Nintendo Wii Available NOW!!!!

[EPCrew]

Originally posted by: VooDooAddict

Originally posted by: coomarlin
... because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD ...

Still amazes me that people think the Wii looks no better then a Gamecube. True the Wii can't take advantage of higher definition signals that your 42" LCD might accept. But there's much more to the visuals then just the format that the game is outputting.

Toys R Us in Times Square NYC to get a substantially larger shipment on black friday. They already restocked on remotes, nunchucks, and classic controllers.

 

[coomarlin]

It's one of those things that you don't realize it looks that bad until you see it side by side with an HD compliant console. Sort of like all of my friends that think their SDTV's look great with DirecTV and then they watch an HD football game on my 42" LCD. I guess the drawback is that they constantly want to come to my house to watch the games.

You know how when you got your PS2 and played the heck out of it then you went back and played a PS1 game on it. You get that "Blah" feeling from the PS1 game. Thats the same way I felt when I saw the Wii next to the PS3....................

 

[KPACOTKA]

I can understand good food, beautiful women, but football on 42 TV. People become owned by electronics.

 

[KPACOTKA]

Originally posted by: coomarlin
I know I'll get flamed but after seeing the Wii and PS3 side by side I don't want a Wii. There is something to be said about the cool new controller for the Wii, but in an age of HiDef TV's it;s kind of rediculous to release something that can't do at least 720p. The graphics looked terrible on teh Wii and fantastic on the PS3. I don't plan on buying any new consoles because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD and the PS3 is so rediculously priced.

Oh well, I should get away from the TV anyway.

Where did you see them side by side? I guess people struggling to find any even online. Have you bought and returned Wii after trying it on your TV? Give us your secret.

 

[VooDooAddict]

Originally posted by: coomarlin
It's one of those things that you don't realize it looks that bad until you see it side by side with an HD compliant console. Sort of like all of my friends that think their SDTV's look great with DirecTV and then they watch an HD football game on my 42" LCD. I guess the drawback is that they constantly want to come to my house to watch the games.

You know how when you got your PS2 and played the heck out of it then you went back and played a PS1 game on it. You get that "Blah" feeling from the PS1 game. Thats the same way I felt when I saw the Wii next to the PS3....................

Not saying that a Wii won't pale in comparison to the PS3/360 at 720p+ ... mainly commenting on the "Wii looks no better then Gamecube"

 

[Lantano]

Check your local Toys R Us, our local store (Bmt., TX) just received a shipment of 30, selling 15 today (BFriday) and 15 on Saturday. Lucky I told my wife to stop by after lunch. We had to buy 2 games but I was already getting Zelda and Madden anyway.... anyone know where to get the component cables???

Update: I also got a tip that Best Buy is holding stock for Sunday morning @ 9:00. So get in line early !

 

[Computer User]

Wii!

 

[KPACOTKA]

It requires macromedia flash player I do not have. Can you explain by words?

 

[bond007taz]

Originally posted by: coomarlin
I know I'll get flamed but after seeing the Wii and PS3 side by side I don't want a Wii. There is something to be said about the cool new controller for the Wii, but in an age of HiDef TV's it;s kind of rediculous to release something that can't do at least 720p. The graphics looked terrible on teh Wii and fantastic on the PS3. I don't plan on buying any new consoles because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD and the PS3 is so rediculously priced.

Oh well, I should get away from the TV anyway.

WHEN HAVE ANYONE EVER PURCHASED A NINTENDO PRODUCT FOR ITS VIDEO?! that is not the point of the wii...

 

[iseestars]

not since the N64, at any rate...

man I want one of these.... but I refuse to succumb to stupid ripoff artists on ebay or on bundle. Nintendo says the system should cost $250 and that's how much I'll pay - or less.

 

[LumbergTech]

Originally posted by: bond007taz

Originally posted by: coomarlin
I know I'll get flamed but after seeing the Wii and PS3 side by side I don't want a Wii. There is something to be said about the cool new controller for the Wii, but in an age of HiDef TV's it;s kind of rediculous to release something that can't do at least 720p. The graphics looked terrible on teh Wii and fantastic on the PS3. I don't plan on buying any new consoles because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD and the PS3 is so rediculously priced.

Oh well, I should get away from the TV anyway.

WHEN HAVE ANYONE EVER PURCHASED A NINTENDO PRODUCT FOR ITS VIDEO?! that is not the point of the wii...

snes was a pretty powerful console for its time...and the gamecube had better graphics than ps2 and often on par with xbox..

 

[iseestars]

I'm looking forward to Crystal Chronicles on this...

as silly as this sounds, I never got the gamecube exclusively because they ruined FF Crystal Chronicles

 

[mrEvil]

Originally posted by: Lantano
Check your local Toys R Us, our local store (Bmt., TX) just received a shipment of 30, selling 15 today (BFriday) and 15 on Saturday. Lucky I told my wife to stop by after lunch. We had to buy 2 games but I was already getting Zelda and Madden anyway.... anyone know where to get the component cables???

Update: I also got a tip that Best Buy is holding stock for Sunday morning @ 9:00. So get in line early !

Component cables, at least those from Nintendo, are out of stock until mid-December...literally, as that is coming from the Nintendo store. I'm not sure of any 3rd party component cables, but I'm looking as well.

If people are looking for Wii's, talk to your TRU Manager or AM and butter them up. I got them to tell me when they get their shipments in. True, I got mine at EBG this morning, but the AM at TRU was right about getting some in today, the shipment just came in an hour early. I believe most, if not all, TRU are getting their supplies via FEDEX and should be the first ones to get the cables around the 18th of December.

 

[bigstrickler]

yup got mine at EB games this morning too ...zelda is awesome! anyone else have a wii have any suggestions on another game? red steel not worth it eh?

 

[flavio]

Originally posted by: bigstrickler
yup got mine at EB games this morning too ...zelda is awesome! anyone else have a wii have any suggestions on another game? red steel not worth it eh?

Rayman is frickin' great...and now you can download Bonk's Adventure from the Wii store

I have an extra Wii sitting here I'm trying decide when to eBay.

 

[fliguy84]

I've just checked with my local BestBuy. Looks like they gonna have more in stock on Sunday

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: LumbergTech

Originally posted by: bond007taz

Originally posted by: coomarlin
I know I'll get flamed but after seeing the Wii and PS3 side by side I don't want a Wii. There is something to be said about the cool new controller for the Wii, but in an age of HiDef TV's it;s kind of rediculous to release something that can't do at least 720p. The graphics looked terrible on teh Wii and fantastic on the PS3. I don't plan on buying any new consoles because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD and the PS3 is so rediculously priced.

Oh well, I should get away from the TV anyway.

WHEN HAVE ANYONE EVER PURCHASED A NINTENDO PRODUCT FOR ITS VIDEO?! that is not the point of the wii...

snes was a pretty powerful console for its time...and the gamecube had better graphics than ps2 and often on par with xbox..

??? Since when did gamecube have better graphics than PS2?

 

[gspyer]

Originally posted by: Gibson486

Originally posted by: LumbergTech

Originally posted by: bond007taz

Originally posted by: coomarlin
I know I'll get flamed but after seeing the Wii and PS3 side by side I don't want a Wii. There is something to be said about the cool new controller for the Wii, but in an age of HiDef TV's it;s kind of rediculous to release something that can't do at least 720p. The graphics looked terrible on teh Wii and fantastic on the PS3. I don't plan on buying any new consoles because the Wii would look no better than the Gamecube on my 42" LCD and the PS3 is so rediculously priced.

Oh well, I should get away from the TV anyway.

WHEN HAVE ANYONE EVER PURCHASED A NINTENDO PRODUCT FOR ITS VIDEO?! that is not the point of the wii...

snes was a pretty powerful console for its time...and the gamecube had better graphics than ps2 and often on par with xbox..

??? Since when did gamecube have better graphics than PS2?

It is technically impossible for the GameCube to have graphics on par with the XBox. It had 48 MB of memory compared to 64MB on the XBox. And of that 48 MB of memory, 40 MB was 18ms DRAM. DRAM. Do you know how slow DRAM is? It so slow that Nintendo told developers not to use that memory for anything that was needed immediately i.e. textures. That memory was used to store things like UI, stats, and level layout.

So on texture quality alone, the GameCube could not compete with the XBox. Eight MB of 1T-SDRAM is no match for 64 MB of DDR memory.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: fliguy84
I've just checked with my local BestBuy. Looks like they gonna have more in stock on Sunday

Just on MSNBC- Nintendo's shipping another 150k-200k units a week until Christmas. If you didn't get one, just wait.

People that bought these for Ebay better sell them quick

 

[sulanebouxi]

Shh! Don't tell them about Best Buy! I gotta get my Wii . I hear that Nintendo is supposed to have a massive and I mean *massive* shipment coming in the next week or two. We're talking 3 million Wiis coming in. 3 times the amount in the initial shipment. So, forget ebay and just wait it out.

It seems Best Buys across the country are withholding their shipments of Wiis until Sunday. They received them yesterday and some were mistakenly put on shelves(maybe a rogue manager or something haha) but for the most part, they're being placed out on Sunday.

 

[gspyer]

I read somewhere Nintendo expects to have 4 million units out by XMas. Seriously, I don't even think Nintendo can sell 4 million units in a month. I mean how many households are there in the US? And of those how many play games? And of those how many would buy a Wii?

Yeah we can all wait it out. Funny thing is some places are selling out XBox 360s, especially those places with substantial discounts (Wal-mart has a $50 gift card, Microcenter has a $100 MIR).

All I can say is between the Wii and XBox 360, I've completely lost interest in the PS3. The Wii has a better controller and the XBox 360 has better graphics, it has superior GPU and more RAM (but a worse CPU -- maybe). Still, I guess I'll get a PS3 when-and-if Blue-ray becomes the winning standard.

So wake up early for Best Buy on Sunday. Got it.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: gspyer
I read somewhere Nintendo expects to have 4 million units out by XMas. Seriously, I don't even think Nintendo can sell 4 million units in a month. I mean how many households are there in the US? And of those how many play games? And of those how many would buy a Wii?

I dunno, they've sold out for two weeks in a row around here, I haven't been able to get my hands on one yet.

 

[psy]

I noticed that Circuit City and Toys R' Us had already gotten new shipments of the Zelda game on Friday.

 

[acejj26]

It is technically impossible for the GameCube to have graphics on par with the XBox. It had 48 MB of memory compared to 64MB on the XBox. And of that 48 MB of memory, 40 MB was 18ms DRAM. DRAM. Do you know how slow DRAM is? It so slow that Nintendo told developers not to use that memory for anything that was needed immediately i.e. textures. That memory was used to store things like UI, stats, and level layout.

So on texture quality alone, the GameCube could not compete with the XBox. Eight MB of 1T-SDRAM is no match for 64 MB of DDR memory.

Most uninformed quote ever...you're probably the guy that buys a GeForce 6200 because some manufacturer put 512 MB of memory on it instead of something with a better processor (i.e. 7800) with "only" 256 MB of memory.

BTW, if rendering a 640x480 screen with 24 bit color and 8 bits of alpha blending, you only need about 1.2 MB of memory. Granted, there will be some overlap, but if you optimise your code enough, you might be able to squeeze all the textures you need into that 8 MB of really fast 1T SRAM.

The processing ability of the Gamecube WAS roughly on par with that of the original Xbox and it was more advanced than that of the PS2.

Also, did anyone else notice or find it weird that the clocks on the Wii processor and GPU were exactly 50% faster than their predecessors on the GameCube? So, if the architecture is the same, you would expect 1.5x the performance of the GameCube. If they were able to perform some tweaks to enhance IPC, maybe its twice as fast. So, I don't believe that the graphics of the Wii are horrible...they're probably about twice as good as the GameCube.

 

[gspyer]

Originally posted by: acejj26

It is technically impossible for the GameCube to have graphics on par with the XBox. It had 48 MB of memory compared to 64MB on the XBox. And of that 48 MB of memory, 40 MB was 18ms DRAM. DRAM. Do you know how slow DRAM is? It so slow that Nintendo told developers not to use that memory for anything that was needed immediately i.e. textures. That memory was used to store things like UI, stats, and level layout.

So on texture quality alone, the GameCube could not compete with the XBox. Eight MB of 1T-SDRAM is no match for 64 MB of DDR memory.

Most uninformed quote ever...you're probably the guy that buys a GeForce 6200 because some manufacturer put 512 MB of memory on it instead of something with a better processor (i.e. 7800) with "only" 256 MB of memory.

BTW, if rendering a 640x480 screen with 24 bit color and 8 bits of alpha blending, you only need about 1.2 MB of memory. Granted, there will be some overlap, but if you optimise your code enough, you might be able to squeeze all the textures you need into that 8 MB of really fast 1T SRAM.

The processing ability of the Gamecube WAS roughly on par with that of the original Xbox and it was more advanced than that of the PS2.

Also, did anyone else notice or find it weird that the clocks on the Wii processor and GPU were exactly 50% faster than their predecessors on the GameCube? So, if the architecture is the same, you would expect 1.5x the performance of the GameCube. If they were able to perform some tweaks to enhance IPC, maybe its twice as fast. So, I don't believe that the graphics of the Wii are horrible...they're probably about twice as good as the GameCube.

You have the frame buffer mixed up with texture memory. I did contract work at an art outsourcer for several GameCube games. You were severly limited to the amount of immediate textures you could squeeze into 8MB of RAM.

The difference between 8MB and 64MB is huge.

The difference between 256MB and 512MB not so huge.

What you did is you had to design your art assests to be cartoony or cell shaded, so that your textures were largely solid colors. Those compress amazingly well and fit fine in 8MB. Or you had to use a set of really slick tiling textures and alternated the tile, so you couldn't notice it was tiling unless you looked very carefully.

Why are you arguing 8MB of texture memory is as good 64MB? That's pure insanity. We usually had about 4x-5x the texture memory usable on the XBox. You never can get the full 64MB. I was told our total working texture memory for the XBox was about 30-40MB.

Although the GameCube had another trick. Most GPU chipsets, the ATI one used included, has a texture cache. Sometimes, if the programmers were super smart about how the textures were loaded, they could use use some extra memory cached from the DRAM. But I was always told never to count of that. I dunno how big it is, I wasn't a programmer. Just a lowly art contractor.

The GameCube has a seperate frame buffer. That has no bearing on the system memory. It is on the GPU.