In Theory: Can Wii U Offer Next-Gen Power?

With the IBM chip confirmed at a 45nm process - the same as the current Xbox 360 - the question then moves on to how the graphics chip is made. TSMC, the most probable candidate for actually producing the chip, has just moved onto a 28nm process, and will be ramping up production throughout the year. But any new node typically starts with low production yields, so Nintendo would need to either swallow the cost (Microsoft did this at the launch of the 360 with the then state-of-the-art 90nm Xenos GPU) or downclock the chip. It's far more likely that sticking to the existing, established 40nm process for AMD GPUs would actually be cheaper for them in the short term - and would provide cost-savings in the future when the chip could be shrunk economically.

RAM and flash storage prices have plummeted in recent years - it's in these areas that we expect the Wii U to offer an advantage over the PS3 and Xbox 360.

But let's assume that Nintendo does push the boat out here. Even a 45nm CPU and a 28nm GPU in a box that small is still likely to cause cooling issues for an actual "next-gen" 360 beater. The more probable 45nm CPU/40nm GPU combo combined with the size of the machine suggests a far more likely scenario: that Wii U has a ballpark performance level with current PS3 and Xbox 360 titles, perhaps actually lower. Across the years, chip designs may have become more refined and efficient but it's worthwhile to point out that almost all major increases in processing power have mostly come from shrinks in the fabrication process meaning that more transistors can be packed into the same amount of silicon.

The final nail in the coffin about a notional 2x increase in power over the Xbox 360 comes from Nintendo itself. At no point has the platform holder ever suggested that Wii U offers that kind of leap in processing power, an extraordinary omission considering the amount of money Nintendo would need to invest in this architecture. The focus of the platform holder's message is of course on where the money has been spent: the tablet controller, with its zero latency link to the console - technology that must have been fairly expensive.

But is there anything in the package that could give the Wii U an advantage over the PS3 and Xbox 360, aside from the tablet controller? We should look at the commodities that have collapsed in price over the past few years, and could prove genuinely useful for a games machine. RAM is the obvious choice: a 1GB minimum wouldn't break the bank and would help developers significantly. The pre-E3 rumour of 8GB of flash RAM also makes sense, especially when we bear in mind that there is no internal hard drive. The Wii U optical drive - almost certainly based on Blu-ray technology - could also be faster than its PS3 equivalent too. This may be useful bearing in mind that the lack of HDD would preclude mandatory installs.

So the opportunity is there for Nintendo to capitalise on cheaper components and die-shrunk silicon, and those savings can account for the cost of the tablet controller and some nice bonus additions over the PS3 and Xbox 360 - but to actually double the processing power of the current gen platforms just doesn't seem to ring true with everything that's been revealed about the console thus far. There is talk of Nintendo "re-introducing" Wii U at E3 this year, and doubtless we'll be seeing some actual games from the launch line-up - but it's difficult to believe we'll be witnessing the arrival of a machine capable of the kind of next-gen rendering that outstrips the current consoles. A key lesson Nintendo learned with Wii is that the price-point of the machine at launch is crucial, and it's hard to imagine that it could bring in a massive performance boost and the innovative controller at a price attractive to the audience.

Nintendo's focus in recent years has been about concepts, not specs, and nothing about Wii U seen to date suggests any kind of change in strategy.