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Nintendo Wii U Teardown Reveals Simple Design
Vigile writes "Nintendo has never been known to be very aggressive with its gaming console hardware and with today's release (in the U.S.) of the Wii U we are seeing a continuation of that business model. PC Perspective spent several hours last night taking apart a brand new console to reveal a very simplistic board and platform design topped off with the single multi-chip module that holds the IBM PowerPC CPU and the AMD GPU. The system includes 2GB of GDDR3 memory from Samsung and Foxconn/Hon-Hai built wireless controllers for WiFi and streaming video the gamepad. Even though this system is five years newer, many analysts estimate the processing power of Nintendo's Wii U to be just ahead of what you have in the Xbox 360 today."
that's the nintendo way. which device from them had a complicated board or cutting edge performance?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
is first post still a thing, and is this why the header is red ?
Would it be better than a PS3 in terms of processing power?
Of course, part of the problem is just how you define 'Just ahead of'. Part of the problem in the last cycle with the PS3 particularly, from what I undestand, was the complexity of developing the software for the multi-core Cell processor architecture. Even if the speed of the Wii U overall isn't much better overall, the fact that the architecture is simpler may make it easier for developers to wring better performance out of their games. The fastest system in the world isn't going to matter if it's so hard to develop for that you end up writing poorly performant code.
We'll have to wait and see how well newly released titles post-launch are able to do with the new hardware.
The WiiU is able to handle many multiplatform games in 1080p that the existing consoles can barely run at 720p. That alone suggests it's at least 2x more powerful or so. Also consider that developers have had far longer to optimize to the other consoles, and it could be even more capable. And what's more, it has 4x the 360's RAM.
It may not be as different from the PS3 / 360 as they were from the PS2 / Xbox, but saying it's barely an improvement over the current crop is clearly bullshit.
Sounds like it would make a great media player for a change.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
since we are talking about WiiU (and I have Wii, and like it), I am wondering: will the Zelda Twilight Princess run in full HDMI resolution on new Wii U? Or it will have the "original" pretty low resolution?
What about other Wii games?
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Somewhat misleading. While the CPU power of the Wii U most certainly lies in the realm of what you see in the 360 (rumor is it's basically a 3 core, overclocked Wii processor), the video power is a decent step up. We're talking about a semi modern GPU that supports all sorts of bells and whistles none of the last gen consoles did. The Wii U will most certainly be left in the dust by the PS4/720, but the beautiful thing about it is that it should probably be able to play next gen multi-platform ports in 720p. Which will be fine for most people, as half the HDTVs out there are only 720p to begin with (and look just fine).
Well, I should fucking hope so. The XBOX 360 is seven years old.
The Virtual Boy was cutting edge in terms of how hard it failed.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Calm down, it's a console, that's all.
When you get right down to it: why does the CPU and GPU grunt under the hood matter? Only so they can power the graphics, physics, and AI effects of the games. Come up with a game that's fun to play, and people won't care how powerful the console is, as long as that game will run. We're seeing this play out in a major way on the iPhone and iPad.
And there's a downside too. The more grunt the system has, the harder it becomes to make effective use of that grunt. The PS3, so powerful with its SPUs, is a right royal pain to code for; the Xbox 360, with three more traditional (albeit in-order) CPU cores, is much easier to cope with, so the net effect - especially early on - was that there wasn't much to choose between them, game wise. (The gap might be widening a little, now that coders are more used to the PS3 design, but I'd be surprised.)
So I don't see anything inherently wrong with Nintendo building a system that's "obsolete" technology wise, as long as they focus on bringing games that are fun to play to the party.
We'll see how this plays out when Sony and Microsoft bring out their next consoles. I doubt they're in any particular hurry, though; developing a high end system is expensive, and they may want to milk their existing franchise for a year or two longer.
It allowed for Waverace to run a circular wave model for the entire course at once. Gauging consoles against the PC model that Xbox introduced is fallacy.
Well, what do you expect with a system-on-a-chip? A modern high-volume consumer product should have one IC. That's the whole point of SOIC. It's a bit hard for phones, because they have all those radios that need some isolation, but a modern game console ought to have a very low parts count. Makes assembly very cheap, too.
Yup. 3 GHz quad-core POWER7, and every individual core in that architecture supports 4 threads. It's a beast of a CPU for a little game console.
When I was in elementary school I heard about the original xbox. My friend said, "I'm not getting that, it'll overheat and burn my house down." Now there's a portable device smaller than a gamegear that's even faster than the sucessor to that xbox beast. What a world!
Wii U has a fucking POWER7 with 4 cores, the cpu alone is more powerful that the xbox 360
I have no doubt that nothing was cut from the version of the POWER7 that ships in $5k+ servers in the process of designing a $300 console...
I'm not sure they really had a choice. Nintendo can't afford to subsidize the hardware for the next five years before it can turn a profit, so this allows them to be price competitive without going bankrupt.
in time for Christmas w/o having to wait in line overnight or visiting every Best Buy, Wal-Mart, GameStop, and Toys R Us in the county would be a nice feature too.
and streaming video the the gamepad.
IBM's POWER7+ is currently the highest performing processor on the market. INTEL's just announced poulson Itanium processor which sell for $2000- 3000 dollars doesn't even surpass the performance of POWER7.
the wii-u already looks lame and once the ps4/xbox720 is out it will look 2 generations behind, just like the original wii...
also the wii was a massive commercial failure for 3rd party publishers and so will the wii-u be if it's just going to be ports of ps3/xbox360 games, and the Unreal4 engine also won't be to run on the wii-u (because it's a piece of crap compared to the PC/Next-Gen...)
Incorrect. It's neither a quad core nor POWER7. It's basically a triple core version of what's in the Wii but clocked higher. Some developers have said that it's weaker than the Xbox 360 and PS3 in terms of CPU.
http://hothardware.com/News/IBM-Confirms-WII-U-Utilizes-PowerBased-CPU-Not-Power-7/
Mada mada dane.
Couldn't you just use a small-form-factor PC if you want homebrew games and a media player?
Just as lots of homebrew coolness has come out of the Wii controller, it'd be interesting to find out if something similar can be done for the Wii U controller.
The Wii Remote was special because it was a relatively cheap accelerometer wand. But I just don't really see the unique selling point of the Wii U GamePad over an Android tablet, especially once this Archos product that combines an Android tablet with traditional gaming buttons comes out.
Maybe even implement a PC display driver so people could use it as a cheap extra screen for their home computer.
If you just want to show PC graphics on a tablet, I seem to remember VNC clients being available for Android tablets.
Come up with a game that's fun to play, and people won't care how powerful the console is, as long as that game will run.
Just "a game that's fun to play" will get you nowhere. You also need an established publisher in order to get the game out of the PC ghetto.
Och! Time for a Wi cluster in the server room laddie!
Guys I'm reading a lot of comments about how the slow processor means the Wii U is 'cheap' for nintendo to produce, sell, and therefore profit on.
But I remember reading that they are actually taking a loss right now on each system sold.
Keep in mind that the controller is basically a tablet -- which is rather expensive to produce and include in this system. It's kind of an interesting trade off that they decided to make.
Devs should learn optimizing again, instead of constantly whining about needing more performance.
It could very well be a POWER7-based design. Key word "based". Nobody (well, nobody with two brain cells) is saying they put a full POWER7 chip in the console.
But here's what they could have done:
Take a stock POWER7 chip. Strip it down to 4 cores - or maybe down to triple- or dual-core. Strip out some of the more redundant execution units (decimal float? four floating-point units?). Cut down on the massive cache. Cut out all the multi-socket stuff, the ECC support, trim down the memory controller to what a console needs, and lower the clock speed to keep the heat down.
That probably just cut your performance to under a quarter of a full POWER7, but it probably cut your costs down even more, to something that could actually fit in a console.
It does not mean "very simple".
The wii u is pretty damn powerful if you compare it to the ps3 and 360. What nintendo needs is to bring back the old 1980's, 1990's, games but as remakes with updated graphics and more levels. Rush n attack and bionic commando remakes for the ps3 and 360 were damn good. I would like to see games like castlevania, megaman, super mario allstars, wonderboy in monsterland, shinobi, alex in miracle world, ghouls n ghosts, golden ax, etc.... remakes in 2d and 3d. But, castlevania definitely in 2d since it's 3d counterparts failed miserably.
We need quality games not more games trying to push the graphics boundaries. nes vs turbographics, the turbo which had better graphics failed because the lack of games and that they were just weird and not fun compared to the nes. Atari Jaguar, 3do both sucked even if they were top notched systems in those days. We need better games.
Here I was thinking of buying a Wii U because the Wii's games were relatively enjoyable and great to fuck around with at parties. But now since it's not likely going to process the most instructions per second out of the new consoles, I don't think I'll be buying one. What would it say about me as a human being if it did?
Oh right, I'd be a twat.
So what your saying is that it's a PowerPC 64-bit processor. The same as saying PS3 uses a 64-bit PowerPC processor, and the Xbox360 also uses a PowerPC 64-bit processor. POWER7 uses 64-bit POWER CORES! Feature present in the 64-POWER cores may not be present in PowerPC 64-bit cores, yet 64-bit POWER CORE have all the functionality of PowerPC 64-bit cores.
Nintendo is keeping the same game development track they always have. When the option came to going with CDs they opted for another Generation of Carts. MS and Sony decided to do a Chinese Great Leap Forward with the PS3 and 360 and Nintendo stated very clearly that it would increase development cost too quickly. All Sony and MS did with the added cost was make it so they have a System that they have to leave out in the market for 8 to 10 years instead of replacing in 5 years. From the Business stand point Nintendo is, and has been, making the better choices on that side of things. It's better to be in the black in the short term then in the Red and hope that you get into the black in the long term.
Has half as much ram as my work laptop and twice as much as my cell phone. Since a lot of games already reach 2 gigs easily this again will be the wii u downfall when it comes to porting games across consoles.
To all who think the CPU is a POWER7.
No it's not because even the lowest Power7 CPU with 4cores has a die that is similar to a hand palm in terms of size, also it consumes power ABOVE the 100 watts( Wii U 75Watts AT PEAK). It isn't very clear if it's a 3core broadway or something different. Some things like the reports of AI problems indicate the broadway but on the other side it's unlikely Nintendo will use a processor that is about 12 years old. Also They have acces to Wii hardware and Wii SDK, so they have everything they need for an full compatible Wii emulator. Besides something that says it's not using an Wii CPU is the quote: "compatible to ALMOST all Wii games, the term almost is only seen on emulators.The CPU is not very challenged since a lot of work gets taken away by the DSP and the ARM OS CPU, yes it's an own ARM CPU for the OS, if you don't believe me then look a the of speed of the system.
A Beowulf Cluster of these? It's like a Super Mushroom for your processing needs!
Even though this system is five years newer, many analysts estimate the processing power of Nintendo's Wii U to be just ahead of what you have in the Xbox 360 today.
That may be so, but the style of play and the games themselves are still much more appealing to certain people, generally those who are considered casual gamers. The Wii hardware was a joke compared to that of the PS3 or XBOX 360, but the games were interesting and involving for folks who didn't want to spend hours upon hours leveling-up and shooting people, and Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, etc. It isn't all about processing power, which is why the Wii was able to sell so well despite lacking in capabilities. Expect the Wii U to be hard to find in the USA by Christmas time, since it is reasonably priced, adds significant functionality (1080p, innovative controllers), has no new competitors, and is launching with a number of pretty decent looking games.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I guess when you have better programmers/designers etc. ... You can do 5 years better on the same equipment. Kinda like them ... well ... dem cars and such
The KISS principle is the best engineering principle
I'd love to get ahold of one of those. If indeed it's what you say it is (source?), that's one hell of a computer. I wonder how long until someone's ported linux to it...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So they've not moved from POWER to x64 - they're just using the (ATI) GPU, and that's the part that is AMD. So looks like the game makers are probably happy w/ POWER, and it would probably remain their CPU of choice. Nothing in it for ARM either - looks like they'll either go w/ POWER, or MIPS.
We have barely scratched the surface of gameplay and design possible with simple 2D graphics, and you think we really need to give a shit about the poly-porn pushed at us by greasy publishers like EA and Bethesda who couldn't create a bug-free, engaging -- let alone thoughtful! -- game if their flashy marketing department's lives depended on it? Tell me how much enjoyment all the "grunt" added to the latest Madden gave you over the previous installment. Yeahhhhh, that's some real evolution in game design and gameplay, there! The Final Fantasies which have about 2 total hours of actual game in them between cutscenes... All the graphics really made them better GAMES rather than MOVIES, huh?
... the Nintendo model is to achieve the highest fun/$ ratio and to provide entertainment.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Absolutely.
It sure looked to me like Sony and Microsoft were busy off in a pissing match about which system had better graphics. Meanwhile, Nintendo was busy making thingsfun.
I've watched friends play some of the most successful FPS games, and frankly the game play is monotonous and boring. They sit intent with their thumbs flying and not much else going on, largely isolated. If they're communicating it's with mostly unknowns on a headset (yes there have been a few WoW marriages, I know). The "Level too easy? Make everything darker" design mocks the past generations' attention to level complexity. They hire big-name actors to attach videos to the game when the story lines make Sierra games look like Hamlet. I really don't get this, since a well-constructed game ought to have quite a market advantage.
Conversely, I've watched other friends play, say, Wi Bowling, and they were legitimately having a fun time. The game was kind of stupid, but it was an enabler of social interaction, not a substitute for it. This becomes a much richer experience because the game is just a focal point, not the entirety of the experience. Not entirely unlike a dart-board in tavern in that way.
Mario Kart Wii, for instance, might be kinda simple, but it's an absolute blast to play with a bunch of friends and a few beers. And my wife and I have had a lot of fun playing co-op Donkey Kong Country Returns. And we've had good laughs watching neighbors and nephews and nieces playing Super Mario Wii, at one moment cooperatively where they help each other through hard parts, in the next moment competitively where they pick each other up and throw each other into lava pits. But we're all in the same room -- instead of spread out across the interwebs, communicating only via headsets, we're jostling each other as we round difficult corners, whomping each other with sofa cushions to distract attention as Bowser attacks. The social element is just a lot stronger with Nintendo games than pretty much any other I've played, and at least part of that is thanks to the console design.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Just look how badly Minecraft did on the PC without an established publisher.
You make a good point. Please allow me to amend my statement:
Just "a game that's fun to play" will get you nowhere. If your game isn't in one of the genres traditionally associated with PCs, you also need an established publisher.
There's an interesting detail. Under the heat spreader is a small third chip. Next to the CPU and GPU is a small chip which they think is an additional cache.
Here's the article.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/nintendo-wii-u-teardown
The challenges for the N is trying to get publishers who actually have some descent range of games for their console. Will it be typical rebadged same old franchise games with new angles of playing, or will be something more. I've never been impressed by Wii's line up of games.
that's the nintendo way /tandlæge sverige malmø
For more information visit here http://designersx.com/nintendoswiiufirstimpressions/
The claim is that it uses the same technology as the Power7 chip. It could very well be an overclocked triple core Wii chip made in 45nm SOI with eDRAM. Hint hint.