Hardware (cont’d)

Depending on where you position the Wii , the console has slots for four Gamecube controllers and two Gamecube memory slots on the side or on top of the machine, giving the console full backwards compatibility with all of the games released for Nintendo’s previous console. The Wii doesn’t use a proprietary memory card for its own games which is a plus; it has a standard SD card slot in the front that takes regular SD cards.

On the back are connections for the game’s power cord, TV connections and the Wiimote’s sensor bar (more on that later) along with two USB ports. Those ports don’t really have a specific function for the Wii (unlike the USB ports for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 which are used to charge those console’s wireless controllers). We imagine third party accessory makers will use the ports for various things (one company is already selling a third party USB network cable for the console for people who don’t have a WiFi network at home).



Nintendo has been very protective of revealing what technical specs are inside the Wii console. Officially all they will reveal is that the graphics processor was made by ATI (now part of AMD) and that the main processor is a modified PowerPC chip from IBM codenamed Broadway. Nintendo has never officially revealed items like processor speed or amount of onboard memory for the Wii.

The console also has a built in internal WiFi set up but I wish Nintendo had also included an Ethernet connection as well for people who don’t have or don’t want to use their own WiFi network (again, the USB ports are already being exploited by third parties to allow wired home network connections). The Wii comes with a power brick style power cord (much smaller than the Xbox 360 brick, however) and an A/V cable.

Most people who have an HDTV set up will want to get component cables for the Wii (they were in short supply for the Wii’s launch but seem to have started to pop up more in various retail stores). Even with the component cable support the Wii will only go up to 480p resolution compared to the upper limit of 1080p for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The Wii was also supposed to play DVD movies out of the box but Nintendo chose to remove that feature a few months before the console’s launch. There are some indications that a future Wii hardware release might offer DVD movie support. Most people won't miss that feature, however and we think that Nintendo removed it as a cost saving measure which of course helps the price to stay low.