Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The real deal I'm sure is what most level-headed people have been saying. Developers started with GameCube dev kits, so they're gradually working with the finished kits to implement improved visuals.And by improved I mean just above Xbox, not above Xbox 360. This will be a small, relatively inexpensive console. No 3 core or cell processor here. Just slightly upgraded visuals and greatly (hopefully) improved gameplay. That's what they've been saying and this talk about purposefully hiding graphical prowess is a little silly in my opinion.

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I don't think they've necessarily been hiding it's graphical prowess. The focus of the Wii has always been the control style obviously, since the first kits sent out were simply gamecubes with the wiimote. Most developers used that as the starting ground, so gamecube graphics are what we've been seeing in most the demos. I think the 2nd generation of Wii games will truly show off what the Wii can do, when devs starting developing games from the ground up specifically for the Wii, rather than using beta kits or the gamecube-wiimote kits.

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If this is indeed true, and they're withholding full graphical power, then it will be the ballsiest marketing move I've ever seen.

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I don't see what's so hard to believe about this idea. I mean, Nintendo is very specific about their NDAs...THEY revealed the Wiimote, THEY revealed the 'gameplay not graphics' idea...how hard is it to say that they've got developers under tight restrictions for releasing videos and screenshots before THEY give the say-so?

Not like this is at all unfeasable for any development studio, either - how many finished products were shown at E3? GDC? Leipzig? NONE. Because none of them are finished. Which means that there is no reason why what WAS shown wasn't, say, filtered through Nintendo for approval first. In the easiest example I can think of right now, maybe everything we have seen has only been in regular SDTV format, and the developers are wholeheartedly going for 720p - they just can't tell anybody what they're planning to release yet, because it would be a dead giveaway for what Nintendo wants kept a secret.

Ballsiest marketing move ever? I'm not so sure. But I know I've been checking the entire intarpipes every hour or so for anything new about the Wii.

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#4, most of what we've seen so far I think has been in 480p 16:9. There's no way they'll do 720p. 720p is roughly 2.5 times the pixels of 480p. I don't know if that translates into requiring literally 2.5 times the horsepower to generate that, but it goes without saying that Nintendo can do more with less by staying out of HD.

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"isn't it time to let us know what the real deal is?"

No silly, this is Nintendo. They're the worlds best secret keepers.




But if the Wii really did have amazing graphics that are better than what we can imagine, that wouldn't make Nintendo's philosophy of "gameplay not graphics" untrue.

In other words, Nintendo can still have mind blowing graphics while focusing on gameplay. Yeah sure, they'd "wow" us into a coma, but that doesn't mean they can't focus on gameplay too.

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I've seen very few games that live up to even Xbox level graphics. Twilight Princess is one of the best looking next-gen games I've seen and it's basically a Gamecube game.

Nintendo isn't holding anything back because they don't need to. Developers have said again and again that they haven't started polishing the games. I don't expect them to improve drastically, but stuff like Red Steel looks pretty good already, despite what everyone seems to be saying. The only thing that looks bad is that tattooed, sword-swinging guy at the end of the demo.

First wave games rarely push the system. So I don't expect top notch graphics from any system until at least Holiday 2007.

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It seems doubtful that Nintendo would keep this a secret. Unless the Wii will come close to PS3 or 360 graphics, announcing that the graphics are far better than advertised isn't much of a selling feature. Also, some developers have already dropped the Wii due to lacking graphical abilities. That being said, hiding the graphical ability of the console isn't exactly hard. And I doubt that the graphics will be of the same calibre as the Cube -- I think technology has progressed a little since the launch of the GC.

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"First wave games rarely push the system. So I don't expect top notch graphics from any system until at least Holiday 2007."

Normally this would apply, but not in the case of Wii. Wii is a faster GameCube which developers are very familiar with; they basically know everything there is to know about it. Its not like the situation with PS3 or 360 where they're starting from scratch; not even close.

I suspect that that Wii games will stagnate graphically around 2nd gen games, while PS3 and 360 games will continue to improve.

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@ 9.

EXACTLY. Which is why I'm going to buy a Wii at launch, and after a year, after all the developers for PS3 know what they're doing, i'll get a PS3

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I just don't see what Nintendo would have to gain from this. Why purposely show lower quality demos at E3 so journalists are less impressed? Why spend so much time and marketing budget talking about how it's gameplay that matters and then throw all that away?

How does that benefit Nintendo more than just releasing the full potential initially?

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Doesn't anyone get it?

Nintendo hasn't been hiding anything. They just haven't been showing what will be available at launch because they haven't had the stuff for long. Developers have only had final hardware for a few weeks. The final hardware is significantly better than what they had at E3. Thus, there will be plenty of room for improvement; whether that is in the graphics, AI, or shear 'scope' of the game is up to developers.

This plays into the marketing aspect of Nintendo's strategy because THE complaint about the Wii is its lack of power compared to the 360 and PS3. So, if 60% of their market would buy the Wii regardless of the graphics, Nintendo stands to grab the remaining 40% by making the "improved" graphics a big announcement.

I don't expect the graphics to be on par with the 360 and PS3. But I don't expect to pay the same, either. I DO expect a significant jump, because what we've seen has been only marginally better than the GC. Likely, that's because the things we've seen were running on modified GC hardware. With the Wii having 2 to 3 times the power of the GC, we'll see a bump in visuals. Nintendo is preventing developers from coming out and saying this so that THEY can make the announcement, and make it big.

Evidence...
ATI: graphics only "tip of iceberg"
Iwata: "you'll say 'wow'" - iceberg comment
Developers: Wii a suped-up GC (see, that's what they've been developing on, not the Wii)

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I can't see how this could possibly be true. As a Wii developer you think they'd at least tell us? There is no way that they could make any changes to the chips at this late date, exept maybe bump up the speed a bit...maybe. The chips are done, and they'll stay that way if they want any of their 3rd party launch games to run, as well as any Gamecube games. If there is something going on, they're not telling the people actually making the games for them. What people are probably refering to is developers becoming more familiar with the particulars of the hardware.... there is certainly plenty to figure out even on a machine that is very similar to a Gamecube. Or maybe they'll just include two Gpu's and Cpu's...that could probably work...though it would be pretty lame to screw all us 3rd party guys by not letting us take advantage of that!

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@11

Uhh...WHAT journalist came away from E3 not impressed by the Wii? Seriously, name one. Name a single journalist that didn't think Nintendo swept E3 away; even the guys who couldn't get in knew it was something amazing. And of every single one who said 'yeah the graphics weren't that great', they immediately followed up with 'clearly these are early builds of the games, and nintendo has stated that they're not trying to be matching MS or Sony for raw graphical power anyways...but damn if I didn't have fun waving that goofy thing around'.

@13
How could it be not possible? Its known fact that the Wii dev kits were at one point just upgraded Gamecubes, and that only recently have developers had fully featured, as-close-to-retail-as-you're-gonna-get kits. This happens all the time, and devs are used to it; but Nintendo has designed the Wii from the ground up to be easier to use, to enjoy, to program for, EVERYTHING. The announcement that third-party devs aren't going to be able to use Nintendo's wifi libraries until next year corroborates this; I for one think that all these launch games that were supposed to have online play WILL have online play, next year. A wee little patch will get downloaded, a snippet of code so that the games you bought at launch will be able to go fully online, just as planned.

@12
I'm more inclined to think that developers have known for a while what the Wii -can- do, just that they've been unable to use it fully due to not having the tech in their hands to play with. I'd be willing to bet that Nintendo's got them under some tight NDA restrictions as well, just for this moment and the next 2-3 weeks.

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@5

You forget one thing...Xbox could do 720p (and 1080i). If the the Wii can at least do as much as a 5 year old Xbox, it seems entirely possible that Wii can handle 720p.

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WHATS GOING ON WITH THE WII SIMPLE GAMECUBE DEV KITS ARE NOW REPLACED WITH TRUE WII KITS AND FULL SPEC HOLLYWOOD GPUS PLEASE APPLY COMMON SENCE

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IV BEEN STATING THIS ALL ALONG I REGUALLY EMAILED IGN IN DICUSED WEH THEY SAID INOVATION INSTED OF POWER WHEN CLEARLY NINTENDO NEVER SAID THAT THEY CLEARLY STATED "POWER ALONE IS NO LONGER ENOUGH" WITCH CLEARLY INDICATES WHATS NOW BEING SAID AM I THE ONLY COMMONSENCE PERSON LEFT ON EARTH

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Well, I will touch on this although others have.
Up until VERY recently all developers were running off gamecubes with rough Wii controllers for a dev kit. Developers were not sure how far they could actually push the graphics other then the "recommended progressive-scan mode". Nintendo hasn't even released official system specs to developers until recently even though production of the system supposedly started almost a month or so ago. But now that developers have FINAL Wii consoles in hand, they can try and push the graphical envelope. Though only major dev teams seem to have their systems, they will come to the small developers soon. This is excellent news for the public because it signals that hardware development is finally complete and our Wii's are being made. Now when will a developer snap a pic or take a video of the Wii's UI as it is undoubtedly out there......

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I dont really know much about hardware and all, but I just wanna know; after all this modifying and remodifying, and graphical upgrades and what not, will this drastically change what we all expected, and another big question; will it affect its backwards capability?

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