Wii U to Use 25GB Discs (But Not Called Blu-ray)

[xenol]

[citation][nom]smeker[/nom]As always Nintendo is late to the game... Blu-Ray is hardly the future. Media streaming is the future. Anyhow.... I am not impress at all by the new gaming console. They should have sold this 6 years ago...[/citation]

Except you fail to realize that...

1. Nintendo doesn't care about supporting the movie industry
2. They already have Netflix
3. The Wii didn't need Blu-Ray.

 

[Guest]

Innovation should be using those HD-DVDs which you can't buy any medium nowdays to burn or whatnots but fully developed for commercial usage, winwin for both ODD families. Not the mention a perfect copy protection, don't you think?

 

[Filiprino]

We know Nintendo makes their own modified formats (Wii disc = single layer DVD, WiiU disc = single layer blu-ray) to save licensing costs on disk manufacturing, but at least they should now include Blu-Ray and DVD movie playback and pay the corresponding licenses. Why would they ask AMD to make a GPU capable of accelerating multimedia content playback if the console won't do it? Maybe they add content support on external USB hard disks, but having the option to play optical disks is a great addition.
DVD playback on Wii didn't matter a lot because it is a very widespread format and Blu-Ray still wasn't. Now the blue disk is getting momentum and DVD is starting to fade. A lot of people bought PS3 because it played blu-rays (if I was going to buy a blu-ray player the PS3 would be a serious candidate).

 

[cwolf78]

I like how so many nay-sayers think that Blu-Ray is not an important format and that "streaming media is the future." First of all, streamed movies (even 1080p) come nowhere close to blu-ray quality (or bitrate). Second, the audio quality of streamed movies is not very good (I have yet to see any streamed movies utilize DTS-MA or even DTS for that matter). Third, more and more ISPs are starting to cap bandwidth and/or implement throttling after reaching a certain amount of utilization. Fourth, by the time streamed movies catch up to Blu-Ray in terms of quality (IF this happens) then HVD (Holographic Video Disc) will likely be out which is the true successor to Blu-Ray. I just wonder if the PS4 is going be one the first devices to make use of the new format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

 

[elpablo]

I think it should be blue ray capable but not "enabled" I already have a blue ray player I dont' want to pay extra for something I don't need. If they sold the liscence and software seperate then each user could decide if they wanted to shell out the extra cash or not.

 

[dark_lord69]

"don't even expect the company to ever refer to the media as Blu-ray Disc"
Well of course not... They wouldn't want to play any royalties to Sony. However.. I knew Nintendo would do something to F*** up this console just like all the other (minus SNES and NES). On the other hand I can live without bluray movie playback. So not to big of a deal for me.

 

[Max Collodi]

[citation][nom]the_krasno[/nom]Smart decision, Blu Ray (or whatever those guys call it) is the future![/citation]
Actually Blu-Ray is the Present, the Future is Laser Nano Antenna. At least when it comes to disk storage.

 

[dark_lord69]

"Sony's inclusion of an expensive Blu-ray drive seemed wasteful compared to Microsoft's DVD approach"
A big part of the reason they did that was to win the format war against Toshiba and their ill fated HD-DVD. I personally believe it's also a reason they won the war. People like myself that bought consoles early and wanted to see want an HD movie (BluRay) looked like so I bought a few BluRays.
It's a bit unfortunate that Toshiba lost because the HD movies were in a more compressed format. On the other hand it's good that BluRay's won because they can hold more data.

 

[Filiprino]

[citation][nom]elpablo[/nom]I think it should be blue ray capable but not "enabled" I already have a blue ray player I dont' want to pay extra for something I don't need. If they sold the liscence and software seperate then each user could decide if they wanted to shell out the extra cash or not.[/citation]
That's a good idea. PowerDVD for WiiU 😀

 

[pocketdrummer]

I won't be buying this. The controller is neat and all, but I need more than that. It's a little sad that reports are saying it's still in the Xbox 360/PS3 range of performance. It's Nintendo's "next-gen" console, it should at least push some current technology...

 

[TheViper]

First off, it's powered by an IBM PowerPC CPU – perhaps one that's much like the one inside the Xbox 360.

Actually, it's an IBM Power7 CPU. Much more powerful than the Xenos in the X360.

 

[proxy711]

@ the blue-ray argument.

Its not like MS has never sold an xbox at a loss before. This isnt new to the console world.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]stingstang[/nom]Wasteful? Wasteful?? What was it...30% or some retarded number of people bought the ps3 JUST to watch blu-ray on it because it was cheaper than a blu-ray player at the time...But yea, because of that, Sony lost money on each sale until last year...[/citation]
correct me if im wrong, but its also the best bluray player.

[citation][nom]aje21[/nom]I trust that they will use Blu-ray and support movie playback because it seems just plain dumb not to do so. Don't give a fig about "supposed 3D" a.k.a. stereoscopic movie playback as don't expect the kids to have a 3D TV anytime soon.[/citation]

wii doesn't play dvds, you have to hack it for that.
i expect no bluray
and 3d tvs are going way down in price, with sony unveiling a 500$ one and we can expect to see cheaper ones without the bundle crap.
[citation][nom]Marco925[/nom]I highly doubt Nintendo is always late to the game.... Nintendo was the one that brought the video gaming industry up from its knees with innovation. And motion gaming didnt become popular until after Nintendo innovated. Mind you, No company is ever first at EVERYTHING. but i wouldnt say they are LAST at everything also.[/citation]

on the nes nintendo instituted quality control, something atari didnt have. and that saved it from the crash.

nintendo also for some years had the most powerful home consoles. game cube could hold its own against the xbox
[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]"Sony's inclusion of an expensive Blu-ray drive seemed wasteful compared to Microsoft's DVD approach"A big part of the reason they did that was to win the format war against Toshiba and their ill fated HD-DVD. I personally believe it's also a reason they won the war. People like myself that bought consoles early and wanted to see want an HD movie (BluRay) looked like so I bought a few BluRays.It's a bit unfortunate that Toshiba lost because the HD movies were in a more compressed format. On the other hand it's good that BluRay's won because they can hold more data.[/citation]

im glad bluray won because i didnt want to say HD DVD all the damn time

 

[notuptome2004]

[citation][nom]pocketdrummer[/nom]I won't be buying this. The controller is neat and all, but I need more than that. It's a little sad that reports are saying it's still in the Xbox 360/PS3 range of performance. It's Nintendo's "next-gen" console, it should at least push some current technology...[/citation]



Reports may say something but they dont know the details but as Developers have already said before it was shown and even in some videos this thing is more powerful then the PS3/360 hardware and it should be since it is running the newest IBM based multi-core Power7 chip witch is more then 5 years newer then the Power4/5 running in the 360. also it is running a ATI Radeon HD based chip supposedly a 4850 1gb of GPU ram and that the 360s GPU was the first to use unfiead shader system and if you could equal it to a Desktop GPU it be compared to the X1600 series so the new Wii U GPU would be 3 to 4x more powerful or more


So pfft at people and press trying to assume it is just a 360 inside in hardware anyways and that it has no more then the same performance as the current HD consoles

 

[NuclearShadow]

[citation][nom]the_krasno[/nom]Smart decision, Blu Ray (or whatever those guys call it) is the future![/citation]

Actually its the present as its already being used. But it is certainly a wise choice for them to make the move.

 

[chick0n]

[citation][nom]Swooper256[/nom]Since they rather not call it "Blu-Ray", it may represent a form of DRM.[/citation]

Nintendo's DRM means no DRM.

Their stuff are so easy to crack.

 

[Guest]

@hanrak
Just becuase you live in a country where your goverment (mostly the EU) imposes those restrictions, doesn't mean the rest of the Developed Countries do.
Its not the same in Canada, US, Australia, Russia and other countries.
As per infrastructure, yes we have those download and upload rates available, but our governments don't regulate it, so the ISP charge extreme prices for high bandwidth caps and overcharges (Ridiculous prices of 0.99/Mb for going over your cap).

Streaming all media will not work until the actual ISP allow the vast majority of consumers to have larger bandwidth caps with less overcharge.

 

[kinggraves]

I buy a game console to play games, if you need it to play Blu Ray movies then go buy a ps3. That license fee is passed to the consumer, and I don't need to pay it when I can easily get a BR player cheap these days.

 

[back_by_demand]

Fanboi stuff aside what would be good for everyone is a machine capable of displaying high quality graphics.
Check.
Has the ability to stream media from a home network, including those MKV and FLAC files.
Check.
Can play CDs, DVDs and Blurays.
Check.
Allows access to online services, including Youtube, Netflix, Facebook and internet browsing.
Check.
Is 100% backwards compatible with all my old games.
Check.

I can do all that with a HTPC, running Windows 7 - if the new Wii U can do that as well then it is a serious contender.

And before anyone says Nintendo only has kiddie games, please note that Call Of Duty Black Ops is available for the Wii as well as many other non-family games. With the upgrade in the new CPU and graphics likely to be huge then developers are now more likely to make games.

I said it before and I was right, Nintendo made cash on every unit sold of Wii from day 1, not years down the line with billions wasted on subsidising faults or expensive hardware, they banked every penny and poured it into R&D andnow we have a product that is a logical step up and a significant boost.

OK, before you argue its no different to the one used in the Xbox 360, lets have a see shall we? They are likely going to use a Power7 CPU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)
The Xbox360 chip can do a maximum of 96 GFLOPS
The Power7 chip can do a maximum of 265 GFLOPS
You can't do exact benchmarking because we don't know exactly which Power7 they will use and it's not even released yet but it's no slouch.

As far as graphics go, you don't need much to do high-end these days, for a start it will only ever need to display 1920x1080, which is easy now even on 3 to 4 year old hardware and Nintendo are likely to have a custom chip straight from ATI, but even if they grab an off-the-shelf core based on HD6000 series it will slay any game you throw at it with DX11 standard effects, 3D, anything.

Still, I am preaching to the choir, I don't expect to convince an Xbox, Playstation or PC fan to switch camps because your fanboi gene over-rides your common sense, personally I am a PC gamer but I would be a fool to write off Nintendo because so many did for the Wii.
Wii shifted 86 million units - profit on every unit sold.
Xbox 360 shifted 55 million units - made a loss on every unit for first 3 years.
PS3 shifted 50 million units - made a loss on every unit for first 2 years.

If you were a gambling man, you should always bet on Big N.

 

[kingnoobe]

I think I'll wait till I pass judgement either way. As with nintendo it's either a hit or miss (aka virtual boy). But their usually pretty good. Wither you like it or not you can't deny their success. Nintendo has a way of doing things, and well their still in business for a reason.