Fact: Nintendo to release HD console + controllers with built-in screen late 2012

Yes that was part of the rumour, the part I left out because it seemed ridiculous that Nintendo would settle for EA exclusive. The part of the rumour I'm more interested in is the part about devs like Valve being interested.

 

I guess for me it's that I've been hearing Nintendo and Valve/Steam (since Wii U is what I keep up with the most right now) for so long I forget that others may have never heard it mentioned before.

 

I though USB HDD was confirmed? External game storage seems to be the thing for them these days, with 3DSWare games already running off the SD card (and not being preloaded onto the flash mem.).

 

Yeah, just saw that now.

I do wonder if there will be a game cache reserved on the built-in flash or if devs will be in the same boat as 360 devs as far as ensuring the game runs disc-only. I suppose for porting purposes it's a moot point since the work is "done" or they reduce their market by requiring an HDD.

And I wonder if they will even offer partial/full installations too... (aside from the Ware, obviously).

 

Uhm, where exactly have we been seeing this?

 

If you have some time on your hands, I made a post on everything we had heard up to the time of the post. A few days later we officially learned Nintendo contracted people from EA to help their online service.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=29416808&postcount=2659

 

That's why I mentioned it earlier. Nintendo contracted people from EA to help them build the online months ago so they've already been working on it. The Origin stuff is just EA trying to "put the icing on the cake" so to speak for digital downloads. This is from EA Sports Vice President back in July.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-27-ea-wii-u-can-do-anything-ps3-360-can

So Nintendo's version of XBL and PSN has been in development for awhile now.

For all we know though, Nintendo may have people from other companies helping as well. But EA is the obvious one.

 

lherre at Neogaf has been talking again. He basically thinks Wii U will have at least 1GB of RAM. But continues to imply it looks noticeably lower specced than other next gen contenders.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32744593&postcount=11628

Sounds to me like he's probably implying 1-1.5GB of RAM, which is a more healthy amount than I originally expected.

Of course we also know if lherre is right that's it's triple core CPU with 2 threads per core, and by the above, looks like EDRAM is in play on the GPU (probably a given).

I am not sure whether to put Wii U tech stuff here or in the next gen speculation thread? After all it is a next gen console...

 

Do we? We know it's multicore, meaning 3 or more, not exactly 3, and there was some strong rumors it being related to the Watson-project CPU, which had IIRC 4 threads per core?

Show me the Radeon HD GPU with EDRAM and and I'll believe you how that's "given"

 

^ lherre has access to the dev kits, so he's been telling us what he can without overstepping any possible boundaries.

Just adding a qualifier that the latter is based on the rumored specs we've been seeing.

 

Why are articles saying the Nintendo Wii U isn't as powerful as the PS3 or Xbox 360?

I don't quite understand why news articles popping up are saying the Nintendo Wii U is going to be not very powerful.

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the Nintendo Wii U using an IBM POWER7 CPU and AMD Radeon R770?

The POWER7 would take a dump on the Cell and Xenon processors and I know an R770 would also take a dump on the PS3 and Xbox360's graphics card, so I'm confused.

Can someone elaborate? Thanks.

 

I've never heard that being claimed. Though I'm fairly certain it will be considerably weaker than next-gen XB and PS.

Also, it's pretty certain it won't be Power7 as that CPU has tons of stuff in it that is of no use in a console.

 

I don't understand. IBM is the one who put a press release out saying that the Nintendo Wii U will use a POWER7 CPU.

 

Any link to that? I can believe a POWER-based architecture but directly taking POWER7 would be insanity.

 

You're right the release says Power based.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34683.wss

 

I know the PS4 will more than likely have a graphics card that's more than likely twice or three times as fast as the Nintendo Wii U, but I don't have a console and I'm not buying a PS3 or Xbox 360 now and I don't want to wait until 2013 or 2014.

 

Why did Nintendo lay down to Sony in performance I went from Nintendo to SNES to Nintendo 64 without hesitation and now they seem to not care about hardware performance.

I think I'm buying a Wii U no matter what. I miss playing Zelda and Mario games they're by far my favorite games.

 

Because fighting to be the top dog in performance is expensive and risky. After N64 Nintendo had to avoid risks and it worked great for them. I don't see them doing 180 anytime soon, but Wii U should still be closer to other next gen consoles than what the Wii is compared to PS360. Launch schedules, diminishing returns and general slowing down of tech development will cause that already and it seems like Nintendo is atleast trying to put something in there.