Wii's power

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Julian Eggebrecht/Factor 5 interview

Our friends over at Revogamers were nice enough to translate some key points from their interview with Julian Eggebrecht. A lot of interesting stuff was said!

- On publishers not taking advantage of the Wii’s power for graphics: “the traditional, more photorealistic route, because there you really have to push it, and they’re really not pushing it. Why not? Hmmm I don’t know, the hardware is very, very easy to understand. Now the problem might be –and it just might be- is that some studios -or some publishers specifically- are discarding the graphical capabilities automatically simply because it is a Wii title and they’re basically telling the developers “look, we won’t pay for any advanced graphics”.”

- On Wii’s “shaders” and possibilities: “If you connect you can get a lot of shader effects which would’ve been on the 360 or the PS3.” (…)”it’s got so much more power compared to the GameCube. If even with the extremely similar shader hardware, the system clockrate is so much higher, you can do so much more advanced things” (…)”in the photorealistic route there’re certain things which the basic structure of the graphics hardware was not meant for and which you have to find really clever tricks to basically make up.”
Click to expand...

I just thought these were interesting statements from a developers standpoint. I hope that at some point the stigma of the Wii's power will be squashed and we'll get some games that really truly push the hardware.
 
[quote name='jkam']
I just thought these were interesting statements from a developers standpoint. I hope that at some point the stigma of the Wii's power will be squashed and we'll get some games that really truly push the hardware.[/QUOTE]

Same here. Metroid Prime 3 is a step in the right direction, but I feel even it can't be pushing it much as the graphics aren't THAT much better than the first game. Just some slightly better textures, with the lighting effects being the main big improvement.

You can see comparisons of MP3 to MP2 by mousing over the pics in this article at gamespot.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/61...clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;7
 
[quote name='Snake2715']Lets hope it makes improvements that the PS2 did over its lifespan.[/QUOTE]

Agreed.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Same here. Metroid Prime 3 is a step in the right direction, but I feel even it can't be pushing it much as the graphics aren't THAT much better than the first game. Just some slightly better textures, with the lighting effects being the main big improvement.

You can see comparisons of MP3 to MP2 by mousing over the pics in this article at gamespot.

[/quote]

I saw that article a few days ago and MP3 looks a lot better to me. Comparing 3 and 2 is like night and day. MP2 was all growns, and now there is color, there is depth and it looks a lot better in textures and everything.
 
MP3 looks better to me as well, but not night at day. The colors are just a design choice (MP1 had more colors than MP2 as well) and the rest of the improvements just a little better textures and a lot better lighting. Though the lighting is hit or miss as sometimes it is overdone (supid bloom lighting).

Night and day would be MP3 looking like Gears or Bioshock, and that's just not going to happen. But that said, if there's a fourth MP game in a couple years, I'm sure it will push the Wii and look a good bit better than MP3--or some other FPS game will before then.
 
I mentioned a few days ago that I hoped developers would push the wii more in graphics. Got called stupid among other things. I definitely think the wii has more power than we're seeing right now.
 
[quote name='Swingman']I mentioned a few days ago that I hoped developers would push the wii more in graphics. Got called stupid among other things. [/QUOTE]

Just have to ignore the fanboys. Those same people bashing you for wanting better graphics on the Wii would be all over the forums praising the Wii's graphics if it was the most powerful system.

Some people just think their console maker of choice can do no wrong, and that we should never want/expect more than we get.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Just have to ignore the fanboys. Those same people bashing you for wanting better graphics on the Wii would be all over the forums praising the Wii's graphics if it was the most powerful system.

Some people just think their console maker of choice can do no wrong, and that we should never want/expect more than we get.[/QUOTE]

I'll agree with you here. But the one thing I think people get confused is it was not intended to provide HD level graphics. They said from the beginning that was not the concentration. So no one would be lead astray. Everyone knows they cant keep up with Sony/MS.

On the other hand as has been said in this topic. right now its like shovel ware in regards to the graphics on the wii. The Sonic game did OK, as well as a few others but we know it can do better.

The other thing that urks me is that the Wii is similar in programming as the gamecube... so the typical "let us get the system figured out" line has to be mostly crap... what it boils down to is as Factor 5 said above. The developers are not pushing that end.

They eventually need to, and given a full cycle with ground up Wii development we will hopefully see that. If not I will be one of the people saying come on with it. Its not needed, but its also not necessary to not fully develope the game.
 
[quote name='Snake2715']
The other thing that urks me is that the Wii is similar in programming as the gaemcube... so the typical "let us get the system figured out" line has to be mostly crap... what it boils down to is as Factor 5 said above. The developers are not pushing that end. [/quote]But what he also said is that a lot of developers forced to jump aboard the Wii train pretty much ignored the GameCube last generation. And without having gone through that learning curve, they're starting from scratch, which would mean they're probably putting out first-generation Cube-type games. Granted, we've seen some that are even worse than that, which is just ridiculous laziness, but a lot of developers will still be going through the growing pains of building games on Nintendo hardware for the first time.
 
[quote name='botticus']But what he also said is that a lot of developers forced to jump aboard the Wii train pretty much ignored the GameCube last generation. And without having gone through that learning curve, they're starting from scratch, which would mean they're probably putting out first-generation Cube-type games. Granted, we've seen some that are even worse than that, which is just ridiculous laziness, but a lot of developers will still be going through the growing pains of building games on Nintendo hardware for the first time.[/QUOTE]

Great point actually. Never thought of that thanks.
 
I hate these stories about the Wii's graphical capabilities..

I don't think it's too surprising to find out that the system is capable of better graphics... that's obvious. But we won't see them for a while until developers start to learn the system better.

I still don't expect anything better than 2-3 times that of the GC but if they can get that much out of it, it'll be impressive considering how good some GC games looked (like the Primes and RE4).
 
[quote name='Snake2715']I'll agree with you here. But the one thing I think people get confused is it was not intended to provide HD level graphics. They said from the beginning that was not the concentration. So no one would be lead astray. Everyone knows they cant keep up with Sony/MS.

On the other hand as has been said in this topic. right now its like shovel ware in regards to the graphics on the wii. The Sonic game did OK, as well as a few others but we know it can do better.
[/QUOTE]

Yep, because while they said no HD (hate that they went that route, but oh well) they also said it was roughly 2x as powerful as the GC, or 1.5x as powerful as the X-box.

We haven't seen that. While MP3 looks better than the GC games, I wouldn't say it was 2x better.

Mario Galaxy is looking pretty good from recent screens and videos though.
 
[quote name='botticus']But what he also said is that a lot of developers forced to jump aboard the Wii train pretty much ignored the GameCube last generation. And without having gone through that learning curve, they're starting from scratch, which would mean they're probably putting out first-generation Cube-type games. Granted, we've seen some that are even worse than that, which is just ridiculous laziness, but a lot of developers will still be going through the growing pains of building games on Nintendo hardware for the first time.[/QUOTE]

Good point. But doesn't explain why even first and 2nd party games haven't blown us away yet. Of course most first party games were GC port overs, but I still was hoping MP3 would look a bit better than it does.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Good point. But doesn't explain why even first and 2nd party games haven't blown us away yet. Of course most first party games were GC port overs, but I still was hoping MP3 would look a bit better than it does.[/quote]I guess it depends on what people think "2 times better graphics" or "1.5 times better graphics" is. Personally I would have no idea how to quantify that, since we know the resolution isn't going to be double that of the Cube. On that vein, how does one quantify how much better 360 and PS3 graphics are? 5 times? 10 times? Relative to the differential in power? God knows. And for that reason, as long as the games look good, I don't really care how good.
 
[quote name='botticus']But what he also said is that a lot of developers forced to jump aboard the Wii train pretty much ignored the GameCube last generation. And without having gone through that learning curve, they're starting from scratch, which would mean they're probably putting out first-generation Cube-type games. Granted, we've seen some that are even worse than that, which is just ridiculous laziness, but a lot of developers will still be going through the growing pains of building games on Nintendo hardware for the first time.[/quote]Very true, however. The dev tools available for the Wii have to be light years beyond what was available on day 1 for the Gamecube for the same aforementioned reason of the system design being so similar.

Some of it is learning curve no doubt, but a lot comes down to developer laziness and/or publisher cheapness. There's things that look great (MP3, Sonic) things that look alright, and then there's the basement shovelware crap with that new Crusin' game being the primary offender. Ugh. That irks me.

The Wii can no doubt push better visuals. We've not seen 1.5x or 2x Resident Evil 4 yet I don't think. I'm anxious to see what the final version of Mario Galaxy looks like.
 
[quote name='botticus']I guess it depends on what people think "2 times better graphics" or "1.5 times better graphics" is. Personally I would have no idea how to quanitify that, since we know the resolution isn't going to be double that of the Cube. And for that reason, as long as the games look good, I don't really care how good.[/QUOTE]

True. You can't really quantify it. I'll be satisfied when I see some games that look improved enough from the GC that I can feel my $250 purchase was worthwhile from a technological advancement standpoint.

I like the motion controls in most games, but I could live without them for sure. So I'd like to see some more graphical bang for my buck as well. Give me some games that at least look a decent bit better than original X-box games like Halo 2 etc.
 
[quote name='daroga']Very true, however. The dev tools available for the Wii have to be light years beyond what was available on day 1 for the Gamecube for the same aforementioned reason of the system design being so similar.
[/quote]And yeah, I should say that we would probably need to expect mid-range Cube games as "first-generation" Wii games. Given that "starting from scratch" on the Wii shouldn't be the same as starting from scratch on the Cube.
 
the newest medal of honor game coming out(heroes 2, not airbone) looks pretty damn good. better than any other fps i've seen yet on the wii. i think things are finally starting to come around and things are being figured out. as stated, like the changes made on the ps2 over it's life span, we should be able to see the wii pushed to it's limits. I think that will be sooner than later!
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']True. You can't really quantify it. I'll be satisfied when I see some games that look improved enough from the GC that I can feel my $250 purchase was worthwhile from a technological advancement standpoint.

I like the motion controls in most games, but I could live without them for sure. So I'd like to see some more graphical bang for my buck as well. Give me some games that at least look a decent bit better than original X-box games like Halo 2 etc.[/quote]I think the problem for me in this, and in what botticus mentioned that you quoted, is we're starting to get into a very vague "better" area. The graphics of the Xbox/PS2/GC era cleaned up enough that style choices seem to affect a game's asthetic reception as much as the polygons its pushing.

So then, I can honestly say I think the look of Metroid Prime 3 is better than Gears of War--not because it's more powerful because it's certainly not, but because the polygons are sufficent to convey what they want and the style is more appealing to me, which is 100% subjective.

I think a lot of it is not doing things the show the weaknesses of your hardware. Twilight Princess could have benefitted from not having the cinema cameras positioned in such a way that the pixelated leaves were in the foreground much of the time. Halo 2 betrayed a lack of power under the hood of the original Xbox with its really annoying popping in and out of textures. At the same time, Metroid Prime 3 does good work by very rarely having people's faces in view of the camera so that they needn't worry about that ripping someone out of the experience.
 
[quote name='daroga']I think the problem for me in this, and in what botticus mentioned that you quoted, is we're starting to get into a very vague "better" area. The graphics of the Xbox/PS2/GC era cleaned up enough that style choices seem to affect a game's asthetic reception as much as the polygons its pushing.

So then, I can honestly say I think the look of Metroid Prime 3 is better than Gears of War--not because it's more powerful because it's certainly not, but because the polygons are sufficent to convey what they want and the style is more appealing to me, which is 100% subjective.

I think a lot of it is not doing things the show the weaknesses of your hardware. Twilight Princess could have benefitted from not having the cinema cameras positioned in such a way that the pixelated leaves were in the foreground much of the time. Halo 2 betrayed a lack of power under the hood of the original Xbox with its really annoying popping in and out of textures. At the same time, Metroid Prime 3 does good work by very rarely having people's faces in view of the camera so that they needn't worry about that ripping someone out of the experience.[/QUOTE]

I get the point, but in the ideal game you have great technical graphics and great art design. Bioshock is a great example of this. And I think gears is a well, though the art design isn't quite on Bioshock's level.

For Metroid, the art design is great (lame bounty hunters aside), but many times it's terribly jaggy, blurry, etc. Good examples are most of the flying cutscenes, and anytime someones face is shown.

So basically I want to see a game with great art design, and less of the jaggy issues, horribly unrealistic faces etc. Just good art design and nice, crisp graphics. Even something technically on par with Halo 2, but combined with MP3's art design would be enough.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I get the point, but in the ideal game you have great technical graphics and great art design. Bioshock is a great example of this. And I think gears is a well, though the art design isn't quite on Bioshock's level.

For Metroid, the art design is great (lame bounty hunters aside), but many times it's terribly jaggy, blurry, etc. Good examples are most of the flying cutscenes, and anytime someones face is shown.

So basically I want to see a game with great art design, and less of the jaggy issues, horribly unrealistic faces etc. Just good art design and nice, crisp graphics. Even something technically on par with Halo 2, but combined with MP3's art design would be enough.[/quote]Oh, I understand. Several games have had me wondering "What would this look like with a little bit more power under the hood...?" Prime and TP being on the forefront of those thoughts.

You really thought that Halo 2 was technically impressive? I guess that surprises me as I tend to think that Prime 3 looks far better than Halo 2 did on a technical level. At least the textures stay in place in Prime.

It seems like some of the more recent preivews and scans of games show the technical level of the graphics being bolsereted. I'm not convinced that they couldn't have done Prime 3 on the Cube, but Mario Galaxy looks to be Wii-Only in terms of its visuals.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']If you're unsatisfied with Metroid 3 from a technical standpoint...you might have bought the wrong system.[/quote]There's a difference between being unsastified and just wondering "What if...?"

It's not even a big polygon thing for me with Prime 3. Just a little bit more crispness and sharpness for the textures and text would've been cool to see.
 
[quote name='daroga']There's a difference between being unsastified and just wondering "What if...?"

It's not even a big polygon thing for me with Prime 3. Just a little bit more crispness and sharpness for the textures and text would've been cool to see.[/QUOTE]


Exactly. And graphics come second after gameplay of course, and I'm loving the shit out of MP3.

I may have fixed my graphics jones though, as it looks like one of my friendswants to sell his 360 for $200 as he doesn't have time to play anymore.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Exactly. And graphics come second after gameplay of course, and I'm loving the shit out of MP3.

I may have fixed my graphics jones though, as it looks like one of my friendswants to sell his 360 for $200 as he doesn't have time to play anymore.[/quote]Nice. Make sure to grab Bioshock as it's the first game to really wow me from all angles on the 360.

If you have a backlog to get through, I'll probably be selling mine in the next week or so.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']For Metroid, the art design is great (lame bounty hunters aside), but many times it's terribly jaggy, blurry, etc. Good examples are most of the flying cutscenes, and anytime someones face is shown.
[/QUOTE]

I thought the flying scenes were considerably non-jaggy compared to most other Wii titles. I was impressed there seemed to be some slight amount of anti-aliasing going on. Yes, the jaggies were there, but not as horrible as they could have been.

The impressive thing about MP3 to me is that they incorporated the upgraded poly count/lighting effects AND kept the frame rate rock solid. I'm nearly finished and never once did I see a single bit of slowdown. I can't say the same for many 360 games that I've played. So while the resolution obviously isn't improved, the extra power is helping with probably the more important 2 of the 3 potential graphical improvements - textures/lighting/polys and good frame rate.
 
Yeah, don't get me wrong. MP3 looks pretty damn good, and like I said I'm loving it.

But jaggies, poorly done faces and some other graphical snafus do stand out and bug me here and there. But I think (or hope?) that the wii can do better, and there's not reason not to think so as pretty much every console in history has gotten better graphically over it's life span as developers get a better handle on how to make the most of it's power.
 
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