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Wii U Faster Than 360 Or PS3, No Blu-ray Or DVD Support
jdkramar was one of several readers to write with news of the Wii U hardware information that's been trickling out since E3. The new console will run a multicore IBM processor based on 45nm architecture (technology currently underpinning Watson), and will have an AMD R700 GPU chipset found in the Radeon 4000 line of video cards. Apparently it will, in fact, run Crysis. Nintendo has confirmed that the Wii U will use a proprietary 25GB disc format, and won't support DVD or Blu-ray playback. A spokesman said, "The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."
"such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."
We want our own so we can try and be filthy rich but it'll probably die on it's arse just like UMD.
I'm pretty sure it has very little to do with the patents and more to do with the same reason they used those awkward, little, inverse-reading GameCube discs: fear of homebrew and fear of sharing backups.
But as we know from both the GameCube and the Wii, it's only a matter of time before people work around those limitations.
Disagree != mod troll.
TFA says that it will run CryEngine (which PS3 and X360 also are capable of). It says nothing of Crysis, the PC game that didn't make it to consoles due to their less powerful hardware.
When they said only one player gets to use the fancy new controller at a time. I understand the limitation, but it just makes the whole thing seem half baked to me. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to spend my money on a PC to run Battlefield 3.
I don't really see this as a shady move. Practically everything plays DVDs and the price of a standalone DVD player has dropped to practically nothing. If the proprietary format boasts extra compatibility or features that's always a plus, but I don't really see the downside of this decision.
Nintendo makes and sells millions of consoles per year. At millions of units, economies of scale don't change much if you use common parts or proprietary ones.
The console business model depends on volume and technological advances to drive prices down quarter after quarter.
Patents, on the other hand, do not scale with volume, nor do they scale with technological advances. They can stay consistently high for the term of the patent, or even go UP year after year (as the h.264 patents do).
In other words, expensive video player patents are incompatible with a pure console business. Don't be surprised if the "25GB disk" is very Blu-Ray like in all mechanical, optical, and electrical ways. But the encoding skirts patents.
An upcoming console is supposed to be more powerful than 5 year old hardware?
I'm shocked!!!!!!111eleventyone
The 360 may be easier to call, but I'd hesitate to say from those specs alone that it's outright faster than a PS3. When you compare an x86 to a cell... which is almost apples to oranges you have to take a lot more into account than simple clock speed, cache, memory, etc. SPE's aren't like cores. They're not even similar. Benchmarking will be necessary surely. Without it I don't think it's fair to say one way or the other.
Are they really trying to claim that developing a proprietary disc format, and having the hardware used to read it custom made is going to be cheaper than just using a format which already exists, and for which drives are already being mass produced cheaply?
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So what cost are they talking about? A couple of dollars in licensing? Well sell the DVD playback from the online store and that's that.
Perhaps they have more of a case for not implementing Blu Ray but absolutely not for DVD.
For media distribution, it is getting to the point where some form of memory card may be the answer.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I have 10+ devices that could play a DVD and several that can play Blu-Ray. I didn't "intentionally" buy any of them with that express intent. If it *actually* lowers the price on the thing, I am all for this. I do not have the desire to pay for functionality which I do not need.
I hope that all the naysayers that said nay about the Wii (myself among them) have finally grokked that there's - demonstrably - a huge market for a small, relatively cheap games console that:
Rail against it if you like, but you'll have to shout: Nintendo are way down there at the deep end of their Olympic sized pool full of cash, blow and hookers.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Even if the Wii U was able to play movies, most people wouldn't know about it anyway. Ars Technica did a survey back in 2007 where they found most people owning a PS3 don't know it plays Blu-Ray. I doubt that has changed much.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
What's with all these specs? That keep ending in question marks? And don't form complete sentences? And aren't even questions? But end with question marks anyway?
Program Intellivision!
It didn't? I thought then, as I do now that its just shitty third rate hardware dressed up with a "revolutionary" controller that isn't.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
perhaps they asked the wrong people.
for AV enthusiasts, everyone knows a PS3 plays blurays. It plays them remarkably well apparently, and as its cheaper than some dedicated bluray players, there's a lot of people who've bought one just for that - not to play games on it at all.
I think home cinema choice uses one as their reference BD player for reviews.
What a terrible excuse.
Reminds me of something:
"We don't need smooth full screen Flash playback anyway, who the hell uses that!?"
The Wii shipped without DVD playing capability (yes you can hack it to do it), and that didn't seem to slow down sales to any appreciable amount. Besides, look at the remote for your blu-ray player (any blu-ray player you have; you probably have more than one by now) at your home. Compare the number of buttons on that remote to the number of buttons on the Wiimote or the buttons show on the remote for the Wii U. People are already mocking the Wii U remote for being too big; do you really want them to an another 40 buttons to it?
And you can't honestly tell me that the PS3 controller is a great blu-ray remote. If you think it is a good remote then hand it to a senior citizen and ask them to start a movie.
While originally when I bought a Wii and found it couldn't play DVDs, I was disappointed, this time I agree. We don't need the Wii U to play DVD or blu-ray. The old ideal of an all-in-one media center device for the home just didn't happen, and doesn't need to.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Actually I'm fine with their decision. My media setup involves a dedicated Blu-Ray/DVD player, the media PC which has a Blu-Ray drive in it, and the PS3 which has a Blu-Ray drive in it. All of them hooked up to my home theater system and my 40 Inch LCD HDTV.
I really don't NEED "yet another Blu-Ray player".
Redundancy is nice and all but really.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
perhaps they asked the wrong people.
...for AV enthusiasts...
You do know the meaning of the word 'enthusiast', right? It is the very antithesis of "most people", which renders your entire point moot. The study was done to gauge the general public's awareness of the PS3's abilities. So for you think that there are 'right' and 'wrong' people to ask shows that you are oblivious to the point of general-population surveys.
Yes, the PS3 is a great BD/media player. That in no way negates the fact that a whole lot of people weren't aware of it in 2007. In fact, it's probably due to studies like the one mentioned that Sony launched the "it only does everything" campaign. Whether that truly informed the public at large of the PS3's media-playing abilities remains to be seen, though.
The point is that the general public sees these type of devices as pure gaming machines. So they might as well deliver exactly what most people already expect they're buying in order to keep the price down (or the margins up).
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
So, it won't play Wii games? I'm dissapointed.
Sony sold the PS3 with the promise for a superior blueray player and they won the war agains toshiba for this next gen format, and it si now marketing ps3 as a media machine besides a game console. It is a selling point. And "Selling" is way more important here than the actual capabilities. I can agree that the PS3 is not a good media machine (it is beaten by Utra cheap HD players if you ask me), it might have sold them a lot of consoles just for the feature points.
Patents might prevent innovation here. For some reason i can buy a DVD player for 25 euro, but nintendo fails to secure a proper license for this.
Last I checked Wii was the casual gamer's console of choice, one would think they would be the ones wanting their console to do more than gaming the most.
Why would you think that? The Wii is the only console of the current generation not able to play movies without hacking, yet it's also the best selling one. Clearly people buy these devices because of their gaming capabilities, not because of their other functions.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Meh, doesn't matter, services like Netflix are going to completely dominate the movie market in 5 to 10 years anyways. Movies on media are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Discs aren't fast anymore. Solid state drives/cartridges are cheap now, and much much faster.
Besides patents for various hardware inventions incorporated into DVD's, you'd also have to pay for software decoding licences (e.g. MPEG licenses).
Quite often, both types are charged depending on the number of devices you intend to sell. A 10,000 run of a cheap DVD player won't be subject to the same fee as a 10,000,000 run of a big-selling console. And, yes, they basically make those fees and sliding scales up as they see fit.
That said, even 10 Euros per unit is a hefty chunk of a "fee" on a multi-billion dollar console (basically, 5% of Wii U income - NOT profit - would be sent to a licensing authority and patent holders).
Nintendo could have a license if it wanted - I think it's just proved with the Wii that it's really not necessary (for every person WITH the DVD hack - when it used to work on the drive firmware - I can name 100 who have a Wii and *don't* have the hack) and thus that 5% can be put into, say, licensing decent displays, touch-screen patents, motion-control patents or whatever else instead.
It's a games console. It doesn't need to play MP3 (proven by its removal from Wii's Photo Channel), doesn't need to play DVD's or Blu-Ray (proven by the absence and later "blocking" of DVD capabilities on the Wii drives), etc. It just needs to load and play a game. Too many other devices let you do everything like that if you really want, and to worry about a new one not supporting it is silly. Take out the gimmicks, you take out the patent licensing and instantly get less hassle and more profit that you can use to make the GAMES side of the device better.
Sony sold the PS3 with the promise for a superior blueray player
But how many people buy a PS3 to play blu-ray? You can get a very capable blu-ray player for half the cost if blu-ray is all you want. And the blu-ray only device is much easier to use for playing blu-ray than a PS3 with a regular sony PS3 controller.
and they won the war agains toshiba for this next gen format
It is open to debate whether or not the PS3 had any impact on the blu-ray/hd-dvd battle...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If not having Blu-ray and DVD playback allows Nintendo to produce hardware that is cheaper and/or more profitable and possible harder to pirate software for, have they really lost anything? As long as it has Netflix support and maybe even media extender ability, most consumers will be happy.
"(any blu-ray player you have; you probably have more than one by now)"
I don't have a Blu-Ray player you insensitive Clod!
And I unplugged the DVD player from the TV so I could plug in the Wii
Say, can the Wii play audio CD's? Theres nothing in the manual about it.
I doubt that has changed much.
Surely it has since in 2007 almost no one knew what Blu-ray was and the average consumer did not care. It wasn't until 2009 that Blu-ray adoption took off. So the same survey done today would yield a very different result.
"The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console"
I was expecting to whine about the fact that they left out this feature again, but this is a damn good point.
Most people at this point either have a way to play discs or don't care.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Now go find the price of a single blank blu-ray disc (or a pack and divide by the number in the pack).
Duh!
Software manufacturers don't order a stack of blank discs from NewEgg, sit down and start copying (unless its a small run of beta test versions or something) - they get them stamped out from a master (same general principle as vinyl records - just higher precision). The structure of mass-produced optical "ROM" discs is completely different to recordable media.
What you need to do is go and get a quote for bulk, pressed optical discs (CD/DVD/BR-ROMs not recordable discs) - you'll usually find it will consist of a fairly steep, fixed, mastering/set-up charge plus a few tens of cents per disc. For small runs (a few hundred) it will be cheaper to use recordable media but once you get to 1000+, pressed discs are way cheaper, per unit, than recordable media.
In the olden days, there were things called "mask programmed ROMs" - read-only memory chips with baked-in data which were cheap to produce in large quantities - I guess they still exist but AFAIK they haven't kept up with Flash RAM in terms of density, or with optical ROM discs in terms of cost (big market for bulk CD manufacturing "micro" plants - ROMs need a chip fab).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
It didn't? I thought then, as I do now that its just shitty third rate hardware dressed up with a "revolutionary" controller that isn't.
Heh. "I declared this thing non-revolutionary, and even though it was highly successful and caused the other major players to dance to their tune, I still say it's non-revolutionary".
Not goin down without a faight, aintcha?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Some of your optimizations for the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series won't carry over to the 5000 series. Some of your optimizations for Windows XP won't carry over to Windows 7.
By this, did you mean that some things will run noticeably slower on a 5000 than on a 4000, or that some things will run noticeably slower on a PC that shipped during the Windows 7 era than on a PC that shipped during the Windows XP era?
The console is a fixed target
So is any given generation of iMac.
Anti-piracy measures are not intended to be absolutely impregnable (which, realistically, is not possible), any more than the lock on your front door. The idea is primarily to make piracy inconvenient, so that most people don't bother.
Actually, the PS3 is an extremely good upscaling DVD player, better in this respect than most low-cost dedicated DVD and blu-ray players.
But while it made sense for PS3 to incorporate blu-ray as a strategy to promote the system, it also slowed the adoption of the PS3 as a gaming system due to its high cost.
At the present time, I agree with Nintendo. Most customers can already play DVDs and many can already play blu-ray, so lower cost will bring in more customers than adding this capability.
They have an optical disk drive. A newer one that can hold 25GB. How can they possibly have a new drive and not be licensing the same patents as everyone else?
Course, it would be different then (though, in their defense, some of the formats WERE good):
Betamax, DAT, Minidisc, MemoryStick, UMD
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
Rail against it if you like, but you'll have to shout: Nintendo are way down there at the deep end of their Olympic sized pool full of cash, blow and hookers.
(Emphasis added.) I can't really argue this assessment ... Nintendo has been making cheapass hardware, selling lots of it, and surely raking it in. However, having grown up during the NES/SNES era, I have to ask: If it's just supposed to play games, where are all the damn games? If it's low-end, easy-to-dev hardware, then why is Nintendo lucky to release a game a year for it? Even if they can't convince third parties, surely they can, with their "Olympic sized pool full of cash," afford to have more than one dev team churning out high quality games. Other first parties, which are presumably not sitting on such funds, are making a solid showing of high-quality first-party titles.
This isn't just a problem with the Wii, either, it's been that way since then N64. Nintendo's excuse then may have been "new technology" and "lack of resources," but now they have no more excuses. None.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Fast forward to 2011, where most PS3 owners use their machines exclusively as media centers.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
It does not matter if it is a good dvd/blueray player. It is japanese, it is check the features:
WiiU HDMI yes PS3 yes
Wireless controller Yes, yes
DVD play WiiU: No PS3: Yes.
Bluera play WiiU no, PS3: yes
extra screen in controller WIIU Yes, PS3 (vita?) No
Color of console WiiU White only, PS3 Black only
Points: WII U: 3 points , PS3: 4 points.
It would be better to determine what you actually need, and read the reviews if it is good dvd player, but if big game studio make some AAA titles for all major consoles, then those little features list might be what tip the scales.
It is VERY hard to determine if the PS3 is a good BR player before buyingi it, specially if you have all those reviews that declare thing could get better if a firmware is released.
PS, actually i barely play DVD's anymore, most of it is streamed to a NMT player nowadays.
Has process become the new megahertz? I can appreciate the advantage 45nm might allow, but on it's own it's meaningless.
And Intel already offers i3s and i5s with 32nm process. So what's the big deal?
As it stands 45nm means nothing to me.
As is the case with every console introduction, a few numbers are thrown around in an attempt to impress us. They show us a few impressive looking demos where the consoles are doing nothing but rendering a scene. Then the console hits the market and it turns out to not be as impressive as promised, from a graphical standpoint anyway.
I guess all that's called marketing.
Do you have a source for that statement, or are you just making facts up as you go along?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Well, of course. It's not as if there are any compelling games for the PS3. It's just a noisy Blu-ray player. On the other hand, my Xbox 360 gets used about 50/50 for media (ie, Netflix, Hulu) vs. gaming because Microsoft actually cares about providing its customers with a diverse ecosystem of entertainment for its living room platform. The fact that XBox Live is a subscription platform (compared to the free and apparently cracked PSN...is that even safe to use anymore???) also proves that MS's customers are willing to put their money where their mouths actually pay for a quality experience.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
So, a proprietary optical disk drive will be cheaper to manufacture than the $20 (retail) DVD writer that I can buy at Fry's? I don't believe a bit of it.
Adding $10 (DVD Licensing cost if I remember correctly) to a product can be a big deal; especially if it is unlikely to get you an extra sale, can you imagine little Johnny saying, "Wow, I would want a WiiU if only it had a DVD player!"; but, being $209 versus $199 could convince a parent to wait.... (I know it seems stupid for $10, but it's a mental barrier that people have when looking at prices (they see 199 and think low, see 201 and think high -- and thus why most items for sale end with 99)).
Still not very cheap to distribute that on a chip.
From the 'specs' it seems like it will only be marginally more powerful, though probably powerful enough for 1080p for the next 10 years or so. The fact that it can only support one tablet is also a bit discouraging. They should redesign it to support multiple tablets ( at least 2) by adding more power to each one or perhaps adding a second BT channel.
I also suspect that because it is neither DVD or BD, then no one will be making copies of the sw disks either. They may be avoiding licensing costs for dvd/bd and at the same time making pirating very difficult unless you have your own stamping facility.
We created a proprietary disk format "because we feel there are already too many devices doing the same thing?"
No, this is clearly Nintendo's way of preventing piracy by using a format that cannot be copied on a PC.
This is Nintendo also clearly being out of touch because it specifically prevents people from wanting to buy a new Nintendo product because it is limited in functionality.
I got a second TV for the house recently and I didn't want to hook in a new cable box, so here were my options to get media content to the TV:
1) Use Apple TV - nice cheap option, but no DLNA support without hacks (that mostly seem to fail)
2) Use Other Media box - supports DLNA, cheap, but often suck ass interface and doubtful support for firmware upgrades
3) Stand-alone DVD player, few connect to internet, last century technology
4) Stand-alone Blu-ray player, some have internet and rich content, some have DLNA, DVD/BD, but not much else
3) Use a Wii, can't, doesn't have HDMI output, no DVD/Bluray support, no DLNA except through web browser, lousy web browser, naw, next
4) Use an Xbox360, DLNA, rich online content, game support, oh, only DVD support, naw next
5) Use PS3 Slim, DLNA, rich online content, game support, DVD / Blu-ray support, best of all worlds, sold.
So, Nintendo can't even create a new next generation device that may be used in this scenario because they are too hung up on trying to make something for 6 year olds they don't understand in what other markets people might want to actually buy a Wii U.
And as for the "Just Play Games" mentality, then START MAKING GOOD GAMES then. I am tired of buying a handful of Zelda/Mario titles every generation and then having few other decent games on the platform.
Nintendo makes systems that lack in almost every way possible, gaming, connectivity, value-added options. I am done with Nintendo, period. And I think Wii U and 3DS will start a new generation of poor choices that will bankrupt Nintendo.
If it helps make the console cheaper, it's fine by me. I already have 5+ devices hooked up to my TV
that play DVD's, then 2 laptops and desktop... and a ps3 for the occasional Bluray.
With that fact, I also havn't touched a DVD or bluray since Wall-E came out.
Alot of people dont even know what "BluRay" means.
...they want their proprietary format back. Another GD-ROM style abortion? Hopefully they don't think that the awkward size will prevent piracy. Sega made the same mistake, until pirates just reduced video quality on FMV and fit it the games on a standard 800mb CD-ROM (old, I know).
For conversation's sake, I am really pissed off that this is the new Nintendo system. I really hoped they would step up to the big boys in console gaming, instead they re-release what is essentially the Wii with a controller gimmick...which is essentially the GameCube with a motion control gimmick...again! I really have to say that this is the first Nintendo home console I won't be buying (it took me a year and a handful of months to even warm up to buying a Wii, but my girlfriend really wanted it). I was the hardest core Nintendo fanboy, I have shelf upon shelf in my gaming room with my mint condition NES, SNES and N64 games from back in the day, but seriously, I've been let down one too many times. It reeks of desperation to sell to the popular market. I guess thats to be expected, sales are what drives any company, but being an over 30 gamer (still dedicated), I feel like the bastard child of the REAL Nintendo.
I'm fully aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, but to provide another point, I know a number of people who've bought PS2s with the intent to use them as DVD players, with the ability to play games as a happy bonus. I've also heard stories of people doing the same with PS3s for bluray, although I don't think I actually know anyone who cares about Bluray in real life.
Ok, I'll feed the dickhead troll.
You call the PS3 noisy! Ha! Obviously you haven't compared it to the XBox 3shitty.
Plenty of decent games for the PS3. Some nice exclusives and also games that are also on the XBox. Shame those games aren't exclusives because the XBox's poor machine actually holds the developers back from taking advantage of the PS3's great hardware!
Yes, the PSN is safe to use. Don't blub too much as Microsoft could be next on the list to get hacked. I don't know if you have noticed, and it is a probable no as you have probably been too busy checking the post to see if Microsoft has returned your XBox after it red ringed yet again, but quite a few people have been getting hacked recently. These morons who go under anonymous are attacking sites for no reason - and the potential prosecution of the idiot George Hotz who does not need or command respect because he is a true idiot.
And MS's customers don't pay for a quality experience! They just pay full stop because Microsoft asks them to. You XBoxers have to pay for things that us PS3 users get for free. You see, and this might hurt, but Microsoft does not see you as a user but as a potential mug who can be parted from their money. Paying for your service didn't stop the XBox Live network failing for 2 weeks a couple of Christmases ago, did it? Plus the other minor outages that have occurred since!
I'll just get on with playing Killzone 3 or Call of Duty: Black Ops in 3D.
Moron.
David
Wii sold a lot of consoles simply based on price and Mario. VHS killed betamax too - number of units moved does not equal "revolutionary".
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
A lot of consoles sold because people wanted to play games that way. Revolutionary. Sorry, Sony and Microsoft declared that for you.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Logic fail. Just because the Wii lacks one feature and sells better doesn't prove that people don't want that feature. The Wii was the most affordable and it had a catchy new controller that appealed to non-gamers. If they allowed it to play movies it may have sold even better.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
What is this bloo rae? I kinda have this weird thing called "nitflux" or something that automagically brings movies to my TV.
Sure, it may have. But being at #1 already, I can't blame Nintendo for thinking this feature is not as important as some make it seem. Especially since most people already have a device to play movies with, which is Nintendo's primary reason for not implementing movie playing capabilities in the Wii U.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice if the Wii U could play movies. But I think Nintendo's strategy of focussing on games and cutting costs by not doing other things is the way to go.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.