Wii U less powerful than current gen, say devs
Anonymous developers have commented that the Wii U isn't on the same hardware performance level as the current generation PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The Wii U's performance capabilities have been a lingering question since Nintendo debuted the system at last year's E3. It seemed roughly on-par with the current generation of consoles, but fans wondered if it might be a half-step forward from those systems. According to some developers, it's more like a half-step back.
"It's not up to the same level as the PS3 or the 360," an anonymous developer told GamesIndustry.biz. "The graphics are just not as powerful."
Another developer, at a different studio, agreed with the assessment, citing fewer shaders. "Some things are better, mostly as a result of it being a more modern design. But overall the Wii U just can't quite keep up." These comments run counter to recent statements from Vigil Games, which claimed the console is "on par" with the current generation.
One of the two sources also claimed that the controller set-up hasn't changed: only one Wii U touch pad controller, with other players using Wii remotes.
If the statements on hardware power are true, it wouldn't be too surprising from Nintendo. The company's Wii console saw great success without pushing the tech, and the lower cost of manufacturing gave Nintendo a nice healthy profit margin. Then again, if Microsoft and Sony roll out their next consoles in the near future, the Wii U could look obsolete much faster than Nintendo wants.
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Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, Wii U less powerful than current gen, say devs.
Anonymous developers have commented that the Wii U isn't on the same hardware performance level as the current generation PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.-
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Good place for a weekly rumors column. Hmmmm ...
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WHICH SHACK EDITOR WAS SEEN CANOODLING WITH A CERTAIN INTERNET PLAYBOY'S "GEARBOX"??? WE HEAR THEY WERE LOOKING FOR QUITE A BIT OF TELEVISION EXPERIENCE!!! HRMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?
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MORE AFTER THE JUMP!
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Wait, you got jumped? ;)
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Nintendo would be down right stupid to make it less powerful compared to the 360 & PS3... I'm not going to believe some anonymous source.
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obvisously man this is BS ... either april fool or fake.
Everyone in the tech community is joking like:
"""One day is on-par, next week it's very powerful, the week after that it's less than current gen, rinse repeat until e3.""""
We all know it's 4x times more powerful than X360 ... but there are so many non-tech people that you can't explain anything to them ... a few neogaf asshats such as the xbox 13year old kids are in there every day and still can't get the idea. -
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Obviously nobody believes it (active tech-communty)
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If they're anonymous, how do we know they're devs?
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My anonymous source's dad could beat up your anonymous source's dad.
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<whispers>industry sources!!!</whisper>
I'm not really that happy with Shack for posting these random rumors people seem to pull out of their behinds recently. One dev says this, the other says that and on and on it goes.
All this does is provide the uninformed with ammo for the unnecessary Console Wars HD: Reloaded Edition.-
I've been here a long time. Herpers gonna Derp no matter who posts what and whether its rumor or not. There are actually people who give one fuck what device you play a game on. I know right? In this day and age these cunty little CHUDS still mouth breath amongst us. So I say rumor it up, at least those are conversation pieces.
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I don't like 'em myself either, but it's not my call. People are interested, and we try not to post the absurd ones.
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WHY IS THE WHOLE WEB SPREADING THIS FAKE APRIL FOOL BS
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It's preying off of everyone's desire for the next console generation to be announced. It takes years of R&D to build a new console (though arguably slightly less time now than in the 90's days of fully custom CPUs and graphics chipsets). Electronics product development usually involves the product being under NDA until the unveil, but plenty of people already know that MS and Sony are deep into building the next PlayStation and XBox prototype. People are also getting sick of the limitations of architectures that were taped out in 2005.
Nintendo already announced the Wii U last year, but it can't come soon enough because the Wii is so old hat now.-
Im inside the whole community speculation rumor thing ... i know everything what's going on for 2 years and this "news" is total BS
The whole media took this just because it's dramatic for their pageviews... i mean ... but all the good and actually somewhat valid info that came out in these 3 months they didn't report on. -
Even though the Wii is "old hat" as you say, Xenblade is one the best games I've ever played. The graphics are also really good considering the Wii's lack visual prowess.
Actually, I'm not sure why I chose your post to reply to. I just had to let everyone know how awesome Xenoblade is.
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This one isn't belivable at all - april fools or not.
Check neogaf.com forums , gonintendo.com , nintendoenthusiast.com , thewiiu.com forums ... everyone think this is a load of BS ... all info is in the CONTRARY.-
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It'll might have less raw power than the next gen consoles - not this gen ... silly
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Man - you have no idea what i know.
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I would love to see some one do that just because, grab three GC's and use their parts to make some horrendous franken box.
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your sources must be sleeping
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Funny thing is.... just like the wii.... when it is finally released... it will STILL be past gen....
In the next 4-5 years Nintendo will be the next Sega... a great company that failed to move forward correctly and now makes games for other systems-
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Yup... even if the WiiU fails, Nintendo has a pretty good hold on the mobile market.
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Yeah, but that's faltering. If they don't do well this coming gen then the one after it might be make it or break it.
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LOL, I'm just saying they need to step up their game on the hardware side if they want to stay competitive enough to make developing new systems viable.
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I don't know. The Wii blew out Microsoft's offering by about 50%, and unlike MS Nintendo didn't have to sell a lot of software to make up the loss of each console. IIRC, the Wii was always profitable.
Who knows how that translates into the next generation. Nintendo doesn't exactly target the hardcore gamer.-
They target the hardcore gamer ... you must be sleeping ...
People ... you have no idea what is going on ... you saw a feew of this BS articles and already give opinions on the system and conclusions.
The media doesn't make the news ... they don't report everything ... stop sitting on your ass looking at gametrailers and shit like that ... get your own research done.-
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He actually has a point here - their entire E3 showing last year hyped up solid, immersive single player experiences and they announced fairly broad support from third party publishers with a lot of what would normally be called hardcore games.
They've also done a good job on this front with the 3DS - while it had a slow start, it's now got a solid library with a surprisingly good selection of hardcore games for something that's only a year old.
Now of course that doesn't mean the third party support will stay if next gen PS and Xbox just completely outclass the Wii U and they can't share a common engine, but that seems fairly unlikely to me.-
I don't put a huge amount of stock in the E3 presentation, because that could just be targeting a presentation to the event's audience. The casual gamers aren't going to be looking at what's shown at E3, so it doesn't make sense to prep a brief targeting them.
In fact, you don't really do much to target them prior to the system's release. Targeting them is more about marketing and whatnot as opposed to prerelease hype.
The hardcore crowd cares about horsepower and shit. If Nintendo was specifically targeting them, then I think they would be trying to have a system that competes -- performance-wise -- with Sony & Microsoft's next offering. I don't see them doing this while keeping the lower price-point.-
I think it'll come out around $300, and drop once their rivals come around the next year.
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That's a pretty indication you have little idea how things work ... read all of my comments here, im not going to repeat stuff for every single dudebro that believes this BS article made by gamesindustry april fool joke.
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Im not angry at the news articles - im angry because so many people believe this nonsense because there was confirmations of trustable sources just ON THE CONTRARY ... wiiu is way more powerful.
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This is what I'm hoping for, we shall see. Of course, with all the stuff flying around about the big potential changes in the PS and Xbox hardware we may not see as many cross-console games period this time around simply due to dev costs.
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Wow, that thread just keeps going, lol.
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not with that againg - you guys seem to NEVER forgive me for that
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im serious here now - it's not about hyping nintendo ... you'll all see on e3 ... however nintendo surely won't release the whole spec sheet at e3 so we might not know until later or when the console gets manually striped and opened to get the info forcefully.
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Well in the end im just saying what's out there - check it out your self.
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MS has utilized its platform to gain profits from subscription services.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36011/Microsofts_Xbox_360_Division_Sees_132_Billion_Profit_For_Fiscal_Year_2011.php
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2012/jan12/01-19fy12Q2earnings.mspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/26/nintendo-profits-fall
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I actually think its the software side that nintendo needs to improve on. Hardware is hardware, casuals do not really care about specs they just wanna play fun games. The Wii sold really well, but how many people played it for long periods of time? there was no 3rd party support so you were mostly stuck with nintendo games.
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The 3rd party support issue was due to hardware discrepancy from the Wii to the other consoles, all the games that they released that had any kind of hard core appeal worked out really well too.
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It's all about the platform. Nintendo has had a slow burn on their platform over the years that didn't exist when the wii came out. Do you really think nintendo will be competiting with apple and all the mobile developers on their platform in mobile games in 2-3 years? Do you really think the wii U is going to have mass hardcore gamer appeal to maintain a stable platform in the 10+ years of console lifetimes we have these days?
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Yes, but it also has more pressure than probably ever before from phone vendors. A lot of the casual gaming market has moved on to using phones as the primary mobile gaming device. That's not saying it doesn't have its place, just that the potential market for it (as a percentage) is going to be much more difficult to obtain in the coming years than it was.
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The next generation of kids are already playing with smart phones and pads and don't even know who or what Nintendo is.
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i mean ... what the heck ... you believe this info ... just one BS that media reports on .... not a lot of people know the big picture , check neogaf.com forums , thewiiu.com forums , gonintendo.com, nintendoenthusiast.com ... you'll find links to megathread info consolidation with tons of material to go through it took me 7 full holiday days to fully research what's going on.
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if you meant the funny thing that's it's still last gen when it launches ... well dddd tell me about it
Man ... those days are over.
Nobody is expecting the console or any of the consoles to have current PC hardware ... so the funny thing is who you even came up with that factor as a negative ... nobody in the tech community doesn't expect nor demand that ... silly people ...-
that "doesn't" there was a mistake
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Actually we do, if even a generation behind the current top of the line GPU tech. The Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360 were a generation-ish behind current high end PC's when it came out. Same for the Nvidia chip in the PS3.
Next-gen consoles will be running DirectX11/OpenGL with heavy use of tessellation which means higher specs. That's where PC games are heading soon so consoles need to be on that curve as well.-
Doesn't mean the same amount of fidelity could be applied (raw power)
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Regardless it's still going to be behind the next generation of consoles.
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The Wii U doesn't necessarily be a graphical powerhouse just needed to support HD resolutions. The success of the Wii was never in the graphics but in the motion control gimmick and supporting casual first time gamers.
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This is the expected specs of the WiiU:
(BIG RESEARCH BEHIND - THIS IS ONLY A QUICK SUMMARY)
CPU: Custom IBM 3GHZ 3-core 7 series PPC with "LOTS" of eDRAM (on-die buffer)
GPU: Custom AMD Radeon with Eyefinity, UVD, over 1 TFLOP, with unknown amount of GDDR
RAM: Minimum 1 GB , Max 2 GB , community suggests 1.5 GB will be fine ... but 2 GB is great for future proof. (poor sources on RAM, speculative expectations have been made with careful research)
All the dev info .... too many to list here
Rumor about dev kits getting more powerul each version (good source)
Rumor about nintendo accepting hardware buff due to Epic Games pressure for UE4. (good source)
Rumor that Samartian Demo will run on WiiU at 720p (research by the tech-community came to a finding that about 1.1 TFLOPS are needed to achieve that, ( with help of the Samartian specs requirement image that epic games released them selfs) - which totally fits with the rumored wiiU expected GPU raw power.)
Result: About 4.5x overall more powerful than X360 - this does not apply as a multiplier for every single specification - this is an estimation. Some of the components might be much faster and thus might appear to be 10 times more powerful, but some components such as RAM are not expected to be above x4 multiplier (2GB)
1TF = 1000GF
X360 = 240 GFLOPS
WiiU = ~1200 GFLOPS
X720 = ~1500 GFLOPS
Thankfully the GPU rumor is a very good source = AMD/ATI insider himself. (rumor origin: japan)-
okay that 10 times was a just filler word ... what i meant to say is that you cannot profile a system accurately with a single number while not knowing COMPLETE details of the system ...
We're currently only addressing GPU power which is measured in FLOPS ... there is NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION about the processor (CPU) to even debate about ANY sort of estimations or expectations. -
THQ: “WiiU is just alot more powerful than current HD consoles it does 1080p very easy.”
Epic: “It will do things current HD consoles simply cant do its going to be a powerful box.”
Crytek: “WiiU devkits are very powerful,the specs are very good”
Vigil Games: “We had the game at the same level as high end pc version in a matter of days and a few lines of code got the game up and running on tablet in 5 mins.”
EA: “Wii U is not a transitional platform, it is a true next generation system.”
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Yeah, it's going to make the Xbox controller look tiny, but that's what you get when you put a massive touch screen on it.
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I find this hard to believe. There are reputable sources that aren't anonymous saying different things. But some anonymous guy says something different and everybody gets all worked up about it.
I think the Wii U's biggest problem is that even if it's more powerful than the 360 and the PS3 - hell even next gen Xbox and PS4, it's going to be hindered by having to render 2 screens so it will always appear to be weaker than the competition. IMO
Latest rumor was that UE4 was running on Wii U and the rumored specs from last E3 have since all been bumped up even more. In fact if you look at Epic their comments have changed from uncertainty (circa 2011) about the Wii U's power to being shocked if Nintendo doesn't do well at E3 (2012).-
Rendering resolution will be adjustable on the tablet ... as far as we can assume from the implications they made - also if only HUD info and menus are shown while you play on the main screen the framerate doesn't have to be 60 but more like 24 and also if there is not much activity with rendering on the small screen it's all the power that big screen has to take
Don't worry about this - great software will make it happen. -
I don't think every game will have excessive rendering requirements on the touchpad. I don't think they'll really want players having to look back and forth between that and the TV during game play. I may be wrong, I'm no developer, but I can't see them wanting to take focus off the TV for long.
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Well DUH -- I mean, we shouldn't be surprised by this comment. I was expecting the Wii U to be comparable to maybe the XBOX, but not the PS3 and 360. And whoever thought it was going to be, I LOL at you!
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I think you have little experience with hardware technology to come up with an expectation like that - sorry about that ... :P
If you want me to explain ask - but i won't waste time for people who don't want to learn.-
Who the hell are you?
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I thought the name looked familiar: http://www.shacknews.com/article/68431/xbl-indie-devs-can-control?id=25879070#item_25879070
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Hahaha jeeze he seemed kind of unhinged this confirms it.
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derp!
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You seem to be very misinformed.
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Nintendo's hardware division was always a step leap behind the competition. The other 9th gen consoles are rumored to be able to push out 4K resolutions while the Wii U can barely do 1080p. Not even par to current gen consoles. LOL.
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Yeah LOL how funny YAH .. LOL!
This article info is BS .... LOL
THQ: “WiiU is just alot more powerful than current HD consoles it does 1080p very easy.”
Epic: “It will do things current HD consoles simply cant do its going to be a powerful box.”
Crytek: “WiiU devkits are very powerful,the specs are very good”
Vigil Games: “We had the game at the same level as high end pc version in a matter of days and a few lines of code got the game up and running on tablet in 5 mins.”
EA: “Wii U is not a transitional platform, it is a true next generation system.”
.... LOL !
Ahh ... *sigh* -
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The new GPUs on PC might be capable of 4k resolutions but it isn't going to be enjoyable experience. Right now you need to have SLI/CrossFire rigs for anything over 2K as it is. Couple this with the fact that there are hardly any affordable ultra HD tv/monitors right now. This pretty much means this is marketing fud just like 1080p was for this console generation.
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I think you're simply wrong there. The N64 was superior to the PS1 graphically, the GCN was more powerful than the PS2 but less poweful than the Xbox 1. And look who emerged as "winner" from that technological arms race? The (visually) weaker platform that innovated in other areas (PS1 = CD-Drive, PS2 = DVD-Player).
Whatever platform takes off first and with the biggest numbers gets the third party support and titles are based around the "lowest common denominator" as seen this gen with everything being 360 lead titles.-
I wasn't talking about just raw power alone. For the N64 they stayed with cartridges and lost Square as a major developer because of that. The GCN was more powerful than the Xbox, but it didn't have adopt online play like the Xbox did. For the 3DS, they stayed with a resistive touchscreen instead of a standard capacitive one. They are always behind in tech. Their software division is the only thing keeping them relevant.
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They don't like to change stuff that works, even if it's not optimal, that is for sure.
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GameCube
-485MHz IBM CPU
-162MHz ATI GPU
-40MB overall RAM
Xbox
-733MHz Intel CPU
-230MHz nVidia GPU
-64MB RAM
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=27949275#item_27949275
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I think the GC was the exception to the rule. They've believed in 'interesting and durable and behind the tech curve' for a long time.
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... Not really, the NES, SNES, and N64 were the best at some of what they did at launch, GCN was competitive as well. Only on the Wii did they not follow that trend at all. They did make trade offs though (N64 loading time for price and game size, SNES generally had stuttering where the Genesis equivalent did not, for better audio and brighter visuals, don't remember comparing the NES though).
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Weren't NES-N64 underpowered compared to their competition at the time? I thought this was the CW. It's certainly what I grew up believing.
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N64 had by far the most powerful CPU, although it was hindered by having to go through the co-processor to get to RAM, it didn't have a dedicated audio chip either (not that the cartridge space could hold that much). The only real issue as to why Nintendo lost its dominance to the PS was because they stuck with cartridges, which were retardedly expensive and low on space compared to CDs, not to mention took much longer to produce.
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As far as the SNES, it's biggest advantage was audio and color gamut. The Genesis had a faster CPU IIRC, allowing it to display frames more fluidly, but SNES games were generally prettier, if more likely to stutter.
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Xenblade makes you thankful you have a Wii. Seriously, it's such an amazing game. I put over 100 hours into it without realizing it and aside from exploring the whole map, I missed about 25% - 30% of the content (estimate) still. When you play it, you will be happy you have a Wii.
I'm not a shill, I promise, I just really enjoyed Xenoblade.-
Friday!
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That's some massive praise for a modern title.
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Of course they were because things were far from finalized back then. Last year they basically just wanted to show off the controller and get people excited about its possibilities.
I don't really see how this seems like a Wii 1.5 to you right now. It's a completely different system.
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The Wii U is in trouble, if it can't bring anything new to the table. Yes, it will have quality first-party titles -- Mario, Zelda, Kart, etc -- but the Wiimote gimmick will no longer be unique, and X360 + PS3 will both blow it out of the water where graphics and online services are concerned.
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Sorry to spoil your party: Your assesment is terribly wrong
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They never indicated targeting the casuals or families. It's been clear from e3 2011 ... it's so hard to try to explain all this info to people who haven't been following the communities very closely.
Reggie: "For consumers who want to have the latest gadgets and have a higher disposable income, that’s for the Wii U."
Iwata: "bitter lesson from 3DS" - indicating lower cost (max 300$) and a possible rename before e3 2012. It was said that nintendo might sacrifice selling the consoles with a loss for the launch.
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Is anyone surprised? You don't need power to play Mario 5000 or Legend of Zelda final chapter #5.
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Yes. ...
We're surprised so many dudebro's beliveing this nonesense article.
Get some proper research done ... i posted summary in this article find it ... wiiu is about 4.5 more powerful than x360.
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I don't care how powerful it is or isn't, a console who's primary controller has a giant touch screen on it sounds like my worst nightmare. I can only imagine the majority of games being incredibly awkward and clunky,
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You're terribly wrong - omg.
One person who's late to the party! ... i mean - this thing will absolutely rock, imagine metriod prime scanning with this thing ... all the other possibilites are PILING UP!
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Sounds like Nintendo ignoring the hardcore but the low spec makes sense if they intend to target old people and non-techy/gamey parents...
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Has anyone considered that maybe Nintendo is AIMING to be past generation? So they aren't put on par with modern games made for both the other consoles and the PC. It helps them maintain a aire of difference and nostalgia rather then feeling like it's just another system that's fighting for the flashiest graphics (what little the PS3/X360 can do).
It's so clever it's sitting in front of everyone and they don't even know why they're doing it. Nintendo has more then enough money to build a killer console... people should be asking why they don't want to, rather then pointing out that they haven't. -
So here it is guys ... for those non-believers.
Wii U's GPU
I've been thinking about the GPU a bit recently, and in particular what we can infer from the decision to use an R700 series (Radeon HD4xxx) chipset in the development kits. Firstly, we know that the Wii U's GPU is, to some extent, a custom chip. It may well be based around an existing chip, but at the very least it has 32Mb of eDRAM onboard, and quite possibly some other extra stuff we don't know about. We also know that it began development in 2009. We can expect that in 2009 and early 2010 Nintendo and AMD settled down on the basic specifications for the chip, ie the number of SPUs, TMUs and ROPs, the use of VLIW5, VLIW4 or GCN architectures, and the intended manufacturing node. Now, sometime in late 2010 or early 2011, when Nintendo were putting together the first dev kits to be sent out to third parties, the GPU quite obviously wasn't ready, so they had to go with one of AMD's off the shelf cards as a stand-in, and they chose one from the R700 line (I've heard the HD4830, but I don't know if we've got confirmation of this).
Why did they do this?
We can pretty safely say that whatever GPU ends up in the Wii U, it will be manufactured at a 40nm or smaller process. Why then go with an older 55nm card when there were plenty of 40nm HD5xxx and HD6xxx cards available which could provide pretty much identical performance with a lower power draw? What characteristic does the Wii U's GPU share with the HD4xxx series that it doesn't with any card in the HD5xxx or HD6xxx lines? There's only one aspect that I can think of:
The HD4xxx series were the only 640 SPU cards available at the time the dev-kits were being put together.
This is actually a fairly sensible reason for putting a R700 series card in the dev kit; Nintendo had settled on a core configuration with 640 SPUs (and perhaps 32 TMUs and 16 ROPs), so a HD4830 would naturally have been the best fit for a development kit. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that this is good evidence for the final GPU being a 640 SPU part.
Now comes the real speculation. Early this year, we started to get reports that developers were getting new development kits with a performance boost over previous kits. That's the sort of thing you'd expect to hear if Nintendo replaced the R700 stand-in card with an early production version of the actual Wii U GPU. This lines up exactly with AMD's new 28nm HD7xxx series coming off the production line, and in particular the HD7770 (Cape Verde), their first 640 SPU part since the HD4xxx series. The HD7770, clocked down to about 600MHz-700Mhz, would fit pretty much perfectly into Nintendo's requirements as far as performance, size and heat are concerned.
Nintendo approached AMD in 2009 looking for a reasonably powerful, but low-wattage GPU to put in their mid-2012 console. It's not unreasonable to speculate that AMD said "we've got a 640 SPU part on a 28nm process planned for late 2011, how about we customise something around that?". It explains why they went with a HD4xxx card in the dev kits, it explains why the dev kit power boost came when it did, and it fits very neatly to what we've heard about performance and power consumption.
And to the inevitable "Nintendo would never do 28nm" responses, keep in mind that Nintendo have always used the smallest available node in manufacturing their hardware, right back to the 350nm chips in the N64. Also this would have been decided back in 2009/2010, when it would have been reasonable to expect the 28nm node to be ready for a 2012 reasonably-priced console. In fact, the push back of the release date from the summer could well be due in part to a desire to wait until the yields on 28nm chips increase.
We also have to consider whether NEC (now Renesas), who manufactured the Gamecube and Wii GPUs, and we can expect are first in line to manufacture the Wii U GPU, are capable of manufacturing at 28nm. As it happens, NEC announced a deal back in 2009 (when Nintendo would have been making the decision) with none other than IBM, to manufacture 28nm chips at East Fishkill, New York, in the very same facility which the Wii U's CPU is being manufactured. How's that for a coincidence?-
The nintendo hypetrain party only just started! Whooohooooo!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35688944&postcount=14107
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Great timing - damage control - LOOK THE TRUTH IS HERE !!!
http://www.nintendo-gamer.net/2012/04/04/wii-u-has-more-ram-than-other-current-consoles-and-really-great-processor-says-aliens-colonial-marines-director/
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