Nintendo Confirms That Wii Hardware Was In GC Cases At E3

[i0n]

"The Wii hardware we exhibited at E3 2006 was made specifically for the E3 show and is not the final mass-production version. Some of this hardware was cased in Nintendo GameCube housing,"

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12739&rp=1

This is really confusing cos up to now i heard nothing about this - so does this mean the actual gameplay footage from E3 wasnt from the final wii hardware??

 

[RuneKai]

I think Its more like that the shell was gamecube-ish, and the graphics are a little below standard for what the wii will be.

 

[ebittner]

That is really strange like you said ebcasue I do not know to believe what I saw on G4 from E3 now. I hope it is becasue that footage was good.

 

[i0n]

From what i can gather all the Wii consoles that were on display were just shells, and the machines that were used for playing the demos on were infact gamecube shells with a dev kit like Wii build inside them.

So im expecting the GFX to be slightly improved when the final mass production hardware is released.

Found these pics to prove the point.

 

[Beerbat]

I think this is nice...the wii could be a more powerful machine then the one played at E3

 

[Cooldogs]

That is some of the best news I heard.
That means the Wii has potential more power for the future.
The console will be worth buying.

 

[registerednerd]

While I dont' disagree that there will be modifications on the final product, they weren't using actual GameCubes at E3. They were Wii's in a GCN case. You might say that they were just putting a curtain over it (to prevent anyone from snooping inside to see what the final surprises are)