Support NeoGAF

[Drago]

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/console/0/0

a lot of stuff about the hardware, it seems.

Also,

 

[Meelow]

If only they also sold the Transparent Wii U.

 

[JazzmanZ]

c'mon Nintendo unleash my inner 90's and release transparent 3DS and Wii U's!

 

[Boss Doggie]

Wasn't there an Iwata Asks for PxZ?

 

[Pappasman]

Iwata - You've got to sell this to me! (laughs)

Sell it to me too!!!! transparent Wii U looks awesome.

 

[Drago]

Also, a view of what's under the front flap of the system, since I know there are a few who were curious about that

 

[CrunchinJelly]

The Wii went out into the world with a mainly vertical design, so in order to create a distinction, we went with a mainly horizontal design for the Wii U.

A slightly more unique console design for Wii U would have achieved this more than just changing the primary orientation.

 

[shadyspace]

The black Wii U looks matte in that pic.

 

[Samurai_Heart]

Wasn't there an Iwata Asks for PxZ?

Most likely not translated to english.

 

[Medalion]

Now there's the megaton!

 

[chertipros]

"With Wii however, Nintendo alone has pursued high performance with low power consumption."
Lol ok nintendo

 

[Doc Holliday]

Way too much effort placed on low power consumption and size. This isn't a handheld system guys :/ Clean design though!

 

[Squire]

Fitting, considering it seems to me Nintendo doesn't have a clue in regards to how the Wii U's been handled pre-launch.

 

[Medalion]

Way too much effort placed on low power consumption and size. This isn't a handheld system guys :/

Well it almost sorta is

 

[Cjdamon042]

The Wii went out into the world with a mainly vertical design, so in order to create a distinction, we went with a mainly horizontal design for the Wii U.

A slightly more unique console design for Wii U would have achieved this more than just changing the primary orientation.

They say that...but they went and made all new Wiis horizontal :/ lol

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Iwata: I like the way you say you love CPUs!(laughs)

 

[Howard Ballou]

Kitano: Right. In regards to heat test, the number went over 2,000.

Iwata: Huh? Two thousand?! I never imagined it would be so many!

Made me laugh. Not bad!

 

[metalslimer]

Low power consumption is becoming increasingly important especially in Japan so that's why they are going that route. Of course hitting a certain price also plays a lot into it. They also went that route with the Gamecube.

They say that...but they went and made all new Wiis horizontal :/ lol

lol

 

[Lord_Byron28]

Way too much effort placed on low power consumption and size. This isn't a handheld system guys :/ Clean design though!

Size and power consumption is a huge factor for Japan though.

 

[EloquentM]

"With Wii however, Nintendo alone has pursued high performance with low power consumption."
Lol ok nintendo

High performance = efficiency in this context.

 

[Oersted]

I always play video games with my children. With Wii U, you have a screen right there in your hand. You may notice your children hiding it, and be like, "What're you doing?" and try to look, but they'll be like, "No, I won't show you!" I feel like this will increase the amount of conversation that takes place. (laughs)

priceless

 

[Aeana]

Kitano: Right. Another detail is the cover. For the Wii, it came out forward, but this time it goes in.
Iwata: Oh wow! That way it isn't in the way when it's open!
Kitano: Yet another point I'd like to emphasize! (laughs)

This is like the best thing about the Wii U from the Wii.

 

[chertipros]

What's the deal with the emphasis on low power consumption anyway? I'm really curious

 

[wsippel]

So it's actually a MCM. Well, no big surprise, but still nice to see confirmation. So it seems this is the chip:

Two LSIs in a MCM package. The tiny one on the left is most likely the CPU, the big one next to it is the GPU.

 

[Medalion]

Kitano: Right. In regards to heat test, the number went over 2,000.

Iwata: Huh? Two thousand?! I never imagined it would be so many!

Made me laugh. Not bad!

Only over 2000?

Vegeta can defeat this easily!

 

[shadyspace]

What's the deal with the emphasis on low power consumption anyway? I'm really curious

Japan is running out of electricity.

 

[noobasuar]

hmmm pretty interesting.. More exicted to read the next Iwata Asks that talks about the Gamepad.

Hopefully we'll find out if you can play virtual console titles on the gamepad.

 

[bgassassin]

So it's actually a MCM. Well, no big surprise, but still nice to see confirmation. So it seems this is the chip:

Two LSIs in a MCM package. The tiny one on the left is most likely the CPU, the big one next to it is the GPU.

Just commented on that in the specs thread. I didn't think about them putting both the CPU and GPU onto one MCM.

They have another picture pointing out which is which.

 

[Doc Holliday]

So it's actually a MCM. Well, no big surprise, but still nice to see confirmation. So it seems this is the chip:

Two LSIs in a MCM package. The tiny one on the left is most likely the CPU, the big one next to it is the GPU.

Goes along with all the info we have up to this point. The GPU is almost 4 times the size.

 

[wsippel]

This interview also confirms that the GPU LSI is once again manufactured by Renesas, not TSMC. Which means the Tezzaron interview was bullshit after all.

 

[RAWi]

This is like the best thing about the Wii U from the Wii.

Oh wow! Neat! I think taht I would be playing with that more than it is needed... xD

 

[metalslimer]

What's the deal with the emphasis on low power consumption anyway? I'm really curious

Well I don't know what was the deal with the Wii and GC, but Japan is moving away from nuclear power after the disaster which puts a strain on the electricity in japan and electric prices have apparently skyrocketed

 

[richman555]

Now your playing with LESS Power!!

 

[Meelow]

Just commented on that in the specs thread. I didn't think about them putting both the CPU and GPU onto one MCM.

They have another picture pointing out which is which.

So is all this good?

 

[axisofweevils]

To me, the megaton in this Iwata Asks is the fact that they have made a stand so the Wii U can be upright, if you wish.

 

[GDGF]

I love these things

 

[rpmurphy]

Quoting at random:

Takeda: ... The Wii U development kicked off when we thought that we should adapt ourselves to the new HD standard for making everyone enjoy the benefits of home HD TV sets. Our philosophy is that we want to make something that everyone could enjoy the same way under the same circumstances in many different households of the greatest number.

Takeda: That's right. And since it's a device you have in your living room 24 hours a day, we wanted people to enjoy various things beyond playing games that we couldn't fully achieve with Wii. We really had to think a lot to provide Wii U at an affordable price while at the same time achieving the solid performance of the game computer.

Iwata: That's similar to the concept we discussed in "The Wii Hardware" with regard to low power consumption and high performance.

Takeda: Yes. Ever since the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo has concerned itself with how to improve the game computer's efficiency while constraining power consumption, and this has been consistent in that design concept.

Takeda: This time we fully embraced the idea of using an MCM for our gaming console. An MCM is where the aforementioned Multi-core CPU chip and the GPU chip are built into a single component. The GPU itself also contains quite a large on-chip memory. Due to this MCM, the package costs less and we could speed up data exchange among two LSIs while lowering power consumption. And also the international division of labor in general, would be cost-effective.

Iwata: A big challenge this time was putting silicon chips made at different semiconductor plants into one package. Shiota-san, as the person who actually had to make that happen, what hurdles did you encounter?

Shiota: The LSI chips were made at different companies, so when a defect arose, it was difficult to isolate the cause. In defect analysis, it was inside the MCM, so figuring out the problem was incredibly difficult.

Iwata: When it's actually running, it's all inside a single box, so you can't easily observe what is happening.

Shiota: Right. We really drew on the wisdom of Renesas, IBM and AMD, who cooperated with us. To isolate the problem we devised a way to have a minimum amount of signal travel outside of the MCM, so we could verify the problem with the minimum amount of overhead.

...

Shiota: Yes. As Takeda-san said, lowering power consumption has been our position since the GameCube. By putting LSI chips in this small package, the power necessary for communication between LSI chips drastically fell.

Iwata: Compared to power flowing between chips in separate physical positions on the board, you can get by with less power inside a small module. The latency is also reduced, and the speed increases.

Shiota: Yes. And by putting them in a single small package, we can make the footprint on the CPU board smaller. For the contribution it would make to casing miniaturization too, I wanted to do it no matter what!

Takeda: They were all different companies, so when it came to defects, it was like, "That isn't our responsibility."

Iwata: Usually when there are defects, you would fix it so it doesn't happen in the first place. The moment that programmers run a program they have made, they hit the key thinking, "Of course this will run!" And when you tell them doesn't run, they think, "It must be a problem somewhere else." In the same way, when you pack in chips made by different semiconductor manufacturers, it's only natural for everyone to think, "The problem must be somewhere else." Shiota-san, how did you handle that?

Shiota: Simply put, I adopted a policy of "Prove your own innocence."

Iwata Oh, that's interesting! (laughs)

Kitano: Compared with the Wii, the Wii U has about three times the amount of heat, so we really had to wrack our brains. We considered solutions such as making the fan bigger and raising the number of fan revolutions. We conducted heat tests for prototypes a number of times and optimized placement of the air holes.

Kitano: Another small detail is the vent cover in the back of the fan. We had to put a lot of work into improving efficiency, making it thinner and slanting the inside so that the air could escape more smoothly.

...

Takeda: We also do fan-noise testing, so it takes a lot of time.

Kitano: Yeah. If you increase the number of fan revolutions, it makes more noise, so we checked to see how much noise was acceptable while playing games. Adjusting the number of fan revolutions changes not only the noise but the heat level. Our goal was to see how efficiently we could dissipate the heat, so we applied ourselves to one thing after the next.

Takeda: I think that's the magic of game-console development. We carry out development together with other partner companies, but rather than having IBM employees and AMD employees and Renesas employees, we joined into what might be called "Team Nintendo". That happened because, it seems like they can talk to their families like their children, grandchildren and spouses about what they have made. In that respect, one of the good points of game-console development is how the participants' motivation inspired the team as a whole.

Iwata: Instead of just designing a GPU, for example, you're making a game console. It's interesting how even different companies can form one team. So when defects arise, we are blessed to have people who will take a personal stake in it and cooperate with us even if the cause doesn't lie with them.

Shiota: Actually, a lot of the CPU and GPU designers this time have been working with us since development of Wii—which is a plus. They really like our products.

Iwata: Especially since the Wii U had to be backwards compatible with Wii.

Shiota: Yes. The designers were already incredibly familiar with the Wii, so without getting hung up on the two machines' completely different structures, they came up with ideas we would never have thought of. There were times when you would usually just incorporate both the Wii U and Wii circuits, like 1+1. But instead of just adding like that, they adjusted the new parts added to Wii U so they could be used for Wii as well.

Iwata: And that made the semiconductor smaller.

Shiota: Right. What's more, power consumption fell. That was an idea that only designers familiar with Wii could have put forth. We were able to make such a small semiconductor because so much wisdom bubbled up!

Takeda: I would draw attention to how efficient it is. For a computer to function efficiently, memory hierarchy structure is very important, and this time the basic memory hierarchy is tightly designed. Although that is an orthodox solution, it makes the foremost feature of this machine's high efficiency.

Iwata: That has been our policy since the GameCube. No matter how great the numbers are that you can boast, can you only draw that out under certain conditions, or can you actually draw out its performance consistently when you use it? Insisting on the latter way of thinking has always been at the root of hardware and system development at Nintendo.

Iwata: Thank you. Hardware is indeed a stagehand, but without it, you can't do anything. When you actually use it, it runs as a matter of course, but in order to achieve something that appears so effortless, you thermal test it thousands of times and revise the test patterns hundreds of times and perform defect analysis.

I hope that the people, especially those who bother themselves to read this interview to know that in order to make this hardware at this size, with this performance, while also suppressing power consumption—and all at this price—a lot of people had to work awfully hard. That is my candid wish.

 

[Drago]

To me, the megaton in this Iwata Asks is the fact that they have made a stand so the Wii U can be upright, if you wish.

We've known about this for a while, comes with every Deluxe set. Don't know if it's being sold separately, but I wouldn't use one anyways ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[Howard Ballou]

Only over 2000?

Vegeta can defeat this easily!

Wii U weaker than Nappa confirmed?

 

[jooey]

Way too much effort placed on low power consumption and size. This isn't a handheld system guys :/ Clean design though!

fuck da earf

 

[CrunchinJelly]

To me, the megaton in this Iwata Asks is the fact that they have made a stand so the Wii U can be upright, if you wish.

How is this a megaton when it's included in the Premium pack? It's been known for ages.

 

[Silent_Ocarina]

To me, the megaton in this Iwata Asks is the fact that they have made a stand so the Wii U can be upright, if you wish.

Didn't they already tell us it would be included in the Deluxe Bundle? I'd really like to see how it looks with the stand. It doesn't look nearly as good as Wii.

 

[tnaden]

Only over 2000?

Vegeta can defeat this easily!

Quick and dirty:

 

[Dicer]

I fucking LOVE Iwata asks...and we get to see the internals, something everyone was dying to see.

 

[Eaten By A Grue]

What's the deal with the emphasis on low power consumption anyway? I'm really curious

Because you end up with a console that sounds like a jet engine while running.

 

[wsippel]

PCB looks really elegant. Memory seems to be 4 x 4Gbit, so most definitely DDR3. Chips don't seem to require cooling, either. Each chip is connected separately. 128bit interface then?

 

[Medalion]

It's so...cllleeeannnnn looking

 

[psy18]

Just commented on that in the specs thread. I didn't think about them putting both the CPU and GPU onto one MCM.

They have another picture pointing out which is which.

That CPU is so tiny...

 

[rpmurphy]

That CPU is so tiny...

The whole thing looks small... I think it's pretty amazing.

 

[bgassassin]

Goes along with all the info we have up to this point. The GPU is almost 4 times the size.

True if not a little more, but the eDRAM, DSP, and I/O controller are all going to be with the GPU in that was well. So how much of that is the "real" GPU still isn't known.

This interview also confirms that the GPU LSI is once again manufactured by Renesas, not TSMC. Which means the Tezzaron interview was bullshit after all.

Yeah. I remember bringing Renesas up because they had the capacity to make 32nm eDRAM and LSI as well I believe and they were also purchased by NEC awhile back if I remember correctly.

So is all this good?

Haha, it just lets us know how they are able to get away with the power envelope they decided on.