Tuesday, August 15, 2006

USA Today: November launch and Wii specs



More rumours about a possible November launch date for Wii. Publishing an interview with NOA president Fils-Aime, USA Today posted the following spec sheet, including information about CPU and GPU clock speed, RAM and launch month:
Nintendo Wii
Processor: 729 MHz IBM Broadway
Graphics card: 243 MHz ATI Hollywood
RAM: 88 MB
Launch date: November 2006
Price: Under $250
In the interview itself, there is no mention of tech specs or a specific launch date, only this:
What can you tell us about timing and price?

We're well on our way to sharing all of that information with our retailers and our licensees. We'll be sharing that information publicly later on.


The tech specs are in line with what was to be expected and may well be real. November is the most likely month as well.

There is another thing this article clears up and that is how to pronounce Reggie´s surname: ´pronounced FEES-oe-MEY´. Bet you didn´t know that.

EDIT UK site Pro-G claims to have been able to confirm November 3rd as the launch date:
An unnamed source in marketing working for a leading third-party games publisher has told us that November 3, 2006 is the official release date for Nintendo's Wii. This news comes just days after EA listed the Wii version of Need for Speed Carbon as a November 3 release. Although EA stated that this was an error, it seems more than a passing coincidence that the dates match up.

While this sounds half-way credible, it doesn´t fit with recent rumours of a launch week between November 10th and 16th. I can only vouch for the authenticity of the latter, not having been in contact with Pro-G yet. They claim to have had word from a publisher, while the launch week rumour originates from a retail source. And, finally, the new rumour originates from the UK, while the launch week story comes from the US. Take your pick, I´ve taken mine.

Sources: USA Today, Pro-G
Thanks to: Flametndo, Cloud

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fils-Aime is french and should be pronounced "feess em" or something similar. Directly translated it means "son-like" or "son-love" I havent spoken french in 8 months. As for the news, pretty much as epected.

Anonymous said...

I've been pronouncing it feez-ah-me.

Falafelkid said...

Hi D-Bone.

Same here. I´m getting really cranky of late ;) I just want to know that price tag, because I think the Wii could be a resounding success at $199 but might be overprized at $249.

Eithan said...

You said it Fal. Nintendo NEEDS to hit that $199 sweet spot. If they go higher, I would expect to see some seriously negative press, much like Sony received with their own PS3 price announcement.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Eithan.

Yup. I think it´s largely a psychological thing. $199 is not just below 200, people think of it as being in the one-hundred range. While that 2 as the first digit makes all the difference to a lot of consumers.

A Wii price starting with a 1 would simply serve to further set the price apart from the Xbox360´s retard pack and its price.

Falafelkid said...

Oh, and speaking of which: Check this NSider forum thread.

Falafelkid said...

Hi D-Bone.

Revo-Europe

These guys seem to have some information pointing towards a release date announcement at Leipzig. Maybe you can snoop around and see what you can come up with.


Well, I have done a bit of snooping already and I stand by it: no launch date or price at Leipzig.

Unlike me, these guys don´t seem to have spoken to a source, by the way. They are just speculating into the blue, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Just give us the launch date already Nintendo.

All this speculation is giving me a headache, but one thing mounts up and that's the console will launch in November, preferably before the PlayStation 3

Sickr

game on said...

Keep in mind that games may come out a week before the system comes out.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Babble.

Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work in the last year (and more...) for keeping us informed and entertained. And also to often come back here and add more in the comments.

A big thank you! : )


Well, I should send a big thank you right back. And I will: Thank you! Because if you guys didn´t keep coming here, I would see no point in posting ;)

I do invest some time in this blog, but it´s worth it and you are all very welcome. It´s great satisfaction for me to see so many of you coming back and posting contructive comments regarding the stories.

Anonymous said...

hahahahaha fake wii specs being used by mainstream media how ironic is the editor a 360 faboy or suming talking dirt on wii

ill tell you all i know on ram specs

3mb 1t sram-r gpu catch

24mb 1t sram-r gpu embedded main memory

64mb main ram sub die 1t sram-r

16mb access ram

107mb ram i think that makes it not 88mb

32gb bandwidth gpu ram
32gb main external pool
16gb texture catch
1gb access ram
1gb flashdrive

peak system bandwidth 82gb bandwidth

all 1t sram-r runs at 5ns latency all 91mb of it


as you can see the latency and bandwidths leave a xbox for dead

Blizz419 said...

as i also believe these are not true specs, it is not yet official that all of the ram is 1T SRAM it may be only the main RAM that is 1T SRAM and not the GPU's RAM, that much is not yet known.

Anonymous said...

hollywood is flipper 2 it uses 1t sram-R its the latest generation of 1t sram its 1t sram-q BUT WITH A ADDED ABILLITY TO DO TRANPARANT CURRECTION it self currects, self repair in real time (for amasing levels of stabillity)so we get 1t sram speed/balance access but with the added function of a more stable data path......100% genuine the press report is at nwiizone.com mosy official press statment on 1t sram-R...



wii uses 1t sram-r as its main and catch rams the 24mb of main ram on hollywood is directly linked to memory controllers and feeds the gpu and cpu at L3 catch speeds and with a wopping 32gb bandwidth latency is 5ns for all ram on gpu total 27mb

1mb texture catch on hollywood has a 16gb bandwidth and 5ns latency

64mb of 1t sram-R on a sub die just like the 10mb for the 360 gpu

32gb bandwidth and 5ns latency as you can see if you add these real world bandwidths together they beat a 360s

360 24gb from main ram 32gb from gpu sub die catch edram

wii has 32gb+32gb+16gb and no HD resolution or textures to support

now imagine sd res textures at 6to1 compression and 32gb bandwidth times 2 i think wii is a real time texture

MONSTER



BROADWAY IS A HYPER THREADED AND NEW INSTRUTION SET AND A OVER CLOCK OF GEKKO IT ALLSO USES THE MOST ADVANCED MICRO EMBEDDED TECH FROM IBM not only is it small and cool its per clock performance is vastly inproved its directly bridged to hollywoods memory controllers and does away with traditional FSB this improves bandwidth latency and bottlenecking for smooth sweet games running....


hollywood has double the pipes of flipper and allso runs more efficant it allso has a all new TEV unit and a physics simulation chip the ppu combined with 1 gpu pipe offers high performance in game physics

dsp is embedded on hollywood is optermized for pro logic 2 and 2x 5.1/7.1 and has direct access to access ram flash drive and disc media


flash drive has same bandwidth and latency of access ram so imagine the flashdrive as a future 512mb access ram so developers can access all 107mb of ram and all 512mb of access flash ram if desired perfect for deducing loadtimes still futher and storing textures etc


if you compare real world latency and bandwidths with eather a 360 or ps3 you can see wii has wopping bandwidths and lightning fast speeds
its allso more stable and clock balanced than the competition its per second per mb per clock performance is higher than ps3 or 360 CLOCK FOR CLOCK WII IS MOST STABLE AND POWERFULL

now remember wii has no need to process hd resolutions and textures and doesnt run op systems in the back ground like ps3 or 360 there fake pcs wii isnt trying to be a pc or media hub it runs nothing in the back ground

allso remember wii runs pure cpu work on its cpu and nothing else

360/ps3 running cpu/physics/sound engine/hd decoding/etc


wii has 3 times the processing power of a xbox with 5 times the latency and 10 times plus the real world bandwidths CLEARLY WII IS NEXT GEN -HD NOT A XBOX TURBO AT ALL

pn18 said...

"BROADWAY IS A HYPER THREADED AND NEW INSTRUTION SET AND A OVER CLOCK OF GEKKO IT ALLSO USES THE MOST ADVANCED MICRO EMBEDDED TECH FROM IBM"

HT is developed by Intel, nub. IBM processors don't have this feature.

Anonymous said...

by the way, "fils-aime" is indeed french and means "loved son".....it should be written fils-aimé....(guess they lost the accent at some point in time ;) )

[mec] rincewind

Anonymous said...

i used hyper threaded as a means of laymans explanation it has a threading ability YOUR REFERING TO THE MARKETING TERM HYPER THREAD WITCH IS USED BY INTEL THREADING EXISTS ON IBM CPUS ASWELL YOU PLANK OF DEAD WOOD UR REFERING TO A MARKETING TERM FOR THREADED CPUS I USED IT AS ITS NOWN TERM I DIDNT USE IT AS A OFFICIAL TERM FOR THE wiis cpu TRY HARDER TO PROVE ME WRONG NEXT TIME FOOL THESES SPECS ARE 100% GENUNINE

Anonymous said...

no edram on hollywood its 1t sram-r using nec edram emddded mem process its nec edram process but the ram being used is 1t sram-r FACT

hollywood has a 3mb gpu catch
hollywood has a giant L3catch 24mb feeds cpu/gpu at 5ns latency and 32gb bandwidth can feed cpu as catch or main ram

sub die directly linked to memory controllers 64mb 1t sram-r 32gb bandwidth and 5 nc latency bandwidth is lower meg for meg due to external sub die not matching hollywood for pure bandwidth but still dam fine


meg for meg clock for clock the wii is very very powerfull and can be looked at as a 480p resolution OVER KILL in terms of shifting textures and real time use of bandwidth wii is the most monstress machine on earth clock for clock meg for meg its allso the most intergrated and advanced embedded computer system ever built if pcs were designed like this there wouldnt be any need for new cpus the rest of the system is so pure and fast it doesnt matter