Wii U - Page 34  

Mostly the reason I haven't taken the plunge yet is I've never been exposed to a nice home setup to see just what advantages it really offers (Hence, I don't really know just exactly what I've been missing out which reduces the urge a bit) and there always seems like there's something else competing for my attention and money that takes precedence.

Thanks for the offer of assistance. I was actually already hoping if I contacted you down the line via PM's that you'd offer up some helpful suggestions.

Installed in the HT and updating over web now!

James.. what happens when you play a 2 channel source and apply a matrix decoder to it?

The common information ends up in the center and the out of phase information goes to the surrounds.. it's unavoidable, even if you placed that 2 channel source into a 5.1 container pre encoding.

The leaps over DPL were great... they reduced crosstalk (especially in regards to center channel dialog,) enhanced steering, gave the users come usable customization, lost the surrounds filtering, etc..

I'm not sure what your definition of discrete is.. if you believe that you can send a 5.1 channel input into a PLII encoder and the output will retain the discrete positioning of all elements you are mistaken..

That is not debatable, and I've never heard anyone on the production side claim otherwise..

The results will be pleasing in most cases, but it is always a compromise.. you run out of headroom fairly quickly(2 channels trying to reproduce 6) there is no discrete LFE channel, etc..

For full disclosure, I've got 22+ years in the sound production business, and I've consulted for Dolby in the past (however not regarding the matrix products.) I'm not sure where your knowledge base comes from.

Maybe you're missing my point, maybe we're debating semantics.. I don't know.

I've made PLII encodes of well over 20 films I've mixed (and I've mixed over 150...) I know what happens to the surrounds and LR when you do it...

It's always "unpleasant", but it can hardly be described as a discrete representation of what went into the encoder..

It is, by me at least, easily discernibly different than the 5.1 masters it comes from.

For you to characterize that artifacts would be induced into a 384k DD stream via "crap mixing hardware" tells me your don't have first hand production knowledge of such things..

If that were the case (and I don't agree with your position that it was on "pretty much every" 384kbps DD title until 2000) it would be due to less than ideal source tracks, incompetence or faulty encoding equipment.. mixing equipment wouldn't factor into the reasons why..

The errors induced by matrix encoding are wholly unique to what happens when you lower the bitrate in a CBR encode... don't try and equate the two.

Of course I fully agree with your assessment of why some console hardware is much more capable than others in how they handle audio..

The real time API's for doing DD and DTS mixing on the fly take a bit of power to run on top of everything else...

My recollection of what Retro and others were doing "back in the day" regarding PLII encoding was that it was only pertinent to "pre-rendered" elements, and was not a real time encoding based on any real time input based on the users interaction..

I don't think the Wii handles it any differently.. (i.e. there is no real time matrix encoding going on..)

If you have some detailed resources about it's capabilities I'd be interested in reading them.

You are correct in that it contained a bunch of erroneous information in regards to my response to you... I was on my phone and misread your statement and replied as such.. the information was pertinent to what I was talking about, and not what you have posited.

Since you didn't quote it, I thought it had little relevance to the conversation and I deleted it.

Sorry to all the others for the thread derail..

And to DLJ.. have a good weekend.

Went in to Toys R Us earlier. Accidentally left with a Wii U 32GB. Oops.

Hey FilmMixer, that's our resident troll. Just ignore him

This article seems more credible and is good news about the Wii U's capabilities.
http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/comments/developers-have-it-wrong-the-wii-u-is-powerful-its-just-next-generation-pow

That article reads like he heard a bunch of buzzwords and thinks he's an expert. The title of it is preposterous: devs have it wrong (but some schmoe on the net has it right).

A process shrink by itself is irrelevant, the 360 slim is built on the same 45nm process. Edram is nothing special either, the 360 has had it for 7 years.

Whether or not GPGPU capabilities make a difference in the long run remain to be seen, but you don't get something for nothing. Either the GPU is crunching numbers, or its rendering, one takes away from the other.

It's just time to accept the consensus - the Wii U has a marginally slower CPU, slightly faster GPU, and a little more RAM. I wish it wasn't so, I wish it was a huge leap ahead too, but its not.

The DLJ Wii U Review:

Console Hardware - The console is small enough and quiet enough, plus it finally gives us HDMI. The gloss black does a terrible job of attracting fingerprints like crazy. The fact that it is essentially on par with an Xbox 360 is mildly disappointing, but not that big of a deal. The 32MB of edram in the chip package means that 720p with 2-4x MSAA should be more common than the 360/PS3 delivered. The beefier GPU means that 720p with FXAA/MLAA is also cheaper to do at higher quality. Both of these things get you 85% of the way to a native 1080p image in terms of perceptual image quality. 30fps gameplay is still going to be the standard on this system though, with probably only Nintendo commonly delivering 60fps.

Gamepad - Interesting ideas, with obvious compromises. The resistive touch panel is a mistake. The world shifted to capacative panels over the last 5 years for very good reasons. Yes, the resistive panel will allow greater precision, but at the cost of better thumb usability. Great for a potential Professor Layton puzzle game, poor for ZombiU and the like that use the second screen for maps and inventory. Also, what is up with the tiny battery in the giant compartment? Life of the device could have easily been pushed in to 10-hour iPad territory if all that wasted space was properly used. Buttons and thumbsticks are fine. The triggers should have been clones of the DC/GCN/360 analog versions.

The OS - Oh. My. God. The operating system on this console is garbage. It is seriously really, unbelievably bad and drags down the whole experience. This OS moves Wii U from "Pretty cool" to "Piece of crap" all by itself. The simplest of functions take forever to load. The system patching is still dog slow even though I updated at 3am on a Saturday morning PST. That is roughly the least busy time on the internet outside of 3am PST Sunday morning. An hour to download 1GB? Steam would have had that to me in about 8 minutes. A 360 update takes about 10 minutes total. It's like Nintendo has never heard about Amazon Web Services.

How about buying and playing ZombiU? Purchasing it worked fine and was about what you'd expect. Downloading the 6GB game? Well, it went for about an hour, then errored out at 10%. Thankfully it's smart enough to resume all on it's own. I set it to "Shut down once downloads are done" and left for the night. I came home 7 hours later and the Wii U was off, so I assumed it had finished. Went to bed, got up, loaded up the Wii U. ZombiU: 93% done downloading. WHY DID YOU TURN OFF THEN?!? Yes, I have system-wide auto-shutdown turned off. It is also disabled by default when downloading stuff. The Wii U simply just failed at doing what it said it would do. So, I let the download resume. It finished about an hour later. Then it needed to "install". That took about another 45 minutes. Then it needed to patch. That took about another 30 minutes. Then I could play ZombiU. All told, this took about 20 hours, with about 4 of those hours consisting of having me find something else to do while I waited for the Wii U to stop being retarded. As comparison? When I buy a 6GB game from Steam or 360, I'm playing it an hour later.

The really sad thing about the OS? Nintendo will never change it. They will be too afraid to confuse people with newness that they will leave barely functional operations in place for the life of the console.

The games - NIntendoland is fun, but I don't really care about it. ZombiU is fantastic.

The software - Netflix is pretty cool, but stereo wrapped in blank surround channels. Youtube is convoluted and functions poorly. Miiverse is pretty rad, especially being able to take a screenshot from inside any game.

Result: From end to end the Wii U is a flaming pile of dog vomit. It is dog vomit that will have some awesome games though. Somehow this thing is worse to use than a PS3, and that is quite the accomplishment given how backward and archaic the PS3's OS is. In the end, it's $350 to play Nintendo titles and interesting 3rd party exclusives. Not that expensive, but also not a very good value. The extremely refined Xbox 360 will continue to be my go to console, with the Wii U serving the exact same role as my Wii did. It plays exclusives great, but boy is it a chore to get to the part where you are allowed to actually play.

Now I'm off to experience the convoluted headache that is the Wii to Wii U transfer. Gaaaah... If this takes less than 20 hours, I'll count myself lucky.

UPDATE: After living with this thing for a couple of weeks, I can not recommend the Wii U to anybody. At every turn the OS is broken, it hates you as a user, and has no interest in letting you play games. AVOID THIS CONSOLE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Edited by darklordjames - 12/9/12 at 2:28pm

Good review DLJ, except I think the resistive touch on the game pad isn't too bad of an idea - how else would we get all that stylus-drawn fan art on the Miiverse. Seriously though, haven't had any problem with thumb presses, but I don't have ZombieU, so haven't really tested it. I like the added speakers on the controller, and think it could be used in cool ways down the road. Or at least to replace the missing center-speaker sound!

I was hoping the Wii U would be my go-to console for multiplatform games, but yeah.... not convinced its cool controller can beat the tried and true 360 with working Surround + 'cheavos. I guess it remains to be seen with future multi-platform games.

Oh man, check out this awesomely descriptive error I got during the Wii to Wii U transfer. The question is now, how many of my saves got eaten in the process?

I wasn't even able to "turn off" the console. None of the three power buttons responded. No Home buttons worked. I had to unplug the Wii U from the wall. Oh, and it's been about an hour and a half...

Just wanted to chime in here. Xbox will likely always be the best console experience, given that they are created by a company that has been in the business of creating OS software for many years. Despite all the crap I like to give Microsoft, they are infinitely better at creating system software than Sony or Nintendo will ever be.

Part of me wishes Nintendo would go the way of Sega and just create software for the other consoles. How awesome would Mario or Zelda games be on a 360? Probably never happen though.

Anyway, thanks for the review. Thoroughly enjoyed reading.

"Xbox will likely always be the best console experience, given that they are created by a company that has been in the business of creating OS software for many years."

It's not even that. Microsoft has a lot of money and they don't mind paying a lot of people to refine the experience. Even more important though, they aren't afraid to take a risk. We are on the third major revision of the 360's OS, and while people love to complain that each revision brings more ads, each revision also brings immense refinement to the experience. Sony is still stuck on their 2005 PSP interface for the PS3. That makes sense. They are a hardware company, and they are flat broke. Nintendo is extremely versed in both hardware and software, and they have mountains of cash, but they are also very risk averse.

"Part of me wishes Nintendo would go the way of Sega and just create software for the other consoles."

People have been saying this since the launch of the Gamecube. If they had gotten their wish we would have never seen the Wii or the DS, both of which are of critical value to the advancement of the industry. Nintendo making hardware is important work. It shows everyone else what they should be doing for the next decade. In 2014 the Xbox 3 with Kinect 2 will be brilliant. It will be brilliant because Nintendo showed Microsoft that motion is important back in 2006. iPad gaming is what it is today because people have been developing for the DS since 2004. We already figured out most of what doesn't work in touch because of Nintendo's hardware.

Review post script: I love Nintendo. They bring immense value to our gaming lives, directly and indirectly through other's imitation. The Wii U already has two great games and will have a couple dozen more, just like the Wii. It's just a lot of work to dig through the garbage to get to the nuggets of golden experience. I won't deny myself a unique gaming experience in the name of saving a couple bucks on hardware. ZombiU is brilliant, and worth my $410 dollars. If I never play another Wii U game, I already got my money's worth. Heavy Rain was brilliant and worth the $300 I paid for a PS3 the day the game came out. The 360? Bioshock, $350 well spent.

Actually, it's even worse than that since Sony's user interface actually dates back to 2003. The XrossMediaBar made its first appearance late that year in the Japanese PSX (which was a combination Playstation 2 and DVR). That obscure piece of hardware that never left Japan also is what has largely put a kibosh on referencing an original Playstation as a PSX (Which was a very common acronym for that system among consumers back in the 1990's) since there's always a nitpicker ready to pique up and mention this thing.

So this OS is actually fast approaching its 9th birthday and is long overdo for replacement.

I think the new PSN store, which is both beautiful, and easy to find what you're looking for, shows that Sony has heard the message, and has the answer.

This is another one of those "How dumb can they be?!?" things that severely bugs me about the Wii U. The Gamepad has a three hour battery life powered by a 1500mah cell. That cell lives in a cavernous hole that could obviously fit a 4000mah cell, resulting in an eight hour play time. The additional cost would have been in tens-of-cents range, but the consumption benefits would have been vast for Nintendo. The longer the consumer is allowed to play with the console per session, the greater the effects of habit formation. People that use the console more out of habit buy more stuff. It's a fairly basic relationship that defies all reason for Nintendo to ignore.

Reggie is already on record stating that while the Wii U is sold at a loss, it becomes profitable at the first sale of a game. An extra $0.20 for a vastly larger cell would not have changed that.

BONUS TRIVIA: A single package that holds a charge is a cell. For example, a single 1.5v AA alkaline is a cell. So is this Gamepad's single 3.7v Li-ion a cell. A group of cells is a battery. For example, six 2.3v cells make up a single 13.8v car battery. Your Wii remote holds two cells in a battery compartment. Your iPad contains a battery made up of three Li-ion cells. I'm only adding this part as for some reason it isn't particularly common knowledge.

Where do you get "extra $0.20" difference???

Lat time I checked Li-ion don't grow on trees. We are probably talking about at least order of magnitude more than that. As it is the battery lasts about 2 to 3 hours, which is probably fine for 90% of the use scenario, so why would Nintendo supply more. Especially when you can probably by extra battery in the future?

Really? Your tactic is to defend that choice? Pff.

The cost of something like a Li-ion cell is in the fact that it is a cell in a custom shape, not really the volume of the thing. The cell in place would cost roughly $2.00-3.00 a unit. A much larger cell to fit the allocated space would be only a fraction more in cost. This is some pretty basic economies of scope stuff right here.

Knowing Nintendo, they did it on purpose to keep kids from playing for too long. Anyone else, and I'd think they did it so they could later offer an "extended" battery accessory at a nice markup.

I don't know, considering there have been full-fledged portable consoles with battery life not much better than the not-really-portable Gamepad, I'm not particularly bothered by this. I get why people would care (particularly if you have a big family who all want to take turns), but personally, if I'm routinely finding my play sessions cut short by draining a 3-4-hour battery, I'm probably going to start reevaluating my life. That said, would an eight-hour battery weigh noticeably more? It is pretty Nintendo to penny-pinch but I'm wondering if they were more concerned with keeping the Gamepad as impressively light as possible, since the potential weight seems to be one of the things people are put off about until they actually pick it up.
Funny, I was just talking with my sister-in-law, who wants to get her kid a 3DS partially because the battery in the old DS Lite he's been playing "lasts too damn long."

But really, the one aspect of the Wii U that truly bugs me is the OS. Unfortunately that's a pretty big part. I can deal with stereo audio, not truly "next gen" graphics, and system-locked user accounts, but knowing I'm going to be facing 5-15-second wait times for every app I open significantly diminishes my desire to even turn on the system. At least they've actually acknowledged it as a problem and said they're "exploring ways to enhance features for consumers' overall experience." Vague as that is, with their newfound love of patching, hopefully they'll actually fix it, and soon.

Just a thought, but could heat have been a consideration? My guess is Nintendo plays very conservative when it comes to anything that might melt, catch fire, etc..

Heat output is directly related to discharge/charge rate. A larger cell would put off the same amount of heat at any given moment, it would just be allowed to do it for longer. Charge time would be greatly increased, but then so is the charge time on my iPad 3 greatly increased over the 40% smaller iPad 2 battery. It doesn't matter much though, as if I don't have a full charge, I've still got 8 hours of run time on a partial charge.

Li-ion stability is a concern, but really only in devices pushing thinness boundaries. With the giant space that this thing has available for a cell, a provably safe cell could easily have been implemented with much greater capacity than we have been given, with zero additional engineering cost and minimal additional production cost.

This is simply cutting corners at the cost of the end-user experience. The cost to do it right for every Wii U sold to date would have been $80,000, or one marketing employee's salary.

I think the battery thing is so that Nintendo can sell "extended" battery at a later date without making a bulge like PSP extended battery.

I opened my set Saturday night (around 10-11pm ET) and updated the OS. Using WiFi in my home via our FiOS 25Mbps service, then entire process (download and install) took slightly less than an hour.

Off topic, but Daver every time I see your avatar I see a dog smoking a cigar, ala Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Totally awesome.


back on topic: wow at all that space. I smell dolalrs... in the form Nintendo branded extended life batteries for $39.99. They'll let people get used to the gamepad and realize they want more play time and don't care about a few extra oz.... then, Profit!

they are supposed to make profit to stay alive nothing wrong with it. buying a console is like getting married. you have to put up with her complaining and have to spend money to make her happy

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/26/wii-u-sells-400000-units-in-first-week

WiiU sells 400K units in first week (Wii sold 600K during it's first week). Reggie says they are essentially sold out in retail right now, but hoping to replenish stock in time for XMAS.

Interestingly, Ninty states that 300K Wiis were also sold during Wii U's 1st week on the market.

And those 400k sold we bought by 100k people many who are resellers!

LOL

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but at least now we are talking within a neighborhood.

A 1800mAh in iPhone costs $4.50 based on iSupply teardown (http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/iPhone5-Carries-$199-BOM-Virtual-Teardown-Reveals.aspx). And Kindle Fire batteries cost $15 (another teardown cost analysis). So it would have cost about $10 to go from mobile phone battery to tablet battery.

Not sure why Nintendo would voluntarily eat another ten dollars per every sold unit to increase the playing time.

And I have no clue why you think the battery would cost 20 or 30 cents to upgrade...
Edited by gameboy - 11/27/12 at 12:31pm