The recently revealed Nintendo Wii U is set to be about 50% more powerful than the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 consoles, at least according to an analyst citing developers that have already worked on the platform.
Nintendo presented the new Wii U device on the stage of the E3 2011 conference, but, except saying that it will support 1080p HD resolution and high quality graphics, didn't say anything about its actual hardware power.
Now, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia confirmed to
Industry Gamers that the new Nintendo Wii U console may be around 50% more powerful than its current rivals, the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, at least according to his developer sources.
"Some of the developers we spoke to indicated to us that the console will have 50% more processing power compared to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. This is yet to be confirmed by Nintendo," said Bhatia.
The Nintendo Wii U saw some hardware details slip last week, when IBM confirmed it's making a powerful multi-core processor for the Wii U, while the graphics will be handled by a custom AMD Radeon HD card.
Developers, up until now, have revealed that the Wii U is capable of receiving
direct ports of various PS3 or Xbox 360 games, but the Japanese company has yet to properly allow them full access to special developer kits based on the Wii U.
While the Wii U could be more powerful in terms of hardware, don't expect many games to look all that different on the new console, as many third-party developers will just directly transition the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions of their games on the Wii U and not make any radical changes unless their budgets allow this.
Still, if the Wii U is, in fact, more powerful than a PS3 or Xbox 360, then gamers are going to be in for some seriously impressive games made by Nintendo itself, at least.
Nothing is certain, however, so until the company itself details the Wii U and how it stacks up against its rivals, we're going to have to wait it out.
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