Grandeur and hype of E3 notwithstanding, Nintendo aims to do everything in its power at this year’s show to stamp out any ominous Wii U warning clouds – the console releases in just a few months this Winter.
But that’s easier said then done. While company might be doubling the number of GamePads capable of interfacing with the Wii U simultaneously (to two!), it appears that actually employing both in unison sends framerate spiraling in the opposite direction – in equal proportion.
Nintendo got the jump on the E3 press cycle with their Sunday-night reveal of the redesigned Wii U GamePad, and Tuesday’s press conference saw Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime give us the intricate tech-spec lowdown on how it all syncs with the console itself. Most notable – aside from the sleekly overhauled aesthetics, rechargeable lithium ion batteries (more on those later), and Near Field Communication layout – was the aforementioned dual GamePad support afforded by the console, and it seems like one of the more innocuous additions a manufacturer could make.
That was, anyway, until Kotaku spotted a tweet from Nintendo quoting president Satoru Iwata. Thanks to the miracles of Google Translate, we can dechiper from the text that an undesirable effect suffixes the linking of a second GamePad:
“If the two [Wii U Gamepads] are connected, frame rate will be halved to 30 frames/second.”
There’s a good chance Nintendo wanted to push that ounce of info out the door now, lest it be discovered on launch day and lend some fervor to the festivities. 30 frames per second isn’t the end of the world – the console versions of Battlefield 3 run on the rate – but it never looks good to have an asterisk on two highly marketable features (60fps and the GamePads).
Obviously, it’s a situation that shouldn’t be too hard to patch up – the site goes on to report another tweet from Iwata, stating: “At launch, we’ll start by offering games that use only one [Wii U GamePad] and then expand from there.” Though whether or not that means a delay for games originally planned as launch titles (perhaps among the 22 titles revealed today) remains to be seen.
Reaction from Nintendo’s E3 press conference was (and this might be a charitable word) mixed, so we’re hoping the controller issues aren’t a slippery slope for the Wii U’s quality. New details released by the company post-presser on the GamePad’s battery specs don’t look to help, as the device will only last for 3 to 5 hours depending on the screen brightness. A full charge via an axillary AC adapter takes 2 hours and 30 minutes to boot.
Ranters, the Wii U’s new GamePads look pretty good in their glossy, shiny display cases, but are you concerned about the system’s final quality? For a company that’s known to be the butt of graphics and processing power jokes (yes, there are graphics and processing power jokes), would such a 30 fps impediment prove especially harmful?
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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.
Source: Nintendo Japan Twitter [via Kotaku]
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I’m considering getting a Wii U, IF it has the right games at an affordable price. I want a Vita more.
Well with Smart Glass there isnt a whole lot of reason to get a wiiu
So you will be able to play your games on your tablet using Smart Glass then?
Theoretically. But since there won’t be any one standard tablet there for developers to work with, or necessarily any tablet at all (i.e. gamers might not own one), I really doubt Xbox developers will do much with Smart Glass, and what they do probably won’t be polished/tuned at the same level as Wii U stuff.
And the “no standard” point also makes me expect that smartglass will be buggy as hell.
30fps doesn’t bother me at all, nor will it any Nintendo fan. Nintendo fans play games for gameplay, not because they look shiny new and realistic. The trade off of getting two gamepads for getting a frame rate that is nearly the maximum which the eye can see is absolutely acceptable in my eyes. As to smart glass obsoleting the Wii U I can’t disagree more. Smart Glass does not change the way you play every game on an xbox like the WiiU does with its gamepad. Personally, I’m very excited to get my hands on a Wii U, Pikmin 3, and later all the games I’ve come to love from Nintendo.
I agree with you completely. Consenting from 60 to 30fps is a fair trade-off for the ability to use a second gamepad. Especially since Nintendo said previously it could only support one. I would think the real questions should be “What games will support this feature?” and “Will said games justify the purchase of a second gamepad?”. I sure don’t want to waste the cash on another gamepad (I’m pretty sure they won’t be cheap) to only use it on a couple of mini-game compilations.
“For a company that’s known to be the butt of graphics and processing power jokes” A bit far fetched statement as the wii has really been their only home system to be underpowered compared to their competiors, xbox 360 and ps3. The N64 was more powerful than ps1, game cube more powerful than ps2. 1 machine does not constute a long running history.
All true, but the public is very fickle and has basically no memory. You can find thousands of forum threads around the internet wherein the implicit or explicit premise is “Nintendo’s graphics have always sucked,” or “Nintendo has only ever cared about casual gamers.”
Even if the wii U was underpowered tech wise to its future competition history has shown in the last 10-15 years that most consumers dont care with the weaker tech system selling better in the market place. Ps1 more than N64, PS2 more than gamecube and xbox and in the current gen the wii has far outsold ps3 and xbox 360. Also if a game company can’t make a decent game with what they have know, then in no way will having prettier graphics help to improve the situation and make it better.
The Gamecube, despite being the last Nintendo system I owned, was so underutilized, my game library for my Cube compared to my PS2 was paltry. Software sells a system not specs.
When it was Cube vs. PS2 everyone was saying how the GC was way more powerful, better textures, lighting, etc. Articles even went as far as to say developers would have a much easier time coding for the Cube.
Then what happened? Crap Tons of games dropped for the PS2 and a slow trickle of good titles eeked out for the Cube.
PS2 was the clear winner of that gen and then Nintendo brought out the graphically inferior, and in my opinion just generally inferior, Wii. So taken together the Cube & Wii makes them the butt of a lot of jokes…processing, graphically, software, & otherwise.
Wii U isn’t shaping up any better, in my opinion. The games seem like a boat load of casual fare with a small punctuation of mature titles. Most of the mature titles they can brag about are available on PS360 or about to be.
Biggest red flag though we have yet to see an up close comparison of Wii U screens/gameplay/rendering to PS3 or 360 screens and I have a feeling that is because Wii U is slightly less graphically powerful, otherwise we’d be seeing comparisons shoved in our faces by Nintendo.
ok makes sense why we have no tech spec, release date and price point:/
For real…dumbest E3 Launch Ever.
Yeah, I have no idea why they wouldn’t at least be forthcoming with the specs… they’ve gotta be final by now. The date and price should probably be decided by now too, but I guess I can forgive them for being a little tentative about those.
Leave it to Nintendo to make a controller where the analog sticks are on top instead of below the buttons like a normal controller. How in god’s name is that going to be comfortable?
The Gamecube’s left stick was up top, and it was just fine, comfort-wise. Granted this thing’s shape is significantly different from the GC controller, but I’m not too worried about it. Ain’t passing judgment before I hold the thing.