New rumours have surfaced today surround the technical specifications of the new Wii U console.
The site says its development source has revealed the Wii U will pack a quad Core, 3 GHz PowerPC-based 45nm CPU, "very similar to the Xbox 360 chip".
It goes on to cite "768 MB of DRAM 'embedded' with the CPU, and shared between CPU and GPU (graphics card)", with an "unknown" ATI-based graphics processor also slotting in the box.
It goes on to claim that Nintendo is experimenting with two versions of the console - one with 768MB of RAM, and another with 1GB - presumably to assess the benefits of the increased memory versus the added cost.
Other recent rumours have claimed that Wii U will, despite Nintendo's prior announcements, be able to connect with multiple touch-screen tablet controllers.
Comments
55 comments so far...
kirankara on 3 Dec '11 said:
Seems not that similar if its quad cored and has anywhere between about 150%-200% more ram.
Quality journalism
Noobsaibot on 3 Dec '11 said:
So, comparable to game hardware that will be near 7 years old by the time it releases? Bloody hell, we should have specs like that on our tablets at that stage. Also, multiple skus (which sound like a tonne of compatibility issues in the future) combined with the generally dumb/casual wii audience they will no doubt be trying to court = a whole world of trouble.
Also, I think all future consoles will be expected to do more such as multimedia. Nintendo have gotten away without offering DVD/HDDVD/BluRay/Media remarkably well over the last 10 years but I think trying to go another gen without offering anything beyond a vanilla gaming box might well be a massive mistake. Wouldn't put it past them to release something with only one stick.
Oh.
RavenxPrime on 4 Dec '11 said:
Wow way to believe everything you read and fly off the handle.
So the developer that released the specs doesn't know what graphics are going to be used eh?
Would make it kinda difficult to make a game don't you think? ..... oh wait sorry forgot .... thinking .... not your strong point is it
It also says experimeting with, not planning on releasing. Experimenting would suggest they are trying to test the advantages and extra cost of 1gb, in comparison to slighly lower performance but affordability of 768mb.
Makes sense to me if you think about it .... but ... what? you thought i'd repeat myself
markyR on 4 Dec '11 said:
From what I have read, the CPU is supposed to be REALLY advanced, based on some very new IBM tech based from it's super computer processors? No idea about the (AMD) CVG!!!! GPU.
As for the memory, you gotta be kidding right? Even Sony stated the rumours about it halving the Vita ram to 256 were bogus and it packs 512. So do the decent thing Nintendo and pack at least a gig eh? 2 would be better I think?
xxx128 on 4 Dec '11 said:
Those specs look deliciously underwhelming. If sony and m$ have similar less impressive hardware for next gen i am out for good.
Laughlyn on 4 Dec '11 said:
Been a huge nintendo fan all my gaming life (started out with a nes back in 88/89) the wii u worries me.
I just dont think it has anything to make it stand out as much as teh wii did, sure it has teh tablet controller but to an extent sony can incorporate that with the PS3 and PSP2, its gonna be mildly more powerful to keep costs down, typical nintendo, but the huge lack of multimedia doenst give anyone with a ps3 anything to move away from it.
Ok so PS3/Vita combo may not be as great but until a new Xbox and playstation is announced and released then multiformat games are always gonan be as goo das their weaskest link and in this day and age third party developers are lazy and i dont think we'll see any real innovatiopn using the tablet. just as when the wii came out all we had was ps2 games with tacked on motion controls, all we'll get with wii u in 360/PS3 games with tacked on maps and inventry screens on the tablet. The only company that will really push the wii u is gonna be nintendo and i'm not sure if i can buy a third machine just for first party nintendo games. I still love my wii, it doesnt get as much use as it once did, theres been some great games released and i still need to save up for zelda but nintendo are way too far behind with online structure and with multimedia capabilities. sure we can stream films and such from the net but without a built in HD or a recognized disk format we're not gonna be able to copy our own videos to it to watch (as we know) they say u can use an external drive but theres not been any note of media playback but the wii didnt in order to reduce cost and i think with the tablet pushing price up it'll just be a pure games system again. Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart ect will all look stunning on it, we've seen the dolphin emulated upscaled versions of games which look great, the tech demo of zelda looked great but i dunno if i can justify £280 just for Galaxy 3, MK8, Zelda ect when third party games are just gonna be poor ports with tacked on maps and inventories
The_KFD_Case on 4 Dec '11 said:
Pretty much this. I do appreciate that raw hardware power is not the be-all, end-all of gaming goodness yet it does play a significant role. (Anyone in doubt should ask various PS3 gamers how they feel about the apparent RAM restrictions on the PS3 likely playing some part in the game destroying FPS jittering in Skyrim.) I do not expect MS or Sony to release a new console system that is less powerful than their current flagships; my personal concern is whether or not the next Xbox-whatever-it-be-named will be backwards compatible with existing Xbox 360 games. It will be one of the main considerations for me as to whether or not I decide to get back on board when the next MS console launches, or simply go back to PC gaming only.
am_gers2K8 on 4 Dec '11 said:
It really should be 1GB of ram, there are smartphones out there with 768mb ffs! I bought a 4GB stick of DDR3 ram for my pc for $20AU so the extra RAM can't cost that much even though it'll probably be faster and smaller than DDR3.
Noobsaibot on 4 Dec '11 said:
Did I comment on the graphics specifically? Nope. I commented on the article as a whole which seems to sound like the proposed capabilities speculated when it was revealed. 768MB of DRAM is inadequate and not much more that the 512MB of the now 6+ years old Xbox 360.
As for the comment about two separate skus, I was merely voicing my opinions on why such an approach would likely lead to confusion. And it would. Nintendo should be aiming for the higher specifications with a minimum of 1GB of RAM. As for costs, the PS3 went this route (with Bluray) and it seems to have worked out in the long run by making the 360 look laughably basic in terms of media storage. Which it is.
The Wii U is the console we should have got five years ago and, much like the original Wii, will likely be ignored by myself at least (as well as a lot of the hardcore it hopes to win back). PC battlefield 3 (on full specs) should be the technical benchmark for all next gen consoles.
I have decided not to address your sarcasm/attempted insults as I do not feel the need to. However, I will take one of your recent quotes and press you for an answer (which I will probably not bother to comment on):
Considering that the final technical specifications are not yet known, and considering the list of known Wii U games suggests that a large number of them are either already available or likely technically possible on current hardware, why are you so prepared to leap onto the Wii U bandwagon so early regardless of price or specs?
Noobsaibot on 4 Dec '11 said:
Unlike the original Xbox console, Microsoft have had strict rules when it comes to development on the Xbox 360. On the original Xbox, some games addressed the API layer whereas others addressed the Xbox hardware itself. This is why some originals work on 360 and some don't - The ones that don't are trying to address hardware that is not physically in the Xbox 360. This will not be the case with 360's successor and I will literally eat from my own arse if it is not at least 98% backwards compatible.
Considering the fiasco that 360 has been, Only Shenmue 3 would make me buy it sooner than 12 months after launch.
sjholland87 on 4 Dec '11 said:
Well I've been saying that it will be going toe to toe with the current hardware... And it seems I may be right.
So who is going to buy this with its hideous un-ergonomic controller and underwhelming specs?
Nintendo have dropped the ball in my opinion
stupidvillager on 4 Dec '11 said:
The key word in this is "embedded". That changes everything. Its not the same as just 768 of typical system. The 360 has what, 10MB.
The_KFD_Case on 4 Dec '11 said:
Cheers, Noobsaibot. That said, while we can readily agree that the RRoD spell of the Xbox 360 was a travesty that disgraced MS, the overall assessment of the Xbox 360 as both a gaming platform, online media platform (as consoles go), as well as economically, all suggest that it has been far from a fiasco. Even more so when compared to the initial foothold the Xbox created. The Xbox 360 has nothing less than cemented MS's presence in the console gaming world - at least for now.
The_KFD_Case on 4 Dec '11 said:
Agreed. Certainly in my personal case this Wii U offers nothing that even remotely interests me and should that change by some minor miracle, I'll still hold off any final purchasing decision until both MS and Sony tip their hands.
Noobsaibot on 4 Dec '11 said:
While kind of out of date at this point, I have outlined why I believe 360 has not been smooth sailing (even excluding the RROD) before.
Article. Now with pictures!!!
http://www.thirdschism.com/articles/noo ... thday-xbox
ste hicky on 4 Dec '11 said:
these 'specs' are from march and were shipped around to devs when the project cafe rumours were in full swing (note the lack of gpu; unknown?) the sdk has been through plenty of revisions since and is yet to be finalised.
there's a reason i never ran this.
btw the 360 is a 3 core set up.
Cogglesz on 4 Dec '11 said:
I recon these specs are actually pretty good, my pc is 2.8 x4 and its pretty bad ass at everything in general, as for the ram 700 to 1gb is alot better than what sony and microsoft have, but i'm expecting the wii u to look rather beautiful indeed, however i just thought about all this without taking the other screen into account, who knows what resources it will take up.
notaMONGBRAIN on 4 Dec '11 said:
LOL @ THE ANTI NINTENDO BANDWAGON.....
LOL @ OLD TECH right lets apply common flaming sense to RUMORED specs ““embedded”” to cpu and gpu that sounds like IBM EDRAM TO ME AND EATHER 768mb or 1gb of it NOT MB YOU DUMMY HARDLY-CORES lets all pretend its iphone power because we are 12 yrs old call r sens CORE and fps with auto-aim and twin sticks IDIOTS
1gb of EDRAM= 128MB OF EDRAM FEEDING CPU AND GPU AS A SHARED CATCH POOL very very very powerful indeed if its 768mb of EDRAM = 96MB OF EDRAM SLIGHTLY LESS BUT STILL MONSTER IMPRESSIVE
x360 10MB/Wii3MB/GC 3MB/PS2 4MB/PSP2MB
wiiu 96MB of EDRAM THATS 9 X360S AND 2 Wiis worth of EDRAM CONBINED POWERf**kingFULLL 7 yearnold tech go back to twin stick fps IGNORANUS
notaMONGBRAIN on 4 Dec '11 said:
7 yr old what 768mb=96MB thats 10x more edram than x360 and 10x better edram at that 1gb=128MB of edram 12x more than x360
this is IBM EDRAM rated in mb NOT MB head in hands why do i share air with U
notaMONGBRAIN on 4 Dec '11 said:
other idea is its indeed 768MB not mb and EDRAM is being used as high bandwidth main ram and is connected via a high bandwidth bus again it would rape gddr5 easy !!!!!!! ether way this is edram not ram dram
Sentinator on 4 Dec '11 said:
Forget the specs. What about leaking some games. I want something nice to play as well as my Ninja Gaiden 3 at launch
TechnoWolf on 4 Dec '11 said:
I don't believe these specs at all. 1gb ram just seems too much for a console.
PMIKE5 on 4 Dec '11 said:
This might be an obvious question, but should Nintendo JUST be catching up to the 360 and ps3 just when there's talk of a new xbox and playstation soon? Makes me think that the Wii U won't have much in the way of longetivity...
Sentinator on 4 Dec '11 said:
I've thought the leap between 360 and the next Xbox aren't going to be as big as some people are expecting. Not simply because graphics can't get much better but it would be a huge risk to make that type of system while exchange rates are going up. Can't say about PS4. Thats still a long way off.
Balladeer on 4 Dec '11 said:
This... is not great. Power is far from the be-all and end-all, as I've been saying with the Wii, but the WiiU needs to be at least as powerful as the PS3 to look attractive to the gaming majority.
HOWEVER, I'm not sold on these specs (which I don't really understand anyway). "Japanese developer", eh? I'll wait until I get something more concrete before jumping to a final conclusion.
MrBubbleWrap on 4 Dec '11 said:
I hope you're still in education and not an adult.
AJDarkstar on 4 Dec '11 said:
Shallow much?
XBOXer_lt on 4 Dec '11 said:
If you are such a huge Ninty fan, why then are you complaining so much?! Start acting like Nintendo fan then. Wii U is going to best PS3. Isn't that enough? Why everyone suddenly became such power-mad gamers. Since when 360/ps3 graphics aren't enough? Games like Battlefield 3, Rage, Gears of war 3 look stunning and knowing that Wii U will be capable of doing more than that is simply awesome. I play Resident evil 0 on Gamecube at the moment and enjoy graphics. I know for sure when Wii U will be pluged under my HDTV I will have multiple orgasms while enjoying picture. Having said that, I have to agree about some of your coms about Wii U. No HDD and not even DVD playback will be sad thing. We'll just have to live with it and hope redesigned version of console in the future (this happens to every brand and every console) will include something that original will not. Time will show
rhyfel on 4 Dec '11 said:
the wii u will be old before its released with specs like that "if proved true" what nintendo need to do is create new ips and stop flogging a dead horse with the likes of mario and zelda, we all know there good games but really take away mario and zelda and what are you left with "not a lot".
Sentinator on 4 Dec '11 said:
They have new IPs. Disaster Day of Crisis, Pandora's Tower, The Last Story, Xenoblade, Wii (sports, fit, play etc), Endless Ocean, Another Code R. They could have created new IPs with Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Paper Mario etc but Mario is a big franchise. Its like Halo Wars. Companies use their big names to tackle other genres because it makes more sales.
Agent75 on 4 Dec '11 said:
The next Xbox and PS4 will be more powerful than the Wii U. Who's bothered about power anyway, it's all about the games. But even if the Wii U is more powerful than the Xbox 360 and PS3, it'll be short lived as it won't be long until the next Xbox and PS4 are released.
Laughlyn on 4 Dec '11 said:
because its not so much the specs of it, its that nintendo have made so many promises since the DS and Wii days, Virtual console was gonna offer the best of their back catalogue and in teh 5yrs i've had my Wii theres been some proper s***e on it. a handful of classic snes/nes/megadrive games and then just mountains of s***. Wiiware is the same, theres only a very few that are actually worth having and even then most are so short you feela bit ripped off by it. Lost winds, awesome game but for £7 or so its a couple hours long with very little replay value. best one i've had off there recently was that FAST racing.
Nintendo said they'll focus on improving Online, thats poor on Wii. Very few games actually using it properly and a bind to actually get into games and for early games having to use teh friendcode was just dumb, if a mate had to get a replacement wii, his FC changes, Same with 3DS they promised the world with online and so far the only game thats been worth going online is MK7 and again, pointless friendcode that isnt universal and with DSi i got sick of losing games if i traded up for a newer model. They need to be adopting an online system like PSN/XBL where you have a username that you log in with an email address and it stays with you.
Its not only that but like i said in original post, we was promised world with motion controls, developers were supposidly fully behind the wii and all we've seen is poor scaled down versions of most games with poor controls, its very rare that a third party game has had any effort put in it and i think thats all we'll see with the wii, in thi sday and age folk are obsessed with power and graphics and even tho the wii u will be great graphics and a HD console then chance are it'll still be a halfway point between this and next gen and i dont think a lot of folk will bother with it. Developers are once again claiming to be behind it but i t hink with the 'kiddified' image the wii picked up, that will carry over to the wii u and all we'll end up seeing is HD carnival games with only first party titles actually having any effort being put in. Even the 'hardcore' games are gonna be greatly outdated, battlefield 3, a year after its been out and with more than likley poitless maps and weapon customization on the touchpad. Chances are i will be buying it, if there is a good release line up (or close after) and i can afford it, i know the first party games will be great but i need to see a little more before i will put my money down just yet and i'll stick to going through skyward sword at christmas during day and battlkefield 3 on the ps3 at night
B_G_G on 4 Dec '11 said:
The 360's processor is tri-core and 65nm, ATI don't exist so y'know, probably won't be making the graphics solution and Nintendo haven't yet decided on the final hardware. http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=165810
I THINK the date at the top of the article is accurate though, so well done with that.
ste hicky on 4 Dec '11 said:
i've tried to tell people myself since e3 and i did mention early this morning that this is very old news (about 8 months old), they don't want to know.
their minds are made up and they've even got balla believing it. balla, you've seen what nintendo have just done with a wii, they can make masterpieces on anything. still, don't worry. this is all s**te.
i'll say one thing though: even if these specs were true it would outperform a 360 easily, by some distance.
Cazy008 on 4 Dec '11 said:
Stop calling them 'Tablet Controllers' it is not a tablet. What tablet do you know that has as many buttons as a Wii U controller?
Buddha on 4 Dec '11 said:
It‘s not the haters I‘m worried about, it‘s the bloody Nintendo fanboys! Some of them were bad enough about the Wii!
cult on 4 Dec '11 said:
Crikey has it really been six months since we didn't find anything new about the Wii U?
subform on 4 Dec '11 said:
lots of people on here saying "oooh that spec sucks..." but come on...think it through... If this console was being pitched to win over ps3 and 360 owners, it would be very different...
The core target market for this console is Wii owners. If they manage to get Wii owners to trade up, then they will be top of the pile for a other generation.
Bryanee1983 on 4 Dec '11 said:
768 MB of DRAM 'embedded' with the CPU
^^^^^^^^That right there screams bull.
Bryanee1983 on 4 Dec '11 said:
Its 768 of EDRAM, different kind of ram, much faster alot better. Thats why this screams bull, theres no way its packing that much EDRAM on the CPU.
Izo on 4 Dec '11 said:
This was proven to be false, for one the Wii U is 1080p native confirmed by Nintendo themselves that alone means it's impossible for the specs to be at 360 level as well as the specualtion being over 8 months old and 768mb Dram is something I don't see for any console as that's the most expensive ram you can get and Ati are now AMD. It's already been shouted down, also 360 doesn't have a quad core set up it's a tri-core.
voodoo341 on 4 Dec '11 said:
I couldn't care what spec's it has or doesn't have. It's all about the games. I want to see games actually running on the console. I want to know what the launch line up is, what are their online plans, what new IP's they're planning. All worryingly thin on the ground at the moment. If it's launching 2012 then the console is with developers, they must have games running on the Wii U. Lets see it.
MD1500 on 4 Dec '11 said:
Another day, another unverified rumour.
I'm surprised that French site 01.net haven't waded in yet with a rumour that the Wii U will have a third control stick.....
charliecheswick on 4 Dec '11 said:
What Voodoo said. I think now the 3ds is back on track ,we'll see some game footage from third parties early in the new year. Don't think it'd hurt to show off Arkham City's added features at the January exhibition ( sorry,can't remember which one it is! ).
radiocat on 4 Dec '11 said:
RAM is dirt cheap. The price difference between 700Mb and 1G DDR3 must be in the order of about 5 quid, so I don't see what the fuss is about there.
Sentinator on 4 Dec '11 said:
I'd love to see more stuff from it but knowing Nintendo they will keep us waiting until the last possible minute. Even with stuff from third parties
DoomGuy84 on 4 Dec '11 said:
People should wait until E3 before writing Wii U off. We will hear loads of rumours between now and then but i wont be making any judgements until the final product is revealed.
Noobsaibot on 4 Dec '11 said:
01.net? You mean that site that pretty much called the 3DS second stick accurately and early?
The_KFD_Case on 4 Dec '11 said:
The_KFD_Case on 4 Dec '11 said:
Btw, Noobsaibot, wanted to thank you for posting that link to your article. I found it very informative and well written. Cheers.
sweatyBallacks on 4 Dec '11 said:
I wish someone would come out with the real specs by now to stop all this speculation.
Surely the real specs are known by multiple devs out there now.
But from estimations for us folk the spec is anywhere from 'a bit more powerful than a PS Vita' to 'leaps and bounds more powerful than the HD twins'.
Izo on 5 Dec '11 said:
DDR is not eDRam, the latter is extremely expensive as it's faster then any memory you can get but generates large amount of heat and requires an extremely capable processor, why this rumor is bull is that the 360 only has 10mb of eDRam in total so a console with 700mb of it would have to be 20 times more powerful performance wise to utilize it, even the top PCs aren't on that level.
WHERESMYMONKEY on 5 Dec '11 said:
Personally i don't care that much about whats under the hood. Gaming should always be about the games and since it's nintendo they're bound to have that covered and then some.
DavidVM on 5 Dec '11 said:
Given that Nintendo would probably expect to produce at least 50 millions units during it's lifespan, that 5 quid not worth fussing about becomes 250 million quid and probably warrants a bit more fuss then. I'm not condoning or condemning Nintendo for this, it's just basic business. At the end of the day if they could knock 5 pence off the cost of each console by altering a spec that may not be essential, they certainly would take a serious look at it.
I love Nintendo, but I feel they've lost their way over the last couple of years and for me this console is coming a year too late. Not too mention that the control scheme seems to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist (a big issue for Nintendo recently) and they really need to get their act together with this whole less than new fangled online thing. Still, these specs will certainly solve a couple of problems of the current gen by providing proper native 1080p and much faster load times; both of which are very welcome but would've made a much bigger impact 12-18 months ago.
notaMONGBRAIN on 8 Dec '11 said:
786mb screams BULL MB or mb my friend if mb not MB then perfectly possable....also IBM EDRAM can also be used in a non ED ram way making it 768MB of fast ram A EXAMPLE
1T-SRAM EDRAM 3MB WII GPU,non edram 1t-sram on die =24 mb
ibm edram could also be used as fast custom pc killing ram
we could also look at fcram and 1t-sram as possable inclusions...
another thing my TRUE GAMER BRAIN thought up
3mb ed 1t-sram 3x8= 24mb 1t-sram
wiiu 96MB IBM EDRAM=768mb of edram 8x 96= 768MB of non edram ibm ram like wii and GC