Seems logical that it uses a 3 core variant of Power PC, not Power7. So I agree with the software developers.
Oh, I never thought it was an offshoot of Power7. I just thought it might be an inefficient design, cramming an old single core chip down to three slightly higher clocked ones on a multicore one. Instead of just choosing something that was multicore from day one, how much work did IBM have to do to squeeze Broadway down to three cores on one chip?
@Azhrei And to add a reply to your big response
in 1992, Sega were STRONG, very strong. They came in with Megadrive a few years before and almost destroyed Nintendo's NES stranglehold of 1 in 3 American households. Part in the fact that SNES was released later, but Sega used 'Cool' and it worked. Nobody in their right mind would predict the downfall of Sega in 1992. Never be so certain, and even though Nintendo have dodged the bullet a few times, they have been dangerously close with major disasters (Virtual Boy, 64DD for example). The Gameboy has saved their asses too many times. From NES they basically had been going downwards (sales wise) in the home console front until Wii. Gameboy was ultra successful, if it hadn't been for that, they'd be gonners before Gamecube finished its life, that would have been Nintendo's "Dreamcast" if it wasn't for the GBA.
Sega were very strong indeed in 1992, but they had already begun to misstep with the release of the Mega CD the year before. FMV was all the rage at the time, and what the Mega CD promised, it couldn't deliver. Only 64 colours onscreen from a palette of 512 meant that the FMV looked horribly grainy and badly dithered with low framerates to boot. I can't remember what the cost was, but I believe it exceeded the cost of the console itself. They tried combining the two with the CD-X, but the released unit cost more than the cost of a Mega Drive and Mega CD... then came 32-X along with rumours of further hardware in development, (Nomad, Neptune, etc.). All that hardware for one machine - now that's what I call a split focus.
I think the biggest problem for Sega was that Sega of Japan often disagreed with Sega of America, and vice versa. Luckily for Nintendo, I don't believe I've heard a single rumour about disagreements between NCL and NoA. Unlike Sega, all of Nintendo's engineers are in Japan, all hardware is developed in Japan - something like the split development of the Dreamcast could never happen to Nintendo. I don't believe Nintendo came close to destruction due to Virtual Boy, and certainly not with the 64DD, though it hardly helped them. Nintendo in those years unfortunately was run under the iron fist of Hiroshi Yamauchi, and while he'd always had an uncanny eye for what would sell, he was beginning to slip. He retired sometime after the GameCube released, leaving Iwata with the mess behind him.
While Gameboy certainly saw Nintendo through some bad times, I doubt the GameCube would have been Nintendo's Dreamcast because they had the money to go all out on a new, powerful console if they wanted to. It took the long-awaited retirement of Yamauchi before Nintendo was revitalised and began to take risks. Instead of further developing the Gameboy, he authorised development of the DS, a weird piece of hardware nobody thought would sell back when it was announced. Recognising Nintendo's shrinking importance in the home console market, he pushed them to innovate and take risks where Nintendo had always been strong - the user interface. We all know where that got them. Iwata has such a different style of leadership, speaking often with key software staff and encouraging them to step outside the box. He has opened Nintendo more than ever before, with the amazing
Iwata Asks series. He is an incredibly smart man and his quiet humility in the wake of poor 3DS sales shows us just how different he is to Yamauchi.
I envision that Wii U will start off slowly too, its coming in at a slightly higher base price than Wii did, but its still at the sweet spot of $299, but its just a tad higher than impulse buy. Nintendo historically drop prices quite soon after release too, so people might hold off buying in that knowledge.
It's interesting that pre-orders across America have been sold out in record time, but as you say what is important is how it will sell once the launch period is over. With all the third-party support the console is getting, much more than the Wii, I wonder how many games have yet to be announced? E3 2013 is going to be a showstopper, I can feel it.
Overall when I say Nintendo could one day be software only, i'm not talking about soon, just eventually. One day its gonna happen. I think the first to go will be Sony, and between MS and Ninty I dunno, but I would think that MS would be more willing to give up hardware and go software only if they knew they could still make big dolla. For sometime we may see an open source console platform (like Ouya) running alongside the big 3 for some time eating away at market share before they all eventually go software only.
I think that is indeed very far away! But I agree, there's a strong possibility of that happening eventually. Maybe there will one day be a hardware standard (just not Apple's, please!), especially as graphics technology continues to plateau. Nintendo and Microsoft would both survive if they went software only, for both are software companies at heart. Not quite sure there's a future for Sony in that image, though they have been pursuing quality first-party development for a few years now.
Interesting either way!
