Wii U

Tottentanz posted...
Ummmm, did you miss the part in my quote that specifically talked about some developers hitting heights faster thanks to optimized software?

I didnt even mention the hurdle about getting proficient on the hardware which would also contribute to the improvements.

I specifically said "optimized software."

The main point of your post was to say that early Wii U games will not look anywhere near as good as late Wii U games and that's highly unlikely to be the case. Most of the software improvements are not system specific and can benefit a diverse set of hardware configurations.

My point is that most of these software enhancements can be applied to the Wii U right out of the gate (and likely were in the tech demos). As a result, Wii U launch titles are going to look much closer to their maximum potential than most launch titles do for other systems. Especially seeing as how the Wii U isn't using any kind of advanced or fancy hardware that developers have little to no experience working with as was the case with the x360 and PS3.

In short, what separates the Wii U from other systems at launch is the fact that the hardware likely isn't much faster than the PS3/x360 and developers already have more than half a decade worth of experience working with that level of hardware. As a result, they're already experienced at pushing that processing power as far as it can go and so there's much less room for improvement than what is usually possible with most next-gen systems.

@DaLagga -

First off, you're blind if you're claiming that the Zelda GameCube Demo looked anywhere near as good as TP.

Second, the PS3 din't see anywhere nar the graphical improvement over the course of its life that the 360 did - that kills your whole argument.

Third, early 360 games were marginally better than late Xbox games, which kills the whole argument.
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Resistance is TASTY!

darkjedilink posted...
First off, you're blind if you're claiming that the Zelda GameCube Demo looked anywhere near as good as TP.

The videos speak for themselves. In terms of what they were showing off in the tech demo, it was quite close to what was in the final games.

Second, the PS3 din't see anywhere nar the graphical improvement over the course of its life that the 360 did - that kills your whole argument.

The PS3 launched a whole year later and was ultimately no more powerful than the x360. As I stated earlier, improvements follow a mode of exponential decay which means that the most major improvements occur in the first year or two. After that, enhancements slow down considerably. As such, developers had a whole year to get used to the hardware before the PS3 launched.

Third, early 360 games were marginally better than late Xbox games, which kills the whole argument.

...what? You're telling me early x360 games look better than late x360 games? Ummm...do I even need to dignify this with a response? Sure, the difference isn't as massive as some people make it out to be with many going so far as to claim that launch x360 titles were barely more impressive than late xbox titles. But there were still significant improvements made over the years.

Tottentanz posted...
No, my point was that what we saw at last year's E3 was not a great sample of what is to come.

Your point seems to boil down to you saying the Wii U is barely above the current gens therefore the product wont be much better and developers have already gotten there thanks to the tricks they learned on the other consoles.

Except you are glossing over the facts and improvements made in tech since they were launched.

The Wii U does not have to have a powerful CPU to outperform the other systems thanks to having dedicated devices that will unburden it.

The GPU just has to have more modern tools which is a given, and I know that it will probably surprise you how much the GPU will be able to do once developers learn the hardware, optimize the software, and actually make games based on the system rather than porting them over.

Your whole conjecture is based on believing the Wii U is limited to what the PS360 can do, but I think you are falling in the camp of "on par" while I fully disagree with that.

Most of the leaked information does suggest that the Wii U will be on par with the x360/PS3 (again, maybe twice as powerful at best, depending on how you measure processing power). And if the Wii U were truly far more powerful, then this would have been reflected in the early tech demos. But that wasn't the case.

Consider this. Did the N64 Zelda tech demo look similar to SNES games? Did the Spaceworld demo look like N64 games? No, they did not. They showed a clear generational leap. But we didn't see anything of the sort with the Zelda and Garden demos. What we saw was tech that the PS3/x360 could easily handle, and while improvements will no doubt be made over the years, I think people are dreaming if they think the Wii U is a true next-gen console when it comes to processing power.

TVthePunisher posted...
That's why trolls these days are pathetic. I really miss the old days of GameFAQs where trolls had brains, knew how to give valid arguments and actually won them most of the time. True great antagonists to any board dweller...now all we have is rabid fanboyism (or anti-fanboyism, depending on the person), overused memes and some of the most idiotic crap I've ever seen typed.

It's weird for me to say I "miss the old trolls" but at least they were entertaining. Half of these guys are just annoying dimwits missing quite a few brain cells while the other half typically just fail at being successful trolls.

Trolls aren't supposed to win arguments. They want to get flamed and have users type up long responses, which the TC has clearly succeeded in here.
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... And all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper, "No."

Many of those games were in their alpha stage at best and tech demos really don't show off a console(look at early ps3/360 tech demos). I'm still not sure Nintendo even wanted to show the U off last E3.