No hard drive, sidestepping the lack of multi-touch, sidestepping short battery life, there is a friend code system they aren't yet telling us about in-depth, Off-TV Play is technically possible for all games but for some unfathomable reason they are letting developers make the call to completely ignore the option and gimping its possible functionality, sloppily sidestepping the "Xbox 360 Controller" comparison question(even though I don't really care).
Okay, friend codes. I'd just like to point out that while it would be great if they completely got rid of them, I don't mind the friend codes on the 3DS at all.
Oooo, short battery life. If the control hooks up to a USB port, then I don't care.
The controller is intended to be used away from the console itself, and even NIntendo, sluggish brute that it is when it comes to adapting new technology ever since the N64 ignored the compact disc, recognized wireless controllers as a pack-in standard by the time the Wii came out. Suggesting that we should accept a massive backwards step in terms of controller convenience because Nintendo can't be bothered to make a modern piece of hardware is just asinine.
And Reg has a point about the controller. Who cares if it looks like a 360 controller. Nintendo has designed almost all of its controls for ergonomics and ease of use. Well, except the N64 controller.
N64 controller WAS designed for ergonomics and ease of use, it was just built on some fundamentally incorrect assumptions. If you notice, games that were DESIGNED for the N64 work really well with that controller. The controller was supposedly designed specifically for Super Mario 64, and it shows.
Even if you knock off the controller issues, the lack of a hard drive is absolutely inexcusable at this point in the game. A touchscreen device without multi-touch is absolutely prehistoric at this point. Reading how Reggie demonstrated how multi-touch is dumb and we don't need it anyway, I just imagined one of those cheap infomercial "worst case scenario" sequences in black and white where people do things in absurdly inefficient ways to show off how much "better" some $19.95(+S&H) bit of plastic is.
Plus, there is a friend code system, they won't tell us what it is, just that they're sure we'll be happy with it, and we should trust the folks trying to sell us something on that score. They're not making Off-TV play, a massive boon for their odd controller setup, a library-wide feature. This interview really is a mess.
Off-TV Play is technically possible for all games but for some unfathomable reason they are letting developers make the call to completely ignore the option and gimping its possible functionality
It is very very fathomable why they're not pushing Off-TV Play, the second you lock your third parties to using that feature you're stopping them from doing anything truly interesting with that second screen as you have to assume that at any time the player is going to be playing with one screen only.
Not all games are going to lend themselves to the dual-screen experience well, but to push the one screen experience would be the most redundant thing Nintendo could do, if all the controller could do was show me the same image as the one on my main screen it'd just be an overglorified oversized handheld, and if you make every developer use Off-TV Play, nobody'll be able to exploit the gamepad in an exciting way.
I was gonna address your points one by one, but this is your main bone of contention it seems.
It is very very fathomable why they're not pushing Off-TV Play, the second you lock your third parties to using that feature you're stopping them from doing anything truly interesting with that second screen as you have to assume that at any time the player is going to be playing with one screen only.
Not all games are going to lend themselves to the dual-screen experience well, but to push the one screen experience would be the most redundant thing Nintendo could do, if all the controller could do was show me the same image as the one on my main screen it'd just be an overglorified oversized handheld, and if you make every developer use Off-TV Play, nobody'll be able to exploit the gamepad in an exciting way.
I agree.
And also, with my experience of the 3DS, I'm fairly confident Nintendo might do pretty well with the WiiU.
Features such as the controller, acheivements, social elements, off screen play look to be customisable and flexible for developers.
As for friend codes, I should imagine it will be a 1 time only thing, and probably can't be removed completely possibly due to the Wii.
And compared to other companies its nice to see a more laid back stance on used games and hard drive usage.
Yeah, they don't have a dedicated memory, but as long as thats clearly stated in the manual and the box, (I should imagine the internal memory will likely be enough for casual users anyway, since they will likely only buy a few digital titles, if any at all), then hooking up a cheap external drive is no problem at all!
(People seem to be forgetting how expensive 360 hard drives used to be...)
(Many people already do it for the Wii, so Nintendo is playing nice by providing a legitimate way to do it. (the 3DS also uses SD cards for content, which funnily enough the DSi didn't do))
EDIT:
Hell you could buy a cheap 32gb Sd card, and a cheap 750gb external drive, then add the 8gb internal memory, and you have about 790gb of space available to play with which assuming WiiU stuff will be about the same size as 360 XBLA stuff (1-2gb), would give you more than enough space to last the console's lifetime!
(And it would still probably be cheaper than a dedicated memory add-on like the 360 drives were)
EDIT 2:
A brand new, WiiU specific memory device would cost more than £60 AND would likely have less memory.
(And wouldn't work with other things so easily)
I was gonna address your points one by one, but this is your main bone of contention it seems.
It is very very fathomable why they're not pushing Off-TV Play, the second you lock your third parties to using that feature you're stopping them from doing anything truly interesting with that second screen as you have to assume that at any time the player is going to be playing with one screen only.
Not all games are going to lend themselves to the dual-screen experience well, but to push the one screen experience would be the most redundant thing Nintendo could do, if all the controller could do was show me the same image as the one on my main screen it'd just be an overglorified oversized handheld, and if you make every developer use Off-TV Play, nobody'll be able to exploit the gamepad in an exciting way.
While I see the argument, I feel like making it a developer choice will lead to a lot of ports and multi-platform titles that have it as a blind spot in their feature list. I feel like they could enforce the feature more by having it be opt-out, rather than opt-in.
And actually, the hard drive and multi-touch are by far my biggest point of contention, with the hard drive easily being, by far, the most important thing missing from the console.
While I see the argument, I feel like making it a developer choice will lead to a lot of ports and multi-platform titles that have it as a blind spot in their feature list. I feel like they could enforce the feature more by having it be opt-out, rather than opt-in.
And actually, the hard drive and multi-touch are by far my biggest point of contention, with the hard drive easily being, by far, the most important thing missing from the console.
From the chatter I hear floating around it seems that the feature's supported on the most basic level, so if you're doing a quick and dirty port you'd be doing it with no Wii U specific features on the gamepad, but the main game image displaying on their instead. Obviously not concrete at this point in time, but that's what i'm hearing. I honestly don't think it's gonna be underutilised by any stretch though.
I don't see multi-touch and hard drive as a massive issue myself. I'm yet to see a game that uses the tech so there could be a wealth of games out their using it as a core gameplay feature that i'm not aware of. I'd mostly miss ot for pincing and zooming in the web browser, but I don't buy Nintendo products for making forum posts. Also as for the hard drive, i don't think it's a big ask in 2012 to have people to go out and buy an SD card or external drive in the free market especially if it keeps the console cost down, memory hasn't been the cheapest for the last year or so. It certainly beats them using a proprietary format and putting the arm in like MS did with Xbox for years or Sony for Vita.
At this rate, by next year, E3 will have a kickstarter area.
It would need to do man, the AAA model's slowing down big time. A lot of the complaining about the state of the industry is really done by the big guys, smaller teams are flourishing
Knowing what I do about the Amish, seeing one wielding a weapon is really weird. Seriously, those guys wouldn't hurt a fly if it was buzzing in their face incessantly after it raped their mother.
Also, the concept that the Amish would be offended by something, especially a joke at their expense, is so hilariously off-base. Still, it's Kotaku, you're lucky if they actually know what they're talking about when speaking in the realm of video games.
From the chatter I hear floating around it seems that the feature's supported on the most basic level, so if you're doing a quick and dirty port you'd be doing it with no Wii U specific features on the gamepad, but the main game image displaying on their instead. Obviously not concrete at this point in time, but that's what i'm hearing. I honestly don't think it's gonna be underutilised by any stretch though.
That seems like a poor use of it. Having two screens displaying the same thing when there's absolutely no reason for them to seems like a really nasty and inexcusable power/resource drain.
I don't see multi-touch and hard drive as a massive issue myself. I'm yet to see a game that uses the tech so there could be a wealth of games out their using it as a core gameplay feature that i'm not aware of. I'd mostly miss ot for pincing and zooming in the web browser, but I don't buy Nintendo products for making forum posts.
Just about all of our touch devices these days are multi-touch, and we have kids now who are entirely aware of how to use a mutli-touch device. I've seen multi-touch used for games, but let's make it simple and use your example, pinch and zoom. As you've already stated, pinching and zooming is a GREAT way to focus in on things, though you focus on text on a website. What about a large-scale strategy game, where the main TV screen only shows things visible to both players, while the smaller screen can be used to view your units? What if the map could be zoomed and navigated with touch gestures?
The ability to change what the input means by swiping with one finger or two alone opens up a lot of interface possibilities. With multitouch, you could have a music game/music element within a game allow chords by allowing people to push multiple keys at once. You could create more complex gestures that could actually create a deeper input system. I feel like people EXPECT multitouch on touchscreen devices at this point and that it is by no means a novelty feature, and I feel like its exclusion is a major point against the WiiPad in general.
Also as for the hard drive, i don't think it's a big ask in 2012 to have people to go out and buy an SD card or external drive in the free market especially if it keeps the console cost down, memory hasn't been the cheapest for the last year or so. It certainly beats them using a proprietary format and putting the arm in like MS did with Xbox for years or Sony for Vita.
The same can be said for the original Wii, whose Virtual Console goes nigh unused aside from being a dumping ground for cheap emulated ports. Without a large install base of users who have access to enough storage to hold full-size games or even a few meaty expansions, developers for the WiiU won't find supporting storage-intensive features to be a worthy endeavor. As the future of games in both the console and PC spaces becomes more and more digital, either through digital releases or through digitally-released content expansions, the WiiU will be irreversibly left behind by its own backwards thinking. The current retail space has decided, 250GB is now standard for a game console. If the WiiU's hardware policy leaves too few people with the storage to hold something like Skyrim's Dawnguard expansion, the WiiU will be the worst console for multiplatform releases, which with the interesting controller concept it has no reason to be.
The fact that Activision didn't go out and implement the one thing that made the Road to the Multiverse episode so highly praised, meaning, the vastly different art shifts on certain universes, makes me not think of the game as something that is necessarily good. That, and Family Guy actually stopped being funny to me in the last few years.
Seriously, if you're going to make a game based on that episode, you might as well just go all-out. At least Square-Enix does with Kingdom Hearts.
Come to think of it, if Nintendo is primarily worried about the console's physical size (which they are), they could still include a space for a laptop hard drive. Laptop HDD's are tiny.
So last night Nintendo had a webcast with all sorts of new stuff that they couldn't be bothered to mention at E3 for some reason. Here's the highlights.
So last night Nintendo had a webcast with all sorts of new stuff that they couldn't be bothered to mention at E3 for some reason. Here's the highlights.
You missed Animal Crossing coming out in Japan in the Fall, a Fire Emblem game(currently only called "Fire Emblem") coming to the US, and the Kingdom Hearts demo now being up on the 3DS eShop.
You missed Animal Crossing coming out in Japan in the Fall, a Fire Emblem game(currently only called "Fire Emblem") coming to the US, and the Kingdom Hearts demo now being up on the 3DS eShop.
As you can probably tell from the links, I got my news from Kotaku, and they didn't cover those particular stories, sadly. Probably because they were about things coming out in Japan rather than the West.
That said, thanks for pointing them out. Good to know.
Played the Kingdom Hearts demo. Graphics and gameplay feel like its a main Kingdom Hearts game, which is good, but did anyone else want Sora to shut up? I've never had this problem before, but his voice just annoyed me this time around.
One story that people seem to have missed amidst the 'barrage' of new is that Nintendo's rereleasing their old game YET AGAIN. Christ, they're as bad as Squeenix!
One story that people seem to have missed amidst the 'barrage' of new is that Nintendo's rereleasing their old game YET AGAIN.
"Not these games are exactly 8-bit and a few have been available on the Wii's Virtual Console but it'll be good to have some of these in portable form."
It's funny how many people think that the Game Gear and Sega Master System aren't 8-bit because of the graphics ability of the system and the ability of the developers. Sega did a pretty good job translating the 16-bit look of the Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic games in the later Sonic games for Master System and Game Gear.
Played the Kingdom Hearts demo. Graphics and gameplay feel like its a main Kingdom Hearts game, which is good, but did anyone else want Sora to shut up? I've never had this problem before, but his voice just annoyed me this time around.
Comments
Okay, friend codes. I'd just like to point out that while it would be great if they completely got rid of them, I don't mind the friend codes on the 3DS at all.
N64 controller WAS designed for ergonomics and ease of use, it was just built on some fundamentally incorrect assumptions. If you notice, games that were DESIGNED for the N64 work really well with that controller. The controller was supposedly designed specifically for Super Mario 64, and it shows.
Even if you knock off the controller issues, the lack of a hard drive is absolutely inexcusable at this point in the game. A touchscreen device without multi-touch is absolutely prehistoric at this point. Reading how Reggie demonstrated how multi-touch is dumb and we don't need it anyway, I just imagined one of those cheap infomercial "worst case scenario" sequences in black and white where people do things in absurdly inefficient ways to show off how much "better" some $19.95(+S&H) bit of plastic is.
Plus, there is a friend code system, they won't tell us what it is, just that they're sure we'll be happy with it, and we should trust the folks trying to sell us something on that score. They're not making Off-TV play, a massive boon for their odd controller setup, a library-wide feature. This interview really is a mess.
It is very very fathomable why they're not pushing Off-TV Play, the second you lock your third parties to using that feature you're stopping them from doing anything truly interesting with that second screen as you have to assume that at any time the player is going to be playing with one screen only.
Not all games are going to lend themselves to the dual-screen experience well, but to push the one screen experience would be the most redundant thing Nintendo could do, if all the controller could do was show me the same image as the one on my main screen it'd just be an overglorified oversized handheld, and if you make every developer use Off-TV Play, nobody'll be able to exploit the gamepad in an exciting way.
I agree.
And also, with my experience of the 3DS, I'm fairly confident Nintendo might do pretty well with the WiiU.
Features such as the controller, acheivements, social elements, off screen play look to be customisable and flexible for developers.
As for friend codes, I should imagine it will be a 1 time only thing, and probably can't be removed completely possibly due to the Wii.
And compared to other companies its nice to see a more laid back stance on used games and hard drive usage.
Yeah, they don't have a dedicated memory, but as long as thats clearly stated in the manual and the box, (I should imagine the internal memory will likely be enough for casual users anyway, since they will likely only buy a few digital titles, if any at all), then hooking up a cheap external drive is no problem at all!
(People seem to be forgetting how expensive 360 hard drives used to be...)
(Many people already do it for the Wii, so Nintendo is playing nice by providing a legitimate way to do it. (the 3DS also uses SD cards for content, which funnily enough the DSi didn't do))
EDIT:
Hell you could buy a cheap 32gb Sd card, and a cheap 750gb external drive, then add the 8gb internal memory, and you have about 790gb of space available to play with which assuming WiiU stuff will be about the same size as 360 XBLA stuff (1-2gb), would give you more than enough space to last the console's lifetime!
(And it would still probably be cheaper than a dedicated memory add-on like the 360 drives were)
32gb SD card: £15
750gb usb 2.0 2.5" drive: £60-70
Overall cost: £75-85
320gb Xbox 360 slim drive: £62.86
EDIT 2:
A brand new, WiiU specific memory device would cost more than £60 AND would likely have less memory.
(And wouldn't work with other things so easily)
And actually, the hard drive and multi-touch are by far my biggest point of contention, with the hard drive easily being, by far, the most important thing missing from the console.
From the chatter I hear floating around it seems that the feature's supported on the most basic level, so if you're doing a quick and dirty port you'd be doing it with no Wii U specific features on the gamepad, but the main game image displaying on their instead. Obviously not concrete at this point in time, but that's what i'm hearing. I honestly don't think it's gonna be underutilised by any stretch though.
I don't see multi-touch and hard drive as a massive issue myself. I'm yet to see a game that uses the tech so there could be a wealth of games out their using it as a core gameplay feature that i'm not aware of. I'd mostly miss ot for pincing and zooming in the web browser, but I don't buy Nintendo products for making forum posts. Also as for the hard drive, i don't think it's a big ask in 2012 to have people to go out and buy an SD card or external drive in the free market especially if it keeps the console cost down, memory hasn't been the cheapest for the last year or so. It certainly beats them using a proprietary format and putting the arm in like MS did with Xbox for years or Sony for Vita.
It would need to do man, the AAA model's slowing down big time. A lot of the complaining about the state of the industry is really done by the big guys, smaller teams are flourishing
Here's a bit of a look at that other video game based on a funny/offensive cartoon: Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse.
Also, the concept that the Amish would be offended by something, especially a joke at their expense, is so hilariously off-base. Still, it's Kotaku, you're lucky if they actually know what they're talking about when speaking in the realm of video games.
That seems like a poor use of it. Having two screens displaying the same thing when there's absolutely no reason for them to seems like a really nasty and inexcusable power/resource drain.
Just about all of our touch devices these days are multi-touch, and we have kids now who are entirely aware of how to use a mutli-touch device. I've seen multi-touch used for games, but let's make it simple and use your example, pinch and zoom. As you've already stated, pinching and zooming is a GREAT way to focus in on things, though you focus on text on a website. What about a large-scale strategy game, where the main TV screen only shows things visible to both players, while the smaller screen can be used to view your units? What if the map could be zoomed and navigated with touch gestures?
The ability to change what the input means by swiping with one finger or two alone opens up a lot of interface possibilities. With multitouch, you could have a music game/music element within a game allow chords by allowing people to push multiple keys at once. You could create more complex gestures that could actually create a deeper input system. I feel like people EXPECT multitouch on touchscreen devices at this point and that it is by no means a novelty feature, and I feel like its exclusion is a major point against the WiiPad in general.
The same can be said for the original Wii, whose Virtual Console goes nigh unused aside from being a dumping ground for cheap emulated ports. Without a large install base of users who have access to enough storage to hold full-size games or even a few meaty expansions, developers for the WiiU won't find supporting storage-intensive features to be a worthy endeavor. As the future of games in both the console and PC spaces becomes more and more digital, either through digital releases or through digitally-released content expansions, the WiiU will be irreversibly left behind by its own backwards thinking. The current retail space has decided, 250GB is now standard for a game console. If the WiiU's hardware policy leaves too few people with the storage to hold something like Skyrim's Dawnguard expansion, the WiiU will be the worst console for multiplatform releases, which with the interesting controller concept it has no reason to be.
Seriously, if you're going to make a game based on that episode, you might as well just go all-out. At least Square-Enix does with Kingdom Hearts.
So last night Nintendo had a webcast with all sorts of new stuff that they couldn't be bothered to mention at E3 for some reason. Here's the highlights.
- The new Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U is being largely developed by Namco Bandai.
- There'll be a redesign of the 3DS - the 3DS XL (still no second pad though).
- Professor Layton's definitely coming to the 3DS.
- New Super Mario Bros. 2 (the 3DS one) will have paid DLC.
- Pokemon Black & White 2 will be out this 'fall'.
- Six classic Kirby game are making their way to the Wii.
...and that's about it. Hmm.
Have they run out of colours?
That said, thanks for pointing them out. Good to know.
which was your biggest mistake.
(That, and Theatrhythm I've already pre-ordered on Amazon!
EDIT: Oooh! A demo for Theatrhythm as well!
Dooowwwnnnloooooaaadddiiiinnnggg!
One story that people seem to have missed amidst the 'barrage' of new is that Nintendo's rereleasing their old game YET AGAIN. Christ, they're as bad as Squeenix!
And, seriously? They've been saying they're still going to support the Virtual Console section. What's so bad about that?
It's funny how many people think that the Game Gear and Sega Master System aren't 8-bit because of the graphics ability of the system and the ability of the developers. Sega did a pretty good job translating the 16-bit look of the Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic games in the later Sonic games for Master System and Game Gear.
Puberty can do that to a boy.