| Along with pretty much everything else about the Wii, | | | | Wii controllers at once. It also has ports, however, to |
| including its name, Nintendo has kept the Wii specs | | | | take four GameCube controllers, increasing its |
| pretty close to its collective chest. Given they're now | | | | backwards compatibility with the older console, as well |
| out in the open, as well as available to software | | | | as slots for two GameCube memory cards. (It's not, |
| developers, this is a good time to take an in-depth look | | | | however, compatible with many of the GameCube's |
| at the Nintendo Wii specs and find out exactly what | | | | other peripherals, including its Game Boy player.) On |
| you're getting for your money.In all the fuss about the | | | | top of this (not literally), the Nintendo Wii also sports |
| innovative Nintendo Wii controller, it's been hard to | | | | two USB ports at the rear and one SD card slot in the |
| appreciate the underlying excellence of the actual box | | | | front.Nintendo is adamant that the Wii is compatible |
| itself.The CPU, known as Broadway, was developed | | | | with all televisions, existing and forthcoming. It produces |
| and manufactured in association with IBM. It operates | | | | up to 480p NTSC or 576 pixels PAL. It works with |
| at 729 megahertz and bandwidth tops at 1.9 gigabytes | | | | projectors as well, and supports 16:9 widescreen |
| per second. The graphics processing unit, developed | | | | modes. The console is Dolby ProLogic II capable, and |
| by ATI, clocks at 243MHZ. It comes with three meg of | | | | the controller has its own speaker, adding a new |
| onboard dedicated graphics memory and 24 MB of | | | | dimension to surround sound gaming.Intriguingly, the |
| high-speed main memory.The external main memory is | | | | Nintendo Wii console connects wirelessly to the |
| 64megabytes of GDDR3 (MEM2) which can be | | | | internet, even when it's off. It can download updates |
| accessed by both the CPU and GPU at a top speed | | | | from Nintendo's WiiConnect24 support service at any |
| of four gig a second.The console itself is unusually | | | | time, and you can decide for yourself how paranoid to |
| small, significantly smaller than the PS3 or the Xbox | | | | be about that. It connects wirelessly using IEEE 802.11 |
| 360. At 8.5 inches high, six inches deep, and a shave | | | | or a USB 2.0 LAN adaptor. Mii avatars can also be |
| under two inches thick (16cm by 21cm by 4.5 cm), it's | | | | stored on the internet, or downloaded into the controller |
| about the size of three DVD cases. Even with the | | | | for transportation between different consoles.The Wii |
| stand it takes up less carpet or cabinet real estate | | | | also has a parental control mode, where the console |
| than other consoles, and can be stood either vertical | | | | can be set to refuse to play games rated above a |
| or horizontal.In a real innovation, the optical disc drive | | | | certain level, highlighting Nintendo's concentration on the |
| (which glows blue) supports both the new 12cm | | | | family gaming market. Game discs have their rating |
| single-sided double-layer game discs for the Wii, and | | | | level encoded on to them, and ratings are keyed with |
| the older 8cm GameCube discs. When a GameCube | | | | the requirements for each local market.All in all, even |
| disc is inserted into the Nintendo Wii, the console | | | | for a seventh generation console, the Nintendo Wii's |
| automatically adjusts the speed of the GPU to suit the | | | | specs are impressive.For all the latest updates about |
| game. The drive reads at a maximum speed | | | | Nintendo's new Wii console |
| equivalent to DVDx6. Inserting a disc automatically | | | | come visit where you will easily find resources on |
| turns the console on, and turning it off automatically | | | | where you can |
| ejects the disc.The Nintendo Wii console supports a | | | | pre-order Wii. |
| plethora of peripherals. It can process input from four | | | | |