Nintendo exec. denies Wii U processor is 'a little poor'

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The senior hardware development director at Nintendo has recently defended the company's choice of CPU for the Wii U.

In November, a hardware hacker published the Wii U processor and graphics card specs, revealing that the CPU carries a clock speed of 1.24 GHz.

At half the speed of six year-old systems like the PS3 and Xbox 360, the Wii U's clock speed became the subject of criticisms.

But, speaking at a investor meeting last week, Nintendo's R&D director Genyo Takeda insisted the hardware "does not deserve the negative feedback."

Takeda said that the Wii U combines "low power consumption and a fairly high performance".

These comments were in response to a question from an audience member who said the processor was weaker than other parts of the device.

"Regarding your comment that we focus on the GPU and that the CPU is a little poor, we have a different view," Takeda said.

"It depends on how to evaluate a processing unit. In terms of die size [area a chip occupies], the GPU certainly occupies a much larger space than the CPU.

"As you can see CPUs used for the latest PCs and servers, however, it is usual for current CPUs that the logic part for actual calculations is really small and that the cache memory called SRAM around it covers a large area. From this angle, we don't think that the performance of the Wii U's CPU is worse than that of the GPU."

Nintendo design guru Shigeru Miyamoto said it wanted "to immediately communicate the Wii U's value, but could not". The company's development teams are resisting the distraction of the Wii U's disappointing sales performance.


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"Nintendo exec. denies Wii U processor is 'a little poor'" :: Login/Create an Account :: 96 comments

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imgurPosted:

It is an arcade console, and should stay that way.

ReloadedPrimePosted:

The WII-u is a nintendo console, which means to should stick to games like Zelda, Mario, Pokemon and etc.
Not big games like Call of Duty Black Ops II.. or Assassin's Creed III.

imgurPosted:

Feet
Reduction
Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.


Well, if you go into specs its not the greatest.


I don't get how they deny a fact...

imgurPosted:

Hall
Reduction
Feet
Reduction
Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.


Well, if you go into specs its not the greatest.


Yeah, maybe if they put more effort in, they will get more sales.


Nintendo just isn't as popular as it used to be


This killed Nintendo, IMO.

HallPosted:

Reduction
Feet
Reduction
Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.


Well, if you go into specs its not the greatest.


Yeah, maybe if they put more effort in, they will get more sales.


Nintendo just isn't as popular as it used to be

SOGPosted:

Feet
Reduction
Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.


Well, if you go into specs its not the greatest.


Yeah, maybe if they put more effort in, they will get more sales.

PGAPosted:

Wow, that sucks

ZyphrPosted:

Reduction
Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.


Well, if you go into specs its not the greatest.

SOGPosted:

Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Jeez, this console sounds so bad, no offense.

OdinPosted:

Zwrq The processor is less than the one on the 6 year old console, its too little...


Yeah the Intel Pentium 3 is better.. And it's like 10 years old.