Nintendo Living in the Moment?

Yes its the time for Wii and DS...But what does Nintendo do for next gen? They have innovation with both products but with the DS they can always improve on the power of the handheld and redesign it and perhaps offer extra functionality but what of the Wii?

Would everyone go and get a a Wii 2 purely on a graphics upgrade? The Wii 2 will have to offer a lot more or do some new things imo for it to grab the market like it has this gen.

Personally I think next gen will be a big battle between Sony and Microsoft because the graphics will be very intense and this time most likely both consoles will have blu-ray drives, wi fi built in etc...So hardware wise will be neck and neck so it will mean lots of money will have to be thrown at developers to get exclusives but thats just me speculating.

If we're in a speculating mood, I think the next generation of hardware will be more of an evolution than a revolution (if you'll pardon the pun) for all three companies.

Nintendo will need to keep the functionality of the DS and the Wii in place, as you say, so there will really only be incremental updates to the CPU, GPU, etc.

Sony will be able to put higher spec Cell processors into the PS4 and either a faster GPU or RSX-compatible graphics processing libraries for the Cell.

Similarly, Microsoft will be able to put a more advanced Xenon/Xenos chipset into the 720 and maybe motion sensing into their controller.

All of the above will mean 100% backwards-compatibility for both games and developer tools which should hopefully mean a smoother transition than the most recent one. We'll also have a more level playing field when it comes to console features, as long as Nintendo can catch up with the other two with their online offering.

Overall I reckon next gen is gonna be fantastic, given both PS3 and 360 have online marketplace's with content and online gaming next gen will really be intense am looking forward to it.

Hopefully Sony don't go ahead and put in a processor that makes everyones lives difficult as they have done that twice now I think...

Ooooh lets speculate on the power:

CPU: 5ghz Quad Core or Cell 5.6ghz

Graphics: Nvidia 13 series or 14 series custom designed 2gb onboard RAM for graphics

Memory 3gb of DDR3 memory

I think the specs will be insane the jump for Xbox 1 and PS2 was very high with PS2 making the bigger leap of course.

I hope Microsoft get it right next gen with the quality of the build of the machine and for everyones sake this time include the power pack IN that machine like Sony have done.

Well, firstly, how much better can graphics get? Not that much, I think - plus, if games cost millions to develop now, are they even going to be able to afford to try?

With the Wii, etc, Nintendo is a step ahead already in the non-graphical direction. It can easily make the graphics better for the next console, because it's been done many times before. With control systems, though, there's nothing to say Nintendo can't also improve in that field too - even if it's not a "Revolution" we get this time - it will still probably be ahead of what anyone else will do.

Then that will probably keep the graphics performance below the others again, but seriously, how much better do you think PS4's and XB720's graphics can actually be, without a new radical change? True, the worse-looking games on the PS3 and XB360 aren't much better than PS2/XBox (i.e. can theoretically be improved upon more easily), but then again, that also proves the point - technology itself can improve forever, by adding more chips, etc, but it doesn't necessarily mean artists will realistically be able to ustilise the technology to the maximum every time.

Imagine, for example, you have the ultimate graphics engine that can do whatever you want - it still takes work to implement. I see this situation as being analogous to giving an artist pens and paper - "wow, they can make anything they want (limited only to the fact that it's 2D)!" - but you only get very few scenarios where you get a geniunely brilliant piece of art.

Then, on the other hand, you might get something with really low graphics power - does that mean you can't make something look good? No, it doesn't. Also, it's easier to make something good within the boundaries you have - i.e. you don't necessarily have to have normal/bump map, multitexturing, etc, with process-effects, blah, blah - so you can focus on the few areas that you have to work on, and make those look good - and it will still look good "enough" when it's finished.

So you have the famous situation where you'r epushing the boundaries of the last generation of hardware vs. struggling even more with the new hardware, to get the most out of it. Which is basically the best of the previous generation's graphics vs. mostly iffy usage of current generation graphics.

I bougth a wii before Xmas. It seems to work, but I don't really get the whole idea of it. How are you supposed who you are suppose to b playing?

Film quality graphics in real time? We're nowhere near that yet. Compare the Iron Man movie and game graphics for example.

1080p@60Hz for every game? We're close, but still not quite there. And of course there'll be higher resolutions and faster refresh rates to support in the future.


This is the other side of things of course, just because you have the power to do something, can you afford the process?

Graphics and technology get better and better, its like saying back in the days of the Dreamcast WOW surely graphics cant get any better!

Or when you are looking at the old Final Fantasy CGI footage of FF7 look at games like Gears of War...

Yes games are costing more and more but development technology has to more on also and am sure we will see some impressive offerings from developers in the future look at how much you can go buy games for - look at the Xbox 360 some games are like £9.99 yes they are old but still very cheap especially for a new comer.

It was said we would be paying £50 for 3rd party and £45 for 1st party games then there was speculation PS3 games were going to cost around £70 each at one point!

But look at what they cost...Exactly the same as the first Xbox 1 games...On average £39.99 in GAME same as last gen.

Anyhow we aint done with our PS3 and Xbox 360 yet so imagine what games will look like once the likes of Killzone 2 and Gears of war hit the shelves ;-) then after that who knows.

This would be the killer combo.

Wii + Motion Sensing Gun/Controller
Half Life 2 : Episode 3
HD-TV support.

Need I say more.

what will be fun is when looking at old FF7 CGI to gears fo war now! is comparable to looking at old Gears of War Graphics to Gears of War 4 graphics now!

ooooooo buttered toast!

Lately I've been far to busy at work to hang about the forum much, but this I had to respond to.

You are retarded.

a) Graphics ALWAYS get better. Even if all they did was take ever game as they are right now, removed all texture compression, had high res textures, and full 1080p at 60hz, it would be a huge difference.

b) most games now a days are made with normal maps. What this means is someone takes a high-res supper complicated model and runs it through a thing that cuts down the complexity of the model and makes a texture map for it based on the more complicated geometry. If you don't understand this fire up a game of gears of war multiplayer and look at the models as the textures pop in.

c) because of the above stated all designers woudl have to do is not simplify their models as much when converting them for real time and things woudl look better.

d) ask any 3d modeler, its only gettign easier. 20 years ago if you wanted to make a 3d model soem one had to literally type code in and be able to know what the hell was going to come out. The invent (or adoption of at least) of nurbs made modeling organic object much easier than with polygons. Now we have patch modeling where you can basically make a poly model and then sub-dived the polys up with a bunch of curves. Its an amazingly natural work flow.

e) look into a program called mudbox. Basically a 3d sculpting tool that alows artist to interact with a 3d shape as if it was a lump of clay. There are lots of other similar software. as the complexity of 3d increases so does the ease of use of the tools.

f)Renderman (pixars proprietary renderer). film CGI is soooo far ahead of real time 3d for a reason. Cause its amazingly complicated to figure out how all that lite and realistic materials react to each other that fast. As computing power increases we will be able to do more and more real time lighting with better quality. If you could run renderman in real time you could make anything look better.

top is how games render lights now, bottom is how film rendering does it.

g) Ratatouille game:

Movie:

Subtle difference?
______

I only want one thing from the wii forget all else and kid icarus and donkey kong what we wii users really want.

IS ZELDA and i mean a proper dedicated wii zelda not just a gamecube port though fantastic it was.

Bet Nintendo are not going to give us that

You need to have more faith, Neosparke! No one thought Nintendo would give us a mature Zelda (after the brilliant Wind Waker), yet they delivered the goods.

The fact that Nintendo was willing to make Mario Galaxy epic with incredible graphics and orchestrated music (for a platform game!!!) has me salivating at what they have in store for the next Zelda.