| Soundwave said: New Nintendo Entertainment System - Premium console, with a decent modified GPGPU in the 1-1.2 TFLOP range (ie: the AMD 7770) with 4GB of DDR3 + a nice fat pool of eDRAM (64MB?). Low power CPU (quad-core, 2 GHz). 4-5x more powerful than a 360 with much more modern DX11 style feature set. Full "entertainment" functionality with a tablet controller that can function as a TV remote/living room hub (Nintendo TVii service). Easy to port from PC titles. $299.99 (basic, limited quantities), $399.99 deluxe (standard). Initially aimed at core players, set-top-box market, gradually over time as price reduces could be aimed more at casuals and kids too (like the 360 has). Release fall 2012. |
Those specs you listed are obviously impossible at $299.99-399.99 because Nintendo just launched what you described but a much slower version and it costs $299-349 with a tablet controller, a tri-core CPU 1.24ghz, 1GB of system memory and a slower GPU than HD7770. You realize they are losing $ on the Wii U? That means the specs you outlined above for Fall 2012 wouldnt' have been possible at the prices you listed or would have meant NV losing hundreds of dollars on each console sold. If they wanted to release a way more powerful console with a tablet controller in 2012, they would have needed to price it at $500-600 to be profitable. The alternative would be to design a console with traditional controls and a lot more powerful hardware and perhaps as prices on tablets/screens drop, launch a Wii U GamePad in 2014-2015 like MS launched Kinect to extend the feature set of the console. Instead, Nintendo chose to use the controller as a key selling features rather than start off with a powerful console as a selling feature and then add the controller as a new feature to extend the appeal to other gamers that wanted something unique. Essentially Nintendo sacrified EVERYTHING in terms of GPU/CPU/HDD/System RAM/Video RAM components JUST for the controller tech to be there on Day 1. They bet the marbles on the unique gaming experience rather than graphics. Unfortunately the developers are hardly taking the time to take full advantage of the controller's capabilities and just do half-assed 3rd party ports that run slow.
