Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console isn't due for release for another year, but we are already seeing some early rumors about the hardware we can expect.
Wii U Daily says it has talked to a developer with access to the new console, who claims that the device will use a 45 nm, PowerPC-based 3 GHz processor with four cores. The source claims that the Wii U's processor is "very similar" to the Xbox 360 processor.
Additionally, the console may get 768 MB of DRAM that is embedded with the CPU, but shared between the CPU and GPU. The GPU appears to be a 40 nm AMD design. As we Wii U Daily mentions, these specs were previously shown to developers by Nintendo, so there is no surprise besides the fact that these may be the final specs. Nintendo has always focused much more on the game experience than on the hardware, but it is somewhat obvious that the Wii U will have to be much more powerful than the current Wii to enable gamers to move up to HD gaming.
Nintendo reportedly sold more than 500,000 Wiis during the Black Friday weekend and scored its best launch into the Christmas shopping season since the console's launch in 2006. However, total sales for November were estimated to be down by about 17 percent to about 1.5 million units. In contrast, Microsoft was able to sell about 900,000 Xbox 360s as well as 750,000 Kinect sensors during the Black Friday weekend. Total Xbox 360 unit sales for the month were 1.44 million. Given the Xbox 360's age, those numbers are impressive, but there are plenty of people who believe that many of those 900,000 Xbox 360s went into households with Wiis and consumers who were looking for an upgrade of their Nintendo device. There is a good chance that Microsoft is already chewing off Nintendo's user base.
Sony, by the way, sold about 750,000 PS3, according to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.
i cant really tell where to start... 1gb is more than enough for 1080p gaming, and if you are coding specifically for one hardware set (note, consoles) you can get by with less due to less bloat on the other hardware.
please, don't comment if you know nothing about this subject, as it only annoys people.
n64, gamecube, both high end for their time, especially the n64, and the gamecube able to push games that looked better than the 2x as powerful xbox, but for some reason nintendo never held a large hard core crowd.
the wii, i can at least understand their position, most people didn't have an hd tv at the time of its launch, so they stayed sd, and i have to say, for their nintendo games, hd or sd, they would still play the same, but now zelda, after demon souls, after assassins creed, you can see where that game could improve from better hardware.
with the wiiu, we will get to see what they can do with a more modern setup, and if its the design team thats holding them back or if its the hardware.
If Nintendo ever released consoles or content that matured to at least pg-13 levels then Sony and Microsoft would have never been able to enter the gaming market.
I don't think HD means what you think it means. It really just is a buzzword now though I guess. And you are right, PCs will always reign supreme, if you have the money for it.
Say hi to Atari and Sega for me when you get to console heaven.
i cant really tell where to start... 1gb is more than enough for 1080p gaming, and if you are coding specifically for one hardware set (note, consoles) you can get by with less due to less bloat on the other hardware.
please, don't comment if you know nothing about this subject, as it only annoys people.
n64, gamecube, both high end for their time, especially the n64, and the gamecube able to push games that looked better than the 2x as powerful xbox, but for some reason nintendo never held a large hard core crowd.
the wii, i can at least understand their position, most people didn't have an hd tv at the time of its launch, so they stayed sd, and i have to say, for their nintendo games, hd or sd, they would still play the same, but now zelda, after demon souls, after assassins creed, you can see where that game could improve from better hardware.
with the wiiu, we will get to see what they can do with a more modern setup, and if its the design team thats holding them back or if its the hardware.
gj, Nintendo.
well if that is the specs you could go back 5 ears and get a better pc hardware. and beside its gotta be insanely cheap if it will be more affordable then a pc of the same specs. its like nothing today amd quad 3ghz 4gig ram a nvidia 560ti asus and 4 gig ram 500w power 815 dollars in Sweden so its like 15% more tax for us i guess its worth it if its allot cheaper or if its the same price cuss you got the hand held little screenomagig. beside pc games latly sell 10% cheaper the last year so its not so much about price no more, its about the nintendo games
What gets me is that it is "probably" going to be shared RAM. The GTX 260 core 216 had 800 and some odd megabytes of VRAM and it does just fine with games, but the fact that this has to be shared with system and game processes has me worried. Considering how cheap DDR3 RAM is these days, I'm honestly surprised they didn't throw in more RAM especially if it is going to be shared.
idiot, it's a console not a PC. It doesn't run windows or need to open huge spreadsheets. It only runs games. Also, the amount of ram your system has, has nothing to do with your video output. My video card has only 512MB but runs all off the newest games in 1080p. If you look at system ram consumption in windows while you are playing a game you will be surprised that many games don't take up nearly as much ram as you think. Most of the RAM is for quickly loading various windows components.
"please, don't comment if you know nothing about this subject, as it only annoys people."
Yes, Thank you!
... wow, just wow.
Consoles play games at 1080p? since when? oh right, that fighting game with 2 characters. in reality consoles really play NO games play at 1080p unless its at a very slow situation and at 30fps if not less. not only this, but also its been nearly 7 years since the xbox 360 and ps3 came out and they both had about 512mb of ram, and now your telling me that 7 years later, nintendo is releasing a console with only 768mb of ram? really?
Consoles are good at what they do, but the lack of memory means that they will suffer from frequent loading of levels, blurry textures (play bf3 campaign and spin around quickly (when you arent in a cutscene or QTE)) and you'll see the little buggers jump from blurry to regular.
also, I bet your 512mb video card plays games at 1080p quality, but what frames per second? and what game? any AA?
Expected at the very least a movement to x86, failing that, to ARM.
And that isn't even mentioning the failure of RAM and VRAM.
Plus, 40nm? Really? I was expecting a fairly modern GPU, maybe even a 7xxx.
Oh well.
It's not unusual for consoles to be sold at a loss. A year ago I built a computer (reusing my hard drive, case, optical drive and accessories) exclusively using heavily discounted and rebated items. If I remember correctly I spent around $165. For something not much more powerful than a 360 (dual core processor, Radeon 5550, 4 GB ram, no frills but not bad quality mobo, low wattage antec PSU). And that took months waiting for deals on all of the parts. It definitely used to be (for some people) about the price, and we'll just have to see about the future.
And unfortunately, the big name PC games are raising their prices to match the console prices (if that's what you were referring to. I'm not entirely certain what you were getting at there).
Exactly. The original quote didn't make any mention about quality, just HD. I'm playing Homeworld in HD right now. I love it, but I wouldn't say the graphics are top notch anymore.
Maybe they mean 768 Megabit (96MB)?. That sounds a bit more plausible.