Nintendo Wii specs (courtesy of maxconsole.net)

[Tahir2]

I think he was being sarcastic squeak...

As to the specs, it seems Nintendo is intent on making money on hardware as well as software if these are true. I guess most of the R&D went into fitting the Wii/Revolution into a tiny form factor and still making it more powerful than the previous generation.

I am still disappointed with Nintendo but the game of ever increasing one-up-manship hardware specs stopped for Nintendo after the N64.

 

[Squeak]

I just had to laugh when I read that quote. I mean, that's a lot coming from a guy who could just have said "to be read and understood, keep it short and simple."
/offtopic

1. "to be read and understood, keep it short and simple." is not the same thing. He explains exactly why you shouldn't "over-think" your writings.
Your sentence oversimplifies.
"fewest possible words" is not the same as "short" and "plainest possible words" is not the same as "simple".

2. In the mid-eighteen hundreds when that quote was written, most learned books were so ridiculously convoluted, and intentionally complex in their language, that they are almost painful to read today, most likely to keep the "wrong" people from reading them and to emblazon the authors name for his "superior intellect".
/offtopic

I think he was being sarcastic squeak...

Of course . Didn't read what went before and after.

 

[Acert93]

I think he was being sarcastic squeak...

He was? I just figured the merits of eDRAM had been discussed at length in regards to framebuffer and fillrate needs so no need to respond to the comment. Sometimes joking and tongue-in-cheak are hard to read online.

That said, there is another reason eDRAM is valuable: You are not hamstrung by a memory maker. While we rarely get a lot of cost information, it does seem that eDRAM as part of the processor(s) would scale down in cost due to increased yields/smaller die area pretty fast relative to memory.

 

[swaaye]

LOL. I can't believe they didn't even add in some of the DirectX9 level hardware that's been around for 4 years now or so. The CPU sounds like an up-clocked Gekko. This thing must be damn near free for them to build.

$250 for a Coppermine and a Radeon 9000 with a DVD-ROM and some flash anyone? N is going to be raking in the dough if this sells big.

 

[Fox5]

LOL. I can't believe they didn't even add in some of the DirectX9 level hardware that's been around for 4 years now or so. The CPU sounds like an up-clocked Gekko. This thing must be damn near free for them to build.

$250 is ripping us off big time. $250 for a Coppermine and a Radeon 9000 with a DVD-ROM and some flash anyone? N is going to be raking in the dough if this sells big.

*Cough* Mac Mini. */Cough*

 

[Squeak]

LOL. I can't believe they didn't even add in some of the DirectX9 level hardware that's been around for 4 years now or so. The CPU sounds like an up-clocked Gekko. This thing must be damn near free for them to build.

dx9 is just microsofts name for a collection of more or less random and more or less well chosen features. It's not the only way to do things.
Hopefully Hollywood will have the power to use EMBM a lot more than Flipper. EMBM is a very versatile method, that can do everything from refractions to parallax mapping.
Flipper just didn't have the extra juice needed to pull a lot of the stuff in realtime. With the extra bandwidth and higher clock, it might just have enough power to do that second pass.

 

[swaaye]

dx9 is just microsofts name for a collection of more or less random and more or less well chosen features. It's not the only way to do things.
Hopefully Hollywood will have the power to use EMBM a lot more than Flipper. EMBM is a very versatile method, that can do everything from refractions to parallax mapping.
Flipper just didn't have the extra juice needed to pull a lot of the stuff in realtime. With the extra bandwidth and higher clock, it might just have enough power to do that second pass.

Well I didn't intend to sound like I blindly want DirectX9. Just that level of tech. Whereas Flipper was known to be basically GF2-level technology.

One would hope there are a few tricks up their sleeves. Adding some more eDRAM doesn't really seem like a worthy improvement on its own. Hopefully they also fix the color depth limitations cuz that was the worst problem on 'Cube IMO. RE4 looked awful at some points because of it.

 

[Squeak]

Well I didn't intend to sound like I blindly want DirectX9. Just that level of tech. Whereas Flipper was known to be basically GF2-level technology.

What is that level of tech?
There is the every bit as valid approach, of "just" improving tried and tested technology with the help of process improvements, instead of giving in to potential feature creep, where two thirds of the new features are just new "official" names for old techniques or software marketed as hardware.
Strong, well implemented EMBM can take you very far.

 

[swaaye]

What is that level of tech?
There is the every bit as valid approach, of "just" improving tried and tested technology with the help of process improvements, instead of giving in to potential feature creep, where two thirds of the new features are just new "official" names for old techniques or software marketed as hardware.
Strong, well implemented EMBM can take you very far.

Ok. I liked my Voodoo1 too, but I'm glad NV killed off 3DFX and ended their constant rehashes of that technology.

Well I suppose we'll see how well a mild evolution of really old technology can compare with what's in the other consoles. The rumored $250 isn't exactly separated much from a $300 360 in price for the consumer. And there's a vast chasm of difference in "tech level".

 

[Fox5]

Ok. I liked my Voodoo1 too, but I'm glad NV killed off 3DFX and ended their constant rehashes of that technology.

Well I suppose we'll see how well a mild evolution of really old technology can compare with what's in the other consoles. The rumored $250 isn't exactly separated much from a $300 360 in price for the consumer. And there's a vast chasm of difference in "tech level".

Nvidia did more than just out-featured 3dfx though, they outperformed them in nearly every aspect. Better run business, better contracts (lower costs and more sales), better drivers (and 3dfx was among the best for drivers), and just plain faster from the launch of the Geforce and on. It took 3dfx over a year to sli together two voodoo 3 3000s and sell them as a voodoo 5, while at the same time nvidia increased the performance of their chips by like 6x (ignoring the limitations of memory bandwidth) and added a ton of new features.

Anyhow, for hardware like the flipper shrunk down to 90nm, they probably could have easily clocked its mhz up, added more TEVs, or such a large amount of edram that it would put current GPUs to shame in some areas. Heck, they could have stuck 4 flippers together and had nearly 2 gigapixel fillrate and 12MB edram at the same clock speed and still come out under the transistor budget of current top end gpus. (not that that is anywhere close to the performance of top end gpus, but 12MB of edram is a good amount)

 

[Squeak]

Ok. I liked my Voodoo1 too, but I'm glad NV killed off 3DFX and ended their constant rehashes of that technology.

Well I suppose we'll see how well a mild evolution of really old technology can compare with what's in the other consoles. The rumored $250 isn't exactly separated much from a $300 360 in price for the consumer. And there's a vast chasm of difference in "tech level".

There was a guy some years ago that proved mathematically that everything Renderman can do, can, with a enough perseverance, be replicated on a basic GPU with indirect texturing.

Old tech is by no means bad tech just because it's old. On the contrary in some cases going back to the roots and using the process improvements, can result in a more "streamlined", clean design.
What's more, I'd hardly call Flipper really old, it's 2000-2001 tech, plus it was way ahead of it's time in the basic features. It just wasn't clocked high enough/used enough transistors.

 

[pc999]

Well I suppose we'll see how well a mild evolution of really old technology can compare with what's in the other consoles. The rumored $250 isn't exactly separated much from a $300 360 in price for the consumer. And there's a vast chasm of difference in "tech level".

Nintendo said they may losse money per console (althought very litle, 1-2$ IIRC) so there is 4 chances:
1) the console will be much cheaper;
2) the console is much more powerfull;
3) a mix of 1 and 2;
4) Nintendo is ""#"!&%$#"& stupid and after paid IBM/ATI for nothing they will pay more than ever for the same thing.

There was a guy some years ago that proved mathematically that everything Renderman can do, can, with a enough perseverance, be replicated on a basic GPU with indirect texturing.

That is very interesting, but it is needed more power than the conventional way?

 

[ERP]

or 5 the controller is more expensive that most expect

 

[Samurai-Saint]

First post from the newbi

Looks like Nintendo is going to have a real opportunity to prove that Gameply trumps graphics. Though the graphics wont be bad, they just wont be quite as glossy as the the other two consoles.

Nintendo will need to go the extra mile in creating new kinds of game interaction and experiences. Which they likely will.

Cheers

 

[pc999]

or 5 the controller is more expensive that most expect

The info that one posted (long ago) said the chips costed 6-7$ IIRC, unless the pointer or the sensor bar is very costly I dont think this is the reason.

Two others things me«ake me think that too, for one they had (still?) considered put 2 of them with each wii, the other is that a good part of their strategy is the wii as a family games machine (wii sports, Mario Party and such) that also mean a good effort in multiplayer so controler must be affordable (specially if they already have plan to make us buy a load of periphericals).

There may be a 5) if they plan (initially) to sell it as a bundle, but I really doubt it is that one.

 

[LunchBox]

aside from the paper spec...

I'm still waiting on how much different will their games be graphically compared to the competition.

It would be quite shameful if there wouldn't be a big differentiated gap comparatively...

 

[Rolf N]

Well I didn't intend to sound like I blindly want DirectX9. Just that level of tech. Whereas Flipper was known to be basically GF2-level technology.

That knowledge has been known to be misguided.

 

[Pozer]

Also the Wii will be rendering at 720x480 whereas 90% of 360 and ps3 games will be 1280x720. (sorry but I dont exoect anything intensive at 1920x1080 with the ps3's memory bandwidth.)

Wii 345,600 pixels
360/ps3 921,600 pixels

 

[Fox5]

Also the Wii will be rendering at 720x480 whereas 90% of 360 and ps3 games will be 1280x720. (sorry but I dont exoect anything intensive at 1920x1080 with the ps3's memory bandwidth.)

Wii 345,600 pixels
360/ps3 921,600 pixels

So the Wii hardware is 1/3 the resolution with 1/10th the fillrate and polygon pushing capabilities and 1/3rd the bandwidth. It's not going to look comparable at all.

 

[pc999]

http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152589

While speaking on a panel at the Ziff Davis Electronic Games Summit in Napa earlier today, Ubisoft North America President Laurent Detoc revealed that his company currently has seven titles in development for Nintendo's upcoming Wii platform. This show of support came as a surprise to many, as the company had previously only demonstrated two of those seven titles: Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel.

On the same panel, Midway President David Zucker stated that his company has six titles in development for the Wii.

About ubisoft, remember this (till today it is very accurate), I wonder (if those are the games) how much downgraded they will be but if the gameplay/design/features remains intact this is great news grin: AssassinsCreed).

Tom Clancy's Firehawk (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) - March 2007
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 5 (PS3, Xbox 360, Rev, PC, PSP) - November 2006
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 4 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Xbox, PS2) - March 2007
Assassin (PS3, Xbox 360, Rev, PC, PSP) - March 2007
Lumines 2 (PS2, PSP)
Game 5 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) - Spring 2007
Alive (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) - Spring 2007
Naruto (Xbox 360)
Rayman 4 (PS3, Xbox 360, Rev, PC, PS2, handheld) - November 2006
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Brothers in Arms 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Nintendo Revolution, DS ) - February 2007
Ninja Turtles (PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Revolution, PC, handheld) - Spring 2007
Highway Battles (Xbox 360)
Enchant Arms (Xbox 360) - July 2006
Blazing Angel 1.5 (PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox) - November 2006

Do you dev, think it is possible to make a relatively gameplay/design/features intact game, specially AssasinsCreed (I guess for the others they could just upgrade the old PS2 engines and meybe something like prerender the lighting) but this is brand new (right?) it would be much harder I guess