What is the potential of a NAOMI 2 based console with 1GB of RAM?

[Capeta]

I've been pondering about the potential of a NAOMI 2 based console with 1GB of RAM for awhile and was wondering how much it would cost using present day manufacturing processes. Could we expect better than Wii visuals at a lower cost? Also why didn't Nintendo go with the same idea as SEGA for backwards compatibility eg adding a more powerful coprocessor to an existing architecture? Why did they decide to only increase the clockspeed?

 

[Lazy8s]

Demonstrating whole multiple times the performance of PS2 in Virtua Fighter 4 at a lower cost of silicon and RAM type, NAOMI2 should be competitive with the Wii in both performance and price. Storage size, though, probably wasn't too limiting a factor for NAOMI2, so it probably wouldn't benefit too much from even more RAM.

Even though it used just generic SDR DRAM, the availability of that now might change how economical it would be to procure large quantities.

What I don't understand is why Nintendo didn't choose a SoC architecture for Wii's design for the cost savings and possibility of making the system into a portable design if they wanted.

 

[Mintmaster]

1GB of RAM is great for high res textures, and that's one of the most important things to make decent looking graphics. RE4 looked really nice because the texture artwork was very well done, despite the lack of fancy pixel shaders. Often in game situations you see texel to pixel ratios well below 1:1 even at SD resolutions, so I'd agree that you could really get some improved graphics over the Wii.

It's an interesting idea, especially with lower speed RAM so cheap nowadays. However, neither PS2 nor Wii can attribute their success to their graphics, so the real advantage of such a proposition is questionable.

 

[Crossbar]

It's an interesting idea, especially with lower speed RAM so cheap nowadays. However, neither PS2 nor Wii can attribute their success to their graphics, so the real advantage of such a proposition is questionable.

Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I will forever wonder what the original Xbox would have ended up like if they had gone with 128 MB RAM, which the original PCB was prepared to carry.

It would probably have provided some awesome graphics and less painful PC ports. But the price would probably have killed it even faster, they already had the standard HD + intel and Nvidia chips which were hard to cost reduce. This time around MS went with no standard HD and more RAM for the 360, so far it seems to be a much better choice.