Rumored Tech Specs Give Wii 2 More Power Than Xbox 360

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funguy2121

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jpoon said:
So they are purposefully shooting for a new underpowered system, wow consider me underwhelmed yet again...
What's with all the talk of "yet again" and "trends?"

The Wii was a release unlike any other in Nintendo's, and the industry's, history. The gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 and the N64 had more processing power (not to mention *ahem* actual 3D graphics) than PSOne.

People can be so melodramatic. It's a video game.
 

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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I really wouldn't bother to whining over how "dated" the console would be, as far as I can see, those specs sound pretty reasonable to me, but Nintendo should definitely ramp up the ram memory a bit, to 1gb at the very least. That and a 250+gb hard drive.

On a side note, captcha gave me a neat name for my imaginary shitty racing game: Iceram Bridger.
 

hexFrank202

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Controller: Sounds pretty complicated. But Nintendo makes the best controllers, so it'd be a first if they completely messed up with this one.

Graphics: Nintendo has a thing for not having the most powerful graphical tools, but for doing the most fantastic job with the technology that it does have. The way I see it, the technology the PS3 and 360 use were too young to be executed quite perfectly, and that Nintendo has spent the last few years mastering it first. I can assume all their third party games will look unlike anything we've yet seen.

Price: This is what I'm most concerned about. Nintendo's always practiced low prices for their consoles, until the 3DS at an insane $250. I'm worried. Maybe Nintendo's just taking into account the possible explosion of inflation that could happen soon thanks to the game of print-money-out-of-nowhere hot potato my president has been playing.
 

ReiverCorrupter

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Wieke said:
It reportedly includes a three-core custom IBM PowerPC CPU, an ATI R700 GPU, and 512 MB of RAM.
Please let this just be a rumour, that is some woefully atrocious hardware. Only 512 mb and an old graphics processor. (Seriously, the R700 was two generations ago.) Personally i'm hoping it contains some of that sexy new AMD Fusion hardware but it's probably to early for those.

Controller with touch screen sounds interesting though.
Yeah. Shooting to slightly outdo the mediocre console in the current generation is not good. It won't even be as powerful as the PS3. The touch screen controler sounds awesome, but the limited specs tell me that Nintendo has devoted itself to the casual niche. Oh well.

I do hope that Sony or MS use the touch screen in their controllers. That would be revolutionary. Hell, it might make RTS plausible for the consoles.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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RhombusHatesYou said:
Wieke said:
It reportedly includes a three-core custom IBM PowerPC CPU, an ATI R700 GPU, and 512 MB of RAM.
Please let this just be a rumour, that is some woefully atrocious hardware. Only 512 mb and an old graphics processor. (Seriously, the R700 was two generations ago.) Personally i'm hoping it contains some of that sexy new AMD Fusion hardware but it's probably to early for those.
The problem with current Fusion APUs is that they're aimed at low to medium end general purpose and multimedia systems.. which is to say the netbook, low end laptop, office desktop and HTPC markets. Excellent for those markets (and profitable, too) but not really something you'd use for HD gaming. Also, there's no way AMD would let any of their Fusion tech be put on an IBM custom CPU.

I do have to wonder why Nintendo would use a custom CPU when using off the shelf served them so well for the Wii, though.
To my knowledge, the Wii CPU is a 'custom' CPU. It's 'custom' in the sense that it's a variant of a mainstream IBM cpu, but custom nonetheless, in that it isn't shared by any other device.

Really, 'custom' is highly unlikely to mean something altogether new built from the ground up.

klasbo said:
512MB of RAM?
The R700 cards all have 512MB or higher (I think; I haven't seen a 4xxx card with less),and having less "normal" RAM that video RAM makes no practical sense... RAM prices are at an all-time low nowadays, so 4/8GB makes more sense.

You'd also want to have the ability to run DX11 (just to open up possibilities for developers working on other current-gen systems) as well as 64-bit processes (we're moving forward, people, don't fall behind!). There is no reason to make something "new" when it is out-spec'd by 3-4 year old systems. It's not like the "Wii mk.2" is coming out tomorrow, after all.

Wake me when they put an intel i7 2600 in it. And give it mouse/keyboard support.
OK, seriously, DX11 is an API. The hardware is built to the API specification, but that doesn't mean the hardware capabilities are identical to the specification.

Case in point: ATI X1000 series graphics chips can do some funky stuff with looping the output of the pixel shader into the input of the vertex shader. (in effect allowing them to do vertex shader operations with a pixel shader.) - This is not at all part of the DirectX 9 specification, so almost no PC games use this ability, since it would require ATI specific extensions to the game code.
By contrast, you can almost guarantee anyone that built a console based on an X1000 chip would use such an ability.

Or another example: Hardware tessellation is a feature defined for DirectX 11 as mandatory. Yet, while pre-directX 11 NVIDIA chips could not do tessellation, ALL ATI chips since the 2000 series have had the capability anyway, but again, it was going unused because it wasn't part of the core DirectX spec. Hence, any PC game using it would have needed ATI specific code to do so.
Again, any console built around such a chip would have no reason to ignore such an ability.

In short, PC hardware often has capabilities beyond the DirectX API it was developed to work with, which rarely gets used because developers using DirectX tend to stick with the lowest common denominator.

Console developers, by contrast, have a fixed hardware design. And will gladly use anything and everything the hardware is capable of, because they don't have to worry about their code running on anything else.

Having said that, it still seems stupid to use an R700 (X4000 series) chip for a product intended to be released in 2012. The only explanation I can think of, is the lead time involved in creating a hardware product.
Though I find it suspicious that this would be 4 years, considering what the hardware in the 360 and PS3 is. (PS3 hardware for instance, was no more than a single generation out of date at time of launch; - if these specs are true, by 2012, the new Nintendo system will be about 4 generations behind.)
 

jyork89

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slipknot4 said:
Nintendo has not released a good console in 15 years, I doubt they will start now.
Also, what's wrong with buttons? Touch screen and camera sounds like a gimmick, this is not an iPhone people.
Sales statistics would beg to differ on that point. From what I understand Nintendo has sold more Wii's than both Xbox 360's and PS3's. If not good, at least it shows that the Wii has been hugely successful. And lets not even mention Nintendo DS.

I myself wouldn't buy one until I had at least an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. But neither me, or anyone on this website can singly claim to represent 80 million people, hence our opinion means squat against the general population. Console makers will always do what sells. Why else have we had Sony and Microsoft add these new gimmicks called Move and Kinetic? They want a slice of that juicy pie that Nintendo is hogging.

And you mentioned iPhones, but from what I understand iPhone games have been selling like hotcakes. Which is probably where Nintendo got their idea for a touch screen from (if the rumors are to be believed).
 

Rainforce

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Tom Goldman said:
The controller is not only said to have a 6-inch HD touchscreen embedded, but a camera, D-pad, 2 bumpers, 2 triggers, and "possibly more," while also doubling as a sensor bar.
Controller abomination VERY MUCH?
Can't wait to see image macros/shoops for this, though.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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jyork89 said:
slipknot4 said:
Nintendo has not released a good console in 15 years, I doubt they will start now.
Also, what's wrong with buttons? Touch screen and camera sounds like a gimmick, this is not an iPhone people.
Sales statistics would beg to differ on that point. From what I understand Nintendo has sold more Wii's than both Xbox 360's and PS3's. If not good, at least it shows that the Wii has been hugely successful. And lets not even mention Nintendo DS.

I myself wouldn't buy one until I had at least an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. But neither me, or anyone on this website can singly claim to represent 80 million people, hence our opinion means squat against the general population. Console makers will always do what sells. Why else have we had Sony and Microsoft add these new gimmicks called Move and Kinetic? They want a slice of that juicy pie that Nintendo is hogging.

And you mentioned iPhones, but from what I understand iPhone games have been selling like hotcakes. Which is probably where Nintendo got their idea for a touch screen from (if the rumors are to be believed).
Or... Perhaps, you know... From the success of the DS's touchscreen? You know, the DS? That thing Nintendo makes that pre-dates the Iphone by 3 years?

Just a thought.
 

jyork89

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CrystalShadow said:
Or... Perhaps, you know... From the success of the DS's touchscreen? You know, the DS? That thing Nintendo makes that pre-dates the Iphone by 3 years?

Just a thought.
Oh snap!
Despite mentioning the DS didn't even occur to me xD
 

Wicky_42

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Aww, c'mon Nintendo - budget consoles are all well and good, but what's going to make people want this? Certainly not the hardware specs, lol.

The controller sounds kinda pimped... and expensive :s Would be interesting to see something almost as complex as a dedicated hand-held wired up to a console - the extra flexibility a touch-screen could potentially add to complex, upmarket games could be phenomenal. Then again, I talked a lot about the potential of the system when the Nintendo and Kinect were announced, and neither really met my hopes, so fuck 'em :)
 

Adzma

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XT inc said:
Since this console would be counted as nintendos "next Gen" offering why would they set the bar so low. I mean Hell my computer has nearly 3 gigs of video procession, 12 gigs of ram and a pretty nice cpu. By the time they have the real next gen consoles out itll probably put my pc to shame.
One thing I've noticed over the years is that in almost all generations, Nintendo have been behind on the hardware front. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head was the fifth generation. I guess it's just their thing.

At any rate, I gave up on Nintendo about a year into the Wii's life cycle, they'd probably have to pay me to convince me to buy another console from them.
 

Devastadus

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Jul 1, 2010
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Heres a few ideas

If you are making a new console you want it to be cost efficient so people can afford it, so you going to use older hardware so many people can afford it and as well you can make good money off of it. Remember the PS3 when it came out? It was like $600, dead last and sony was losing money on it still.

I think the R700 would be fine, look at the PS3 and Xbox 360 with significant worse graphics cards, they can still play many games at 1080p and looks really good. This is even more powerful then those systems. Unless games are going to have insane physics, or a even higher res then 1080p, beefier graphics isn't going to have any significance.

I will say 512 MB ram does seem a tad low since the R700's all came with 512 MB of ram. I think it should have a bit more considering how cheep ram is today. For all those people out there with systems of 12 GB's of ram, that think its helping, it isn't helping you :( You just need to have enough

Lastly this new system has enough power to play all the games that are out today. I think if the new Xbox or PS are even considerably more powerful, many developers will develop their games to run at least on this new Nintendo system. Assuming the new Xbox or PS3 are more powerful they might have slightly better graphics, or better FPS but the games will be almost nearly the same and run on all the platforms.

So yea i predict future games from the Nintendo will be ported to the Xbox, PS4 and PC. since the Nintendo will be the minimum system to run on.
 

Micalas

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jyork89 said:
Sales statistics would beg to differ on that point. From what I understand Nintendo has sold more Wii's than both Xbox 360's and PS3's. If not good, at least it shows that the Wii has been hugely successful. And lets not even mention Nintendo DS.

I myself wouldn't buy one until I had at least an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. But neither me, or anyone on this website can singly claim to represent 80 million people, hence our opinion means squat against the general population. Console makers will always do what sells. Why else have we had Sony and Microsoft add these new gimmicks called Move and Kinetic? They want a slice of that juicy pie that Nintendo is hogging.

And you mentioned iPhones, but from what I understand iPhone games have been selling like hotcakes. Which is probably where Nintendo got their idea for a touch screen from (if the rumors are to be believed).
It may be true that Nintendo has out-sold the other systems but it's not because it was a masterpiece. It's because it catered to a new demographic that I hope will one day walk off a fucking bridge. It's all well and good that Nintendo is able to add more to their official money pile but since I don't work at the company I couldn't give a shit about their money. I want a decent product and this is something they haven't offered in a console since the Wii launched.
 

Azaraxzealot

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why would a wii successor need more processing power than a 360? its not like shovelware needs to look pretty for the unwashed masses to buy them by the bucketload

unless they're ACTUALLY MAKING "Super Mario: Space-Time Continuum"
 
Oct 14, 2010
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Covarr said:
I don't believe this for a second, and I'm certainly not gonna ***** at Nintendo based on a rumor.

P.S. Thanks
No, thank you. Seriously. Your uncommon use of common sense has saved time and space in this mindless conjecture-thon.
 

Arqus_Zed

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Aug 12, 2009
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"The system is said to be considered slightly more powerful than the Xbox 360."

Wow, that's... Not impressive. Not impressive at all.
 

theheroofaction

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mjc0961 said:
=Oh boy, I sure hope that doesn't turn out to be true. I don't want to be paying $100 or more for an extra controller because it has everything but the kitchen sink on it.
Hey, with these guys, it might even include the kitchen sink

Though for gaminformer readers, does anyone remember the gameinfarcer from 08 (or maybe 09) specifically the WiiDs. Just saying it doesn't seem all that different