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[Mik_Pad]

Cafe.

That makes sense haha 'Cafe Espresso'

 

[nordique]

So, basically the same spec as my galaxy s3.

No thanks, I'll wait for a bit.

haha come on man. if you know even a little about tech you know this isn't true.

I understand these specs are underwhelming for many, but the fact is in the bigger scope of things, in the market place it doesn't matter as much

 

[I Stalk Alone]

I don't think its spin at all, he has a very clear and concise point. Its about one particular system versus another.

versus two others?

 

[Ridley327]

I don't think it'd be stupid from their perspective at all. Nintendo has a very long tradition of not paying licensing fees. Supporting DD/DTS means doing just that and they definitely seem to be prioritizing affordability.

They've had a pretty strong relationship with Dolby Labs, to the point of featuring their logo on every Wii box to advertise its compatibility with Dolby Pro Logic II.

That said, the lack of communication on them supporting codecs other than PCM is pretty telling in of itself right now.

 

[gofreak]

Do you actually believe all the stuff you write in your posts?

If you want to take issue with a specific point I've made, feel free. But please bear in mind the context we were debating in. I'm not sure you have.

Meh I kind of see what you are saying but you are trying to spin it just a bit too much by saying HD "won".

It's not so much spin, as applying context. We were discussing in a specific context - what the market cared about as judged by the popularity of different systems this gen. The point was made that 'most people don't care about graphics'* and I was questioning that given that 'most people' that made up the home console market this gen bought HD systems. And thus, that conclusion seems a bit fuzzy to me. That's all. That's the context of 'HD won' there. As an individual platform, of course Wii was the resounding winner, but that's sort of besides the point.

I guess citing 'winners' makes people a bit touchy. But I don't think I've said anything so outrageous...I've just invited people to look beyond the race to number 1 in trying to gauge market appetites, since there was a big ol' market beyond number 1 this gen. Most of the market was beyond number 1, in fact...and I'm inviting you to look at the characteristics that seemed to drive that market. It wasn't low-fi tech anyway.

* based on Wii, but in fairness to Opiate, also mobile/social etc, and I concede I'm ignoring the latter here.

 

[SolarPowered]

haha come on man. if you know even a little about tech you know this isn't true.

I understand these specs are underwhelming for many, but the fact is in the bigger scope of things, in the market place it doesn't matter as much

A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions based off lighting caught in a bottle. It'd be nice if you remember that the Wii was a big anomaly compared to most of the successes that came before it in this industry.

Of all the things for people to freak over, the 8GB... wasn't this a solid rumor for like a year now?

The entry level Xbox 360, priced to hit the mass market, only comes with 4GB of flash memory and expects the user to buy a hard drive if they're going to go big on digital downloads.

Wii U isn't going to be a 400 dollar console aimed purely at the enthusiast market, so 8GB of flash + lower price + the ability to buy a reasonably priced HDD and plug it in = not a bad situation in context.

Plus I think Nintendo would be loathe to put a HDD inside the console itself, not just for cost reasons, but support. Something with a higher failure rate than flash memory, more complexity for the average user to deal with (Wii audience), etc.

I don't get how an internal hard drive could possibly be more confusing than having to buy an external one. An internal drive eliminates all the second guessing regarding speed, quality and price whereas the an external one makes game patching uncomfortable, takes up space in your entertainment center and brings a whole slew of choices that might confuse your average person. The easiest thing in the world is being notified about patches that automatically apply themselves in Xbox live in the models with lots of HD space.

Giving people options is a bad thing. We've heard it a million times with PC gaming and multiple console SKUs. How does that change for the Wii U?

 

[Sid]

I pray to God we don't get Homebrew channel on the Wii U. Don't want wii hackers coming back, no thank you. If it means not being able to play pirated games or modding games like Brawl(which I'm not interested in either), it's more than worth it for me.

Hmmm.....

 

[ohlawd]

Hmmm.....

It's not gonna happen any time soon.

 

[AndyMoogle]

RAM is okay.
CPU is as expected, speculated and targeted, is okay.

But, 8GB of internal storage? Are you serious? Did the Nintendo is a gen behind thing originate internally or what?

Has to be a joke. The only upside is support for USB hard drives (take notes Microsoft), but isn't an excuse.

You can use any USB storage device on a 360 too. The only problem is that you're limited to 32GB.

 

[Medalion]

It's all about the raw power and graphics, right? *sigh*

Yes, what else would it be... The games?

Hahahaha

We don't play games.. We watch them


..and they watch us

 

[Terrell]

That's blatantly false.

Performance wise:
SNES>Megadrive
PS1>Saturn
PS2>Dreamcast

This is the first time the weakest has won.

SNES had a better sound card and larger color palette but was a technically weaker machine. Our first example of feature set being more important than processing power.

Saturn was the better machine, but lost due to obscenely complicated hardware structure making it a nightmare to develop for. Our first example of the need for an ease of development.

Dreamcast died after 2 years, counting it in this debate is sadly ridiculous when it didn't even last a whole generation.

So, yeah...

 

[apana]

If you want to take issue with a specific point I've made, feel free. But please bear in mind the context we were debating in. I'm not sure you have.




It's not so much spin, as applying context. We were discussing in a specific context - what the market cared about as judged by the popularity of different systems this gen. The point was made that 'most people don't care about graphics' and I was questioning that given that 'most people' that made up the home console market this gen bought HD systems. And thus, that conclusion seems a bit fuzzy to me. That's all. That's the context of 'HD won' there. As an individual platform, of course Wii was the resounding winner, but that's sort of besides the point.

I guess citing 'winners' makes people a bit touchy. But I don't think I've said anything so outrageous...I've just invited people to look beyond the race to number 1 in trying to gauge market appetites, since there was a big ol' market beyond number 1 this gen. Most of the market was beyond number 1, in fact...and I'm inviting you to look at the characteristics that seemed to drive that market. It wasn't low-fi tech anyway.

If you want to apply context though you can't just look at what was going on in the marketplace, you have to look at what was going on behind the scenes. The place HD really won was with the gaming companies. Microsoft, Sony, and third parties placed their bets on it and did everything to support it, sunk huge amounts of money and resources into it. Wii was like a fish going upstream against a raging river. I say the fish won because it managed to reach its destination but others can say the river wins because it continues to flow unabated.

 

[Palette Swap]

I don't think it'd be stupid from their perspective at all. Nintendo has a very long tradition of not paying licensing fees. Supporting DD/DTS means doing just that and they definitely seem to be prioritizing affordability.

I honestly don't know but wouldn't the Pro-Logic solution they've been using for the past 2 gens incur license costs anyway? I know it's not an encoding technology but joining the 21st century and having a proper 5.1 codec would make sense. Advertising the console as 5.1 only for it to support LPCM could lead to a number of disappointed customers when they get home and find out they can't use it on their receiver.

 

[+Aliken+]

A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions based off lighting caught in a bottle. It'd be nice if you remember that the Wii was a big anomaly compared to most of the successes that came before it in this industry.

Is it?
Which was more powerful:
NES or Master System
SNES or Mega Drive
PlayStation or N64
GC or Ps2
Wii or Ps3

From what I see the "weaker" machine is always the one which was most successful.

 

[Hero]

If you want to take issue with a specific point I've made, feel free. But please bear in mind the context we were debating in. I'm not sure you have.




It's not so much spin, as applying context. We were discussing in a specific context - what the market cared about as judged by the popularity of different systems this gen. The point was made that 'most people don't care about graphics' and I was questioning that given that 'most people' that made up the home console market this gen bought HD systems. And thus, that conclusion seems a bit fuzzy to me. That's all. That's the context of 'HD won' there. As an individual platform, of course Wii was the resounding winner, but that's sort of besides the point.

I guess citing 'winners' makes people a bit touchy. But I don't think I've said anything so outrageous...I've just invited people to look beyond the race to number 1 in trying to gauge market appetites, since there was a big ol' market beyond number 1 this gen. Most of the market was beyond number 1, in fact...and I'm inviting you to look at the characteristics that seemed to drive that market. It wasn't low-fi tech anyway.

You should've been PR for MS and Sony all these years with this logic of lumping in both of the HD consoles, because I'm sure it mattered to either of those companies how much the other one was selling. That way they could've beaten the Wii for the entire generation rather than the last 20 minutes.

 

[Mxrz]

Disappointing, even with the rumors. Nintendo's #1 priority is to never sell at a loss on hardware, but man. Guess that controller really is sucking up most of the cost. I'm sure it'll sell well, but $299 seems a lot more pricey.

 

[Oni Link 666]

So, if Wii is Naruto at Season 1, would Wii U be like Shippuden Naruto with wind element jutsu or Sage mode Naruto? I don't watch DBZ.

 

[Opiate]

A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions based off lighting caught in a bottle. It'd be nice if you remember that the Wii was a big anomaly compared to most of the successes that came before it in this industry.

How about the iPhone/iOS? Facebook/Browser platform? DS? How many enormously successful "anomalies" need to exist before a pattern is detected?

 

[Sid]

It's not gonna happen any time soon.

I don't think anyone can predict that.

 

[gofreak]

You should've been PR for MS and Sony all these years with this logic of lumping in both of the HD consoles, because I'm sure it mattered to either of those companies how much the other one was selling. That way they could've beaten the Wii for the entire generation rather than the last 20 minutes.

OK, you're not looking at context. At this stage my points couldn't clearer so I won't repeat them. Sorry if you don't get them

If you want to apply context though you can't just look at what was going on in the marketplace

... but that is the context of this discussion.

The context wasn't 'success' in the broadest and total sense. As I've said, of course in that general sense, Wii 'won', was the winner etc. I never questioned that.

The context was - xyz is important/not important to people based on the popularity of system abc. That's ALL about what the marketplace took to, or didn't take to, relative to other attractions. That's the context, it's no broader than that.

 

[ColdBlooder]

Is it?
Which was more powerful:
NES or Master System
SNES or Mega Drive
PlayStation or N64
GC or Ps2
Wii or Ps3

From what I see the "weaker" machine is always the one which was most successful.

It wasn´t the hardware wich decided wich machine won. It was the software. Just compare the libraries and you see.

Wii is an anomaly because if the motion controls and the casual market.

Wii Us eShop with the indy games (And indys already speak very highly of the new shop) and the social focus of the machine could be the big hooks for casual gamers.

 

[Lupin the Third]

A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions based off lighting caught in a bottle. It'd be nice if you remember that the Wii was a big anomaly compared to most of the successes that came before it in this industry.

First off, all he said was that hardware specifications don't matter that much in the marketplace. And you're talking about the Wii being an anomaly...are you on the same page, or are you roundabout claiming that specs DO matter, and the Wii is the only counter-example?

If the latter, the Wii was indeed an anomaly in that it had motion control, sure. But where's the precedent for the polar opposite: the biggest horsepower winning a console war? SNES? (And even that's only by a slim margin in the States thanks to maintaining support through 1996...). N64 had obvious improvements over PS1 but PS1 undoubtedly beat the shorts off everyone else. PS2 did the same, being beaten to market solely by Dreamcast and Nintendo and MS lagging behind by over a year with superior, much more streamlined hardware. Looking to handhelds, Game Boy with its horrible spinach-green screen and largely mediocre game library reigned king of handhelds for nearly a decade. Game Gear and Lynx clearly had better specs. The "winner" of a gen is not the king of the spec sheet, more often than not.

As much as I want Wii U to be right up there with whatever MS pumps out (and I do), I recognize there's still an opportunity for Wii U to be PS2-2 with great Nintendo games. And I'm okay with that. (And if third parties drop the ball once again, I've got a perfectly good gaming PC at the ready.)

 

[KageMaru]

I reeeeaally wonder why they couldn't have just gone with a midrange GPU like the Radeon HD 5670 or even just the 5570. At least thay have DX11 functionality.
And hey, at least Broadway still had out of order processing - I just hope they clocked this CPU high enough and put lots of cache.

I wouldn't be so sure on DX11 functionality.

Forget that, i am getting my own HDD a 500GB external hdd is like $60. I am not prepared to pay for a proprietry hdd up the nose again. plus i have a few eHDD lying around I am sure I can use on of them.



I would guess that on a 3:1 clock ratio to broadway, the Espresso cores would be around 2.187GHz each which might be the maximum clock ceiling the chip is able to reach and probably consuming around 8 Watts. It is possible however that it is only 2:1 ratio at 1.458Ghz which three of these cores will perform about 10% faster than the Xenon if it ran 5 instructions per cycle. We still don't know if there is indeed one main core with more cache.

xenon 2 instructions @ 3.2Ghz x3 cores = 19200 in order instructions

Espresso 5 instructions (similar to power PC G5) @ 1.458GHz x3 cores = 21870 out of order instructions

even at 1.458Ghz the 3 Espressso cores will beat the Xenon and running at only 4 watts.

The Xenon used a lot of one core for sound and the Wii U has a DSP at 120Mhz which will also help. Isn't there also an arm co cpu? Even at this speed it will perform about 1.5x Xenon.

If however it is clocked at a 3:1 ratio on a 729Mhz bus

Espresso 5 instructions (similar to power PC G5) @ 2.187GHz x3 cores = 32805 out of order instructions

+DSP + the arm co cpu will probably perform about 2.5x the Xenon CPU

For reference three of these cores are faster then Xenon.

The GPU is what we would really like to know as well.

If the GPU has 640 alu's and is clocked at 607.5MHz then we are probably looking at over 768GFLOPS in the same vain as a HD7750 which is 819GFLOPS, but performs faster than a 4870 at 1.2TFLOPS. More realistically, the gpu can be clocked at around 486Mhz which would be around 622.1GFLOPS but still perform faster then the 1000GFLOP HD 4850 @500MHz @110w TDP. For reference, the Radeon E6760 is 576GFLOPS @35w TDP also outperforms the HD4850 which is around 5x faster than the Xenos in real world scenarios.


The WiiU also has 32MB Edram which will help with AA especially on 720p with 4xAA looking good. 1080 will also be possible but probably no AA.

The ram being 1024MB as of now alloted for games is over 2x that of the xbox 360 which also used its ram for the OS. The Wii U OS might have 512MB or more currently dedicated to it. This will mean multitasking while playing games is definitely possible.


So we are still basically unknown on some numbers so we don't know but is it possible we are looking at maybe two scenarios with the first one being likely but the second one still possible?

Espresso Tri core clocked at 1.458Ghz or 2.187Ghz (i hope it is the latter)
"Enhanced Broadway" similar to PowerPC 476FP architecture.
3MB L2 Cache
core 0: 512 KB
core 1: 2048 KB
core 2: 512 KB
OoOE
5 instructions per cycle (unknown)
45nm @ 4-8w TDP?


GPU
32MB Edram 4x AA 720p or 1080p no AA
1024 MB Video DDR3 (2GB total) or GDDR5 (1.5GB total)
486Mhz or 607.5MHz (HD4850 performance or HD4870 performance)
640 ALU
Open GL 4.3

The low end will outperform the XBOX 360 probably 2.5x and the high number will be 4.5x
if it was low end I would see $249 with no pack in game but on High End I would see $299 without including the pack in game.

Great post. There are other factors, like number of ROPs, that noticeably impact where it stands in performance.

How do you spin "it uses power7" ?

If there are any similarities with the design that is shared between the Wii-U CPU and Power 7 (use of eDRAM for example), they can spin it as saying there's Power7 tech in the Wii-U.

 

[ASIS]

A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions based off lighting caught in a bottle. It'd be nice if you remember that the Wii was a big anomaly compared to most of the successes that came before it in this industry.

I don't get how an internal hard drive could possibly be more confusing than having to buy an external one. An internal drive eliminates all the second guessing regarding speed, quality and price whereas the an external one makes game patching uncomfortable, takes up space in your entertainment center and brings a whole slew of choices that might confuse your average person. The easiest thing in the world is being notified about patches that automatically apply themselves in Xbox live in the models with lots of HD space.

Giving people options is a bad thing. We've heard it a million times with PC gaming and multiple console SKUs. How does that change for the Wii U?

It all depends on the support now really. Fact is, this time all three console will play on the same resolution (1080p, though I am completely aware that most Wii U games wont reach that) and more or less similar architecture right?

So I don't view the specs as a huge problem. It just sucks knowing that they could have made this console much better than what we are getting, that's what hurts enthusiasts the most IMO.

 

[Rehynn]

I'm just joining in, anybody care to summarize the discussion/news so far?

Or is it...

- Nintendo is doooomed.
- No.

?

 

[Medalion]

Disappointing, even with the rumors. Nintendo's #1 priority is to never sell at a loss on hardware, but man. Guess that controller really is sucking up most of the cost. I'm sure it'll sell well, but $299 seems a lot more pricey.

Well if we're believing rumors, rumors of a $249 sku exist

But i Don't see how this wasn't stuff we didn't already know for you to feel that dissapointed

 

[BrokenEchelon]

My favorite part about the specs of this system is that Nintendo fanboys can't determine what they're rooting for.

One week they say that graphics don't matter, and it's all about the innovative gameplay. The next day they're laughing at people impressed by Star Wars 1313, Watch_Dogs, et al.

As far as I'm concerned there have been far more rumors suggesting that the Wii U will be on par with a supercharged 360 rather than a real generational leap, much like the Wii before it.

While I don't doubt that Nintendo will make bank on Mario and Zelda as they always do, it leaves me baffled at what they hell they were thinking when it comes to third party support.

This shit will get dropped quicker than the Wii did once the 720 and PS4 are running Madden on Frostbite 2 and Call of Duty with visuals on par with high-end BF3 rigs. And that will just be the beginning.

Personally I don't care about the thing's graphical output because the Upad will at least be able to provide me with a real gaming experience (unlike the Wiimote) so I'll be able to enjoy their first party titles this time around. I'm curious to see how it affects them overall. The Wii had a few years of phenomenal sales while the fad was still fresh, but it's obvious how quickly it fell flat once everyone got their 30 minute fill of Wii Sports.

Now that the controller is much more traditional in presentation and design I don't think the gimmick factor will translate into sales nearly as well this time around. Couple that with potential poor third party support and you could have a recipe for disaster.

All of this is still speculation of course, but it makes you wonder why Nintendo has refused to release full details of the console's power up to this point.

 

[mrklaw]

You should've been PR for MS and Sony all these years with this logic of lumping in both of the HD consoles, because I'm sure it mattered to either of those companies how much the other one was selling. That way they could've beaten the Wii for the entire generation rather than the last 20 minutes.

gofreak is one of the most balanced posters here, so how about you read what he posted without assuming it has spin on it?

he didn't say they beat the Wii, just that more people bought a HD console than bought a wii. it was a counter-point to all the 'lower power wins' posts and brought some useful context imo.

 

[Ridley327]

My favorite part about the specs of this system is that Nintendo fanboys can't determine what they're rooting for.

One week they say that graphics don't matter, and it's all about the innovative gameplay. The next day they're laughing at people impressed by Star Wars 1313, Watch_Dogs, et al.

As far as I'm concerned there have been far more rumors suggesting that the Wii U will be on par with a supercharged 360 rather than a real generational leap, much like the Wii before it.

While I don't doubt that Nintendo will make bank on Mario and Zelda as they always do, it leaves me baffled at what they hell they were thinking when it comes to third party support.

This shit will get dropped quicker than the Wii did once the 720 and PS4 are running Madden on Frostbite 2 and Call of Duty with visuals on par with high-end BF3 rigs. And that will just be the beginning.

Personally I don't care about the thing's graphical output because the Upad will at least be able to provide me with a real gaming experience (unlike the Wiimote) so I'll be able to enjoy their first party titles this time around. I'm curious to see how it affects them overall. The Wii had a few years of phenomenal sales while the fad was still fresh, but it's obvious how quickly it fell flat once everyone got their 30 minute fill of Wii Sports.

Now that the controller is much more traditional in presentation and design I don't think the gimmick factor will translate into sales nearly as well this time around. Couple that with potential poor third party support and you could have a recipe for disaster.

All of this is still speculation of course, but it makes you wonder why Nintendo has refused to release full details of the console's power up to this point.

Like I mentioned before, they haven't revealed the full specs of any of their systems since the GCN, so it's not like it's a Wii U-exclusive "issue."

 

[Thoraxes]

All of this is still speculation of course, but it makes you wonder why Nintendo has refused to release full details of the console's power up to this point.

Because they haven't for nearly the past decade now?

 

[Triple U]

How about the iPhone/iOS? Facebook/Browser platform? DS? How many enormously successful "anomalies" need to exist before a pattern is detected?

Neither of those are part of the same COD/Madden playing sector of gamers who bought more HD consoles than Wiis. The ones Sony and MS are targeting. Any argument about IOS or whatever that fails to recognize how different the markets are, fails before it begins.

 

[Stephen Colbert]

So now it's officially confirmed.

Wii U's biggest bottleneck is that it uses the same CPU as the originally Wii, but overclocked.... and three of them.

The Wii was two gamecubes pasted together with motion controls. And the Wii U it appears is three Wiis pasted together with tablet controls.

Sigh.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

Because they haven't for nearly the past decade now?

Like I mentioned before, they haven't revealed the full specs of any of their systems since the GCN, so it's not like it's a Wii U-exclusive "issue."

Those are both cute ways of saying "Wii"

Which also happened to be grossly underpowered.

 

[ASIS]

My favorite part about the specs of this system is that Nintendo fanboys can't determine what they're rooting for.

One week they say that graphics don't matter, and it's all about the innovative gameplay. The next day they're laughing at people impressed by Star Wars 1313, Watch_Dogs, et al.

As far as I'm concerned there have been far more rumors suggesting that the Wii U will be on par with a supercharged 360 rather than a real generational leap, much like the Wii before it.

While I don't doubt that Nintendo will make bank on Mario and Zelda as they always do, it leaves me baffled at what they hell they were thinking when it comes to third party support.

This shit will get dropped quicker than the Wii did once the 720 and PS4 are running Madden on Frostbite 2 and Call of Duty with visuals on par with high-end BF3 rigs. And that will just be the beginning.

Personally I don't care about the thing's graphical output because the Upad will at least be able to provide me with a real gaming experience (unlike the Wiimote) so I'll be able to enjoy their first party titles this time around. I'm curious to see how it affects them overall. The Wii had a few years of phenomenal sales while the fad was still fresh, but it's obvious how quickly it fell flat once everyone got their 30 minute fill of Wii Sports.

Now that the controller is much more traditional in presentation and design I don't think the gimmick factor will translate into sales nearly as well this time around. Couple that with potential poor third party support and you could have a recipe for disaster.

All of this is still speculation of course, but it makes you wonder why Nintendo has refused to release full details of the console's power up to this point.

The only year where Wii wasn't the best selling console was 2011. And that's because of a lack of support more than anything. But you are right on everything else (except I still love the Wiimote ).

 

[Rolf NB]

How do you spin "it uses power7" ?

The same way you spin "elephants are enduring long-distance flyers".

 

[IntelliHeath]

My favorite part about the specs of this system is that Nintendo fanboys can't determine what they're rooting for.

One week they say that graphics don't matter, and it's all about the innovative gameplay. The next day they're laughing at people impressed by Star Wars 1313, Watch_Dogs, et al.

As far as I'm concerned there have been far more rumors suggesting that the Wii U will be on par with a supercharged 360 rather than a real generational leap, much like the Wii before it.

While I don't doubt that Nintendo will make bank on Mario and Zelda as they always do, it leaves me baffled at what they hell they were thinking when it comes to third party support.

This shit will get dropped quicker than the Wii did once the 720 and PS4 are running Madden on Frostbite 2 and Call of Duty with visuals on par with high-end BF3 rigs. And that will just be the beginning.

Personally I don't care about the thing's graphical output because the Upad will at least be able to provide me with a real gaming experience (unlike the Wiimote) so I'll be able to enjoy their first party titles this time around. I'm curious to see how it affects them overall. The Wii had a few years of phenomenal sales while the fad was still fresh, but it's obvious how quickly it fell flat once everyone got their 30 minute fill of Wii Sports.

Now that the controller is much more traditional in presentation and design I don't think the gimmick factor will translate into sales nearly as well this time around. Couple that with potential poor third party support and you could have a recipe for disaster.

All of this is still speculation of course, but it makes you wonder why Nintendo has refused to release full details of the console's power up to this point.

Exactly. I will ended up buying Wii U for several games such as Mario Kart U, Super Smash Bros U, Pikmin 3, etc. I really hope that I would use Wii U much as I used to do with GameCube and Wii.

 

[Hero]

OK, you're not looking at context. At this stage my points couldn't clearer so I won't repeat them. Sorry if you don't get them

The only one putting "context" in this discussion is you,lumping in two consoles that share nothing other than the fact that they were high definition capable to compare against the top competitor. That's like saying "Well yeah McDonald's is number 1 but if you take Subway and Quizno's they clearly satisfied more people's appetite."

You realize that the entire growth of the industry for the first 4 years this generation was due solely because of the sales of the Wii, right?

 

[Medalion]

So now it's officially confirmed.

Wii U's biggest bottleneck is that it uses the same CPU as the originally Wii, but overclocked.... and three of them.

The Wii was two gamecubes pasted together with motion controls. And the Wii U it appears is three Wiis pasted together with tablet controls.

Sigh.

Rumors=official?

Sigh indeed, but not for the specs, but the leaps of conclusions

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

So, if Wii is Naruto at Season 1, would Wii U be like Shippuden Naruto with wind element jutsu or Sage mode Naruto? I don't watch DBZ.

WiiU would bijuu jinjurriki naruto. Ps4 and 720 are madara and tobi combined.

 

[ZoddGutts]

So now it's officially confirmed.

Wii U's biggest bottleneck is that it uses the same CPU as the originally Wii, but overclocked.... and three of them.

The Wii was two gamecubes pasted together with motion controls. And the Wii U it appears is three Wiis pasted together with tablet controls.

Sigh.

It would explain why some devs have said there disappointed with the CPU.

 

[GhostTrick]

So now it's officially confirmed.

Wii U's biggest bottleneck is that it uses the same CPU as the originally Wii, but overclocked.... and three of them.

The Wii was two gamecubes pasted together with motion controls. And the Wii U it appears is three Wiis pasted together with tablet controls.

Sigh.

How can you say it use the same CPU ?
Because of the word broadway ? May I politely recall you that theres also the word enhanced ?
Now, put togethers, and it litteraly change the sense of the term.

 

[ColdBlooder]

So now it's officially confirmed.

Wii U's biggest bottleneck is that it uses the same CPU as the originally Wii, but overclocked.... and three of them.

The Wii was two gamecubes pasted together with motion controls. And the Wii U it appears is three Wiis pasted together with tablet controls.

Sigh.

No its not

Its "ENHANCED" broadway cores, How miuch enhanced we don´t know wich means we have no clue how fast it is.

Only thing we know that was changed was more cache (3MB total) and in order instead of out of order

What else has been changed/modified is unknown to us

 

[BrokenEchelon]

You realize that the entire growth of the industry for the first 4 years this generation was due solely because of the sales of the Wii, right?

To say nothing of the fact that most Wii sales didn't translate into higher adoption of software found on the other consoles + PC.

It may have increased the overall console userbase, but it was hardly responsible for software sales outside of Nintendo's IPs.

That's some fine fucking shit you're smoking.

 

[superchunk]

I've been thinking about it and discussing it with others all morning and it simply makes no sense and has to be false.

The first confirmations for Wii U were that its CPU was a Power7 based CPU.

The "Broadway" is a PowerPC based CPU.

Two completely different architectures and designs. There is no way IBM and Nintendo would have specifically stated for over a year now that its Power7 if in fact they were going with a multi-core "Broadway" chip that is simply "enhanced".

We'll be seeing a lower-end Power7 tri-core ~3GHz CPU.
We'll be seeing 1.5GB or 2GB of total RAM with 512MB reserved for OS.
We'll be seeing a HD Radeon based GPU with feature set that is similar to OpenGL4.x or DirectX11.

It will be better than current gen and within the realm of the rest of next gen to not really matter; think PS2 to Xbox/GC.

 

[def sim]

what the hell is with this naruto shit guys god damn it

Someone translate this into DBZ levels of power plz

the ps4 and xbox 8 are nappa and vegeta (not in any order)

wii u is raditz and he's super fly

 

[metalslimer]

Disappointing, even with the rumors. Nintendo's #1 priority is to never sell at a loss on hardware, but man. Guess that controller really is sucking up most of the cost. I'm sure it'll sell well, but $299 seems a lot more pricey.

Its apparently 249 which imo is completely reasonable for this considering the controller. Like i said sony ms will have their conses at 399 and be much more powerful
Nintendo has never stated that it was power 7 basee ane neither did ibm.This current cpu seems to fit with the issues developers have been claiming with a decent gpu but worse cpu.

 

[Triple U]

The only one putting "context" in this discussion is you,lumping in two consoles that share nothing other than the fact that they were high definition capable to compare against the top competitor. That's like saying "Well yeah McDonald's is number 1 but if you take Subway and Quizno's they clearly satisfied more people's appetite."

You realize that the entire growth of the industry for the first 4 years this generation was due solely because of the sales of the Wii, right?

Uh what?

 

[KageMaru]

The only one putting "context" in this discussion is you,lumping in two consoles that share nothing other than the fact that they were high definition capable to compare against the top competitor. That's like saying "Well yeah McDonald's is number 1 but if you take Subway and Quizno's they clearly satisfied more people's appetite."

You realize that the entire growth of the industry for the first 4 years this generation was due solely because of the sales of the Wii, right?

He's not the only one that is lumping the two consoles together. Publishers have lumped the two together for years, which explains why they have received the bulk of 3rd party support. Regardless if you see it, the publishers see the two systems as one higher end SKU (3 platforms if you count PC) and the Wii alone in a different leveled SKU. The same is very likely to happen with the Wii-U which is why these spec discussions have merit.

Also, do you really believe the "entire" growth was due to the Wii? It sold great, amazing even, but it was all in a bubble that could not be sustained for an entire generation, resulting in larger than normal drops the following years. Not only that but no matter how well any system sells, it does not account for the "entire" growth of any generation.

 

[CaptNfantasy]

Heres some specs you guys will enjoy:

If the Wii U was identical power-wise to the original Wii, but with an HDMI port, had the same online as the original Wii, and still used motion plus (no gamepad), id still pay 300 bucks for it no problem. As long as they are going to make more first party Nintendo games and the occasional weird game like Muramasa etc, id pay whatever, even with little to no increase in power. Even with no upgrade to online. Just HDMI and the promise of more games is good enough for me.

So for me, anything above a standard Wii with an HDMI tacked on is beyond good enough.

This is the power of first party Nintendo games.

 

[MrCunningham]

I'm just joining in, anybody care to summarize the discussion/news so far?

Or is it...

- Nintendo is doooomed.
- No.

?

To summarize:

-1GB of RAM?!
- No it's 1.5
- Hopefully its not 1GB
- Wii-U CPU is really just 3 Wii CPU's duct tapped together!!
- Bu..but Power7?
- 8GB of internal storage?!!
- Wii-U is the Krillin on this generation
- No DirectX 11.1 GPU!?
- My Galaxy Phone has better specs!
- best hardware doesn't always win

I'm just paraphrasing the discussions here, but basically, it's your typical Wii-U thread.