IBM Says Nintendo Wii U Uses Watson's Brains

The same computer that bested people on Jeopardy powers Nintendo's new console.

By Sam Kennedy, 06/07/2011

Nintendo fans concerned about how powerful Nintendo's new console Wii U will be may have something new to boast about. According to Engadget, who spoke with IBM about the technology powering Nintendo's new console, the system makes use of the same processor technology that powers Watson, the supercomputer that recently beat a bunch of contestants on Jeopardy. While IBM wouldn't reveal the processor's clock speeds, The Wii U uses a 45nm custom chip with, what IBM states, is "a lot" of embedded DRAM.

But then again, specs are specs -- one look at the high definition Zelda demo running on the thing is probably enough to convince most gamers. 

 

i didnt see this posted, as i was checking around for more news on the wiiu. 

Sounds like an expensive cpu

i know, but its nice to see nintendo going all out with this system and giving the devs what they want in terms of power.

ROBOTECHHEAVEN said:

sorry for being offtopic, but it looks sexy, how big is it? anyone know?

Seems like they went hardcore this time xD

@PullusPardus

About the size of a Wii, Iwata posted on Twitter a picture holding it,

http://twitpic.com/58for1

Looks pretty small, and seems like the controller is bigger than the console

not really IBM's eDRAM allows them to pack a lot of cache onto a chip very cheaply using less transistors than other companies, their Power 7 CPUs have up to 32MB of cache as well as a 8 core CPU on a 45nm die. Even high end PC CPUs on the other hand max out at 12MB on a 32nm (smaller nm allows more transisters to fit on the CPU) die with 6 cores. And given a console context of the 360s CPU having 1MB and a 3 core CPU, 6-8MB of cache would be considered a lot and even 4MB could qualify as a lot for a 3-4 core console CPU.

Well I would be happy if the WiiU is what DreamCast was in that gen. I hope Nintendo set the bar high enough that titles can be ported from PS4 and Nex-Box. If they set the bar too low then they are in real trouble in the long run. But from the sounds of it WiiU is a true next generation platform. Can't wait to buy mine!

I'm pretty sure PS4 and X720 won't be so ahead of the Wii U that software won't be portable. Sony and MS would be crazy to do a vastly more powerful system.

The Wii had a very weird GPU, the Wii U will probably have a standard modern GPU. That plus a decent amount of memory should make ports very easy. Look at PC games which easily scale from old GPUs to the newest power-hungry beasts.

It's not rocket science to make a scalable game and most developers already know how to do it due to the PC.