Topic: Wii U really is tiny for its power.

Launch Wii U:

Top:

Bottom:
The lone chip on the bottom is 512 MB which is almost certainly the Wii's save etc. space.

Here's some comparable systems:

Launch PS3 (2006, Japan/Part Of Asia/North America only version with full PS2 on a Chip):

Launch Xbox 360 (2005):

^This thing was pathetically cooled...

Xbox One (obviously admittedly) more powerful:

PS4 (Unknown)

Nintendo and their partner's engineers deserve a lot of credit for this, as much as a love a large systems, if you can make a smaller one and cool it effectively every company will. Wii U is a good example of 2012 vs. 2005/2006 technology as seen above...whereas Xbox One looks an awful lot like a desktop PC inside...looks very cheap as well I must say.

Wii U reminds me more and more of the Gamecube every day, and that's a good thing.

I really like how Nintendo makes very solid systems--and they're all generally small. The NES was a compact little box, the SNES was equally small, and never mind the gamecube and Wiis. The N64 was a little bigger than the others (especially with the controller), but in that generation it paled in comparison with the size of the Sega Saturn. Sony's systems were also bigger than Nintendo's--and have grown bigger with every generation.

I guess that's the tradeoff between power and size. Nintendo plays it very conservative, while Microsoft is right on the edge of power/fragility.

i get that comment all the time

Size is not what's important. It's how you use it.

My Mega Drive is massive and tends to get really hot everyday... It works perfectly even though it is getting old

I don't mind big systems at all personally but this sort of thing just fascinates me. I've got to say though that the PS4 is smaller than the PS3 Slim (though not the Super Slim) and also obviously smaller than the big beast that went on sale all those years ago.

Wii U is the first time a Nintendo console is bigger than the one before it and I think it might be bigger than the Gamecube too.

Also, tradeoff between power and size isn't always the case, sometimes because a system comes out later with more refined features...for example, the Gamecube was a beast inbetween the PS2 and Xbox's power yet packed in that tiny lunchbox.

Yes, this is it!

it's smaller than an old(2006-2009) GPU board! O.o

Yeah...would have thought there'd be more to the Gamecube motherboard, but it just takes up the very bottom of the console with nothing really on the bottom. The CPU and GPU combo were not particularly cheap at launch in 2001, remember this is Nintendo's last attempt at the power side of the market because the PS2 arguably came out a bit too early powerwise and left something to be desired...but Microsoft rolled out the Xbox which was better than than the average (note average) PC gamer could make at the time, with a high-end nVidia GPU that was not on the PC market at the time.

I think in the PS4's case, it was stated by one of their head developers that it was a more conservative evolutionary step than what the PS3 was, which is likely why it's smaller than its predecessor, and far cheaper. Personally, I think size has a very positive correlation to power, which is why the highest-end PCs are always in monster cases, with equally monstrous cooling units and graphics cards. Kind of like a race engine. Efficiency is the enemy of outright speed. It's why land-speed records are done with jet engines.

I'm waiting for a portable edition of the Wii U to appear. I understand that its low power consumption is comparable to a laptop. So all you need is a battery and you're good to go. You already have a screen and battery-powered controller in the GamePad.

If anything, they'll make a battery pack that is a separate purchase from the console. That's sounds pretty probable, actually. It seems pretty fancy using the Wii remote on the GamePad only, BTW.

People always compare it to a computer mouse. Since the GamePad is the systems own screen, that doesn't sound too far off.

Well actually you can fit very, very powerful machines into small form factors and that's including internal power supplies that are almost twice the size of the Wii U itself. Usually the big PCs are in monster cases because the people who build big PCs also want to fit high end sound cards, crazy water cooling and a tonne of drives. If you really wanted to you can fit something well and truly in the top tier into something very small indeed. You can fit the highest end single-GPU build with reasonable cooling (a 120mm radiator I think would fit) inside of this case... like so...

About the size of the box the Wii U came in? Not a hell of a lot bigger than the PS4/XBOne that's for sure. Plus that thing has space for 3x 3.5" drives in the front and doesn't have an external power brick.

It's all a matter of priorities and marketing. They could engineer them so they were smaller but if they did it would be extra money in development. A waste of money especially when people assume that bigness = high end visuals. Also true down to the component level, a lot of higher end graphics cards have a couple of inches of plastic on the end. No reason, it just makes them bigger which again...

Yeah, I was merely stating the Gamecube exception. Happens often with consoles that come out after their competition...like the Wii U's competitors except they went for more powerful hardware...well moreso Sony, Xbox One is a joke at $499 but whatever. I don't want an expensive gimped system with a camera I don't want and a $60 a year subscription fee that gives you no added value (like PS+) except to access services you already own and to play online.

@BanjoThreeie
To be fair, we don't exactly know all of the specifics about Xbox One or PS4. The fact that PSN has become a paid service kind of implies they should have been charging for online all along.

You do realize that if PS4 is actually better than Xbox One and they're charging less for it, that they're gonna lose a ton of money, right? Just sayin'. The PS4 will probably need 5 games sold for each console before it's profitable.

I think Kinect is better than PS Eye. Regardless, they both have a camera.

@SCAR392
Sony have said that the PS4 will be profitable after 1 game and a PS+ subscription is sold.

It must have been a quick decision to not bundle the PSeye in order to undercut the Xbox One's price. It was obviously designed to be bundled, which makes the PS4 controller look strange now, with it lighting up for no reason.

I see... Well, my guess is that Wii U needs at least 2 games sold per console to be profitable, then. Wii U still technically costs $350, but they lowered the price to $300 and will probably have more bundles for the holidays.

Since the Wii U has free online, people will just end up buying another game instead of an online subscription.

Well, I've more than done my part to support the system....I've got like 19 retail and 4 eShop games, tho I got about 13 with pretty steep discounts. m

Wii U's MCM and the decision to keep code compatibility with Gamecube and Wii on both CPU and GPU can't have been cheap, on top of the tablet. Barring a launch PS3-like situation where an extra chip was involved I wouldn't be surprised to see backwards compatibility thrown out the window next gen, which is a shame...even for Nintendo's developers themselves believe it or not. The Wind Waker was natively compatible with the Wii U's CPU and GPU, only changes that for sure we know had to be made are minor adjustments, a new lighting engine, high-res textures, and bumping the resolution from 640x480 to 1920x1080! The Wii U is a continuation of the Gamecube (the first PowerPC-based home console other than the little-known Pippin) and Wii in many respects right down to a proprietary disc format and optical drive developed by Panasonic and despite being much less powerful than the PS4 or even the Xbox One, has a lot going for the Wii U in my opinion at $299 with a game and free online.

I wonder what Nintendo is paying IBM for Espresso (the CPU) and AMD for Latte (the GPU?)

@BanjoThreeie
How exactly is the Wii U much weaker? It still confuses me how people can claim that even though no one actually knows. Just look at the Xbox vs. the GCN. They were pretty equal in performance, yet the GCN was like 4 times smaller.

The Wii U is basically just as small in comparison to the Xbox One as the GCN was to the Xbox. I'd like to know why you think it's not as powerful.

EDIT: BTW, I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I completely agree that Wii U isn't as powerful. I just don't think it's by as much as many like to claim. Really, Sony probably has the most powerful machine, but they don't really know how to utilize as much as I would expect them to. I don't see anything better going on in the PS4 compared to the Xbox One, yet the specs are on a chart of its own.

It's weaker in stats, especially when comparing component by component (just as an example: the Wii U doesn't support USB 3.0, unlike the other two systems). So, in POTENTIAL, the Wii U is considered weaker. In DELIVERY, though, I doubt the differences will be all that noticeable. A few months ago Jimmy Fallon had the Wii U and PS4 on his show, and neither the graphics or the game on the PS4 blew me (or anyone in the audience) away.