Wii Report 2

At 157mm x 215.4mm x 44mm, the Wii is tiny.

Here are the technical specs for the Wii (courtesy of IGN.com) :
729 MHz IBM PowerPC "Broadway" CPU
243 MHz ATI "Hollywood" GPU
24MBs "main" 1T-SRAM
64MBs other 1T-SRAM
512MBs internal flash memory
3MBs texture memory on GPU
Built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi capability
One SD memory card bay
AV multi-port: S-video, composite, component
Analog (left/right) audio / DPLII
Four GameCube controller ports
Two GameCube Memory Pak slots
Two USB 2.0 ports
Compatible with up to four wireless Wii-motes
Self-loading media drive
Accepts 12cm Wii and 8cm GCN discs; no DVD movies

Rumours have been flying around that Nintendo will release a DVD playback capable console sometime next year. I don't see the need for that though. Most of us already have DVD players at home. Moreover, people are more interested in the High definition format wars.

As you can see, Nintendo is providing great support for Gamecube owners. Though its backward compatibility has not been thoroughly tested, there isn't much doubt that it should play all Gamecube titles.

The Wii's small amount of flash memory is only good for saving games. I guess most of us would have to purchase a SD card in order to store most of the virtual console games. Hopefully Nintendo would, through a firmware update, allow us to connect any USB portable harddisk to the Wii (only 2% chance of happening though)!

Don't belittle this console's seemingly lousy specs. Some launch titles have already proven that this little one is more capable than the original Xbox (though it can never ever hope to compare to current-gen HD gaming consoles). As Nintendo said, it's not about the graphics, it's all about the games. Look out for my next post tomorrow for a in-depth analysis of the launch window titles and games in development.