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[DragonSworne]

I've been saying this for a year now, Nintendo prioritized size over power. Not only did they sacrifice power, they also made the system more expensive due to the artificial and nonsensical size constraint.

It's one of the reason why I have Takeda on my list of people I hope that get remove from Nintendo's executive team.

 

[AstroNut325]

People that expected Nintendo to go from the Wii to the PS4 power-wise weren't really being realistic, in my opinion. I don't know that any company's ever made THAT huge of a leap in a single generation.

A 600-900GF GCN GPU with 2GB of GDDR5... that was my reasonable expectation. Nintendo should have been able to deliver. I wasn't expecting PS4 level specs.

 

[DragonSworne]

People seems to be missing the point. It's all about the price.

If you don't care about the performance of the Wii U, you should at least care about the how much it costs you. Keeping the Wii U artificially small made the Wii U far more expensive then it should have been.

We got ripped off on the Wii U because of Takeda fetish of small systems.

 

[fred]

I have no idea how you arrived at that conclusion.

History. Look at the GameCube, an engineering marvel. Look at the Wii and its motion controls and its small form factor. Look at the Wii U and its small form factor, lag-free GamePad use and the look of the titles I listed on a GPU that's rumoured to be 160:8:8.

All of the titles I listed look 'next gen' (ie beyond the capabilities of the PS3 and 360 to reproduce, not on a par with the PS4 or One), and Nintendo consoles have always been balanced systems.

Anyone that doesn't agree that Nintendo have the best hardware engineers in the business has an agenda.

 

[DragonSworne]

History. Look at the GameCube, an engineering marvel. Look at the Wii and its motion controls and its small form factor. Look at the Wii U and its small form factor, lag-free GamePad use and the look of the titles I listed on a GPU that's rumoured to be 160:8:8.

All of the titles I listed look 'next gen' (ie beyond the capabilities of the PS3 and 360 to reproduce, not on a par with the PS4 or One), and Nintendo consoles have always been balanced systems.

Anyone that doesn't agree that Nintendo have the best hardware engineers in the business has an agenda.

Having undersized systems is not balanced.

 

[Schnozberry]

Shin'en's comment on Twitter seems contradictory :

As EatChildren said, the specs aren't confirmed (just plausibly explained), and the downgrade stuff is pure speculation.

 

[JordanN]

and Nintendo consoles have always been balanced systems.

That's not true. The N64 had loads of problems compared to PS1 at the time.

Nintendo's engineers aren't the best. They don't even make their own GPU/CPU's. AMD and IBM are the ones contracted to do it.

 

[fred]

Having undersized systems is not balanced.

The GameCube, Wii and Wii U are balanced systems, whether they are undersized or not doesn't change that fact. The Wii U in particular has been designed from the ground up to be a balanced and efficient system with the least amount of bottlenecks possible.

Again, look at the games I listed and how great they look. I've no problem with Latte being 160:8:8 because there's something going on to make first and early second generation games look that good.

 

[kingkaiser]

Wow, the ignorance of some people here is simply mindboggling.

No company of the three ones developing next-gen systems is ripping-off the customers.

Every of these consoles holds its own value and the philosophy behind developing them was quite different.

One was developed to offer the most technical raw-power for money, one was developed to unite multimedia functions with motion control, and one was developed to achieve a space- and power-saving platform with touch control

Just because you are favoring one of these philosophies doesn't mean the other ones are wrong or simple ripp-offs.

Are three absolutely identical consoles with just a handful of exclusives to separate from each other the thing you people really want?

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Chiming in to say I can't fully confirm the specs because I don't have access to that information, but what I was shown seems believable, so whatever.

This is why these threads and titles like them are annoying. If some one has info then fucking share. Going I have secret info and just trust me this is it, cause some one told me in secret blah blah is just roll eye inducing at this point.

BG knows I like him I consider him a friend but really if you have info, just fucking spit out your proof. I'm so sick of the well some one told me this and it might be true so I'm going to make a thread about it as fact.

 

[JordanN]

Are three absolutely identical consoles with just a handful of exclusives to seperate from each other the thing you peole really want?

Not having 3 identical consoles is not an excuse for having 2 completely dysfunctional ones either.

 

[magash]

This is why these threads and titles like them are annoying. If some one has info then fucking share. Going I have secret info and just trust me this is it, cause some one told me in secret blah blah is just roll eye inducing at this point.

BG knows I like him I consider him a friend but really if you have info, just fucking spit out your proof. I'm so sick of the well some one told me this and it might be true so I'm going to make a thread about it as fact.

lol. I must admit it is a bit annoying. I think this rumor is a bit out there considering shinen kept on getting faster dev kits

 

[tipoo]

So, where are those 320 shader holdouts, has everyone been convinced by now?

 

[kingkaiser]

Not having 3 identical consoles is not an excuse for having 2 completely dysfunctional ones either.

You just don't get it, all three consoles were designed to achieve a certain goal and a lot of money was invested in research to develop unique hardware. They all present the best value for money in their own category, just because the one category, best technical performance for the money, is the most important for you, doesn't mean the other ones are "dysfunctional".

 

[something fishy]

Not having 3 identical consoles is not an excuse for having 2 completely dysfunctional ones either.

we don't. only in the eyes of a certain part of the fanbase who always take that view of others anyway.

 

[Zombie James]

So what's the general equivalent PC hardware now? With the old specs it was around a Radeon 4650, right?

 

[Shin Johnpv]

lol. I must admit it is a bit annoying. I think this rumor is a bit out there considering shinen kept on getting faster dev kits

Right for everyone of these some one told me this so it must be this, there's another twitter comment or something else from some one else seemingly confirming the opposite.

 

[SystemsGo]

Interesting timing to create this thread about a rumor...

That lighting thread must not have sat well with some people...

 

[Sutanreyu]

Why the heck would Nintendo pick a small case over a better running console? That makes no sense.

Larger profit margin.

 

[dampflokfreund]

Is that really confirmed? I'm very disappointed. So how much stronger is my new laptop with a HD 8750m ( 8 ROPS, 24 TMUs, 384 GCN cores) now? Lol..

 

[Jrs3000]

As EatChildren said, the specs aren't confirmed (just plausibly explained), and the downgrade stuff is pure speculation.

This is why I'm trying to figure out why there's even a new thread about more speculation and rumor with no evidence. This could've been said in the existing latte thread.

 

[tipoo]

Was anything actually confirmed or is this whole thread based on assumption and speculation?

Was the original Die shot ever confirmed to be on a 55nm or 40nm Fabrication?

The processor is known to be using IBMs 45nm plant, the GPU appears to be on 40nm, and Chipworks said that iirc so I'd believe them. Any assumptions have been made with 40nm in mind, not the larger 55nm.

 

[fred]

So what's the general equivalent PC hardware now? With the old specs it was around a Radeon 4650, right?

Impossible to say. If this rumour of 160:8:8 is true then we don't have a Scooby Doo about what a large part of the silicone is there for. If I remember correctly from the Latte thread many people were dismissing the 160 shaders theory because the area that we thought was being taken up by them was too large. There was an opinion or two that the ALUs were somewhere between 160 and 320, but if it's 160 then that extra space has to be taken up by something.

Anyone got any ideas or should this be discussed in the Latte thread..?

And does anyone have any theories about why the ROPs and TMUs are the same amount..?

 

[lyrick]

The processor is known to be using IBMs 45nm plant, the GPU appears to be on 40nm, and Chipworks said that iirc so I'd believe them. Any assumptions have been made with 40nm in mind, not the larger 55nm.

So it could fall in line with a mobile Redwood design (similar to a 6550M) with a Compute Unit disabled leaving 320 Shaders, 16 Texture units, 8 ROPs at under 26 watts. Or a Caicos design (160 shader ) but it came out pretty late, only had 4 ROPs but had that 64Bit Bus.

 

[Effect]

The GameCube, Wii and Wii U are balanced systems, whether they are undersized or not doesn't change that fact. The Wii U in particular has been designed from the ground up to be a balanced and efficient system with the least amount of bottlenecks possible.

Again, look at the games I listed and how great they look. I've no problem with Latte being 160:8:8 because there's something going on to make first and early second generation games look that good.

This is the thing that has always confused me regarding Wii U tech talk. Many people keep saying the Wii U is weak and while more powerful then the PS3/360 it's not by much and tossing around numbers. However if my understanding of what has been said in various threads is correct then what we're seeing on the system in terms of actual games shouldn't be possible with some of the numbers tossed around. So why do we keep seeing these numbers tossed around even as speculation. Shouldn't the actual games that have been releasing say those numbers and possibly numbers around them are simply wrong and there is something else to the technology in the system. Something that possible raw numbers aren't a good measurement to use.

Wasn't that the same issue with the GameCube at the time. Sony and Microsoft were tossing around a lot of numbers but people were laughing at the GameCube numbers Nintendo released. Then to see GameCube games preform better then PS2 games in a significant way at times and be on par with Xbox games.

It's as if some people are really invested in the Wii U being as weak as possible no matter what while ignoring examples that it possibly can't be as weak as suggested.

 

[RayMaker]

Regardless of specs is pretty clear by now that the WiiU is basicly a 360/ps3+ in terms of visuals.

I dont think WiiU games are going to do much more then good ps3/360 games


--------------------
how many gflops would the gpu have with these rumors

 

[fred]

Yup, I agree Effect.

As I mentioned in my post above if there are indeed 160 ALUs, 8 TMUs and 8 ROPs then there's a fair amount of the silicone on there that's a complete mystery.

I'm still subscribing to the opinion that Nintendo have somehow evolved the TEV Unit so that fixed functions can be easily used by modern engines. The TEV Unit gave the Wii a nonstandard rendering pipeline so ports were pretty much impossible but if Nintendo have evolved it in some way to give it a standard rendering pipeline then it would give developers and engines 'free' use of commonly used functions such as depth of field, HDR lighting etc.

There's no way that a bog standard 160:8:8 GPU should be able to run something like the Bayonetta 2 demo the way I see it.

 

[tipoo]

So it could fall in line with a mobile Redwood design (similar to a 6550M) with a Compute Unit disabled leaving 320 Shaders, 16 Texture units, 8 ROPs at under 26 watts. Or a Caicos design (160 shader ) but it came out pretty late, only had 4 ROPs but had that 64Bit Bus.

I think that's too high power draw for the GPU. The entire system draws 33W with nothing attached, it can be brought higher by attaching an external HDD or charging a controller which is probably what Nintendo meant with typical power draw. One part taking 26W out of 33 would leave nothing next to nothing for the other components.

And again I'll bring up the weird ratio here, 1:1 TMU to ROP I have not heard of, you would normally have two TMUs to an ROP.

 

[lyrick]

I think that's too high power draw for the GPU. The entire system draws 33W with nothing attached, it can be brought higher by attaching an external HDD or charging a controller which is probably what Nintendo meant with typical power draw. One part taking 26W out of 33 would leave nothing next to nothing for the other components.

And again I'll bring up the weird ratio here, 1:1 TMU to ROP I have not heard of, you would normally have two TMUs to an ROP.

The 26W is for a 400:20:8 configuration with a higher memory clock The same clocks (550/800MHz) in the 5750M run at 25W. Using the full 400:20:8 reference board wouldn't allow for binning so I imaging a SIMD Engine is disabled leaving the 320:16:8 config, which might save on some power draw.

 

[belmonkey]

If the components are as they seem to be, does that mean emulators / Dolphin will get at it sooner than Wii?

 

[krizzx]

Somewhere, Krizz is crying.

Also, I was attacked for saying that the hardware was downgraded. Of course it was contrary to what everyone else believed... and granted I guessed, but still. =[

Thanks for the confirmation though. It's much needed.

Any idea about the chipset?

What is this statement supposed to mean? Why would I be crying?

I thought it was already know that there were both downgrades and enhancements to the Wii U from the early devkits to the final build.

Also, I thought both BG and that mod stated and reiterated that this is purely a rumor.

 

[OryoN]

To be honest, whatever the console is doing with its 176 GFLOPs, is pretty amazing to me. I'm getting that GameCube - the little machine that could - vibe.

Beyond that, I don't get why people are getting worked up. You'd think they console suddenly got less powerful or something. What impressed most people - concerning what Wii U was capable of - was the number of beautiful 60fps games shows at E3 2013. The console certainly didn't get less powerful since then. That's what makes these reactions so puzzling.

Going into E3, we had already seen the die shots, and already knew what to expect on the low end. Even the "high end" was pretty low. However, once E3 came and went, me - and many others also - stopped worrying about about how capable the console IS. Whether it was 160 ALUs, 320, or just 10, it made no difference to me, because I was satisfied by what I was seeing at this early stage in the console's life. Only 2 facts remain now:

1) Crying about what could have been during the console's development - a year after the console launched, lol - isn't going to change a thing. Boo hoo hoo.
2) As impressive as some Wii U software is looking now, it's only going to get better. That's what matters. It also doesn't hurt that the coming games are looking damn exciting to play.

 

[Jrs3000]

Krizz comes back with the thread of shinen's response to the dowgrade rumor.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=710932

Is there a point for this thread to go on since there's no confirmation of 160/8/8 it's still speculated and the rumor of a downgrade countered by a dev that would know?

 

[Darryl]

Why the heck would Nintendo pick a small case over a better running console? That makes no sense.

maybe they're starting to see how bloated entertainment systems are with all of the gizmos and gadgets. my system is fucking decked right now. i've thought about reducing the entire thing down to just a wii u. extremely simple. there's too much clutter in my house.

 

[JordanN]

If the components are as they seem to be, does that mean emulators / Dolphin will get at it sooner than Wii?

Probably not sooner. Wii was literally a Gamecube with slightly more power.

GPU in Wii U is probably a whole different beast compared compared to the Flipper architecture. Only the CPU is a lot similar to the past systems.

That said, who knows what Nintendo's quest to be backwards compatible means for emulation. Maybe that left an opening somewhere, maybe it didn't.

 

[blu]

Hey there, BG. What's the low-down on this?

If so, they are clearly nuts. The CPU is IMHO weaker than the CPU in the 360, to the point where no amount of adaptation/optimization will bring the game over 100% if you're CPU bound on 360 (even NFS shows evidence of this with reduced player counts in online), and then the GPU seems like it is barely faster, if it is even faster at all - this explains why CoD hasn't been running in a higher resolution on WiiU than on current gen.

IMHO they built the exact opposite machine than the one they had to build this time around. I think they needed to hit "360+" so that current gen ports would be trivial (so that they would happen even with a limited userbase) - basically slightly more powerful than 360 in both CPU and GPU. Then with a stream of multiplatform games that run a little better than current gen (imagine if the WiiU was the best place to play GTA5 today!) plus their exclusive content, they would have had a better chance to build a significant userbase ahead of next gen. Sadly instead we got watered down or no current gen ports (since some games cannot be easily ported over, like games on Frostbite which are well parallelized and use the CPU effectively on current gen)...and if they missed this target because of an obsession with the size of the case means they have serious problems with their overall vision, I think.

They clearly have hit "360+" levels, sans the CPU FLOPS and main GPU BW from main RAM. And I'm not sure why you bring up Frostbite here - let's not involve EA business logic in this thread.

 

[scitek]

Wow, the ignorance of some people here is simply mindboggling.

No company of the three ones developing next-gen systems is ripping-off the customers.

Every of these consoles holds its own value and the philosophy behind developing them was quite different.

One was developed to offer the most technical raw-power for money, one was developed to unite multimedia functions with motion control, and one was developed to achieve a space- and power-saving platform with touch control

Just because you are favoring one of these philosophies doesn't mean the other ones are wrong or simple ripp-offs.

Are three absolutely identical consoles with just a handful of exclusives to separate from each other the thing you people really want?

Well, I think the One is a rip-off since it's practically useless without Xbox Live, and most of its functions can be achieved on the PS4 which is $100 and has better graphics, but to each his own.

 

[Starfish Hero]

To be honest, whatever the console is doing with its 160 GFLOPs, is pretty amazing to me. I'm getting that GameCube - the little machine that could - vibe.

Beyond that, I don't get why people are getting worked up. You'd think they console suddenly got less powerful or something. What impressed most people - concerning what Wii U was capable of - was the number of beautiful 60fps games shows at E3 2013. The console certainly didn't get less powerful since then. That's what makes these reactions so puzzling.

Going into E3, we had already seen the die shots, and already knew what to expect on the low end. Even the "high end" was pretty low. However, once E3 came and went, me - and many others also - stopped worrying about about how capable the console IS. Whether it was 160 GFLOPs, 320, or just 10, it made no difference to me, because I was satisfied by what I was seeing at this early stage in the console's life. Only 2 facts remain now:

1) Crying about what could have been during the console's development - a year after the console launched, lol - isn't going to change a thing. Boo hoo hoo.
2) As impressive as some Wii U software is looking now, it's only going to get better. That's what matters. It also doesn't hurt that the coming games are looking damn exciting to play.

Yea you would think some people here think the Wii U got retroactively weaker since it launched. I mean, come on, this:

8 shader units with 20 alus in each = 160ALUs @ 550mhz = 176GFLOPs + 24gflops+ of fixed function shaders

was the third post in the GPU thread. There was plenty of back and forth on whether it was 160ALUs or 320 (and there probably still will be), but this isn't groundbreaking news. Discussing whether or not the Wii U could still run the Zelda demo or if it is weaker than the PS3/360 is just silly.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Thanks for following up on this, bg. Nice to know that I wasn't crazy in seeing 8 TMUs after all.

 

[Deku Tree]

Mario 3D Land still looks amazing though.

 

[fred]

Mario 3D Land still looks amazing though.

And Mario Kart 8 and Bayonetta 2 and X and SSBU etc etc etc

 

[Glorified G]

Except for BLOPS 2 (which compares the same as other current Gen counterparts) every port looks and runs better on the Wii U. The Wii U is a better built machine than the 360 and the PS3 and it shows.

So it doesn't "barely" keep up, whatever graphs say.

Yeah, you missed the Wii U launch

 

[ColdBlooder]

To be honest, whatever the console is doing with its 176 GFLOPs, is pretty amazing to me. I'm getting that GameCube - the little machine that could - vibe.

Beyond that, I don't get why people are getting worked up. You'd think they console suddenly got less powerful or something. What impressed most people - concerning what Wii U was capable of - was the number of beautiful 60fps games shows at E3 2013. The console certainly didn't get less powerful since then. That's what makes these reactions so puzzling.

Going into E3, we had already seen the die shots, and already knew what to expect on the low end. Even the "high end" was pretty low. However, once E3 came and went, me - and many others also - stopped worrying about about how capable the console IS. Whether it was 160 ALUs, 320, or just 10, it made no difference to me, because I was satisfied by what I was seeing at this early stage in the console's life. Only 2 facts remain now:

1) Crying about what could have been during the console's development - a year after the console launched, lol - isn't going to change a thing. Boo hoo hoo.
2) As impressive as some Wii U software is looking now, it's only going to get better. That's what matters. It also doesn't hurt that the coming games are looking damn exciting to play.

Perfectly worded! Kudos!

I am one of those who stopped giving a crap about the specs since E3. Bayonetta 2, MK8, 3D World, Wind Waker HD,, X... Super impressive. I got what i wanted from Nintendo graphics wise.

And it dosen't matter if they archive it with 10, 50, 100, 176, 250 or 320 gflops... If they use 100, 250, 500, 750 or 1024mb of RAM. If its DDR3 or gDDR5... If it only has 3 cores or 8... Games look gorgeous. And better yet... Most of them are even in 60fps, wich will result in buttery smooth gameplay!

Yes Xbox One and PS4 are significantly stronger and technically more impressive. (That actually was never a question. It was alwayss about if its more capable than PS360, wich it clearly is)

I just think we should really stop looking sorely at console specs. We don't play specs. We play games.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Quite a few people, as it turned out.



I really don't understand why people keep saying this. Nintendo are in the situation they are in now because the path that everyone keeps saying they should follow didn't work when they tried.

As I said in a previous post regarding this very system, Nintendo created a console that almost seemed to purposely repel young adult males. Thank you for posting the pic as evidence.

Nobody wants a purple purse.

It doesn't matter if its $99, has the best first party Nintendo games and amazing third party games.

Its not just about games. You cannot sell a purple purse. If it looked cool and amazing and had a DVD drive so third parties didn't have to struggle with multi-plats, the market could have seen another SNES/GENESIS scenario with Nintendo selling amazingly well along with its rival.

But they really wanted to push that ugly as sin console.

I don't understand arguments like yours, which ignore incredible obvious flaws in Nintendo's systems and want to claim "omg they already tried their bestest". Such nonsense.

 

[Deku Tree]

As I said in a previous post regarding this very system, Nintendo created a console that almost seemed to purposely repel young adult males. Thank you for posting the pic as evidence.

Nobody wants a purple purse.

It doesn't matter if its $99, has the best first party Nintendo games and amazing third party games.

Its not just about games. You cannot sell a purple purse. If it looked cool and amazing and had a DVD drive so third parties didn't have to struggle with multi-plats, the market could have seen another SNES/GENESIS scenario with Nintendo selling amazingly well along with its rival.

But they really wanted to push that ugly as sin console.

I don't understand arguments like yours, which ignore incredible obvious flaws in Nintendo's systems and want to claim "omg they already tried their bestest". Such nonsense.

I bought the black GC TBQH. I will never understand why people complain about having options.

 

[Log4Girlz]

I bought the black GC TBQH. I will never understand why people complain about having options.

It was advertised during launch as being purple. That is what Nintendo marketed. No matter the color (which several were released), you still had a hefty looking console with a handle. It looked like a Fischer price toy. This put off a LOT of people and resulted in the worst sales ever for Nintendo, if we ignore the Wii U.

Nintendo never tried to position the Gamecube as being "powerful" and "mature" and something young adults would be clamoring for. PS2 did.

Nintendo never tried.

 

[Rolf NB]

Can you add MSRP bars?

 

[lyrick]

It was advertised during launch as being purple. That is what Nintendo marketed. No matter the color (which several were released), you still had a hefty looking console with a handle. It looked like a Fischer price toy. This put off a LOT of people and resulted in the worst sales ever for Nintendo, if we ignore the Wii U.

Nintendo never tried to position the Gamecube as being "powerful" and "mature" and something young adults would be clamoring for. PS2 did.

Nintendo never tried.

It was actually advertised as Indigo, but apparently they removed that color from the rainbow so not all people under 30 are familiar with it.

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

And Mario Kart 8 and Bayonetta 2 and X and SSBU etc etc etc

Now imagine how they would look with a more significantly powerful hardware!

 

[Hakai]

Now imagine how they would look with a more significantly powerful hardware!

That can be said about any software in any hardware.