Rumor: Wii U CPU Twice as Beefy As Xbox 360

[Greg Tito]

Rumor: Wii U CPU Twice as Beefy As Xbox 360

An anonymous source working on a Wii U title said the hardware wasn't as powerful as he expected, though.

One of the most common complaints heard about the Wii when it debuted in 2006 was that it wasn't as powerful as its brethren. The Xbox 360 and PS3 both boasted a huge amount of graphics processing power, but in contrast, the latecomer to this generation of consoles couldn't even push an HD image. Of course, the Wii sold well on the basis of its first-party games and novel control scheme, but Nintendo has said its successor would be a much more powerful machine. A developer working on a Wii U game gave some clues that it would indeed have more power than the Xbox 360, but it still isn't enough to handle everything the developer wanted to throw at it.

The source requested that he remain anonymous because he didn't want to be accused of breaking the strict Non-Disclosure Agreements that Nintendo imposes on third-party developers. That being said, he went ahead and broke his legally binding contract by telling a reporter from Develop that the Wii U was about twice as powerful as an Xbox 360. However, that isn't enough for some of what developers want the console to do.

"I've heard [project designers] complain it's underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans," the source added.

This quote is just heresay and rumor from an unconfirmed source, so you should take it with a hefty silo of salt. Until the specs of each console are confirmed by the manufacturers, we will not know what hardware is inside them.

For example, a separate source came forward yesterday concerning the development of the next Microsoft console. That guy told IGN the Xbox 720 would be "six times as powerful" as the 360, which would be "20 per cent greater performance than Wii U."

My math skills aren't that good, but let's say the Xbox 360 has a power of 100. The Wii U would be 200, based on one source, while the Xbox 720 would be 600. That's a far cry from "20 percent" better than the Wii U supposedly is.

So yeah, this is all bunk with maybe a small kernel of truth hidden in there. For my money, I bet that the Wii U is pretty powerful, but the complaints of it not being powerful enough are also probably true.

Source: Develop and IGN [http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/01/24/xbox-720-will-be-six-times-as-powerful-as-current-gen]

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[Waaghpowa]

Enough with the rumours. It will probably all turn out to be lies from the manufacturers themselves in an attempt to get people hyped up over their new console, then we will be horribly disappointed at how shit they are when they're released because our expectations are too high.

 

[Mr. Omega]

I'm not expecting it to be as powerful as the Nextbox or the PS4. But I also know the gap in power isn't going to be nearly as significant as it was in the Wii/360/PS3 generation. As said in the article, any claims about graphical power is pretty much worthless until we see the actual specs of all the consoles.

Plus, history has shown it's not always the most powerful console that wins or produces the best games. Better hardware is not always the surefire way to have great games.

And there really needs to be a "Rumors" section so that we can separate the rumors from the actual news.

 

[LilithSlave]

I guess it's sorta nice, in a way. But this does not matter to me at all.

I find the focus on graphics to be a cancer on the gaming industry, and could care less about more powerful hardware at this point. Not perfectly entirely. But there's nothing special to me about further achievements in computing power for games.

If anything about looks matters, it would be aesthetic. Hello Kitty games on the NES still look amazing to me. Pokemon Red and Blue still look amazing to me. Honestly, games hit the peak in terms of looking awesome in the Super Nintendo era. Pretty much every Super Nintendo game was gorgeous as well as played well and would not benefit from better graphics much at all. That age, to me, was the pinnacle of graphics to gameplay ratio. Things looked great, things played great. And there are only a few cases where I have considered the update in graphics to be worth it, one of those rare cases being Kingdom Hearts, which sort of captured the SNES essence for me.

Which goes to show, that graphics do not matter. Only the aesthetic it is used for. Almost no games have ever made the graphics seem worth it. If anything, I lament the amount of graphical power out there being wasted on brown and ugly landscapes, sub-par facial designs, and so forth. It's a complete waste of countless hours, and for all I'm aware, all of those brown FPS games can be played in 360p and be just as fun. Pixelated? Who cares! It's a brown FPS.

On the bright side, I can count on Nintendo to use graphics in a way I care about. They would never spend more time on graphics than proper gameplay. They would not give me a brown and boring world.

And that's all I'm getting this system for. I could care less about how powerful it is. I am buying it, because it will have Nintendo games. That is all I require to buy a Nintendo system. So long as Shigeru Miyamoto is involved, it is a must buy.

 

[Kapol]

Enough with the rumours. It will probably all turn out to be lies from the manufacturers themselves in an attempt to get people hyped up over their new console, then we will be horribly disappointed at how shit they are when they're released because our expectations are too high.

Pretty much. It seems like we've been hearing quite a lot of rumors the last couple of days, and I'd be surprised if even a quarter of them turned out to be accurate. In the end it doesn't matter till Nintendo releases the offical specs themselves.

Also, twice as powerful as a system that came out six years ago? That shouldn't be any surprise. I would honestly be more surprised if it wasn't. Of course, with the rumors that Nintendo had problems during manufacturing due to cheap parts, it might not be that surprising. It's only a rumor though. I just wouldn't be surprised any more by Nintendo trying to undercut production cost to make a large profit on hardware sales.

 

[scotth266]

I don't really care.

Nintendo surprised me by making the Wii a pleasantly fun experience, but I can't really see the attraction of a game console that, thus far, only has one thing going for it: gaming on the go.

Uh, Nintendo? That's what I'm supposed to buy your 3DS for. Home consoles shouldn't require something like this.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

This just in: Developers' eyes always bigger than console's stomach. Film at 11.

Devs will always "want to do more" with a platform.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

This quote is just heresy and rumor

Heresy? Really? Your articles have been full of weird things like that lately. Have you started writing/speaking them into Dragon, or are they being auto-corrected by your iDevice or something? Heh.

 

[Eri]

More powerful than 6 year old hardware? Lolz, what an achievement.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I don't really care.

Nintendo surprised me by making the Wii a pleasantly fun experience, but I can't really see the attraction of a game console that, thus far, only has one thing going for it: gaming on the go.

Uh, Nintendo? That's what I'm supposed to buy your 3DS for. Home consoles shouldn't require something like this.

Then you obviously don't know that the WiiU controller isn't the console but just a controller. Surprise!!!

The WiiU is a home console just like the Wii, PS3, xbox 360 and any other home console.
It's not "gaming on the go" because you can't play without the console.

 

[Baresark]

Ugh, all these rumors are making me want to murder. It's getting annoying. The speculation at this point is all that exists. Nintendo never announced how powerful anything is at this point. It's all rumors! I can't wait till the actualy specs are released. I don't care if it's less powerful than what people expect, I only want all this ended. Let me put this out there, I am excited for the WiiU. I may be excited for the next Sony and Microsoft systems as well, but since the only one that is gonna hit in the foreseeable future is the WiiU, I couldn't care less about the others. Sony seems to be sticking to the 10 year cycle they are interested in, and the next Microsoft Console is probably about 2 years away, at least.

I just don't understand the need for people to have console loyalty. It's as stupid as party loyalty is in politics. Everyone should hope the next systems all have some basic items:

1. Affordable
2. Strong third party support
3. Fun games

 

[Callate]

It's gotten a lot harder to define "power" in processing; you can't just announce a speed in megahertz or gigahertz and an amount of onboard memory. This instruction set vs. this one, more cores at a lower speed vs. fewer at a higher one, this chip dedicated to physics, this chip to creating theater-quality sound, this amount of onboard memory, this amount of video memory, and it may all be rendered moot by the lousy data transfer speed from the optical or hard drive...

Suffice it to say that every manufacturer is probably going to try to paint their hardware in the best possible light, and until we start seeing the games, it's unwise to be making major predictions.

 

[Torrasque]

I really don't care about "the best I can get". Do I care about graphics and gameplay? Of course I do. But I am not a PC gamer that gets the greatest graphics card and has a liquid nitrogen tank hooked up to my PC. I really don't care about having the technologically best console that a developer can make. I just want my games to play well and look good.

So while the hardware of the next gen consoles is slightly important to me, I won't scrutinize every single technological aspect of the next gen consoles. Anyone that does, should become a PC gamer.

 

[Electrogecko]

I don't really care.

Nintendo surprised me by making the Wii a pleasantly fun experience, but I can't really see the attraction of a game console that, thus far, only has one thing going for it: gaming on the go.

Uh, Nintendo? That's what I'm supposed to buy your 3DS for. Home consoles shouldn't require something like this.

Wow, how incredibly out of touch.

I don't think too many people ever expected Nintendo's to be anything but the least powerful of the 3 next gen consoles....I know I never did, and the fact that it's coming out at least a year before any other basically confirms it.

Good thing I don't give a shit.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Rumor: Wii U CPU Twice as Beefy As Xbox 360
-snip-
My math skills aren't that good, but let's say the Xbox 360 has a power of 100. The Wii U would be 200, based on one source, while the Xbox 720 would be 600. That's a far cry from "20 percent" better than the Wii U supposedly is.
-snip-

The hint to your confusion is in the title of the article. They are only talking about the Wii U CPU having twice the power of the current Xbox CPU. When they talk about the new Xbox being 20% faster than the Wii U, they are talking about whole system performance which includes both CPU and GPU working together. Here end-th the lesson....

We have been talking about mostly GPU rumors up until now, but the CPU put in is also important as everyone like to remind graphics whores, game play is more important. A powerful CPU contributes to having more complicated and innovative game play and mechanics, advanced AI, etc. A simple example is the difference in the amount of on-line players on console and PC versions of Battlefield, 24 vs 64. That is all down to the CPU power available, rather than graphics power.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Nintendo has to really convince me this console is worth my time. I skipped the Wii cause I hate motion controls with a passion and couldn't afford an Xbox or a PS3 during the start of the console cycle. As I'm waiting for Gen 8, this is the companies chance to attract me. Not digging the controller.

As for the power of the system? If you release a system first, your competitors are naturally going to try and outperform you.

 

[BrotherRool]

Kernel: All the stuff that maps to nothing

No rumour is to ever be believed particularly when it comes to console power

 

[Ljink]

What don't they get power is indeed an aspect but what is a powerful hardware without the software to back it up. Nintendo,we all know, doesn't really focus on graphics but rather the game itself.Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Pikmin and so on didn't need graphical components to make Nintendo proud.

 

[jawakiller]

Oh boy, Nintendo.

*Gunshot.