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[blu]

The knee-jerk reactions in this thread are pure gold. Thread delivers.

 

[Glorified G]

CPU: “Espresso” CPU on the Wii U has three enhanced Broadway cores
GPU: “GPU7” AMD Radeon™-based High Definition GPU. Unique API = GX2, which supports Shader Model 4.0 (DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 equivalent functionality)
Storage: Internal 8 GB with support for SD Cards (SD Cards up to 2GB/ SDHC Cards up to 32GB) and External USB Connected Hard Drives

$249.99 or gtfo

 

[AndyMoogle]

We would hear a lot of concern from devs if they really used 'overclocked' Broadway cores...

Well, we have heard rumors about the CPU being a bottleneck.

 

[Drkirby]

I wonder if they upped the clock speed of the Broadway cores. From what I recall from Emulation, most games don't really put much strain on the CPU, so I don't think the low clock speed is going to hurt to badly. Really, what is going to hurt the system is if there is no Video Ram on top of that 1GB system ram.

 

[M3d10n]

It really should have been 1.5GB of RAM for games instead of 1GB. I at least hope the OS handles lots of system features so stuff like network and sound libraries don't eat into the game's own RAM pool.

Disappointed that they never used a DX11 or equivalent GPU but i can understand that they are trying to keep the price down because of the cost of the controller.

I guess we will see on Thursday whether or not it will be worth it price wise, charging $300 for a DX 10.1 console with 1.5GB of Ram and an 8GB flash drive when PS4 / 720 will 99% likely be DX11 capable consoles with 2GB + of Ram with more than likely a much faster CPU and larger HDD's for $400 a year - 18 months later is a bit of a joke tbh but like everyone else who buys one i will buy it for Nintendo's first party output if they price it accordingly.

Going from those specs it should be no more than $250 / £200 imo.

The problem with DX11 is that most of it's nicest features are only viable on:

- High end GPUs of past DX11 generation GPUs.
- Mid-high end GPUs of current gen DX11 GPUs.

Just look at PC DX11 GPU benchmarks to see the bloodbath, compared to DX9/10 games.

The most suitable DX11 GPU they could it fit in the targeted the form factor and targeted price ($250) would suck horribly at running actual DX11-exclusive features and silicon would be wasted, unused by most games. With DX10.1 the GPU has a better chance to be used to it's fullest.

 

[Ydahs]

looks to be the right specs.. no need to put too much power into it, if the Tablet Controller Thingy can´t display the same kind of Power.. would be annoying looking at a gorgeus game on my Televison and then looking down at my tablet and see the same stuff not looking as good..

Huh? What's seen on the screen is processed and rendered on the console. The only difference is screen resolution.

Yeah that could be a big problem for the wiiu after the ps4/nextbox launch because i think unreal engine 4(not the mobile one) and luminous are based on DX11 tech?not that i think the wiiu will have good third party support but still.

The PS3 doesn't use DirectX and nor will the PS4. UE4 has OpenGL support so I imagine that's why the PS4 and Wii U will use (considering they port the engine over).

 

[hodgy100]

The wii's cpu isnt all that bad it's and out-of-order cpu which makes it much more capable than the 360's cpu per clock. If they have clocked these at 1.5 or even 2ghz the cpu could quite easily compare to or topple the 360's cpu

The ati gpu in the wii u supports tessellation a feature that is also common with direct x 11 graphics cards.

its essentially a souped up version of the 360

 

[Snakeyes]

Someone translate this into DBZ levels of power plz

Super Saiyan Vegeta.

Five years late to the SSJ (HD) party.

Most powerful character in the series for an afternoon (the next 8-12 months or so) until he's completely outclassed by the high-end Androids (PS720).

Sad for you!

 

[Berg]

Whoa, good thing the first word of this thread is "RUMOR"

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Source? They don't say much other than the basic architecture here, even if it's true.

http://gamenmotion.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/rumor-wii-u-cpu-is-3-wii-cpu-cores.html

The B3D "insider" says is a equivalent to a Xenos.

 

[IntelliHeath]

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Which stage are you guys? Because, it's all a broken record.

I skipped first 4 stages, because it's predictable for nintendo to pull that. It's Nintendo that we are talking about. However, I wish that nintendo would surprise me once.

 

[Goodlife]

So do these specs actually tell us anything?

Still don't know the clock speed of the CPU/GPU, don't know the memory type, what extra memory is available for the OS.

Basically still guessing just about everything?

 

[Wolves Evolve]

"Lateral Thinking on Withered Technology" - Gunpei Yokoi

If the eDRAM says what a couple of you says it does, then they're targeting image quality and special visual treatments over raw fillrate. It will be interesting to see if third parties can really be bothered to make the Wii U version the most visually impactful one during the 12-18 month gap. Because you would be very hardpressed to make a business case to do so. It will be up to the exclusives, then.

 

[FyreWulff]

Frankly, it's simply embarrassing to use a 12-13 years old CPU, no surprise Nintendo don't want to share the specs. No matter how many cores or the clock speed, is an architecture of 12-13 years ago, it´s limited by default. It redefines the word "cheap".

2$ this post was written on a computer using an X86-based CPU.

Just calling it a Broadway-based processor doesn't mean much in terms of how fast it can get.

 

[Derrick01]

What I don't get are people who pile on Nintendo for their specs and game primarily on PS360 rather than PC

Consoles drive the industry forward not PCs. If you think PC gamers are fidgety and angry about consoles holding their games back now, can you imagine how they would be if everyone had the same insanely low hardware standards Nintendo has? These specs look pretty bad.

 

[Strife91]

For these specs? $250. No more.

 

[Somnid]

This sounds almost exactly like what we knew 3 months ago. It was pretty obvious then that Wii U was a 360+. I mean we've seen real games for it, we know about where to peg it and later games will look better than early ones but not 720 good. But it will enjoy an advantage for the first year.

 

[Plinko]

I still think $250 with a Nintendo Land pack-in is the perfect price point.

Agreed. Would be a great idea, but stores have had a separate SKU for Nintendoland for months now.

 

[dc89]

£200 with a game and I might be in.

 

[ElFly]

So that means a Broadway chip was roughly equivalent to one of the 360 cores?

That's kind of crazy.

 

[Vandiger]

Well, can't help but laugh at Nintendo's choice at being cheap but they do it every time and make money. Eh.

 

[gofreak]

Xenos is a 2005 CPU. And 90% of rumors say is equivalent to a Xenos CPU. Including this. So....

I'm skeptical that it would go toe-to-toe with Xenon in the general case. They'd have to do a heck of a lot of tweaking to broadway to bring it up to Xenon's level, to achieve the same performance at a lower clock. That Tekken 6 guy was mentioning some porting problems because of the CPU perf. Presumably if this was a straight equal of Xenon it wouldn't be so much of a problem.

I think Xenon might be the closest point of comparison, but it would not surprise me if it's not all the way there.

 

[McLovin]

I don't get the complains about the 8GB internal storage. You can use SD or an external HDD unlike any other consoles.

You don't have to with the other consoles.

 

[Hoo-doo]

The quote you responded to:

I don't think you answered it. Nintendo is, after all, all about exclusives.

I love consoles, it's pretty natural to not want them to contain bottom-of-the-barrel hardware.

Not saying the Wii-U does of course, but in general I want the best bang for the buck when it comes in hardware and features, especially for a device that will be accompanying my television for the next 7+ years.

And subsequently, Nintendo's franchises do very little for me.

 

[Canis lupus]

2010 would have been a better time to ride the hype of Wii. The casuals may well have left at this point and the more hardcore gamers are going to be more interested in the more powerful Xbox or Playstation coming out next.

Isn't Broadway (Wii) just an overclocked Gekko (GC) CPU? If this is true, that means they're still using tech from the late 1990's. I don't even know what to say.

Agree with it, WiiU in Holiday 2011 wouldve been better, the Wii engines ran out of gas around those times and it would give them 2 years headstart on the competition, having massive 3rd party support already.

 

[aeolist]

Yeah that could be a big problem for the wiiu after the ps4/nextbox launch because i think unreal engine 4(not the mobile one) and luminous are based on DX11 tech?not that i think the wiiu will have good third party support but still.

DX11 is a superset of DX10/10.1

You can target DX11 and a 10.1 box can just turn off features it can't run pretty easily

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I've been at stage 5 since the beginning of Wii U since it has games I want to play.

Let me know when they show up since there's nothing announced that's convinced me that they even look marginally better or even on par with the best current gen offerings. All be it these are launch games I've seen. I'm not impressed by other than the novel fun some of the games provide.

I'm waiting on the next big Mario that isn't a NSMB game. Something like a Galaxy sequel but up to date with new game play mechanics. I get a feeling that won't be until next year or later though.

At least it seems to really be on par with current gen spec so I'm not really worried about modern day ports. It's the stuff coming down the being specifically built for PS4/720 that has me worried for those expecting WiiU to fulfill all their gaming needs. You better saddle up and get a PC or one of the next gen platforms just to be safe.

 

[XenodudeX]

So um. How exactly will they get PS4/720 ports with these specs?

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I personally think that to believe everything with Nintendo's strategy is hunky-dory because "it worked for the Wii" is equally naive, and disregards the ways the market has changed in the last 7 years.

By this point in the lead-up to Wii's launch the hype for it was contagious. Everyone was talking about it and wowed by the never-before-seen controller concept. It's a little crazy to think that the Wii U has so far gotten anything comparable to that kind of hype and, without it, my fear is that, with specs this low, there's little-to-no incentive for developers to push quality Wii U software over the alternative: continuing to make games for the two HD consoles already on the market with 60+ million install bases and specs good enough that any benefit from the added power of the Wii U won't be immediately visible to the laymen.

But we'll see soon enough...:-/

Here's the sad fact.

That's never going to happen, even if it were another warm body alongside the PS4 and Durango. The software wouldn't sell on the Nintendo system, third parties would stop putting AAA (or, coming soon, AAAA) titles on there, and it would be the same situation it's always been.

Within these expectations, Wii U will probably garner more support than the Wii did because it's simply not as hard to make a Wii U game as it is to make a Wii one, in terms of having people that know how to develop for the system.

But it was never going to leapfrog this generation. I've said this a hundred times. If it were released in 2005, it would probably be king of the hill, but even then it would likely not getting a whole hell of a lot of support.

To what extent this is going to be another Wii situation, both negatively and positively, is going to be determined by a lot more factors than just the processor.

 

[Father_Brain]

Same here. There's a lot of Nintendo fanboys that owe me an apology you fucktards.

Classy.

 

[Randdalf]

Well, knowing Nintendo, they can pull off some great looking stuff on this hardware. Honestly, I think that the graphics in games are going to plateau slightly in the next generation and the Wii U will be more competitive on that side of things than the Wii was. Obviously Durango and PS4 are going to blow away these specs and have lots of people barking HORSEPOWER and RAW a lot, but I don't think the difference in graphical quality will be as pronounced as it was between Wii/360/PS3. I think the real difference is how developers will use the power RAM to provide more expansive gameplay mechanics, especially in open world situations.

 

[thefro]

Wasn't the Wii U thread speculating more toward the 1.5-2GB range for RAM?

The speculation was that the OS took up about half a GB or so, so 1GB of usable memory for devs would fit (total RAM being more than that).

 

[AgentP]

Memory: Mem1 = 32MB Mem2 = 1GB (that applications can use)

32MB eDRAM for video like the 360? Otherwise how are they going to handle bandwidth issue for the 1GB (shared I assume) unless that 1GB is GDDR5?

These specs are too nebulous, no clock speeds or details on what kind of ram? Anyhow, it should be fine for current gen ports, but in a year or two it is going to be hurting if the new consoles are significantly more powerful. Developers are going to target PS4/720/PC and look at the Wii U and sigh. Will the down port things or just skip it? I guess it depends if Nintendo buyer continue to just buy Mario games or branch out into mainstream 3rd party games.

 

[Plinko]

Let me know when they show up since there's nothing announced that's convinced me that they even look marginally better or even on par with the best current gen offerings. All be it these are launch games I've seen. I'm not impressed by other than the novel fun some of the games provide.

I'm waiting on the next big Mario that isn't a NSMB game. Something like a Galaxy sequel but up to date with new game play mechanics. I get a feeling that won't be until next year or later though.

At least it seems to really be on par with current gen spec so I'm not really worried about modern day ports. It's the stuff coming down the being specifically built for PS4/720 that has me worried for those expecting WiiU to fulfill all their gaming needs. You better saddle up and get a PC or one of the next gen platforms just to be safe.

I wouldn't expect anyone on GAF to do otherwise.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

They must have went with this configuration again because that's what they know how to code for. It's probably a cost saver for them from both a manufacturing and coding stand point. It's going to be really hard on them when they finally have to change though. They've been riding this tech since after the N64. It's unbelievable they've made it last so long.

 

[onQ123]

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Which stage are you guys? Because, it's all a broken record.

10. I told you so

 

[FyreWulff]

So um. How exactly will they get PS4/720 ports with these specs?

The same way the PS2 got downports from the GameCube and Xbox?

That's assuming the PS4 and 720 will be at parity with each other, let alone considering the Wii U.

 

[RurouniZel]

Good enough for me. Then again the Wii is still good enough for me so take that for what you will.

 

[VOOK]

No matter what the Wii U specs end up being people are going to bitch about it.

 

[Alexios]

http://gamenmotion.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/rumor-wii-u-cpu-is-3-wii-cpu-cores.html

The B3D "insider" says is a equivalent to a Xenos.

That link doesn't say anything of the sort.

Xenos is a GPU, Xenon is a CPU, the only mention of Xenon with Ctrl+F says they may have used one in early dev kits.

 

[jmdajr]

The same way the PS2 got downports from the GameCube and Xbox?

Don't you mean how Wii got Ps2 ports? Anyhow, none of this is surprising.

Nintendo exclusives plus 360/ps3 ports.

 

[Kyoufu]

The same way the PS2 got downports from the GameCube and Xbox?

Err, Gamecube and Xbox were not generational leaps over PS2.

 

[onQ123]

So that means a Broadway chip was roughly equivalent to one of the 360 cores?

That's kind of crazy.

no because these cores are clocked higher than the Wii CPU.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

8GB internal storage with a MAX of 8 plus 32GB is extremely disappointing and archaic from downloadable game perspective. Most smartphones will have 32GB basically from this year on.

A 1TB external drive will probably set you back less than a 64GB SD card, and is arguably just as portable.

 

[cloudyy]

You don't have to with the other consoles.

You better not because it's a pain in the ass or expensive if you want to.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

1 GB RAM + 32 MB eDRAM sounds good.
8 GB internal storage sounds good.
Using external HDDs and SDHC cards sounds good.
Three overclocked 'Broadway' cores sounds WTF.

 

[robjoh]

Frankly, it's simply embarrassing to use a 12-13 years old CPU, no surprise Nintendo don't want to share the specs. No matter how many cores or the clock speed, is an architecture of 12-13 years ago, it´s limited by default. It redefines the word "cheap".

That's from a hard tech viewpoint. I have no doubt that Nintendo could have huge success selling toasters and I don't need to point the excellence of their development teams that will surely do wonders with this. But there is a line between being conservative and being cheap and Nintendo is crossing it.

One question, is this not actually more expensive than just go to AMD and ask for four bobcat/jaguar cores? Or some ARM cores?

If they are going with Broadway cores could the explanation be that they want to run Wii games flawless?

 

[Auto_aim1]

These are the same specs from the EG article, right?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-30-how-powerful-is-the-wii-u-really

 

[Bear]

Networking: 802.11 b/g/n Wifi

Please be true.

Have there been any other sources backing up the wireless n claim?

 

[Taurus]

No word about audio? Dolby Digital 5.1 at least via HDMI?