The Wii is a gen 6 console (Hiroshi Yamauchi)

[WiiBox3]

happydolphin said:

WiiBox3 said:

Be that as it may. The Wii is much more powerful than the gamecube. So it is a new generation, it just didn't leap near as far as the other consoles of the generation did. The HW had the power to do much more than the gamecube, just look at some of the most recent games. But this doesn't really matter, since what the PS3 and X360 could do at the beginning of their lifecycle was still more impressive, graphics wise, than what the Wii's best software at the end of it's lifecycle can do.

You are also using an article from before Nintendo intended on releasing a new console. At the time the article was written, almost 3 years before the Wii was released, Nintendo had planned on having the Wii motes as an add on the the Gamecube, like the PS Move is for the PS3 or the Kinect is for the X360. They were trying to extend the life of the Gamecube, because they were in financial trouble. The Nintendo DS had not been released yet.

Wiibox3. You can't have the cake and eat it though. If you go by the argument that power is the root reason for a generation (at the core), then you can't argue that the Wii is much more powerful than the gamecube, when we're speaking relatively, because a next-gen console it would have actually been much more powerful than the gamecube.

As it were, Nintendo released an updated gamecube and branded it next-gen (marketing-wise). That's why it's important to realize that the gens can be defined in two ways (like Viper said it's all a timing thing, I'm saying it's both). As much as the Wii is a gen 6 caliber machine, it existed in gen 7, along with machines from the competition that actually gave the gen a reason for existence.

@wiimote as accessory to cube. I see what you're saying, but I think aout 2-3 years is the usual timeline to start designing the HW of a next-gen system (Article dates back Feb 14 2004), so I think it would be fair to say that the new proposal with the cube at its core was the design inception of the upcoming Wii. So no I don't think it was referring to the cube if that's what you're saying, but to what eventually became the Wii.

Though the Wii is much more powerful than a Gamecube:

Wii

CPU: IBM "Broadway" @ 729MHz  (90nm)

GPU: ATI "Hollywood" @ 243MHz  (3MB Texture RAM, 90nm)

Memory: 88MB Total
-24MB 1T-SRAM  (for graphics - frame buffer?)
-64MB GDDR3 System Memory

Storage:
512MB Internal NAND Flash
SD card expansion slot


------------------------

Gamecube

CPU:  IBM "Gekko" @ 485mhz (180nm)

GPU:  ATI "Flipper" @ 162Mhz (180nm)

Memory:  43MB Total
-3MB 1T-SRAM  (for graphics - 1MB texture, 2MB Frame buffer)
-16MB DVD and Audio buffer
-24MB 1T-SRAM System Memory

 

It's just not near as powerful as the other systems of it's generation.