AMD today announced that it the 50 millionth ATI ‘Hollywood’ chip (the GPU for the Wii) from Nintendo shipped today.


sorta forgot the "shipped" part....

I wish AMD would tell us how many Radeon 3XXX, 4XXX they have shipped, that's something I would be interested to know as if you could combine that with numbers from Nivdia you can get some idea on where PC gaming is heading.

amd was nintendo's choice as it was probably the most cost effective company to partner with in the technology sector. with processing chips [ibm, amd, intel], the cheapest is probably amd. it becomes even better since now amd and ati are together, nintendo can probably make a cost effective partnership, which also comes and saves the consumer money as well.

So now we know why the WII has such weak graphics... (I've used mostly ATI cards for the last ten years BTW)

... that is not a surprise. Remember thw words they said... "... the ATI ‘Hollywood’ chip as the cool and quiet graphics engine" How can you expect a cool and quite GPU (Wii)to beat a hot (PS3 and new Xbox360)and melting GPU (old Xbox360)?.. even if they are from the same company (Xbox360 & Wii = ATI)..

really and i thought it was ATI that partnered with Nintendo before AMD bought them out.

Ok you are aware the Wii runs a custom IBM PPC cpu? On top of that the most likely reason the Wii has a ATI/AMD video chip is due to the fact the Gamecube had one.

Consoles are are PC's little brothers. They can't be updated. That's their only fault really.

ATi seems to be a good parter to work with, nVidia got ousted by Microsoft for the 360 due to the issue they had with the original 360.

ATi has had their chip in the GC and the Wii, and the 360. nVidia seems to be killing themselves off in the console market with partnership pricing issues.

^^ issues with the original xbox^^ not 360 sorry.

ATI also had their issues with the 360, but I can imagine it's much more pleasant to work with the AMD group over Nvidia. From what I've seen of Nvidia's higher up attitude, I cant imagine them keeping any distant partners for long before pissing them off and driving them to ATI/intel. But I dont have to imagine either. lol.

Nintendo has proven to be a reliable business partner and such a partner would expect to receive the same treatment in return. ATI/AMD apparently fits that role.

Don't know what the deal is with nVidia, Intel and/or M$ but I do recall some backstabbing in the past. Although that's not right to say since the biggest backstab would have to be Nintendo's when they stood up Sony's addon for the Super Nintendo mid-show. Thus the birth of the PSX.

I really must point out that the "Hollywood" GPU is just the old "Flipper" GPU from the Gamecube running at a higher clock. The Wii is just an OC'ed gamecube.

was this article half baked ???? like one article before it you got an article about how nintedo has shipped 100 milion wiis SO WTF , only half of those have a gpu or something??? LOL.. seriously shouldnt this article be 100 millionth Wii gpu ????


hmmm come to think of it AIT makes botht eh gpu for Xbox 360 as well as the Wii , both systems that are sellign better than the ps3 that has an nivida chip ..... Remind me of anotehr article where some idiot posted that AMD is reeling and hurting ... cos honesty a gpu in the top two consoles... damn that's a ton of freaking money if any thing after a few more years of this and AMD will almost have the bank that intel has.

you are right this time captain ... ATI was not owned by AMD when they made the partner ship for the Game cube chip, but no need to be a smart a-- to the other guy. for the record nintendo siding with amd/ati for the wii had nothing to do with ati and nintendo's previous partnorship on teh gamecube, quite the opposite, nintendo almost went with a differnt gpu, because ati was already making chips for the xbox 360. in teh end it was executives at AMD that convinced them to stick with the ATI chip. At least this is the offical word as to why nintendo didn't drop ATI.

That's true...ATI did the GPU for the Gamecube and it performed very well.

I wanna know how much $$$$ ATI & AMD are making from console sales. With the 360 and the Wii selling like hot cakes (or high grade coca, cause ppl are still buying 360s after RRODing like 3,4 of 'em ), it is surprising that one would say they are hurting and reeling.

there was a scuffle in the past between MS and nvidia over the original xbox's gpu, from what i gathered at the time, it had to do with the fact that nivida wanted to charge more money per gpu to MS, trying to violate thier contract wich clearly stated they could not raise thier gpu price on MS. Nvidia took them to court over it, lost, and became sore looser babies. so next gen around nvidia partnors with Sony for the PS3, and MS and AMD/ATI partnor up for the 360.

I knew back when i first heard of Nvidia trying to screw MS out of thier contract, That the next MS made console would be ATI based gpu LOL. which is FINE by me , sure nvidia takes teh speed crown 99% of the time but ATI chips offer better color and shader quality than nivida , ati chips use 32 bit precision pixel shaders while nivida is still working off 16 bit precision ones, granted nivida has pulled a few other tricks to make thier shaders look closer to ati's but they still don't compare ... ATI has much better image quality with shaders and color still.

now i wish i had gone ATI on my last Computer video card. i'm generall nota fan boy , i got this nvidia 9600 GT becuase it was the best bang for buck , at new egg it was 130 when i got it the closest thing ati had at the time (the 3870) was still at 160. My budget was real tight so i couldnt have afforded the extra 30 dollars and still been able to get the cpu and stuff i wanted. But now i'm starting to miss teh image diference with HDR this nivida looks abit more washed out than the ati's

My bad i see now lol the article was 100 million DS's not wiis LOL i need to go to bed now obviously LOL

"Updated" yes - through firmware downloads and software updates due to bug fixes. "Upgraded" no, the hardware is as is. It is a blessing in another way that they cannot be upgraded, you buy a game for that particular console, and you know it just works! No having to check your minimum specs to see if you can play a game or not. This is where your average casual gamer comes in at, it's much more convenient this way.


Nintendo has a budget and a blueprint in mind and contracts a company to build it for them. It was chosen for cost/profit to use a GPU based off of the GC for a reason. Sure enough that's what it is, just slightly refreshed.

I think you've all missed a bit of the point... why use a hot high end gpu when you aren't going to output 1080p. If Nintendo planned for better output (and an HD format drive in the system) they'd have planned for the graphics needed to do it. If a weaker chip can handle anything displayed at 720p or below then why use anything better?

oops.

i made a mistake and look how many people have responded back. i post this response and more people will be back to make replies. fumbles bring customers.

This may be AMD's saving grace through this storm. At least the Wii did something for true gamers after all. (even if you don't like ATI or AMD competition is ALWAYS a good thing)

yeah, the wii isn't graphically enhanced as the PS3 or the 360 but it has gameplay going for it and the chicks ABsoluTELY love the WII.

ATI obviously could have put something more powerful in the Wii, but that's Nintendo's decision. Hopefully Nintendo's next system will be a powerhouse because I'm still looking for that grand Zelda game that they could truly make.

I think people underestimate AMD/ATI. The success of Nvidia's 8000-series against ATI's 2000 and 3000 series overshadowed the fact that during that time, ATI consoles were far outselling Nvidia consoles. ATI is now again on top in the value market with their 4000 series (causing much grief to Nvidia's aging 8000/then 9000/now 100/250 series).

Sure, AMD lost the CPU power crown back to Intel (and the small amount of market share that went with it), but with the spin-off of the Foundry, and positive success of the Phenom II, I see the company as a whole doing better in the years to come. They did eat some debt buying ATI, but with big hits like the Wii and 360, it should pay off in the end. Just as long as AMD doesn't suffer for Intel's whining about the CPU market cooling off.

nintendo will more likely still be partners with ati [aka amd] as they plan to have high compatibility [backward compatibility of their software with newer console hardware]. the only way to do this is to use the same graphics architecture then a new partners graphic architecture. look at ms compatibility of xbox 1 to xbox 360.

the question remains on rather if ati will overcharge nintendo since nintendo needs them and are successful. but i believe ati will not do so because i know that nintendo will not be asking for high power graphics ability.

ATI doens't overcharge any one ... PC customers usually get way better bang for buck cards formthem , a MS got a sweet deal with ati on teh 360 chips and nintendo also got a good deal on thier wii , this is why amny companies liek working with ati , , ati has always been eagar to please in general, so as has amd ... it's likje the two companies were made for each other .. while intel and nvidia have always demanded as much money as they can milk form some one (both consumers and partners.. who know perhaps one day intel will buy nivida LOL)