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Forums - Gaming - Supposedly, Final WiiU Specs from VGLeaks

Soundwave on 11 September 2012
zarx said:
Soundwave said:

We need to understand too the Wii U has a lot of the same costs of a handheld system and many of the costs of a home console too.

I suspect Sony is barely breaking even on the Vita at $250, maybe losing a few bucks/unit.

The Wii U at $250 has a larger LCD screen, probably a larger battery, more RAM (including a larger pool of expensive eDRAM), better CPU, better GPU, requires a seperate external power supply, on board flash memory, probably higher packaging/shipping/plastic costs (these may seem trivial, but they're not free either).

My guess is

$249.99 SKU - small loss (with smaller allotment of units, which fixes the amount of losses). Becomes profitable within 4-6 months.

$299.99 SKU - small profit

$349.99 SKU - decent profit, but requires extra throw in to the package.

You can also see why Nintendo would favor a multi-SKU setup for launch as well.


The Vita uses an expensive 5 inch OLED display and two multitouch panels, and it's tech specs are nothing to sneeze at for a portable system ether. It uses a pretty heavy duty battery as well.


Exactly. The Wii U has an even bigger LCD display (and from reports the display is of fairly high quality even if its not OLED), probably needs an even bigger battery, and has better specs all around even if the Vita's are decent.

It's production cost is almost certainly higher than a Vita.



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zarx on 11 September 2012
Soundwave said:


Exactly. The Wii U has an even bigger LCD display (and from reports the display is of fairly high quality even if its not OLED), probably needs an even bigger battery, and has better specs all around even if the Vita's are decent.

It's production cost is almost certainly higher than a Vita.


Multitouch panels are several times more expensive than resistive ones and OLEDs are more expensive than LCDs. Also the DPI of the Vita screen is hicher, and high DPI screens are more expensive for the same area, the Wii U tab is 854 x 480 vs the Vita's 960 × 544. Also keep in mind miniturisation is expensive the Vita uses more modern hardware which is expensive. As for the battery the Wii U tab has a lot less components to power I doubt it would be much bigger than the Vita. The Vita likely costs as much or more than the Wii U will.

After doing a bit of researchhttp://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/culture/forum-m/rumor-wii-u-price.php aparently the screen in the Wii U costs arround $14 and a total BoM of $180 for the entire package.

The Vita before launch cost $160, $50 of that was the screen and touch pads. http://www.destructoid.com/ps-vita-3g-teardown-puts-sony-s-cost-at-159-220036.phtml

So it looks like the pros are saying that the Wii U cost a bit more than the Vita to manufacture at launch. So I guess they would be taking a loss at $250.



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

Soundwave on 11 September 2012
zarx said:
Soundwave said:


Exactly. The Wii U has an even bigger LCD display (and from reports the display is of fairly high quality even if its not OLED), probably needs an even bigger battery, and has better specs all around even if the Vita's are decent.

It's production cost is almost certainly higher than a Vita.


Multitouch panels are several times more expensive than resistive ones and OLEDs are more expensive than LCDs. Also the DPI of the Vita screen is hicher, and high DPI screens are more expensive for the same area, the Wii U tab is 854 x 480 vs the Vita's 960 × 544. Also keep in mind miniturisation is expensive the Vita uses more modern hardware which is expensive. As for the battery the Wii U tab has a lot less components to power I doubt it would be much bigger than the Vita. The Vita likely costs as much or more than the Wii U will.

After doing a bit of researchhttp://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/culture/forum-m/rumor-wii-u-price.php aparently the screen in the Wii U costs arround $14 and a total BoM of $180 for the entire package.

The Vita before launch cost $160, $50 of that was the screen and touch pads. http://www.destructoid.com/ps-vita-3g-teardown-puts-sony-s-cost-at-159-220036.phtml

So it looks like the pros are saying that the Wii U cost a bit more than the Vita to manufacture at launch. So I guess they would be taking a loss at $250.


Largely irrelevant anyway, since going by that Amazon leak, Wii U will have multiple SKUs, which will no doubt probably pull in a profit, even if the $250 SKU loses a few bucks.

Actually a lot of people forget this, but the GameCube was sold at a slight loss at the time of its launch too. No big deal.



curl-6 on 11 September 2012
Soundwave said:
zarx said:
Soundwave said:


Exactly. The Wii U has an even bigger LCD display (and from reports the display is of fairly high quality even if its not OLED), probably needs an even bigger battery, and has better specs all around even if the Vita's are decent.

It's production cost is almost certainly higher than a Vita.


Multitouch panels are several times more expensive than resistive ones and OLEDs are more expensive than LCDs. Also the DPI of the Vita screen is hicher, and high DPI screens are more expensive for the same area, the Wii U tab is 854 x 480 vs the Vita's 960 × 544. Also keep in mind miniturisation is expensive the Vita uses more modern hardware which is expensive. As for the battery the Wii U tab has a lot less components to power I doubt it would be much bigger than the Vita. The Vita likely costs as much or more than the Wii U will.

After doing a bit of researchhttp://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/culture/forum-m/rumor-wii-u-price.php aparently the screen in the Wii U costs arround $14 and a total BoM of $180 for the entire package.

The Vita before launch cost $160, $50 of that was the screen and touch pads. http://www.destructoid.com/ps-vita-3g-teardown-puts-sony-s-cost-at-159-220036.phtml

So it looks like the pros are saying that the Wii U cost a bit more than the Vita to manufacture at launch. So I guess they would be taking a loss at $250.


Largely irrelevant anyway, since going by that Amazon leak, Wii U will have multiple SKUs, which will no doubt probably pull in a profit, even if the $250 SKU loses a few bucks.

Actually a lot of people forget this, but the GameCube was sold at a slight loss at the time of its launch too. No big deal.

Not really surprising; it was $200 USD at launch IIRC, and it was damn powerful hardware back in '01.



lilbroex on 11 September 2012
haxxiy said:
curl-6 said:
superchunk said:
curl-6 said:
superchunk said:
So, I read the GAF thread for this and I have to say this though. IF this turns out to be true (we'll only know after it launches and someone tears it down), I will be buying a 2nd console in 2014 when I see defect rate (or lack there of) for neXtBox/PS4. Because there is no way the console defined in the OP will be able to play all 3rd party games at that point.

I'll also realize NO ONE LEARNED A DAMN THING from this last generation. Also, if true.... it better be fucking priced at $250 or less for the a base version. At least in two days we'll know how good or bad the full OS/Online system is as well as pricing.

Surely there's 0% chance it's true; they're putting Mass Effect 3 and Assassin's  Creed 3 on it, those couldn't run on 3 Broadways.

Why not? 3 Broadways with increased clock speed and cache are easily comparable with a X360 CPU, if not a little better.

I was under the impression that Broadway was further behind the 360 CPU than that. My mistake, I guess. (Out of curiosity, about how big is the gap? Would 5 or 6 un-enhanced Broadways rival the 360 CPU?)

But if this was true, it would mean that, power aside, the fundamental design of the Wii U CPU (or each core, at least) would be unchanged since the Gamecube CPU was built in 1999.


Nah, it's way behind. Broadway doesn't support the same instructions, its architeture is way less refined, it lacks logical cores, the extra vector units etc.

The Broadway is some 32 times slower than the Xenos on raw number crunching. Three Broadway cores would need to be clocked at something like 12 GHz to be comparable to the Xenos.

Just so you can compare the Broadway architecture was introduced (in an even less refined way, but still) in 1997 while the Xenos comes from the same Cell architecture IBM released in 2006, nine years later, an eternity as far as computer hardware is concerned so far. 


Your max is a little off. Broadway runs a 723 MHz. Assuming your 32 times slow statement is corret, If it was upped to 3 core then it would only need to run at 2 MHz to match the xenos. 2.5 would put it ahead.



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se7en7thre3 on 11 September 2012
oni-link said:
http://twitter.com/IBMWatson/status/240241146213842944

One of the many proofs Wii U is using an amped version of Power7 processor. I'm done with this bullshit rumor of 3 broadway cores stuck together. Sony and Microsoft fanboys will still trash the Wii U regardless of fact and logic so it doesn't matter since Wii U is clearly only going to be marginally less powerful than the PS4 or Durango.


I love how a tweet from a legit source, on Aug. 12, 2012, is not good enough for most people.  Basically, nothing really has changed on the Wii U CPU, since "IBMWatson" used a quote/link from the same June '11 news release.



HappySqurriel on 11 September 2012
Squilliam said:
The Wii U has a very small box which is only 1/3rd larger than the Wii by volume. It isn't going to be extremely powerful because it is extremely small.


As you should know, size and power consumption aren't necessarily good indicators of processing power ...

With how clock speed has an exponential impact on energy consumption, what do you think would happen if the XBox 360 CPU was modified and underclocked at 1.6GHz? While it would have resulted in the XBox 360 having a CPU which had (essentially) half the processing power, with similar modifications to the rest of the XBox 360 it could have probably been released in a system that wasn't much larger than the Wii. When doing something along these lines you're trading off the performance per dollar to increase the performance per watt, and lowering overall performance.

This is (essentially) the trade-off that has been made on high end laptops ... You get a laptop that has a CPU which is nearly as powerful as the desktop CPU but is much more expensive.

Now, I doubt Nintendo has gone to any extremes with this so I doubt the Wii U is amazingly powerful, but the Wii U is about the same size as consoles were traditionally and most of these systems performed reasonably well.



babuks on 11 September 2012
superchunk said:
spurgeonryan said:
Wow! Bring on the Next gen! This is going to be strong!

Lets wait for Superchunk to come in and tell us just how strong.

I would if those specs were true or meant anything.

For one... they are not using "broadway" cores. That is 100% opposite for the last year of CONFIRMED statements from IBM and Nintendo. Its a Power7 based CPU and Broadway was NOT Power7 based.

The rest is just conjecture, but even the GPU doesn't match up to the specific two original rumors, including the one that AMD put out last year.

I put zero faith in this thread.


... and on superchunk we put our faith. :)    Thanks for confirmation.



zarx on 11 September 2012
lilbroex said:


Your max is a little off. Broadway runs a 723 MHz. Assuming your 32 times slow statement is corret, If it was upped to 3 core then it would only need to run at 2 MHz to match the xenos. 2.5 would put it ahead.


Wait a seccond that doesn't sound right, each Xenon core should obliterate the Broadway at the same clock, it has a SIMD: VMX128 with 2× (128×128 bit) registers and SMT capabilities, plus a more modern instruction set.

The actual numbers are 2.9 Gflops for Broadway at 729 MHz (the reported clock of the Wii). 76.8 GFLOPS for the Xenon so ~26X faster in terms of flops. So Xenon 25.6GFlops per core at 3.2GHZ is over 8.8X faster than the Wii's Broadway at 729Mhz in terms of raw Flops so wouldn't each Broadway core wouldn't it have to be clocked at 6.435GHz to match it with tri core vs tri core?

But I don't think anyone is suggesting that it's just 3 overclocked Broadway cores.



@TheVoxelman on twitter

Check out my hype threads: Cyberpunk, and The Witcher 3!

curl-6 on 11 September 2012
zarx said:
lilbroex said:


Your max is a little off. Broadway runs a 723 MHz. Assuming your 32 times slow statement is corret, If it was upped to 3 core then it would only need to run at 2 MHz to match the xenos. 2.5 would put it ahead.


Wait a seccond that doesn't sound right, each Xenon core should obliterate the Broadway at the same clock, it has a SIMD: VMX128 with 2× (128×128 bit) registers and SMT capabilities, plus a more modern instruction set.

The actual numbers are 2.9 Gflops for Broadway at 729 MHz (the reported clock of the Wii). 76.8 GFLOPS for the Xenon so ~26X faster in terms of flops. So Xenon 25.6GFlops per core at 3.2GHZ is over 8.8X faster than the Wii's Broadway at 729Mhz in terms of raw Flops so wouldn't each Broadway core wouldn't it have to be clocked at 6.435GHz to match it with tri core vs tri core?

But I don't think anyone is suggesting that it's just 3 overclocked Broadway cores.

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly does the number of FLOPS (FLoating point Operations Per Second, right?) determine? What aspect of performance does it contribute to?

Because IIRC, the PS2 CPU had more 4 times more FLOPS than the original Xbox's, and more than double the Wii's, yet the PS2 is regared as the weaker system.