It might be in the short term, but they'd still need to have all the other functionality to make it a Wii U, where would you put those? The easiest answer would be separate chips. This is why many consoles of yor would have so many chips on them:Ok, to put things in perspective... if the chip is that expensive, why did Nintendo go that route? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to take a stock 4770 (RV740?) and a Wii GPU with?
PS2:
versus the Gamecube:
Having more chips means more expense in the short term (and even more in the long term, as it's cheaper to shrink a single chip than deal with multiple chips), but is also more efficient at data communication (latency), and is possible to get higher bandwidth due to the ease of wider memory bus' on silicon rather than on mainboard (which also gets' cheaper as you shrink the die, but the mainboard wouldn't).
Nintendo loves to painstakingly create efficient consoles, not because they're the most powerful, but they fit their design philosophy, and also turn profits quicker than ones that are large and inefficient.
When you are developing a product that will be sold in mass quanities over numerous years, you look to the overall cost/profit of producing it, not just the day of release.
Probably in terms of technology and customization involved.Also, the guy from Chipworks says it's an impressive piece of kit... in what sence?