Topic: Wii U Hardware

For those who dont know what things are check out the related vids.
Wii u hardware explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnsG11MRE8

Wii U Vs PS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIbhzMHzrQU&feature=relmfu

Thanks for this.
Wii u sounds interesting...never seen these links before.

Wii U vs PS4? Really?

Yeah. Right. PS4. The console that hasn't even been announced yet. Not even any reliable rumors. The "720" has rumors. The Wii U is announced. The PS4... has neither. Except for very unreliable rumors.

Already seen them...

The first one sounded like he was just guessing for the most part which I think he was since I don't think they have unveiled the specs of it exactly, they didn't exactly spell it out for the wii either, didn't even bother with the 2nd link comparing a console with very little info available to one with no info available seems a tad pointless.

I'm pretty sure he has made it CLEAR that these are based on "rumors" and "speculation" on the part of PS4 and "720". WiiU's hardware has been pretty much finalized- he just brought the pieces together to form a broader picture.

Of course, time will tell. E3 is right there, anyways.

Also their is the rumour of version 5 kits with 1GB vram,2GB GDDR 5 main memory wiith 512meg of that used for online OS etc.fingers crossed.

Wouldn't be that surprising given RAM pretty much halves in cost every 1.5 years or so and it's been seven years since the 360 launched with 512MB of RAM. I'm sure it'll have RAM to spare but I'd still I'd take that sort of rumour with a grain of salt.

Also.... lots of RAM does not a system make

Just been checking wii u blog and the story is 512mb for the wii u operating system,with ninty making it less for game devs,which would mean two things to me,either there is 1GB vram plus 2GB GDDR 5 main memory or hopefully 1GB vram 3GB GDDR 5.Randy pitchford from Gearbox as stated that their is alot more ram than 360 and ps3...be surprised.

More ram means better looking games and systems run better

Were that true and I would start considering the WiiU as something else than a cheap toy. RAM is cheap, but not that cheap as to have 3GB not impacting severely on the final price.

I don't necessarily agree that more RAM will automatically make for better games. One thing that WiiWare has shown us with its limitations is that you can do amazing things with limited resources if you're talented and focus your effort. I've read interviews with industry people more than once bemoaning the fact that in many cases games use higher-specc'ed systems, not out of necessity, but because many game developers are too lazy to optimise their code (obviously I'm talking PC games here).

I'm sure that Nintendo at least will make the most of the kit and impress us.

Consumers shouldn't care about specs.
In my opinion very high specs are an excuse for the developer to be lazy and not optimize their software for the hardware.
Don't get me wrong, having high specs is a good thing (usually apart from price) but specs aren’t everything.

RAM doesn't make better games. If it were so, Naughty Bear would be a better game than Ocarina of Time, because it uses more RAM. This should be just common sense..... yaaaawwn.

@Mandoble
For the price of 512MB of DDR at the 360's launch you can get 8GB of DDR3 today. I don't think 3GB will break the budget.

As I said, I think it's highly probably it will have a lot of RAM but "lots of RAM does not a system make".

Think of RAM as a way to avoid having to read data from the disk. More RAM does allow you to have larger levels and higher resolution models and textures but you still have to load the levels (so longer corridors and slower doors). Alternatively you can use RAM to load more of the game than you need in the background which means less time waiting for loading but that's at the cost of processing power. At the end of the day it's the CPU/GPU that needs to do the lifting because the RAM is just there to compensate for a slow disk.

More RAM is better and it's great if it's used for cache but I'd much rather a game that efficiently used a smaller amount of RAM. Whatever the amount of RAM the Wii U gets whether it's 512MB or 8GB I'm pretty confident that it won't be either a limiting factor or the thing that pushes it's visuals well beyond what the 360 does. It pretty much all about the CPU/GPU.

@skywake

You do know the der ram you get at thestore for a Pc isn't the same you put in a console and they don't cost the same. Why do you think that smartphones arr still maxed at 1GB for the most part.

I'm calling 2GB for wii u.

He isn't saying to put PC RAM into a console. He is saying that over time, RAM has become cheaper for a large amount.

When the 360 launched with it's 512MB of DDR3 you could get 512MB of DDR for ~$65AU. You can now get 8GB of DDR3 for ~$65AU and that's not even adjusting for inflation. Obviously we expect to have faster, non-upgradeable RAM for our consoles and so they aren't exactly the same thing but they are comparable.

So cost wise I don't think it's that crazy to say that multiple GBs of GDDR5 is on the cards.

I know. Still I'm guessing about 2GB at the most and 1.5 at the least. And it will launch with 16GBs pf flash storage.

Also am I the only want who wants an internal HDD slot.

Which is true, but again it would have an impact if the target price is (as everybody seems to believe) around 350€. I've reading some dev forums and the only thing clear is that latest WiiU dev kits have more RAM to serve dev, testing and debug tools. Obviously the excess of RAM used by these tools is not used by the games and will not be present in the retail devices. Anyway for me RAM is critical resource as important as CPU/GPU and direct responsible of having a fluid gaming experience without continuous "Loading please wait" messages. But it is Nintendo, and typical Nintendo games are in the antipodes of Skyrim and similars when it comes to required resources, so they might pretty well belive that 1GB (or even less) is more than enough for the following 8 years.