this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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WiiU was underpowered when it launched. Even if someone had utilized it 100%, it still would have been behind compared to the Xbox360 and PS3. 720p only when the Xbox and PS2 were already supporting 720p and 1080i was also a bad choice.
WiiU was just a bunch of bad choices combined in a single product. Bad hardware choices, bad marketing, bad name, requiring the massive gamepad for console setup, etc.
nintendo is kind of known for bad performance, but the wiiu really took the cake for outdated and low performance at launch.
also the gamepads are region locked (why, nintendo?)
They weren't though, they were keeping up all the way to the Wii when it became a different lane so it didn't matter as much but their catalogue and capabilities have struggled since then.
I'm actually headed for anti Nintendo because I'm so sick of them at this stage. Everything is gimmicky and expensive.
I dunno who told you the Wii U was 720p-only. Mine ran at 1080p all day, every day - albeit some games used upscaling to reduce the graphical workload.
Some of this is factually wrong, some of this I disagree with personally.
I'm not gonna stand here and claim the WiiU was a good business choice or the best possible design for what they were going for. That was the Switch, and... well, yeah, it's the biggest console out there for a reason.
I'll say for it that, like the GameCube, it's less of an interesting retro ownership piece just because so much of its library ended up getting Switch ports. Given the scarcity, some of the reliability issues and the rarity of some games, though, you can be sure I'm sitting on my Wii U and physical games indefinitely. I'm not a speculative collector, but that Wii U copy of The Wonderful 101 is gonna be a good investment at some point.
Kind of missing the point of Nintendo. They make epic games. The Wii-U was a massive miss step for Nintendo from a marketing perspective and even the control pad had some massive flaws around it too but damn I love this console for what it was and the games.
It was a stepping stone to get to the Switch though. It was super under powered compared to the PS4 and Xbox when released and even more so with the PS5 and Xbox Fridge or Toaster or whatever the One is called these days. Based on specs but it played great and looks damn good on my 4k UHD tv and the OLED console display really pops for its size. But all and all it’s shit on paper based on specs and that’s fine as Nintendo knows how to work with what they got and it’s a mighty fine console.
Also Blast Processing!!!!!! Bro
Nintendo used to make powerful hardware that was actually competitive too. I wish they'd go back to that. So many third parties dropped most Nintendo support because they keep making decisions that severely limit third party developers. N64 lacked CDs, Gamecube had tiny CDs, Wii was literally just the Gamecube in a different shell and therefore underpowered, WiiU was underpowered, Switch is underpowered.
Nintendo literally changed their entire business strategy because they want to repeat the sales of the Wii.
Imagine how much better TotK could have been if it had an actually powerful console. Korok Forest would get more than 15 fps.
tbf 720p and 1080i are pretty similar
Not really. They're nearly as similar as 1080p and 720p, really. 1080i is a vertical resolution 1.5 times bigger than 720p, just like 1080p.
The only difference actually is that 720p is a progressive scan inage, not an interlaced image. This means the field is constructed top down row by row. Once the field is constructed, it is displayed as a single field.
An interlaced image constructs two fields separately in short succession, with one field having only odd rows and the other having only even rows. They're displayed on screen fast enough so that the image appears complete, but an interlaced image can have a noticeable "jitter" effect because every other vertical row on screen is updated slightly later than the others. Depending on the display, it can also have decreased brightness or a flashing like effect because the time inbetween both fields being displayed can be visible to the human eye.