Wii Nintendo Design

By Author: Gregory Hepburn
Total Articles: 38
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Up to a short time ago, Nintendo kept the Wii patterns confidential. Now that they have been provided to software programmers they're now open for study which allows us to find out exactly what we're getting for our money and understand the intrinsic superiority of the product.

The Central Processing Unit, called Broadway, was developed and manufactured in association with IBM. It operates at 729 megahertz with a bandwidth of 1.9 gigabytes per second. The graphics processing unit was made by ATI with a rated speed of 243 Mhz. It is available with three MB of graphics memory and twenty four MB of high-speed main memory. The external main memory is sixty four MB of GDDR3 (MEM2) and is accessible by the Central Processing Unit and GPU at a speed of 4 GB per second.

The console is very small. It is 8.5 inches high, 6 inches wide, and just under 2 inches thick. Even with the stand it does not take up much room and can be placed vertically or horizontally.

The optical disc drive can be used with the recent 12cm single-sided double-layered game discs for the Wii, as well as the older 8cm GameCube discs. When a ...
... GameCube disc is put in, the console electronically adjusts the speed to the requirements of the game. The drive reads at a speed equal to the speed of DVD 6X. Putting in a disc electronically switches on the console, and switching it off electronically expels the disc. All these features are innovations in game technology.

The Wii console can work with a number of peripheral devices. It can process input from four Wii controllers concurrently. For backwards attunement with the older console it has ports to attach to four GameCube controllers, as well as slots for two GameCube memory cards. However, it is not compatible with several other GameCube peripherals, including the Game Boy player. In addition, the Wii has one SD card slot in the front and two USB ports at the back.

Nintendo has stated that the Wii can work with all makes of television. It creates up to 480p NTSC or 576 pixels PAL. It works with projectors as well as supporting 16:9 widescreen modes. The console is Dolby ProLogic II capable, and the controller has its own speaker.

The Nintendo Wii console links to the Internet using cordless technology using IEEE 802.11 or a USB 2.0 LAN adaptor. It can get updates from Nintendo's support centre in accordance with your configuration settings. Mii avatars can also be read into the controller or placed on the internet for transportation between the different consoles.

The Wii has parental controls which allow it to be disabled from playing games above a certain rating in keeping with Nintendo's obligation to family gaming. Game discs are programmed with their ratings which are in keeping with the requirements of each local market.

In summary, the Nintendo Wii's designs are impressive.