[DaSorcerer]

https://twitter.com/IBMWatson/status/240241146213842944

tweeted by IBM yesterday.

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by XpiderMX

I guess it is good news, Power7 is a powerful and modern cpu family...

Which seemingly, Wii U does not have, thus ruling it out...

[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by Rangers

Which seemingly, Wii U does not have, thus ruling it out...

What do you base that statement on ?

[Rangers]

The various rumors that Wii U is having CPU issues, holding it back in regards to PS3-360 ports.

It seems if you're struggling to match lowly (these days, very lowly) Xenon, well, speaks for itself.

Of course, worth noting, there is a running sub-theory amongst Wii U defenders that the Wii U CPU isn't actually inferior to PS3-360 CPU, just different, and thus ports struggle. But there seems to be an excuse for everything with that crowd. And again, matching PS360 would be nothing to write home about, and would not qualify as "modern and powerful".

[Kaotik]

Yes well, which in your opinion has more credibility - various rumors from who knows where saying one thing, or IBM, who's making the CPU, saying another?

[fearsomepirate]

Originally Posted by Rangers

It seems if you're struggling to match lowly (these days, very lowly) Xenon, well, speaks for itself.

I've been expecting WiiU to be like Wii--basically something that would have been pretty good this-gen, and dated next-gen. And I expect developers to react the same way--when the next-gen consoles come out, we will suddenly learn that first person shooters, RPGs, and all other kinds of games that we've been seeing for the last few years are positively impossible on such ancient hardware, and it's most definitely impossible to render graphics in a realistic style rather than some bizarre "artsy" thing.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Yes well, which in your opinion has more credibility - various rumors from who knows where saying one thing, or IBM, who's making the CPU, saying another?

IBM have to play the PR game same as everyone else. They aren't going to say, "it's a limited core severely cutdown from our flagship chips, that can perform similar to last-gen consoles," if that's what's actually in the box. Whatever they put in their will be dressed up as prettily as they can when they talk about it. Whereas devs making games aren't going to be deliberately trying to gimp the CPU. If WiiU's struggling in games then there's not much under the hood. And we don't have to go just by internet rumours as we can actually see games that are starting to be shown, plus a history of gaming rumours tells us that plenty of anonymous dev comments turn out to be true.

If the option is to believe a half dozen anonymous sources (and sometimes named developers) reporting to gaming websites that the CPU isn't all that great, and one comment from a business that has to maintain positive PR at all times, I'd place my faith with the anonymous sources in this case. I don't see how a full-fledged Power7 would struggle with the code that Xenon is working on - it should be able to mince Xenon in typical computing.

I'm not calling it either way, but I agree with Ranger's thinking.

[Kaotik]

Not full-fledged Power7 core as we know them, but same architecure nevertheless?

[XpiderMX]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

IBM have to play the PR game same as everyone else. They aren't going to say, "it's a limited core severely cutdown from our flagship chips, that can perform similar to last-gen consoles," if that's what's actually in the box. Whatever they put in their will be dressed up as prettily as they can when they talk about it. Whereas devs making games aren't going to be deliberately trying to gimp the CPU. If WiiU's struggling in games then there's not much under the hood. And we don't have to go just by internet rumours as we can actually see games that are starting to be shown, plus a history of gaming rumours tells us that plenty of anonymous dev comments turn out to be true.

If the option is to believe a half dozen anonymous sources (and sometimes named developers) reporting to gaming websites that the CPU isn't all that great, and one comment from a business that has to maintain positive PR at all times, I'd place my faith with the anonymous sources in this case. I don't see how a full-fledged Power7 would struggle with the code that Xenon is working on - it should be able to mince Xenon in typical computing.

I'm not calling it either way, but I agree with Ranger's thinking.

But can they say "it is Power7" and be lying? wtf!

[McHuj]

Originally Posted by XpiderMX

But can they say "it is Power7" and be lying? wtf!

For one it's a marketing twitter account


And second, it could still have a lot of the power7 ISA implemented without being a Power7 chip.

My guess is that the WiiU chip may use eDram for the cache (L2, not L3 like the actual Power7 chips) and implements some of the VSX vector instructions that came with Power7. I doubt it has 4 way SMT threading or many of the other functional units that aren't needed in an embedded processor.

[liolio]

Originally Posted by McHuj

For one it's a marketing twitter account


And second, it could still have a lot of the power7 ISA implemented without being a Power7 chip.

My guess is that the WiiU chip may use eDram for the cache (L2, not L3 like the actual Power7 chips) and implements some of the VSX vector instructions that came with Power7. I doubt it has 4 way SMT threading or many of the other functional units that aren't needed in an embedded processor.

I just checked the power7 ISA is not the same as the 470 line of CPU, 2.06 for the former 2.05 for the latter. But for marketing people it might well be the same

[Butta]

Some news by a guy who goes by the moniker of IdeaMan on GAF

Only positive things, with a surprising quality for the gamepad speakers.

On development side, i know that a former SDK revision (the 2.05 i think) was kinda buggy for sound, and some developers preferred to remain on the previous one while waiting for a fix. It's settled since.

Besides, on a broader subject than sound, a little golden nugget: the level of overall improvement some developers managed to reach for their projects between my Spring posts and now is awesome, huge, bigger than what i expected and said back in those days.

[east of eastside]

I've maintained that Wii U will have a $250 MSRP. Having a tricore enhanced Broadway CPU sounds like a solution towards making that price point possible.

http://www.operationsports.com/news/...mut-for-wii-u/
ESPN Playbook: Don’t you think Nintendo consumers are going to be frustrated by getting an inferior version of “Madden” again? The Infinity Engine is what defines “Madden 13,” yet it’s nowhere to be seen on the Wii U.

Yuri Bialoskursky: It’s not for a lack of want. We definitely wanted to get the physics into the game. The Infinity Engine is something that is a point of interest for “Madden” fans, it’s just something we weren’t able to achieve for this first year on the new hardware.

EA's exclusion of advanced physics and AI from Madden 13 Wii U is indicating a weak CPU.

[Sonic]

Originally Posted by east of eastside

I've maintained that Wii U will have a $250 MSRP. Having a tricore enhanced Broadway CPU sounds like a solution towards making that price point possible.



EA's exclusion of advanced physics and AI from Madden 13 Wii U is indicating a weak CPU.

Turn that $250 figure into $200 INCLUDING the tablet and we can talk. If Nintendo is unable to make a profit at $200 for the machine then they suck at designing a system for profitability while still gimping the thing for the future.

[east of eastside]

Originally Posted by Sonic

Turn that $250 figure into $200 INCLUDING the tablet and we can talk. If Nintendo is unable to make a profit at $200 for the machine then they suck at designing a system for profitability while still gimping the thing for the future.

I would not discount a $199 launch price if that is your suggestion. My thinking, though, is that $250 will be initial price for launch and holiday (it will benefit from holidays discounts anyways) and then a few months later when the install base is languishing well under a million they can go for the $199 price drop. It's just harder to drop from $199 any time soon if they launch at that.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Iwata said that the wiiu would be nintendo's most expensive console so it's not going to be less than 250.

[ERP]

It's not like Wii was cheap when it launched and it hardly had cutting edge hardware. I see no reason to believe WiiU will be particularly cheap early on either.

[east of eastside]

Nintendo's target audience is at $250 or lower. Any price higher and the thing sits on shelves for months with the media and investors tearing Nintendo apart declaring it dead. Look at what happened with 3DS... price point was wrong and Nintendo went into the mode of selling it at a loss. Wii U's bill of materials was estimated at $180 before it was known it was using a recycled CPU core. $250 MSRP at launch with some pack-in digital demo's is doable. Besides it will have to contend with possible PS3/360 holiday price drops and the eventual new model PS3.

[AzaK]

Originally Posted by east of eastside

I would not discount a $199 launch price if that is your suggestion. My thinking, though, is that $250 will be initial price for launch and holiday (it will benefit from holidays discounts anyways) and then a few months later when the install base is languishing well under a million they can go for the $199 price drop. It's just harder to drop from $199 any time soon if they launch at that.

Originally Posted by Sonic

Turn that $250 figure into $200 INCLUDING the tablet and we can talk. If Nintendo is unable to make a profit at $200 for the machine then they suck at designing a system for profitability while still gimping the thing for the future.

If it's true, of course we'll all be picking one up, but are you guys smoking crack? The PS3/360 are still $250-$300 depending on what SKU you get. With Wii U you get a controller with a screen, NFC, and a shittonne of other features, a more powerful machine overall (GPGPU etc etc), and Nintendo's desire to make profit from day one. I just cannot for the life of me see this thing going anywhere near $250. $300 minimum or $350 with some packins.

[Kaotik]

Zombie U, being "the title" from Nintendo, already tells that the target audience will be far broader than before

[kalelovil]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Zombie U, being "the title" from Nintendo, already tells that the target audience will be far broader than before

People said similar things about Red Steel when the Wii launched, it didn't eventuate.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Blame 3rd party devs for that. They kept claiming 'mature' games wouldn't sell on wii which obviously wasnt true because those few half decent mature games that did come out sold pretty decent (I believe even RE4, which was like the 4th or 5th time that game came out, sold over a million).

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Not full-fledged Power7 core as we know them, but same architecture nevertheless?

But what constitutes 'same architecture'? If it's the same API and runs the same Power 7 code but with half the maths units, half the hardware threads, and 1 MB L3 instead of 4 MBs, does that count? The end result would be a tiny fraction of what Power 7 is achieving in its stellar performance, meaning the resultant processor wouldn't be 'Power 7' as people talk about it being a powerful CPU.

I don't know what the definition of CPU architecture is, but I'm pretty sure if one exists, no-one uses it specifically in PR talk.

[DaSorcerer]

Originally Posted by Butta

Some news by a guy who goes by the moniker of IdeaMan on GAF

If true, seems devs are getting a better handle of the system, sooner or later it may start to differentiate itself.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by east of eastside

Wii U's bill of materials was estimated at $180 before it was known it was using a recycled CPU core.

Whuh! That's not "known" at all. The only solid word we have is it's power7 family, and "all-new", according to an IBM representative. That does not mesh with your claim of "recycled".

Anyway, no claim of recycling meshes with reality; a shrunken triple-core broadway - which is a 1990s design, IE ancient - with eDRAM cache would be smaller than the current broadway - which is TINY already. That's just too stupid to actually take for truth.