Orresnei

@HandsomeBoyGraduate No, just no.

"Battlefield 2 - popular on PC *AND* console"

Battlefield 2 was and still is a PC-exclusive game. While the consoles did get a game called Battlefield: Modern Combat, this game was very different from Battlefield 2 on PC and could therefore not be counted as the same game. The truth is that the Battlefield games did very well for a single platform game (Vietnam perhaps not as well as Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2). Yes, Dice and EA did go multiplatform with Battlefield 3, but I think Dice could have made good money on PC-games alone.

@kgoo867 Actually, it almost made a negative impact. Going from DirectX 10.1 to DirectX 9.0c just dosn't make that much sense. Ok, they probably did so to make multiplatform development easier. But still. Actually using older tech on a sequel just don't seem right. I think it sets a negative presedence among developers. Apparently, it is more important to make a game work on the lowest common denominator to make development easier, than to actually utilize each platform to it's maximum potential.

I'm pleased to see Dice going DirectX 11 from day one, and actually building an engine using the technology. As you said, nativly coding a game to support DirectX 11 is almost certainly going to produce better results than slapping it on as an afterthought. But hey, they might be successful in doing a good DX11 patch for Crysis 2. Though, without the relativly large areas and great physics of the first game. Crysis 2 won't be that interesting to me. It would be like making a Battlefield game with only 16-player maps. No fun at all. : /

@LEONLEONLEON Actually, 32 players on each team is not that many when one consider the size of the maps on 64 player servers. When you have 2 battle helicopters, 1 transport helicopter, a tank, a anti-personell-tank, two jets and some smaller hardware (jeeps, boats, etc) for just one of the two teams, then 10 players is not enough.

The Battlefield franchise was designed around fairly large scale combat situations, involving a good portion of battle hardware, but also some interesting infantery play. Now, a game such as Counter-Strike or Killzone might work best with 10 players in a match, but Battlefield was just not designed around such battle scales. Even 24 players is cutting it a little close (in my opinion). But I guess they've tried to balance the level of graphics with the ammount of players on the console versions.

Now, I will agree that 64 player matches can be somewhat chaotic, especially on public servers. But this is primarily the case on close quarter maps with an infantery focus, such as Strike at Karkand. Most bigger hardware-focused maps in Battlefield 2 (the original series) actually worked very well with 64 players. If the jet pilots, and combat helicopters are going to have anything to shoot at, there has to be a fair amount of players on the map!

@Drybones5 Perhaps not a 1000x better, but one would have to be unfamiliar with the history of the series to not see that the PC-version will be best. There is absolutly no good arguments that point towards the conclusion that the console versions will provide as good an experience as the PC-version. You have already pointed out some of the reasons. Also, the PC-platform supports the use of joysticks, and Battlefield 3 will probably do that as well. Flying a helicopter or jetplane with a gamepad or mouse and keyboard is great enough. But flying the jet or helicopter with a proper joystick is just that much greater.

@NathanDTS You seem to have detailed knowledge about these things. So please tell us, what exactly will the pricepoint be? And how high is the pricepoint at which "causal" gamers are put off by the price? If can not answer these questions, your argument is invalid.

If the Wii is anything to go by, the system should be relativly affordable. When it comes to the pricepoint at which "causal" gamers are put off from bying a console, I must admit I have no statistical sources, and can therefore not argue one way or the other.

And what is this jibber jabber about how the controller supposedly suck? Have you personally tried it, if so, why not give us a resonable argument towards that fact? If not, do you really think that some E3 demo-footage is enough to base such an assumption on. I personally do not. Let's just wait and see what Nintendo can do with it, come launch.

And while the next consoles coming out from Microsoft and Sony probably will make the Wii U graphically obsolete, they will not make the Wii U experience itself obsolete. Graphics isn't the only thing that defines a console, if such was the case, we would all be playing on PC's still. What defines the system experience is the multitude of different factors, such as how you interact with the game, what kind of gameplay the system supports, the way in which players are connected to eachother, the way content is delivered, the audiovisual persepts, and ofcourse the games themselves. I highly doubt that either Microsoft nor Sony will make their systems similar in all these aspects, especially in regards to how we interact with the games.

Now, I'm no expert, that is a given. But I really do think the Wii U has a place in the console market. While many of it's ideas might not be completely new, Nintendo seems to have some fairly brilliant ideas about how to use the new controller, and there are great possibilities for some new and innovating thinking. If the third-party developers come threw for the Wii U, we are looking at an exciting and brilliant system. I also think having the Wii-remote as an important perhipheral for the system works to it's advantage. Alot of Wii-owners have probably spent a considerable amount of money on Wii-remotes, and will be pleased to hear that they still get to use them.

@Noksukow The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are five years old for Odin's sake. It has a freaking IBM Power7 processor with ten times as much integrated cache on the cpu than the Xenon had! Not to mention far more threads and a better design overall.

It's probably going to have 2GB of memory (anything less would be weird in this time and age), which is four times as much as the 360, and the memory are probably going to be much faster. Also, it is a resonable assumption that the video card chosen will be able to keep up with the IBM Power7-processor, which should make for a decent graphics card (even considering the size of the console).

Games on the Wii U will most probably (almost without uncertainty) look better than anything on the Xbox 360 and PS3, because the hardware is freaking five years newer. How hard is it to understand that? Newer hardware equals better performance. And yes, it's probably not going to be as beefy as the next Xbox or Playstation console, because those consoles are going to be three times the size, and probably one or two years later in release. But beating out the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 is something even a fairly low to mid-end computer can do. So yeah...

What would be kind of epic in this game, would be the possibility to design your own wepons (kind of the way they did it in Dead Rising 2). They already have shown a circle saw rifle, and the setting is definently something that supports the idea of crazy homebuilt weapons.

This kind of feature could also mean that the monster-placer would have to take into consideration what kind of weapons the player will use.

@Shockwave Why not? What part of the "trailer" seems impossible to render real time? Graphics have come a long way, just look at Battlefield 3, and what they can do graphics-wise on the PC, even with huge environments. Then think about what could be achieved in close-quarter environments such as the one in the trailer. It might be pre-rendered, but it's not to far out to think that it could have been done inengine, and is not to far from the final graphics?

This kind of local multi-perspective gaming seems quite intriguing. As the article mentioned, this could be done in all games online, or even with an AI player. But it would not be the same experience. One of the things that differs, is that the Wii U-pad player is able to constantly monitor the other player directly, as they sit infront of the same tv. I think this is one of the more differentiating factors.

I hope the game will support Wii-mote play as well, since the Wii-mote was just made for shooters. Now that the Wii-mote has the +-accessory, and the Wii U has significantly more beefy hardware, the controls should be even more accurate than on the Wii. The more hardware that can be used on the Wiimote+, the better.

@sergio78246 8GB of ram is way overkill for gaming. 4GB should be more than enough to play them game. Also, I think the access speed, and general transfer-rate of the memory is far more important than the amount (as long as the amount is high enough). 4GB of ram with the lowest possible cas latency and highest possible clock speeds should yield the best results.

A 1366 socket Intel motherboard with three-channel ram should up the speed further, seeing as how it has a higher bandwith (more channels between memory and cpu). So if you really want to be prepared memory wise, go speed, not just size.

GPU-wise, a Radeon HD6950 or a Geforce 560 should get you a long way. Might even be able to play the game with everything maxed out (in 1920 * 1080 resolution). For those with 2560 * 1600 resolutions and those with multi-monitor setups, more horsepower is probably needed.

CPU wise, the game is said to support several cores, so a quad-core is probably not a bad choice. Though, here you can save alot of money if one is willing and able to buy an affordable cpu cooler, and overclock the processor.