[HN Gopher] Wii U Architecture
___________________________________________________________________
Wii U Architecture
Author : flipacholas
Score : 260 points
Date : 2022-10-31 06:32 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.copetti.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.copetti.org)
| meibo wrote:
| The Wii U was such a fun console with so many great games, it's a
| shame that it was relatively inaccessible due to horribly bodged
| marketing and weird choices - luckily they're porting most(but
| not all) of the gems. I actually think that the gamepad screen
| did contribute a lot to a lot of games, especially if there was a
| lot of action and you were able to use it as a map/for quick
| actions.
|
| It's good that they basically built a product that was impossible
| to market badly with the switch, it probably sells itself,
| considering the form factor and all of the first and third party
| support they have now.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Which games really used the secondary screen in an interesting
| way? The main ones I can think of are:
|
| Splatoon-- second player without split screen.
|
| New SMB U-- gamepad player can spawn blocks to help you reach
| secrets.
|
| Wind Waker-- map and inventory.
|
| But an awful lot of titles just mirrored the TV or had a button
| to enable off-TV play.
| c0balt wrote:
| It was mostly used as a secondary, supporting display: -
| Zelda Windwaker HD - Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Assassin
| Creed Black Flag
|
| While it wasn't necessary it freed up screen space for the
| main diaplay while also allowing you to play only on the
| gamepad.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Nintendo Land was great for the asymmetrical multiplayer.
| Four players co-op on the big screen versus a fifth player on
| the GamePad. It's not impossible to do in other ways, but I
| haven't seen it done.
|
| I think shared/split screen on the TV adds an additional
| social element to it. Otherwise it's just all of us playing
| on their phones/Switch.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| In Tokyo Mirage Session you get text messages from the
| characters on the second screen so it's like you are glancing
| at your cell phone as you play. This worked very poorly when
| they ported it to Switch and you had to go into a menu when a
| party member texts you.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I felt like later in the Wii U's life, they were pushing it
| more as being for off-TV play, and that meant that that
| kind of stuff would have to be implemented anyway-- Wind
| Waker HD certainly had the dual approach, where the default
| was to play on the TV with inventory on the gamepad, but if
| you played in off-TV mode, then the inventory was a pause
| menu popup. That extra development work to support both was
| probably invisible to most users who only ever played on-
| TV.
|
| That combined with the increasing inevitability that
| everything was going to be ported to a later, single-screen
| system anyway, and it's not hard to see why titles like
| Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Zelda BOTW didn't use the
| secondary screen at all.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| It's not just games that are played in off-TV mode, any
| game that supports the Wii U Pro controller needs to have
| a single screen option.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I used it a lot for planning and multitasking in Pikmin 3, it
| felt like a really organic addition to the gameplay there.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Batman: Arkham City. You could use it to tune your radio,
| hack stuff, remote control gadgets, probably some more stuff
| I'm forgetting.
| lvass wrote:
| Wonderful 101 does it beautifully, entire game was designed
| to use it in many different ways.
|
| The best overall use is the Nintendo DS emulator.
| Unfortunately only few games are available for purchase but
| with a bit of hacking the compatibility is great.
| msh wrote:
| ZombiU also used it well and the mass effect port let you use
| it to issue commands to your squad mates.
| mkw2000 wrote:
| One of the most unique multiplayer experiences I have ever
| played
| dm319 wrote:
| Yes, really innovative use of the gamepad for ZombiU gave
| the game a properly scary aspect when checking in bags and
| boxes, and nervously looking up at the screen as you're
| doing it.
| djur wrote:
| Mario Maker used the touchscreen effectively. You could
| seamlessly go back and forth between editing your level on
| the touchscreen and testing it on your TV. I also liked the
| touchscreen effects in Super Mario 3D World and regret their
| (effective) absence in the Switch port.
| pwpw wrote:
| The Wii U was a failure in marketing and odd design choices. The
| former has been discussed quite well by others, so I want to
| focus on the design choices that didn't help its long-term
| success.
|
| The console initially promoted the gimmick of being a controller
| for cable TV, as seen by the blue TV button the bottom of the
| gamepad. This was at a time when cable TV was starting to die out
| for the younger crowd. The original Xbox One made a similar
| misguided focus on controlling TV, while the overall market was
| making a major shift to streaming in that period.
|
| Next, the gamepad used a resistive touchscreen instead of a
| capacitive one. Phones with capacitive touchscreens had been the
| norm for years at this point, making the Wii U touchscreen feel
| very low quality.
|
| The gamepad came with too small of a battery, which limited the
| gamepad's use as a portable console, which was already tied down
| to being nearby the console itself to stream games smoothly. The
| battery could be easily upgraded to a larger size, but it had to
| be purchased and installed later on.
|
| The base console only had 8 GB of storage. The deluxe model only
| came with 32 GB of storage and cost an extra $150 (for $350
| total). The console largely focused on using discs for games, but
| the next gen of Xbox and PlayStation consoles showed that
| internal storage was important. The Wii U had an SD card slot,
| but SD cards could oddly not be used to expand game storage; USB
| storage could be used however.
|
| The Wii U had some very strong game releases that eventually saw
| successful ports to the Switch, and it also had the best Virtual
| Console release of games in any console ever, that the Switch
| still has not matched. The value of a Wii U by the end of its
| life was insane. It's the only console where so many incredible
| games (almost all of Nintendo's catalogue through the Wii - but
| not the GameCube) could be played on the system. I think the
| console just focused on all of the wrong things in the minutia.
| Tie that with terrible marketing, and the console was doomed to
| failure. The Wii U's genius was later revised upon and proved to
| be a success with the Switch. Despite it's failures, the Wii U
| was a great console that is one of my favorites of all time
| (along with the PlayStation Vita).
| m_st wrote:
| My reason to buy a Wii U back then was that whenever I found the
| time to play a video game, I had to go through a session of
| Windows Update, Steam update and game update that I lost interest
| by the time it was ready.
|
| Compare that to the Wii U back then: Turn on and play.
|
| Nintendo even achieved to keep this mindset with the Switch: It
| will update in the background so usually you just turn it on and
| play.
| derrikcurran wrote:
| Huh. I had the complete opposite experience. My girlfriend and
| I used to joke that the U in Wii U stands for "update". Maybe
| it's just because we didn't play it frequently.
| majesticmerc wrote:
| > Nintendo even achieved to keep this mindset with the Switch:
| It will update in the background so usually you just turn it on
| and play.
|
| I don't agree. I play my switch maybe once every couple of
| weeks, and almost without fail there's a system or game update
| that it asks me to install.
|
| Granted, _most_ updates can be put off for a while by hitting
| "update later", but I see very little difference between the
| consoles (and PCs) in terms of update behaviour these days, for
| better or worse.
| m_st wrote:
| That is happening for me only with games I didn't use
| recently.
|
| However, we used play Fortnite quite often on both the Switch
| and the PS4. On the Switch it was ready immediately in most
| cases. If not, the update loaded and was installed rather
| quickly. Compare that to the PS4: It's updated in about 50%
| of the cases. If not, downloading takes very long and then it
| is applying the update so slow, that we usually just give up.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Sleep mode. And consoles are way better at respecting your
| choice not to update both in regards to games and the OS. I
| can put the Switch to sleep and leave the game there for a
| week or a month and then come back exactly where I was.
|
| With Wii U games rarely received patches, everything was on
| the disc and ran off it too.
| buildfocus wrote:
| I got a steam deck - it makes a very decent attempt at
| transforming the former experience into the latter, but keeping
| access to all your existing PC games.
| criddell wrote:
| How well does it succeed? One reason I've only played games
| on consoles is that if I see a game that has PS5 on the box,
| I know it will run on my console. Do Steam games make a
| similar promise for the Steam Deck?
| bityard wrote:
| If a game works on Proton (http://protondb.com/), it will
| almost certainly run on the Steam Deck. And the Steam Deck
| UI does a pretty good job of highlighting games that run
| well on the Deck and telling you what the compatibility
| issues are, if anything.
|
| Assuming the game itself runs fine, usually the main issue
| is mapping steam deck controls to the in-game keyboard and
| mouse config. I find the UX for doing this to be pretty
| confusing and terrible (doubly so when using an external
| controller), but this is helped some by the fact that you
| can apply controller mappings submitted by other Steam
| users.
| groovybits wrote:
| Re: Sleep - Compared a traditional console, the Steam Deck
| does not auto-download updates quietly in the background
| while its asleep/docked. That is my one gripe with it. You
| need to have the screen on and active for it to start
| downloading games.
|
| On top of that, the default behavior is to stop downloads
| while playing a game. You can change this in the settings,
| but at a significant performance hit.
|
| Re: The 'just works' - In handheld mode, all Steam Verified
| titles have 'just worked' for me. Docked mode is a
| different story, because no game has automatically switched
| resolution automatically. You need to set the Native
| resolution mode on a per-game basis.
|
| Additionally, there is always a chance that an unverified
| game you're looking for will not work very well on the
| Steam Deck - be it control-wise, graphically, or some other
| reason. It is not as 'plug and play' as a traditional
| console, but the device continues to get better over time
| with updates.
| weberer wrote:
| Yes, if you're in the store page, you can look for an icon
| that confirms whether the game is verified for the Steam
| Deck.
|
| https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Way back when I had a Playstation 3 it would update in the
| background but only if you paid for the subscription,
| otherwise, every time you turned it on, you had to wait for the
| updates to download to play a game, if the game had updates.
| This model for updates just rankled me so much I stopped buying
| Playstation, every time I turned it on, it had to download
| updates and I would forget why I had turned it on by the time I
| got back to it.
| tb_technical wrote:
| It's a great console to hack! :)
| lynguist wrote:
| Another badly designed Nintendo console. Now hear me out:
|
| NES: Well designed. SNES: Well designed. N64: Hampered by the
| originally 12-24 MB cartridges as opposed to 650 MB CDs.
| GameCube: Well designed. A little hampered by the 1.4 GB mini
| DVDs as opposed to 7.8 GB DVDs. Wii: Underpowered, but a surprise
| smash hit capturing that era's sensibilities (like the PS2). Wii
| U: Clunky and awkward, which however led to the Switch. Switch:
| Well designed.
|
| GB: Well designed. GBC: Well designed. GBA: Well designed,
| however with a very bad audio quality as compared to the SNES.
| NDS: Well designed, again with very bad audio quality, and a
| surprise smash hit capturing that era's sensibilities (like the
| PS2). 3DS: Hampered by its pitiful 2004 era 200 MHz CPU and 240p
| display. Clunky and unremarkable, which had a success in its
| second half of existence because people just want Nintendo games.
| Switch: Well designed.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The original GBA screen was terrible; I needed a dedicated
| work-light to play it.
| paulpan wrote:
| I think "design" is overused in this case. Sure some users base
| their purchase decision on actual design/look of a console, but
| that's a rarity.
|
| Success is more dictated by 4 main constraints or factors: -
| Game selection and support - Price point - System performance
| (including storage) - Innovative-ness or accessibility
|
| Successful consoles typically met at least 3 of the above. For
| example the Nintendo Switch had very mediocre system
| performance, but it had great (1st party) game support, priced
| lower than competing XBox and PS4, and seemed very approachable
| for all demographics.
| lynguist wrote:
| > For example the Nintendo Switch had very mediocre system
| performance
|
| Nintendo Switch had the most powerful GPU of any mobile
| device released at its time. Furthermore it has 4 GB of RAM.
| Just the Cortex A-57 CPU wasn't bleeding edge any more,
| having been replaced by the Cortex A-72 by the time of the
| Switch with a higher IPC of 16%. It was a well balanced
| system.
|
| You might be mistaken because mobile CPU performance grew in
| an unparalleled explosive fashion, and the Cortex A-72 was
| already replaced by the A-73, A-74, A-75, A-76, A-77, A-78,
| and A-710 by now. But this is unfair to a system where its
| design was frozen already 6 years ago.
|
| It just means that, if a successor Switch is built the same
| way, and a Cortex A-78 is used, its CPU would have ca 2.6x
| IPC. If it ran at twice the clock speed, its CPU performance
| would be 5.2x.
|
| You're being unfair because CPUs grew so much.
| philistine wrote:
| You're missing the whole story here. Was the Game Boy well
| designed? It was a smash hit upon release, but everybody
| immediately complained about the screen quality. The thing sold
| and sold and sold because it was inexpensive and just plain
| fun, bad screen notwithstanding. By 1996 however, it was
| woefully old, and the Game Boy Pocket sales were soft when it
| came out. Pokemon saved Nintendo's bacon and gave them leeway
| to develop the Game Boy Color, which was also old and
| criticized upon release, but it again had Pokemon.
|
| It's more complicated than a simple good or bad checkmark
| whether a thing is popular or not.
| amyjess wrote:
| I would call the original Game Boy well-designed but put the
| GBC in the same "Underpowered, but a surprise smash hit
| capturing that era's sensibilities" category as the Wii.
|
| With the tech at the time, the Game Boy wasn't going to have
| a better screen without seriously compromising battery life.
| Case in point, the Sega Game Gear which was graphically way
| better than the Game Boy but died fast if you took it off the
| wall plug.
|
| The GBC didn't have the same excuse; it was so many years
| newer, and it offered very little over the Game Boy other
| than a color screen. And its color screen still looked like a
| joke next to a Game Gear. Given how much newer the GBC was
| than the GG, I doubt Nintendo couldn't have made a handheld
| with Game Gear-quality graphics but without the awful battery
| life.
|
| But it doesn't matter, because the GBC had an awesome games
| library and people loved it.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| It was the pragmatic choice at the time: the screen was
| reflective and featured four colors (really, shades of grey),
| but that was enough to allow the system to run for several
| hours on four AA batteries. It's closest competition, the
| Game Gear, featured a backlit color LCD, but it ran through
| its six AA batteries in an hour or two at most. There were
| other also-ran handhelds in that era (Wonderswan, Neo Geo
| Pocket), but the Game Boy was by far the most dominant system
| of that era. Nintendo didn't face any substantial competition
| until 2004/2005 with the PlayStation Portable, and even Sony
| didn't do all that well with its two portable units (the PSP
| sold okay but game sales dropped off once the system was
| hacked, the Vita was a dismal failure in both hardware and
| game sales).
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| The 3DS is anything but clunky and the CPU was improved with
| the New 3DS revision
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| The DS had 16 audio channels compared to the GBA's 2. Actually,
| the DS was able to use the built-in GBA coprocessor to process
| its audio. So it was leaps ahead of the GBA, though not quite
| to SNES standards. By the time the DSi came around, there was a
| built in audio processing chip as well.
| ace2358 wrote:
| The Wii U was unfortunately not a very successful console, but I
| feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games
| and great experiences. It came out in a weird time for technology
| and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.
|
| As a homebrew device it is amazing. There are still exploits
| being found with a new, safe, simple method out now thanks to
| some crazy dedicated modders.
|
| There's a whole homebrew sdk. The Wii U can also run Wii and
| GameCube games by reconfiguring the hardware (or some other sort
| of firmware voodoo). That's three generations of video game
| libraries that can be explored on one console!
|
| Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn't
| compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one.
| duxup wrote:
| > Always felt like it deserved more popularity
|
| I owned a Wii and loved it. To this day I don't know what the
| selling point(s) of the Wii U were supposed to be.
|
| I just don't think it was marketed well.
| Narann wrote:
| > Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn't
| compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one.
|
| The Wii U marketing was a total disaster. Using the same name
| as a well established, casual platform, with a tiny suffix +
| pushing the "same gamepad compatibility" makes this hardware
| looks like an expensive "revised" version.
|
| I can't understand how Nintendo didn't catch on this.
| dm319 wrote:
| The number of people who say 'I thought the Wii U was a
| handheld?', made me realise how badly they messed up. Home
| console buyers didn't realise it was a console. Handheld
| buyers realised quickly it wasn't a handheld.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| It also shows in the switch how much they learned their
| lesson.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Indeed, I feel that the Switch wouldn't have been such a
| mega hit if not for the WiiU's failure.
| danieldk wrote:
| _It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always
| uses slightly older hardware._
|
| I had a Playstation 2 and 3 before, but since we became
| parents, we wanted something family-friendly. We seriously
| considered a Wii U, but were totally put of by the Wii U
| controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to
| replace in case it breaks. It was the primary reason we went
| for the XBox One that generation.
|
| We got a Switch pretty soon after it was released and love it
| (our daughter also has a Switch Lite).
| coldpie wrote:
| > We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put off
| by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and
| expensive to replace in case it breaks.
|
| You were right on all counts. It was a pretty terrible
| controller. Flimsy, heavy, way too big. And it was actually
| impossible to replace; they never offered replacement pads
| for sale, you had to buy a whole new console or find someone
| who fried their console and wanted to sell just a pad.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| clunky
|
| I thought it was totally fine. I spent a lot of hours gaming
| on that thing. I did not find it too heavy and anecdotally my
| friends' kids didn't either.
|
| However, I can certainly understand that it _looked_ massive
| and heavy. That was my assumption as well. Bit of a marketing
| issue there. annoying
|
| It was more useless than annoying. Some games used it in
| slightly awkward ways, sort of like the early DS days when
| devs were experimenting (and being forced/encouraged by
| Nintendo to experiment with) new forms of control.
| expensive to replace in case it breaks
|
| It was very durable in my experience. The screen is plastic,
| and ultimately I'd say it's just about exactly as durable as
| a DS or 3DS... after all, Nintendo knows how to build such
| things.
|
| But, once again, your assumption totally made sense. Another
| marketing issue. It was the primary reason
| we [passed on it]
|
| Me too. Then, a few years back, a friend gifted me one and I
| had a blast with it. Most of the best games wound up on the
| Switch though, so ultimately you did not miss out.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Can you point me to more information about the GameCube part?
| Speaking as an owner of an almost broken down GC with a large
| library, and a very functional Wii U with a smaller one.
| philistine wrote:
| For me, the only use was buying one for cheap right after the
| Switch came out. Everybody and heir mother was getting rid of
| their games, so everything could be had for cheap (Nintendo
| cheap).
| herbst wrote:
| I bought a Wii U (my only console) just a few months ago. It's
| still amazing, you can download all available games for free
| directly from Nintendo.
|
| The controller is meh, however most games also let you play
| with a pro controller. The screen on the Wii U brick is barely
| used.
|
| And if you have a party or so just let them bring their Wii
| controllers, all the multiplayer games support them.
|
| If you are not a classic gamer but are looking for some gaming
| fun it might still is the perfect console for you
| RajT88 wrote:
| > you can download all available games for free directly from
| Nintendo
|
| Eh? Like Wii Shop games which are WiiU only are all free?
|
| If that's the case, I might dig mine out of the closet.
| philistine wrote:
| No you can't. This comment is wrong. The Wii U is actually
| closing its shop and you can't add funds to an account
| anymore.
|
| https://en-americas-
| support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
| DCKing wrote:
| The parent comment isn't wrong, but it's referring to
| piracy. The Wii U has been blown wide open such that
| tools exist that allow you to pirate games by downloading
| them directly from Nintendo's servers, essentially giving
| you free eShop downloads. Every game that's available for
| the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download.
| Straight from Nintendo.
| imran0 wrote:
| >Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is
| available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.
|
| Oh wow, how did Nintendo manage to be this stupid?
| ace2358 wrote:
| To be fair this has happened to other consoles like the
| ps vita. It's possible to download the games from the
| online stores. The games can't run because they're
| signed, so it's a simple http request to start the
| download.
|
| Except the cryptography and security has been bypassed.
| So the consoles have a homebrew app that lets you
| download and install to console and pirate the game. All
| done on the console.
| brnt wrote:
| Whoops, I should refresh pages more often!
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I just think that without the draw of the motion controllers,
| the Wii U screen just really wasn't good enough to make the
| console worth using. The Nintendo switch was brilliant, you
| just had to think like a 13 year old to understand why that was
| always going to sell like gangbusters.
|
| The games library was just too weak honestly, I think that was
| the main thing. The software problems were in large part caused
| by Nintendo under-speccing its machines catching up to it.
| Multiplatform's were particularly adversely affected.
|
| All in all you were better off buying a PS4 honestly.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| When it hit the stores, the reaction of most I know of was
| something like "I have a Wii already". So I think the naming
| was incredibly hampering.
|
| Especially considering a lot of Wii buyers were not exactly
| deep gamers, but very casual customers.
| psychphysic wrote:
| It also promoted the pad beyond the console. Many weren't
| sure if it was a new pad for the original Wii.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I didn't know that until this post lol. And it was released
| when I was 12 and actually into gaming. Now I find it weird
| that the "controller" is so weak that it can't do anything
| but stream from the console, it kind of make the
| portability useless.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Screens were slightly less ubiquitous then. You could
| continue playing on the controller when dad switched the
| living room TV to some sports.
| astura wrote:
| The idea was to have two different screens displaying
| different information and there would be interactions
| between the two. Like the Nintendo DS's two screens. I
| played a tech demo(?) at the store where you'd aim a bow
| and arrow with the Gamepad at a target that was on the
| TV.
|
| The idea didn't really end up panning out for most games.
| morelisp wrote:
| Critically, it could stream something different than what
| the console was rendering to the TV. At the time it
| seemed Nintendo was hoping for the kind of design
| explosion the DS had early in its life, and a few titles
| trying such things _were_ really good, but for many
| reasons it didn 't stick the way the DS did.
| danielheath wrote:
| Main thing I used mine for was continuing to play a game
| when someone else wanted the TV; I could just switch to
| "display on controller" and keep going. Not such a big
| deal these days but back then it was pretty nice!
| Sakos wrote:
| Asynchronous game design is something that holds a lot of
| promise. Traditionally, that was something reserved for
| online multiplayer in PC games. But suddenly it was
| possible to design local coop around one player
| interacting with the game in a different way than the
| others. The idea is still really cool, but I think most
| devs are unwilling to experiment with such a niche
| product.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I think you meant "Asymmetric" instead of "Asynchronous".
| I think Asynchronous games would be something like
| Travian
| Sakos wrote:
| Lmao, of course, thanks. I knew there was something wrong
| with the word but I couldn't think of the right one.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > it kind of make the portability useless
|
| It's not actually portable, it's purely a controller.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Especially since the original Wii sold so incredibly well and
| had such a great price point for so long.
| DCKing wrote:
| > Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.
|
| This is a bit of a meme, but it isn't generally true. The
| Nintendo 64 and GameCube were pretty cutting edge in their day.
| At the time the Nintendo Switch released, the Tegra X1 was
| still about as cutting edge as mobile GPUs came (in early
| 2016).
|
| What Nintendo is about - to a fault, some would argue - is cost
| cutting. Sometimes that means they use older stuff, but using
| older stuff isn't always the best cost cutting balance to
| strike. The article even notes this:
|
| > To be fair, it's known that Nintendo's choices are not always
| based on 'cutting-edginess' but on cost and supply.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| I still wonder if the 4KiB texture cache in the N64 was a
| cost-cutting decision. It totally defined the look of N64
| games.
| monocasa wrote:
| If it was a texture cache, it would have been fine.
| Unfortunately it was a manually loaded seperate bank of
| memory for textures.
| Steltek wrote:
| Hang on there. I think the more accurate sentiment is
| "Nintendo hardware has lackluster graphics".
|
| Switch is as much a console as it is a mobile device.
| Compared to an XBox, a Switch is a few horses short of a full
| stable.
|
| Even the blockbuster Wii could only do 480p while
| contemporaries were doing HD.
|
| What Nintendo does well is make the tradeoff worth it. Both
| the Wii and Switch make up for their reduced graphics by
| pioneering new ways of thinking about console gaming.
| RajT88 wrote:
| The Wii gets a lot of hate for bad looking games.
| Deservedly so.
|
| The example I like to give is the game GT Pro Series. It
| looked super rough even for the horsepower the Wii was
| packing.
|
| However, the motion controls make that game among the most
| fun racing games I have ever played. It was great! I still
| play occasionally.
| DCKing wrote:
| Well it's about perspective I guess. I understand the
| expectations for a home console, but especially between
| 2016 and 2019 Digital Foundry kept gushing about what kind
| of graphics the Switch enabled specifically on a handheld.
| Handheld gaming is not necessarily my preferred mode
| either, but I don't think the generalizations about
| Nintendo are fair - neither that their hardware is old, nor
| that their graphics are lackluster. For the Wii and Wii U
| both things are true, but for the GameCube and Switch I
| just don't think that's a fair thing to say.
|
| The one generalization that is maybe fair is that
| Nintendo's design goals don't seem to satisfy all of the
| desires of enthusiast gamers, and are not aiming to satisfy
| them.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| You are right to say that they are actually using modern
| technology and sometimes even cutting-edge technology, but
| that does not mean that it is not inadequate technology.
|
| The meme is about "Nintendo consoles have outdated technical
| capabilities and the games look like shit", and that is
| accurate.
| croak3r wrote:
| The gamecube is 20 years old though and ever since then
| they've had the weakest hardware. I remember buying a Wii the
| month it released and being pretty disappointed at how bad
| the graphics looked.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| The Switch's mobile chipset was basically as bleeding edge
| as you could buy at the time. But it was a mobile chipset,
| so couldn't compete with a PS4 or Xbox.
| astrange wrote:
| The main problem is that even if it was cutting edge at
| the time, they can't or won't upgrade it. Of course
| iPads, which do upgrade their SoC every year, aren't as
| good at playing games.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| A big issue with the annual upgrade cycle is that it
| becomes much harder for devs to test their games due to
| hardware fragmentation.
| chungy wrote:
| > I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking
| games and great experiences.
|
| It did, and it shows in that many of the top-selling games on
| Switch are ports of Wii U games.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Breath of the Wild ran poorly on both platforms on release.
| Which surprised me, and undermined the power of the Switch.
|
| That said the Switch remains underpowered compared to
| contemporary game consoles.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Switch is not competing with PS/Xbox, but with mobile
| phones, tablets and portable consoles (including Nintendo's
| DS line). It's not underpowered for a battery powered game
| machine and has a standardised controller setup and easy
| docking as differentiators to other mobile devices.
| amyjess wrote:
| Unless you like JRPGs, in which case the Switch is a
| first-class console.
|
| Except for a few AAA-scale action RPGs that launch on
| PS4/5 (e.g. FF7R, upcoming FF16), the vast majority of
| JRPGs being released today come to Switch first. And when
| Switch exclusivity expires, many of them only get a PC
| release beyond that with PS4/5 and XB1/XSX releases
| simply never happening.
|
| For a good chunk of JRPG players, the question is "PS5 or
| Switch?". And if you're like me and specifically prefer
| turn-based JRPGs, you can forget about anything that
| launches as a Sony exclusive so that leaves the Switch as
| your #1 console.
|
| Though I guess the comparison to the DS works well here,
| as the DS was to platformers during its heyday what the
| Switch is to JRPGs now.
| morelisp wrote:
| The DS was also to JRPGs what the Switch is to them now!
| Contact, Dragon Quest IX, TWEWY, Strange Journey, Rune
| Factory - median and top 10 beats both the PSP and PS3.
| amyjess wrote:
| There were some good JRPGs for the DS, but it was nowhere
| near as dominant as the Switch is now..
|
| The PSP was a pretty strong contender, since it had the
| 2.5D Trails games, FF7 Crisis Core, and some of the best
| remakes of FF4, FFT, and Tactics Ogre.
|
| And PS3 got a lot of then-exclusives in mid-budget
| franchises that would be Switch games if they launched
| now, such as multiple Atelier trilogies and the first
| half of Trails of Cold Steel (and in fact they've all
| been ported to Switch). By comparison, current Atelier
| games now launch simultaneously on Switch and PS4 with PC
| ports following soon after, and the much-delayed English
| localizations of Trails now get cross-platform releases
| (Switch/PC/PS4 simultaneously).
|
| There was never a point during the DS's lifetime where
| you could say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS3
| exclusives, every JRPG either got simultaneous DS/PS3
| releases or was a DS exclusive", but it is the case that
| right now you can say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-
| scale PS4/5 exclusives, every JRPG either gets a
| simultaneous Switch/PS4 release or is a Switch
| exclusive". I'll also add that we're in a PC renaissance
| too; JRPGs on PC were virtually nonexistent during the
| PS3 and DS's heyday (unless you spoke enough Japanese to
| play unlocalized Falcom games), but now pretty much every
| JRPG that isn't a first-party Nintendo game gets a PC
| port, with even the timed Switch exclusives coming to PC
| after a few months to a year.
| captainbland wrote:
| Yeah but the PS5 gets horrible battery life and I need an
| IKEA furniture bag to transport it.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It did? I never noticed performance issues with breath of
| the wild
| dagmx wrote:
| Breath of the Wild is quite terrible on the Wii U. You
| get frame stutters when there's more content on screen
| than just a few enemies and the resolution + aliasing are
| really hard on the eyes. Load times as well are longer.
|
| I stopped playing on Wii U and rebought it for the Switch
| where it's significantly better.
| matsemann wrote:
| I bought a Switch the other week (OLED version, but same
| powered hardware I guess?) and am playing BotW just now.
| Two things that create some lag I've noticed: the forest
| area with the master sword, and when blowing up lots of
| explosive crates.
| causi wrote:
| The problem was that albatross of a gamepad. Not only did it
| have garbage battery life, but its presence led Nintendo to
| actively make games worse just to force mechanics onto the
| gamepad. Anyone else remember how godawful Star Fox Zero was,
| for absolutely no good reason?
| 111111101101 wrote:
| I always thought that the name was the cause. I don't follow
| Nintendo very closely so when I heard about the Wii U I just
| assumed it was a slightly enhanced Wii, not a separate
| console.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| It felt like they were pressured into putting out a new
| machine due to the extremely rapid decline in Wii
| console/game sales in 2009/2010 and had no choice but to go
| with the thing they were deepest into R&D with.
|
| Thing felt like a failure the moment it was announced. Doubly
| so when its second E3 felt like a second attempt at the
| initial announce and still didn't do much to clarify what it
| had going for it. Triply so once you realised how limited it
| was.
|
| That it took several years for games willing to engage with
| the platform enough to be capable of being as big of a mess
| as Star Fox Zero was seems like a bigger flag of its issues
| than the game sucking tbh. Just not an enticing format at
| all.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I always found it pretty funny that the system's best game,
| Zelda: BoTW, features a tablet carried by the protagonist
| prominently in the game, but the game makes ZERO usage of the
| gamepad. This was likely a last minute change due to the
| decision to also make it a launch game for the Switch, and
| they didn't want people to say "the Wii U is better because
| you can manage your items on the game pad more easily".
| djur wrote:
| I really liked the Wii U pad and used it a lot. The Switch is
| a more fully realized version of the concept, but it has its
| downsides -- it's not as comfortable to hold and play for
| long periods, and the lack of a two-screen mode makes certain
| concepts less effective. Mario Maker, for instance, worked
| perfectly with the Wii U and feels compromised on the Switch
| in comparison.
|
| The battery life was completely irrelevant to me. I just kept
| it plugged in.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Another example of the two-screen mode I liked was
| asymmetrical local multiplayer like Nintendo Land. It's not
| that it's impossible now, with two switches, but I haven't
| seen any games do it (with 4 players on a single switch,
| and 1 on the other).
| morelisp wrote:
| The Wii U's model doesn't really open up that many
| interesting asymmetrical multiplayer game designs,
| compared to multiple individual devices. There's a
| psychological effect of everyone being in the "same
| space" when most people are on one screen, but
| mechanically most of the time you'll want the opposite of
| what the Wii U can do - one person can see everything but
| everyone else can only see some limited view (c.f. Pac-
| Man Vs).
|
| With individual devices, you can make a game where N
| people see something different, or N-1 people see the
| same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N
| people see the same thing (and maybe also something
| different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model).
|
| With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees
| the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1
| person sees that _and something else_. Even if you try to
| make the 1 person see something disjoint, it 's too easy
| to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person
| see their own thing - too bad.
|
| I always wondered why they never built something to
| render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly)
| scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively
| everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...
| comex wrote:
| Smash Bros. for Wii U let you use a 3DS as a controller.
| It was awkward - you had to download the "Smash
| Controller" app onto the 3DS from the eShop - and didn't
| have any kind of video streaming, but the connectivity
| was there at least.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Zelda Wind Waker was also great. You could assign weapons
| or items to the buttons _whilr you were walking_ , or
| scroll through the map.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Breath of the Wild development started on the WiiU and
| I'm convinced it would have been better if they didn't
| have to shoe-horn in Switch support. The inventory menu
| of BOTW is horrible and totally was meant to be used real
| time on the gamepad.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I do think it led to the switch concept which has been very
| successful for Nintendo, my friend who had a wii U thought it
| was great, but just wanted the tablet to have better battery
| life.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Agreed, the Wii U tablet controller was a proof of concept
| for the same form factor that would become the extremely
| successful Switch.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| They actually sold a bigger battery at the time. Can't find
| much mention of it anywhere now, but Wikipedia lists it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad
|
| > LiPo 3.6 V DC 2550 mAh (upgrade WUP-013; 8 hours use)
| eru wrote:
| > It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo
| always uses slightly older hardware.
|
| Not always. The N64, for example, tried to be cutting edge.
| weberer wrote:
| The Wii U was the first Nintendo console that I had no "must
| have" game at launch. Gamecube had Melee, Wii had Twilight
| Princess, Switch had Breath of the Wild. But there was nothing
| on the Wii U for a whole year until Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D
| World. It squandered their one year head start.
| jrootabega wrote:
| I think if they had released a Zelda game meant for that
| platform, like everyone who bought one expected them to, they
| would have had a better time.
| astura wrote:
| Breath of the Wild was originally intended to be a Wii U
| exclusive, with a 2015 release date[1], but it didn't end up
| that way. The developers had some Wii U Gamepad features in
| early prototypes but found that looking between the gamepad
| and TV was distracting and axed them.
|
| [1] https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-
| zeld...
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I feel pretty confident the Sheika slate was designed
| around the Wii U tablet and they only cut that aspect of
| the game to make the Nintendo Switch version look just as
| good as the Wii U version.
|
| If a Nintendo employee claimed it was to avoid distraction
| I'm pretty confident they are lying.
| jrootabega wrote:
| i.e. "saving face".
| astura wrote:
| I read that here, my memory was a little off - https://we
| b.archive.org/web/20170302073322/http://www.ign.co...
|
| >"In doing our testing without the touch features we
| noticed looking back and forth between the Gamepad and
| the screen actually took a little something away from
| this type of Zelda game," he said.
|
| >"There was no hesitation or reluctance in removing those
| features because we felt the way it is now is the best
| way to play the game," he added.
|
| I can understand the cynicism, but, to me anyway, I agree
| that it's not ideal gameplay. The game pad was a _big_
| miss for me for anything other than being able to play a
| game when my husband was using the TV. I ended up kinda
| hating the gamepad.
|
| So I believe both can be true.
| jrootabega wrote:
| I don't want to dispute your experience, just add that in
| my experience, the game pad was perfect* for Batman:
| Arkham City. You would look down at it in the same
| situations where Batman would look down at his gadgets.
| So even though the game pad wouldn't work well for every
| game or every person, I think it had undeniable inherent
| benefits in some situations.
|
| * They bungled the audio aspect, though. If you played
| with headphones, you couldn't route game pad audio
| through them.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Windwaker HD and Twilight Princess HD both let you have
| the map on the tablet while you play, and while I haven't
| tried it myself I'm told it's better than switching from
| one screen view to another.
|
| On the Wii U only the tablet has motion controls, the pro
| controller does not, so at a minimum the game was
| designed to have you hold a tablet and make motions with
| it while Link holds his tablet and acts out that motion.
| astura wrote:
| I played Windwaker HD and Pikman 3, which also put the
| map on the Gamepad. I didn't like the map being on a
| different screen at all! In practice it ends up being
| such an obnoxious gimmick. (To me)
| jrootabega wrote:
| And I think that was a bad decision and a soft betrayal of
| Wii U owners.
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| The Wii U had a rich feature set. Firsts for a Nintendo home
| console:
|
| - OTB web browser
|
| - OTB audio and video chat with friends, native support for 3rd
| party headsets
|
| - real-time direct messaging (via Miiverse) notifications and
| other friend notifications via the home button LED
|
| - Ability to view online status of friends
|
| - High definition graphics
|
| - 5+ player synchronous local multiplayer
|
| - built-in Nintendo TVii service
|
| - built-in support to use the gamepad as a TV remote
|
| - eShop selections for mobile retro consoles (e.g. GBA, DS)
|
| - background installations and updates
|
| - accelerometer, gyroscope, front-facing camera, touch screen, IR
| sensor, NFC all packed into the gamepad
|
| - full backwards compatibility with a prior console (Wii)
|
| Not to mention, all online services were free to use. And those
| still existing, are still free.
|
| Edit: As a kid, this was the first console that had just enough
| 3rd party support for me to enjoy games like Fifa, Need for
| Speed, and Call of Duty akin to an Xbox 360, while also hosting
| all my favorite Nintendo games. It was a fun system, even if it
| was poorly advertised and a bit awkward. But I enjoyed the
| gimmicks and I still use it, mostly for playing exclusives that
| never made it to the Switch.
| tiagod wrote:
| >full backwards compatibility with a prior console (Wii)
|
| Wasn't the Wii, at least initially, compatible with gamecube?
| Mine even has gamecube controller and memory card slots.
| lostgame wrote:
| The Wii Mini - I believe only available up here in Canada;
| but actually fairly common up here - I think dropped GCN
| support.
|
| Otherwise, all Wii models had GCN game, controller; and
| memory card support.
|
| Fun fact: the Wii was a modified GameCube for a bit of its
| development cycle. Prototypes of the Wiimote with a GCN have
| been found.
| goosedragons wrote:
| There was a model before the Wii Mini that also dropped
| GameCube support. It looks similar to the original model
| but lacks the GameCube ports and the "Wii" logo is placed
| for horizontal orientation instead of vertical. It's
| sometimes called the "family edition".
|
| The Wii Mini originally released in Canada but came to
| other regions later. Japan never got the GameCube-less
| models for some reason.
| dm319 wrote:
| The article mentions that the Wii U had gamecube
| compatibility. I wonder how that was achieved? And I'm
| guessing it can't take the small optical disks of the
| gamecube.
| [deleted]
| zerocrates wrote:
| The Wii plays GameCube games and accepts the controllers
| and memory cards, the Wii U doesn't. I assume removing the
| ports and the mechanism to load small discs in the disc
| slot were the main reasons for dropping it.
|
| The Wii was compatible with the GameCube largely by being
| basically an enhanced GameCube under the hood, and the Wii
| U is kind of a further step down that same road with its
| "vWii" backwards compatibility mode, so it's possible to
| use homebrew to play dumped GameCube games on a Wii U
| natively, only providing some light glue to hook things
| together. It's not officially supported though.
| parker_mountain wrote:
| The Wii U could play gamecube games in wii mode, but it
| required jailbreaking and loading the images onto storage.
| So, I wouldn't say it was "possible" ootb.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| it could take gc disks.
| parker_mountain wrote:
| It could not take gc discs.
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| Yes, my bad. Completely forgot.
| aquova wrote:
| Yes, the Wii contained full GameCube components inside, so it
| was able to natively play GameCube games. I think the later
| Wii Mini model removed that capability, but the regular Wii
| model was backwards compatible.
| SSLy wrote:
| Well, https://github.com/FIX94/Nintendont
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Yes, ours had that. There was a door on the top that
| concealed four GameCube controller ports and two memory
| slots. We never had a GameCube but I ended up buying some
| controllers and GC games to play on the Wii.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| Minor correction. The Wii came with Opera Mini, aka the
| "Internet Channel" in 2007 https://learn-about-
| anything.fandom.com/wiki/Internet_Channe...
| Bondi_Blue wrote:
| My bad, I thought this was an optional install.
|
| Edit: This is an optional install, not OTB.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| I remember it being OOTB on our Wii. Though we didn't get
| it until 2009 or so
| mch82 wrote:
| Yes, Wii had a web browser and a JavaScript API for the
| Wiimote. I prototyped a simple web game for my Wii at the
| time.
| pjmlp wrote:
| One of the few game consoles that actually supports a subset of
| OpenGL, yet most WebGL 2.0 games are not up to Wii U ones.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| The concept of this machine was such a mess. You can truly tell
| something was rotten in the org chart when a bizarre
| console/tablet compromise is what they actually shipped with a
| straight face.
| willis936 wrote:
| Not at all. Nintendo has been making experimental toys since
| before anyone here was alive. They've been making experimental
| electronic toys for as long as there have been electronic toys.
| dm319 wrote:
| If you put the Switch and the DS alongside it, you can see
| where they were coming from / going to.
| lights0123 wrote:
| The article says:
|
| > Similarly to how the Wii Remote mangles the Bluetooth protocol
| to avoid third-party usage
|
| with "mangles the Bluetooth protocol" being a broken link. Anyone
| have information on this? I'm interested in how so.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/wii#next-gen-contr...
|
| Just remove the extra text
| weberer wrote:
| The XWiimote docs would be the best place to start.
|
| https://github.com/xwiimote/xwiimote/blob/master/doc/PROTOCO...
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| copetti.org's writeups about the classic consoles are really
| good. So copetti.org has interesting details on Nintendo's other
| flop - the Virtual Boy. What I found interesting about that is
| the VB uses moving mirrors and a vertical LED strip to generate
| the display - a teensy bit similar to DLP.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I wanted to buy this console to play StarFox Zero, but then never
| did.
|
| The game didn't age as gracefully as other StarFox games.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| The Wii U plays Wii and Gamecube games better than an actual Wii
| since you don't have to fondle composite cables and can just plug
| an HDMI in
| mkw2000 wrote:
| I loved and still do love my Wii U and still use it semi
| regularly to this day. There was something about the Wii and Wii
| U that was lost on the Switch. They just had that special
| Nintendo "feel" and vibe
| fallat wrote:
| IMO it's because Switch adopted the great XMBC UI. That's
| probably why. Wii's channels for me (and I feel most based on
| how I saw others use their Wii) were useless...
| langsoul-com wrote:
| I reckon Nintendo has the best strategy almost game consoles. Not
| focusing on the power/realism and instead of other aspects.
|
| At some point, if someone buys a ps5 or xbox for power only. Then
| they just get a pc, those consoles takes years to design. By the
| time they're released, it's already outdated
| pjmlp wrote:
| That is exactly why game studios prefer to target game
| consoles, there aren't a zillion of different ones to support.
| Narann wrote:
| Not the main reason, game studios target consoles because of
| established player base.
|
| Actually, consoles are tricky to develops on because they are
| quiet restricted from hardware standpoint, so you have to
| invest a lot in hardware knowledge.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Still much less than the gazillion PCs, each being its own
| snowflake.
| bityard wrote:
| I always saw it as: Sony and Microsoft seem to aim to be the
| "premium" gaming/set-top-box experience for pro-sumers and
| hardcore gamers.
|
| Nintendo, on the other hand, tries to appeal to a much broader
| market. They learned from their success in the 80s, when pretty
| much every North American living room with kids in the
| household had an NES and a stack of games on top of the TV.
| Nintendo sees themselves as friendlier to casual gamers and
| families. They want to the "the safe choice" when grandma or
| grandpa whip out their checkbook at Walmart to buy a gaming
| system for their grandchildren.
|
| Just being family-friendly doesn't quite guarantee success,
| which is why they've always been exploring new ways to interact
| with video games. Basically every new console they've
| introduced has had controllers markedly different from what
| came before. (Even if it turns out they were not necessarily
| _better_ than what came before.) In the case of the Wiimote,
| they pretty much hit a home run. It was not only a novel input
| method, it turned out to be loads of fun for casual gaming,
| social gatherings, and families.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| > At some point, if someone buys a ps5 or xbox for power only.
| Then they just get a pc, those consoles takes years to design.
| By the time they're released, it's already outdated
|
| I don't think that's really true. Hardware moves slowly enough
| nowadays that really good hardware from a couple of years ago
| is still very competitive with today's hardware. And if you
| tried to build a PC with comparable specs to, say xbox series
| x, you'd be paying a very substantially larger amount because
| MS have economies of scale and a strong negotiating position.
| m_st wrote:
| Slightly OT but Wii U games seem to be a topic here: There were
| many great games, but the IMHO single best game on this console
| was Lego City Undercover. It was like a less violent GTA. Such a
| joy to play, plenty of jokes, fantastic open world and great
| story mode with funny missions.
|
| Luckily they ported it to other consoles too. My kids are still
| playing it with their friends.
|
| I hope they are working on a successor.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-31 23:02 UTC)