Wii HD in 2011?

[Hellfire]

HDMI isn't HD-only, it supports SD and ED signal too. The main difference between dvi and hdmi afaik is that DVI is video only, while hdmi also has 8 channels for digital audio.

[Emasher]

HDMI isn't HD-only, it supports SD and ED signal too. The main difference between dvi and hdmi afaik is that DVI is video only, while hdmi also has 8 channels for digital audio.

 

Thats what I thought. I don't think its really an issue though. The Wii isn't capable of outputting Digital video anyway, and the next Nintendo console will almost certainly do 1080p. I can't see them releasing just an upgraded Wii that can output HDMI as its just not worth it really.

 

What I'd like to see with the Wii HD though is having it ship with Composite, component and HDMI cables and also have a Monitor hook up kit available from Day one that has both a VGA and DVI cable in it, as well as a left and right RCA audio to Headphone adapter.

[McPhee]

I think it'll be quite a few Blu-ray disks to overturn those loses! Also, it's going to take a long time before Blu-ray really starts turning the profits as it doesn't have mass market penetration yet. The vast majority of 'normal' people still don't have a clue what Blu-ray is.

 

I also think to claim to claim that some areas of the market the PS3 is the casual system is stretching the truth a little - basically what you mean is some people brought a PS3 for a Blu-ray player.

 

I think you'd be suprised at how fast Sony could potentially recoup those losses. It's not a lot of money really, if they take £1 per film and penetrate 20% of the home movie market then they'll be making profit from Blu-Ray in 5 years time. Add in game sales and sales as a storage medium, and chuck in the PS3's revenues and that time could be cut down as low as 3 years.

 

Also, what i mean by the "casual" coment is that some people bought a PS3 as a multimedia platform. DVD, Blu-Ray, Games, video and music streaming, photo viewing, the internet. All available through the PS3 with the minimum of fuss. I was defining the "casual" part as being someone who puts no more importance on the console's games playing abilities than they do it's media capabilities. Light gaming, basically. This is in contrast to the Wii, which is bought for the sole reason of playing video games. It's bought by gamers, even if those people wouldn't have fallen under the definition of a "gamer" in the past.

[D_prOdigy]

Thats what I thought. I don't think its really an issue though. The Wii isn't capable of outputting Digital video anyway, and the next Nintendo console will almost certainly do 1080p. I can't see them releasing just an upgraded Wii that can output HDMI as its just not worth it really.

 

What I'd like to see with the Wii HD though is having it ship with Composite, component and HDMI cables and also have a Monitor hook up kit available from Day one that has both a VGA and DVI cable in it, as well as a left and right RCA audio to Headphone adapter.

 

Oh ho, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Wii 2 would output 1080p. I was thinking about it yesterday actually, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if they kept it at 720p maximum, and only distribute HD cables on a small scale. Probably will only come bundled with composite again, too.

[Flaight]

Believe me, Nintendo will only decide to make another console when:

 

1) The sales of the Wii go down (which i don't believe will happen in something like 5 years from now)

 

2) A new and completely inovator technology comes, and Myamoto does a crazy idea with it

I think that sounds about right.

 

In the end, a business model is what dictates what direction a company goes. This point is sometimes lost on us consumers as we tend to get bogged down with what's exciting or preferred.

 

A good example: Earlier this month, it was reported that Robbie Bach, president of MS's Entertainment & Devices division, have taken a funding cut from MS headquarters. To an average joe, this seems like a weird decision seeing how successful Xbox has been, but from the point of view of Financial Analyst this makes a lot of sense. Last year so many 360s were pumped into retailers in order to meet the shipment target and this year was more about shifting last year's stockpile. That isn't a bad thing, of course, as they will be sold eventually, but in accounting terms this doesn't make a pretty reading at MS's board meetings as this year's shipment (the so called wholesale) have dropped sharply. Shareholders have the stake on the company so naturally decision makers are held to account. Hence the funding cut to that particular department, not to the others. I suspect their recent re-organization of their in-house development studios is a part of this streamlining process.

 

The point is, what us gamers hype about, and whatsnot, is only a secondary factor (if even that).

 

In my view, the timing of next gen is near impossible to predict at this point in time. In business terms, only Nintendo can comfortably sit and smile so far and even that is premature if we were to consider the usual lifespan of consoles. If there were 3 chapters to every console, we're only at the beginning of the 2nd chapter.

 

Personally, my prediction is that, all companies will not create too much diversion in the run up to the next gen, but instead seek to calm the waters and bring equilibrium to the current business model. They will try to milk the existing franchise as much as possible and wait till *somebody* makes the move.

 

The next question is, who will make that move. Given the financial situation in the gaming arm of MS/Sony, it would be too risky to move too quickly. Nintendo is comfortable enough, and Sony has just about saved their backside with a (allegedly accidental) 2-product strategy (PS2 & PS3) and PS3 is at last on the move. In this regard, perhaps MS may be forced to make the next move, while the others just respond.

 

I wonder whether Nintendo will ever change their current business model in the next decade. Their model is too good and they know it even at the worst of times. I can't help but feel that they will stick to it until a business circumstance forces them to change. I know that's a sobering thing to say from our (gamers') point of view, but ultimately they are part of the money market because of their size.

[Emasher]

Oh ho, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Wii 2 would output 1080p. I was thinking about it yesterday actually, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if they kept it at 720p maximum, and only distribute HD cables on a small scale. Probably will only come bundled with composite again, too.

 

I fail to see your logic there. 720p is an old standard and a lot of people have TVs that can do 1080p now. It would be foolish not to do it.

[Hellfire]

I fail to see your logic there. 720p is an old standard and a lot of people have TVs that can do 1080p now. It would be foolish not to do it.

It's not an old standard, there are PS3 games that output 720p too, hell some "HD" games don't even output that (I think Halo 3 is one of these, not sure) it's not just about a cable, it has to do with hardware and capacity, so it's not that farfetched.

[Emasher]

I know it has to do with hardware, really, its ALL about hardware. But it just doesn't seen like the logical thing to do.

[Hellfire]

Depends on when they release it, the price of components, how HD TVs will have sold etc etc...

It's just not black and white that's what I mean

[Emasher]

You have to remember, this is still a few years off.

[Choze]

HD makes sense but it would have to be successor not revision. Or it would be expensive with little gain.

[DCK]

I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo locks the Wii2 to output in 1080p only. This is 2012 we're talking about, 720p will even start to become outdated then.

 

The PS3 and 360 aren't really that well prepared for such high resolutions as 1080p. Modern day graphics cards tend to scale a bit better. The Wii2 will probably have multiple GPUs, too, and those only gain a real advantage at Full HD resolutions.

[Noku]

What he said

 

Couldn't it be imaginable for Nintendo not to want to undergo again the "dark eras" of the N64 and GC (although still profitable, yes), and in that respect, be the disruptor not only in terms of innovation, but also in terms of business strategy (eg, release before competition)?

 

Then again, releasing before the competition isn't necessarily an advantage. All one needs to do is look at the 360 and Dreamcast to realize that. Which might indeed mean that Nintendo will be sticking to their current strategy.

 

Which makes my post a bit pointless.

[Emasher]

I wouldn't be surprised if they set it up to do monitor resolutions as well as TV ones. Perhaps 1440x900 and 1680x1050. If it can do 1080p it could easily do those surely.

[Grazza]

I would expect the Wii 2 to be slightly less powerful than an Xbox 360 and output at 720p. As Hellfire says, Halo 3 (and Call of Duty 4) are slightly less than 720p, as are many games I don't know of, I'm sure. Not that I'm a pixel counter, but it's interesting to know what the processors can do.

 

At that sort of power, many developers choose to use the processing power for extra graphical detail rather than higher resolution.

 

However, it's also true that 1080p TVs are becoming extremely common, so let's hope 720p upscales into it well (it probably does, which is why they chose those resolutions). As DCK suggests, the Wii 2 could just upscale anything to 1080p anyway.

[Emasher]

Upscaling 720p still isn't 1080p. There is a difference. I honestly can't see them not doing 1080p, it just seems like the logical next step.

 

The Wii HD will probably be more powerful than at least the 360, and its also going to be a few years yet. By then, huge numbers of people will have TVs that do 1080p.

[DCK]

As DCK suggests, the Wii 2 could just upscale anything to 1080p anyway.

I didn't say that... I meant it wouldn't be unlikely it would just do full 1080p in every game.

 

Also, if you think that the Wii2 will be less powerful than the 360, you're seriously overestimating the 360 and underestimating technological development.

 

To illustrate my point - ATI (guys behind the Wii and GameCube GPUs) has released the Radeon HD4670 several weeks ago. It's a midrange chip that runs perfectly cool on passive cooling, and only sets you back around 50 pounds. The little cheap chip runs Call of Duty 4 at a 1920x1200 resolution (a little higher than 1080p) with all settings maxed out, including 16x anti-aliasing at 30 fps. By comparison, the 360 runs the same game at 1024x600 (it couldn't cope with HD Ready), with 4x anti-aliasing and has dips in it 30 frames per second refresh rate. The desktop version of the 360 GPU (which was a bit less powerful and lacked some features) started retail at 250 pounds back in early 2006.

 

Now keep in mind that CoD 4 wasn't even optimized to run on that hardware, and we still have at least three years of technological innovation left.

 

If Nintendo doesn't reuse GameCube hardware next time (they can't anymore), I have no doubt the Wii2 will be an enormous leap in power, and it will easily beat the Xbox 360 and PS3 in a small, quiet and cheap console.

[Flaight]

Couldn't it be imaginable for Nintendo not to want to undergo again the "dark eras" of the N64 and GC (although still profitable, yes), and in that respect, be the disruptor not only in terms of innovation, but also in terms of business strategy (eg, release before competition)?

Yeah, maybe. At least Nintendo has enough money to safely make the first move.

 

What I'm not too sure about is whether Nintendo will be prepared to make a loss for every console they manufacture. Their strategy has always been to make money for every sale of a console/handheld.

 

Obviously HD support will be cheap enough in the near future, but how far would they back it with high end processors? MS/Sony spend so much on the hardware, so if Nintendo were to "catch up" in that department, Nintendo's current business model is not sustainable. They would have to alter it, either to take a loss for every unit they sell, or to abandon the "affordable gaming for everybody" principle.

 

Somehow either of those seems unlikely... or is it just me?

[Emasher]

Yeah, maybe. At least Nintendo has enough money to safely make the first move.

 

What I'm not too sure about is whether Nintendo will be prepared to make a loss for every console they manufacture. Their strategy has always been to make money for every sale of a console/handheld.

 

Obviously HD support will be cheap enough in the near future, but how far would they back it with high end processors? MS/Sony spend so much on the hardware, so if Nintendo were to "catch up" in that department, Nintendo's current business model is not sustainable. They would have to alter it, either to take a loss for every unit they sell, or to abandon the "affordable gaming for everybody" principle.

 

Somehow either of those seems unlikely... or is it just me?

 

We're saying the Wii HD will be more powerful than the 360 and PS3, in 2011 or whenever, think about how cheap the parts of those will be.

[Flaight]

We're saying the Wii HD will be more powerful than the 360 and PS3, in 2011 or whenever, think about how cheap the parts of those will be.

Yeah alright... that's a fair point, I must say. I think that is realistic given how fast computers have been developing.

 

In a way though, that kinda makes this story not-very-news-worthy. It's like saying every PC will have a blu-ray drive by 2011, which is (hopefully!!) a no-brainer. The original story reads as if Nintendo is doing something remarkable, certainly remarkable enough to be "hard to believe" and so it became news-worthy.

 

Maybe, just maybe, next gen console gaming will have a little difference between high-end and mid-end tech. 360 and PS3 are different, but in some ways the difference in performance is hard to notice. If this trend continues, maybe, what Nintendo spends on Wii HD will be close enough to whatever MS/Sony comes up with at a much higher cost.

 

Just a random thought...

[DCK]

MS/Sony spend so much on the hardware, so if Nintendo were to "catch up" in that department, Nintendo's current business model is not sustainable. They would have to alter it, either to take a loss for every unit they sell, or to abandon the "affordable gaming for everybody" principle.

"Catching up" isn't a good description of what's going on. It's not as if Nintendo has to do extra R&D because the Wii is weaker. All three begin with a clean sheet in designing the new consoles.

 

The Wii2 will certainly be able to have competitive graphics in a cheap, small and quiet console. The reason why the Wii is so underpowered isn't just the fact that it's an everybody console. Nintendo had actually designed a console quite competitive with the 360 (to be released earlier and instead of Wii), but decided to take another direction when the DS proved so succesful. Because they didn't want to spend even more money on R&D, and already had some cheap, quiet and reasonably fast hardware designed, they just upgraded that. Therefore the Wii is an upgraded Cube, with backwards compability as an extra selling point.

 

If Nintendo had decided to make a cheap, quiet console from the start, they could've easily made a console that used actual 2006 hardware. Hardware like that could've easily brought us 720p resolution and games would be able to at least match first generation 360 games.

 

It's a safe bet that Nintendo will create a cheap quiet console from the start now. Assuming they'll release it in 2012, they can use cheap, quiet hardware from 2012, which will probably be more powerful than the highest end stuff today. They won't have to give up the Wii formula, and yet give us some competitive graphics.

 

Lastly, I expect MS and Sony to give up the "make a powerhouse vacuum cleaner" strategy at least partly now the Wii formula is proving to be so succesful, making the gap in power smaller.

[Flaight]

Lastly, I expect MS and Sony to give up the "make a powerhouse vacuum cleaner" strategy at least partly now the Wii formula is proving to be so succesful, making the gap in power smaller.

That's an excellent point mate. It may very well be MS/Sony who end up having to change their ways, which will in turn give Wii2 a leverage without Nintendo going off-course.

 

If MS/Sony spend more on a console than its price tag, though, surely that would mean that their hardware would ultimately be "better and faster" (yeah I know that's abstract) than Wii2...? So my point was, it's likely that Wii2 will still be technically inferior, if Nintendo were to stick to their profit strategy. I know that's got nothing to do with the competition though!

 

What do you think about my 2nd point? That a difference in hardware would result in less noticeable visual advantage? I know if a hardware is pushed to its limit, there will be differences and there will always be big titles which achieve that. But in 2012, perhaps the gap between high end and mid end hardware would be somewhat less in visual impact? Or maybe I'm underestimating the power of computing :awesome:

 

Not every Dev studio can carry on expanding forever either. It'd be hard and expensive to marshal a team of 1000+ people.

[Hellfire]

Pretty much DCK, but let's not pretend they didn't spend money in R&D, the money they spent on the wii remote and nunchuck, making a small, quiet console, etc... R&D isn't just big CPUs and powerful gfx cards, far from it in fact. It would also be a huge risk to make an expensive console, because Wii wasn't a sure hit.

[DCK]

Pretty much DCK, but let's not pretend they didn't spend money in R&D, the money they spent on the wii remote and nunchuck, making a small, quiet console, etc... R&D isn't just big CPUs and powerful gfx cards, far from it in fact. It would also be a huge risk to make an expensive console, because Wii wasn't a sure hit.

Well, that's true. But the Wiimote was intended as a GameCube expansion at first, so I think the Wiimote would've been part of the 'N5' (as we called this Nintendo power console then) package - they already designed the new controller. Secondly, there's really nothing remarkable about the Wii package... It's just overclocked GameCube hardware with some added memory in various places - if they really would've done their best it wouldn't have needed active cooling, even. Nintendo spent a humongous amount on R&D on the Wii, and it doesn't make sense it all went to the controller and a GameCube 'rehash'. They just couldn't spend another amount like that to really make something from the hardware. And there really are a lot of pros in the reuse of the GameCube architecture.

 

Time was a factor, too. GameCube was doing bad at the time, so they needed something quick.

[Hellfire]

Do we have any proof that Wiimote was really a GC expansion? I mean, sure they plan that kind of stuff all the time, everything's meant to go everythere, but I doubt it was actually going to be like that.

 

And it's not that simple, you don't just overclock a GC and suddenly poof it fits on a small, quiet package that doesn't overheat or spend lots or power. Not saying they spent a lot or did technological wonders on it, but it does take all kinds of research. I don't doubt that most their R&D went into the controller: what it is, what it could've been and what will be. It makes perfect sense, they had to invest in various companies, gyroscopes technology present in motion+ only now became financially viable, lots of tests had to made, a lot of prototypes, it's really complex.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I just don't understand what you mean by not making sense for the R&D to go to the controller.

 

I don't think it's a mystery why they used the GC architecture, many things already said: cheaper, already experienced with it, which helps not only to make a smaller, more affordable console but theoretically would mean that devs could make good looking games from the get go, because they didn't need time to learn as they did with HD, unfortunately, they're all freaking retarded. Also, it was the best way to sell a cheap console that could penetrate new markets, while still making profit and affording them to bail out if Wii was a failure. Like you said, lots of pros.