Splinter Cell infiltrates Wii launch lineup

What about XBLA?

Uno anyone?

"Your [sic] comparing Bomberman for the 360 to Nintendos Virtual Console? Wow, your [sic] an idiot. What about XBLA?"

What about it? I'm sorry but I doubt many gamers would prefer Geometry Wars, Bankshot Billards, UNO, and Hexic HD over what the Virutal Console is going to be offering. The XBLA is a good feature, and it has been doing retro gaming for quite a while, compared to the unreleased Virtual Console, but the VC stands to do things much better, simply because of the gaming rights the company holds.

I agree. I think that was the point of the previous post. The fact of the matter is that the virtual console is offering "proven" (favorite past games) is huge. While XBLA is making an effort, it comes up rather short.

People don't realize all the technical aspects of the Wii when they say it's not "next-gen".

Broadway is a SOI 90nm chip...just like the CELL.
Unlike the CELL, Broadway is a full PPC core with "Nintendo enhancements". On the Gamecube those enhancements involved a faster front-side bus, splitting the integer processor from 1 64bit unit into 2 32 bit units (to process twice as many integer math instructions...you don't generally need 64bit precision for a console game...) and added 37 SIMD instructions that were in more advanced PPC cpu's like the G4 and G5. Gekko also had the highest internal cpu cache of the "last/current" gen systems.

The Gekko was supposed to only run at 400MHz and the Fliper at 200MHz but developers wanted a more powerful cpu so 4 month before launch Nintendo tweaks the clocks to get a 162.5 MHz bus (and Flipper) and a 487.5 MHz cpu. Previous G3 cpus had a 133MHz bus, so IBM really gave the Gekko a creme de la creme PPC chip.

Nintendo stated a modest 12 million fully rendered real world theoretical maximum polygon count. Meanwhile Star Wars launched pushing 15 million. I wonder what a 200MHz Flipper would have done though the slower cpu might have affected gameplay/responsiveness. IIRC, the Xbox produced 18 million real-world in-game polygons in it's best title.

The Flipper did lack true shaders that the NVidia gpu in the XBox had. It did, however have internal texture memory (3 megabytes). This let is to texturing in one pass vs. 2 on the Xbox. That's why games like Metroid Prime 1&2, Star Wars Rebel Assault..etc... look beautiful. This feature was purchased by ATI when they acquired the company (ArtX) that designed the Flipper for Nintendo.

ATI has since implimented this feature into subsequent gpu's including the 360's which has 10MB in internal texture cache. (Yes, 360 fanboys, you can thank Nintendo now...)

The main thing that held developlers back on the GC was the 24MB of main memory. Even the PS2 had 32MB. This meant that levels couldn't be as big as on the Xbox or PS2. It did have an extra 16MB of slower secondary "audio ram" and developers did use that as a RAMdisk.

Ported games suffered because developers didn't want to fine-tube the 'Cube versions. Exclusive games shined very brightly (Metroid, Resident Evil 4, Star Wars) because the machine was pushed to the limits and they knew the work-arounds.

Nintendo has "fixed" all the Gamecube's issues. More memory, shaders, DVD-9 (except sound if you ask me but I don't see why you couldn't have wireless bluetooth speakers to make their own digital surround sound in the future since the Wii-mote has a speaker and bluetooth supports 7 devices leaving 3 open as wireless speakers in combination with the Dolby Pro Logic II). The T1 ram that was already faster than the XBOX's 166Mhz SDRAM has gotten even faster.

Broadway needs to have a direct multiple of this clockspeed in order to emulate the GC hardware 100%. Dev kits as early as December '05 had GCx1.5 hardware with the 243Mhz system bus and 739MHz Gekko. Since just changing the clock speed of the cpu without changing the bus speed does not give you a direct multiple in real-world performance, every aspect of the system needs to be multiplied. When Nintedo stated the original 2-3 times the power, they meant it.

This means from a hardware perspective, we will have a 325MHz bus and Flipper2("Hollywood") and a 975Mhz Broadway. Using a smaller die-size will also enhance the performance "slightly" as will other efficiencies like even more internal cpu cache, more cpu instructions and features such as more alu units, hardware shaders built into the gpu vs. having to be done in software...

There's alot of mystery regarding the GPU "Hollywood". ATI seems quite proud of it. They were also quite proud of the Flipper (enough to buy the company that designed it). Looking at the Flipper, it was the PC equivalent to a Northbridge, Southbridge, memory controller and on-board audio and video into ONE chip. I'd be proud of it too.

I hope they double up in the Flipper's internal frame and texture cache to 6MB. For SD resolutions, that will be PLENTY. I can't believe they didn't add digital audio from the sounds of things but I'm still hoping for the bluetooth wireless speakers for extra immersion. In a video segment on Gamespot the day before E3, ATI developers were demoing DirectX10 on a PC and talking about the physics card they developed as a co-processor to their Radeon cards. They were asked if that technology went into any consoles. They stated that it was NOT in the 360. When asked about the Wii - they said "no comment". I'll leave it at that.

Remember, accelerometers and gyros deal with EXCLUSIVELY with PHYSICS. That is the only way to interpret them. The original wire wand planned as an add-on for the GC wasn't very responsive. So it was never released. What was the solution?

Even in the very first Wii in-game demos I have seen, I noticed a big difference between them and Gamecube titles (as I have a large collection of those). Animations were smOOthe. Real smOOOOOOOthe. People moved realistically. Things accelerated, fell and moved properly.

What defines "next-gen" this time around? I say immersion. Having sound at the point of impact (your hand) is immersion. Having smoothe and realistic lighting and animation adds to immersion. Not waiting for something to load up maintains immersion. Having your hands more directly control in-game objects or actions adds to the immersion.

Will Wii games have better graphics, better AI, larger level size and better controls then last-gen systems? YES.

Is it NEXT-GEN?

Hell yeah.

Very good post, Lou, thanks for that.

What I found most interesting in this week's mess of IBM news was that they compared the Wii chip to the Cell. This could be telling of the actual output of the Wii. I don't expect it to be on par, but it could be impressive to see.

What most people don't understand is that Nintendo makes very efficient consoles. With the right balance of CPU, GPU, memory, and bus speed, the Wii can be very impressive without requiring excessively high numbers in any one area.

With a CPU around 1GHz, a GPU around 500MHz, and an increased FSB, I think the Wii will be more than capable. How the games stack up to the competition in standard definition all depends on how much effort developers put in. The newest shots (read: ones made with real Wii hardware) of Madden and Splinter Cell look great. I'm sure we'll see improvements in Red Steel, too.

Lou, that's a quality post. Very informative.
I agree that the Wii has a lot to offer and I too believe that there is still a good bit of information that has not been released to the public concerning the Wii. Whether or nor that's graphical info, gameplay info or peripherals, its all up in the air. I DO think that all of this will be revealed on Sept 14. Many fans and 360 and PS fanboys have laughed sayign why Nintendo would wait so long to reveal all. The reason for the wait is due to the nature of the technology.
SONY AND MS ARE TECH PIRATES. Yes, I said it.

The PS1 was to be an add on for the SNES. (Remember the serial port on the bottom of the system?) But Nintendo and Sony couldn't work out their differences and Sony took the technology that Nintendo helped finance and put out their own system.
The layout of the PS controller is exactly the same as the SNES, minus the change from the "a" button to the "X" button, etc.
Then comes the analog stick on the N64 controller. Cue Sony for the PS2 controller.
Nintendo develops a rumble accessory for the N64 controller. Sony then makes the Dualshock.
Nintendo unveils the Wii controller. All of a sudden the PS3 no longer has the boomerang controller, but low and behold, they have a new controller that has pitch and yaw inputs.
I don't even want to mention MS.
Nintendo MUST keep all of their developments under wraps. They spend the time, manpower and money to make all of these tech advancements, and companies like Sony and MS just take them for their own without any investment.
I order to stay ahead with what the have done, Nintendo has to hide their hand. For all of the fanboys that bitch about it, that's just the way it is. If it wasn't we would have three companies putting out the same systems with the same abilities and technologies with no difference between them and thus no innovation. We already have two systems that are teh same; the 360 and PS3 are the same machine minus the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD aspect. Nothing sets them apart as far as gaming.
The Wii is new, fresh and a true testament to being original.

good job Lou(i understood 72% of it)

you deserve a star