With GDC happening at this very typed word I thought it would be fitting to pull an article from our last Pure Nintendo magazine. This article should be a good jumping  point for discussion about the Wii U specs. 

After Nintendo’s announcement of the Wii U back on June 5th 2011, there was a flurry of speculations and rumors concerning the device. Nintendo did a misfortune by keeping t 99% of the details about the Wii U private. With the lack of information, many misconceptions arouse concerning the Wii U. In this issue of Pure Nintendo magazine. We are hoping to clear some of those misconceptions up and gaze into what the Wii U will really be.

In this introduction I want to be clear that no one knows, besides Nintendo, the exact details of the Wii U. Everything inside this magazine is what has been gleamed or the little details that have been announced.

Power/Specs

When Nintendo first announced they were doing a HD system, rumors started to fly about the strength of that said system. Let us be honest. No one knows, besides Nintendo, how powerful the Wii U will be. This can be backed up by the fact that no one game developer can agree one the specs and power of the development kit. Over the months we have heard, less powerful then the 360, as powerful as the PS3, a little more powerful then the PS3, all the way to 5 times more powerful then the 360. A think Team Ninja summed up the Wii U the best. “It’s very easy to develop for. We’re finding it very similar to develop for Wii U as for the Xbox 360 and PS3. …They’ve asked us what we would like to see from the hardware, and when we give them feedback we can see that they’re definitely listening to it and making changes. The hardware is still constantly changing.”

With the decision Nintendo made, with the Wii, but sticking with lower end graphics has caused Nintendo to play a little catch up. Sony and Microsoft already went through the growing points of switching to HD. I am sure both companies made mistake with their system developments that they wish could be changed.  Nintendo is taking this, come from behind opportunity, to work with developers, who have already gone HD, to see what they need to include in their system. Nintendo wouldn’t be doing all this R&D to just match the power of the current systems. I am sure they are spending the time to feel out where developers want to go, with their games, in the future. This is why we are seeing so many different development kits out there. Yes, some of the “rumors” about the Wii U specs are just that, rumors, but some of them are true ideas from developers. I could bet on my life that the Wii U development kit has changed dramatically over the past six months.

I want to excuse all the Wii U power talk from last year. It really was way to early for us to know exactly pinpoint the Wii U. Most of the talk surfacing this year has the Wii U more powerful then these current systems. The question has to do with…how much more?