Nintendo announces its new console "companion": Wii U

[Al B. Sure!]

I find it interesting that Asher's criticizing this but is salivating about wack ass Kinect and senseless applications of Kinect technology.

[Asher]

I wouldn't. A lot of people, regular people, will probably think this is cool.

No. Regular people are screaming WTF from initial reactions. Only people who are interested are hardcore Nintendo fans.

[Asher]

I find it interesting that Asher's criticizing this but is salivating about wack ass Kinect and senseless applications of Kinect technology.

Who said I'm salivating?

Kinect is truly innovative, at least. I don't ever play Kinect games, nor do I have one in my house. I think you're getting confused because I recognize Kinect is a huge driver of Xbox sales.

[Asher]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/08/wii-u-third-party-sizzle-reel-composed-of-360-ps3-pc-footage/

Nintendo admits 100% of the footage in the clips it showed came from the Xbox 360/PS3/PC, not the Wii U.

[Al B. Sure!]

So they're harping on their new 2012 console having 2005-level graphical processing power?

[Asher]

So they're harping on their new 2012 console having 2005-level graphical processing power?

Why not? Their 2006 console had 2000-level processing power.

The rumoured GPU is a low-power/value variant of a Radeon 48xx series GPU, which is technology about 10 years newer than what was in the Wii/GameCube, and slightly newer than the tech than in the Xbox 360.

[OzzyKP]

I'm sure Asher had the same reaction when the Wii (or Revolution) was first announced.

iphones/ipads are now one of the top game platforms. No doubt Nintendo is trying to bridge from that to consoles.

[Nikolai]

I see claims that the CPU is a PowerPC 7. That is 2010 technology, if it is correct.

[Nikolai]

And they have confirmed account based online play. On time...

Both my last posts are without sources as you see, the reason is I'm following the discussion on another forum, where one of the posters are following the tweets of a load of journalists present on E3, and posting on what he finds interesting.

[Nikolai]

The PowerPC claims are indirectly confirmed here: http://www.legitreviews.com/news/10857/

It says that the Wii U "uses the same processor technology found in Watson"(IBM's supercomputer), and Watson uses the PowerPC 7.

[Asher]

The PowerPC claims are indirectly confirmed here: http://www.legitreviews.com/news/10857/

It says that the Wii U "uses the same processor technology found in Watson"(IBM's supercomputer), and Watson uses the PowerPC 7.

It's marketing gobbleygook. Watson uses "POWER7".

POWER7 has 1.2B transistors and a TDP of 160W for the processor alone. Given the size of the Wii U, the entire console should use about 50W or less.

When they say "based on POWER7 technology", they probably mean it uses the same instruction set (PowerPC...), which is the same "technology" used in the Gamecube, Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3.

The individual cores in a POWER7 chip are small and not very powerful. The reason the POWER7 is huge/fast is they have many, many cores. 8 cores per chip and 4 chips per POWER7 module = 32 cores. You can bet the WiiU will have 4 cores at max.

The other key features of the POWER7 is the large embedded DRAM, which is extremely expensive; and a very fast interconnect bus, which is very large (physically) and very expensive. That will not be included in the Wii U either.

At best, it'll be slightly more powerful than Xenon in the 360. All indications are it's just a handful of low-power PowerPC cores trimmed from an existing IBM product, which is exactly what Xenon in the 360. The technology in the individual cores has not progressed much, if at all, since 2005. The difference is how many cores there are and how they communicate, which the Wii U will not leverage.

[Asher]

I'm sure Asher had the same reaction when the Wii (or Revolution) was first announced.

iphones/ipads are now one of the top game platforms. No doubt Nintendo is trying to bridge from that to consoles.

Yes, no doubt. iPhones/iPads are popular gaming platforms because they are portable. This is not. This also uses the touchscreen as a secondary display.

Nintendo's stock tanked on the announcement. Hardcore gamers are not impressed. Casual gamers are uninterested. The lustre of the Wii has already worn off, this is coming out a year later without anything innovative or all that useful. In fact, the success of the Wii was the simplicity and the Wii U looks to be the most complex console ever, in terms of control schemes. You have a large unwieldly controller with two control sticks, one directional pad, an array of buttons, a bunch of triggers on the back, a touchscreen in the center. That's a lot of things to control with. Further, now you've got to watch two screens at once when playing?

[giblets]

I don't understand this. It's like they took the top screen of a Nintendo DS and replaced it with your television set or something? This is supposed to be an eight generation console? I hate it. And this is coming from someone who liked the Wii.

[Asher]

Another knock against the Wii U: It uses an oldschool resistive touchscreen -- the same tech in the 7-year old Nintendo DS and not nearly as good as modern smartphones and tablets. It'll require the use of a stylus for accuracy.

[giblets]

But the thing looks kind of big. I wouldn't want to hold it with one hand. edit: actually it doesn't looks so big in actual photographs. Nevermind.