It's a great console to hack! :)
Wii U Architecture
81–90 of 160 posts
Re: Wii U Architecture
#82Another badly designed Nintendo console. Now hear me out:
NES: Well designed. SNES: Well designed. N64: Hampered by the originally 12-24 MB cartridges as opposed to 650 MB CDs. GameCube: Well designed. A little hampered by the 1.4 GB mini DVDs as opposed to 7.8 GB DVDs. Wii: Underpowered, but a surprise smash hit capturing that era’s sensibilities (like the PS2). Wii U: Clunky and awkward, which however led to the Switch. Switch: Well designed.
GB: Well designed. GBC: Well designed. GBA: Well designed, however with a very bad audio quality as compared to the SNES. NDS: Well designed, again with very bad audio quality, and a surprise smash hit capturing that era’s sensibilities (like the PS2). 3DS: Hampered by its pitiful 2004 era 200 MHz CPU and 240p display. Clunky and unremarkable, which had a success in its second half of existence because people just want Nintendo games. Switch: Well designed.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#83Another badly designed Nintendo console. Now hear me out: NES: Well designed. SNES: Well designed. N64: Hampered by the originally 12-24 MB cartridges as opposed to 650 MB CDs. GameCube: Well designed. A little hampered by the 1.4 GB mini DVDs as opposed to 7.8 GB DVDs. Wii: Underpowered, but a surprise smash hit capturing that era’s sensibilities (like the PS2). Wii U: Clunky and awkward, which however led to the Sw…
The 3DS is anything but clunky and the CPU was improved with the New 3DS revision
Re: Wii U Architecture
#84Another badly designed Nintendo console. Now hear me out: NES: Well designed. SNES: Well designed. N64: Hampered by the originally 12-24 MB cartridges as opposed to 650 MB CDs. GameCube: Well designed. A little hampered by the 1.4 GB mini DVDs as opposed to 7.8 GB DVDs. Wii: Underpowered, but a surprise smash hit capturing that era’s sensibilities (like the PS2). Wii U: Clunky and awkward, which however led to the Sw…
I think "design" is overused in this case. Sure some users base their purchase decision on actual design/look of a console, but that's a rarity.
Success is more dictated by 4 main constraints or factors: - Game selection and support - Price point - System performance (including storage) - Innovative-ness or accessibility
Successful consoles typically met at least 3 of the above. For example the Nintendo Switch had very mediocre system performance, but it had great (1st party) game support, priced lower than competing XBox and PS4, and seemed very approachable for all demographics.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo Eh? Like Wii Shop games which are WiiU only are all free? If that's the case, I might dig mine out of the closet.
No you can’t. This comment is wrong. The Wii U is actually closing its shop and you can’t add funds to an account anymore. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
The parent comment isn't wrong, but it's referring to piracy. The Wii U has been blown wide open such that tools exist that allow you to pirate games by downloading them directly from Nintendo's servers, essentially giving you free eShop downloads. Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one. The Wii U marketing was a total disaster. Using the same name as a well established, casual platform, with a tiny suffix + pushing the "same gamepad compatibility" makes this hardware looks like an expensive "revised" version. I can't understand how Nintendo didn't catch on this.
The number of people who say 'I thought the Wii U was a handheld?', made me realise how badly they messed up. Home console buyers didn't realise it was a console. Handheld buyers realised quickly it wasn't a handheld.
It also shows in the switch how much they learned their lesson.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#87My reason to buy a Wii U back then was that whenever I found the time to play a video game, I had to go through a session of Windows Update, Steam update and game update that I lost interest by the time it was ready. Compare that to the Wii U back then: Turn on and play. Nintendo even achieved to keep this mindset with the Switch: It will update in the background so usually you just turn it on and play.
Way back when I had a Playstation 3 it would update in the background but only if you paid for the subscription, otherwise, every time you turned it on, you had to wait for the updates to download to play a game, if the game had updates. This model for updates just rankled me so much I stopped buying Playstation, every time I turned it on, it had to download updates and I would forget why I had turned it on by the time I got back to it.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#88The Wii U had a rich feature set. Firsts for a Nintendo home console:
- OTB web browser
- OTB audio and video chat with friends, native support for 3rd party headsets
- real-time direct messaging (via Miiverse) notifications and other friend notifications via the home button LED
- Ability to view online status of friends
- High definition graphics
- 5+ player synchronous local multiplayer
- built-in Nintendo TVii service
- built-in support to use the gamepad as a TV remote
- eShop selections for mobile retro consoles (e.g. GBA, DS)
- background installations and updates
- accelerometer, gyroscope, front-facing camera, touch screen, IR sensor, NFC all packed into the gamepad
- full backwards compatibility with a prior console (Wii)
Not to mention, all online services were free to use. And those still existing, are still free.
Edit: As a kid, this was the first console that had just enough 3rd party support for me to enjoy games like Fifa, Need for Speed, and Call of Duty akin to an Xbox 360, while also hosting all my favorite Nintendo games. It was a fun system, even if it was poorly advertised and a bit awkward. But I enjoyed the gimmicks and I still use it, mostly for playing exclusives that never made it to the Switch.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#89The article says:
> Similarly to how the Wii Remote mangles the Bluetooth protocol to avoid third-party usage
with "mangles the Bluetooth protocol" being a broken link. Anyone have information on this? I'm interested in how so.
Re: Wii U Architecture
#90The article says: > Similarly to how the Wii Remote mangles the Bluetooth protocol to avoid third-party usage with "mangles the Bluetooth protocol" being a broken link. Anyone have information on this? I'm interested in how so.
https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/wii#next-gen-contr...
Just remove the extra text