A person from Chipworks (the reverse engineering company that scanned the GPU) had some interesting insight:
"Been reading some of the comments on your thread and have a few of my own to use as you wish.
1. This GPU is custom.
2. If it was based on ATI/AMD or a Radeon-like design, the chip would carry die marks to reflect that. Everybody has to recognize the licensing. It has none. Only Renesas name which is a former unit of NEC.
3. This ...
In the NeoGAF thread mentioned in the article, someone mentioned how strange it is for the article to sound so sure of itself when so much on the die is custom and therefore unknown:
"The Digital Foundry Hypothesis
SPUs: 8 blocks (N1-N8)
TMUs: 4 blocks (J1-J4)
ROPS: 2 blocks ? (no proposed location)
ARM: 1 block (no proposed location)
DSP: 1 block (no proposed location)
Video encode/decode: 1 block (no proposed loc...
Jeez, finally that debate is over. Now we can move on from "Wii U is weaker than 360."
I can't tell if you're joking, or trolling, or if you just haven't paid attention to what's been discovered about the Wii U's innards since launch.
Pfft, like Mario games sell consoles. They need some brown third person shooters.
Good point
I never thought that Nintendo might separate the 3DS Miiverse from the Wii U one. That would suck.
I think this article is correct in their reasoning of why Nintendo released a console that won't compete with the Orbis and Durango graphically. This doesn't mean I agree with Nintendo, though. Yes games will cost less to develop for but shouldn't the decision to put so much money into making a game be up to the developers? Now the Wii U will be missing out on those $40 million next gen games.
This is great, but as long as Nintendo actually advertises these games.
You guys... he's not trash talking Ni No Kuni. He's just saying that it's not like JRPGs didn't exist this gen and then suddenly Ni No Kuni came out, which is how some people are acting. The title is a bit misleading. He just means JRPGs don't need saving.
I really like these gamexplain videos. I hope they keep doing them.
A Retro made HD Metroid will be amazing.
In the article they have one interesting idea: have Samus have an internal monologue. Her thoughts would come out of the gamepad speakers. Imagine walking into that destroyed ship in Prime 3 and you hear Samus say quietly "They're dead. They're all dead." Or something better and less generic :). Wouldn't that be cool and add atmosphere? They would have to get a good writer or else it would be incredibly annoying, ...
I bought a PS3 game before I bought a PS3. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Wii 2 sounds like a good name to me. As long as they don't use Roman numerals.
@OmegaSlayer
Fair enough. I don't like touch screens for the most part really. I'm writing this on my phone and if it weren't for autocorrect half of these words would have typos. Touchscreens in general are inaccurate and not suitable for gaming. Give me buttons any day. But saying that, the touch screen that annoys me the least is the gamepad's. The stylus is much more accurate than a finger. I don't know if the gamepad adds much to single player experie...
What are you talking about? He wasn't blaming the customers. He goes on to say they will have to get the message out there, meaning actually advertising the thing.
I really hope they explain to people why they didn't use a fragile, inaccurate capacitive touch screen. I'm assuming you're a hardcore gamer and you don't even get it.
Very good, Nintendo.
There's been no talk of it being released in Japan either. There's been no release talk at all. We don't even know what it's called. Let's just wait for E3 before we become disappointed.
What could his résumé have possibly said? He must have had a great interview.
Honestly, all I can tell is it's pretty dark. At least it's shiny(?)! I have no doubt the game will look good, but let's just wait until E3, shall we?