Wii U Final Specs Datasheet

I'm really excited for NSMBWiiU now. Bad level design has been by biggest gripe with most games this gen, I hope Mario games can help break the mold.

Try Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii? I was really impressed with the level design. Even replaying levels for a different star was a very different experience from the first time. Probably my favorite Mario game since the N64 one.
 
Based on the charts and Trombe's English:

Wii U CPU:

Code Name: ???
Architecture: z/Architecture
Cores: 2
Threads: 6
Processor 01 Speed: 920 MHz
Processor 02 Speed: 262 MHz
Instruction Set: 64-Bit
???: ???
??? (Floating Point Percision?): Binary128/Decimal128
??? Unit: 5
SMP: 4-way
Level 1 Cache: 512Kb
Level 2 Cache: 2MB, 12-way
Level 3 Cache: 12MB eDRAM
Memory Units(?): 2
Process size: 14nm SOI


Wii U GPU:

Code Name: ???
Architecture: ???
Stream Processors: 500
Engine Clock: 710 MHz
Texture Fill Rate: 29.44 Billon/Second
Memory Size/Type: 512MB GDDR5 SGRAM
Memory Clock: 1GHz
Memory Interface: 512-bit
Memory Bandwidth: 153.6 GB/Second
Frame Buffer (in pixels): 15936 x 15936
Frame Buffer memory: 1.4GB
ECC Memory: Yes

The ones you missed were

CPU Code name: 天底(Tentei) which means Nadir (opposite of zenith) which isn't a good word...:confused:

エンディアンネス is Endianness: Big Edian
Yup floating point thing.
整数実行 is Integer execution units of which there's 5.

GPU codename is 天頂(tenchou) which is Zenith.

:D
 
Anyone know when they're planning to start selling the Wii U controllers separately?
 
Anyone know when they're planning to start selling the Wii U controllers separately?

2013.
NOA will sell you one as a replacement, until next year.
Or you can import one from Japan, as they will be sold separately at launch, over there.

There's really no point at the moment, which is kinda why they are doing this, because there is no games that support 2 controllers at launch. (and its $170 MSRP , yen converted)

"Through the launch window, there are no games that leverage a second controller. And so, during the launch window here in NOA [Nintendo of America] territories, we will not be selling at retail a second gamepad."

"But certainly, when the games come out, we'll be making that accessory available,"

It's no doubt a price issue. Its definitely not the games. NBA and Madden are no brainers for 2 controllers.
 
Try Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii? I was really impressed with the level design. Even replaying levels for a different star was a very different experience from the first time. Probably my favorite Mario game since the N64 one.
Naturally, I own all the Super Mario platformers :) I agree, definitely my favourite since 64.
 
So does this mean no 1080p native? Sounds weak.

Nintendo is usually a gen behind IIRC. Wasn't the Wii slightly faster than the Xbox 1, and meant to compete with PS3/360. I remember it being called Gamecube 1.5 lol.

Better keep killing it on your 1st party titles! Other M-2 anyone? LOL

How old are you? seriously N64 was current with it's generation
NGC > PS2 and equal with xbox overall... When the NES came out, it was leaps and bounds above other consoles at the time...

And, just in case you missed it, Nintendo did state that they were going in an entirely new direction with the Wii and were not going to concenrate on powerful hardware......
 
How old are you? seriously N64 was current with it's generation
NGC > PS2 and equal with xbox overall... When the NES came out, it was leaps and bounds above other consoles at the time...

And, just in case you missed it, Nintendo did state that they were going in an entirely new direction with the Wii and were not going to concenrate on powerful hardware......

This.

The N64 was clearly more powerful than the PSX. The Gamecube was clearly more powerful than the PS2. The xbox really only had one thing better than the gamecube - programmable pixel shaders (~ dx 8 level). Frankly, the development of the xbox started so late that Nintendo couldn't counter it even though they both launched in the same year.

Wii got lucky because people liked the motion control so much that they did care the hardware was an overclocked Gamecube with more RAM.

I hope the Wii U can handle PS4 and 720 games.
 
Going to give this a shot even with a relatively short knowledge of the Japanese language. (I'm better with spoken than written Japanese.)

1_zpsd8db3a7d.png
Processor specs:
  • Processor architecture - z/Architecture
  • Number of processors (actual translation): 2 processors
  • Number of cores - 6 (2 cores - kernel mode)
  • Number of threads - 12
  • Processor speed:
    • Processor 1 - 920 MHz (most likely for games and other high processor usage content.)
    • Processor 2 - 262 MHz (most likely for Wii U menu or firmware, and most likely low processor usage content.)
  • Computing architecture - 64-bit
  • Endian engineering - Big Endianness
  • Floating Point capability - 128-bit Binary / 128-bit Decimal
  • (Will translate this part in the morning... too tired to figure it out) unit - 5 per core
  • SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) - 4-way
  • L1 cache - 512 kiB per core
  • L2 cache - 2 MiB per core (12-way associative)
  • L3 cache - 12 MiB eDRAM per core
  • MMU - 2
  • Node Processing - 14nm SOI (This is honestly surprising. The WiiU has the first 14nm consumer processor if this is true. Intel will not have a 14nm processor until 2014.)
GPU specs:
  • GFLOPS (very rough translation since the Katakana for FLOPS is written here) - 500
  • Core clock - 710 MHz
  • Triangle performance - 29.44 triangles/sec.
  • Maximum RAM - 512 MiB GDDR5 SGRAM
  • Memory speed - 1 GHz
  • Memory Bus width - 512-bit
  • Memory bandwidth - 153.6 GiB/s
  • Frame buffer - 15936 x 15936 pixels
  • Single frame buffer memory - 1.4 GiB
  • ECC capable - Yes
This probably tells me this is a very customized processor. DMP (Digital Media Professionals) is the Japanese company behind the Pica200 GPU for the 3DS. This is most very likely the same GPU powering the Wii U GamePad. There are two GPUs-- one in the Wii U, and the other in the Wii U GamePad. You can think of the Wii U GamePad then as a 3DS that's turned into a "slave" for the Wii U system. It cannot play games on its own like a dedicated 3DS in other words, as content is streamed to the Wii U Gamepad instead.

As for the Wii U GPU, we're looking at probably 512 MiB of GDDR5 SGRAM. It's capable of the following:
The GPU seems to be either a heavily customized HD 5570, 5650, 5670, or 6570. It's been downclocked to 710 MHz along with the memory speeds to 1 GHz as I can see it when comparing it to those 4 aforementioned Radeon GPUs. It is Eyefinity-capable-- 3 displays with 2 Wii U GamePads + TV; or 5 displays with 4 Wii U GamePads + TV-- given that Nintendo has stated that more than two controllers (possibly 4 max) will lock the game's framerate on the TV to 30 FPS.
Memory specs:
  • Manufacturer - Micron
  • 512 MiB HMC (Hybrid Memory Cube)
    • 70% less energy usage than DDR3
    • Maximum 15% more performance than DDR3
    • Vertically stacked DRAM
  • Block RAM (Allocated RAM)
    • 408 MiB Total available memory (Katakana translates to roughly "totari", or total RAM.)
    • 68 MiB per display (In other words, 68 MiB allocated per Wii U GamePad controller.)
  • MLC NAND FLASH - 64 GiB
(Note: My best guess right now there is 512 MiB of total HMC RAM-- A total of 408 MiB free RAM for the games, which after the math gives 104 MIB for system or reserved memory such as Wii U firmware, menu, and related software like TVii, etc., or Wii firmware/menu. Remember, the Wii U resets the system entirely to boot into the Wii menu, as if there are two separate partitions on the Wii U's memory.)

If anyone reads better Japanese than me, feel free to correct me.
 
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Someone has x-rayed a retail Wii-U and it uses 4 chips of ordinary DDR3, not GDDR-5.

So this spec sheet is likely fake.

Apparently main memory bandwidth isn't good. Slower than PS3/X360. Although like X360, Wii-U has an edram buffer which should alleviate some bottlenecks.

Yeah I'm going to stand by my earlier comments in this thread. Wii-U should have some great first party games, Mario etc. in HD graphics for the first time, but in terms of compute power, Nintendo's next gen system won't hold a candle to the real next gen systems. It's got 2GB of ram, but 1GB is reserved for the OS. In all likelihood, Wii-U will be doing good if its games are modest improvements from this generation's graphics. I don't think it can handle down ports of next gen games. They will be designed for a different class of system.
 
Someone has x-rayed a retail Wii-U and it uses 4 chips of ordinary DDR3, not GDDR-5.

So this spec sheet is likely fake.

Apparently main memory bandwidth isn't good. Slower than PS3/X360. Although like X360, Wii-U has an edram buffer which should alleviate some bottlenecks.

Yeah I'm going to stand by my earlier comments in this thread. Wii-U should have some great first party games, Mario etc. in HD graphics for the first time, but in terms of compute power, Nintendo's next gen system won't hold a candle to the real next gen systems. It's got 2GB of ram, but 1GB is reserved for the OS. In all likelihood, Wii-U will be doing good if its games are modest improvements from this generation's graphics. I don't think it can handle down ports of next gen games. They will be designed for a different class of system.

I had trouble translating some of it, and some didn't make sense at first while others did.

If these specs are real, this is the memory breakdown:

Thinking it over, the chips for the VRAM are 512MB GDDR5 chips with 1.4GB of memory.

There is another 512MB of memory for the system, that isn't DDR3 but called HMC.
More info here:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/36125.wss
http://hybridmemorycube.org/

This memory is so new that the only ones that can manufacture it is Micron and Samsung. IBM also had a hand in this design. No other computer systems to my knowledge-- server or consumer-- has this memory technology. If this is true, the Wii U is the first consumer device to have it.

This brings the total memory to 1.9GB of memory (video plus system RAM). That doesn't even add up to 2GB.

The system RAM is allocated at 408MB for the games and anything else, and 68MB for the controller.

So, thinking it over, I believe the memory breakdown is as follows:
  • 1024 * 1.5 = 1536MB or 1.5GB of video RAM (GDDR5)
  • 68MB of that is dedicated to the Wii U GamePad, that leaves 1468MB (1.4GB) available for Wii U games to use.
  • This breaks down to 3 GDDR5 SGRAM chips in the console at 512MB per chip.
  • Getting 512-bit bus out of that means there two of the chips communicate 192-bit (384-bit total) and a third chip communicates at 128-bit. The 192-bit has to be the customized portion of the Radeon GPU, while the 128-bit is the native portion because I don't recall a Radeon GPU with 192-bit bus.
  • 512MB of HMC memory is for the system (Wii U firmware, menu, Wii, etc.)
  • 408MB of that memory is dedicated to games. 104MB is probably dedicated to the firmware or the system menu.
  • This brings to four total memory chips total.
This DOES not match the Wii U teardown done by Iwata himself. Thus, this probably proves the fake or it got changed before these specs were released:

1.jpg.jpg

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-what-is-inside-the-wii-u

There are four memory chips in the Wii U as seen surrounding the MCM (multi-chip module). These are either DDR3 (low bandwidth) or GDDR5 (high bandwidth).

There is a single NAND FLASH memory in the lower left corner of that screenshot for the onboard FLASH memory-- 8GB or 32GB as per the official specs. So, again, fake.

The large square chip at the far right is most likely one of the following:
- Digital-to-Audio (D/A) converter
- Hardware upscaler similar to what is in the Xbox 360
- Audio chip

The processor also didn't make sense at first either. However, this is how it looks like to me:
  • 45nm processor done by IBM. That is unless IBM moved it to 14nm and the first announced 45nm CPU back in E3 2011 was changed later on in manufacturing.
  • There are two processor cores in that single piece of silicon. If these are the correct clock speeds, one is clocked at 920MHz and the other at 262MHz. This brings total processor speed to 1.182GHz. This is nowhere near the PS3 or 360 processor speeds of 3.2GHz. However, this is slightly faster than the 720MHz of the Wii's Broadway CPU.
  • Ignoring the 6 processors and 12 threads, the CPU themselves are 4-way SMP which matches the capability of the POWER7 cores-- each core can have up to 4 threads per core.
  • The processor is multicore, but how many cores is unknown. Two cores would make sense.
  • Low clocks because it is cooled by two 40nm fans and cooling a large CPU with a GPU on the same MCM module would be terrible in such a small enclosure.
  • If there is eDRAM, that's pretty damn good manufacturing to get it on that CPU. The POWER7 architecture this processor is supposedly based on is a very large chip.
Other than that, some things didn't make sense from looking at the specs.

Just by looking at the official teardown by Iwata-- http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/console/0/0, I can be sure of the following:
  • IBM designed CPU at 45nm process.
  • It is very likely lower clocked than the PS3 or 360 CPU. Unless by some miracle that little chip on the MCM is clocked at 3.0GHz.
  • There are 4 memory chips, equally allocated at 1GB for GPU (dedicated) and 1GB for games and other software (TVii, HULU, etc.)
  • There is a single 8GB or 32GB NAND FLASH in the Wii U depending on model.
  • The GPU and CPU share space on a single MCM module.
  • Renseas handled the MCM manufacturing-- putting the GPU and CPU together on one MCM module, not the memory.
  • The larger chip on the MCM is the custom GPU-- modified Eyefinity capable for multiple displays, on-die ARM SoC for southbridge I/O like on the Wii. Most very likely a customized Radeon 4700 or 4800-series, or 5600-series with Eyefinity.
  • Bluetooth 3.0 HS for high bandwidth console to GamePad data and media streaming. Two GamePads at full speed or four GamePads with no video streamed to it. (That's my thinking on how it works because video takes quite a bit of bandwidth.)
  • There is a separate audio chip in the back (the larger square near the interfaces), or it handles the D/A conversion or the hardware upscaling for Wii games, or a combination of all of it.
  • Modified Bluray disc drive-- not capable of DVD and Bluray playback. This helps Nintendo reduce the cost of the console by not tacking on the licensing fees needed for both. Maximum disc storage is 25GB per disc.
And, that's what I've concluded after looking at these specs and comparing them to the Wii U teardown by Iwata.
 
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This is how the Wii U compares to the PS3 and 360:
  • PS3 CELL runs at 3.2 GHz-- 1 PPE (dual threaded), 6 SPE (psuedo co-processors); 8 threads total
  • 360 CPU runs at 3.2 GHz - 3 PPE (dual threaded); 6 threads total
  • Both processors IBM-designed and manufactured.
  • Both with eDRAM of some amount.
If IBM did base the design of this processor on the POWER7 (that powers IBM Watson) as announced back in E3 2011 by IBM, and these speeds are true, the Wii U is the following:
  • One core at 920 MHz, 4 threads
  • Second core at 262 MHz, 4 threads.
  • This brings it to 1.182 GHz total and 8 threads total, On-die eDRAM much smaller than what's on the POWER7.
 
lol @ fake specs. 4 32-bit ram chips = 128-bit, somehow split between CPU and GPU for 1GB each. The chips are Samsung GDDR3, with a total bandwidth of 17GB/s (PCPer teardown).

No one has de-lidded the MCM yet, but I'm starting to think the GPU is pretty low end, regardless of some eDRAM on the GPU die, to go with the very low bandwidth memory.

second lol @ Z architecture. That's IBM's high end mainframe series, not that dinky little 45nm CPU which looks like it's specificially made for consoles or other embedded applications.
 
Anandtech did a thorough teardown: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/nintendo-wii-u-teardown

Four 4Gb (512 MB) Hynix DDR3-1600 Memory chips on a 16-bit bus. Estimated memory bandwidth is 12.8GB/s compared to the previous Wii with 32-bit GDDR3 RAM with 5.6GB/s bandwidth.

There are actually three chips on the MCM-- the GPU, CPU and a smaller chip. If going by the Wii's MCM that contained the GPU, the smaller chip on that same MCM contained both a BIOS and the ARM SoC southbridge with audio functionality. In order to maintain backwards compatibility on the Wii U, that ARM SoC must be carried over. I would not be surprised that the Wii U and Wii are no different in terms of functionality.

In other words, think of this as an upgraded Wii, not just a mere overclocked processor like the PowerPC 750-based CPU of the Wii.

Here's some trivia for you guys:
The Power-based processor in the Wii U, if truly based on the POWER7 design just drastically cut of features, the Wii U's CPU has the latest PowerISA. PowerISA is the shared architecture that combines the instruction sets of the older PowerPC, the newer POWER processors, and even the CELL processor with components in both the PS3 and 360's CPU.

In other words, if that CPU was clocked as fast as the 360/PS3 CPU and the firmware replaceable, you could technically run your 360 or PS3 games in this new Nintendo console. The shared PowerISA instruction allows that functionality of backwards compatibility. It's just like running that favorite Doom or X-com game on your 486 DX2 and still being able to run it on your newer computer because the programming and the instruction sets have not changed much. Much of x86 were updated and other older features deprecated.

Therefore, this makes the new Wii U almost PC-like in terms of backwards compatibility. You just simply update to better hardware while still retaining the same instruction set. Developing for the Wii U would have similar toolsets, but upgraded and newer SDKs to take advantage of the newer, faster hardware similar to DirectX upgrades over the years. The Wii U could technically even run GameCube games if Nintendo allowed it in the firmware, I'd guarantee it. The hardware from the GameCube to the Wii did not change much in fact.

Interesting, isn't it?

It's actually smart of Nintendo to do this kind of backwards compatibility. Unlike the first PS3 that Sony released with double the hardware for PS2 and PS3 within the same console, that increases costs. For Nintendo, this allows them to keep the costs down, along with not including in the console's price the licensing fees to allow DVD and Bluray playback.

For Microsoft and Sony to allow backwards compatibility in the next console, they will need the latest POWER-based processor from IBM with the latest version of PowerISA instruction set. If either of them move away from the CELL-based processor and to let's say an AMD-based x86 processor, expect double hardware-- both a POWER-based processor for the older console and an X86 processor for the new console-- within the console to maintain backwards compatibility. So far, only nearly solid rumor is from Sony intending to move away from the CELL-based processor. We will see in the next few years.​
 
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Edit: iFixIt's teardown is online. Anand is right about the memory and pcper is wrong. 4x256Mx16 chips @ 1600MHz. Nintendo is using low power DDR3. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+U+Teardown/11796


It is interesting how little power the Wii U uses, and from the PCPer teardown, I figured that the CPU+GPU wouldn't be more than 30-35W from the heatsink used.

I'm not sure about Anand's speculation that the GPU is a RV740 based 40nm device. With eDRAM added, it's going to be difficult to directly compare it to another chip... if the GPU is not actually 2 GPUs on one package (for "perfect" backwards compatibility, then I would speculate that the tiny 3rd chip is some kind of controller to initialize only one GPU during soft initialization).
 
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Nintendo has said time and again target is 1080P 60 fps on all titles, not upscaled like the 360 or like the ps3 that can't upscale for shit. Those are launch titles look at the PS/Xbox launch titles compared to now. HUGE difference

This is really noticible on msot games I played yesterday. Mario looks amazing. You can tell its 1080p@60fps. No upscalling, and it also looks like there's a form of AA running since there's a lack of jaggies
 
Shame about zombiU being a turd, still looking forward to the multiplayer oriented games though.
 
Shame about zombiU being a turd, still looking forward to the multiplayer oriented games though.


who said its a terd? ive seen as many positive as i have negative.

im guessing you just read IGN reviews.


also noteworthy to mention that IGNs reviewer of zombiU is greg miller. a playstation fanboy.
 
No logic or anything either. It's a "dumb terminal". Basically a controller with a screen and a wireless network chip to get the signal from the Wii-U.

So a Wii-U with two controllers is actually a $500 system.
 
No logic or anything either. It's a "dumb terminal". Basically a controller with a screen and a wireless network chip to get the signal from the Wii-U.

So a Wii-U with two controllers is actually a $500 system.

no game even uses 2 game pads and it cuts the frame rate in half.


fuck your 2nd player hah. they can live without it
 
who said its a terd? ive seen as many positive as i have negative.

im guessing you just read IGN reviews.


also noteworthy to mention that IGNs reviewer of zombiU is greg miller. a playstation fanboy.

Exactly Greg Miller's mouth is always full of Sony c*ck! I've been playing it and like it much better than I liked resident evil 6!
 
$170 converted for the GamePad? What the fuck? That's unreal.

Prices in Japan converted to USD is always higher than what will be the official domestic MSRP (My guess is probably $150 for second Wii U controller). Same goes for European prices.
 
LOL Wii U isn't getting Metro: Last Light because the CPU is too slow (slower than XB360 & PS3): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-slow-cpu-claim-but-developer-concern-remains

B-b-b-b-b-b-but the Wii U has a "z/Architecture" POWER7 CPU that runs in Watson!!! (and not a really, really stripped down PPC variant, which only shares the instruction set and not the massive socket bandwidth, large on-die caches and very high clock speed which makes the mainframe POWER7 so fast.)
 
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Well, in my lifetime, the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo fucking owns the handheld market Sony has never challenged them. I don't see how those are a generation behind when they have no real competitor. And no one else has a 3d handheld.
 
A lot of people have speculation about the Wii U's ability.

I'd like to throw this out there:
There's a great chance the ps4/nextbox won't be all that faster than the wii U. Sony and MS realize there is a price point they need to stay competitive at, and in order to do this they won't be able to showcase graphics. It will be all about the UI and interaction with the TV. Especially MS. Sony has a good chance of pulling a ps3 and coming out with a $600 box that no one will buy for about 3 years.
 
Ultimately all the arguing over the hardware is kind of a moot point; does it have the games you want to play? There is no 720 or PS4 right now, so compare the console to what is available.

I picked it up because I wanted Nintendo first party titles, and I already have a high-end gaming PC for anything I want maximum graphics for.
 
A lot of people have speculation about the Wii U's ability.

Well most of the general performance characteristics are known. Wii-U has a slow, stripped down, 3 physical/logical core Power PC. Basically an evolution of Gekko and Broadway. Something that would have been kind of crappy if it was inside a console released in 2005-2006, let alone 2012.

The GPU + edram of Wii-U is known to have the same silicon area as the AMD RV730/740 on that node. Those GPUs came on sub $100 PC video cards 3-4 years ago. And Nintendo gimped the ram. 2 GB of DDR3 on a slow bus.

I'd like to throw this out there:
There's a great chance the ps4/nextbox won't be all that faster than the wii U. Sony and MS realize there is a price point they need to stay competitive at, and in order to do this they won't be able to showcase graphics. It will be all about the UI and interaction with the TV. Especially MS. Sony has a good chance of pulling a ps3 and coming out with a $600 box that no one will buy for about 3 years.

The xbox720 devkits which were built out of PC parts contained a higher end HD6000 series card. It was a placeholder for custom silicon.

Leaks based on early dev kits put the GPU in the next Playstation in the vicinity of 1.8 TF. Sony is targeting 1080p 60fps for launch titles. They said to expect maxed out PC quality graphics from the first wave of launch games such as Star Wars 1313. I think it will use a custom HD8x00 AMD Sea Island GPU.

Wii-U's GPU has an RV730/740 (HD4000) class GPU. It was a budget priced model back in the day. But the Wii-U will be even less powerful since it's got to fit its edram into the same space. So I expect it only will retain 1/2 to 2/3 as many pipelines. But even if it were hypothetically as good as the full RV740, Wii-U will still be vastly outclassed by Playstation 4 and next Xbox.

Third parties will be designing their games for consoles and PCs with 6-8GB of ram. Nintendo's system only has 1GB for games. That's good compared to PS3 or 360, but it will seem pitifully low compared to next gen systems. There will be too much difference in capabilities to just scale the graphical assets. Wii-U won't even have enough memory to load up a level from one of the next gen game engines.

Look at how much trouble Bethesda has getting Skyrim to run on PS3. All due to the split memory pools and higher OS overhead meaning PS3 had 10-20MB fewer RAM. Now imagine third parties trying to port to a system with only 1/4 of the total. Like Bethesda made Skyrim for 512mb of ram on X360 and had trouble fitting all of the game save state into the 256/256 arrangement of PS3. But imagine if PS3 only had 128MB and 64 was reserved for OS, so the PS3 port of Skyrim has to fit into 64MB of ram. It would be impossible. And I think so will porting next gen PS4/720 games to Wii-U.

Nintendo just made a bazillion dollars off Wii. And they decided to try the exact same formula again for Wii-U. It's got hardware that is barely more technically advanced than the generation it's replacing, a gimmicky controller, and lower price as attractions. Next year I expect a $100 price drop to maintain that advantage.

PS4 doesn't need to cost $600 to be a lot more powerful than Wii-U. Sony is reportedly using an AMD APU which will be much cheaper than the hard to fab Cell cost in the beginning. And they are not introducing a new disc standard. Blu-ray was a major factor in the beginning high price of PS3. Now a BD drive is $20. I expect both Sony and MS systems to have an entry model for $399.
 
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PS4 doesn't need to cost $600 to be a lot more powerful than Wii-U. Sony is reportedly using an AMD APU which will be much cheaper than the hard to fab Cell cost in the beginning. And they are not introducing a new disc standard. Blu-ray was a major factor in the beginning high price of PS3. Now a BD drive is $20. I expect both Sony and MS systems to have an entry model for $399.
While I don't doubt that Sony and MS will introduce consoles at a reasonable price point for their next cycles, the big question will be "are they losing money on each sale?". Nintendo's advantage with the Wii and, I assume, with the Wii U is that they make money on each sale of the console and don't need to recoup costs with software sales. This matters. Sony was losing money even at $599 on the original PS3 because it cost them $800 to build.
 
Nintendo is actually selling Wii U at a very slight loss. They claim they recoup it with a single game sale - which according to THIS SOURCE is about 24% of the sale price.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/21/wii-u-only-needs-one-game-bought-to-make-a-profit-says-nintendo/
Interesting. Must be the cost of the gamepad as well as the console. I had read in an earlier prediction that the cost of production was similar to the original Wii at launch.

If Nintendo's hardware is costing them close to $300 at cost I actually doubt that Sony or MS will be able to launch a much more powerful console without a big loss.
 
I was always a Sega guy myself and despised Nintendo. Typical fan boy. I owned (still do) all the Nintendo and Sega systems, just had a thing for the more superior hardware :)D) and underdog. But, in the end, it was the games that I played. I didn't jack off to the hardware. I know we are all hardware guys here and love the beefier specs of other systems, but when it comes down to it, we bitch about shitty games. Graphics can be great or shitty, but the complaints are mostly about the crappy gameplay (unless you're PC vs. Console which is a whole different thing).

Wii U may not be next gen hardware compared to the others, but with Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. in their corner, they will sell a lot of consoles. I rarely play my old Wii. But, when I do - it's Mario, Zelda, Metroid. As long as the graphics aren't N64/Gamecube era quality, I don't think I'll have a problem with it. Probably half the price of the new Sony and MS offerings, too. Especially when they do decide to launch the new consoles. Head start + first party games + low cost = winner (maybe not be #1 in sales, but won't be the loser, either).
 
I think there is some delusion with what Sony and Microsoft's next consoles will be like specs are for fanboys and idiots to argue. Most who either are so blind they can't enjoy all the games out there because of their blind fanboy mentality. I own them all including Wii u. From the launch games I am seeing, it is next gen. Neither Sony our Microsoft current system had launch games much less launch ports that look as good as the ones on Wii U.I have my Wii u,360 and PS3 hooked to my sharp aquos 52 inch full grid LED TV, and I own batman or have played it on all three and it looks better on the Wii u,it does, not as good as my PC with nvidia physx enabled but of the 3 consoles best looking. Same with black ops 2. and the 2 screen multiplayer is nicer that split screen on the TV. I have been enjoying all my systems lately, Halo4,NSMBU,PS3 catching up on my free PlayStation plus games. So many games to play need more hours in the day.
 
Well most of the general performance characteristics are known. Wii-U has a slow, stripped down, 3 physical/logical core Power PC. Basically an evolution of Gekko and Broadway. Something that would have been kind of crappy if it was inside a console released in 2005-2006, let alone 2012.

The GPU + edram of Wii-U is known to have the same silicon area as the AMD RV730/740 on that node. Those GPUs came on sub $100 PC video cards 3-4 years ago. And Nintendo gimped the ram. 2 GB of DDR3 on a slow bus.



The xbox720 devkits which were built out of PC parts contained a higher end HD6000 series card. It was a placeholder for custom silicon.

Leaks based on early dev kits put the GPU in the next Playstation in the vicinity of 1.8 TF. Sony is targeting 1080p 60fps for launch titles. They said to expect maxed out PC quality graphics from the first wave of launch games such as Star Wars 1313. I think it will use a custom HD8x00 AMD Sea Island GPU.

Wii-U's GPU has an RV730/740 (HD4000) class GPU. It was a budget priced model back in the day. But the Wii-U will be even less powerful since it's got to fit its edram into the same space. So I expect it only will retain 1/2 to 2/3 as many pipelines. But even if it were hypothetically as good as the full RV740, Wii-U will still be vastly outclassed by Playstation 4 and next Xbox.

Third parties will be designing their games for consoles and PCs with 6-8GB of ram. Nintendo's system only has 1GB for games. That's good compared to PS3 or 360, but it will seem pitifully low compared to next gen systems. There will be too much difference in capabilities to just scale the graphical assets. Wii-U won't even have enough memory to load up a level from one of the next gen game engines.

Look at how much trouble Bethesda has getting Skyrim to run on PS3. All due to the split memory pools and higher OS overhead meaning PS3 had 10-20MB fewer RAM. Now imagine third parties trying to port to a system with only 1/4 of the total. Like Bethesda made Skyrim for 512mb of ram on X360 and had trouble fitting all of the game save state into the 256/256 arrangement of PS3. But imagine if PS3 only had 128MB and 64 was reserved for OS, so the PS3 port of Skyrim has to fit into 64MB of ram. It would be impossible. And I think so will porting next gen PS4/720 games to Wii-U.

Nintendo just made a bazillion dollars off Wii. And they decided to try the exact same formula again for Wii-U. It's got hardware that is barely more technically advanced than the generation it's replacing, a gimmicky controller, and lower price as attractions. Next year I expect a $100 price drop to maintain that advantage.

PS4 doesn't need to cost $600 to be a lot more powerful than Wii-U. Sony is reportedly using an AMD APU which will be much cheaper than the hard to fab Cell cost in the beginning. And they are not introducing a new disc standard. Blu-ray was a major factor in the beginning high price of PS3. Now a BD drive is $20. I expect both Sony and MS systems to have an entry model for $399.


You are totally right about the Blu Ray, completely forgot how new the tech was.

The price point may be a bit more competitive come their releases, but I'm not convinced we are going to see a large jump graphically from Ps3/360 -> Ps4/720 like people are expecting.

The Wii -> Wii U is a pretty substantial upgrade IMHO. Wii's lack of HD support killed the system for me since it looked like complete ass on my sub-par HD TV.

I'm also not convinced 3rd parties are going to run to the new systems when they are released. Mobile gaming is looking better and better to these developers and if they can get a few of their "AAA" titles on the mobile ecosystem, that does not bode well for console gamers.
 
You are totally right about the Blu Ray, completely forgot how new the tech was.

The price point may be a bit more competitive come their releases, but I'm not convinced we are going to see a large jump graphically from Ps3/360 -> Ps4/720 like people are expecting.

The Wii -> Wii U is a pretty substantial upgrade IMHO. Wii's lack of HD support killed the system for me since it looked like complete ass on my sub-par HD TV.

I'm also not convinced 3rd parties are going to run to the new systems when they are released. Mobile gaming is looking better and better to these developers and if they can get a few of their "AAA" titles on the mobile ecosystem, that does not bode well for console gamers.


mobile gaming isnt shit and is so commonly over estimated.
 
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