IBM Announces Wii Chips In Nintendo Hands

simoniker writes "IBM has announced that the 'Broadway' CPUs created for the Nintendo Wii have been shipping from the company's East Fishkill, N.Y., fabrication facility since earlier this year. Nintendo, it would seem, is ramping up for the launch of their next-gen console in a month or two." Joystiq and Kotaku have the news as well. From the article: "Nintendo has also confirmed their reception of IBM's chip: 'The first chips are in our possession,' said Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director/General Manager, Integrated Research & Development Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd. 'Today's milestone marks the final stage of our drive to reach both core and nontraditional gamers with an inviting, inclusive and remarkable gaming experience.'"

Comments

Re:Digitizers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii will work on any kind of TV, because the TV has nothing to do with the controller. There is a small (about the size of a couple pencils glued together) sensor bar you place near the TV. It doesn't matter where you put it, but that general area is where you'll be pointing the remote. So put it near the TV, and it seems like the distance you are from the TV affects the sensitivity of the controller. The closer you are to the bar, the higher the sensitivity.

Re:Wii, PS3, Xbox360

[ZakuSage]

Do you not understand the point he's trying to make? IBM is manufacturing the CPUs for 360, Wii, and PS3, thereby making a killing irregardless of who "wins".

Not quite...

[GFLPraxis]

"The closer you are to the bar, the higher the sensitivity."

Opposite, actually. Getting too close (within a couple feet) of the TV tends to make it hard for it to get exactly where you are pointing. I tried putting the Wiimote close to the TV to see if it helped me aim when I was playing it at E3, and when it made the pointer go nuts the representative told me that it loses sensitivity when you get that close and to stand back.

I could aim better from a distance.

Re:Digitizers?

[QuantumFTL]

According to the Wikipedia article, the Wiimote uses a 1 megapixel imaging sensor to detect (what is most likely) IR light from the "sensor bar" that's placed at the bottom of your screen. To see how that works, try pointing a remote control at a digital camera or a camcorder - if you press buttons the remote, it will light up brilliantly, yet not be a distraction to humans.

To be honest, I'm not sure how they plan to get full positioning information from a horizontal bar, as I don't think any of their other sensors are absolute, which could lead to serious drift problems. They likely use Kalman filtering or some such to minimize the error, but I really do want to know how they stabilize this.

I suppose it would be theoretically possible for the Wiimote to also lock on to the display (the frequency would not matter, just the overall size and shape) and use that to reduce uncertainty, but for now we can only speculate on the inner workings. I for one can't wait to get my hands on one!

Re:Fishkill

[Y-Crate]

Their manufacturing plant, which no doubt produces some toxic chemicals, is in a town called East Fishkill? There's gotta be an interesting story behind that name :)

"Kill" means "Fresh Water Channel" in Dutch. Since New York City was once called "New Amsterdam" for a good reason, you can understand why the word "kill" pops up all over the place. It was however, a cringe-worthy experience hearing about all of the World Trade Center debris being taken to the Fresh Kills landfill five years ago. I could imagine how people all over the country were reacting to hearing the name over and over again, without any explanation from newscasters as to what "kill" meant in this particular context.

To those unknowledgeable about the origins of the word, it sounded like New Yorkers had particularly horrific taste.