AMD Ships 50 Million ATI 'Hollywood' Wii GPUs

[Marcus Yam]

While everyone can see that Nintendo is making money hand over fist thanks to amazing sales of the DS Lite and the Wii, some of the console maker’s partners are also riding the wave.

AMD Ships 50 Million ATI 'Hollywood' Wii GPUs : Read more

 

[macer1]

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....

 

[JeanLuc]

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.

 

[pochacco007]

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.

 

[hairycat101]

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

 

[pharge]

[citation][nom]hairycat101[/nom]So now we know why the WII has such weak graphics...[/citation]... 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)..

 

[captaincharisma]

amd was nintendo's choice as it was probably the most cost effective company to partner with in the technology sector

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

 

[Tekkamanraiden]

[citation][nom]pochacco007[/nom]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.[/citation]

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.

 

[radiowars]

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

 

[invlem]

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.

 

[invlem]

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

 

[curnel_D]

[citation][nom]invlem[/nom]^^ issues with the original xbox^^ not 360 sorry.[/citation]
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.

 

[zhelkus]

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.

 

[Tindytim]

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.

 

[JumpKickJoe]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]really and i thought it was ATI that partnered with Nintendo before AMD bought them out.[/citation]

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.

 

[matt_b]

[citation][nom]radiowars[/nom]Consoles are are PC's little brothers. They can't be updated. That's their only fault really.[/citation]
"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.

[citation][nom]hairycat101[/nom]So now we know why the WII has such weak graphics... (I've used mostly ATI cards for the last ten years BTW)[/citation] 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.

 

[sublifer]

[citation][nom]pharge[/nom]... 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)..[/citation]
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?

 

[pochacco007]

oops.

 

[pochacco007]

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.

 

[tenor77]

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)

 

[wikiwikiwhat]

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.

 

[hellwig]

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.

 

[pochacco007]

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.