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[KojiKnight]

that's more to do with how secure those systems are

nintendo's track record is... sketchy

Someone who doesn't understand the technical requirements for emulation spouting nonsense about emulation...

The "security" system has nothing to do with a system being hard to emulate at least beyond initial reverse engineering, it's the hardware itself and how it interacts with other components. There is a reason why the 295mhz PS2 is still harder to emulate and at full speed than most Wii games (which is much more in line with PC standards). Latency plays a very large part, and of course the individual components complexity.

That said, there is a working PS3 emu that's being worked on, it's just that it's not anywhere near far enough along to play retail games (just some homebrew apps)

(edit) More amazing to me is that they can get any modern ports working on that CPU... they obviously went with a faster GPU in the hopes they could get devs to offload CPU load to GPU... but that's not going to be easy on current gen ports, and next gen ports are still going to be expecting a much faster generalized CPU... Next gen ports are looking less and less likely.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Yeah, but is that enough consumers to justify the cost? For Elder Scrolls, for GTA, for Mass Effect? Perhaps, but I'd wager it's *not* enough consumers for Okami, for Saint's Row, for Darksiders.

The pool of money at the top end isn't growing, but the competition for a share of it certainly is, and the costs of competing for it are increasing. That's a worrying combination.

There were never really enough consumers for an Okami...

Nothing stopped developers from making less than visual showcases this gen and less technically impressive games. And nothing will stop them doing so next gen - with the advent of digital distribution it's actually probably easier these days.

If developers and publishers choose to invest in high end production values, they do so because the demographic they're targetting wills it and wants it and without that investment they wouldn't gain the sales they desire anyway.

Consumers are essentially the ones to "blame" for shaping the industry through their purchases.

What market? All I have seen is mass acceptance of DS over PSP, Wii over PS3 or 360, and 3DS over Vita. Not to mention the number one selling entertainment product growing every year might be the laziest game tech and graphics wise released every November.

If you read the rest of your post, you'd see which market I was referring to.

The demographic targets of the PS3 and 360 weren't the same as the Wii, and handhelds aren't generally a good comparison.

 

[Wiz]

I normally do not participate in these technical discussions so excuse my lack of knowledge on this but what do we know about the (GP)GPU? From what I've seen/heard, it's the most advanced thing about the Wii U. Could it be possible that it more than makes up for the relatively slow processor, which explains why current gen games can still run fine on the Wii U?

Edit: Also, could the bad ports be attributed to the fact that devs weren't fully utilizing the GPU, instead using the CPU that they're used to using on PS360?

 

[pottuvoi]

I'm talking in contrast to the original, I wonder if any compromises might be made.

Should be fine, original didn't look like something needing too much of CPU.
Also B2 gets advantage of all the research and tool improvements from past few years.

 

[LeleSocho]

People really needs to see this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKF9GOE2q38

note that i'm not saying that Espresso is a good cpu but that is not as bad as these numbers tell us.

 

[Sanctuary]

In retrospect, that's such an embarrassing/ugly tech demo. LOL

I was just thinking the same thing. I didn't see anything impressive with that at all for a tech demo.

 

[BlackJace]

I normally do not participate in these technical discussions so excuse my lack of knowledge on this but what do we know about the (GP)GPU? From what I've seen/heard, it's the most advanced thing about the Wii U. Could it be possible that it more than makes up for the relatively slow processor, which explains why current gen games can still run fine on the Wii U?

We can only hope.

 

[test_account]

So what you guys are trying to say is......this is out of the question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcapRBQoMWk

It should be possible. I'm sure we will see some great looking WiiU games. I'm looking forward to see the next Mario and Zelda game.

 

[Schattenjäger]

What so hard to grasp?
When Wii came out - they said it would be marginally better than the Xbox and it still sold fine

In turn,

the Wii U is marginally better than PS360, maybe even less better than the Wii was over the Xbox or maybe even the same as the PS360 - so what
We get Nintendo in 1080p - that's enough to make people buy it

Nintendo hasn't been about processing power/graphics for a long time now

 

[mclem]

140m PS3s and 360s have been sold so far. There's clearly a large market for the experiences they're offering, and I would guess higher-end audio-visual experience has been a key part of the attraction. That the market is split two ways and might not be attractive to Nintendo in terms of making a third split doesn't negate the fact that the market and demand has most certainly been there.

But - to reiterate an earlier point of mine - has the profit been there?

 

[Erasus]

So, its still based on PPC 750 cores???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_7xx#PowerPC_750CL

Why not go 9xx? Not backwards compatible?

And is 1.24GHZ the idle speed or does it run that low in games too? Then is pretty amazing how stuff like AC3 even runs.

The GPU is good though, as the architechture is newer, but CPU architechture from 2001-2002....

Still power consumption is impressive, but man would it have killed them to upp the GHZ a bit and have it draw 50watts instead of 33?

 

[hodgy100]

I believe the 360 has a tri core 3.2ghz processor. So yeah. Not great.

But it isn't comparable like that as the 360's cores are in order cores and the wii / wii U's are out of order, so the wiiU's cores get more performance per clock cycle than the 360's cores

 

[-COOLIO-]

So in terms of just clock and cores. Modern phones cream the Wii u?

 

[GhostTrick]

So, its still based on PPC 750 cores???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_7xx#PowerPC_750CL

Why not go 9xx? Not backwards compatible?

And is 1.24GHZ the idle speed or does it run that low in games too? Then is pretty amazing how stuff like AC3 even runs.

The CPU is good though, as the architechture is newer, but CPU architechture from 2001-2002....

Still power consumption is impressive, but man would it have killed them to upp the GHZ a bit and have it draw 50watts instead of 33?

Same for me. Even 60watts would have been good.

 

[Projectjustice]

Its official, Neogaf measures CPU power by clock speeds!

Anyways, the GPU looks to be pretty rad in power and the CPU doesnt need 3.2GHz to run rushed ports. Speaks a lot of the overall design of the console.

I wonder if Nintendo added the ability to run the CPU at a higher higher clock mode?

 

[gofreak]

But - to reiterate an earlier point of mine - has the profit been there?

That's another point altogether. Relevant to Nintendo's interest, sure. But different from what he was talking about - he was questioning what market there was, stating that the masses had embraced low-fi tech over high end. But actually there's been a huge market for the 'high end' machines also.

 

[GlamFM]

What so hard to grasp?
When Wii came out - they said it would be marginally better than the Xbox and it still sold fine

In turn,

the Wii U is marginally better than PS360, maybe even less better than the Wii was over the Xbox or maybe even the same as the PS360 - so what
We get Nintendo in 1080p - that's enough to make people buy it

Nintendo hasn't been about processing power/graphics for a long time now

I dont think Nintendo can pull the same trick twice.

Motioncontrol was new - touch isn´t.

Wii customers are not necessarily Wii U customers.

 

[AdventureRacing]

But - to reiterate an earlier point of mine - has the profit been there?

That doesn't necessarily mean there was a problem with the market though just how it has been approached. I think you can target that market without all the heavy losses.

 

[GhostTrick]

So in terms of just clock and cores. Modern phones cream the Wii u?

In terms of clock and cores, modern phones are on par/superior to my laptop...
performance wise ? They doesn't stand a chance.

 

[milkybar1983]

Someone who doesn't understand the technical requirements for emulation spouting nonsense about emulation...

The "security" system has nothing to do with a system being hard to emulate at least beyond initial reverse engineering, it's the hardware itself and how it interacts with other components. There is a reason why the 295mhz PS2 is still harder to emulate and at full speed than most Wii games (which is much more in line with PC standards). Latency plays a very large part, and of course the individual components complexity.

That said, there is a working PS3 emu that's being worked on, it's just that it's not anywhere near far enough along to play retail games (just some homebrew apps)

(edit) More amazing to me is that they can get any modern ports working on that CPU... they obviously went with a faster GPU in the hopes they could get devs to offload CPU load to GPU... but that's not going to be easy on current gen ports, and next gen ports are still going to be expecting a much faster generalized CPU... Next gen ports are looking less and less likely.

security plays a huge part, read up on xbox1 emu when you get a chance

 

[grimshawish]

Come on, Ninty.
It's like they engineered this thing so that only their studios know how to squeeze the power out of it.

Pretty much.
Tbf you can see why. Not like the Wii was that hard to develop for at the start of its gen.
No one bothered.

Iwata changed the release set up to take into account third party support; think they were surprised tbh.

I suppose the hope can be that over the next year or two theres some movement to develop with the WiiU in mind to some degree. People in the industry learning to use it etc.


Will this happen? Meh.
Third party support will be lower than if it was more normal architecture but then first party content might not push the system as much.

We'll see how the gen goes. How quickly PS4/720 sell could be a big effect (and yes I'd expect their sales to take off faster considering the long generation).

 

[Erasus]

People really needs to see this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKF9GOE2q38

note that i'm not saying that Espresso is a good cpu but that is not as bad as these numbers tell us.

That woule be walid if the architechture was new, ofc an Corei3 at 2GHZ is way faster than say a Pentium 4 at 3.5GHZ.

But the WiiU CPU is still PPC 750 cores yes?

 

[jwhit28]

I dont think Nintendo can pull the same trick twice.

Motioncontrol was new - touch isn´t.

Wii customers are not necessarily Wii U customers.

Won't this be like the 4th or 5th time?

 

[-COOLIO-]

In terms of clock and cores, modern phones are on par/superior to my laptop...
performance wise ? They doesn't stand a chance.

Fair enough.

 

[Alex]

I guess we've been playing different games / systems. I can't remember ever having access to such a diverse range of software before.

We've never had anything all that close to the variety and selection we have today. There is no real argument to be made otherwise. I don't know if some people just stay in a little bubble where nothing exists outside of some dug-in comfort zone, but if you like a large variety of games and have the resources to support all the methods and models, we are spoiled fucking rotten nowadays. There is more, it is better, it is way the fuck cheaper.

For all the hours I sunk into NES and SNES carts as a kid, I always think to my self... man, a single Steam sale alone as a kid would have fucking ruined my life. :lol

 

[beril]

Even taking into account architectural improvements (which I doubt if it's based on the same GC and Wii core), I don't see a 1.2GHz processor coming anywhere close to matching the performance of 3.2GHz processors. That would be an unheard of jump in IPC performance.

Wasn't there some people claiming that a xenon core was only about 20% faster than broadway for single threaded general purpose code, despite being clocked more than 4 times higher? I'll try to find the source.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

So, trying to figure out how this compares:

Wii U
CPU: 1.2GHz tri-core
Memory: 2 GB
Memory bandwidth: 12.8 GB/s
GPU core: 550MHz

Xbox 360
CPU: 3.2GHz tri-core
Memory: 512 MB
Memory bandwidth: 22.4 GB/s
GPU core: 500MHz

PS3
CPU: 3.2GHz single core + 6 SPUs
Memory: 256 MB + 256 MB
Memory bandwidth: 25.6 GB/s
GPU Core: 550MHz

Any other statistics we know for all 3 consoles?

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system? It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that. That won't stop me from playing it though. HD Mario, Zeldas, Metroids, etc make me a happy happy camper. More so if more games like Zombi U keep coming out for it too.

 

[shinra-bansho]

But - to reiterate an earlier point of mine - has the profit been there?

I'd say it has for the blockbusters, it's the middle of the market that's seeing problems trying to compete with these blockbusters. Investing far too much into trying to match the Halos and Uncharteds and GTAs to justify their pricetag (which quickly deflates post-launch).

A more variable pricing model is really what's needed.

This all becoming somewhat off-topic.

 

[USC-fan]

Sub 400 gflops... confirmed.

 

[jmdajr]

But it isn't comparable like that as the 360's cores are in order cores and the wii / wii U's are out of order, so the wiiU's cores get more performance per clock cycle than the 360's cores

That's true. It might just even out though... or not.

Anyhow, example using Intel Atom.

The performance of a single core Atom is about half that of a Pentium M of the same clock rate. For example, the Atom N270 (1.60 GHz) found in many netbooks such as the Eee PC can deliver around 3300 MIPS and 2.1 GFLOPS in standard benchmarks,[17] compared to 7400 MIPS and 3.9 GFLOPS for the similarly clocked (1.73 GHz) Pentium M 740.[18]

 

[KojiKnight]

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system. It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that.

That's not how generations work.

Now if you're asking if it's not going to be on par with PS4/720... we've known that since day 1.

 

[GhostTrick]

Sub 400 gflops... confirmed.

How ?

 

[BGBW]

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system. It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that.

Well yes it is current gen. The start of the new current console generation.

 

[grimshawish]

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system. It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that.

If we use those specs to say that then it wouldn't be possible to have the current ports on it.
To what degree other aspects of the system are making a difference we don't know. But they are.

Wii U is current gen either way and PS3/360 are last gen with respect to PS4/720.

 

[BlackJace]

Well yes it is current gen. The start of the new current console generation.

That's not how generations work.

Now if you're asking if it's not going to be on par with PS4/720... we've known that since day 1.

Guys, don't start this argument, no one emerges victorious.

 

[stuminus3]

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system. It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that.

Sure, but only if you believe that the only thing that defines a generation is raw graphics processing. Which wasn't even true in the case of the 360/PS3. Quick random question, what do you think has sold more Xbox 360s... HD graphics, or Xbox Live?

 

[-COOLIO-]

Sure, but only if you believe that the only thing that defines a generation is raw graphics processing. Which wasn't even true in the case of the 360/PS3. Quick random question, what do you think has sold more Xbox 360s... HD graphics, or Xbox Live?

Hd graphics

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Theoretically if the system was to be hacked, could a hacker overclock the cpu? Given that it is on a small die, thermal issues may not be all that severe.

 

[jwhit28]

Guys, don't start this argument, no one emerges victorious.

That's the story of this whole thread.

 

[dwu8991]

I love my WII U but can we now honestly say it's a current gen system? It appears a somewhat weaker current gen system at that. That won't stop me from playing it though. HD Mario, Zeldas, Metroids, etc make me a happy happy camper. More so if more games like Zombi U keep coming out for it too.

Just watched Epic Mickey 2 and the difference between the x360 and the wii u is night and day!

The wii u version felt so lifeless ...

 

[ElRenoRaven]

If we use those specs to say that then it wouldn't be possible to have the current ports on it.
To what degree other aspects of the system are making a difference we don't know. But they are.

Wii U is current gen either way and PS3/360 are last gen with respect to PS4/720.

I'm just talking power wise. I'm not saying It's not next gen. In terms of from one console to the other it's a next gen simply because it's coming out post 360/PS3/WII. I'm just talking in terms of power. Also keep in mind I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Also keep in mind that I'm ok as I have mentioned with it being on par with the 360 and PS3. Just to see what Retro, Nintendo, etc can do with the power of the WII U will be interesting as hell. You know they're going to put out some amazing amazing games without a doubt.

 

[McLovin]

Hot damn, it's like that? Also, Grandpa Simpson vindicated.

Edit: Isn't that GPU speed actually fairly good?

I bought my old laptop in 2001 and its processor had a faster clock speed. You could cook an egg on that thing when I tried playing games on it.

 

[jmdajr]

Sure, but only if you believe that the only thing that defines a generation is raw graphics processing. Which wasn't even true in the case of the 360/PS3. Quick random question, what do you think has sold more Xbox 360s... HD graphics, or Xbox Live?

More people own HDTVs than use Xbox Live.
Saying that, probably half don't even know how to use their fucking TV.

 

[radioheadrule83]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKF9GOE2q38

This.

Two things:

It's a new CPU, even as a ~ PPC 750 derivative, as the 750CXe was in the Gamecube, and broadway was in the Wii, it's a new multi-core variant and will definitely have significant customisations. Gekko added an FPU, and SIMD-like capability that other PPC7xx chips did not have at the time. Even broadway, which was based on the 2006 750CL had customisations. IBM don't have a roadmap for PPC 7xx related chips anymore, and they definitely don't make them commercially below 90nm -- we know for a fact this is a custom chip. I can't see this chip being 32bit like Gekko and Broadway, and it's OoOE too - which is a break from those chips. Essentially, anyone trying to infer they ducktaped three wii chips together is probably just being a system warrior idiot.

Secondly, although both Xenon and this new chip are both tri-core designs, it does not make any sense to directly compare clock-speeds. Xenon uses three Cell-style general purpose PPE cores. Without knowing what each of these PPC style cores can do, what we can actually infer from the clockspeed is.... well... not a lot.

This makes sense though, the PPC7xx series was great for bang-for-buck wattage even at 90nm and in a single core design - hence Apple using them in old Powerbooks etc. A more refined, modern take on it might have fitted right into their plans to make a small 30-70w box.

Anyone know if IBM have any other PPC descended chips that this might be a close relative of?

 

[grimshawish]

I'm just talking power wise. I'm not saying It's not next gen. In terms of from one console to the other it's a next gen simply because it's coming out post 360/PS3/WII. I'm just talking in terms of power.

I understand. Why I answered that first.
EDIT: To your edit lol; yeah first party stuff will be very interesting. Seeing more of Platinum's second party support will be a big 'test' too.

 

[KojiKnight]

Theoretically if the system was to be hacked, could a hacker overclock the cpu? Given that it is on a small die, thermal issues may not be all that severe.

It's not likely that Nintendo has an API or anything in place for overclocking the system, unless Nintendo is intentionally gimping the console at launch ala PSP... but in a portable that makes sense, much less so in a console.

Thermal design was set for the current speed so I wouldn't hold my breath... and it wouldn't change the fact that even if you could, developers could never use it.

 

[RurouniZel]

360 0.5 in terms of numbers, but Oooh yay Zombies!! *grabs cricket bat*

 

[Baconsammy]

So what you guys are trying to say is......this is out of the question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcapRBQoMWk

Not at all. You can watch that in the Wii U's browser.

 

[SuperDowns]

How is the CPU (and other components) choice really that surprising?

360 RROD'd how many times for me and for others due to heating issues. I know that my phat PS3 also tends to get hot. My Wii has never had a problem and I doubt Wii U will either.

I'm guessing that this box will gain traction with some 3rd party support until it is outclassed by the other next-gen competition. In which case most of the system selling software will be 1st and 2nd party offerings similar to the Wii.

This isn't a bad strategy, that GamePad tech has to be costing them a lot.

 

[LeleSocho]

That woule be walid if the architechture was new, ofc an Corei3 at 2GHZ is way faster than say a Pentium 4 at 3.5GHZ.

But the WiiU CPU is still PPC 750 cores yes?

It's a modified ppc750 and it's different from the Xenon so the clock numbers does not have a 1:1 ratio in terms of power.