[Eusis]

I'm saying sony and ms will tell people what they are buying, unlike nintendo. whether their customers care or not, i cannot say.

They'd probably try to be secretive too, but probably not to the same extent. ESPECIALLY if both of them are in the power race, they're going to want to tout even some of the most irrelevant crap then, even Nintendo did that in the 16-bit war. Nintendo deciding they don't care is probably why they started to just not tell anyone anything they don't need to know.

[cyberheater]

Why would they go for slower RAM? This makes no sense.

It's cheap.

[KiNeSiS]

I honestly dont see what they did so different than what they did for the GC and Wii. GC moreso, because that honestly felt like the console Nintendo focused on getting 3rd parties the most.

Are you blind the Game Cube was a powerhouse @ the time.

[ASIS]

I honestly dont see what they did so different than what they did for the GC and Wii. GC moreso, because that honestly felt like the console Nintendo focused on getting 3rd parties the most.

Much better online infrastructure, standard controller which can play exactly like the competition if the developers so wishes (This is the first time i believe it happened, not even the GC had that type of flexibility), publishing deals with third parties and even resurrecting dead franchises, Being completely loose on digital games.

These are all strides that made me believe Nintendo really is going after the third parties. If you add "powerful hardware" to the list, I really don't see what more they could have done. So yes, this news caught me off guard.

[zoukka]

Why would they go for slower RAM? This makes no sense.

Price.

[Reiko]

They'd probably try to be secretive too, but probably not to the same extent. ESPECIALLY if both of them are in the power race, they're going to want to tout even some of the most irrelevant crap then, even Nintendo did that in the 16-bit war.

E3 2005 bit Sony in the ass.

I don't think bullshit is the way to go this year.

[Doc Holliday]

No one seems to be able to answer this question...

Where in that samsung pdf does it say the Wii u ram is DDR 3??

The chip id number points to GDDdr 3. Not arguing wether its better or not, im just confused why people keep saying it's DDR 3

[GeneralManager]

I don't know why people are so caught up about whether or not it's "slightly worse" or "slightly better" than the 360/PS3. Being "slightly" anything compared to the 360/PS3 for Nintendo's new system is bad. It seems like it'll be a similar situation to 360/PS3/Wii in regards to third parties and ports.

[Raitosaito]

E3 2005 bit Sony in the ass. I don't think bullshit is the way to go this year.

We can never forget Killzone 2

[systemfehler]

I don't care (anymore) what Nintendo does. They don't want the "hardcore" number crunching demographic anymore and their console, philosophy and software make that clear. The Wii-U will have some amazing games and I was torn to leave the Zelda and Mario universe but what worked perfectly with the 3DS for me is not good enough for my living room.

I wonder what was so expensive about a tablet controller sans CPU/GPU (compared to a Nexus 7 for instance) that the console in 2012 not even could be like Gamecube zu Xbox in hardware.

I know that GDDR5 Ram is not cheap but 2GB should be worth the small loss...

[Durante]

No one seems to be able to answer this question... Where in that samsung pdf does it say the Wii u ram is DDR 3?? The chip id number points to GDDdr 3. Not arguing wether its better or not, im just confused why people keep saying it's DDR 3

Read the thread, this has already been covered. It's gDDR3, which is DDR3 for a specific type of mounting.

[ghst]

Because creativity plays a bigger part than technicality. Wii U, at least on launch, has none. Still excited though :P

nintendo's most creative console was the gamecube. they crammed bleeding edge performance in to a purple lunch box and sold it for $200.

i guess the creativity comes in selling a games machine packing a whopping 17gb/s of memory bandwidth for over $300 in 2012 and still making a loss.

[Game-Biz]

Why would they go for slower RAM? This makes no sense.

The only possible answer is money.

[Doc Holliday]

Read the thread, this has already been covered. It's gDDR3, which is DDR3 for a specific type of mounting.

Ah ok, thank you :)

[AniHawk]

Yeah, seems like it will be my Nintendo-published games playing machine as was the Wii.

considering the way dev costs are rising, i don't think it'll get the quirky games the wii got, either. those games will be found on the 3ds, virtual shops, or phones.

pretty disappointing. nintendo shit the bed with pretty much every showing of this console. i guess they're consistent at least.

having shown off 2013 titles would have gone a long way toward not feeling like this was a waste at launch.

[Alextended]

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to all the specs being fully confirmed in this manner, so that I can say the same things I've been saying for months but without a horde of angry fans jumping down my throat.

You may have been right about whatever it was you said but if you claimed facts before any confirmation why wouldn't people dispute that? The possibility to guess right doesn't mean one can claim guesses are facts. Just as people guessing what effect this will have on games without knowing anything about the rest of the system and the potential to mitigate the problems a low speed could in some cases cause when utilized properly. Early ports having technical issues doesn't prove ram is causing them, it could be the developers not optimizing to take advantage of the different architecture (a la Skyrim PC, fixed by a mod and later a patch). I mean, pretending these numbers are the be all and end all of the system's potential is silly, especially when some developers who don't just go by spec sheets but actual implementation have commented saying ram speed and other bottlenecks are avoided.

considering the way dev costs are rising, i don't think it'll get the quirky games the wii got, either.

Quirky games will obviously be made low budget, since they're risky. Dev costs don't magically rise, they rise by the amount of people working and how long they're working for. A small team can still put out games on any platform (including the other consoles and the all powerful PC, which gets tons of small indie games), they just won't look like Skyrim or offer as much hand crafted content. They could look like Wii games, just without jagges (enabling high resolution doesn't increase costs). Of course they will put them on 3DS as well just as they put them on DS too. If WiiU gets them or not is only up to market penetration. It's not like the quirky Wii games aiming for a few hundred thousand sales looked like Super Mario Galaxy or any AAA PS360 game, quirky WiiU games aren't going to look like that either if the aim is the same, ie, something less mainstream for a limited audience.

[cyberheater]

No one seems to be able to answer this question... Where in that samsung pdf does it say the Wii u ram is DDR 3?? The chip id number points to GDDdr 3. Not arguing wether its better or not, im just confused why people keep saying it's DDR 3

Official Samsung doc reports it as:-

GRAPHICS DRAM COMPONENTS

K4W4G1646B-HC(12/11/1A) 96-FBGA 1.5V/1.5V
800/933/1066
2Gb

The W denotes: sDDR3 sDRAM.

Still slow though.

[Pie and Beans]

Sounds like a magnificent new 2012 console!!

Managing to shit the treehouse on even the RAM was beyond the scrimping I imagined possible at this stage. Always with those surprises eh, Nintendo?

Just as people guessing what effect this will have on games without knowing anything about the rest of the system and the potential to mitigate the problems a low speed could in some cases cause when utilized properly.

Loop de loop de loop de loop. My head is spinning.

[Ydahs]

Wait, the Wii used GDDR3?

[FGMPR]

Nobody in this industry blends forward thinking with backwardness quite like Nintendo.

This happens every time with them.

[B.O.O.M]

well this is an achievement in it's own depressing way I suppose

[Perkel]

People asking if Wii U is better than PS3 or X360.

It is better. It has twice ram, better GPU (newer architecture) and CPU about same power or slightly less than current consoles.

But this is not even PS2-Xbox level. More like Ps2-Gamecube.

It is way worse situation than Wii was because part of system power is used to render second screen.

[Eusis]

considering the way dev costs are rising, i don't think it'll get the quirky games the wii got, either. those games will be found on the 3ds, virtual shops, or phones.

I wonder. You're probably right, but I don't think publishers are going to be beholden to the standards Microsoft and especially Sony wanted on their systems, and to a degree that seems to be the trajectory of the market on the whole even without rising dev costs. And we already have the Wonderful 101, so I guess one step's been made.

[zoukka]

Nobody in this industry blends forward thinking with backwardness quite like Nintendo. This happens every time with them.

Selective memory? The thread is already full of Gamecube nostalgia and that machine was a beast.

[Reiko]

So what you say guys. Is the Wii U good enough to get out of console sub HD land in regards to running Crysis 2?

[TheGreatDivide]

Selective memory? The thread is already full of Gamecube nostalgia and that machine was a beast.

Mini DVDs.

[ASIS]

Selective memory? The thread is already full of Gamecube nostalgia and that machine was a beast.

I would say the mini DVDs was a drawback. But for the most part, yeah, GC was great.

[Eteric Rice]

People asking if Wii U is better than PS3 or X360. It is better. It has twice ram, better GPU (newer architecture) and CPU about same power or slightly less than current consoles. But this is not even PS2-Xbox level. More like Ps2-Gamecube. It is way worse situation than Wii was because part of system power is used to render second screen.

Hopefully most just use the second screen for UI/Inventory, and use the actual system specs on the game itself.

[Vandiger]

Half-assed Nintendo, time to start buying as many Japanese exclusives as you can.

[Talwind]

So do we know how the Wii U architecture is laid out in conjunction with the ram? Or how its setup to work with the eDRAM? Just judging by the memory bandwidth doesnt give us the whole picture, does it?

[Teletraan1]

Selective memory? The thread is already full of Gamecube nostalgia and that machine was a beast.

The smaller disc size was an issue, the controller wasn't love by all. Both barriers to 3rd Parties. Good system overall though.

Beaten

[Doc Holliday]

well this is an achievement in it's own depressing way I suppose

It's shocking actually. It took some effort but they really managed to release a system 6 years later with similar tech at 350.00.

Chip factory : "why the fuck would you want so many chips of that old shit?" Lol

[Ydahs]

People asking if Wii U is better than PS3 or X360. It is better. It has twice ram, better GPU (newer architecture) and CPU about same power or slightly less than current consoles. But this is not even PS2-Xbox level. More like Ps2-Gamecube. It is way worse situation than Wii was because part of system power is used to render second screen.

Nope. It's bad, but nowhere near Wii level bad.

[Ashler]

This is... underwhelming.

[cyberheater]

People asking if Wii U is better than PS3 or X360. It is better.

Nope. I can see that the devs are going to struggle with just about every PS360 port going forward. Slow CPU and slow memory is going to be a big issue for WiiU.

[Bruno MB]

From the very beginning it was completely clear what Wii U was going to be, so I'm not surprised at all.

About future third-party support question. Well, Wii U is not even getting current multiplatform games like Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zero, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Grand Theft Auto V or Tomb Raider, so I'm afraid we can anticipate what is going to happen.

For me Wii U will be a box that can only play Nintendo games, I'm fine with this as long as I can buy it at a reasonable price. I find expensive the amount of money Nintendo is asking for right now.

[B.O.O.M]

It's shocking actually. It took some effort but they really managed to release a system 6 years later with similar tech at 350.00. Chip factory : "why the fuck would you want so many chips of that old shit?" Lol

Add the fact that this is being sold at a loss. Remarkable.

[Instro]

So do we know how the Wii U architecture is laid out in conjunction with the ram? Or how its setup to work with the eDRAM? Just judging by the memory bandwidth doesnt give us the whole picture, does it?

No, but this is all we have atm and most people only care about comparing whatever numbers they can get their hands on.

[Reiko]

From the very beginning it was completely clear what Wii U was going to be, so I'm not surprised at all. About future third-party support question. Well, Wii U is not even getting current multiplatform games like Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zero, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Grand Theft Auto V or Tomb Raider, so I'm afraid we can anticipate what is going to happen. For me Wii U will be a box that can only play Nintendo games, I'm fine with this as long as I can buy it at a reasonable price. I find expensive the amount of money Nintendo is asking for right now.

Wii U getting Bayonetta 2 instead of MGR is a good trade off IMO.

[NBtoaster]

What was the speed and bandwidth of Wii memory?

[Router]

To be honest, I was expecting slightly faster but yeah... Not a huge shock here.

[CronoShot]

Well this sucks. Especially since Nintendo went on record saying one of the weaknesses of the Wii was its inability to run current gen games.

And now we've gone from moderate jump over current gen, to small jump, to on par, and now possibly even weaker?

Oh Nintendo. If you didn't have Zelda I would break up with you.

[Eusis]

Nope. It's bad, but nowhere near Wii level bad.

It's possibly on the same level, but this time it's out a year in advance at worst, and it's running at the same resolutions most of the next PS/Xbox games will likely run at, so the difference won't be as striking a 480p versus 720p.

[B.O.O.M]

Wii U getting Bayonetta 2 instead of MGR is a good trade off IMO.

I wouldn't call it either way until we see both games in action...or better yet get to play them

[Lovely Salsa]

nintendo's most creative console was the gamecube. they crammed bleeding edge performance in to a purple lunch box and sold it for $200. i guess the creativity comes in selling a games machine packing a whopping 17gb/s of memory bandwidth for over $300 in 2012 and still making a loss.

They're only making a loss in US

In japan and europe they profit

Here where I live the deluxe goes for 515 USD

[JMPerona]

Official Samsung doc reports it as:- GRAPHICS DRAM COMPONENTS K4W4G1646B-HC(12/11/1A) 96-FBGA 1.5V/1.5V 800/933/1066 2Gb The W denotes: sDDR3 sDRAM. Still slow though.

Yes, But Im still dont understand what doest it mean...

[Erethian]

Only in US because of the weak dollar. In Europe and Japan they profit

Nope, it's being sold at a loss in all territories across all units. (Deluxe and Basic)

[ghst]

They're only making a loss in US In japan and europe they profit Here where I live the deluxe goes for 515 USD

phew. crisis averted.

[maquiladora]

Add the fact that this is being sold at a loss. Remarkable.

I guess that would be the gamepad.

[Perkel]

Hopefully most just use the second screen for UI/Inventory, and use the actual system specs on the game itself.

It depend mostly on dev i think. Fact is if they want to use fully Pad they need to cut resources for main game.

It is like kinect situation. Pad same as kinect should have it's own cpu.