PS3 vs 360 vs Wii

lol, desu, at least the WiiU will finally come with support for external hard drives, desu desu, which are cheaper anyway desu desu desu desu

 

Icwutudidthar

Dude, just let the discussion flow on itself. But since you mentioned it....

I don't have enough money for the WiiU. If I DO get it though, I just hope they're gonna get a hell lot more of third-party support than the Wii ever had.

 

for starters the got ME3, ACIII, Batman: arkham city armored edition and bayonetta 2, on this last point there is a brutal flame war on gamefaqs, soooooo amusing to see.

@insanecrazy07 the wiiu supports external hardrives i dont remember who but it was confirmed it can support up to 1 or 2 TB's on external hard drive and minimum is 8 GB for external.

 

Oh nintendo can finally grab modern games with modern graphics, I don't see any problem waiting till the very end of the current generation to release a console with enough power to compete with the 360 and ps3 as they are about to be phased out. ohwait

 

The only part I'm concerned about is whether it can boot games directly from the external drive, because if not, then there's no point to it. I'd even be happy with just stashing tons of the games' installed data on it, but if it can't read directly from the external drive, then there's really no point to it. 32 GB can be used up in a matter of a few to a handful of games' installed data.

The reason I give the PS3 such great praise is because not only can it run games directly off of the external (hacked, of course, just like my comparison with the Wii), but it also reads Blu-Ray movies, plays most common video formats, plays games that are exceeding 8.5 GB in size (although few actually reach that in content subtracting cinematics and other bullshit) and actually has a somewhat adequate (although I still think 120 GB is inadequate) for storing installed game data.

I did at some point have a homebrew program that let me install game data to the external drive and read it from there, which was nice for those stupid games that require you to install useless data that just eat up space...but at the first sign of the drive timing out for whatever stupid reason led to corrupting that specific piece of data, which meant having to delete and reinstall the data. Good in theory, bad in practice.

The Wii was nice in that it never needed to install game data, but the load times were horrendous and the games were limited in pretty much every aspect, graphics, expansive worlds, VOICEOVERS, etc. etc. and it's because they've relied on designing most of their games around 4.7 GB, and not 8.5 GB. At least with more internal memory, you could install the content to the drive, expand your content onto another disc (cue FFXIII), and have DLC larger than the usual Guitar Hero song (like Dragon Age's Awakening DLC).

I'm pretty much just rambling now, but Nintendo hasn't been the big contender since the N64. Even the Gamecube's superior graphics was still limited by it's shitty 1.35 GB media.

 

At least they didn't go all proprietary with the hardware. Thank God I can just use a regular 2.5" laptop drive, unlike the 360's proprietary bullshit. I have a 500 GB SSD hybrid in mine, and it's pretty sweet.

 

Well there are somethings the developers of batman arkham city: armored edition pointed out, the wiiu procesing power in theory does not even needs to install data (i dont have the article at hand i read it like a month ago and i wipe often my search history) the U temporally install all the data while you boot the game not needing to read the DVD at all, the whole game ran trough the wii U w/o using the lens more than maybe twice, meaning it will probably allow for external hard drive game/Data install

 

So you're saying we're going to have incessant load times when we boot the thing up? Ugh, this is what I wanted to avoid...

I'd rather just install the game data once and not have to deal with it being temporarily installed every time I want to play it.

 

it dint have a load time, the game booted up and it ran perfectly, but it was shown as an E3 demo so i am not 100% sure if the temporal data install is still a function

 

I'd imagine they had it preloaded so as to showcase it at E3.

 

i would have tought the same thing but they showcase showed the game booting up, and later the makers/developers pointed out how the U rareley needed to read data from the DVD as it streamed or installed all of it as you started the game

 

Hmm. I'd have to see it myself. I'm witholding judgement until then.

 

Spoiler

Technical specifications Nintendo has released technical specifications of the Wii U hardware, which are listed below. These specifications are subject to change.
Processors
CPU: IBM POWER7[2]-based multi-core processor
GPU: Custom AMD Radeon High Definition GPGPU [73]
The Wii U CPU is designed by IBM. It is described by IBM as an "all-new, Power-based microprocessor",[74] the processor is a multi-core design manufactured at 45 nm with an eDRAM cache. Neither Nintendo nor IBM has revealed detailed specifications, such as the number of cores, clock rate, or cache sizes. References have been made to the chip containing "a lot" of eDRAM and "the same processor technology found in Watson".[75] The Wii U CPU will be produced by IBM at their 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing facility in East Fishkill, New York.[74]

RAM
2GB Total; 1GB for games and 1GB for System Software.[76]
Storage
Basic: 8GB, Premium: 32GB Internal flash memory, expandable via SD memory cards and USB hard disk drives[76]
Slot-loading optical disc drive compatible with 12 cm "proprietary high-density optical discs" (25 GB per layer)[77][78] and 12 cm Wii optical discs

Ports and peripheral capabilities
SD memory card slot (supports SDHC cards)
USB 2.0 ports (2 at front of console, 2 at rear)
Sensor Bar power port
"AV Multi Out" port
HDMI 1.4 out port[56]

Wii U GamePad
Built-in 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and a geomagnetic sensor
Stereo Speakers and Microphone
Volume Control
Front-facing camera
IR Sensor strip
Infrared Transciever (part of Universal Remote feature)
Headphone jack
6.2 inch (15.7 cm) 16:9 resistive touchscreen
Two clickable analog sticks and one D-pad
Stylus
Select, Start, Home and Power buttons
A/B/X/Y face buttons, L/R bumper buttons and ZL/ZR trigger buttons
Rumble
Controller sync button
Wireless communication with console based on IEEE 802.11n
NFC[59]
Note: The Wii U is also compatible with the Wii Remote Plus, Wii Nunchuk, Classic Controller, and the Wii Balance Board.[79]
Video
1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576i (PAL Only), 480p, 480i, standard 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic widescreen
"AV Multi Out" port supporting composite video, YPBPR component video, S-Video (NTSC consoles only), RGB SCART (European consoles only) and D-Terminal (Japan only)
HDMI 1.4 out port supporting stereoscopic 3D images.[56]
Audio
"AV Multi Out" port. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI
Features

 

Because you know...Blu-Ray was just TOO HARD to conform to...

 

iirc they would had to pay owner rights and would costed more to install a blue ray lens (which AFAIK wear down in a relative fast manner or so it has happened to my uncle's blue ray) and arguably it's better for nintendo (in a business way) to make their own stuff since it would be cheaper

 

apologies but i am translating from spanish to english so expect some meaning to be lost, wear out i meant it as the repeated use of the player will have an effect on the mechanism, etc. etc., atm i am unable to find a correct word for desgaste, wear down could be a possible one but it doesnt fits the meaning i am trying to express, so in this case i meant not wear out via a physical contact but from repeated use.

 

Cheap blu-ray players will break much as cheap anything will. Most blu ray players last just as long, if not longer as dvd players.

Also 1GB RAM is very short sighted of them. I predict that causing problems later on, especially as their software is probably going to require more as they add new security patches, etc to it.