Nintendo 3DS more powerful than a Wii, won't use Tegra?
By Sean Hollister 
posted June 8th 2010 12:44AM
posted June 8th 2010 12:44AM
posted June 8th 2010 12:44AM
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I am hyped for this.
@tmt345
My Gameboy Color is more powerful than the Wii.
@KevOne
Without the virtual console it would have better games too.
@tmt345 This really does sound cool. I remember my first gameboy. It was fun as mess.
@KevOne My biggest complaint for the wii is the overall lack of processing power...
@KevOne
John McClain's PSP will eat your GameBoy with sour kraut!
Virtual Console for GB/C/A games. Please.
Actually, on second thought, fix the download management problem: I want to be able to freely transfer my purchases between systems before upgrading my DS or buying a black Wii becomes prevalent.
Not a chance in hell engadget.
Wii/DS taught Nintendo they dont need processing power to sell. They can make crap and you'll still buy it. In all likelihood, 3DS will still be weaker than PSP.
Look at DSi, it only got a 2x speed boost over DS and 3x the RAM, that's even more than Wii got over Gamecube in both departments.
Even doubling DSi, that's still less powerful than PSP. Even tripling is still less powerful.
That and the battery life would be almost nil.
@Extinction
Dude, they didn't make the Wii and DS weak on purpose, Nintendo is a game company competition with tech giants, with the failure of the Gamecube they didn't have the money to go crazy, now they do and of course they're going to capitalize on it.
From a technical point of view it makes sense too, the PSP released 6 years after the Dreamcast and has about the same overall 3D capability, 5 years after the Xbox 360, I would definitely expect with enough R&D that the 3DS be somewhere between the Wii and 360.
As for the Tegra chip, I didn't think it would happen, Tegra looks like it's primarily designed for DirectX Mobile (ZuneHD, various WinCE Smartbook concepts, Win7 phones, Kins, etc), and also has OpenGL ES capabilities (android), design the growing popularity among devs(android,iphone), it's unlikely they'll go with an open library like that. I'm quite certain they'll stick to an ARM CPU(the DS has an ARM9 and ARM7, this will probably have a Cortex A8 (maybe even A9) primary core, but will probably still pack an ARM9 for hardware-level DS support, but to be honest the latest A8 chips should be able to emulate the DS's ARM9 and ARM7 easily), but the GPU will probably be custom designed (maybe by AMD considering their partnership with ATi with the Gamecube and Wii)
@JeremyBenthem
also there are some versions of this story on the web that say that in fact the graphics will be as good as the 360, and if you think about it, as long as the 3DS doesn't use the "magical" "retina resolution" of the iPhone 4, it could get close to the earlier batches of 360 games
@Extinction
Umm.... Dsi got 2x speed boost and 3x ram boost? Where was I? I was under the impression it got 2 shotty cameras and ditched carterage support, with the same internals (ie: every game that dsi can play, ds can play as well, with the exception of camera input games)
@JeremyBenthem "Dude, they didn't make the Wii and DS weak on purpose"
I agree with your point. But now look at the results. Wii/DS are selling the most, making the most profit. That taught Nintendo that doing it that way = the best business decision. They will repeat it.
Just like Go taught Sony that abandoning UMD = the worst business decision. They won't repeat it.
Assuming they have anyone with brains at their helms.
"I would definitely expect with enough R&D that the 3DS be somewhere between the Wii and 360."
I don't see how. DSi only got a 2x speed boost, and is still weaker than 1 of PSPs dual processors. Even doubling that would still be weaker. You expect Nintendo to do an exponential boost within a year of DSi when it took 5 years to just go up 2x? You expect Nintendo to sacrifice profitability for the sake of actually evolving technologically, something they've avoided repeatedly? (See optical discs, HD, online, processing power, etc) Nintendo's history shows us they wont be making an exponential upgrade, but an incremental one.
As for Tegra, it made no sense. It wasn't backwards compatible with the DS. And thinking like a business tells us they will do what they've been doing since Gameboy started. Upgrading the same hardware, maintaining backwards compatibility. GBC merely used a faster Z80 processor that GB had. GBA used GBCs processor as it's sound chip. DS used GBA's processor, and another one (the GBC processor is still in there, it's even been hacked to play GBC games). DSi used both GBA's processor and DS's processor and boosted the DS one's CPU speed by 2. Wii used GCN's processor and boosted it by a little less than 2. Nintendo has even admitted it will have BC, that alone should tell people it wont use Tegra.
Emulation is not a realistic option. PSP has it for PS1 games, but PSP is like 20 times more powerful than PS1. Do you really expect 3DS to be 20 times more powerful than DSi?
@Saljen
Yup, DSi has a 2x CPU speed boost, and 3x the RAM as DS. That's a bigger boost than Wii has over GCN. It also has exclusive games that dont use the camera. It is as much an upgrade over DS as Wii is over GCN, moreso if you go by the numbers
@JeremyBenthem
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@Extinction
Dude, they didn't make the Wii and DS weak on purpose, Nintendo is a game company competition with tech giants, with the failure of the Gamecube they didn't have the money to go crazy, now they do and of course they're going to capitalize on it.
From a technical point of view it makes sense too, the PSP released 6 years after the Dreamcast and has about the same overall 3D capability, 5 years after the Xbox 360, I would definitely expect with enough R&D that the 3DS be somewhere between the Wii and 360.
--------------------------------------------
Also Nintendo had plenty of money to develop new tech as the Gamecube made them quite a bit of money despite not doing so well. Their decision was down to a few points. 1) the gamecube did not sell well despite being far more powerful than the PS2 and being the cheapest console.(Most people incorrectly associated the lower cost with a less powerful system)... 2) Developers benefit from the reduced development costs of a less powerful machine. 3)Nintendo figured that the massive boosts in power to get only a marginal boost in graphics was not worth it and games could go in a different direction instead. (Remember Project gotham 3 had more polygons in one car than PG2 had in the entire gameworld yet did not look immensely better). 4) The Wii is not as weak as most think (take a look at Mario Galaxy 2) however I do think nintendo misjudged the HD revolution a little.
@coolblue2000
You make good points. But I'm still certain they spent more on R&D than MS or Sony considering they just improved hardware and Nintendo more or less had to stake its future on a whole new idea. Which kind of ties into your points that they recognized system performance alone would not win them market dominance.
@Extinction
The only GB/GBC compatibility I've seen on the DS involves ROMs and an emulator.
Both the PS2 (phats anyway) and PS3 also achieved backwards compatibility with their direct predecessors through additional hardware. That didn't exactly limit Sony's choices with the other components.
@Extinction
first off the DSi hardware upgrades were incremental, just improvements on the same hardware, the 3DS will use completely different SoCs which will be much more capable and have new hardware level features including presumably a real 3D accelerator the DSs lack, and because they will likely stick with ARM, the instruction sets will be upgraded and they an still use hardware level backwards compatibility to an extent.
secondly, your logic about sales is flawed, not having good graphics didn't magically make the DS sell better, it was the unique touch capabilities that Nintendo used to compensate for their lack in technical capability, if it was the same device with PSP-like graphics, it probably would have been even more successful, likewise, the lack of the UMD drive didn't make the PSP Go a failure, it was poor delivery, and besides consider the software sales on the latest crop of mobile OSs, you can hardly argue the direction the Go is taking is a wrong one
@KevOne
My calculator is more powerful than the Wii.
@JeremyBenthem
"(maybe by AMD considering their partnership with ATi with the Gamecube and Wii)"
AMD sold their mobile GPU division to Qualcomm a couple years ago. AMD/ATI hasn't been seen in the mobile GPU space since then, and I doubt that the terms of this sale would allow them to quickly create a new mobile division to compete with Qualcomm's platform.
So at least for embedded (portable) devices, AMD is out of the picture.
@JeremyBenthem
What are you talking about? Tegra is an ARM11 derivative and Tegra2 is an ARM CortexA9 derivative. Nvidia packs a powerful GPU into both of those SoC's. Every SoC you mentioned is an ARM derivative. As for the GPU, it's ridiculously unlikely they would utilize an AMD mobile GPU. Why? Because unless AMD has a mobile GPU integrated on an A8/A9 based SoC that no one has ever mentioned or heard about, it won't happen. It takes years to design and build these SoC's. The CortexA9 reference designs were licensed back in 2009 and there still aren't an A9 based products on the market.
Nintendo will go with what's cheap and what works, and like Apple, they'll sell the device based on the solid user experience and not hardware specs.
@politicalslug
Yeah, I forgot about the Imageon sale, but anyway I still think Nintendo will go with a custom SoC with atleast a custom GPU core for security reasons
I also disagree with your point about cheap hardware, again there's no reason why they can't get solid experience and great hardware now that they have the money to invest in it, and actually since you mention Apple, every one of Apple's iPhones (save maybe the 3G) have launched with top tier internals at their time
This looks so damn awesome. More powerful than the Wii? badass. Likely? hmm.
Not info at all... lol
@trihy I know, right?
That's a bit saddening...
Awesome. And of course, I'll buy every incremental iteration for the console like I have done for the DS, PS3, and PSP, and it will slowly suck the money out of my life.
More powerful than a wii...
Not that it has to try too hard anyway....
@Jubeh +1
Being faster than Wii is actually not exciting at all.....the hardware of Wii comes from ancient time
If true, I wonder why they're not using Tegra.
@einhanderkiller Now that is the real interesting part of the story, if the rumors are true.
@einhanderkiller cause backwards compatibility requires DS's hardware.
@Extinction
Even if the 3DS's backwards compatibility is hardware based that doesn't mean that its own games would have to run on similar hardware. The Game Boy Advance managed BC with the original Game Boy/GBC via a separate chip. The absence of which being why the Micro and DS cannot play those older games. Similarly the incorporates a Game Boy Advance processor, though it also doubles as a coprocessor for DS games.
It might be more poweful than *your* wii.
@LikeAThief That's what she said!
Is this something to get hyped over? The PSP is more powerful than the Wii.
@Jason B PSP is not more powerful than a Wii, nice try. It's not all that far behind but you could never get something like Resident Evil 4 to run on a PSP with the graphics it had on a GC or Wii on a PSP.
@yader91 it was a joke, learn how to take one.
PSP and Wii are roughly equal really.
They both have the same amount of VRAM, which says a lot for Wii.
PSP2 will be even more powerful
In all likelihood, 3DS will be weaker than PSP1 was
@Extinction Was that a joke too?
@hxczuner No. That was the truth.
It's like the DS ate a power-up mushroom. Yum.
I think the reason nintendo can't use cheap, low power parts this time in their next handheld, is because phones are starting to creep dangerously into the handheld market, and with gigahertz processors now powering phones, they need to compete graphically, or no one will bother with a lower power handheld.
I was always more than happy with iPhone games, thinking that they definitely offered better value than the DS, but this thing can step the game up so much if they want to, I'm excited. I'll be getting my first DS this year, w00t.
A hamster with a calculator is more powerful than the Wii, whats your point?
@Nitesh Someone hasn't played Super Mario Galaxy 2. Very pretty game. Best looking game on the Wii I'd say, but still very impressive for a last gen console.
@superaj : if you say super mario galaxy 2 is the best looking game on the wii, you clearly haven't even seen monster hunter tri! i URGE you to play it!
*Anything* is more powerful than the glorified Fisher-Price toy called the Wii ... that's not too hard at all.
My 3gs is more powerful than wii..Wii is a overclocked Gamecube.
I dont get all the wii criticism. It has just as much power as a previous generation console with more features. So when you calling the wii a calculator or whatever, then a calculator must be faster than your PS2 also.
@ChuckBartowski
And Nintendo just put out what many reviewers and gamers consider one of the most beautiful fun game ever.. Galaxy2. Read that line again, not just the most beautiful Wii game, one of the most beautiful games ever.
If Nintendo can make amazing games like MG2, the Wii is not the problem.
@ChuckBartowski You really dont get the Wii bashing due to it's lack of processing power? PP is what defines what games are capable of for an entire generation. Nintendo lies when they say it only affects graphics. Every aspect of gameplay depends on how much PP the system has.
And by going with less PP than the original XBOX had, they held back an entire generation to that of last gen gameplay.
Look at how Dead Rising (or Dead Space) turned out on Wii versus PS3/360. It's not just the graphics that suffered, it completely lost the physics engine (you couldn't even walk in the water in the main area, creating a bottleneck where you could get ambushed easily) the removal of the photography system (in a game where you played as a reporter...) a drastic reduction in both the amount of enemies and how far you could see them (to the point where if you're running, you had to assume they'd appear in front of you or they would and ambush you) and a reduction in the size of every area in the game.
When people say their calcs are more powerful than Wii, you telling them that applies to PS2 as well doesn't mean squate, PS2 was more powerful than anything 10 years ago when it came out. There's no excuse for Sony to release a new system as powerful as PS2 now.
Imagine what Wii could have been capable of had it been designed by someone actually capable of it. Even Miyamoto admitted they ran out of PP making the New Super Mario Bros game, and that was just a side scroller. Compare it to LittleBigPlanet on PS3, which has online multiplayer, a physics engine, multiple layers, and a level editor. People could make the new mario game inside LBP if they spent enough time on it.