chertipros
Member
Yeah. Pretty much
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Iwata Asks: Wii U
- Thread starter Drago
- Start date
Yeah. Pretty much
Lots of dem
Really liked this edition of Iwata asks. That transparent console truly looks awesome.
Makes me feel fuzzy inside knowing they went the extra mile to ensure I won't be purchasiing a defective console come launch. I lol'd @ the "team nintendo" part.
Really appreciate them showing the innards of Wii U. That CPU is shockingly small yet power efficient?
Makes me feel fuzzy inside knowing they went the extra mile to ensure I won't be purchasiing a defective console come launch. I lol'd @ the "team nintendo" part.
Really appreciate them showing the innards of Wii U. That CPU is shockingly small yet power efficient?
Smiles and Cries
Member
wata Oh! It's clear! Cool!
Everyone (laughs)
Iwata You've got to sell this to me! (laughs)
Everyone (laughs)
SEE THEY DO READ NEOGAF!
Everyone (laughs)
Iwata You've got to sell this to me! (laughs)
Everyone (laughs)
SEE THEY DO READ NEOGAF!
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.
If this is indeed a picture of some of the Wii U's chips, what can the techheads discern from it?
It's been a long time since I read the Iwata Asks for the Wii development, but I don't recall anyone there saying anything positive about its performance. 95% of the talk was relegated to the motion controls.
Which actually makes it kinda nice to see these guys being pretty proud of their work for the Wii-U. And notice how they kept comparing it to the GC all throughout.
Which actually makes it kinda nice to see these guys being pretty proud of their work for the Wii-U. And notice how they kept comparing it to the GC all throughout.
Eaten By A Grue
Member
By cheap you mean making a cost efficient console in a recession so they do not go bankrupt.
bgassassin
Member
Depends on the context of "suck" since there were different interpretations. The most likely thing with the CPU has always been it being of a different architecture compared to Cell and Xenon so it wouldn't be able to do some of the things the other two were designed for. So far all signs point to all three next-gen consoles having a similar to identical (in the case for Xbox3 and PS4) approach with their CPU.
Just like its grandfather!
get a second job to pay for your PS4's power consumption.
lololol
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Whoa...have interviews like this been done for any other consoles? Nintendo or non?
GeneralManager
Member
I think that qualifies. Sure.
EDIT: Qualifies not Qualities. Though I guess it could be "qualities" too.
Grandpa was NOT sexy. :/
alfredofroylan
Member
I think that qualities too. Sure...
Brad Grenz
Member
If you've never developed for a CPU more powerful than what the Wii had, the WiiU CPU probably seems really fast. Nintendo developers may have this perspective, but third parties may not feel the same.
brochiller
Member
I kind of missed that when reading the interview but this is probably the best explanation I've heard from Nintendo for not giving out raw specs. They usually just say something vague like "We like to focus on the experiences, not the numbers," but this comment actually has some substance.
chertipros
Member
Well, the 3ds xl is a tank so I have faith. Also a few years back in a ds lite (or dsi?) Iwata Asks, Iwata said that nintendo hardware normaly goes through coffe table length drop tests to ensure durability. I wouldn't worry
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The heat stuff is super fascinating to me as a mechanical engineer.
TheGreatDivide
Banned
Sure worked out well for Wii.
Projectjustice
Banned
I wouldnt call Nintendo cheap either.
This interview tells me that Nintendo cares about creating a good quality product.
That was sort of my point, but thanks for playing...
In fairness, I always did feel that using the GC to prove that numbers don't necessarily matter was somewhat misleading. Sure, the polygon performances on the Xbox and PS2 (especially the PS2) always involved huge asteriks, but let's not forget that the GC's hardware specs were noticeably better than the PS2.
CPU-
PS2: 300 Mhz
GC: 485 Mhz
GPU-
PS2: 133 Mhz
GC: 162 Mhz
RAM-
PS2: 32 MB
GC: 40 MB
brochiller
Member
The interesting part though is that those numbers were delivered in a smaller, quieter, more power efficient package than the PS2.
metalslimer
Member
To be fair the PS2 launched a year earlier.
chertipros
Member
But it did.....
in some cases yes, in some not. they became better in overall performance, so new chapter, here we go...
yep,it was some kind of running into...
people probably won´t say this about wiiu to ps4/xbox720...
The runaway best-selling console of the generation? Yep.
Gemüsepizza
Member
Considering this is only a 45nm CPU and looking at the cooling solution: Nothing too good. We still don't know anything about the feature set of the GPU, but this does not help much if there just is not enough power behind. The Wii U will of course be more powerful than current gen consoles, but it would be very easy for Microsoft and Sony to built a console which brutally outclasses the Wii U.
Hasn't this been established since the GameCube generation, the generation that caused them to stop revealing specs because they wouldn't bullshit the numbers with raw statistics like their competitors, leading to a well-held misconception in that gen that GameCube was the weakest console?
TheGreatDivide
Banned
The system died way sooner than the top console of a generation should. Wii didn't need to have such a massive profit margin, and ultimately their tactic killed any chance of it having a PSX or PS2 calibre lifecycle.
I'm sorry, what are you saying here?
Yeah first thing I thought as well. Though I wouldn't expect anything else from Nintendo.
The mainboards in all their consoles from the N64 and forward have all been very elegantly designed.
Edit: Added pictures, because why not?
Nintendo 64:
Gamecube:
Wii:
Why would you do that?
Member
The Wii died because Nintendo stopped supporting it to focus on 3DS/Wii U while 3rd parties also stopped supporting it, not because people stopped caring about it. Whenever recent big releases happened, the Wii sold well. Like Dragon Quest X. I believe it could have easily had a PS1 or PS2 life cycle if it had support from developers like the PS1/2 have.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
I remember reading articles about the 360 design at launch on TeamXbox.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Why do you think 3rd parties stopped supporting it? It wasn't because of the 3ds or wii u. If it had similar power to the ps3 or 360 things would have been different.
It still unequivocally "worked out" Nintendo wasn't coming off of the PS2, it was coming off of the gamecube, why should Ninty care if it sold as much as PS2 when it was ludicrously profitable, outsold the competition and completely revived the company? It wasn't competing wtih the PSX or the PS2, it was competing with the 360 and PS3 and it heftily outsold either of them despite not having as long of a life, which doesn't really matter since Nintendo accounted for that and is releasing new Hardware anyhow.