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
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
@Extinction -the ps2 was not the most powerful it was weaker than both the gamecube and the xbox, and while i agree that wii is way underpowered it is not weaker than the original xbox its technically more like a overclocked xbox while still pathetic it does have a few nice looking games, one thing nintendo has always been good at is pulling off some surprising things with it's hardware if wii had power closer to a 360 and less shovelware it would be pretty damn impressive, while i think they are gonna add some power to this next DS to impress everyone, i dont see them fighting for processing power in home consoles anymore though i think they'll try to make it a lil closer to competition in the future but i doubt that will stop the trend of tons of shovel ware with a few gems buried under it all
@blizz419
Actually in some aspects the PS2 is more powerful then the Wii. The processor of the PS2 is rated at 6.2GFLOPS vs the Wii at 2.9 GFLOPS while the gpu on the Wii is a lil more powerful then the PS2 but not by much. The Wii is limited to 480p for a reason and though the PS2 can do 1080i only GT4 and Valkyrie Profile used it and even then it was more like 640x1080.
@sollord i call bullshit i 'll do some digging around when i get the chance but i clearly remember the gamecube was more powerful than the ps2 and the wii is more powerful than the gamecube granted only by about 2x but that makes wii more than twice as powerful than ps2 by far, and to the person that claimed nintendo didnt have the money to make ii more powerful sadly you are wrong they did have the money but did not care to make the wii powerful, while the gamecube may not have even come close to outselling the ps2 it made nintendo much more profit than sony made from ps2 due to the fact nintendo never sells a system at a loss
Being more powerful than the Wii sets the bar awfully low.
@wshwe Stop with the trolling. Not for a handheld. I would like to see wii games played on say an iphone. Which still cant happen yet.
@majortom1981 Have you been living under a rock for the past couple years? Pretty much every multi-platform game that gets on the Wii has is a port of a PS2 and (this is the important part) PSP game.
Can someone run the tough guy nVidia CEO pic now? He must love missing out on Nintendo's business.
Hard to compare two different architectures: the very (non-)aptly named POWER architecture and the ARM architecture.
All kidding aside, I love my Wii. Being a casual gamer, I look for the quality of the game over processing power of the console. I enjoy the Nintendo franchise games a lot. I don't use my Wii to crunch numbers, edit movies and photos, or master music. I use it to play games. And I haven't had any graphical hiccups playing any of its games. It may be an overclocked GCN, but it works for me.
@aschettler So you must of played all the Mario games with the same stupid plot.
@aschettler
"Non-aptly named?" What architecture other than POWER comes close to 8 superscalar cores at 4GHz on one chip?
@Kira Ok. I realize I made a stupid error there. The POWER architecture may is superscalar and powerful, but I have yet to use a PowerPC that came close to being as powerful as an x86-64 machine of the same era. Consumer PCs with the POWER architecture were never really as powerful. The POWER architecture was revamped after Apple ditched it for Intel, and is now better for use in cases where extreme processing power is necessary (scientific research, extremely high-traffic servers, etc.).
(Sorry for the backtrack. It's getting late.)
@anotherworld No, I haven't played all the Mario games with the "same stupid plot." Even if I did, would it really matter? -1 for being an ass.
Make it more powerful than an Xbox 360 and I'll be impressed.
Hoping for a "New Super Mario Galaxy Bros. 3DS"
The sarcasm in this comment thread in stale.
Watch it turn out to be the Tegra2.
Well, it wasn't a Tegra.
@7r1ck13
Your picture is perfect for that comment.
This is more a statement to how underpowered the Wii is, not how over powered the 3DS will be.
This should be interesting...
i am going crazy i need more news
why are people shocked that modern mobile devices are more powerful than a 4 year old system that is built on hardware that was cutting edge 10 years ago?
6 years from now you guys will be all "LOL my iPhone 8 is more powerful than the Xbox 360"
I've not owned a handheld since the Gamegear. And even then i never once used it running batteries. Having said that i did play 8-bit games on my mobile to death and have looked longingly towards a PSP and ipod touch, but have been a little too hesitant to purchase either thinking that they wouldn't be quite good enough to justify their cost.
But a mega powerful handheld might be just the ticket, especially if i can plug it into my LCD monitor easily enough, and especially if Nintendo eff up the protection system again.
Nintendo could be on to a real winner with this and they've done tremendously well in the handheld sector since forever.
Ah sweet, finally some high resolution graphics on a DS :D
This Wii PP bashing is annoying me. Yeah its like "2 GC's strapped together" arguably more powerful than an Xbox1 (i'm going to go with YES it is more powerful than an Xbox1 cos that lump frame dropped like there was no tomorrow).
Consumer's complaining about the console being too underpowered is just rediculous. Take a look at Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 they're gorgious and they're on a Wii. Dev's shouldn't be looking at a console and going "that's too low powered" they should be looking at it and going "this'll be a challenge but I'm up to it".
The reason we see shit graphics on Wii is NOT due to PP its down to lazy dev's milking the casual cash cow. Its more powerful than a GC and yet we're seeing less games that look as good as GC games and yet people directly blame the PP...
Fact of the matter is though, for the 3DS the Wii chip is going to be tiny with today's chip manufacturing. My bet is that they do roll with it, maybe clock it up, MAYBE even add an extra core...or 3.
@Hobsie
There's not a game on the Wii that can stand up to the best looking Xbox 1 games towards the end of its lifetime. Galaxy looks great, but its animated style and particle effects cover up what is an overall average looking game for that generation. The normal mapping in Riddick is above and beyond anything the Wii has put out.
@kenny goo You haven't looked hard enough then.
Why would you state in the title that the 3DS will be MORE powerful than the Wii but then in the body say "Nintendo's next portable will be AS potent as a current-gen home console"? Make up your mind...
Nintendo made the right choices with the Wii's hardware spec and its pricing. And unlike the other consoles it has full backwards compatibility (another right choice).
If they had made a 360/PS3 clone at $400-$600 with motion control...do you think they'd be on top right now?
I think not. Most people don't want to burn that kind of money on a console.
"more powerful" without context it's marketing BS. Wasn't the Xbox360 and PS3 introduced as being more powerful then super computers? Yet IBM and Cray are still in business. go figure.
But will it be more powerful than a wii and a gamecube duct taped together? Thats like...... three gamecubes!!!
If this is true... then I want wireless hdmi... or at the very least a microhdmi out... I can dream...
Bullshit.
More Powerful than a Wii? Bye Bye Wallet......
If it actually looks like a dsi, all they need to do is make the front-facing camera 3d so u could have 3d video chat
but does it support WPA2-AES?