the Gamecube "1.5" nonsense, it's two Gamecubes duct taped together. Get it right, will you?
* Critics can shaddup about this one, too. If you can't get past learning the controls, well, that's too bad for you. But many of us actually find the controls to make the game. And the graphics aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be. Sure, there are some dull hallways and whatnot, but there are also rooms full of steam, radiosity from windows, and other nice effects that help draw you into the game. And drawing me into the game is all I care about.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Blah blah blah. What do you expect them to say? "Oh, the Wii kicks our ass. It's cheaper to build and is selling more. We're fools?" Give me a break.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
So Microsoft is upset with Nintendo because they were smarter? After spending huge amounts of money MS ended up with a new machine based on making everything faster while nintendo spent their money on researching new ways to play games and applied them to what they already had.
I have a 360, it has some great games, but its still just a prettier version of the xbox that is barely backwards compatable. I cant get my wife or relatives to play the 360, but all of them seem to gravitate to the wii. I came home from work yesterday and caught my wife bowling at 3 in the afternoon, I can guarantee I've never come home and caught her playing halo.
So perhaps MS feels like they wasted money and resources? Have we finally reached a point where the old argument about graphics vs gameplay is actually a legitimate one?
If you focus on a few seconds of one of many commercials then yes, you may think they have a lousy marketing campaign. Marketing to families is what are driving the sales. If you were a mother or father, would you spend $250+ on a console that you can enjoy too, or $600+? Showing families having fun together while playing the Wii sure was a bad idea!
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
If you wish to make the processing power of the Wii your main concern, then yes, you might be able to make an argument that the Wii is only 1.5 gamecubes. Unfortunately, you'd be entirely missing the point of the Wii.
If you consider a new control scheme to be more interesting, then the 360 is more like Xbox 1.1. The PS3 has some motion detection added in, so we'll call that a PS2 2.0, but they couldn't manage to get the rumble back in, so we should probably dock them something for that. Let's just say it's a 2.0 that shipped before it was really ready. Nintendo, on the other hand, has shipped an entirely new product line.
And the best part for Nintendo is that this isn't just some BS excuse that they're making up for not being able to keep up in the technology race, it's a very deliberate strategy that they've implemented in both their handheld and living room consoles, and sales have proved it to be extremely successful. Good for them.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Why do people keep saying "in another year or two, when the novelty of the motion detector has worn off"? This statement just doesn't make any sense to me at all. That is like saying "well, in a year or two when 0-60 in 4 seconds of your sports car wears off", it isn't going to. It isn't just a gimmick. It is a true advancement in the way interact with games. Sure, there are going to be games that implement motion control in crappy ways. The key is that there are going to be amazing games as well that simply aren't possible with a standard controller.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
There's more to creating beauty than polygon fill rates and shader algorithms.
I think a game like Super Paper Mario, for example, is absolutely gorgeous; it's obvious that a huge amount of effort went into the art direction for the game. Who cares if the graphics could have been generated by a last-generation GPU? They're still beautiful.
Video games must be the only industry around where pricing a system to make a profit is somehow seen as a bad thing.
Here's a hint: If Microsoft didn't have the Windows tax to fall back on, the 360 probably wouldn't even exist, let alone be sold at the losses it was during its first year.
The money to make these things comes from somewhere. Nintendo sells the product for what it actually costs to make, Microsoft just uses some of the money from their monopoly.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
It's something that suits will never understand. It goes beyond pixels and megahertz and "high definition", deeper into the human heart where suits just can't see. People don't care about pixels. They don't care about fill-rates and texels and polygons and all the other bullshit that suits try to cram into their products -- all the crap they THINK people want. But they just don't get it. People want to be happy and have fun. People spend their lives miserable most of the time and want to spend their money that they worked hard for and get fun and happiness with their friends and family in exchange. It's FUN to play Wii with your mom or grandpa or uncle. It's not fun to play GTA or Gears of War with your grandma. The architecture is irrelevant. What's important is the amount of happy times you get for your money.
I really think Nintendo approached the Wii intelligently. When trying to shake things up in the gaming world and going with a whole new control scheme, using a revved-up Gamecube might not be a bad thing. Think of the risk involved. If they put out a platform that rivals the Xbox or PS3 with a new control scheme, the console would be expensive and people would not take the risk of learning something new. Nintendo is dead in the water.
But if Nintendo bumps up the specs on the gamecube (small risk, graphics are decent) while introducing a new control scheme (big risk) while keeping the price cheaper than the other two consoles (still making a profit on each console), people can afford to take a risk...and they have. The Wii is a success so far, and caught the game makers with their pants down. They weren't prepared for this and now they have to shift too.
What is really interesting, in this experiment by Nintendo, is that because the Wii is so far a success, this lowers the risk of incorporating higher end graphics, HD, 720/1080, etc for Wii 2.0.
Case in point: when you watch old movies, you sometimes think to yourself "those are computer graphics", and they're still better-looking than today's consoles (and yes I'm talking about the Xbox360 and PS3 in this case, or even the most expensive consumer-grade 3D card). So if your brain can make the difference between real things and 3D things in movies that took months to render, imagine how long it will be until 500$ consoles can do it in real-time.
Nintendo are smart to stay away from that "photorealistic 3D graphics" race. The finish line is still decades away.
If enough people have the Wii, there will be games...
And it certainly looks like there will be enough people with a Wii... So I wouldn't bet on a lack of games...
So in a way was/is the DS. It was in fact claimed by Nintendo themselves that the DS was NOT the full sequel to the GBA.
The Wii is NOT a next generation console as we have come to expect. It is decidely underpowered, even compared to last generation.
The lack of a dvd player is trivial, anyone who wants one can get one so cheap nowadays it is pointless to have it as a feature and either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray just wouldn't fit with its low price point.
The simple fact is the the Wii is an attempt to go a different route. Can Nintendo succeed in selling games that despite not being able to compete on graphics terms are considered fun enough to be bought? Or perhaps an even simpler bet, that not enough people will have HD tv screens to notice the higher res graphics of the PS3/360? After all, unless your tv is HD ready you won't see much improvement anyway.
But does anyone else find it ironic that Microsoft who has made billions in the last decade selling point upgrades to their OS is commeting on someone else doing a 1.5? Could windows 98 be considered a full .5 upgrade to 95? How about XP to 2000 and 2000 to NT4 etc etc?
The simple fact is that right now the Wii, no matter how underpowered is the one console still sold out. No I don't see why. I do NOT like its games. Then again, I in general don't like consoles. But for a 1.5 console, Nintendo ain't doing bad. If anything MS and Sony should be really worried because with the cash Nintendo is taking in they could be the ones who in a couple of years could launch a 2.5 console that will truly blow the PS3 and 360 out of the water while these consoles by then will be considered old.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's like the jock complaining that the stoner dudes get all the chicks. After all, jocks are bigger, faster, and have larger penises, so the stoners are obviously inferior, so how come women hang out with the otehr guy.
Hmmm - maybe 'cause they're fun to be around?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Im sure Im going to get lynched for being anti-nintendo on /., but still. The thing that bothers me the most about the Wii isnt that it's a Gamecube 1.5. It's that it's a Gamecube 1.5, AND nintendo jacked the price up to the point where they were making a profit on per-console sales. This is unheard of, ESPECIALLY for Nintendo, who is the longest running console maker, and knows the ins and outs of console sales better than anyone.
If you're going to get lynched, it would be because that statement is flat out wrong. Nintendo has almost always priced its consoles to break even or make a profit. It's the johnny-come-latelies that use revenue in other industries to subsidize their consoles that brought about the idea of selling consoles for a loss.
You have to keep in mind that the gaming press is biased, misleading, and easily duped into marketing. They're the worst segment of the online press besides political blogs. They're the reason everyone was once obsessed over "8-bit" and "16-bit," because those amateur journalists didn't understand what the terms actually meant, so neither did we. They bought Sony's PS2 hype, and they made Halo out to be the greatest game ever played by the entire world (even though the XBox only tied with the Gamecube at 15% marketshare). Now they're having to take notice with the Wii and come to grips with the realization that they really are a small, hardcore segment of the market that is outnumbered by everyone else.
The original NES used an old 6502 chip, a cheap processor that came out in the 1970s. The NES was underpowered compared to some of its competitors but was so well-designed that it got the good games. It appealed to the wider, mainstream market like the Wii. Remember the track pad? The educational games? The Zapper games, the puzzle games, the side-scrollers, the RPGs, and so on? It appealed to everyone, not just sugar-high kiddies playing a neverending series of XBox 360 first-person shooters.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Microsoft doesn't have the concept of "less is more".
Why not just get an RCA switching box? Those are cheap as hell, and will solve your problem.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I get so sick of reading these Wii-bashing articles. The only complaints they ever present are "wahhh graphics" or "wahhh processing power." The moron in this article even complains about Wii not being able to play DVDs. COME ON! Who doesn't have a freakin' DVD player by now? Obviously, people like this haven't sat down and considered why Nintendo is doing so well... I guess they are just too caught up in trying to downplay Nintendo's success. Psssst, idiots. Graphics don't make a game fun.
God, just reading this first excerpt makes me ill.
Soooo... basically he comes out and says it's a nice product for a very SPECIFIC audience? For a system that's supposed to have universal appeal? Mmmmk. Then he contradicts himself by saying the product "is actually not a great product." Mmmmk. And what entails his reasoning? Graphics, processing, and lack of DVD-playing capability... oh, and "a lot of down-line components." Lawl!
Hey, Robbie! Keep fighting your fight, bro. One day you'll wonder why your market share slowly reduced itself to zero. Until then, enjoy your imaginary high horse.