Gamernode: News - Wii really IS Gamecube 1.5

Wii really IS Gamecube 1.5

Category: Wii, Posted: 09/26/2007 at 01:13PM CDT by Brian Schulman, GN Content Contributor

The benchmarking masterminds over at Beyond3D and Newsweek's dreadlocked vg journo extraordinaire N'Gai Croal recently teamed up to bring everybody the straight dope on the Wii's hardware, and it turns out that the calls of Gamecube 1.5 were right. According to the article:

"To summarize, while the PS3 and the Xbox 360 are both at least an order of magnitude faster than their predecessors, the Wii has the processing power of one-and-a-half GameCubes with no noteworthy increases in functionality. This was done for two reasons: backwards compatibility with the GameCube and, more importantly, the very low cost. Developers have even told us that the transition guide (for GameCube developers moving to the Wii) is ten pages long and contains only very minor changes."

Of course, we all knew it wasn't going to be crushing the XBox 360 in any performance comparisons. Now this begs the question, does it even matter? The Wii is underpowered, but it's also priced far lower than the other consoles.

At its far more accessible price, the Wii has been selling so ridiculously well that Nintendo has become the second most valuable stock in Japan behind Toyota, far exceeding Sony.

Perhaps this is something of a wake up call. It may be that the greatest cutting-edge technology doesn't mean much when there is a competitor that's priced lower and looks more fun to play. The Wii's visceral appeal is undeniable, as I'm sure many Wii owners with parents or grandparents can attest.

It's just too bad that the Wii library is still like a freaking desert.

Posted by hoboman725 on 09/26/2007 at 01:19PM

with such crummy hardware (comparatively) it still costs way to much. We're paying what we did for the Gamecube back when it first came out 6 years ago and getting pretty much the same hardware. not to mention the whole no games except Smash thing

Posted by jedipoodoo547 on 09/26/2007 at 01:44PM

Excited for some titles: Tomb Raider:Anniversary, Mario Galaxy, Sadness, Lego Star Wars:Complete, Gth3, Resident Evil:Chronicles, and a few others. But after these come out, i am a little concerned that Nintendo will become complacent and not release any new properties.

Posted by grega t on 09/26/2007 at 01:46PM

Yea, they will have to run out of ideas soon enough...

Posted by Blairyfairy on 09/26/2007 at 02:56PM

Yeah well the processing may not be any differnt than the game cube but the over all general game play makes up for that

Posted by Aurien on 09/26/2007 at 10:44PM

This is really old news. This was brought up when the Wii first came out, how it was just a rehash of the gamecube. There where no major changes. They just realized this. Must be a slow news day.

Posted by Archem on 09/26/2007 at 10:45PM

The Wii is like PS3; neither one is getting those awesome games that will make them amazing until next year. Thankfully, it has the advantages of already having some great titles that haven't been out on XBox for months and months already. Not a tone of awesomeness, but more than PS3. Zelda at launch? Insta-win! More Metroid Prime? Also pwnsome! A random handful of other fine (but admittedly less great) game? *thumbs up*

Posted by Dr.Aaron on 09/27/2007 at 05:14PM

The shoud have priced it at £75, that's reasonable.

Posted by 7ty714 on 09/28/2007 at 07:40AM

hoboman, what the hell. No good game except smash? STFU. Need I quote jedi? I'll give you a list:Super Mario GalaxySuper Smash BrosMetroid Prime 3Mario Kart WiiThe Legend of Zelda: Twilight PrincessGeometry Wars GalaxiesResident Evil 4: Wii EditionResident Evil: Umbrella ChroniclesWii Zapper with Link's Crossbow TrainingNo More HeroesMercury Meltdown RevolutionLego Star WarsOboru MuramasaSadnessde BlobWario Ware: Smooth MovesMetal Slug AnthologyWii SportsStar Wars: The Force UnleashedSuper Paper MarioDewy's AdventureZack and WikiRayman Raving Rabbids 2Brothers in Arms: Double TimeBattalion Wars iiYeah... That lineup sucks... Also count in the fact that Wii is only less than a year old unlike the 360 and has these great games, and outsells it hands down. The Wii has already sold more. Don't you think the developers will want to make even more great games for the platform because of its success and cheap development price? Of course. Sure, because the controls are cool and innovative the third parties mostly abused the Wii at the start, but they're learning now, Ubi even made an announcement about how bad their launch lineup was quality wise and how they wanted to make up for it.On topic, I agree with the article, people need to both stop complaining about the Wii but also stop praising it for what it isn't.Also, the Wii is more an Xbox 2.0 than a GC 1.5. It has twice the system specs of the original Xbox.