THQ Clarifies Claims of "Horrible, Slow" Wii U CPU
An anonymous reader writes "THQ has clarified comments made by 4A Games' chief technical officer, Oles Shishkovtsov, about why their upcoming first-person shooter, Metro, won't be available for Nintendo's new Wii U console. Shishkovtsov had told NowGamer, '[The] Wii U has a horrible, slow CPU,' by way of explaining why a Wii U version of Metro wasn't in the works. Now, THQ's Huw Beynon has provided a more thorough (and more diplomatic) explanation: 'It's a very CPU intensive game. I think it's been verified by plenty of other sources, including your own Digital Foundry guys, that the CPU on Wii U on the face of it isn't as fast as some of the other consoles out there. Lots of developers are finding ways to get around that because of other interesting parts of the platform. ... We genuinely looked at what it would take to bring the game to Wii U. It's certainly possible, and it's something we thought we'd like to do. The reality is that would mean a dedicated team, dedicated time and effort, and it would either result in a detriment to what we're trying to focus on or we probably wouldn't be able to do the Wii U version the justice that we'd want.'"
it's already been confirmed, the PS4 will be off-the-shelf PC hardware. They're focusing on the ecosystem.
Xbox, if rumors are to be believed, will have two different hardware versions. And will perhaps even run on a PC.
They'll all have to compete with the steambox.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Why did he get modded down when that is pretty much it in a nutshell? Nintendo bought a chip that is barely more powerful than the one they have in the Wii and expect devs to deal with it by using the more powerful GPU instead. Problem is with more and more games having tons of physics and ragdolls and the like there is only so much a powerful GPU will cover for before you end up gimped by the CPU.
Hell this is pretty much the same strategy AMD has been using for a couple of generations now and they aren't doing so hot either, are they? It all comes down to a balancing act and Nintendo just went too far when it came to how weak a CPU they could get away with, simple as that. My guess is because they are gonna be targeting casual gamers they figure its enough to run Mario and Animal Crossing and so they figure its "good enough". Lets be honest folks, Nintindo hasn't gone for the hardcore players for a couple of generations now, so it should be of no surprise that their new system just can't run the hardcore shooters that are the hallmark of the hardcore gamers.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.