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Resident_Hazard on 04 September 2010
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Jumpin said:
Resident_Hazard said:
Derixs said:

I only posted this because I am interested in what is powering this, It really doesn’t matter what the CPU is. I will be buying 4 of these things regardless of that. I just like to find information on this since Nintendo is so tight lipped on what is running inside their hardware and thought others might be curious as well.

If the CPU really didn't matter, we never would have moved beyond the Atari 2600.

I care about the CPU of game systems, because it does matter.


Although the Atari 2600 didn't display the amazing 3D projected graphics on a portable gaming system that were seen at E3. It doesn't matter what the CPU is because we already know what we are getting via the visual proof we received at E3 this year.

Oh, the CPU matters, and visual proof--while a good measure, which I pointed out elsewhere, like two weeks ago--is not guaranteed proof.  Especially these days with CPU and GPU being different hardware, rather than everything running off the CPU like "back in the day."  For instance, the TurboGrafx-16 was an 8-bit CPU, but featured a 16-bit graphics processor.  However, the 8-bit CPU created a wall of limitations to the games that weren't found in titles on the Genesis or SNES. 

The CPU matters for another reason--is it easy to work with?  Take the 5th generation:  The Saturn, N64, and Playstation.  Of those three, the Saturn was considered the hardest to work with--by a long shot--due to it's overly complex motherboard.  The N64 was also notoriously difficult to develop for, and to add insult to injury, was also the most expensive to develop and publish games for--by a long shot. The Playstation, on the other hand, was very developer-friendly and reportedly extremely easy to work with for game development. 

The GPU of the 3DS is clearly very powerful, but then again, it has  to be to support 3-D graphics.  Now, will the CPU be powerful enough to properly supplement the graphics processor, or is this where Nintendo is cutting cost corners to keep the 3DS affordable?  Are we going to have pretty graphics, but painfully small levels? 

Anyway, we're not going to really know anything about the specifics of either the GPU or CPU, aside from leaked rumored numbers since Nintendo, typically, sits on the specifics of their hardware and tells us next to nothing about it.