Wii U Launch Date, Price Announced!

My bad, I thought you meant going with digital only.

I was thinking more of flash media distributed, hell HP sent me my recovery media on SD.

Aye, not to mention I wouldn't like the fact I don't have something tangible that I spent my money on if the software is all digital. :v

Yeah, I don't want that, but they'll try.

Like Tiger said, the savings would go to them.


Although I do like the idea of having an account to where I can just re-download, instead of having to replace media, but I don't like the idea that something could happen (like famous FFXI payment issues) and get locked out, and lose all what I paid for.

Ups and downs.

A couple big issues with digital-only distribution:

1.) Data caps. These are becoming more and more popular with ISPs. Publishers don't want an arbitrary limit on how many games their customers can buy.

2.) Availability of high-speed internet. Much of the US would not be able to download HD games in any reasonable amount of time. That's a lot of lost sales.

Now, that's not to say they won't try it but I don't think it is coming as soon as people say(and they've been saying it for 5+ years).

Unless you're a casual, you're not going to be able to do much with 32GB of flash besides store some wiiware, DLC and your save games. Even if games give you the option of installing onto the flash, how many games could you possibly do that with before you run out of space? 5-6? Depending on size of course. The real storage for the WiiU comes from the USB drive you choose to attach, which will be as limited speed-wise as the 360/PS3. We're still a generation off from going pure digital distribution on SSDs.

More and more popular? Really?
That was rather common 10 years ago, but these days that's kind of unheard of..
Would be funny if ISPs gave you a 100mb connection and said STOP at 20gb DL >_> lol

Yeeeah, I know of some places that still have dial-up which would be a nightmare to download games on, especially HD ones.

Although, it's rising concern for gaming that if some digital content got removed from the source that it would never be able to be accessed again unless someone else put it back up. Forget who mentioned this, but it was mostly in reference to add-ons for games.

I was talking about what the producers can use it for, not the "gamer" or "casual."

In the US he is right, they're bringing back caps, especially for people who can't get cable/dsl, even those companies are capping bandwidth once you hit a threshold.

High speed is nearly unheard of in a lot of rural areas still, and the other options (like tethering) are severely limited, if even possible). (I managed to make mine useful for a bit when I had to by utilizing ICS and a router as a WAP, but that was a pain to set up).

10 years ago?


That was three days ago. ISPs would be more than happy to institute lower data caps and cap tiers and cap overages. Some ISPs have them already and the fact that more people don't fight back against that kind of thing in the mobile market is very encouraging to them.

And while most people don't realize it the major US ISPs do have data caps in place already. They're fairly high right now(250GB/300GB) but let's see how high that is when you're downloading all of your HD entertainment on a fast connection.

Yes 10 years ago.
I did'nt even have a cap on my very first adsl connection which was aprox 10 years ago! :P

Same here lol

caps weren't much of a worry before, as fewer people had access, and files weren't as big, not to mention the lack of HD video and streaming.

they're adding the caps, to maintain profits instead of spending money on infrastructure, it's business, consumer loses, shareholders win.

Are we talking mobile based ISPs? I've went through 4 dsl/cable ISPs over the last 10 years and none of them were capped.

it's really been a more recent trend, 5 years tops.

Mostly mobile, but even Comcast has a limit then they start throttling your speeds.

With the massive amount of costumers in the US, would think they'd upgrade from copper to optical and stop with such stupidity >_<

a lot of it is Optical, the problem is with their other equipment, it just can't handle the load.

(that and fiber isn't run everywhere).

US broadband is a mess. Too much landmass and not enough investment into infrastructure.

Previously rumored to be roughly 50% more powerful than PS3. (Source: IGN) Recent reports of actual hardware however suggest it to be much greater, putting it around 20% less powerful than the next gen Xbox (which is rumored to be at least 6 times more powerful than current gen consoles). Again, all rumors however.

According rumors about details leaked by a Ubisoft employee just before E3 2012, the console uses an AMD Radeon HD 6770 and supports DirectX 11

From IGN and yes, rumor.

I know USA is way bigger than Norway, but there is also 62 times as many potential costumers, which should mean enough money for better infrastructure =/
Ah well..
Hopefully by the time we go "full digital" that stuff'll be sorted out for you :P
I highly doubt it'll ever even happen before most of the world is ready for it anyways

Specs haven't concerned me for some time now. If someone told me the Wii U was only as powerful as the PS3, or even slightly less, I'd say "sounds great."

I think we're reaching a soft upper limit, or perhaps more accurately a plateau, in graphical ability dictated by a couple of key factors.

The first is developers. You can't have a game console without games, to state the obvious, and the more technologically advanced hardware becomes, the more prohibitively expensive it becomes to utilize it efficiently. The PS3 might have the ability to run software like FFXIII, but not every developer has the ability to make software like FFXIII. It seems not even Square does anymore, since their financial model no longer involves making singular games but making entire mini-series where they can reuse engines, textures and models in multiple games just to turn a profit on a budget that probably ranks up there with an average summer blockbuster. Something 6 times more powerful than the PS3 might not have a feasible market model for developers at all, leaving most of them developing last-gen software for a next-gen console. Which leaves said console in a sore spot if people are already on the fence over whether or not to buy it. I hate to say it, but the proposition of making a next gen console at this stage in the game, at least without something else going for it besides raw horsepower, seems like shooting yourself in the foot.

Secondly, and this might just be me, but isn't there a point when things are good enough? We're already seeing things approach photo realism within the current generation. Surely you can keep pushing the envelope indefinitely if your concern is with numbers on a sheet of paper, but as for what they translate to on the screen, it will most certainly plateau at some point. And it will stay there until we again increase the resolution of television screens, the price of said new technology plummets, and the majority of consumers decide to adopt it. Or 10-15 years from now.

What has always, and will always matter are the games, and I think Nintendo has been correct in de-emphasizing horsepower for the last decade and continuing to do so. It's bound to become less and less relevant.

I always read your posts in Roger's voice lol.. All seriousness though, this was well thought out and right on point. I look at a game like Heavy Rain and think, "Well ***, how can the graphics honestly improve from this?". The new game from that same developer, are making a new game with Ellen Page as the lead, and her looks identical in-game as she does irl. It's quite amazing what they are doing with graphics these days.

I agree sooo much.

"Horsepower" isn't just about graphics.

Nintendo is great at what they do but they make certain sacrifices to remain affordable and keep the market flooded with games for a wide demographic. They're well aware of that and I don't think anyone at Nintendo would be so bold as to say that hardware is becoming irrelevant.

Indeed. Just look at when Nintendo first REALLY shined. The Gameboy. It wasn't colorized like the Game Gear, but it damn sure had super battery life and fun games. It didn't have near the graphical power either, but it not only held it's own, but dominated the handheld market, as Nintendo still does.

tbh I think there will be that plateau until true 3d arises (holograms), I mean they've already worked on some of the technology that would be used in such a thing (motion sensing etc).

current 3d tech is crap, just like it was 20 years ago.

most of the budget is indeed the graphics in making a game, if I had a Genie I'd ask for the ability to program game engines that kicked ***.

maybe in comparison to the game gear... but I went through a shitload of recharges on my rechargeable, idk how anyone could afford to power one of those with regular alkaline.

That reminds me, I need to fix my Sega Nomad.

I wouldn't quite say that. The 3ds is trippy as ***. The thing you can do with those paper cards that come with the system, blows my mind.

Regular batteries last way longer than the ones you can recharge though!
I never had any issues, batteries usually lasted quite a few days for me as a kid, and batteries never were very expensive as long as you bought the cheap big packs :P
Loads of batteries that last for 10 hours for $10 -> Few batteries that last for 13 hours that cost $10.