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Forums - Nintendo - 45nm for Wii? A future Wii redesign?

HappySqurriel on 16 May 2008

I (personally) expect Nintendo to move towards the 45nm process in order to integrate the Hollywood and Broadway processors (and potentially the 1 transistor memory) onto one chip; the benefit of this for the Wii would be a slightly lower manufacturing cost and energy consumption, but the long term benefit for Nintendo would be that they would have the "heart" of their next handheld system, it would have all of its R&D paid off, developers would be very familiar with it, and it would (already) be in mass production.



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Words Of Wisdom on 16 May 2008
narfwack said:
lightbleeder said:

There has been a lot of threads about PS3 and X360 making the jump to the 45nm technology, making production costs go down and making the consoles more efficient and reliable.

As far as I know Nintendo has never announced that they will use 45nm technology on the Wii but it seems like a natural move since they will lower production costs and make even more profit from every console sold. Do any of you know if Nintendo will do this?

 

As for the second question of the title, do any of you think the Wii will be redesigned? Nintendo has never redesigned consoles (only handhelds) and I don't know if the Wii could possibly be made any smaller than it is right now, although that isn't really necessary it would be very cool. Maybe using 45nm technology they could!

The PSP is on par with the PS2 in technical specifications, and the Wii must be about 4 times more powerful than a PSP, that difference in power wouldn't make a big difference in size!So maybe someday the Wii will be the size of a PSP just being bigger because of the DVD drive! And of course leaving the power brick outside the console.

Any possibilities here?

 


http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/SNES2.htm

Uh, I owned this one....


There was also this one:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_2



lightbleeder on 16 May 2008
Words Of Wisdom said:
homerman100 said:
^It would lower production costs. More profit per Wii unit or maintaining their profit margins at a lower retail price.

Consider this...

The overhead for a redesign would include R&D for the new chipset, testing, Q&A, risk analysis, multiple levels of support for new and old, redesign of packaging to reflect altered contents, and retooling their production lines for a new SKU.

The cost savings would have to be very significant to warrant a new SKU at this stage in order to cover the overhead. Considering that Nintendo is already making bags and bags of money on their current one without changing anything, it would be foolish to change anything at this point.

Why do I get the feeling that most people saying "cost-reduction" don't know what they're talking about? -_-


Of course the cost reduction would have to be considerable, and if they keep selling the console at this rate the cost of every element you mention would be recovered in no time and profits will considerably exceed the ones Nintendo would have made if they wouldn't have changed Wii's chipset.

But I don't really know how much cost could be reduced by using a 45nm chipset, maybe you're right Words of Wisdom...



yushire on 16 May 2008

Ermm... it means that Nintendo will redesign the Wii more slim than it already was just as the PS2 did late in its life? Is it too early and too risky in its console's life to redesign only 2 years in its life?



end of core gaming days prediction:

 

E3 2006-The beginning of the end. Wii introduced

 

E3 2008- Armageddon. Wii motion plus introduced. Wii Music. Reggie says Animal crossing was a core game. Massive disappointment. many Wii core gamers selling their Wii.

 

E3 2010- Tape runs out

http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/march2009/ICG_Tape_runs_out.jpg

bdbdbd on 16 May 2008

First, NES had a redesign late in its life as well as GC. Although the GC redesign didn't include much but dropping the DVI port, it still was a cost reductive redesign.

So, i see Wii interior redesign possible, after change to 45 or 65nM tech can be cost efficient. So the redesign may be true sometime at 2010.



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

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lightbleeder on 16 May 2008
highwaystar101 said:

Ninetndo has redesigned consoles in a way.

Snes redesign for the USA. Released after the N64.

Source: http://www.friendcodes.com/forums/past-nintendo-generations/82128-my-snes-looks-more-like-a.html

The NES redesign relesed towards the end of the nes's life.

Source: www.n-sider.com/hardwareview.php?hardwareid=20

 

iQue was a redesign of the N64, only released in China.

Source: http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/mallorcadisco/infoconsolas/paginas/Nintendo/IQue/IQue.htm

 

To the best of my knowledge all of these were legitimate ninty based redesigns

 


 I've been proved wrong, sorry, had no idea about this although I've had every Nintendo system except the GC (yeah, I had the Virtual Boy)



lightbleeder on 16 May 2008
yushire said:
Ermm... it means that Nintendo will redesign the Wii more slim than it already was just as the PS2 did late in its life? Is it too early and too risky in its console's life to redesign only 2 years in its life?

 I'm just asking, I don't really know about cost reduction techniques but I't be really cool if an even smaller Wii existed, the size of a DVD case like exindguy said!



timmah on 16 May 2008
narfwack said:
lightbleeder said:

There has been a lot of threads about PS3 and X360 making the jump to the 45nm technology, making production costs go down and making the consoles more efficient and reliable.

As far as I know Nintendo has never announced that they will use 45nm technology on the Wii but it seems like a natural move since they will lower production costs and make even more profit from every console sold. Do any of you know if Nintendo will do this?

 

As for the second question of the title, do any of you think the Wii will be redesigned? Nintendo has never redesigned consoles (only handhelds) and I don't know if the Wii could possibly be made any smaller than it is right now, although that isn't really necessary it would be very cool. Maybe using 45nm technology they could!

The PSP is on par with the PS2 in technical specifications, and the Wii must be about 4 times more powerful than a PSP, that difference in power wouldn't make a big difference in size!So maybe someday the Wii will be the size of a PSP just being bigger because of the DVD drive! And of course leaving the power brick outside the console.

Any possibilities here?

 


http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/SNES2.htm

 Uh, I owned this one....


LOL at the specs... (SNES)

  • CPU: Custom 65816 @ 3.58 MHz
  • RAM: 128 KB
  • Screen Resolution: 512x448
  • Max Colors on screen: 256 per line (32,768 available)
  • Max Sprites: 128, 32 per scanline
  • Sound Channels: 8 ADPCM
  • Sound Memory: 64kb

We've come a long way... It's crazy to see the difference that 3 generations makes.



lightbleeder on 16 May 2008
HappySqurriel said:
I (personally) expect Nintendo to move towards the 45nm process in order to integrate the Hollywood and Broadway processors (and potentially the 1 transistor memory) onto one chip; the benefit of this for the Wii would be a slightly lower manufacturing cost and energy consumption, but the long term benefit for Nintendo would be that they would have the "heart" of their next handheld system, it would have all of its R&D paid off, developers would be very familiar with it, and it would (already) be in mass production.

 That's a very interesting theory, although I don't think Nintendo will replace the DS for the next 5 years at least.



homerman100 on 16 May 2008
Words Of Wisdom said:
homerman100 said:
^It would lower production costs. More profit per Wii unit or maintaining their profit margins at a lower retail price.

Consider this...

The overhead for a redesign would include R&D for the new chipset, testing, Q&A, risk analysis, multiple levels of support for new and old, redesign of packaging to reflect altered contents, and retooling their production lines for a new SKU.

The cost savings would have to be very significant to warrant a new SKU at this stage in order to cover the overhead. Considering that Nintendo is already making bags and bags of money on their current one without changing anything, it would be foolish to change anything at this point.

Why do I get the feeling that most people saying "cost-reduction" don't know what they're talking about? -_-


 We are talking about a relatively simple die-shrink, something which would not require a new chipset, Q&A, differing support for new and old designs, or a redesign of packaging.  Simply put, the CPU is smaller, so the yield per wafer is greater.  IBM, who manufactures their CPU, is already moving their production facilities to 45nm fabrication, so it wouldn't be a expensive transition.

 

The cost savings would not have to be "very significant" whatsoever.  Given that most people see the Wii selling 100 million consoles, give or take, that is 75 million consoles on which a small price savings would amount to a serious profit or competitive advantage. 

 

As I said before, this would allow Nintendo to better compete against the other consoles as they have price reductions.  Either Nintendo can sell the Wii at $250 and make more profit per console, or sell the Wii at, say, $199 and maintain their profit margins.