Is the WII U Truly Inferior, or is It Just Lazy Developers

[Ugea]

Now we all know that out of the 3, the wii U is less of a power house when it comes to power. However latly i been reading some comparison articles were its the wii U VS the PS4, PS3, XB360 and the Xbox one. the games that are compared were, Batman Arkham city, BA origins and Assassins Creed black flag.

Now all the articles had one thing in common. they all claimed that the WII U port had bad " muddy" textures and horrible frame rate ( when the game is at 30 FPS the wii u would dip to the lowest of 27 FPS on the comparison on Arkham City, your eyes probably wont even notice that ) and that you should avoid these ports and get them on the other systems. Now im shure that the WII U can do so much better, granted the Architecture is different and that the developers needs to learn how to code for it that can help fix some issues, however coding is not just the issue.

lately the WII U has been getting gimped ports. one Example is Arkham origins. the developers WB and not Rocksteady skipped multilayer for the wii U and did not use the tablet like how rocksteady did. it was just used as a map and noting too revolutionary, in other games developers use bad textures that looks blurry if u look real close. games are being skiped for the wii U etc..
However I am not a developer so i dont honestly know how hard it is to port a game on the wii U.
I have some 3rd party games like Arkham city and i enjoy the game, and to be honest i haven't ran into Anny frame rate issues, though i had some textures pop in once in a blue moon, rocksteady did a great job on that game ( along with WB ironically). but for the other 3rd party developers that just do a lazy job, they can do so much better.
In my opinon if 3rd party developers want their games to sell on the wii U, they need to try much harder and have it equaly or as close as the others, or better.
what do oyu think? is the Wii U really that Inferior, or is is lazy developers that just wana make a quick buck, you be the Judge.

 

[Clank]

I don't have time to explain this now... If you want to know just watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRz0xikaAU That should explain everything you ever wanted to know about the Wii U and more.

 

[Mercedes]

If we're comparing it to the XB1/PS4, yes, inferior. It isn't even close.

Comparing it to the 360/PS3, well, it's kind of both. For a start we need to remember the 360/PS3 have been out for years and years now, developers have been working with them across an entire generation and so obviously they're more accustomed to the hardware. A modern 360 title looks miles better than a launch title, look at Perfect Dark Zero and then Witcher 2, and the same growth will likely happen for Wii U titles, so it's not fair to judge launch Wii U titles/ports with those of a console that's been out for 8 years. People tended to forget that when comparing the launch ports of the Wii U.

The issue is that though the Wii U is more powerful than both of those systems a lot more work is actually required for it to peak because of some bad design decisions with the hardware, and that's before throwing the Gamepad into the equation. So a game purely designed for the Wii U will likely look a lot better than any game on 360/PS3, but multi-platform titles probably won't look much better, if better at all in some cases, because the full power of the Wii U won't be harnessed. And that isn't lazy developers, it's just bad design by Nintendo. They cheapened the cost of the console and in the process increased to complexity of the system to work with. Similar to the awkward PS3 CELL architecture used by Sony with hampered some multi-platform titles, developers shouldn't be held accountable for inferior ports because of poor decisions made by the manufacturer, so I definitely wouldn't call them lazy.

It's a case of if the Wii U receives the same amount of time on platform specific optimisation as both the 360 and PS3 it's probably going to look worse or not significantly better because it requires more effort. Whereas a game purely made for Wii U is probably going to smash 360/PS3 games out of the water, potentially. Though its got no chance of coming close to the XB1/PS4 graphical output, when talking objectively.

 

[JuicieJ]

If we're comparing it to the XB1/PS4, yes, inferior. It isn't even close.

It's also not a very large gap. It's noticeable, but nothing like the gap between the Wii and PS3/360. It's more akin to that of the PS2 and GameCube -- probably less so, considering the Wii U is capable of 1080p. The PS2 was a 240p console in a 480p generation.

 

[Mercedes]

It's also not a very large gap. It's noticeable, but nothing like the gap between the Wii and PS3/360. It's more akin to that of the PS2 and GameCube -- probably less so, considering the Wii U is capable of 1080p. The PS2 was a 240p console in a 480p generation.

It is a much bigger gap than your making out. The Wii U won't be able to even run games that fully utilise the XB1/PS4 hardware and features, which is why a loss of third-party support was and is almost inevitable bar the same specially-made games the Wii got every so often.

 

[Cfrock]

Basically, everything Mercedes said is on the money. Developers aren't necessarily 'lazy', it just takes more effort to optimise a game for Wii U. That extra effort, especially when coupled wit the Wii U's low sales, makes porting games to the system more work for less reward. Not many developers will be interested in doing the best they can when 'good enough' will suffice.

As Mercedes said, games made for the Wii U specifically are much better than modern 360 and PS3 releases. Super Mario 3D World is perhaps the best example of this, sporting some of the best lighting and shadows on a home console and mainaining a solid 60 frames per second at all times (something only Nintendo seem to be trying to achieve at the moment).

Wii U can easily handle these ports, perhaps even providing the best graphical exerience, too, but the complications with its hardware, combined with its low sales, make it a task that simply isn't really worth it. It's not so much inferiority or lazines; its more uneeded complication and a lack of incentive.

 

[TehLeetHaxor]

Spectrum of Power

Raw processing power is measured in GFLOPS. I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Wii --------------------------------- 11 GFLOPS
High-end Smartphone --------------- 130 GFLOPS
PS3 -------------------------------- 230 GFLOPS
Xbox360 ---------------------------- 240 GFLOPS
Wii U ------------------------------- 350 GFLOPS
High-end Tablet -------------------- 384 GFLOPS
Xbox One -------------------------- 1300 GFLOPS
PS4 -------------------------------- 1840 GFLOPS
Mid-range gaming PC --------------- 1971 GFLOPS
High-end gaming PC ---------------- 5046 GFLOPS

*Smartphone is Adreno 330, tablet is GT 640M LE, mid-range PC is R7 260X, high-end PC is GTX 780 Ti

Summary, the Wii U is underpowered and not going to the able to run multiplats. Don't buy it.

 

[CynicalSquid]

I have a question.

Does power matter at all? The power of the console doesn't make the games great at all. I think you should by a console based of the library, not the power.

 

[JuicieJ]

It is a much bigger gap than your making out. The Wii U won't be able to even run games that fully utilise the XB1/PS4 hardware and features, which is why a loss of third-party support was and is almost inevitable bar the same specially-made games the Wii got every so often.

The same would have been for the PS2 if it hadn't been the main platform for development. I wasn't saying the gap isn't there, just that it's not ridiculously huge.

Summary, the Wii U is underpowered and not going to the able to run multiplats. Don't buy it.

>Implying multiplats are what define a console
>Implying you should even play multiplats on console rather than PC

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#bonus material

[video=youtube;Y5Wp6T6XR90]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Wp6T6XR90[/video]

 

[TehLeetHaxor]

I have a question.

Does power matter at all? The power of the console doesn't make the games great at all. I think you should by a console based of the library, not the power.

And how exact can high-quality experiences be made for a system that's not powerful enough to run it? Guess why BF4, The Witcher 3, Alien: Isolation, Dark Souls 2, Titanfall, TES Online, and tons of other multiplats aren't coming for Wii U?

 

[JuicieJ]

And how exact can high-quality experiences be made for a system that's not powerful enough to run it?

You must have missed how the PS2, GBA, Wii, and DS had the best exclusive libraries of their generations.

 

[DarkestLink]

I have a question.

Does power matter at all? The power of the console doesn't make the games great at all. I think you should by a console based of the library, not the power.

Well power does help determine game quantity...the Wii U's low power is why it's not getting third party support. But I don't really care for 3rd party myself. I'm very picky and when I'm buying a game, this is the general rule for me.

1st party>2nd party>>>3rd party exclusive>>>>3rd party multiplat.

There's a lot of reasons for this, but the most important one is this: if a game/series is elusive, it's probably either worth being exclusive in the eyes of the console marketing team or it was already exclusive and they need to make it a console seller. If it's not one of these, it's shovelware trying to cash in on a gimmick, but I'll know that from first glance, so that's irrelevant.

 

[CynicalSquid]

And how exact can high-quality experiences be made for a system that's not powerful enough to run it?

Have you ever played a NES game?

Guess why BF4, The Witcher 3, Alien: Isolation, Dark Souls 2, Titanfall, TES Online, and tons of other multiplats aren't coming for Wii U?

You're acting like Nintendo not being very 3rd party supportive is something new.

 

[TehLeetHaxor]

The same would have been for the PS2 if it hadn't been the main platform for development. I wasn't saying the gap isn't there, just that it's not ridiculously huge.



>Implying multiplats are what define a console
>Implying you should even play multiplats on console rather than PC

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#bonus material

Well I'm assuming most people on this site doesn't own high-end PCs. PC obviously delivers the best experience, but it's still better off to play multiplats on PS4/Xbone rather than on the Wii U.

If PS4 and Xbone are assault rifles, PC is a belt-fed machinegun and Wii U is a revolver. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the assault rifle over the revolver if I have a choice.

And guess what, not everyone cares about exclusives. Some people just want a cheap box to play some CoD, GTA, or some other mainstream multiplats.

 

[CynicalSquid]

Dude, if you take a game and dumb down the graphics it's the exact same game.