Nintendo Wii was never intended as a power package to fight Microsoft and Sony’s next generation video game consoles where processor and graphics performance have been the keys. Nintendo has instead chosen to go down another path and the keys are instead affordability and the gaming experience, which is hardly a poor investment considering it is a a video game console we’re talking about. Whether Nintendo’s intentions will pay off remains to be seen but now it has at least appeared some detailed information about the hardware found inside Nintendo’s next generation video game console and it is as expected no dazzling figures.
The processor inside Nintendo Wii is a superscalar model with six execution units and is called Broadway. The frequency is 729MHz, about the same as the Xbox 1’s Pentium 3 processor. The bus for the 64MB RAM memory (GDDR3) is at 243MHz and use a 64-bit interface for a bandwidth at 1.9 Gigabyte/s.
The graphics circuit is code-named Hollywood and works at 243MHz while the 24MB graphics memory works at 486MHz and offers a bandwidth of 3.9 Gigabyte/s between GPU and memory. The fact is that the graphics circuit is suppose to be identical to the one inside GameCube but about 1.5x faster.
To store downloaded material and save games there is a 512MB integrated (not removable) flash memory. It also supports SD memory cards, 2x USB ports, wireless LAN etc. Wii will use 12cm DVD discs with wither 4.7GB or 8.51GB capacity, but also GameCube’s discs are supported for backwards compatibility.
It is The Inquirer that has come across these detailed specifications for Nintendo Wii and would this information be correct it is not that weird that Nintendo has chosen to keep quiet. But on the other hand it’s everyday work for Nintendo to perform magic with even the lowest of hardware specifications. Figures are far from everything, which both Nintendo and most consumers are fully aware of.
