well I always thought true Power 7 was crazy for a console I mean that thing is huge. And IBM have always been careful to say custom CPU with "Watson technology" and then gone on to mention eDRAM and their 45nm SOI process that was used for Power 7. The last tweet was the first time they specifically called out Power 7, and it seems that was a mistake.

Now the question is how different is the custom design. I think it's safe to say they have probably added the 50+ SIMD instructions that Nintendo added to Broadway, for Backwards compatibility as Nintendo have pretty much confirmed it's hardware compatibility. Which I imagine where this enhanced Broadway stuff came from, the idea that the CPU is actually Broadway based is a bit silly considering how dated it is.

Back in June 2011?

Lol they said it again RECENTLY too

@Xbicio @BoostFire The Wii U is a custom 45nm #power7 chip. Same SOI design in #ibmwatson

— IBM watsonx (@IBMwatsonx) September 16, 2012

I think we shoudl all agree to wait and see whats inside when they pull the damn thing apart.

You play terrible PlayStation games. Please leave the Nintendo board.

The thing which IBM has been talking up has always been the package. I.E. How they fit the chips together. I doubt that the Wii U packs 3 cores out of  a 200W 8 core CPU when the whole console only consumes around 40-45W.

"Each core is capable of four-way simultaneous multithreading (SMT). The POWER7 has approximately 1.2 billion transistors and is 567 mm² large fabricated on a 45 nm process"

IBM has other processors designed for low power, why would Nintendo take a server chip and heavily modify it at their expense to do something which other pre-existing CPUs are much more suitable for without needing extensive changes.

As Squilliam said above...this is exactly what I was wondering. If Nintendo was proud of what they were packing in the Wii U, would they not have come right out and stated the specs rather than keep everyone guessing?

I mean is it standard procedure for a console company to keep gamers and the public in the dark about the specs of its upcoming console even less than 2 months from its release?

Smells a little fishy. The only motivation I can think of for keeping this info hidden is to prevent loss of hype - and therefore sales - due to a disappointing truth. But if this is standard for every console launch then I stand corrected.

so if the WiiU actually has these 3 Brodway processors ductaped toggether, you arent buying it?

what the hell has happened to the gaming community? :(

Who cares.

Pretty much.

And then I was thinking that such a big and important Co like IBM would be more careful with what they say. *sigh*

Now the only thing left is that, once the console is out and some sites start to tear it apart, we end up with different conclusions aswell.

Seriously Nintendo, being secretive is ok, being that much secretive is just being dumb.

Are you two actually giving people stick for listening to previous official press releases? The mind boggles.

The Wii U will be 20 Super Mario Galaxys ductaped together strong. And now I need new pants.

Edit: Oh and it's strong enough to run Bayonetta 2 exclusively on Wii U. Buy it.