Wii U Dev Kits Have Been Under Clocked, Explains Why Wii U Game Footage Wasn’t Shown

Apparently, Wii U’s power isn’t in question at this stage as Nintendo were the ones that pulled the plug on showing off 3rd party game footage on the Wii U hardware. Apparently, the footage was only looking on par with the present generation due to the under clocked dev kits, and Nintendo didn’t want to present something that looked like the current gen instead of the future. There have been reports the Wii U is at least 50% more powerful than the Playstation 3, and as such it may be understandable that Nintendo would rather wait until they send out the final dev kits, so developers have a chance to showcase the improved graphic capabilities of the hardware instead of just looking like PS3 ports.

Developers have underclocked development kits, and worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3. However, due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles and focus instead on tech demos. In particular, THQ stated that Darksiders II was running on development hardware and could have been shown. Also, Epic vice president Mark Rein tweeted during E3 that Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines was being made for Wii U with Unreal Engine 3, showing that Epic is bringing its tech to Wii U.

We already know Darksiders II is fully running on the hardware without any sacrifices, and things like Krytek 3’s engine is fully compatible with the system, something that isn’t true with the Playstation 3. What this means, in essence, is that Nintendo is trying to save showing off full blown games until the final specs are likely released. This way, when we see footage on the Wii U hardware, it will likely show at least some improvements over the present generation of consoles.

This is pretty big news, considering that this early in the game developers are already matching the present generation on under clocked systems. Wii U will likely be behind the next generation with power, but at least Nintendo is trying it’s best to prove the Wii U is a big step ahead of the current. For graphics whores, this means the best looking version of multi platform games may very well be on the Wii U next year. People always wanting to be on that cutting edge just got another reason to pick up the Wii U in 2012.

Also of note, the Wii U is apparently on schedule with Nintendo’s internal launch plans, and we should not expect any delays. We don’t really know when it’s coming out next year, but we could find out more later this year. Tokyo Game Show takes place in the middle of September, and it’s likely we could see some actual Wii U game footage and possibly get some final specs and a more targeted launch window. There is plenty of time left on the year for Nintendo to reveal details about the Wii U. Keep in mind there is also GDC next February, so we likely wont be waiting till next E3 in any fashion to get all the info we could want.

Source: Kotaku