Hi everyone, I recently got enough money to be able to buy either the Wii or the 360 but NOT the PS3. Now I was wondering if it would be such a good idea to get an Xbox if there is a newer model coming out soon (or so I've heard) and also if it would be such a good idea to get a Wii if I can afford the 360 which seems to me, has much better games. If anyone could please tell me which console I should go for, that would be greatly appreciated (and it would be even better if you could use a pro-con system, but if you don't feel like it, that's okay too). Thanks in advance.

I think that what you are saying is pretty absurd.  Nintendo is supposedly making $50 on each console.  If they had decided to break even on every console, (Sony and Microsoft are losing money) and they had increased the price to $350 and taken out Wii Sports and sold it for $50, they yould have at least another $200 for a more powerful processor.  The Wii would have been almost as powerful as the 360 and the PS3, and with the controller and great graphics, it would have still sold well.  santiagochile

I think that one of the reasons the Wii is selling so much is because of it's affordability. If it was $350 but it had a more powerful processor, than I doubt it would have sold as much.

[QUOTE="ThePlothole"]I'm not sure about RS:V, but in the long term developers would have to deal with more than just downgrading the graphics. I imagine the Wii would choke on newer physics engines (what version is HAVOK up to now?) and AIs.TacticalElefant

The Wii is believed and partially proven to have hardware extended from the Gamecube. But the G3 (if the Wii really has a G3 PPC CPU) architecture is more efficient per clock than Pentium 3 CPU architecture like seen in the Xbox. From what I've read it seems to be a fair estimate that the Wii's CPU is in the realm of being comparable to the Xbox's P3 clocked at 1.2 GHz. In comparison to the Xbox's specs that's a nice deal extra processing power. And for all I know, the CPU in the Wii could be even more powerful. Like I said previously, the PS2 and Xbox with relatively weak in comparison to PC CPUs, could pull of some nice physics. Havok may be up to version 4.0 about now, but 2.0 would be sufficient for Wii games, as there are much less points of articulation and detail to consider. Game engine wise, the Wii does run Unreal 2.5 in the form of Red Steel which graphically and game engine wise (considering physics and all) wasn't a bad looking nor bad running game (only the controls really sucked). I'm pretty sure a scaled back Unreal 3 is on the way (but not really necessary unless it has the benefit of greater efficiency for the same processes as UR2.5).

When it comes to the graphics side of things, the Wii can probably dish out much more than what we've had the privelage of witnessing. Rumors state that the Hollywood GPU in the Wii is essentially a "doubled-up" extension of the Flipper GPU from the Gamecube. Double the pixel units, texture units, TEV, rasterization capabilities and add a 50% higher clock speed (162 to 239 MHz) and we can pretty much theorize a tripling of capabilities in the Wii in comparison to the Gamecube. 8 pixel pipelines, 8 texture units, and 2 TEVs. Basically the Wii I think will be comparable to the performance of an Nvidia GeForce 6200, which is enough horsepower to run a more than decent version of Half Life 2, Call of Duty 2 on PC (in DX7 mode), or Battlefield 2 PC. Of course these are granted that the Wii can handle similar shaders as the Direct X 7/8/9 ones used in the mentioned games and has the vertex/polygon rendering power as well. Now how does the supposed Wii GPU stack up in comparison to the Xbox's GPU? Let us compare, and take note that this is raw theoreticals here, not taking shader programming capabilities into account nor the render API being used which would affect real world performance.

Xbox GPU Gamecube GPUWii GPU
233 MHz clock speed 162 MHz clock speed 239 MHz clock speed
4 pixel pipelines 4 pixel pipelines 8 pixel pipelines
8 texture units (2 per pixel pipe) 4 texture units (1 per pixel pipe) 8 texture units (1 per pixel pipe)
4 PP x 233 MHz = 932 MPixels/Sec 4 PP x 162 = 648 MPixels/Sec 8 x 239 MHz = 1912 MPixels/Sec
8 TU x 233 MHz = 1864 MTexels/Sec 4 TU x 162 = 648 MTexels/Sec 8 x 239 MHz = 1912 MTexels/sec

So basically and theoretically the Wii should possess twice the pixel processing capabilities of the Xbox, which should considerable give the Wii a real edge in pixel processes like bump maps, normal maps and other shader effects. Despite that the Wii possess barely higher texture processing but it matches well with it's ability to process pixels. We should see much more shadowing, bumpmapping, normal mapping and other various shader and texture effects as compared to the Gamecube where such effects were rarely implemented in the same regard as the PS2 which did possess such capabilities as well despite not being as good or prominently known.

I have a GeForce 6200 and I can run Oblivion on a little more than minimal settings so the Wii can't be that bad.

I've narrowed it down to 2; Pokemon Diamond/Pearl or FFIII. Which is the better game?

what!? no you are too kind

never a better friend than i did find

cept when you punched my mom in the eye and made her blind 

donovanx85

Look, we can all see who the dumb sh*t here is OK? Or am I talking too fast for you? Your a disgrace to this union, so as I said before: Open your eyes to some grammar, then go get a life. Oh, and I saw how you edited the one message 7 times then decided to delete because you can't put together a single sentence, yeah I'm the one that should get a life...

well excuse me i thought you where supposed to express opinions on a forum donovanx85

EXPRESS them NOT ENFORCE them