Rumor: Wii U final specs

If you dont have HDMI audio, game over WiFi or have multitudes of 32Gb Memory sticks or TB HDDs lying around you are living the Luddite Goldilocks lifestyle so time to shape up because now you are playing with power for real this time.

Yeah, no. Sorry. That's a straw man argument.
 
That's what I was thinking you were talking about. But those are a part of why I disagreed in the first place as far as judging Wii U based on PS360 ports.

In the past, ports of previous gen games to next-gen systems had substantial and readily apparent improvements. Everything from Dreamcast, to PS2/Xbox to 360 and PS3. So far, the Wii U has had downgrades. Not a good sign. This doesn't mean its weaker than the current gen, just that it is not powerful enough to make improvements arbitrary. Remember, these were shown off as opposed to left in the oven until they were superior ports. I would be shocked if we get anything past minimally improved textures, lighting, number of objects and superior LOD.
 
Question for people who know this stuff:

If the Wii U's processor really is just a beefier version of the Wii's, is it going to be relatively easy for the Dolphin people to figure out how to emulate Wii U games? Of course it'll be harder to run, but is it likely that we'll be able to play Wii U games with bonus features one or two years after the console launches?
 
Six with sparkles damn it! Orbis is 26 PS2's and Durango is 11 Xbox's.

Well, the way I look at it, if the Wii was 2 GC's, the Wii was only a moderatly over clocked GC (not even double the clocks) with still a single core.

Taking that logic, a similarily over clocked Wii U cpu (single core) would be 2 Wii's duck taped together, which is 4 GC's.... then x3

So, the Wii U is 12 GC's, or 6 Wii's duck taped together!

Mystery solved...

and some sprinkles...
 
So your issue is that I am voicing my opinion of an upcoming video game system on a video game message board. Is this forum only for playing junior analyst and making broad statements or just trolling people with out of context quotes for opinions that differ from your own?. When a product doesnt meet my needs I dont buy it until there is sufficient reason to. A bunch of quality games for the platform or a price reduction would probably sway me to ignore all that shit and pick one up.

If you express an unreasonable opinion (large hardware manufacturer should cater to tiny market) and then say you're willing to overlook your initial complaint in exchange for other incentives from the manufacturer, then I won't hesitate to call you out on it.

Your position is absurd. And it's not exactly a position to be all up in arms about anyway.
 
Well, the way I look at it, if the Wii was 2 GC's, the Wii was only a moderatly over clocked GC (not even double the clocks) with still a single core.

Taking that logic, a similarily over clocked Wii U cpu (single core) would be 2 Wii's duck taped together, which is 4 GC's.... then x3

So, the Wii U is 12 GC's, or 6 Wii's duck taped together!

Mystery solved...

and some sprinkles...

The secret is in the sprinkles.
 
Wouldn't it have cheaper for Nintendo to make a new chip Instead of upgrading broadway? Could it be that Nintendo felt it was important for their internal teams to be familiar with the CPU?

The whole thing is just odd if true.
 
Wouldn't it have cheaper for Nintendo to make a new chip Instead of upgrading broadway? Could it be that Nintendo felt it was important for their internal teams to be familiar with the CPU?

The whole thing is just odd if true.

Hard to say without knowing what exactly it means by an "enhanced" Broadway. Perhaps it something to do with backwards compatibility?
 
In the past, ports of previous gen games to next-gen systems had substantial and readily apparent improvements. Everything from Dreamcast, to PS2/Xbox to 360 and PS3. So far, the Wii U has had downgrades. Not a good sign. This doesn't mean its weaker than the current gen, just that it is not powerful enough to make improvements arbitrary. Remember, these were shown off as opposed to left in the oven until they were superior ports. I would be shocked if we get anything past minimally improved textures, lighting, number of objects and superior LOD.

But we've been talking about the reason(s) for those downgrades since Arkam's posts back in January. And even he's showing excitement since his complaints back then.

I just can't let issues with straight ports from this gen affect my view on this, nor should you. :)

Now when we see a port of Watch Dogs looking like RE4 on PS2, then I'll start (emphasis on start) to agree with you. :P
 
But we've been talking about the reason(s) for those downgrades since Arkam's posts back in January. And even he's showing excitement since his complaints back then.

I just can't let issues with straight ports from this gen affect my view on this, nor should you. :)

Now when we see a port of Watch Dogs looking like RE4 on PS2, then I'll start (emphasis on start) to agree with you. :P

But see the curious thing is, why even show them off? Why ever show any footage that didn't at least match the previous gen? Puzzling to say the least. And Watch Dogs looking like RE 4 on PS2 would be pretty good, IIRC the PS2 game stood up quite well to the Gamecube version.
 
Of course it doesn't support toslink, that shit's old!

Of course it doesn't support 7.1, that shit's...


....huh. The audio setup on this system confuses me. It supports less formats than the PS3 and yet is apparently too cool for toslink.
 
Of course it doesn't support toslink, that shit's old!

Of course it doesn't support 7.1, that shit's...


....huh. The audio setup on this system confuses me. It supports less formats than the PS3 and yet is apparently too cool for toslink.
I've already made this analogy but it's really as if they went from supporting only SD resolutions with Wii to supporting SD resolutions and only 1080p with WiiU, ignoring every display in-between.
 
Interesting post and as big of a Nintendo fan that I am this makes me sad. I think you're right in that it may well be Sony's last console, which would be a shame.

I think the console industry will be very different in 6 years time and if Nintendo wants to play the last man standing game, their current approach is surely the way to do that.

Getting caught up in a technology race with the other two and PC's is a battle they cannot win, but doing something you can't do on other machines, that could be what saves Nintendo in the end.

Why do Nintendo need saving? They made plenty of money when the wii was doing well.

Why can't Nintendo win by competing on tech? Parity with the other platforms is probably easier next gen than ever before, with less custom silicon being used. All third party multiplatform games combined with nintendos first parties and I'd be able to manage with just a Nintendo console next gen. While they continue this route of low power, I (and I assume many others) will plan for a Nintendo machine + another console/PC. That weakens the case for getting third party games if publishers assume most homes have another console.

They just choose not to go high spec. That worked with wii as it had an amazon hook. With wiiU they have a tablet thing with lots of buttons. I think they're back in the same demographic as MS and Sony - they might pull some of their enlarged wii audience along but if they have to learn complex inputs etc and the gamepad doesn't demonstrate it's uniqueness, then people might switch to PS4/720
 
But see the curious thing is, why even show them off? Why ever show any footage that didn't at least match the previous gen?

Because that's all they have to show? Nintendo's own stuff doesn't (or barely) look as good as current gen.

Because they need to be seen to have some third party support and that's what they had?
 
If the specs are true, I will definitely not buy the Wii U.

Yeah I wonder if you'll still say that when they release the next Zelda that looks twice as good graphically as that demo from E3.....

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I still remember the first time watching that....

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:P

In my opinion, specs (that are incomplete and rumored) can't be the only reason to not buy a console.
 
In my opinion, specs (that are incomplete and rumored) can't be the only reason to not buy a console.

True. If you like the games, buy it. I bought the DS and the PSP as well, the graphical difference was huge, but i liked each console for the experience they provided me.

Can't wait to see some Nintendo developed games which utilize the rumored new in house engine for the WiiU, i bet they will look amazing. I think Nintendo Land looks very good with great lighting, even though the art style is quite simple.
 
Yeah I wonder if you'll still say that when they release the next Zelda that looks twice as good graphically as that demo from E3.....

In my opinion, specs (that are incomplete and rumored) can't be the only reason to not buy a console.

If someone isn't interested in a Nintendo console, then Nintendo games probably do nothing for them(Been this way since GC). In which case, a great looking Zelda game wouldn't change their opinion.
 
What's running the OS? PS3 reserves one SPE, 360 one core (kind of).

If WiiU reserves 512MB for the OS, that's a big OS. Maybe they'll reserve one core for that too?

So WiiU might only have two broadway cores available for games?
 
Anyone else will LOL when the PS4/Xbox720 ends up being barely better than the Wii U? Cause ATM nothing has been revealed about the specs of those 2.
 
Anyone else will LOL when the PS4/Xbox720 ends up being barely better than the Wii U? Cause ATM nothing has been revealed about the specs of those 2.

16 Core AMD Opteron server processor + 8GB DDR3 + 2 x 7900 series GPUs is the level of power that I am expecting.

Basically 2 PCs taped together.
 
Of course it doesn't support toslink, that shit's old!

Of course it doesn't support 7.1, that shit's...


....huh. The audio setup on this system confuses me. It supports less formats than the PS3 and yet is apparently too cool for toslink.

I think supporting normal component audio and hdmi is good enough for the masses. If you are one of those in between you are probably in a very small minority like many gaffers. However for me, I will probably have to get some converter of some sort. Maybe they will develop a component cable with a toslink adapter like on the xbox 360. I would hope a vga adapter is made but thats maybe hoping for too much.
 
Anyone else will LOL when the PS4/Xbox720 ends up being barely better than the Wii U? Cause ATM nothing has been revealed about the specs of those 2.

We know the specs of the 720 devkit, we can downgrade from there and get a rough idea that is still much stronger than the WiiU.
 
I really, really want to know how exactly the CPU is enhanced. The chipset just sounds extremely lopsided to have something like 12x the RAM (or more), and let's call it 10x the GPU (or maybe a lot more)... but then only about 3x the CPU plus some.

I understand why they would want to do it, but damn. There must be something significant to the "enhanced." There must be, right?

What does the CPU do? The GPU presumably does vertex transformation and texturing, so the CPU is just housekeeping. Maybe they figured you don't need a high spec CPU except for edge cases, so they opted to save cost? It'll restrict some developers, and make quick ports a little more difficult (or conservative), but I still expect Nintendo games to look great
 
I think this info is not new at all, is the same info all over again but with different words. So I don't see this as a suprise...


Many of us tried to say this last night but it fell on deaf ears. So today we have just given up and agreed to the jump to conclusion consensus that wii u is weaker than the samsung galaxy s iii.
 
What's running the OS? PS3 reserves one SPE, 360 one core (kind of).

If WiiU reserves 512MB for the OS, that's a big OS. Maybe they'll reserve one core for that too?

So WiiU might only have two broadway cores available for games?

I may not be reading this right, but doesn't this...

PowerPC architecture.
Three cores (fully coherent).
3MB aggregate L2 Cache size.
core 0: 512 KB
core 1: 2048 KB
core 2: 512 KB
Write gatherer per core.
Locked (L1d) cache DMA per core.

...imply that the three cores aren't all the same?

Is that relevant?
 
What does the CPU do? The GPU presumably does vertex transformation and texturing, so the CPU is just housekeeping. Maybe they figured you don't need a high spec CPU except for edge cases, so they opted to save cost? It'll restrict some developers, and make quick ports a little more difficult (or conservative), but I still expect Nintendo games to look great

But why would Nintendo do this?

They haven't stopped talking about extra support from 3rd parties and how lack of support hurt the Wii.

Why then would they design something that makes support harder for the first year or two?
 
It will get cheaper in just a few years time

Ninendo banked on this with NFC, it'll get 4 times cheaper in like 2 years, and I expect similarly for USB3.0

WiiU relies on external-storage, USB2.0 is a shot in the legs and arms.

There's always hardware revisions.
 
It will get cheaper in just a few years time

Ninendo banked on this with NFC, it'll get 4 times cheaper in like 2 years, and I expect similarly for USB3.0

WiiU relies on external-storage, USB2.0 is a shot in the legs and arms.

But USB 2 is still quicker than the Blu-Ray esk discs they are going to be using isnt it?
 
But USB 2 is still quicker than the Blu-Ray esk discs they are going to be using isnt it?

USB2 will be enough. USB3 is not matured yet - I've yet to actually have a USB3 device work on any USB3-compatible motherboard I've had access to (most disappointingly, the BlackMagic Shuttle). There's no point when USB2 is fast enough for reading data for use in a game.

I'll be surprised if the next Xbox even has USB3. It'll probably have a dedicated port for the Kinect2 for more bandwidth and to power it.
 
This thread is almost 30 pages, so forgive me for asking, but regarding the CPU, they're just talking about the architecture being the same as broadway, but not the clockspeeds or anything else, right?
 
This thread is almost 30 pages, so forgive me for asking, but regarding the CPU, they're just talking about the architecture being the same as broadway, but not the clockspeeds or anything else, right?

Yes, and even then it contradicts IBM's multiple statements that POWER7 will be used.
 
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